Re: Re (2): testing before a release

[Fred Gray]

On Wed, Nov 07, 2001 at 05:02:26PM -0800, Per Bothner wrote:
> The opinion of the Gcc steering committee is that it should be
> GPL+exception, but Stallman disagrees. so we have bumped
> the issue up to the FSF board of directors.

If I may put my $0.02 in on this issue, I think that it comes down to what
RMS calls "Freedom 0: the freedom to run the program, for any purpose."

With a Java virtual machine whose core libraries are licensed under the GPL,
(such as Kaffe), I can legally type

kaffe gnu.someprogram.Main

but not

kaffe org.apache.someprogram.Main

since the Apache license is incompatible with the GPL.  (Note that we don't
even have to bring proprietary software or embedded systems into the
discussion.)  With respect to a Java virtual machine, the application of
the GPL without an exception clause seems to violate my "freedom 0."

Thanks,

-- Fred Gray