In general you used to have the following freedoms with software:
0) run the program for any purpose 1) study the program and adapt it as needed 2) distribute copies 3) publish modified versions
However, more and more software was limiting these freedoms with copyright licenses containing outrageous statements, like assuming you're a potential criminal and that copying is wrong.
So in 1984 Richard Stallman starts what in a few months became the Free Software Foundation, promoting the creation of software where those 4 freedoms are upheld.
Rui,
While your explanation of the birth of GNU/Linux is excellent, the above paragraphs are a crock. As far as I know and recall, only a very small part of the software market "used to have" those four freedoms. None of the early Unix variants that I recall were either Free (capitalized to mean open-source and with those freedoms) or free (with a price of zero). No Apple or IBM software that I recall in the late 1970's and early 1980's was Free or free. As a matter of fact, I cannot think of a single major operating system or application at that time which was Free or free. Lots of wonderful little shareware programs, but nothing major.
So unless I am mistaken, the Four Freedoms of the GNU Project were not a return to an earlier status quo, but rather a new and innovative way to look at the software industry. Nothing wrong with that, of course... it's just not the same story.
> 5. Does Redhat use the > same processes in "controlling" fedora quality and releases as it did > the free versions of Redhat?
I think not, since they are interested in touting the advantages of their Enterprise line.
Incorrect. Red Hat has more people working on Fedora now than they had working on Red Hat Linux then. Plus, it would make no sense to have two separate Quality Assurance processes. Hence, the answer is that yes, Red Hat *does* use the same processes in search of quality assurance for Fedora as they did for RHL.
Cheers,
-- Rodolfo J. Paiz rpaiz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://www.simpaticus.com
