Why Upgrade to GPL Version 3, Jun 04, 2007

Version 3 of the GNU General Public License will soon be finished, enabling free software packages to upgrade from GPL version 2. This article explains why upgrading the license is important.

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) today launched PlayOGG.org, a campaign to encourage use of the patent- and license-free standard OGG Vorbis as an ethically, legally and technically superior audio alternative to the proprietary MP3 format.

A few months back, the Office of the Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Advanced Systems and Concepts issued a report about potential open source use that generated quite a bit of enthusiasm within defense circles.

At the ceremony for the 2005 Free Software Awards, Richard Stallman presented Andrew Tridgell with the award for the advancement of free software.

The FSF and the GNU project request nominations for the 2002 FSF Award for the Advancement of Free Software. We want to give this award to a person who has made a great contribution to the progress and development of Free Software (free as in freedom as defined in the Free Software Definition), through activities that accord with the spirit of software freedom.

We stand for freedom for programmers as well as for other users. Most of us are programmers, and we want freedom for ourselves as well as for you. But each of us uses software written by others, and we want freedom when using that software, not just when using our own code. We stand for freedom for all users, whether they program often, occasionally, or not at all.

However, one so-called freedom that we do not advocate is the "freedom to choose any license you want for software you write". We reject this because it is really a form of power, not a freedom.

This oft-overlooked distinction is crucial. Freedom is being able to make decisions that affect mainly you. Power is being able to make decisions that affect others more than you. If we confuse power with freedom, we will fail to uphold real freedom.

Richard M. Stallman, president of the Free Software Foundation, and Professor Eben Moglen, general counsel for the Free Software Foundation, today issued statements addressing points raised in yesterday's remarks by Craig Mundie of Microsoft. Stallman and Moglen focused on the importance of freedom for software users and programmers, how the GPL protects those freedoms, and Microsoft's attempt to cast such freedoms in an unfavorable light.

Richard Stallman talks about how he considers the licensing of Plan Nine software "unacceptable" and should not be considered a "free" license.