[lbo-talk] Ubuntu stuff

[// ravi]

On Aug 17, 2009, at 7:09 PM, Andy wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 17, 2009 at 5:40 PM, Dwayne  
> Monroe<dwayne.monroe at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> But then again, even that's wrong, because there's nothing stopping
>> anyone -- Apple being the shiniest example -- from taking FOSS
>> products and using them to DRM advantage.
>
> Mmmwell yes and no.  Remember that the Gnu Public License that
> Stallman devised, and which applies to most of Linux, was created to
> forestall precisely the sort of hijacking you describe, where there is
> no legal barrier to folding public domain works into proprietary
> works, thereby taking advantage of the work of the commons to hold it
> hostage.  The GPL's unfriendliness to proprietary claims lead to the
> creation of the term Open Source by those who frankly wanted the magic
> pixie dust of the collaboration without the principled encumberance of
> free-speech software:
>

You beat me to it ;-). This issue returned in a minor skirmish on the  
net a couple of weeks ago in an argument between Dan Jalkut / John  
Gruber and Matt Mullenweg (original author of WordPress) on the GPL  
(yours truly taking the GPL side of course -- ping me if you want the  
link to my post, though there is nothing original in it).


> As a result, Stallman bristles at the lumping together of free and
> open-source software in terms like "FOSS" -- and rightly so, I think,
> in part because of the difference in their relative resistance to
> being folded into campaigns such as DRM. He has said quite explicitly
> that any supposed technical advantages that Free Software has as Open
> Source Software are in principle secondary: that freedom is what's
> most important.  I think he has a compelling argument, even if his
> principles are sometimes difficult to adhere to.

Agreed on all counts. Good thing you beat me to it, for I wouldn't  
have produced the relevant quotes and summarised it as well.

To state what is perhaps obvious: I don't think either of us  
disagreeing with Dwayne's larger point.

	--ravi