Igelle is a young distribution which first appeared with its 0.6 release about a year ago. In February of this year the Igelle developers announced the availability of version 1.0, calling it "the world's most flexible operating system."
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aboutblank
14 years 29 weeks 4 days 11 hours ago
Igelle is non-free
This Igelle system is something that I could not promote as an example of software that respects the users' freedom. The Igelle system has an obnoxious user licence agreement that makes it non-free. Igelle also contains free software components and it appears that one can get all the freedoms for these free components.
knowing-card
14 years 29 weeks 4 days 1 hour ago
Care to explain for the viewers at home?
Thanks for the comment aboutblank. I imagine that most people who read your comment wouldn't understand how the EULA makes the OS less free. Would you care to explain which freedoms a person would forfeit by agreeing to the EULA?
aboutblank
14 years 28 weeks 4 days 1 hour ago
re: Care to explain
In the free software movement, we stand for freedom for the users of software. We formulated our views by looking at what freedoms are necessary for a good way of life, and permit useful programs to foster a community of goodwill, cooperation, and collaboration. Our criteria for free software specify the freedoms that a program's users need so that they can cooperate in a community.
The first clause of the licence establishes that usage of this software is subject to the licence. This conflicts with freedom 0, the right to run the software for any purpose. One is permitted to use this software only if the one agrees to accept all of the agreement. In order to be free, users shouldn't be subject to the master's goodwill to use the software; users should already have implied (or explicit) freedom to run without restriction.
Also, this clause forbids users from practising freedoms 2 and 3. Imagine a case when a friend asks you to copy one of this proprietary Igelle. This license forbids you to copy it. You now have two possible options:
• Break the license and give the program to your friend.
• Apologise for accepting an agreement that forbids users from sharing.
If you don’t respect freedom 2, you are doing two wrong things, you’ve got a dilemma. If you have to choose, you choose the less harmful option, the first one. But you are breaking a license agreement! It is not ethical to accept a promise only to break it later! So, we should avoid this situation. We can count again our options:
• Don’t have friends. Without friends, you've got nobody to share the software with.
• Don’t use proprietary software such as Igelle.
This licence says nothing about freedom 1, the right to study and tinker with the software. I am not certain of this, but I am guessing that users are not given access to the source code to this software. This means that if a user wants something within this software improved, the user is subject to the goodwill of the master. If the master doesn't care to help, users are helpless to help themselves.
In the end, this software does not permit freedoms are necessary for a good way of life, and permit useful programs to foster a community of goodwill, cooperation, and collaboration.