Greg Stark <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > At this point I think I'm about to start suggesting these companies like > Netscape, Apple, and now AT&T just shoot their lawyers and release > source to the public domain. They've become so paranoid about > completely imaginary legal liabilities that they're trying to > release code under shrink-wrap licenses and call it "free". The very > concept is laughable.
I think you're being too pessimistic here. OK, the licenses that those packs of corporate lawyers come up with are not free in our understanding, but then again they are not downright proprietary either. Actually, we (meaning the free software community as such) seem to *have* got the companies to change their *business strategies* for certain kinds of software at least. This is the important point: no matter how far from actual free licenses we are, the companies *have* given up the idea of making money from selling licenses to the software itself. That must be the hardest step for them, and we should not give up simply because they're still having some trouble with getting the legal quirks right. Look at it this way: we're trying to get a world of free software flying. Some of us are because we think such a world would be ethically better, some of us because we simply think it will be a world with better software for everyone. Until now we've been flying around in little Cessnas, doing some pretty amazing stunts at air shows and providing vital transport links to little outposts - but we haven't had much of a place in the big picture. Now there's a fleet of jumbos being painted in our colors! And you seem to be wanting to quit in frustration because the negotiations for the fuel delivery contracts are a little tough. > So here's the latest, for the djvu reference library, I haven't even > bothered to read it FWIW, it's about as non-free as anything can be and still allow some form of source code accessability. -- Henning Makholm
