"Free World" Software not Free Software

Alessandro Rubini rubini at gnu.org
Thu Dec 7 16:46:41 UTC 2000


Hmm... I wouldn't loose too much time dissecting licenses. Nowadays
everyone is promoting his/her own license.

After repenting about all the time I lost reading, I have a thing
to note:

     1.4 FREE PLATFORM: A Free Platform is defined to be any Platform
     whose software component satisfies all of the following
     conditions [...]  c. the software may be used for any purpose; d. the
     software may be modified, and modified versions used;

Therefore, a platform including software released with this license is
not a free platform, and the software itself can't be run on that very
platform.

Disclaimer: yes, I know the ``platform'' is defined to be only the
basic components, so the ``including'' above is restricted to those
components. But the license is so free that you are not free to
use it to release your own kernel or compiler or interpreter.

/alessandro



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