Pat,
I understand all that but go back and read the original statement which
specificly said "public domain". It never said free. You and mouse have
taken this whole thing well away from the original discussion and intent.
Joe
At 01:27 PM 8/10/04 -0500, you wrote:
>On Tuesday 10 August 2004 13:12, Joe R. wrote:
>> At 12:00 PM 8/10/04 -0400, you wrote:
>> >>>> Name another computer with as many choices of OS and as many
>> >>>> versions, including third party and public domain OSs.
>> >>>
>> >>> Public domain? While admittedly I haven't specifically looked, I
>> >>> don't think I've ever seen a public domain OS for anything,
>> >>
>> >> What about FreeDOS? Or they just call it that for kicks?
>> >
>> >I imagine they call it that because it's free, for some value of
>> > free. While I was unable to find an explicit license in a brief
>> > poke around the freedos pages, I pulled over their boot floppy
>> > image, and it's certainly got enough copyright notices embedded in
>> > it. (This is rather disturbing, since if it's copyrighted but with
>> > no license grant, it is probably illegal to do anything with it in
>> > most jurisdictions.)
>>
>> That's not my understanding. I've seen several pieces of software
>> where the author specificly stated the software was free but he also
>> stated that he had copyrighted it in order to keep people from making
>> modifications and then selling it as their own work. Wheather or not
>> it's copyrighted ultimatly has nothing to do with it's cost. It can
>> be "freeware", "shareware" or regular commercail software no matter
>> what the copyright status is.
>
>That statement is called a "license grant". You seem to be ignoring the
>meaning of "free" that der Mouse is referring to -- free as in freedom
>("libre"), not free as in 0-cost. "Free software" is not freeware,
>shareware, or proprietary ("commercial") software. Public domain is
>essentially "free software," as you can do whatever you want with it.
>
>> >Note that "public domain" is a specific legal term with a specific
>> >meaning, and does not equal "free" for any of the common meanings of
>> >"free" as applied to software.
>>
>> I don't agree with the last part of your statement. To most people
>> Public Domain equates to free. "Public domain" means the "public"
>> owns it legally but it's still free in that anyone can use it for
>> free.
>
>Again, "free" as applied to software a la "Free Software Foundation"
>normally means "libre" not 0-cost. If you're equating "public domain"
>to "free," you haven't been paying attention to the movement started by
>things like GNU, Linux, and *BSD.
>
>Pat
>--
>Purdue University ITAP/RCS --- http://www.itap.purdue.edu/rcs/
>The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org
>
Received on Tue Aug 10 2004 - 13:53:32 BST