On 11-Mar-07, at 9:42 PM, Raj Mathur wrote:
Do remember that even if the software is, e.g., GPL, there's no reason why you should have access to it. If I write a GPL software, only the people I distribute it to have any any right to the software. There is nothing in the GPL that states that I must make the source available for download, modification and/or redistribution to anyone except the people I distribute the software to.
when government writes software with our money, they should be forced to release it under a f/oss license - that is my contention. They havent.
the opinion that the authors of the PDF in question have tried to give an impression that free software is flourishing in the state.
I thought the statement in the beginning of the PDF, ``based on FOSS'' is pretty clear. All the projects that I saw in the document were based on FOSS. The licenses for the individual projects weren't specified in the document, so unless you have some other source of information, I'd postpone the discussion until it has been proven one way or the other that those projects are FLOSS or otherwise.
and why werent the licenses specified? why didnt the authors investigate this? Isnt it practically the sole objective of FSF to concern itself with software licenses?
I am also suprised that Richard Stallman has lent his name to this
- I am quite sure that he would have opposed the same thing tooth
and nail if it had happened in the US or Europe. However the free
Er, would he? After having met him numerous times, I can't even predict what Stallman would do in well-defined situations, leave alone ambiguous ones like the one you're referring to. You obviously have a much better grasp of his personality and priorities than I do.
I dont move in such exalted circles, but somehow i got the impression that he was interested in seeing that all software is shared - I could be wrong
software guru with whom I was debating seemed to thing that this did not fall under the definition of proprietary software. Opinions anyone?
I wonder who this free software guru was? You and I did discuss this on IRC earlier today, but (a) I'm no free software guru and (b) I never discussed whether this was proprietary software or not.
It was you. and it is no point debating this as the IRC conversation is not available, so it will be an endless 'I said this', ' no i didnt say that" etc etc. (incidently, whether you like it or not, you *are* a free software guru - and I dont mean this sarcastically either)