[DotGNU]First draft Philosophy file

[Silvernerd]

Hi people,

I've finished my first draft of the Philosophy file. It's far from
perfect, but it's a starting point. 

I've assigned copyright to both the FSF and FreeDevelopers, is that
copyright assignment correctly written?

PS: I copied the FreeDevelopers paragraph from the FreeDevelopers.net
homepage. Since the copyright is assigned to FreeDevelopers (and the
FSF) I figured I wouldn't need a note saying where I got the text from.


-- 
Silvernerd (Peter Minten)

"Using Linux is like walking over a ray of bricks, not as beautiful, but
a lot more substantial than light."

DotGNU philosophy file

Copyright (C) 2002 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
Copyright (C) 2002 FreeDevelopers.Net.

-- DRAFT VERSION --

Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
of this document, but changing it is not allowed.

--

This software is Free Software, not Open Source software. The Free Software 
movement founded is idealistic and tries to tackle questions related to 
freedom, ethics, principle and improving society. The Open Source movement 
avoids these questions.

Please note that if this document refers to free it refers to freedom to use, 
copy, modify and distribute, not to freedom of price.

This program is part of the DotGNU project. The goal of the DotGNU project is 
to create 'an operating system for the Internet'. DotGNU provides a platform on 
which webbased applications, so called 'webservices', can run. Microsoft is 
also working on such a system called .NET, we believe that the concepts behind 
.NET are bad for the user. To prevent Microsoft to gain an monopoly on the 
webservice platform DotGNU was called into existence.

One of the bad idea's in .NET is the possibility of what we call vendor 
lock-in. Vendor lock-in is the problem that arises when a user has been using a 
webservice, but wants to move to another webservice, the webservice provider 
can make that very difficult by not providing the user access to it's data. 
This is done by using a closed format that can only be read by the webservice 
that the user wants to move from.
DotGNU solves this problem by making it mandatory for webservices providers to 
give their users the executable code (and the source code if the user wants 
this) of their webservice if the user asks for it. The user can then run the 
webservice locally and use it's files. Problem solved.

Another problem we have with .NET is the single-authentication service called 
Microsoft Passport. This system let's a user store it's data on a central 
server controlled by Microsoft. This creates great security threats because a 
cracker can then crack that server and get the personal information of millions 
of people. Also the government of the country in which the server is located 
could pass legislation allowing it access to that data. This would allow that 
country to spy on people. And of course the single-authentication service will 
be a major monopoly, which is bad for the users (anybody who ever looked at a 
blue screen saying that the system has crashed will know the consequence of 
this).

DotGNU provides it's own single-authentication system. Our system can run on 
either a remote server under the same conditions as webservices or it can run 
on the users own computer. This will make it harder for unauthorised 
individuals or groups to get at confidential personal information.

DotGNU was founded by the GNU project and Free Developers. The GNU project is a 
giant Free Software project with the goal to create a free operating system 
with applications. Today the GNU project has accomplished this goal, the 
operating system GNU/Linux is now used by millions of users. Note that we use 
the term GNU/Linux to recognise the tremendous effort that the GNU people have 
put (and are still putting) into the system as well as the superb job the Linux 
folks did and do. The GNU project is highly dedicated to the principle of 
giving users the freedom to use, modify, copy, and distribute programs. Also 
the GNU project has made it a goal to create free documentation.

FreeDevelopers is a democratic entity for the development of free software. The 
free company, probably the first of its kind in the world, will be owned and 
run by developers worldwide on a democratic basis in a sacred trust for the 
benefit and protection of the world's citizens. It will pay all developers to 
work on free software, and all developers will receive company shares and stock 
options, also. All software of the free company will be licensed under the 
General Public License <http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html> (GPL 
<http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html>) and remain free/open forever, because 
all software must be available to all current and future generations of 
developers, so that they can be the first line of defense to protect the world 
from the inevitably tyrannical tendencies of proprietary software. 

Links:
 
 DotGNU homepage:
        www.dotgnu.org

 GNU homepage:
        www.gnu.org

 FreeDevelopers homepage:
        www.freedevelopers.net

 The differences between Free Software and Open Source:
        http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html. 

 Why we use the term GNU/Linux
        http://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html