Wednesday, September 15, 2004

Software foundations

In the begining was the FSF and it was good. But being good was not an
excuse for being holier-than-thou.

Now we see an ascending star in the server software arena, the ASF. With
SpamAssassin joining the ASF, they more from just being that "Web and Java
stuff" outfit to a wider remit. What if any other prominent free software
changed licences and moved to the ASF?

Then there's the Mozilla foundation - top quality products for the desktop.
If you aren't using FireFox then what's wrong with you? ;-) (Of course, Camino,
Epiphany and the Mozilla suite might float your boat more, as might Safari and
Konqueror). Thunderbird is pretty good too (although Epiphany is my mailer
of choice). I can't wait to see Sunbird come on in leaps and bounds.

There are more foundations (GNOME foundation, KDE e.V., etc.) and they are important (to
us Unix-heads, at least) but I'd argue, not as important as the ASF and Mozilla foundation.

The GPL is the FSF's coup de gras.The FSF in and of itself is important. But the GPL is more important
than the FSF. The FSF's power is waning.

(Associate FSF member #1154)

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