Re: org.omg link on Classpath homepage

[Stuart Ballard]

Andrew Haley wrote:
> FSF pages don't link to unfree software projects.  It seems that OMG
> is not be an unfree software project, because "Implementations of the
> OMG specifications - such as Object Request Brokers, IDL compilers,
> and UML-based modeling tools - are not produced by OMG. They are,
> instead, produced by software vendors or suppliers..."

But the link is provided specifically to get some software that *is* 
produced by the OMG, and is non-free.

I see three distinct issues here:

1) The link doesn't actually take you to a place where you can get the 
software in question, so it's pretty useless as a link anyway.

2) The link is in a section labelled "providers for free core packages", 
but the software in question is not free. You could argue that "free" in 
this context means zero-cost, but on a GNU project such usage is at best 
VERY ambiguous and at worst outright misleading.

3) GNU projects aren't supposed to link to non-free software, so the 
link shouldn't exist in the first place. A link to OMG *could* be 
legitimate, if it was in the context of "the people who define the CORBA 
specification, including the org.omg packages". But even though the OMG 
is not in itself a non-free software project, I can't see how "go to the 
OMG to get this software", when the software in question is non-free, is 
not a link to non-free software.

To fix 3, the link must be removed entirely. If for some reason 3 
doesn't need to be fixed (eg I'm misinterpreting GNU project policy), at 
least 1 and 2 should be.

Stuart.

--
Stuart Ballard, Senior Web Developer
FASTNET - Web Solutions
(215) 283-2300, ext. 126
www.fast.net