[even more OT] Talking Heads

Richard Gaskin ambassador at fourthworld.com
Mon Mar 23 14:51:43 EDT 2009


Richmond Mathewson wrote:
> A while ago I wrote a message to one of the high-ups at Ubuntu offering
> to let them have FREE linux versions of a couple of programs I made about
> 6 years ago about Phonetics using RR.
> 
> They were refused on the grounds that, while I was entitled to distribute
> standalones free, they were built using proprietary software.
> 
> Personally I thought they were being a bit silly.

Being Linux folks, maybe not so silly.  But those managing FOSS projects 
that run on proprietary commercial OSes like Windows and Mac OS do seem 
to be drawing their line in the sand rather arbitrarily:

To some purists, even Rev projects released under the LGPL will never 
been perceived as "true" open source projects because they require a 
proprietary engine to run.  This of course overlooks that even if the 
Rev engine were open source it would still require the larger 
"proprietary engine": the OS itself.

All open source applications that run on Windows, Mac, or any other 
non-FOSS OS are just as "proprietary" as any Rev project released under 
similar license.

--
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World
  Revolution training and consulting: http://www.fourthworld.com
  Webzine for Rev developers: http://www.revjournal.com



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