Linux Party [warning political]

[Simon Morris]

On Fri, 18 Mar 2005 16:35:59 +0000, Rui Miguel Seabra <rms at 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