Slashdot Mirror

How about this one, for example? : http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/index_html#ms-rl

Yes Creative is acting adversarial, but what you must understand is that

Daniel_k had no right to modify Creative's software. They did not grant

him the right and he was not using an OS that granted him any rights.

People need to start purchasing products which give them the freedom to

use the product. What I'm saying is that when you buy a product you

should especially look for one feature: freedom.

http://fsf.org/ For more information about software freedoms please see

the Free Software Foundation's homepage.

Nor does putting OO under LGPLv3 protect those downstream, since Sun cannot give away any patent rights that MSFT has.

So a significant effect of adopting the LGPLv3 seems to be that downstream users will now find it impossible to protect themselves by entering into NOVL-style deals with MSFT, because a major purpose of the patent provisions of GPLv3/LGPLv3 was to outlaw such arrangements, even though MSFT-NOVL itself was grandfathered in.

Extending this line of thought -- how does using v3 for OO affect its interaction with Linux? Torvalds does not intend to move to v3, so now there is the possiblity of an OO under v3 operating with Linux on v2. This raises all the problems of coupling incompatible licenses (FSF: "When we say that GPLv2 and GPLv3 are incompatible, it means there is no legal way to combine code under GPLv2 with code under GPLv3 in a single program"). Not impossible, but perhaps troublesome.

A cynic might think that Sun wants the downstream users to be precluded from working with either MSFT or Linux -- perhaps forced to move to Solaris.

Different licences for different purposes. Sure, but sometimes those purposes are compatible while the licenses are not. That is the problematic fragmentation. Take for example a look at Apache 2.0 vs GPL 2. GPLv3 fixes this, so now it is possible to use Apache 2.0 code in GPLv3 projects.

People who know the truth and are sure of themselves don't have to use insults like you do. Blame shifting and malice are for the desperate:

There is no "Microsoft bugs and malice" involved in an interface specification and any bugs occuring [sic] would be solely the domain of either poor implementation of NDIS or by bugs explicitely [sic] in the vendor-provided network driver. You're a complete tool to suggest otherwise. There is no "firmware game", and these network cards aren't braindead - you are.

If I'm a braindead tool, Microsoft is in big trouble because anyone can verify what I did. Firmware, like this, is loaded in Windows with software that's nothing more than SDK parts provided by MickeySoft. Bugs come from the clowns who play, the malice is all from Redmond. The game is painfully obvious.

Almost all current wireless cards and USB devices either require binary firmware loaded by a free software driver, or require the use of Windows drivers via a free software emulation layer (Ndiswrapper). Ndiswrapper is an inefficient use of processor cycles. The binary drivers it requires are often of poor quality, which can lead to stability problems and support headaches.

The usual problems with proprietary software apply. Bugs in the proprietary drivers can result in a security vulnerability in the system itself that cannot be corrected without vendor intervention. Bugs noticed by the community can take months to be fixedif they are fixed at all. Vendors regularly ignore the concerns of users who have already purchased their product. For instance, in the specific case of the binary NVidia drivers, there have been several high-profile security vulnerabilities that remained unpatched for far too long.

Hardware that requires binary firmware with a free software wrapper simply circumvents the issue by moving all intelligence into a black box that the user cannot open. This is merely smoke and mirrorsit creates the illusion that the hardware vendor respects freedom while the concerns of the community remain marginalized.

But the dam has given way. Hardware that sucks does not sell, regardless of who's really at fault. Companies playing the Microsoft game are having trouble but people selling software that works with free software are doing well. Things are not perfect by a long shot but Vista's failure to generate substantial income for Microsoft's partners has changed the game forever. Here's the winner:

By making the recommended changes in any or all of these five areas (free software drivers, proprietary BIOS locks, free BIOS support, the Microsoft Tax, Digital Restrictions Management) hardware vendors will help establish a mutually beneficial relationship with the free software community. Vendors will realize increased sales, and the free software community will have hardware that meets its ethical requirements.

The Free Software Foundation is eager to assist hardware vendors interested in making the changes recommended in this paper. Vendors should not hesitate to take advantage of this largely unexplored opportunity.

First, what is the public URL of a reliable list of hardware manufacturers that fully cooperate with the developers of Linux?

Second, beggars can't be choosers. A lot of people rely on in-kind donations of computer hardware

I was looking in to this recently and found lots of info at:

http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/net/wireless/cards.html

From the first link:

"While free software by any other name would give you the same freedom, it makes a big difference which name we use: different words convey different ideas."

And from the second:

"While free software by any other name would give you the same freedom, it makes a big difference which name we use: different words convey different ideas."

That is about calling "Free Software" "Open Source Software" and why they think that is not the right thing to do. It is not about them being different things license wise.

"The Free Software movement and the Open Source movement are like two political camps within the free software community."

"The relationship between the Free Software movement and the Open Source movement is just the opposite of that picture. We disagree on the basic principles, but agree more or less on the practical recommendations."

The FSF will not likely be recommending any software with a license that fits the definition of open source that you gave without fitting the definition of the OSI definition any time soon.

This is the OSI definition of Open Source:

http://www.opensource.org/docs/osd

The is the FSF's definition of Free Software;

http://www.fsf.org/licensing/essays/free-sw.html

Compare if you will. You will see why the FSF can work with the OSI camps in practical ways.

all the best,

drew

Wow.. What FSF are you thinking of?

I found this on their site in the faqs about licensing page you can go look too.

What does "written offer valid for any third party" mean in GPLv2? Does that mean everyone in the world can get the source to any GPL'ed program no matter what?

        If you choose to provide source through a written offer, then anybody who requests the source from you is entitled to receive it.

        If you commercially distribute binaries not accompanied with source code, the GPL says you must provide a written offer to distribute the source code later. When users non-commercially redistribute the binaries they received from you, they must pass along a copy of this written offer. This means that people who did not get the binaries directly from you can still receive copies of the source code, along with the written offer.

        The reason we require the offer to be valid for any third party is so that people who receive the binaries indirectly in that way can order the source code from you.


They have attempted to narrow it down a bit, but it still says the same sentiment. Any third party means just that.

The instructions for what to do if you think you have found a gpl violation are here. There is no mention of posting to slashdot on that page. There is a mention of checking your facts first... some companies get a bit cross (eg they'll take you to court) if you write anything bad about their product which isn't completely true. (i'm not saying it isn't, i'm just saying you don't appear to have done your homework yet).

Trend Micro works but Novell does not. Let that be a lesson to those who would cooperate with Microsoft, it never lasts. They may reward you today but they will punish you tomorrow.

Trend Micro works but Novell does not. Let that be a lesson to those who would cooperate with Microsoft, it never lasts. They may reward you today but they will punish you tomorrow.

Sounds good to me. Where do I sign up?

Right here

You're welcome

If you want to show someone the real value of GNU/Linux, show him, what the FSF is asking for their Deluxe Distributions: https://agia.fsf.org/order/
(reminder: free as in freedom, not as in free beer)

http://slashdot.org/ This page is not Valid HTML 4.01 Transitional! Result: Failed validation, 7 Errors http://kernel.org/ This page is not Valid HTML 4.01 Transitional! Result: Failed validation, 6 Errors http://wikipedia.org/ This page is not Valid HTML 4.01 Transitional! Result: Failed validation, 15 Errors http://www.fsf.org/ This page is not Valid HTML 4.01 Transitional! Result: Failed validation, 27 Errors Lets not forget, though... http://www.microsoft.com/en/us/default.aspx This page is not Valid HTML 4.01 Transitional! Result: Failed validation, 29 Errors

The current version of the Xiph.Org Foundation's reference implementation, released on 27 November 2005, is libogg 1.1.3. Another version, libogg2, is also available from the Xiph.Org Foundation's SVN repositories. Both software libraries are free software, released under the new BSD license. (From Wikipedia.)

Oh, and look: http://www.fsf.org/news/playogg.html

GPL at all cost, indeed.

You are right - you can not copyright schematics - redraw it preserving the netlist and it will not be covered by the original copyright.

But we are comfortable with the GPL for our products (http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/cameras) - hardware board is more dead than alive if you take away the FPGA code (GPL-ed) and the software (GPL-ed, based on GNU/Linux). Our hardware evolved in parallel with the code that was ported/modified to run on the newer boards.

So theoretically - yes, it is possible to make a copy of the hardware itself not being bound by the GPL terms, but the result will not be really useful. Building a non-free derivative you will not be able to use our FPGA (http://wiki.elphel.com/index.php?title=FAQ) code - it is all compiled at once (you may say "statically linked") so it is not possible to add proprietary module to the existent code.

And working with the free hardware for more than 6 years I can confirm that in this area demand is much higher than the offer, that keeps us in business.

Yeah, that's true, though the FSF does provide another license to handle web services that authors can use instead.

I'd like to believe that the "Opera is not free" remark was supposed to mean "Opera is not Free (as in speech) Software."

But then there are so many people out there still living in 2005 who don't know that Opera has been free (as in beer) since then.

Personally, I blame the decision to use the term "free software" even though the word "free" has two entirely different meanings that could apply in this context. So much for avoiding words that could cause confusion. (It's so much easier in other languages, like, say, Spanish, where libre and gratis are impossible to mix up.)

He wants them to prove him wrong. Can you imagine the scenario where Microsoft has filed suit against Linus Torvalds for his work on the kernel? There's a lot of big companies (IBM, Sun, Nokia, Google, Red Hat, Oracle) that have a lot of money invested in this kernel. There's a couple of organisations (SFLC, OIN) that have been founded to pretty much retaliate against any such situation. Then there's the legal ambiguity about whether Microsoft can even use their patents to attack Free Software now, since they may be party to GPLv3.

Pretty much every big company probably has some servers running Linux. Big financial companies together probably have hundreds/thousands of Linux servers. Those companies are Microsoft customers, and will not be happy if Microsoft starts taking legal action. Microsoft's threats are just part of their annual "be very afraid" tour.

In the comments for this article, a lot of people seem to keep missing this part of the the GPLv2. The GPLv2 is explicit about the license being irrevocable, right here in section 4:

By legally distributing the source code under GPLv2, he has already said to everyone that he cannot revoke the license. It is right there in plain wording.

There is also the issue that you don't even need to accept the GPL to use or have a copy of the software. Only those modifying and distributing the software need to accept the license. If you don't modify or distribute, there is no license to revoke. So, if there is some crazy call in the courts that ends up incorrectly allowing him to revoke the GPL, there are still all these people that may be using the software that are still unaffected, as they never needed the license in the first place.

Apparently whilst right in theory, you are wrong in practice; Something which a little bit surprises me for software which is on sourceforge.

There is nothing to stop him revoking the GPL; provided that nobody has a copy of the source code. As long as he has not used anyone else's source code in his software he just stops distribution and the license is automatically revoked. He has no obligation to distribute (since he's not bound by a license to himself) and you have no possibility to distribute since you can't follow the rules of the GPL without having a copy of the source. Now; this doesn't completely revoke the GPL. You still have the software and can still use it; however, of your four freedoms only the zeroth kind of freedom remains.

Now; if sourceforge stood up for us or there was someone independent mirroring the whole of sourceforge this would mean that we would have a copy of the source and it would be impossible to withdraw the license. However, right now it seems that nobody has a copy of the source and sourceforge are just rolling over and allowing the project deletion. There are no independent mirrors of sourceforge. I think that we have to find a way to fix this so that this never happens again. Probably source forge isn't permitting direct mirrors which means that we need volunteers to mirror each project.

My proposal would be to do it through some kind of usenet alt group. Something like alt.source.sourceforge-all which would allow wide scale distribution. Any alternatives? Peer to peer network?

(CAPTCHA: terror - kind of appropriate for our atscap author :-)

*ahem*

(from GPLv2)

For the future, yes, they can. Retroactively, not so much. The copyright holder(s) can change the license should they want to, to any other license. This includes closing the source. Of course, this cannot be done retroactively, but they could take down CVS/tar balls/etc under there control and continue with the different license. This, of course, is played down by RMS and the GPL zealots because it isn't there agenda.

http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html#DeveloperViolate

But, I think that this highlights the need to choose your license(s) carefully. I'll also note that a gigantic warning appears when one chooses a license when registering a project at sf.net... which is where this was posted... god this guys a dumbass.

"""
And the more pressing question, why?
"""

Because, most people's agenda doesn't coincide with RMS' and situations can and do change.

You cannot revoke the license. IANAL, but the FSF makes this fairly explicit:
http://gplv3.fsf.org/comments/rt/summarydecision.html?filename=3D%3C%25%25%20gplv3-draft-1%20%25%3E&id=917

--Sam
P.S Click the link; it's more complicated than I've laid out here.

Any "Church" that charges for its teachings and also has them copyrighted to prevent free distribution is not a church it's a scam at best and a dangerous cult at worst.

Germany has stated that "...the chief purpose of Scientology is not religious, but economical in nature...", which is probably the closest thing to consider. And don't forget that both Tom Cruise and John Travolta are members of that outfit. (I wouldn't even call it Cult...)

And the myth as it seems that there was a wager between Heinlein and Hubbard about starting a religion, it seems to be half-true. But I don't think that Heinlein ever planned on catching up on starting a religion... He would probably gotten himself into FSF or some other outfit instead with his statement of "Pay it forward" if he had been born at a later date. (Today it's more than 100 years since Heinlein was born, he was born 7 July 1907!)

Especially the "Pay it forward" approach is important. Even if you do someone a service and that person isn't able to return the favor you can always set the "pay it forward" approach to the problem.

Link from tfa???: https://www.fsf.org/associate/riaa

I disagree.

You can disagree all you want. It doen't make that disagreement sound or valid.

Yes, of course. Unfortunately for you, that goes both ways.

Seems that everybody forgets that months ago Microsoft latest strategy against OSS was to cut "interoperability" and "patent protection" deals with every Linux distribution it could (a move that allowed them both to throw FUD and -potentially- profit on OSS at the same time).

Well, it isn't that everyone forgets, the fanaticism died down and they were able to look at the details of the deals to find that what was being said about them wasn't true. Only the truely foolish and the fanatics continue to spout ideas like you are.

Sorry, but bashing and name calling won't get you nowhere, and judging by the level of your "argumentation" I'm pretty sure you're the one acting as a fanatic. Perhaps it would be best if you just shed some light on the details you're talking about which supposedly disprove my view.

It was the release of the GPLv3 (which among other things, closed that possibility) what made them back out; something which was accomplished without needing any actual project to change their license (the mere threat that it could happen was enough).

Well, it was more or less Novell that backed them out. But something more interesting is that Linspire, xandros or whatever it is called now and a few other companies made a deal with Microsoft knowing full well about the GPLv3 and what it said. Or are your forgeting about those?

No, Microsoft was actually the only one to back out from the deal: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/misc/07-05statement.mspx (Novell response: http://www.novell.com/prblogs/?p=365)
Microsoft-Xandros: june 4, 2007 http://www.xandros.com/news/press_releases/xandros_microsoft_collaborate.html
Microsoft-LGE: june 6, 2007 http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2007/jun07/06-06MSLGEPR.mspx
Microsoft-Linspire: june 13, 2007 http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS9642338710.html
GPLv3 release: june 29, 2007 http://www.fsf.org/news/gplv3_launched
But I'm sure they had studied the license extensively (even though the GPLv3 was released weeks after the last deal...)

I'd say that alone justify it's existence and is prove enough that there is a point to GPLv3.

I would say your either ignorant of how it didn't accomplish that or you are attempting to pump up the GPLv3 hoping that people are dumb enough to believe you. Either way, what I wouldn't say is that you are correct in your interpretation.

Ooops, you caught me there. I guess there's no point in keeping it secret any longer: I'm a GPLv3 zealot payed by RMS himself to post on Slashdot as part of the worldwide FSF conspiracy to take over the world.... (you know, your username almost honours you...)
Back to reality, I stand by my original point: even is the GPLv3 were impractical in most cases, it has already had a significant positive impact on OSS by putting an end to that. I'm afraid that to prove your point you'll have to do a bit more than posing a false dichotomy where I must either be completely ignorant or have some obscure agenda.

Just because it's not perfect it doesn't mean that it's not better than it's predecessor (and it certainly doesn't mean it's worst). That

Suppose I ship a device containing software in ROM. You can't run modified software on that device, so what happens if that software is GPLed (2 or 3) ?

The BIOS was impossible to replace because it was stored in ROM: the only way to to put in a different BIOS was by replacing part of the hardware. In effect, the BIOS was itself hardware--and therefore didn't really count as software. It was like the program that (we can suppose) exists in the computer that (we can suppose) runs your watch or your microwave oven: since you can't install software on it, it may as well be circuits, not a computer at all.

b) I don't have to ship you the source, because after all there would be "no point" in you having it or c) I still have to ship the source

Okay, this is way outside my area of expertise, but the wording of section 14 of the GPL (http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl.html) makes releasing software under the "or any later version" clause appear to be an option, not a requirement.

In any case, that would be irrelevant. If somebody released his or her code under GPL v2 *only* (which appear to be the terms of copyright release that Linus asked for), then he cannot switch the copyright license of existing kernel code, because it is not his property. The original authors would need to be the ones to release it under the less-restrictive "or later". He *can* change the terms of acceptance for future code by including the "or any later version" clause, but that cannot apply retroactively to code that did not include that more-inclusive permission.

If I were RMS, I would forbid the packaging of any GNU code with a GPLv2 GNU/Linux.

More to the point, this is much ado about nothing. Even if Mr. Torvalds "saw the light" and decided he wanted to move to GPL v3, this would be impossible in practical terms since Linux has no copyright escrow agent similar to the FSF for GNU. In other words, to move code licensed to Linux under GPL v2 (only) to GPL v3 requires re-licensing by the original author -- which you may never be able to find. So, you may safely assume that Linux will be GPL v2 until it is re-written from scratch.

In Germany: http://www.linux.com/articles/57353
In the US: http://www.fsf.org/news/wallace-vs-fsf
And probably in other countries as well...

Then how did they get into the FSF's hall of shame ?

The Free Software Foundation system administrators are members of an auto union (maybe UAW? I couldn't find it quickly.)

When I see Earth with Google Earth (by the way, FSF, where I am a member, has called the creation of a free compatible client a high-priority project, and if you have free time please try to help, and if you need hosting for your project I can give you), I hardly can detect life, let alone humans, on Earth. Visually it's very difficult to detect it (and nothing suggests that an alien would expect a green planet to be filled up with plants, in fact a scientist would expect plant life to be red-coloured and in fact that's how it was in the past as red-colour has greater absorption efficiency... Earth plants became green only after changes in the atmosphere). I can see, of course, that the planetary atmosphere is a very dynamic system (clouds go and come every day), but all the rest is nothing but white places over the poles (ice), vast blueness (oceans), a few greenie plains (jungles, where remained by the human effects), and some light brownish-yellowish regions (deserts). That's all. I would need to analyse the Earth's spectrum or possibly other means to find out what chemistry this funnily coloured vastness has.

But wait, there's more: I can zoom in a little and see mountains etc. And if I zoom more I see that some oceans have little green islands in them, so perhaps I could start to understand that this bluish abyss could be some kind of liquid and the greenish spots could be areas of higher elevation. But still, it could very well be a dead planet with no life, let alone humans. So I have to zoom more. Oh, now I can see that there are some grayish spots near the greenery, as if someone had vomited on the Earth's plains. Yea, it certainly looks like vomit, but what is it? Zooming more... oh, it looks different from anything else, it has some kind of structure, lines etc. Still looking like vomit, though... structured vomit. Who the hell vomited on the planet we, the alien scientists, discovered? How can we write a paper on a vomited planet? Everyone will laugh, our academic reputation is at risk because of this vomit on this extra-Gliese planet.

But let's move away from this freaking vomit and look closer at the green plains and the brownish-yellow regions to see what there is there to be seen. Zoom a bit... oh what's this? Some kind of lines in the desert? Oh, it looks like other aliens visited this dead planet earlier and played some earth games on it, eh? Perhaps they were having some kind of planetary football games or something and this was their soccer field... But wait, some lines are quite intriguing. Nah... these aren't lines, these are complete drawings. Let's move away a bit and zoom closer... Hm, here these look like symbols. Ok, there may once have been some intelligence on this planet, but now it must be dead, probably, as it is too far away from its star (we the aliens like hot stuff so we live near our star, and this is what we consider the only habitable zone possible, for us if it feels hot it's good and we believe the whole universe is somehow made for us to explore and play in, so any planet outside our habitable zone must be dead because that's what the big scientists here say).

Where did this intelligence come from? Maybe it came from the vomit, so let's go back there and zoom more. Wow, what's that? It looks like the lines that divide the vomit in little rectangles have little ant-like things running over them. Oh, and by these lines there are big boxes. But what these boxes contain? Maybe there's more vomit in there! Ok, our scientists found the truth, these running things transfer the vomit from box to box! And maybe this vomit is intelligent! But not much, as it probably has not discovered telecommuting or work-from-home yet. And that's what we would expect from a planet outside the habitable zone, it must be so cold these (15-25C, which for us is too cold) that this vomit has its intelligence sabotaged by the tem

When I see Earth with Google Earth (by the way, FSF, where I am a member, has called the creation of a free compatible client a high-priority project, and if you have free time please try to help, and if you need hosting for your project I can give you), I hardly can detect life, let alone humans, on Earth. Visually it's very difficult to detect it (and nothing suggests that an alien would expect a green planet to be filled up with plants, in fact a scientist would expect plant life to be red-coloured and in fact that's how it was in the past as red-colour has greater absorption efficiency... Earth plants became green only after changes in the atmosphere). I can see, of course, that the planetary atmosphere is a very dynamic system (clouds go and come every day), but all the rest is nothing but white places over the poles (ice), vast blueness (oceans), a few greenie plains (jungles, where remained by the human effects), and some light brownish-yellowish regions (deserts). That's all. I would need to analyse the Earth's spectrum or possibly other means to find out what chemistry this funnily coloured vastness has.

But wait, there's more: I can zoom in a little and see mountains etc. And if I zoom more I see that some oceans have little green islands in them, so perhaps I could start to understand that this bluish abyss could be some kind of liquid and the greenish spots could be areas of higher elevation. But still, it could very well be a dead planet with no life, let alone humans. So I have to zoom more. Oh, now I can see that there are some grayish spots near the greenery, as if someone had vomited on the Earth's plains. Yea, it certainly looks like vomit, but what is it? Zooming more... oh, it looks different from anything else, it has some kind of structure, lines etc. Still looking like vomit, though... structured vomit. Who the hell vomited on the planet we, the alien scientists, discovered? How can we write a paper on a vomited planet? Everyone will laugh, our academic reputation is at risk because of this vomit on this extra-Gliese planet.

But let's move away from this freaking vomit and look closer at the green plains and the brownish-yellow regions to see what there is there to be seen. Zoom a bit... oh what's this? Some kind of lines in the desert? Oh, it looks like other aliens visited this dead planet earlier and played some earth games on it, eh? Perhaps they were having some kind of planetary football games or something and this was their soccer field... But wait, some lines are quite intriguing. Nah... these aren't lines, these are complete drawings. Let's move away a bit and zoom closer... Hm, here these look like symbols. Ok, there may once have been some intelligence on this planet, but now it must be dead, probably, as it is too far away from its star (we the aliens like hot stuff so we live near our star, and this is what we consider the only habitable zone possible, for us if it feels hot it's good and we believe the whole universe is somehow made for us to explore and play in, so any planet outside our habitable zone must be dead because that's what the big scientists here say).

Where did this intelligence come from? Maybe it came from the vomit, so let's go back there and zoom more. Wow, what's that? It looks like the lines that divide the vomit in little rectangles have little ant-like things running over them. Oh, and by these lines there are big boxes. But what these boxes contain? Maybe there's more vomit in there! Ok, our scientists found the truth, these running things transfer the vomit from box to box! And maybe this vomit is intelligent! But not much, as it probably has not discovered telecommuting or work-from-home yet. And that's what we would expect from a planet outside the habitable zone, it must be so cold these (15-25C, which for us is too cold) that this vomit has its intelligence sabotaged by the tem

I am not a lawyer. This is not legal advice. You should consult a lawyer!

As far as selling the code, there are two primary concerns. One is legal and a question of rights. The other is a practical matter. Pretty much any method of releasing your source to someone to study will necessitate giving copies of the code away for free. So there is a practical concern that people would aquire your code in that manner and thus the market would be eliminated. Even if you are not concerned about this possibility, if you are trying to get another party to license/sell it for you, then they may be concerned. The other concern you seem to have expressed is a concern that releasing it under a license will prevent you from releasing it under a different license. Most licenses, such as the creative commons ones, are nonexclusive. This means you can release your code in two different ways, although people will have the option to choose either one. So the license you will use so that people can learn will have to be unattractive enough to people who want to use the plugin will pay instead.

What may have confused you about the dual-licensing is the irrevokability of a license. Basically, once you give me a copy of the code with a license, you cannot take it back. If the license you give it to me under allows me to give it to other people, you can never prevent me from doing so. Some licenses can be revoked if the terms are broken, but some cannot.

As far as licenses go, I'm not sure which may interest you. You do not want to make your software free, so those are out. The problem is that most freely available licenses on the internet presume that people can distribute your code for noncommerical purposes (at least). Really, all you are interested in is the ability to use your code as educational material, not as a project in and of itself. I would recommend you look at the non-free licenses section. You also may want to look at the Qt Free Edition License. The last option may be the creative commons sampling plus license. The creative commons website expressly recommends against using it for software, but I don't understand the reasoning behind that.

Don't let the zealots make you feel bad for only exposing your code for educational purposes. Learning from other people's code is the best rational for exposing source (as opposed to forking/modifing/use) in my mind. Good luck.

Region-coded DVDs, copy-protection measures, and Apple's optional DRM music store--where users initially paid more for the DRM-free tracks--are also excellent examples. It takes a large amount of work to build these systems and users rarely benefit from or request them. Like blackmail, users can sometimes pay technology providers to not include an antifeature in their technology.

Region-coded DVDs, copy-protection measures, and Apple's optional DRM music store--where users initially paid more for the DRM-free tracks--are also excellent examples. It takes a large amount of work to build these systems and users rarely benefit from or request them. Like blackmail, users can sometimes pay technology providers to not include an antifeature in their technology.

I'm pretty sure Microsoft monitors your use of software one way or the other... http://badvista.fsf.org/what-s-wrong-with-microsoft-windows-vista

SFLC is the Software Freedom Law Center. You can think of it as the militant arm of the Free Software Foundation (FSF), though one does not directly control the other. Its founder and main figure is Prof. Eben Moglen, formerly general counsel and board member of the FSF.

3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:

a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,

b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,

c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)

If you modify one line, then you have to make the entire source available, or offer to do so. If you do anything else, then your right to distribute is terminated. Just because it's not universally enforced doesn't mean that it's OK to pick and choose compliance.

... but I am as confident as I am that the Sun will rise tomorrow that it will be safe from terrorists. After all, we have the children to think about.

July 12, 2005

Copyright © 2005 Michael David Crawford.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

It seems that David Clark, who led the development of the Internet way back in the '70's - did you know there even was a '70's? - wants to create a whole new Internet that will fix many of the problems the current Internet is plagued with. The New Internet's engineers will be much more careful this time around to make sure it works better than the first one did.

I'm afraid, though, that the engineers are not the only ones who will be deciding how our New Internet will work.

If one is able to find any privacy or anonymity in this New Internet, it will be because of some undiscovered security hole, which will be quickly repaired, rather than any kind of conscious design decision. Probably one reason they are accepting proposals before rolling it out is to avoid the sort of accidental security holes that enable pr0n, peer-to-peer filesharing and left-wing political activism.

Microsoft, a leading contributor both to this nation's technology base and to the campaign coffers of its leaders, will embrace this new technology and extend it in such a way that the development and dissemination of Open Source software will be, if not mathematically and physically impossible, at least as intractible as factoring a 2048-bit public key.

Imagine, if you will, Trusted Computing implemented at the router level, in such a way that any packets that go farther than one hop are certified not only to support protocols whose patent licenses are fully paid-up and on file with the legal department in Redmond, but whose content is compliant with the Windows standard. The faintest whisp of a Public License, GNU or otherwise, will result in the dropping not only of the individual packet, not only in the cancellation of the entire file transmission, but, within microseconds, the reporting of the physical location of the offending server to responsible law enforcement personnel. The identities of its rogue administrators will be fetched instantly from the database maintained by the Department of Homeland Security. (You will have to submit fingerprints and DNA samples to obtain a Windows server license, as after all, Internet servers can be used to disseminate explosives r

As I write this, there is no official new version of the GFDL. It would have to be announced by the FSF, and it isn't. The FSF website says nothing about this, and the Gnu Project website lists the 2002 version as the latest.

This seems fishy in other ways. I could say the FSF was diligent in soliciting comments for GPLv3, but "diligent" seems like too soft a word. It would seem odd to change the GFDL with no advance notice whatsoever.

Not to mention, it seems unlikely that this is the third best moment of Lessig's life (after two things involving his wife, which I don't think we need details on). (Yes, I did RTFA, what there was of it. Wanna cancel my /. license?)

This smells like a hoax or prank to me. However, I'm going to look at www.fsf.org and www.gnu.org next week and see if there is anything to this.