<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML> <HEAD><META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII"><TITLE></TITLE></HEAD> <BODY>  <TABLE width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> <TBODY> <TR> <TD vAlign="top"> <DIV align="left"> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">I totally agree that gratis software neither capitalizes on the</font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">philosophical or social benefits of open source but it is a label which</font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">describes some software and it therefore useful. If nothing else in</font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">that it enables the weaknesses of this type of software to be easily</font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">defines.</font></div> <div> </div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">ben</font></div> <div> </div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">>>> William Anderson <william.anderson@lumison.net> 09/27/04 06:30pm</font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">>>></font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">Benjamin Edwards wrote:</font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">> 'gratis software' as opposed to 'free software' or 'open source </font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">> software' - I kind of like this as succinct way of making the</font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">distinction.</font></div> <div> </div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">when using "gratis", the distinction isn't made clear. Free Software </font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">means it can be freely (re-)distributed, freely used, freely modified,</font></div> <div> </div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">etc. Simply defining it as 'not free of charge' fails to suitably</font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">cover </font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2"> 'non-free', as non-free software exists which is certainly not Free,</font></div> <div> </div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">where Free means unencumbered by capability to redistribute and/or </font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">modify freely, but is certainly free of cost or charge.</font></div> <div> </div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">Think about the nVidia drivers - they cost nothing to download, but you</font></div> <div> </div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">are encumbered by the licence nVidia releases them under, and you have</font></div> <div> </div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">no source to recompile / modify / tweak / etc. Those drivers are free</font></div> <div> </div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">of charge, but not Free as in libre.</font></div> <div> </div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">-- </font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">William Anderson</font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">Lumison</font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">t: 0845 1199 900</font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">d: 0131 514 4042</font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">-- </font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">Virus scanned by Lumison.</font></div> <div> </div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">-- </font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">ubuntu-users mailing list</font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2"><a href="mailto:ubuntu-users@lists.ubuntu.com">ubuntu-users@lists.ubuntu.com</a> </font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2"><a href="http://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users">http://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users</a> </font></div> <div> </div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">______________________________________________________________________</font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">This email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System.</font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">For more information please visit <a href="http://www.messagelabs.com/email">http://www.messagelabs.com/email</a> </font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">______________________________________________________________________</font></div> <BR> ______________________________________________________________________<BR> This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential. 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