Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!yale!husc6!bu-cs!tower
From: tower@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Leonard H. Tower Jr.)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: GNU
Message-ID: <25064@bu-cs.BU.EDU>
Date: 23 Sep 88 18:10:18 GMT
References: <1424@ast.cs.vu.nl>
Reply-To: tower@bu-it.bu.edu (Leonard H. Tower Jr.)
Followup-To: comp.os.minix
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In article <1424@ast.cs.vu.nl> ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) writes:
|
|There has been much discussion about GNU recently.  Let me state a couple
|of simple facts.
|
|1. Stallman is ideologically opposed to having any part of GNU be sold for
|   profit.  If MINIX 1.3 costs $79.95 without GNU stuff and MINIX 1.4 costs
|   $79.95 with GNU stuff you and I might conclude that GNU was free.  

It isn't really a question of profit.  The question is whether the
buyer can get the source and be free to modify it and re-distribute it
to anyone.

|								       I very
|   much doubt that Stallman would agree.

I believe you're wrong.

Stallman would agree with you: that the GNU software in the MINIX 1.4
distribution was free as far as you have sketched out your scenario.
GNU software is allowed to be included on the same media as commercial
software, as long as the terms of the GNU Public License are adhered
to for the GNU software and works derived from it.

|2. Without written permission from Stallman, Prentice-Hall would never even
|   consider including any of his stuff in MINIX.  Period.  Their lawyers are
|   extremely careful about respecting other people's copyrights.

Stallman, the Free Software Foundation, and/or other holders of the
copyright of a GNU program could be quite willing to sign an agreement
with Prentice-Hall that acknowledged the GNU Public License and gave
Prentice-Hall permission to distribute GNU software.

Stallman has done this in the past for GNU software.

A waste of everyone's time though.  The GNU Public License is clear
about redistribution.

enjoy -len 

(a.k.a. tower@prep.ai.mit.edu of the GNU Project)