5 ms·

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

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?

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?