| 1 |
On Mon, 23 Sep 2002 01:55, Richard Stallman wrote: |
| 2 |
> In the Gentoo social contract, I read: |
| 3 |
> |
| 4 |
> Gentoo Linux is and will remain Free Software |
| 5 |
> |
| 6 |
> We will release our contributions to Gentoo Linux as free software, |
| 7 |
> under the GNU General Public License version 2 (or later, at our |
| 8 |
> discretion.) Any external contributions to Gentoo Linux (in the form |
| 9 |
> of freely-distributable sources or binaries) may be incorporated into |
| 10 |
> Gentoo Linux provided that we are legally entitled to do so. However, |
| 11 |
> Gentoo Linux will never depend upon a piece of software unless it |
| 12 |
> conforms to the GNU General Public License, GNU "Lesser" Public |
| 13 |
> License or some other license approved by the Open Source Initiative |
| 14 |
> (OSI.) |
| 15 |
> |
| 16 |
> That criterion is not quite enough to achieve the stated goal, because |
| 17 |
> Licenses approved by the OSI are not necessarily Free Software |
| 18 |
> licenses. As a result, this criterion allows Gentoo to include, and |
| 19 |
> even depend on, programs that are not free software. (See |
| 20 |
> http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/apsl.html for an example.) |
| 21 |
|
| 22 |
Hmm. I had never thought of this before. Since the GPL came from the FSF |
| 23 |
guys, it does make sense to mention them in greater detail. As Richard has |
| 24 |
said, we ARE talking about Free Software in Gentoo, not just Open Source. |
| 25 |
|
| 26 |
I guess this kind of thing is Daniel's call (or one of a few others). Have |
| 27 |
they anything to say about this? |
| 28 |
|
| 29 |
> Would you please consider changing your criterion to refer to both the |
| 30 |
> OSI and the FSF, so that licenses must qualify as both free software |
| 31 |
> and open source? |
| 32 |
|
| 33 |
I think this is fair, provided the distribution is commited to the goals the |
| 34 |
FSF talks about. I think it is. |
| 35 |
|
| 36 |
> (If you would call the system Gentoo GNU/Linux, that would help us |
| 37 |
> also. See http://www.gnu.org/gnu/why-gnu-linux.html.) |
| 38 |
|
| 39 |
Heh. I noticed this has a more minor mention here. I really don't have a |
| 40 |
problem with this at all because, as the other guy wrote, we are not |
| 41 |
commercial. Our users aren't going to suddenly go "huh?". |
| 42 |
|
| 43 |
But I have not been through everything fully. I think it appropriate to |
| 44 |
discuss this now. |
| 45 |
|
| 46 |
Does that fact that Gentoo has become a blip on RMS's radar mean it is finally |
| 47 |
"arriving"? ;) Hehe. |
| 48 |
|
| 49 |
Evan. |
Archives