Re: [seul-edu] SEUL Licensing (was: Our presence at trade shows)

[Hilaire Fernandes <hilaire@ofset.org>]

Roger Dingledine writes:
 > On Wed, Aug 30, 2000 at 05:10:42PM +0800, Hilaire Fernandes wrote:
 > > In education, end user free software are as much important as the
 > > kernel or any server related software. After all, the kids get some
 > > learning from these end user application. Getting the end user
 > > software free allows an equitable sharing of these tools of
 > > knowledge. Next using free software in school has some side effect as
 > > the source code is there and this allows talented student to go
 > > further with the software.
 > 
 > I'm a bit confused here. I agree very strongly that having free software
 > available in education is extremely important, for the reasons you cite
 > above. In addition, providing free software encourages an atmosphere of
 > sharing -- allowing students to focus on understanding, innovation, and
 > teamwork rather than who 'owns' the information. I think teaching this to
 > people early is particularly important as the world (or at least the US,
 > my perspective is limited) keeps moving away from community emphasis.
 > 
 > But you haven't explained why free educational software is "as important
 > as" free OS-level software. I would think that from a purely practical
 > standpoint, it allows more flexibility to have the core software free
 > than one particular category of end-user software. If I had to pick,
 > I would much rather have a free Linux (kernel, libs, etc) than a free
 > suite of educational programs. This is precisely because the core can
 > be (re)used to support a wide variety of other endeavors, whereas the
 > educational software suite is relatively limited in scope.
 
Because in a schools if you have a workstation with a free kernel but
no free user application on top of it, your system is not free and you
can't share it.

Roger, you are right if we have to pick, I would also much rather have
a free kernel and tools than a free suite of education programms, but
well you don't have to make this decision as the first one are already
free, so this free us to make true the second one.




> 
 > > Instead, it eventually asks for nice closed software to be
 > > ported. That is only a fraction of people/institution will be able to
 > > offer that ones. Is it really the spirit Seul wants to have? This is
 > 
 > The motivation for trying to get any high-quality software available is
 > a short-term solution. The overall thinking is that if we demonstrate
 > that it's useful, then truly free software will spring up to replace it
 > (particularly if we maintain an environment that encourages that). For

Do you really think that works that way? What will be the benefice for
the user that can't afford proprietary software? Eventually this will
prevent developper to develop a similar application.


 > instance, geda.seul.org is coming along very nicely to fill in the gaps
 > of electronic design automation software. As another example, the license
 > for wxFTP was non-free when we first adopted the project, and by showing
 > Alexy that more people would use his software if he made it really free,
 > I eventually convinced him to change the license.

Does this project start on Seul 

 > 
 > Of course, it does have the drawback that it compromises some of our
 > principles -- it doesn't push licensing arguments onto people, and it
 > doesn't make clear enough to people the importance of having all of their
 > software free. In short, it doesn't educate users as directly about some
 > of the most basic aspects of the free software community. I agree, this
 > is poor. (This is the fundamental difference between the free software
 > and opensource movements.)

Worst, this doesn't encourage people to release their code under free
licence for this reason Seul should stop promoting commercial port but
instead promoting free port. Besides companies, under Windows,
teachers tend to develop good software very often licensed as
shareware, I am sure the SEUL double language (Free soft and
commercial port) will not encourage them to porting under free term.

 > 
 > > some reasons that leads to build up OFSET, the other ones is to get a
 > > legal organization in Europe so we can more easily ask for grant, also
 > > development done by individual and organization are not perceived the
 > > same, especially by ones not aware of the free software nature.
 >  
 > That makes sense, but is ofset the organization and seul/edu is the
 > individual, or what? :)
 
No. Seul/Edu is also an organization but without legal ground.