On Friday 27 December 2002 12:02 am, Jack Coates wrote: > On Thu, 2002-12-26 at 20:41, rob wrote: > > What does this mean and why do I keep seeing it in connection with any > > discussion of Linux?....."free (as in beer)"? > > > > Thanks, > > Rob > > I'm not an expert on licensing, but since the experts are still > recovering from all that spiked eggnog... Me to as far as the above paragraph, a good way for me to understand is to consider other translations. I think in France "free as in freedom" is called something like "libertaude" (like English "Liberty") and "free like beer" is just free.
> Free as in Freedom = you can do whatever you want with this product. > Ultimate expression is probably BSD license, followed by all sorts of > derivatives like MPL and PAL and APL, followed by GPL (since it > explicity says what you have to do upon distribution, it is less free). > > Free as in Beer = you may use a copy of this product without giving the > producer any money. Lite versions of shareware, adware, and > market-seeding efforts like MSIE go here. > > Imagine a Venn diagram of these two circles, with freely downloaded > distributions of open source operating systems in the overlap area, and > you've got a pretty big swath of the software world. Surround it with an > ocean of software that isn't free in any sense, and then imagine it as a > very thin horizontal layer. Below it is a bottomless pit of mud and > broken machinery, which is old software. Above it is a nebulous sky of > things that might someday be possible. That's the entire software world > -- Pythagoras, eat your heart out :-) > > Still got plenty of eggnog here,
Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
