Re: Fwd: reiser4 non-free?

[Hans Reiser <reiser@namesys.com>]

There is a difference between free software and plagiarizable software.  
The two are orthogonal concepts.

Debian wants software to be both free and plagiarizable.  XFree86 and I 
want our software to be free but not plagiarizable.  In general, I want 
software to not be plagiarizable, as I think it works against the 
societal interest to not attribute accurately.  Saying that plagiarism 
is an important freedom is like saying assault is something you must be 
allowed to do if you are to be considered free.

Hans

MJ Ray wrote:

> On 2004-05-04 17:20:56 +0100 Hans Reiser <reiser@namesys.com> wrote:
>
>> I understand why they lost interest in talking to persons who cannot 
>> grasp that distros removed mention of them from their man pages and 
>> this was wrong.
>
>
> That's actually irrelevant in that case. Their advertising clause is 
> actually not the reason for it being non-free, as I understand it, 
> although it does make it GPL-incompatible, which is a bit irritating.
>
> Their licence requires extreme protection of their name as a 
> condition, which seems unacceptable for free software. If I even 
> mention in a factual review who holds the copyright to the software, I 
> have probably failed the letter of the conditions.
>
> It seems a little cruel of you to punish all users by taking your code 
> non-free because you are not happy with some distributor actions. You 
> should work with the distributors instead of accusing them of 
> immorality as an opening tactic. That should be the last resort, not 
> the first.
>
>> I sent them a thanks for being brave enough to take on the task of 
>> changing licensing mores and forcing distros to attribute, and I got 
>> a response.;-)
>
>
> You seem to enjoy working against free software. I got some responses, 
> too, as previously mentioned.
>