[LAU] licensing fun, was Re: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano

[Dave Phillips]

Greetings,

Since the discussion re: GIG vs. SF2 has veered into the political 
nether realms I add this little tinder for the fire.

The licenses for Eisenkraut and FScape (both under the GPL) are 
restricted in similar fashion to LinuxSampler :

"please note that you are /not allowed/ to use this software if you are 
a member of a military or pharmaceutical or governmental institution 
(excluding public service in general and civil science/education). if 
you have sympathies for bad governments (applies to most countries), you 
should also opt to /not use/ this software. thank you."

Perhaps this statement is tongue-in-cheek, but it isn't presented as a 
joke. While such restrictions may or not be contrary to the spirit of 
the GPL they are certainly contrary to the letter of the first of the 
FSF's Four Freedoms :

"The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0)."

There are no exceptions to that statement. Richard Stallman has been 
very clear on that particular point. To make any exception is to broach 
that freedom, and at that point the software cannot be called completely 
free. So now we can add those apps to the flame pile when the LS 
licensing issue arises. As it inevitably does...

I never received an answer from the FSF re: the LS license exception. I 
didn't write to RMS. The FSF is supposed to respond to such enquiries, 
but I never got so much as an automated reply.

For the record: I like and use all those programs, and my conscience is 
relatively untroubled. I do wish they would remove the exceptions, but 
so far they haven't interfered with the program functions.

Best,

dp