On Fri, 18 Mar 2005 16:35:59 +0000, Rui Miguel Seabra rms@1407.org wrote:
Open Systems has nothing to do with Free Software. Open Systems, ALSO, has nothing to do with Open Source.
The most likely to be a proper definition of an "open" system is a POSIX compliant operating system.
Indeed
The "source" Sun is giving out is ONLY "open source" if you are in the context of Solaris. Use Free Software instead of Solaris, and they can sue you for patent infringement if they think they can get away with it: the patent promise is _only_ for Solaris context.
Suns definition of Open is you can open and look, maybe smell, but don't you think you can touch without our approval.
Yep. Again a form of vapour-ware. Sun talks the language of Open Source without the commitments. They 'open-sourced' Project Looking Glass but it sits on top of Java which is non-free so I don't see the whole benefit in that
Their GNU/Linux distribution "Sun Java Desktop" is laden with non-free additions, and is no-more free than a proprietary OS (even though you can see the source for most of the distro)
Question from me: What licence is Solaris on the i386 architecture going to be released under and has the FSF considered it to be a free licence?
In my opinion you can think of this as a sliding scale. At one end we have Microsoft who are anti-open source in the extreme, going to the lengths of trying to discredit it (comparing to communism, anti-American etc), you have companies like Sun and IBM slightly further along the scale who are now talking about Open source in positive terms and contributing but maybe only because it makes business sense for them to do so.
We then have organisations such as Red Hat, Mandrake and SUSE whose entire business is based on open source..... but still sometimes encourage non-free activities and practices to maintain their profit
(OK - I just made a wild assumption there with nothing to back it up. Someone help me. What are Red Hat and SUSE doing these days that is non-free??? SUSE GPL'd YAST a while back which used to be closed.... Red Hat had a restrictive licence on it's images and logos etc. What are these guys doing now days???)
And then at the other end of the scale we have the Debian Project and the FSF.
I have no objections to the companies in the middle of the scale and what they are doing. They are contributing a lot to the Open Source community in terms of finance and backing, but I personally don't hold the romantic illusion that they are doing it out of love. They are doing it for profit, but we are benefitting also
Being Anti-MS isn't enough
That why I suggested a Free Software Party originally, called the Linux Party, perhaps Free Software Party would be better even if less catchy.
Your reasoning for a political party is each time less honest. In the future, anyone searching for Sid Dabster + free software might find links to this mailing list's archives, like your mail
http://mailman.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/discussion/2005-March/004871.html
...and find such shallow sources for your motivation.
Before I clicked the link I thought you were linking to this email
http://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/discussion/2005-March/004851.html
"Sid" (what *is* your real name by the way?), I'm really not trying to knock you for what you are proposing. You obviously have the motivation to do a lot of good, but I do object to the implementation here.
Political parties gain enemies quickly. The only people that treat GNU/Linux and Open Source as an enemy currently are the type of people that profit from restricting peoples freedoms.
We should be trying to guide and advise political parties as to the way ahead.
Thanks
~sm