Author: Stuart Cracraft
Date: 11:02:51 01/11/06
Go up one level in this thread
On January 11, 2006 at 09:56:45, Albert Silver wrote: >I saw this, and no doubt there will be many other articles. As many works here >fall under the GPL, I figured this was only slightly OT. > >http://news.com.com/Overhaul+of+GPL+set+for+public+release/2100-7344-6025310.html?part=dht&tag=nl.e703 > >"A major revamp of the General Public License is scheduled for public release >next week, a move that's expected to kick off a long and vocal debate over the >key foundation of open-source programming. > >The Free Software Foundation will release and describe the first public draft of >version 3 of the document on Jan. 16, at the First International Conference on >GPLv3 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the organization said. > >FSF founder Richard Stallman released the current version 2 in 1991. Since then, >it's been used to govern Linux, Samba, MySQL and thousands of other open-source >projects. The new version is expected to address a host of technology issues >that have arisen in the last 15 years, including patent issues and software >running on a remote server. > >The GPL is a seminal work. It's not just a legal document, but also a manifesto >of the free software movement and its offshoot, the open-source movement." Albert - thanks for posting that. I didn't know the GPL had become as influential as it is. I'm really happy RMS may be putting more bite into it for those who would contest it but seek to benefit from it. In the 1970's, Stallman would come over to my place and I'd give him a couch for his trips to the Bay Area. A mutual collaboration (Emacs tutorial, still part of GNU Emacs) helped me get my first programming job. He had many unusual personal habits and was obviously vastly brilliant. For example, he had a sweet-tooth (more than most) and had to be driven to a particular ice cream shop to get it satiated. Doesn't seem to have affected him too much as he's made it into middle-age. Stallman really lives, breathes, and believes in community insofar as software is concerned. We need that kind of action to at least apply some counterforce on greed of the marketplace, patents, and the most extreme robber barrons. My favorite Stallman-derived-benefit is the GNU stuff I run under Windows 2000 and XP on a couple of PC's, from www.cygwin.com for my programming/debugging environment. I find it a lot more convenient than the monsterous developer-unfriendly MS environment. Cygwin doesn't force me to give up the GUI integration and MS office environment by going to a non-PC workstation to run GNU/Linux or a traditional Unix/vendor OS with imperfect MS office clones. For me, it's the best of both worlds with the least pain. Go GPLv3!!!! Stuart
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