[Fsfe-ie] Plan 9, Free Software (was:Beer tomorrow)

[Ciaran O'Riordan]

On Wed, Oct 15, 2003 at 11:52:32PM +0100, Niall Douglas wrote:
> On 15 Oct 2003 at 18:28, Ciaran O'Riordan wrote:
> 
> > P.s. Does everyone know that plan9 is now Free Software?

> I had thought it became GPL as soon as AT&T canned the technology and 
> sold its rights to Vita Nuova?
> 
> This was like in 2001. I certainly downloaded Plan 9 in GPL form last 
> year (2002) off the AT&T research website.

nah, the GPL only applied to the fonts bundled with the old release.
(ghostscript fonts they borrowed from GNU gs, I believe)

from http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html:
------------8<-----------
The old Plan 9 License:
This is not a free software license; it lacks essential freedoms such
as the right to make and use private changes. Of course you should not
use this license, and we urge you to avoid any software that has been
released under it. A detailed discussion of this license is also
available: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/plan-nine.html

In September 2002 it was observed that the published license for Plan
9 had been modified, adding more restrictions to it, although its date
still said 09/20/00. However, a further license change in 2003 made
Plan 9 free software.
------------->8---------

-- 
Ciaran O'Riordan - http://www.compsoc.com/~coriordan/