Re: [NYT] Microsoft Is Set to Be Top Foe of Free Code

From: Stephen D. Williams (sdw@lig.net)
Date: Thu May 03 2001 - 17:08:49 PDT


Luckily, I only cc'd my friend at WSJ, not NY Times...

Please refer to my previous retraction...

;-)

sdw

Kragen Sitaker wrote:
>
> Stephen D. Williams writes:
> > The NY Times can't even get "GNU Public License" correct? Or is it MS
> > that can't or won't?
> >
> > (They say 'General Public License' for 'G.P.L.'. How sloppy. There's
> > only about 50 million copies of the actual license out there. I count
> > at least 942 copies on my main Linux server.)
> >
> > This should get interesting and will likely, eventually, backfire on MS.
>
> The copy of the 2.0 GNU GPL in /usr/doc/copyright/GPL on my Debian
> machine is headed:
> GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
> and continues
> ... the GNU General Public License is... This General Public License ...
> Our General Public Licenses are ...
> GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
> TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
> The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions of
> the General Public License from time to time... the GNU General Public
> License... the GNU General Public License... the GNU General Public
> License... the General Public License... This General Public
> License...
>
> In the text of the GPL itself, it refers to itself as "the GNU General
> Public License" six times, as (the or this) "General Public License"
> without the GNU five times, and
>
> REFERS TO ITSELF AS "THE GNU PUBLIC LICENSE" EXACTLY ZERO TIMES.
>
> It would seem you haven't READ any of those 942 copies of the license
> you are flaming the NYT for not having read, and you seem to have
> missed ALL of the 942 * 5 = 4710 places where IT REFERS TO ITSELF AS
> THE GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE on your disk.
>
> Furthermore, the FSF refers to the GPL on its web site as "the GNU GPL"
> in many places. This would be redundant if the "G" in "GPL" stood for
> "GNU".
>
> Now apologize to the nice newspaper, sonny, and go to your room for the
> night.
>
> --
> <kragen@pobox.com> Kragen Sitaker <http://www.pobox.com/~kragen/>
> Perilous to all of us are the devices of an art deeper than we possess
> ourselves.
> -- Gandalf the White [J.R.R. Tolkien, "The Two Towers", Bk 3, Ch. XI]

-- 
sdw@lig.net  http://sdw.st
Stephen D. Williams
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Dec2000



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