On Sat, Sep 4, 2010 at 9:48 PM, parminder <[email protected]> wrote: > > Responses to Guru's clarifying note have been very thorough and rich. Let me > try to engage with some elements of these responses. > > As made clear in the referred note, public software is *not* a term arising > from categorisation of software based on licensing models. (That is one of > the basic elements of this concept.) Therefore it may not be very meaningful > to argue that this term is confused vis a vis copyright licenses related > issues. It is not intended to be 'public domain software', as meaning > irrevocable surrender of all forms of copyrights vis a vis any software. We > understand what is public domain software, and that is not what is meant by > public software. There is no confusion in this regard. > > As mentioned in the note, 'public software' is a term arising out of > categorizing software on basis of its uses, and relatedly, on the basis of > the nature and intentions of its users. Like there is this term 'business > software' or even 'social software' both of which terms have nothing to do > with license conditions of the concerned software. >
This approach will have serious implications to the first freedom (the freedom to use for any purpose) as a criteria of what software is free software. That will render public software as non-free software. The policy should not become a room to make vague situations leaving so much room for interpretation. Considering that the definitioin of FS is very eligant and is in the interest of the public we should not retrograde from that. FSM takes a scientific standpoint. diluting that to make room thinking that most policy makers will not understand is not correct. If policy makers don't understand simple and elegant definitions like free software, then they will certainly messup with public software, whatever that means. > We want governments to bring out public software policies, which will inter > alia mention that FOSS is the most appropriate software licensing model. I > dont think any government is going to name its overall software policy as > FOSS policy, since no government will make it an absolute law that only FOSS > would ever be used by the governments. However the looser public software > term is something they can work with, because the term 'public' is highly > nuanced, and yes, when required, flexible, which is always required when > dealing with real life larger social and political realms. The above approach is not even factually correct. Take the case of Kerala Govt. which did publish an IT policy that explicitly named free software. Now, IT4Change is sending requests to modify that statement even to Kerala Govt which took a progressive step. IT4change's request for Kerala is a retrogressive step. For other Govts if they take your step, from where they are, it may be better than where they are. But that does not solve the problem which free software movement is trying to fix. Policy should clearly identify the directive principle, which is granting the freedoms to the users. Therefore we should not recommend anything less than that. FSF does not say that all software must be free, but does make it very clear that all software that is under distribution and used or potential use by common people must be free. Therefore, public or common's requirement is already taken care. I therefore do not see the need to bring in vagueness into policies. Do we have examples of software that is good for the public and should not be free software? -- GN _______________________________________________ network mailing list [email protected] http://lists.fosscom.in/listinfo.cgi/network-fosscom.in
