NPO

[der.hans]

Am 21. Apr, 2001 schwäzte Derek Neighbors so:

> I wonder if anyone here really supports anything other than free software.
> Remember GPL is not the only free software.  Apache, BSD etc license are
> also free softwrae.

Actually, I believe we do have people who support Open Source as opposed
to Free Software.

As I said, I prefer Free Software. I do, however, see merit in the Open
Source ideas as well. In an ideal world we'd have guarantees of the
freedoms inherent in Free Software. The world's never been ideal for
me. Others may have had other experiences with it :).

> Open Soource is misleading terminology.   I would try to stick to
> something less misleading.  Unless of course you are pro open source code
> that you cant really modify.

The problems I've heard mentioned are more from the perspective of to what
extent the source code needs to be made available. Could be
misunderstandings on our part.

I think the issue I heard most recently was something like a consultant or
a company working on GPLd code for another company. Do the changes then,
due to the GPL, need to be made available to the public at large or only
to the company who will be receiving the code? I heard that the 3rd
edition of the GPL was trying to move to an explicit case where all GPLd
code has to be available to everyone.

Personally, I think source only needs to be available to the entity using
it. It doesn't need to go to the public if it's internal changes ( though
that should be highly encouraged :). It doesn't even need to be available
to the individual workers within the entity, though that would be cool.

I am willing to be swayed on this if the proper reasoning is presented :).

ciao,

der.hans
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