5 ms·

This surprises anyone? As far as the FSF (or at least Stallman, which for all practical purposes is the same thing) is concerned, LibreCAD and FreeCAD are in th

by rosser 14y ago

This surprises anyone? As far as the FSF (or at least Stallman, which for all practical purposes is the same thing) is concerned, LibreCAD and FreeCAD are in the wrong here — for using one of the FSF's own licenses. Stallman is a zealot, and this is what zealots do.

benatkin 14y ago
Well the FSF purports to be an organization that advances the cause of free software, so it's worth calling them on their bullshit. Not everyone thinks of them as a zealot organization even though it's headed by a zealot. Perhaps they should. Also I think this issue might be fixable if there's enough outcry about it. And they really are in a tough situation because of this.
- jlarocco 14y ago
  It's been well known for a long time that the FSF is only interested in advancing their own idea of "free software." At this time it's the GPLv3 flavor of free software. For people who don't agree with the FSF's idea of "free software" or don't want the politics that goes along with the GPL and FSF, there's always the BSD license. Though it really wouldn't help in this case, since the library in question belongs to the FSF.
  - benatkin 14y ago
    The need for open source tools that interact with dwg resonates strongly with me. I hope they can rewrite it, and I hope they choose BSD (or MIT) rather than GPLv2.
    - gknoy 14y ago
      Exactly: The solution seems to be (unfortunately) to let LibreDWG languish, and write a new library which is GPL2, or some other license. Sounds painful, since the people who want to use it are those who until now have not been (I assume) the ones writing the library.
      - cube13 14y ago
        To be fair, it looks like the FSF is letting LibreDWG languish anyway. There hasn't been a master commit in 2 years, and the last activity in the repository was in February 2012. I'd assume that a "high priority" project would have a lot more activity than that, especially because there hasn't been a binary release yet( http://www.gnu.org/software/libredwg/ http://www.gnu.org/software/libredwg/ ).
        tedks 14y ago
        The FSF hasn't had developers for GNU projects on staff in decades, if I remember correctly. They aren't letting it languish, they're actively trying to give it exposure and find new hackers for it -- that's the point of it being a high priority project as far as I can tell.
  - tjaerv 14y ago
    And for those fed up with copyright as a whole: http://unlicense.org http://unlicense.org
- gillianseed 14y ago
  What bullshit? This is about a company (Ribbonsoft) which released their code under a modified GPLv2 licence which removed the 'or later clause', thus making it a 'new' licence which is incompatible with any other GPL licences except GPLv2. FSF has since created GPLv3, under which all their code is now released, for all GPLv2 licenced code out there which is using the FSF's original GPLv2 licence there is no problem since it has the 'or later' clause. The problem here is that Ribbonsoft removed the (or later) clause and thus making it incompatible with future GPL versions. And what is this 'tough situation' they are in?
dllthomas 14y ago
> [T]his is what zealots do. This, and rebelling against the Roman occupation of the Holy Land.
- bitwize 14y ago
  Or giving their life for Aiur.
  - dsl 14y ago
    You win at HackerNews.
jlarocco 14y ago
I'm not so sure FSF is trying to say they're in the wrong for using GPLv2. In my mind, it's similar to Apple or Microsoft not releasing a new version of iTunes or Office for one of their old operating systems. They're not saying anybody is "in the wrong," but it's the old version and people should upgrade. I have a hard time blaming FSF for wanting other projects to upgrade to GPLv3 instead of downgrading their own project to GPLv2. It could almost be said that it's the whole point of the GPL. And, like you said, this should be a surprise to absolutely nobody.
RexRollman 14y ago
I completely disagree. The FSF has every right to not re-license the software.
- sigzero 14y ago
  I don't think anyone is arguing that they don't have the right. I think people are arguing that it is a douche move on their part.
  - RexRollman 14y ago
    To me, the douche move is whining about it when they decided against allowing it.
  - gillianseed 14y ago
    Why is it a 'douche move'? If the original licencors Ribbonsoft had not released the code under a modified GPLv2 licence where they explicitly removed the 'or later' clause then there would have been no problem.
gillianseed 14y ago
It's not one of 'FSF's own licences', it's a modified GPLv2 licence where the 'or later' clause has been removed so that it is GPLv2 ONLY, thus making it a NEW licence. No GPL licences crafted by FSF has this limitation.

by rosser 14y ago

benatkin 14y ago

Well the FSF purports to be an organization that advances the cause of free software, so it's worth calling them on their bullshit. Not everyone thinks of them as a zealot organization even though it's headed by a zealot. Perhaps they should. Also I think this issue might be fixable if there's enough outcry about it. And they really are in a tough situation because of this.

jlarocco 14y ago
It's been well known for a long time that the FSF is only interested in advancing their own idea of "free software." At this time it's the GPLv3 flavor of free software. For people who don't agree with the FSF's idea of "free software" or don't want the politics that goes along with the GPL and FSF, there's always the BSD license. Though it really wouldn't help in this case, since the library in question belongs to the FSF.
- benatkin 14y ago
  The need for open source tools that interact with dwg resonates strongly with me. I hope they can rewrite it, and I hope they choose BSD (or MIT) rather than GPLv2.
  - gknoy 14y ago
    Exactly: The solution seems to be (unfortunately) to let LibreDWG languish, and write a new library which is GPL2, or some other license. Sounds painful, since the people who want to use it are those who until now have not been (I assume) the ones writing the library.
    - cube13 14y ago
      To be fair, it looks like the FSF is letting LibreDWG languish anyway. There hasn't been a master commit in 2 years, and the last activity in the repository was in February 2012. I'd assume that a "high priority" project would have a lot more activity than that, especially because there hasn't been a binary release yet( http://www.gnu.org/software/libredwg/ http://www.gnu.org/software/libredwg/ ).
      - tedks 14y ago
        The FSF hasn't had developers for GNU projects on staff in decades, if I remember correctly. They aren't letting it languish, they're actively trying to give it exposure and find new hackers for it -- that's the point of it being a high priority project as far as I can tell.
- tjaerv 14y ago
  And for those fed up with copyright as a whole: http://unlicense.org http://unlicense.org
gillianseed 14y ago
What bullshit? This is about a company (Ribbonsoft) which released their code under a modified GPLv2 licence which removed the 'or later clause', thus making it a 'new' licence which is incompatible with any other GPL licences except GPLv2. FSF has since created GPLv3, under which all their code is now released, for all GPLv2 licenced code out there which is using the FSF's original GPLv2 licence there is no problem since it has the 'or later' clause. The problem here is that Ribbonsoft removed the (or later) clause and thus making it incompatible with future GPL versions. And what is this 'tough situation' they are in?

dllthomas 14y ago

> [T]his is what zealots do. This, and rebelling against the Roman occupation of the Holy Land.

bitwize 14y ago
Or giving their life for Aiur.
- dsl 14y ago
  You win at HackerNews.

jlarocco 14y ago

I'm not so sure FSF is trying to say they're in the wrong for using GPLv2. In my mind, it's similar to Apple or Microsoft not releasing a new version of iTunes or Office for one of their old operating systems. They're not saying anybody is "in the wrong," but it's the old version and people should upgrade. I have a hard time blaming FSF for wanting other projects to upgrade to GPLv3 instead of downgrading their own project to GPLv2. It could almost be said that it's the whole point of the GPL. And, like you said, this should be a surprise to absolutely nobody.

RexRollman 14y ago

I completely disagree. The FSF has every right to not re-license the software.

sigzero 14y ago
I don't think anyone is arguing that they don't have the right. I think people are arguing that it is a douche move on their part.
- RexRollman 14y ago
  To me, the douche move is whining about it when they decided against allowing it.
- gillianseed 14y ago
  Why is it a 'douche move'? If the original licencors Ribbonsoft had not released the code under a modified GPLv2 licence where they explicitly removed the 'or later' clause then there would have been no problem.

gillianseed 14y ago

It's not one of 'FSF's own licences', it's a modified GPLv2 licence where the 'or later' clause has been removed so that it is GPLv2 ONLY, thus making it a NEW licence. No GPL licences crafted by FSF has this limitation.