Actually the original BSD code that MS took is still free. Their modifications to that code (ergo the proprietary bits) are not free. Is this any different to MS just writing the code themselves.

Thomas: “to develop closed-source software. That’s not what we want, is it?”

IMHO it is irrelevant what the proprietary vendors do. MS can go on making closed code, it has no bearing on me. I just choose not to use it because it is not free.

What I don’t want is to go around forcing my beliefs on those who don’t agree with what I say. If I’m promoting freedom then I want people to be free to choose what to do. If they want to use closed code then fine. I wont stop them – I might highlight the negatives of doing so but I wont stop them.

Netaxis:

That makes no sense. I am free if I can do what I choose. The GPL protects a restricted freedom – possibly (and I mean possibly) meaning in 100 years time there will be more free code out there for everyone to use.

A better approach would be for everyone, instead of bullying non-free code away with legalese, to stop using/paying for non-free code. Then in 100 years time instead of some code being free and some being non-free, it would all be free. If there is nothing to be gained from releasing non-free code then people just wont do it.

GPL = True Feedom

BSD is not freedom,
if you are not obliged to make sure that the next guy has any such right or freedom
then there is no freedom.

GPL = true freedom its as simple as that.

I’m a big GPL enthousiast. The freedom of software should always be priority number one. And GPL ensures this, unlike BSD.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberte,_Egalite,_Fraternite

“The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789 defined Liberty in Article 4 as follows:

“Liberty consists of being able to do anything that does not harm others: thus, the exercise of the natural rights of every man or woman has no bounds other than those that guarantee other members of society the enjoyment of these same rights.”

Equality, on the other hand, was defined by the 1789 Declaration as judicial equality (art. 6):

The law “must be the same for all, whether it protects or punishes. All citizens, being equal in its eyes, shall be equally eligible to all high offices, public positions and employments, according to their ability, and without other distinction than that of their virtues and talents.”

Fraternity is to treat others as you would have yourself be treated (The Golden Rule, in both positive and contrapositive form):

Do unto others as you, in your best self, would wish others to do unto you. And what you would consider hateful, with utmost self-respect, do not unto others.

That’s what the GPL is supposed to preserve in software. You can do anything you want with the software as long as it doesn’t restrict the rights of anyone else. Your rights to the software are no more or less than anyone else’s. And both of these rights are given in the spirit of fairness, that you treat other users of the software as you would wish to be treated yourself, and you impose no restrictions on others that you would not with to have imposed on yourself.

After 220 years, is this still a subversive idea?

It’s really a matter of power and you assert that we (as in the Linux community) have enough pull to say our way or the highway. I guess both methods have been tried, I don’t know which has been more successful, I suspect the path of compromise has.

All of the major linux distributions include some non-free code in the form of hardware drivers (for graphics accelerators, flash card readers, etc). On the other hand, there is a bsd which does not include any non-free code. When BSD is supposed to be so much more commercially friendly, how could this be?

Well, the BSD of which I speak calls the vendors associated with those drivers and asks for programming documentation. Moreover, it refuses binary drivers and NDAs. Imagine if the GNU/Linux community, with all of its immense power, did the same. People would be much more free!