Terminology (was: Please review our new charter)

[list at akfoerster.de]

Am Mittwoch, dem 04. Feb 2009 schrieb jamesmikedupont at googlemail.com:

> For example, lets say you spend all your effort, years and years you
> invested in creating a product and all of a sudden someone figures out
> how to go around your license and create a plug in that would allow
> someone to go around the barb wire you strung up, then you would do
> anything to stop them.

What exactly are you talking about?

> Now, these people like the idea of open source better,
> because they have no strings attached and they can choose to hide the
> source if they need to.

That is absolutely wrong!

It is true that the Free Software movement and the Open Source people
have different ideals and concentrate on different aspects. So they
are different groups. But they do support almost the same licenses 
(with only a few minor exceptions).
The Open Source initiative has approved all the software licenses of 
the GNU project and they also see the GPL as the most important license.

Hiding the source is also not allowed by the Open Source definition.
See point 2.

There are (unfortunately) licenses, that don't require modifications 
to be also free/open. Those are accepted as Free Software as well as 
as Open Source. So, there is also no difference.

> This is better than making contradictory licenses that say that you
> have the freedom to use the software for any purpose but not the right
> to use in for the purpose of interfacing to a plug in.

Could you please be more precise, where you see a cotradiction?

You always have the right to use it with other code and you don't
need to publish your code at all. But *if* you publish your code, the
GPL enforces that you give your users the same freedoms that have 
been given to you by the original author(s).
I don't see any contradiction here. 

I do see a contradiction on the side of those who like to take code 
of others but not to give theirs. Because that means denying freedom.
The "freedom" to deny freedom *is* a contradiction to me.

-- 
AKFoerster