Re: [OSS] Re: Fwd: Second OSS Conference - Follow Up

At 03:24 31.01.2003 +0000, Richard Stallman wrote:
-------------------------
> I was talking about VietKey's keyboard driver, not about their
> [GNU/]Linux distro.
>
>That was clear in the previous message;

This was aimed at Andi.

>If there is no chance of convincing him to make it free, the thing to do
>is write a free replacement for it.

There are. I think UniKey (http://unikey.sourceforge.net) was the first
one. Although WinVNKey (http://winvnkey.sourceforge.net) is hosted on
Sourceforge.net, I did not find a place where to download the sources. It
looks like they are neither Free nor Open.....

>Perhaps this project could be a way of educating Vietnamese computer
>users about the issue of freedom.

Huh, here is what happened with UniKey:
1) Two companies in Vietnam took the sources from the website, changed name
and logo and "sold" the SW for good money to state offices.
OK, something like that should not happen anymore, if we make good PR work....
2) Not long ago, somebody of the VietKey group (i.e. the very group which
tries to get famous now as "Linux Company", accused Long, the author of
UniKey of hurting Vietnamese SW Developers by releasing his Keyboard driver
under the GPL.

> And, to host the sources only on a website is against the GPL.
>
>That is correct; under the GPL, if they provide binaries on CD-ROM,
>they have to provide source code that way too. Since there isn't
>copyright enforcement in Vietnam, we cannot take legal action to
>enforce the GPL. It would have to be done by community pressure.

Yes. This is why I am thinking about establishing a website to make this
all clear. See my "Follow-Up to the Second OSS Conference".

>Please don't call it a "Linux distro"; that's not fair to the system's
>first and principal developers, the GNU Project. See
>http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html.

As far as I understand, the "VietKey Linux" seems to be a minimum distro
(one CD). I am not sure how many of the GNU tools they included. If you
want to be really fair, then they'd probably have to call it "VietKey
GNU/Linux/OpenOffice/Mozilla/..."

Cheers,
Stefan

To facilitate co-ordination regarding the introduction of OSS SW in Vietnam

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