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On Sat, 2004-01-17 at 10:35, Chris Gehlker wrote:
> I think this is exactly right. It's just that the appeal of the 'Four=20
> Freedoms' comes from our tendency to visualize the term 'user' as=20
> applying to actual organic people. If you read "The Free Software=20
> Definition" mentally substituting the word 'organization' whenever=20
> 'user' appears, you are very likely to ask yourself "What is the point=20
> of this? Is this much better than Microsoft's EULA?" And yet it is=20
> clear that in practice the term 'user' does refer to the organization,=20
> not the poor sod stuck in a cubicle.
I don't think you can lump it like that. At this point I the FSF has
chosen to go by legal entity. If you are a home user, you as an
individual is the user. If you are company, you as a company is a
user. You can not globally substitute user/organization because of
this.
I think your complaint is that of many labor parties. That capitalists
treat their employees as less than human. I tend to agree with you.=20
However, this is not the FSF's fault, this a defect of a capitalist
system that drives at profit at all cost.
It certainly is better than the XP license even if you hold your view of
the system sucking. Why? Because the Microsoft EULAs grant no rights
to either a user nor an organization.
> My point was not to argue that the GPL was totally ineffective. That=20
> would be silly. It was merely to say that there are degrees of=20
> openness. There is a continuum that can't be captured by the=20
> Free/Non-Free dichotomy. The YaST license is clearly more like the GPL=20
> then it is like the MS EULA[1]. Saying that the GPL is 'Free" and both=20
> the YaST license and the MS EULA are non-Free obscures something that I=20
> think is important.
I agree. As I stated in my prior email there are "degrees". I classify
MS EULA and YaST both as non-free. However, YaST is a MUCH better
license than the MS EULAs. Complete agreement here. If somehow it was
conveyed that YaST is a worse license than MS EULA's I apologize. I
think in some ways the allusion or allure it gives can be more
dangerous, but certainly in principle it is much much better.
> Certainly. Bruce Parens is proposing UserLinux precisely because he=20
> believes that Debian's insistence on excluding closed source drivers is=20
> doing more harm than good. It is an issue that merits serious=20
> discussion.
I don't think that is Bruce's driving factor in total. I think Bruce
believes in free software. In fact, he calls it gnUserLinux in his
proposal. I think he see's a few major problems with Debian. One is
that they are not "bleeding edge" for many desktop items. Another is
that they have no "corporate structure" for enterprise customers to
blame. Then there is the fact that it is much harder to bundle
proprietary drivers, databases and the likes into it. I think he hopes
to tackle all these issues in gnUserLinux.
However, there have been great debate on it. I believe that he is
leaning towards NOT including proprietary drivers and the likes, but
rather making them be auto downloadable after the install.
> It's also interesting that he was asked why he calls it UserLinux when=20
> the target market is so obviously corporations. His response was that=20
> corporations, not individuals are the 'users'. I still think he should=20
> call it 'BusinessLinux' if that's what he intends it to be, but maybe=20
> that's just me.
I tend to agree.
--=20
Derek Neighbors
GNU Enterprise
http://www.gnuenterprise.org
derek@gnue.org
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