Free as in Freedom

Episode 0x03: i Don't Store

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Karen and Bradley discuss the debates regarding Apple's online store

restrictions that make it impossible to distribute GPL'd software via
Apple's store. Then, they discuss question the usefulness of the term
“Open Core”

Note: Bradley's audio was too low compared to Karen's on this

episode. We're still sorting out our recording issues, and apologize
for this. This is completely Bradley's fault: don't blame Producer
Dan. :)

Show Notes:
Segment 0 (00:34)
  • Karen mentioned first Brett's
    • statement on the VLC mailing list, although that is toward the end of
    the story
    that was covered last month. (05:30)
  • Bradley mentioned that the story started with FSF's
    • enforcement regarding Apple's distribution of GNU Go in Apple's
    application store. (05:54)
  • Don't confused GNU Go
    • (the game) with Google Go (the
    programming language). Bradley pointed out that Google did assign
    some of its copyright on the language Go, for the GCC frontend for
    the Go language. (06:51)
  • Bradley mentioned that the game Go has been around thousands of
    • years, although according the Go Wikipedia entry,
    it's been around for approximately 2,500 years. (08:21)
  • Bradley pointed out that the primary goal of GPL enforcement is to get
    • compliance, not to get companies to cease distribution, but sometimes
    the companies prefer to cease distribution rather than complying with
    the license. (09:57)
  • There was disagreement in the VLC community about the enforcement
    • action (11:50). There's an original
    thread on the VLC mailing list that discussed this (12:35), and then Brett's
    response on that list. (13:25)
  • GPLv2 requires in § 6 that you cannot impose terms that restrict
    • the downstream more than GPL otherwise does. (15:40)
  • FSF made
    • a statement that linked this issue to the DRM issue, which caused some
    confusion. It's our view that what Apple is doing against GPL software is
    part of their initiative to put DRM (both for software and more
    traditional content) onto devices. (17:20)
  • Bradley mentioned that Apple lawyers have a pathological hatred of
    • GPL, which he believes comes directly down from Steve Jobs, who began his
    dislike of GPL when he tried, while at NeXT, to distribute a proprietary
    front-end for GCC for Objective-C. (RMS discussed the story briefly in
    his essay Copyleft:
    Pragmatic Idealism.) (23:45)
    Segment 1 (27:40)
    • Bradley has decided
      • that the term “Open Core” is so confusing that it's now
      useless.
    • The Gnus
      • IMAP backend is being rewritten, and
      Joel Adamson mentioned that
      he's using Emacs
      development mainline and the new IMAP implementation is working
      well. (29:58)
    • Alexandre Oliva started
      • a project called Linux Libre,
      to remove proprietary software from Linux. (31:31)
    • There is a file
      • called WHENCE in Linux that is a long list of proprietary software
      included inside Linux. Fontana linked the WHENCE
      file on identi.ca (31:02)
    • Alexandre made
      • an announcement calling Linux an “Open Core” project.
      (32:56)
    • Bradley mentioned that Alexandre appears to have been
      • convinced that Open Core is a problematic term in this context (during
      this identica
      conversation). Alexandre seems to be favoring the term “Free
      Bait” now. (35:16)
    • Karen mentioned Nina Paley's intellectual
      • pooperty cartoon. (38:39)
    • Bradley mentioned the softer
      • side of Sears marketing campaign, which was used as
      a cruel joke by Cordelia in the pilot
      of Buffy
      the Vampire Slayer to make fun of Willow's
      clothes. Sears apparently dropped
      the campaign in 1999. (40:23)
    • Join us on #faif on freenode and the !FaiFCast group on identi.ca (43:47)

      • Send feedback and comments on the cast

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      Free as in Freedom is produced by Dan Lynch

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