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Re: OT: America's Army



Ron Johnson <ron.l.johnson@cox.net> writes:

> On Sun, 2003-06-22 at 18:02, Bijan Soleymani wrote:
> > Kevin McKinley <ronin2@bellatlantic.net> writes:
> > 
> > > On Sun, 22 Jun 2003 16:44:34 -0400
> > > Bijan Soleymani <bijan@psq.com> wrote:
> > > 
> > > > When was this? It's pretty much been this way since the late 70s and
> > > > surely since the 80s. Unix was never free at first. Not until Linux
> > > > came around and the BSD's became free.
> > > 
> > > Au contraire!
> > > 
> > > When UNIX was first released it was free as in both freedom and beer.
> > >
> > > Then the lawyers got involved. :(
> > 
> > It was developped by AT&T. Did they release it as free software, but
> > then revoke their free license. If so how did they take it back
> > later. Is it possible to retract a license like that? If they didn't
> > why did the BSD's have to get rid of all AT&T code.
> 
> Well, if the "free license" was written to be revokable, then they
> could revoke it.  Remember, as much as some people would like to
> think it, RMS didn't carve the GPL in stone with his finger, so
> that Moses could carry it down the Mountain...

"You're free to use this software as long as we feel like it", doesn't
sound like a Free Software license to me.

Bijan




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