Letters to the editor

Don't imply that OSS/FS or GPL is always non-commercial.

From:		David Wheeler <dwheeler@ida.org>
To:		letters@lwn.net
Subject:		Don't imply that OSS/FS or GPL is always non-commercial.
Date:		Thu, 20 Feb 2003 13:20:30 -0500

In your last news issue you noted that Plone is "dual-licensed, it is
available under the GPL and a commercial license." I think you mean "under
the GPL and a license permitting use by proprietary software", or even
a "so-called commercial license".

Please, don't make the mistake of using text that implies that the
opposite of OSS/FS is "commercial" software, or you'll terribly confuse
many people.  Companies like Red Hat, IBM, MySQL, Zope, and so on are
clearly commercial companies who release OSS/FS programs in at least
certain situations. Red Hat routinely uses the GPL as a commercial license,
for example, yet it's a publicly traded commercial company.

In general, the opposite of "open source software/Free Software"
(OSS/FS) is "proprietary" or "closed" software.  Text that implies
that OSS/FS can't be commercial will confuse many.


--- David A. Wheeler

Comments (none posted)

Microsoft "Rights Management Service"

From:		Charles Cazabon <web-regletters@discworld.dyndns.org>
To:		john.leyden@theregister.co.uk
Subject:		Microsoft "Rights Management Service"
Date:		Mon, 24 Feb 2003 12:16:15 -0600
Cc:		letters@lwn.net

Greetings, Mr. Leyden,

I read your recent article "Microsoft devs Windows Rights Management Services"
with great interest.  Microsoft has finally tipped its hat as to when it will
start making sure that their software does what they (or their "partners")
want it to, instead of what the user (i.e. you) want it to do.

But the ultimate irony is in the name:  programs designed to remove the right
of the user to copy or excerpt from a "protected text" (i.e. a fair-use
right), going by the acronym of "RMS"?  There isn't a less-appropriate
three-letter acronym possible.

Was this a deliberate slap at the Free Software Foundation and its founder,
Richard M. Stallman, commonly known as "rms"?

Charles Cazabon
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Charles Cazabon                   <web-regletters@discworld.dyndns.org>
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