Re: Firefox and Moonlight (Mono) "Free Software" Status?

[Les Mikesell <lesmikesell gmail com>]

Rahul Sundaram wrote:

> > Also, I really don't think that Free Software should require an
> > affirmative confirmation of license acceptance to allow use of that
> > software, especially when what one is "accepting" is the revocation of
> > one's rights WRT that software.
>
> This is correct which is which is why I asked the person complaining 
> about this on fedora-test list to file a bug report which has already 
> been done. So further comments should go there.
> > IMHO this is non-Free, and obviously both Debian and FSF agree with me,
> > since they have each forked Firefox.
>
> Debian forked because the logo is non-free and FSF has forked earlier 
> due to non-free components like talkback which we didn't include in 
> Fedora. Export controls do not make a software non-free according to 
> FSF. Refer
>
> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FreeSoftwareAnalysis/FSF

I disagree with the FSF on just about every point regarding the best 
ways to encourage the development and use of open source software, but 
this position on patents is even more bizarre than usual.  I can sort-of 
understand the claim that patent coverage is harder to determine, but in 
cases where it is obvious, how can restrictions imposed by patents be 
considered any differently than restrictions imposed by other people's 
copyrights with respect to whether the GPL can be applied to the work as 
a whole with its explicit claim of redistribution rights under its own 
terms?

--
  Les Mikesell
   lesmikesell gmail com