Novell and SuSE

On Jan 17, 2004, at 3:42 PM, Derek Neighbors wrote:

> 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
>> Freedoms' comes from our tendency to visualize the term 'user' as
>> applying to actual organic people. If you read "The Free Software
>> Definition" mentally substituting the word 'organization' whenever
>> 'user' appears, you are very likely to ask yourself "What is the point
>> of this? Is this much better than Microsoft's EULA?" And yet it is
>> clear that in practice the term 'user' does refer to the organization,
>> 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.
> However, this is not the FSF's fault, this a defect of a capitalist
> system that drives at profit at all cost.

I'm not really as anti-corporate as all that. My agenda is simply to
warn people that the GPL doesn't work the way one would think it does
after reading the FSF's Free Software Definition or listening to the
public pronouncements of its leading members. My personal stake is just
that my friend and I were burned by a school district in the way that I
have previously related. I want to warn others so that they may avoid
my fate. It never occurred to me that the 'users' to whom I was
granting right could be anyone other that the students and teachers.

When the Free Software Definition uses the term 'user' it is as likely
to refer to an organization as a human being. Don't let phrases in the
Free Software Definition such as "so you can help your neighbor",
"release your improvements to the public" and "so that the whole
community benefits" mislead you into thinking that by using the GPL you
are actually granting any rights to flesh and blood human beings.

If you understand this an actually want to grant rights to
organizations as opposed to individuals, more power to you.