On Mon, Apr 19, 2010 at 10:14:50AM +0000, Diogo Santos wrote:
Copyright is irrelevant for the definition of Free Software. The fact is that I use a software and I don't have the four freedoms, therefore it's proprietary software, because all software that doesn't give me the four freedoms is by definition proprietary software. It doesn't matter if it is kept private or is released to the public.
It's for the defenition, but no to apply it to the reality, and that's why we've copyright licenses.
It is not reasonable, nor common sense, that you demmand the 4 freedoms for a software that you'r only accessing in someone else's computer. And altough that may no be the exact case of that software, because you also run client side code, to help presentation and other client side stuff, that is way more near to access remote software than using it in your computer.
I don't care if it is common sense or reasonable to you, to have the four freedoms for every software I use (remotely or localy). I want the four freedoms for every software I use, no matter if it runs on my computer or the computer of someone else. I just matters that I am a user and don't have the four freedoms.
I don't know the contents of this convention, but I searched through and didn't find the word patent. Could you please point me to relevant passage? Because this would mean that I can break any software patent by just referring to this convention.
I'm sory by confusion and lack of atention, I've mention the rong convention... I was actually refering to the article 52? of the European Patent Convention.
Either the European patents which are listed by the MPEG LA are illegal (which I suspect) or they don't deal with software. In Europe some companies have been sued because of these patents. At the moment one of Germany's biggest discounters is being sued for not having an MPEG licence, so I suspect that the MPEG LA would do this if they had illegal or invalid patents.
According to one of the biggest online shops in the world, the product sells quite well and has over 100 reviews there.
Well I don't buy on-line, neither most of the general poppulation.
It depends on the country and person. I buy online very frequently and I hardly remember when I bought electronic devices in a store.
Well, than 7digital has to make the negotiations with the music labels. According to their website they offer only MP3, AAC and WMA. Canonical must be a big customer of them to get all 8 Million tracks in FLAC and OGG, if 7digital has them as WAV or similar already.
Canonical said that the questing reallated with some proprietary and patented formats (and specified wma as an example) is being take careof. The availlability in tottaly free formats will be another question addressed when they can. So I guess they feel that have power to pressure 7digital to make music availlable in some formats, but not yet, to demmand files in the formats the community wants. Maybe they need the eight of users to do so.
Or maybe they just need to sell a lot music in patented formats. Just because some users demand something, a company like 7digital won't change something in their business model, if it already works and there no great expectations for profit.
That means, you are suggesting to install proprietary Software on the user's computer to convince the user that Free Software has the same functionality and that proprietary software is a bad idea. That's absurd!
No I'm not! I wasn't sugesting nothing, I was recognizing that many people want to use proprietary software (no matter the reason), others will use it because they don't really have choice.
What I was stating is, that it's not the exclusion of methods to install that non-free software, that will prevent people to do so, it will also not motivate people to use Free Software. If you belive it will, you're as fool, or much more naif, than people o create and deploy DRM to prevent people to be free.
I think, altough it is bad that they use proprietary software (for them and for us due to it's network effect), it is preferable that they use it under a environment where there's much more Free than non-Free Software, where they can become more sensitive to freedom related questions, and change their previuos decision of using proprietary software.
Making hard for people to use proprietary software, will only make them ungry at the Free Software Community, and drive them away from our ideals.
I would never take the iniciative to sugest to install proprietary software other than the exclusively necessary to run the computer with a Free Software Operating System. And would never sugest to use a proprietary software application.
I don't use proprietary software in any computer that it's my property (where I can allways choose to do so). I don't even accept to employment to work with a proprietary OS/environment on the workplace desktop/laptop and where the job isn't using or develloping with Free Software. Even more, I wouldn't work in IT, if I hadn't the chance to work this way. Therefore I would never sugest any other people to use proprietary for any other reason than enabling them to work in Free Software environment. And even on those cases I also sugest them more care in future hardware purchases (and tell them wat I do to avoid hardware problems/difficulties), and also sugest them that maybe they should complain to the hardware manufacturer for not respecting their freedom. But I understand that this is my personal ethics. I do demmand other people to have ethics, but not exactly the same as mine.
I allways sugest first people to use Free Software only. But I accept, altough not be happy about it, that by now and in some cases, for some people, to use more Free than proprietary software, under a Free Software environment is better than using only proprietary software, or some Free Software under a proprietary environment. And I belive that people who do this compromise to use a Free Software environment are much closer to use only Free Software, than they would if we had made their lifes harder than it is by using proprietary software.
So this is not a strategy I would promote, but in cases where necessary I do/will fall back it. Ubuntu and Canonical don't promote, or sugest, or even force, people to use proprietary software, but enable people who want to use it, to use it. That might be a small difference, but to me it's an important difference, it also enable people who don't have a choice to use what they have to.
I agree with you in a lot of places. But Canonical would just ignore proprietary software and wouldn't include it, they would neither make it hard or easy to install proprietary software. People who want it, could still get it (the same as with Fedora). People who would choose it, because they didn't think about something else to use, would choose Free Software.
My problem is not that there are proprietary software repositories, but merely that they are official and are accepted and intended by Canonical.
Regards, Matthias-Christian
I don't care if it is common sense or reasonable to you, to have the four freedoms for every software I use (remotely or localy). I want the four freedoms for every software I use, no matter if it runs on my computer or the computer of someone else. I just matters that I am a user and don't have the four freedoms.
Well I don't buy on-line, neither most of the general poppulation.
It depends on the country and person. I buy online very frequently and I hardly remember when I bought electronic devices in a store.
Seriously, now: When you buy in a web store, do you have the four freedoms with the software you use to buy your stuff? If not, you shouldn't be using them by your own standards.
However, why should Amazon let you change the code running on their servers? The software they use could still be free software, but when you're buying stuff from them (or from the FSF or FSFE, for that matter), *you* do not have the four freedoms, since you're not really the user of the software, Amazon (or the FSF or FSFE) is.
"Carsten Agger" agger@c.dk writes:
I don't care if it is common sense or reasonable to you, to have the four freedoms for every software I use (remotely or localy). I want
Seriously, now: When you buy in a web store, do you have the four freedoms with the software you use to buy your stuff? If not, you shouldn't be using them by your own standards.
I think we can draw the line somewhere but I am not sure where. Would using Windows over an AJAX-based VNC viewer be ok?
On 04/19/2010 09:08 PM, Carsten Agger wrote:
Seriously, now: When you buy in a web store, do you have the four freedoms with the software you use to buy your stuff? If not, you shouldn't be using them by your own standards.
However, why should Amazon let you change the code running on their servers? The software they use could still be free software, but when you're buying stuff from them (or from the FSF or FSFE, for that matter), *you* do not have the four freedoms, since you're not really the user of the software, Amazon (or the FSF or FSFE) is.
It is not about changing that specific code, it is the ability to build on that. The basis of the argument is I should have access to the source code that made your build, not the build itself or the dev box etc, perhaps it would good to visualise it as "Click here if you want to find out how we did this" and you get a tarball or some such.
P.
I don't care if it is common sense or reasonable to you, to have the four freedoms for every software I use (remotely or localy). I want the four freedoms for every software I use, no matter if it runs on my computer or the computer of someone else. I just matters that I am a user and don't have the four freedoms.
That would be invasion of privacy, you should not have the right to modify the version of telnet that runs on my machine, no matter how much you'd like that.
What does make sense, is for you to create your own server that runs like mine. This is why the GNU Affero license exists.