Re: [OT] [translate-pootle] translating via an intermediate language

[Yavor Doganov <yavor@doganov.org>]

Mike Butler wrote:
> 
> On 09/11/06, Yavor Doganov <yavor@doganov.org> wrote:
> > Are LocFactory Editor or Mac PO Editor free software?  We could
> > port them to GNUstep and they could be available in Debian if
> > that's the case.
> 
> Both Mac PO Editor and LocFactory Editor Lite are free.

By "free software" I always mean free-as-in-freedom, as described in
http://gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html.

> However neither is Open Source.  

"Open Source" is a vague term invented by some to "help" us forget the
goals of freedom and community.  Using it causes only confusion and
works against the main purpose of the Free Software Movement, see
http://gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html for a brief
explanation. 

> I've never thought about porting to GNUstep - would there be much
> work involved?

In most cases this is trivial, if you don't use Core*, Carbon, Quartz
or some fancy classes that are not yet implemented.  The latest
versions of Gorm (the free replacement of Interface Builder) have
native nib support (again, if all the classes are available).

But porting a proprietary program to GNUstep is not only useless, but
bad for the community (like developing a non-free program for
GNU/Linux), because the whole point of the project is to provide a
free implementation of the OpenStep specification (unlike Cocoa, which
is a non-free one).  Making such program work under GNUstep (and hence
under GNU/{Linux,Hurd,kFreeBSD} and *BSD) is an extremely bad thing.
Our goal is to replace every piece of proprieatary software, not to
spoil our free systems with it.

There are some free apps for MuckOS X which have been ported and are
being ported to GNUstep (most of them available in Debian).

Please consider releasing your programs as free software -- they would
become ethical and could be used by those of us who have decided to
live in freedom.  You don't even have to do the GNUstep-related work;
this can be done by the GNUstep community (with pleasure, I'd say).