Doug Lerner wrote: >I installed the Java runtime environment and it was easy to do and works >fine. And now the Konqueror browser runs Applets too (better than IE 5.1 >under OS X does, I might add, which is the only OS X browser so far to >support Java). > >But why doesn't Mandrake Linux install the Java runtime environment to >start with? Surely everybody wants to use it, right? > >doug > Yes, and everyone with an NVidia card probably wants to use the NVidia drivers, but both have license agrements that make them non-free software. With the exception of Netscape 4.7x, we don't have very many sins like that on the downloadable edition, and we have excised other items that hgave licensing problems, like pine, a very popular mailer, and parts of some video display programs like xawtv and AKtion. Netscape will go as soon as we have a viable substitute, and a free software equivalewnt of Java will be included as soon as one is available.
MAndrakesoft is committed to free software. All the Mandrake Tools are licensed under the GNU GEneral Public License and source is available. Find another major distro that does that! For information on free software licenses and what they mean, go to www.fsf.org. Consider this: Once upon a time, the European Cernter for Nuclear Research wrote a program to allow the use of hypertext transfers across the internet, and the University of Indiana Urbana Campus also prepared some client software for it, among others. It was all government-funded research, so the results were all public domain and were collectively called Mosaic. One company took Mosaic and added a few features to make a very popular commercial browser (at the time) called Netscape. NAother made an enhancement and offered the browser with its internet service, That one was able to sell its version to a company called microsoft for a generous percentage of gross sales. Meanwhile, some people patched and patched again the server side of Mosaic, putting their patches and its source under the GPL. It was very patchy after a while, and being the punsters they are and thinking part of the fun is the name of the software, they called it Apache. The point is that all had their beginnings in free software, actually public domain. One became a closed commercial product which was actually sold, another became an instrument whereby a very rich corporation illegally extinguished competition, and the third just about owns the internet and has continued intensive development without any client lists changing hands or pop-up ads being added.... Guess which one is free software in the fsf definition? So anyway Java has an unpalatable license and is closed source, which is considered a _bad_ thing by free software efforts. If we cannot see the source, we can't audit for security flaws or maintain the software. If we can't see the source, then we can't protect people from backdoors or booby traps or stability bugs written into the code. As I said, projects are underway to provide a free alternative to Java, and it is there our hope lies. Now the commercial distribution, with demos on CD of real commercial software has StarOffice (with real links to our menus) and Java (several versions) which you can load, but you do have to click on license agreements. We even offer NVidia drivers which really work with full acceleration, but only off the commercial CDs, because they are closed source or partially so and have licenses that make them non-free software. Civileme Civileme >
Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
