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At some point hitherto, Bill Bogstad hath spake thusly:
> I believe Lindows was a case of the vendor distributing binaries under
> a license that disallowed people distributing those binaries to
> others.

I believe you are correct, and that it was someone else.  I believe it
was someone who was doing some work with Lindows, though I can't for
the life of me remember any of the details.

> It's the 'per-seat licensing' that is the problem in this case.  Why
> should RMS care about how much someone can charge for binaries if a
> recipient can turn around and give it to his friends for free?  (Or
> charge just enough to recoup his costs?)

I now need to explicitly point out that the article that discusses the
license of UnitedLinux does not discuss it in any detail whatsoever.
It only says, "Caldera took tremendous heat from the community when it
announced per-seat commercial licensing for its 3.0 release, and at
least some of the others involved in 'UnitedLinux' have been reported
to be considering similar plans."  This is quoted from the only
article I'm aware of that discusses the topic; if there are others, I
haven't seen them (other than the usual (re|mis)interpretation that
appeared on Slashdot).

This does not mean that UnitedLinux will have per-seat licensing, nor
that they will be charging a per-seat license for GPL'd software if it
does.  These people have very expensive legal teams, and I'm
reasonably sure they understand that they can not impose restrictions
on their redistribution of GPL'd software which the GPL does not
provide for, and will in fact not attempt to do so.  As far as I am
aware, the consortium of vendors has not made any of the specific
details available to the public at this time.  So we still don't
really know what they are planning, exactly.  At the very least, rms
has jumped the gun.

Note also that the per-seat licensing of Caldera encompasses only
their add-on software.  They have every right to do this.  You don't
have to like it, but it does not violate the terms of the GPL.
Additionally, Ransome Love explicitly stated (as I commented in the
previous message) that they will provide the source code to all GPL'd
software.  Which anyone can compile and distribute as they like.  Only,
they can not call the result UnitedLinux.  UnitedLinux is a protected
trademark, and the vendors have every right to make this restriction
as well.

Until such time as the details of UnitedLinux's license, and what it
covers, are released, the rest of your argument is irrelevant to my
previous comments...  It was  based on the assumption that the UL
consortium will try to charge per-seat licenses for GPL'd software,
which I believe will turn out to be false, and which is not known at
this time.  (And of course, the usual IANAL disclaimer applies.) :)
rms condemned Caldera's licensing too, but it is neither illegal, nor
(in my opinion) unethical.  Again, the point here is to make money.

FWIW, I agree with most of what you said.  I have also read the GPL,
in its entirety, albeit years ago.

The only other point you made that I'd like to address is this one:

> > While I agree with most of the points of his movement, he does
> > seem to forget that the society we live in is based on commerce
> > and the accumulation   of wealth.  If businesses can not make
> > money selling free software, soon they will cease to exist, and
> > there will be NO choices...
>
> Free Software was around long before any companies hired people to
> write it and the bits will still exist if all those companies go out
> of business.

This was intended to be treated as hyperbole, not literal truth...

Even so...  While there will still be *sources* of free software, many
of the *choices* will evaporate.  In some cases it's very likely that
there will be no choice; only one source.  Choice demands at least
two...

- -- 
Derek Martin               ddm@pizzashack.org    
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