Hi, Just loaded OpenBSD and Debian Linux onto my laptop. Unlike 3 years back, every thing looks very stable now and hardware drivers are available for almost everything. Started liking these OS very much and want to eventually use these for all my needs. The reason for using Debian over other flavors of linux is because i know about GNU way before i heard linux for the first time. I just thought, if i have to try a free OS then try a completely free OS instead of not so free OS's.
Since i started liking the Debian Linux, i started thinking about Linux in general and thus some questions about linux in the long term. I am not talking about debian in particular but linux in general 1. How long is it going to be free ? 2. Is there any possibility of this becoming a copyrighted software in future ? ( i mean some company taking over and saying that only i am the owner and only i can make modifications) First let me make it clear that i do understand the meaning of free as in "freedom" and not as in ($). Right now the reason why i installed is because it is both free as in $( i just downloaded from net) and free(i can make modifications to source and do almost anything i want). While it may look like it impossible for linux to become non free(copyrighted) some day. because any s/w besed on gpl needs to be gpled. i don't think so, i may be wrong, but i really don't know how it all works. so asking questions and discussing with people is a good way to gain some understanding of the unknown territory. There are 2 things which i would like to mention firstly people who forget history are condemned to repeat it, secondly anything which has no value can not be sold and so they are free(like free medicines from your physicians before they are tested). what happens once it gets a value and becomes marketable. free starts becoming proprietary(we do it in a different way) and then copyrighted(restrictive). The intermediate stage is might look like "well.... the executable is free but not the dll". people start using a graphics file format for 5 years because they think it is free, create millions of graphics and one fine day it's not free because the compression algorithm it is based on is patented. when no body uses no body cares but when millions of people start using it then it does not take a long time So are there any tabs here in linux where it can not become not free in future. so any gpl derived software needs to be gpled but what about the other way, can you start including non gpled software ,closed sourced modules in gpled software. if that is possible then with each new release can included a included a lot of non gpled software being used from gpled, eventually by the time you get into version 50.0 it might become 2% free and 98% not free. looks like some flavors of linux are going that way. i can be completely wrong,but nothing wrong in asking questions, i don't know anything about linux ,trying to understand the concept of free etc etc i just want about what to people contributing,using think about this. thanks Srinivas __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Platinum - Watch CBS' NCAA March Madness, live on your desktop! http://platinum.yahoo.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]