Mahesh T. Pai wrote:
- You can verify by compiling the sources yourselves, which you cannot with non-free software. Not even if it is opensource, like the way M$ has offerred the UK government the other day.
By clubbing M$'s "shared source" program with Opensource, you exhibit the same ignorance of Opensource as others have of GPL. Just as others take the word "free" in free software literally, you are taking "open source" literally.
Do read the Opensource definition at least once - http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php
I quote: ============================ Open source doesn't just mean access to the source code.
1. Free Redistribution: The license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources. [...]
2. Source Code: The program must include source code, and must allow distribution in source code as well as compiled form. [...]
3. Derived Works: The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software. [...]
4. Integrity of The Author's Source Code: The license may restrict source-code from being distributed in modified form only if the license allows the distribution of "patch files" with the source code for the purpose of modifying the program at build time. [...]
[...] =============================