jadison
04-17-2002, 2:51 AM
A large debate has been going on over at NewsForge (http://www.newsforge.com/) within the community about whether or not Lindows is complying with the GPL (GNU General Public License) in offering its source code freely to the public in its "sneak preview" releases. The GPL states, in part, that the program instructions in their original form as written by the programmer (source code) must be available to users of the program. The GPL also requires that users be allowed to copy, modify and redistribute the program freely, but they must in turn provide the source code (full details on the GPL can be read here (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html)).
Lindows CEO Michael Robertson's argument is that their current versions of LindowsOS are just preview editions, when they "release an official version, all the GPL pieces will be properly distributed". He went on to defend himself by noting that he's made major contributions including large sums of money to open source software, open-source supported events, and open standards in general since he started working for MP3.com. He has his foot firmly planted in the world of open-source, he's not going anywhere. He's taking offense to the FSF's (Free Software Foundation) statements, and wants to make the community realize that all source code and information will be released once their official version hits the market. His dream is to allow consumers to have a choice in what OS is on the computer they buy. He wants to create and distribute a version of Linux that is understandable enough so that Windows-savvy computer users can work with it yet still have all the attributes of stability and reliability that Linux has been commonly associated with. (Keep in mind though, the first version(s) of LindowsOS will be hindered by poor security implementations and features, something that power users like myself wouldn't think of sacrificing!).
Read the official news report and see what the Linux community has to say about it here (http://linux.com/article.pl?sid=02/04/11/148251).
What do YOU all have to say about this? I'd like to know what you think and what your opinions are. Post any comments/opinions here. :)
Lindows CEO Michael Robertson's argument is that their current versions of LindowsOS are just preview editions, when they "release an official version, all the GPL pieces will be properly distributed". He went on to defend himself by noting that he's made major contributions including large sums of money to open source software, open-source supported events, and open standards in general since he started working for MP3.com. He has his foot firmly planted in the world of open-source, he's not going anywhere. He's taking offense to the FSF's (Free Software Foundation) statements, and wants to make the community realize that all source code and information will be released once their official version hits the market. His dream is to allow consumers to have a choice in what OS is on the computer they buy. He wants to create and distribute a version of Linux that is understandable enough so that Windows-savvy computer users can work with it yet still have all the attributes of stability and reliability that Linux has been commonly associated with. (Keep in mind though, the first version(s) of LindowsOS will be hindered by poor security implementations and features, something that power users like myself wouldn't think of sacrificing!).
Read the official news report and see what the Linux community has to say about it here (http://linux.com/article.pl?sid=02/04/11/148251).
What do YOU all have to say about this? I'd like to know what you think and what your opinions are. Post any comments/opinions here. :)