[Fsf-friends] Indian Express

[Mahesh T. Pai]

Arun M said on Thu, Dec 25, 2003 at 05:04:02PM +0530,:

 > BTW, the reporter of India Express seems to be anti-free software guy.
 > It is not the first time he is making a report which can hurt free
 > software movement. 

That  should  not  distract us  from  a  valid  criticism when  it  is
raised.  When people  fail to  distinguish between  free  and non-free
software on a  CD, the re-distributor should be  extra careful on what
he is distributing.

Again, how will CDIT/Akshya  comply with requirements of GPL regarding
making  source   code  available  for  3  years??   RH  makes  several
modifications to the sources released by upstream authors.

For example, AFAIK, the apache server is seriously modified by RH that
the binary is  called something else (httpd??), not  Apache. (Got this
info from  a mailing  list of  someother distro; so  I might  be wrong
here).

Will C-DIT/Akshya make available the sources 3 years down the line?  I
am sure that RH has  not given C-DIT/Akshya any written undertaking as
envisaged in the  GPL. So, if any of the receipients  of the Akshya CD
demands sources, will the project be able to comply??

Please, I am not arguing with anybody or for or against anything.

I am just  pointing out the possibility of other  people who, like the
reporter of NIE, are anti-free software. Some people can be influenced
to become pawns  and be used to put the project's  use of GNU/Linux in
jeopardy. This is a situation we need to guard against.

I recall  a long, unpleasant and  dreary thread with the  maker of the
Knoppix  distro. The  complaint against  him was  that he  was putting
sources to  his changes alone on  his site; not the  entire sources as
modified by him. People can get real nasty sometimes.

-- 
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+
                                          
  Mahesh T. Pai, LL.M.,                   
  'NANDINI', S. R. M. Road,               
  Ernakulam, Cochin-682018,               
  Kerala, India.                          
                                          
  http://in.geocities.com/paivakil         
                                          
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