TheOpenAnalyst » Richard Stallman

Stallman: “we still have a fight on our hands”

TheOpenAnalyst — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 03:40:00 +0000

25 years after Stallman first set the GNU project in motion, what have these ideals achieved, and what can we do to ensure the future of free software? Linux Format spoke to him to find out.

While Linus Torvalds gets most of the plaudits nowadays for the Linux kernel, it was Stallman who originally posted plans for a new, and free, operating system. Free had nothing to do with the cost of the operating system, but with the implicit rights of those who were using the software to do with it exactly as they pleased. “I launched the development of the GNU operating system back in 1983 specifically to make it possible to use a computer without ceding these freedoms and accepting the dominion of the software’s developers,” he told us.

Stallman: “we still have a fight on our hands” | News | TechRadar UK

Protecode’s Mahshad Koohgoli on Software Intellectual Property and the Cisco Open Source Lawsuit

TheOpenAnalyst — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 11:28:00 +0000

Recently, the The Free Software Foundation (FSF), founded by MIT alum Richard Stallman, has filed a lawsuit against Cisco Systems for copyright infringement. The suit contends that Cisco distributed software originally written and distributed under the FSF’s General Public License (GLP), and has thus failed to fulfill the requirements of the GPL under which the software is published. The GLP terms oblige distributors to disclose that their products contain code licensed under the GPL and they must make that code available to any end user who requests to see it. As it happens, Linksys (now owned by Cisco) distributed various Linux-based products that rely on GPL-licensed components, but Linksys is said to have repeatedly failed to fulfill the GPL-specified obligations.

This is the first lawsuit that the FSF has ever filed for GPL infringement.

To explore the tangled matter of open source, intellectual property and the Cisco case, Your Truly just sat down and talked with Dr. Mahshad Koohgoli, CEO, of Protecode (www.protecode.com). Protecode has unique products that can examine a software developer’s project and automatically detect, log, identify and do pedigree-tagging of software content and report on associated intellectual property and licensing attributes and compliance against an organization’s policies, thus establishing intellectual property ownership and creating a software Bill of Materials (BoM).

Protecode’s Mahshad Koohgoli on Software Intellectual Property and the Cisco Open Source Lawsuit | TMCnet.com

Free Software Foundation’s Richard Stallman Says Don’t Call It ‘Open Source’

TheOpenAnalyst — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 11:28:00 +0000

GNU guru Richard Stallman sent me an e-mail the other day complaining that we erred by saying that the Free Software Foundation, of which he’s president, promotes open source software. “We have never supported the idea of ‘open source’ because that idea denies the importance of users’ freedom,” he writes. Read on for the dizzying semantics behind Richard’s argument, and why I think his obsessive attempts at language control are shooting his own software objectives in the foot.

Believe me when I tell you I’m sympathetic to a big part of Stallman’s case. I get that he’s hung up on how Linux has stolen all the thunder from GNU, and that he must be ticked Linus Torvalds is the face of open source software when he was the guy beating the drums first, and most loudly.

Free Software Foundation’s Richard Stallman Says Don’t Call It ‘Open Source’ | Wolfe’s Den Blog | InformationWeek

Free Software Shouldn’t Mean You Can’t Make a Buck

TheOpenAnalyst — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 07:19:00 +0000

Richard Stallman, the founder of the GNU Project, speaks at great lengths about preserving the ideological purity of free software, and in his vision of the future, computer software development is modeled after mathematics and science research, where all research and development is open. So far as Stallman is concerned, proprietary software production is unethical and should be avoided. As he detailed extensively in The GNU Manifesto, traditional closed source capitalism should be rejected in software development and replaced with a post-scarcity economy.

While I admire that sort of optimism and long-term vision, I take a more market-driven approach to the software and technology industries. In my last article, I wrote in general terms about using Free and Open Source Software as a platform on which to base a profitable business. I want to follow up on that article with some specific ideas and examples for how to use these tools to create a successful enterprise.

Free Software Shouldn’t Mean You Can’t Make a Buck | TechNewWorld