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 10:08:41AM +0800, Hilaire Fernandes wrote:
 > > Seul has already a manifesto:
 > > http://www.seul.org/what/manifesto.html
 > > 
 > > I disagree with some part of it, especially the licensing part.
 > > 
 > > 
 > > Hilaire
 > 
 > (I changed the subject so people who don't care about license discussions
 > can ignore the thread.)
 > 
 > I've been wondering for a while about the fork that created ofset. I've
 > been figuring it's something akin to the 'free software' vs 'open source'
 > issue, where we're not pure enough because we tolerate non-free licenses
 > for useful software. Which is a shame, because many of us are deep in
 > the RMS camp when it comes to how we deal with software. It would be
 > nice to work more closely on some projects.
 > 
 > Is another reason for ofset the ability to deal with money? (seul is
 > completely apart from money, so we wouldnt be useful for channeling
 > funding to the right projects.)
 > 
 > What other parts of the manifesto do you disagree with?
 > 
 > Hoping to get some communication going,
 > --Roger


About the motivation for OFSET you are partially right.

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. This are points that the Seul manifesto
didn't get and passed over.

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
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.

I'm ok with Seul/Edu, after all Dr. Geo and Dr. Genius are still hosted
by Seul/Edu. I'm not that a bigot after all ;-)

Hilaire