[Freegis-list] SPRING is non-free!

[Bernhard Reiter]

On Thu, Oct 30, 2003 at 05:46:25PM -0200, Marcio Guerra wrote:
> Bernhard Reiter wrote:
> >On Thu, Oct 30, 2003 at 04:11:14PM -0200, Eduardo Patto Kanegae wrote:
> >
> >
> >>using SPRING ( www.dpi.inpe.br/spring  ) 

> >To my best knowledge SPRING and cad2Shape are non-free.
> >Please do not recommend proprietary software on this list.
> >There are many places where people 
> >can get information about proprietary software.


> SPRING is freeware but not OpenSource :

"Freeware" usually labels non-free software.
It is a confusing word [1]. I recommend to avoid it.

Free Software on this list is defined by the four freedom
put forward by the FSF in the late 1980s.
"Open Source" is a failed marketing term from 1998 
trying to describe the same set of software by definition.

You can read about why we speak about Free Software [2].

The following URL http://www.dpi.inpe.br/spring/english/download.html
clearly shows that SPRING is non-free software:

	What are the Licensing Conditions for SPRING?
	
	[..]
	You are not allowed to modify, to sell or to lend
	the software, and you should redistribute the entire program.

Bernhard


[1] http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Freeware
[2] http://fsfeurope.org/documents/whyfs.en.html


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