FSF Questions

I do not know of fora which let you do this, though you should get help on the FSF mailing lists and maybe on IRC #gnu on Freenode.

Well, if you join the FSF as an associate member you get access to their internal forums where people can discuss things like that. But mailing lists and IRC are quite fine too as there are a good deal of FSF guys there (rarely RMS, but he's busy).

I joined the FSF and paid $120 to do so. I posted into their forum (that I finally had access to, I might add, once I paid the $120). No problem so far for me. But then after 48 hours, I didn't receive a response on my question. I also noticed that I was like the last poster on the forum site within 48 hours too. Hmmm, not looking like a really good deal yet. So then I emailed them with my question through a licensing email I found on the site. (I won't post it here because they would prefer you get the latest email address from the fsf.org website.) Again, after one week, no response.

By then, Amanda, my wife, grew pretty upset with me for what she saw as wasting $120. But then when she found this wasn't like a business chargeback where she could dispute and get our money back -- because it's considered an official USA 503c non-profit donation -- she was a bit peeved. I told her to forget it -- that it was worthwhile, but she was pretty upset. In general she's a hothead right now because this is startup business idea (and LLC formation) # 3, because I've spent 5 years on this software and have little to show for it yet, because she still has little faith in free software yet and wants to see if my hunch is right, and because she's a teacher and her Summer is here with nothing for her to do.

However, I have good news. I went back to my email and received a message from the FSF finally. (I had emailed them again this morning, asking politely, "Did you forget me on this?") They answered my questions about the GPL in enough detail that I can move forward.

So, they may be a little slow, and you may have to politely email them again, but if you're patient and can wait 3 weeks, they'll get back to you with an answer if you're an FSF Associate Member and have paid the $120. (You can actually ask questions if you haven't paid the $120, but they give preferences to the FSF donors.)

I went back to Amanda about it and she said, "Good. Finally. At least I feel I got some quasi-legal advice on a business deal."

The FSF site gives the impression to me as does the GPL that if I use the code from say emacs and modify it that my only obligations are to licence the modification under GPL and that I have to put in the licence that the code was modified by me on such and such date, but that I am not required to list who the programmer of the original code was or that my program was based on emacs. Have I understood correctly?

The next question that follows is that rms keeps insisting that because the linux os uses primarily gnu software that it should be called gnu/linux yet at the same time in his philosophy section he states that if I modify a gpl program I do not have to mention the original author directly or indirectly, only that I have to state the code was modified by me.
Isn't he then going against his own beliefs? It seems that nowhere in GNU's philosophy or licence is there ANY requirement to append the GNU name to any piece of software used or modified. It looks like a rather childish insistance on getting credit for something, but he believes that we should have the freedom not to have to mention or pay the original creator of a piece of software for a derivative work we made.

A license is one thing and what he believes would be good manners or just a good thing for the cause is another thing. The two do not always have to overlap, as long as they don't go against one another.

The GPL is designed, quite simply, to provide users with four freedoms and then protect those freedoms from being taken away. It is also pragmatic in a sense of often being able to create a situation in which a party would be encouraged to license under GPL.

And that's all that GPL is here for.

About the naming issue, not being obliged to call it this or that or give any credit does not necessarily mean that doing so would not be the right thing to do.

RMS does not forces anyone to call it "GNU/Linux", but he does encourage it as the right thing to do. I don't see anything contradicting and wrong about that. As for why does he encourage this, it is really not just about getting credit. It is in fact less about that than about a strategy of associating the GNU project with the success that GNU/Linux has been, in order to refer people to the GNU site to learn more about freedom rather than just to the creator of the "Linux" name (Linus Torvalds) who has quite a bit more lax stance on the issue and quite a bit of disdain for FSF (from what we could've seen in recent months and years).

And it's only fair, since GNU really was a foundation of the OS so many people just call "Linux". Linux is a core, but GNU software is what makes it really interesting useful, not to mention that the GNU component GCC is what compiles that core in the first place.

There was an article recently on Libervis.com about understanding the FSF that you might like to read. It doesn't push anyone to agree or disagree with it, but rather just tries to provide some insight into why FSF is what it is and where is it coming from.

Cheers

We ask that you call the total system GNU/Linux because it is a combination of the GNU Userspace utilities and the kernel called Linux. Similarly, a system based on the FreeBSD kernel and the GNU utilities could be GNU/kFreeBSD. The Nexenta project is GNU/OpenSolaris.

The request is NOT to call the Linux kernel "GNU/Linux", that was written by Linus Torvalds and hundreds (I think, though I don't know the actual numbers) of other developers since '91.

As to using GPL covered code, you have two PRIMARY obligations. The first is that your application would be licensed under the GNU GPL (the specific version depends on the orginal work's version). The second obligation is to respect the copyright of the original author of the code. It is his or her code, not yours, and you must note that some of the code is copywritten by the original author.

How you do this is specifically spelled out in the version of the GPL you're using, but there's not only ONE way you can meet those criteria.

That forum is the Associate Members forum. You don't have access until you're an Associate Member. The FSF does not, however, require you to actually BE a member before they'll answer question. Their goal is to promote Free Software - if answering your questions helps you choose a Free license, then it's in their interest to do it.

As a side note... If your reasoning was to get access to the forum, you could have made ONE payment of $10 and cancelled after a month. However, since you're a member for a year, your money will go to support FSF campaigns and help spread awareness of Free Software.

If you signed up for access to the forums, I think I'd be upset too. But if you signed up to support Free Software, I find it a bit odd that she'd not let you support something you're passionate about... Perhaps $10 a month could be more easily justified?

Perhaps you should advocate it to her. help her see why Freedom is important to HER. My wife didn't exactly see the oppressive aspects of non-free software, but at the same time she says she'd prefer free software over non-free (she runs Debian) if it were all the same. Being aware that there ARE Free alternatives have brought forth some VERY interesting reactions here and there when she gets frustrated at her work systems and suddenly realizes that it's a restriction of software that makes her job difficult, not actual difficulty.

That sucks. However, you can get almost instant answers from either #gnu or #fsf on the Freenode IRC network. That, like the licensing answer people at the FSF, is open to non-members and is gratis.

As another aside... If you're forming a company that will be writing and distributing Free software, it might be prudent to hire your own legal council, or at least create a client-attorney relationship with someone (Google Software Freedom Law Center) with expertise in this matter.

To quote Wired's How-To Lawyer-Proof your e-mail: "If you think it might need to be run by legal, it almost certainly should."

It just seemed odd, that he was pushing a particular way of naming the OS when, in another essay, he said that you didn't have to mention the original author at all.

The debian-legal mailing list may also be a good place to ask free software licensing questions, although it's not run by the FSF.

As for gnu-misc-discuss mailing list, unfortunately it's currently full of trolls, and the person who is in charge of that mailing list seems to be programmers rather than lawyers.

Interesting how GNU channels and lists tend to attract trolls more than usual.