*BSD News Article 14998


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From: bas@phys.uva.nl (Bas de Bakker)
Subject: Re: Summary of Linux vs. 386BSD vs. Commercial Unixes
In-Reply-To: bm@shadow.columbia.edu's message of Thu, 22 Apr 1993 19: 04:30 GMT
Message-ID: <BAS.93Apr23093849@carlo.phys.uva.nl>
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Organization: Institute for Theoretical Physics, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
References: <C5poEp.8Jw@kithrup.com> <C5qCnn.5Kw@sugar.neosoft.com>
	<D87-MAL.93Apr19230114@byse.nada.kth.se>
	<1993Apr20.135723.752@rcvie.co.at> <C5wFnJ.KMt@cs.columbia.edu>
Date: Fri, 23 Apr 1993 14:38:49 GMT
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>>>>> On Thu, 22 Apr 1993 19:04:30 GMT, bm@shadow.columbia.edu (Blair
>>>>> MacIntyre) said:

bm> I don't know how you define free, but I haven't paid money for any GNU
bm> software recently.

bm> They never said it was public-domain, they said it was free.  As in, no
bm> money.  As in, no money for the source.  All you have to do is not
bm> charge people for any modifications you make and let them have the
bm> original source.  

Sorry, but you've got it all wrong. Free (as in FSF or free software)
refers to freedom, not price. I can charge you $10,000 for modifying
one line of code in GNU emacs. In fact, I can sell you a tape with GNU
emacs and no modifications for $10,000. What I cannot do is impose
certain restrictions on what you do with the modified code.

The point is that you have to freedom to do the modification yourself
or hire someone else than me to do it for less. Also, you have the
freedom to look at what was modified, improve on it and redistribute
it yourself.

Go read the GPL, please!

Bas.