GNU TLS copyright

GNU TLS copyright

Posted Sep 29, 2013 18:04 UTC (Sun) by nix (subscriber, #2304)
In reply to: GNU TLS copyright by khim
Parent article: 30 years of GNU

One property of GNU project is that it's source is distributed via ftp.gnu.org

GNU is more vaporous and less dictatorial than you seem to believe. Note that both GNOME and Bazaar are 'officially' GNU projects (in the sense that 'RMS says they are'), and neither is distributed from ftp.gnu.org. Heck, RMS stamps TeX and X with the GNU imprimatur (they are 'part of the GNU operating system'), but in that case not even the projects' maintainers would agree.

Even 'developed by GNU' is a woolly thing. A few core things were originally developed by funding from the FSF, but even those were mostly not developed by RMS, and many of them are still maintained by their original developers. Some of those have got pissed off with RMS and said 'we are no longer GNU' -- but this is just semantics. It makes almost *no* difference, because GNU is no longer the sole, nor even primary, umbrella under which free software sits.

The world is bigger than GNU now -- GNU has transmitted its message effectively enough that it is no longer as important as it was. And this is a *good* thing, not a thing to be afraid of.

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