2006/10/10, Kenneth Gonsalves <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
be clear on one thing - GPL is not the only license around. FOSS
licences range from pure BSD licences - which are the freest and
least restrictive to the GPL, which is the most restrictive.
GPL is a copyleft license, it guarantees that all users will get the
freedom. You can build a proprietory application using BSD licensed code. It
is also Free Software but not copyleft. GPL has restrction so that all users
will have freedom.
Apache
Software Foundation does not use the GPL - and you just have to look
at their projects to see the huge contribution they have made to the
foss world.
Clearly everyone accept that and recognises their work.
And zope/plone, postgresql, python, php ... the list is
endless. And also be clear that even assuming the operating system in
what you call GNU/Linux is all GNU and GPL, a machine just running
that operating system on that kernel is useless. It needs the
applications to be useful. And a very large number of those
applications are non-GNU and non-GPL. And they are free - and no one
will be able to snatch away their freedom. So the assertion that the
GPL is the sole guardian of freedom is false.
It is more than a license issue. GPL is there to guarantee all users will
have freedom.
So i feel that you should stop trying to claim parentage of Linux -
linux neither wants or needs it. Far better you concentrate on your
own baby - hurd.
GNU project started to develop a completely Free Operating system and since
Linux filled the last piece to have a full OS the only motivation for hurd
is technical, it tries to improve Unix design while Linux is trying to be
like Unix.
Cheers
Praveen
--
"Value your freedom, or you will lose it, teaches history.
`Don't bother us with politics', respond those who don't want to learn."
-- Richard Stallman
Me scribbles at http://www.pravi.co.nr
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