The Affero bit
I said earlier:
The reason I dislike the "Affero bit" is that it is a further
restriction on freedom. I stand for freedom. I like freedom. I
learned about freedom from RMS, but he has apparently decided that
freedom is no longer all it's cracked up to be. Is there any value in
complaining about the "Affero bit", or is the FSF just going to insist
on this?
In a less vituperative tone:
I think that the Affero bit amounts to forced advertising for someone
who is *not* the user of the software. The natural extension is for
books to be required to contain notices "this was typeset with TeX"
and phone answering messages to contain notices "this voice mail box
is implemented with free software; you can get a copy at XXX".
It really is very like the BSD clause: if we have to satisfy a
bazillion Affero-like required ads, then the result is horrible.
David Turner, any comments?
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