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The LGPL was born to address this problem. The GNU folks argue that if you link to a GPL'd library, your code must be GPLed as well. The LGPL is not as strict, and thus many useful libraries are LGPL instead of GPL - allowing other licenses to exist on a linux system. Not everyone agrees with this interpretation, though.

The LGPL was born to address this problem. The GNU folks argue that if you link to a GPL'd library, your code must be GPLed as well. The LGPL is not as strict, and thus many useful libraries are LGPL instead of GPL - allowing other licenses to exist on a linux system. Not everyone agrees with this interpretation, though.

But, as you might expect, other developers did not copy the clause verbatim. They changed it, replacing ``University of California'' with their own institution or their own names. The result is a plethora of licenses, requiring a plethora of different sentences.

When people put many such programs together in an operating system, the result is a serious problem. Imagine if a software system required 75 different sentences, each one naming a different author or group of authors. To advertise that, you would need a full-page ad. ...
To address this problem, in my ``spare time'' I talk with developers who have used BSD-style licenses, asking them if they would please remove the advertising clause.

Wouldnt it be better if we only got GRUB signed instead of linux? nah, they'll never do it...

Terms of use
Developing and distributing applications
Private users may use the Qt non-commercial edition in a non-commercial setting to produce non-commercial applications.

A non-commercial setting means that you must not use the package in the course of your employment or whilst engaged in activities that will be compensated. A non-commercial application is an application that cannot be sold, leased, rented or otherwise distributed for recompense.

Private users may distribute the applications they develop as free software, i.e. they must distribute their software free of charge, include the complete source code and pass on to their users the right to copy and modify the software under the same terms.

Since free software is not a matter of price, a low price isn't more free, or closer to free. So if you are redistributing copies of free software, you might as well charge a substantial fee and make some money. Redistributing free software is a good and legitimate activity; if you do it, you might as well make a profit from it.

...and...

The (GNU GPL) has no requirements about how much you can charge for distributing a copy of free software. You can charge nothing, a penny, a dollar, or a billion dollars. It's up to you, and the marketplace, so don't complain to us if nobody wants to pay a billion dollars for a copy.

A simple way to meet these requirements is to use one of the well-established open source licenses for your code. Add a file containing the license text to your source package and a short copyright notice to every source file. See http://www.opensource.org for information on free software licensing and for a list of approved licenses. Note that although the license requires that you provide the source code, you may also include an executable version of your software for the convenience of your users.

I think you missed the reason why the GPL licence is unique. Not all open-source software licences guarantee you have the right to redistribute source code without limitations. Some open-source licences are ambiguous on what, if any, rights you have to redistribute source code. Other open-source licences try in various ways to restrict your right to redistribute source code.

In contrast, the Gnu General Public License guarantees in clear English that you, as well as everyone else, have the right to redistribute the source code free-of-charge, or if you prefer for no more than the reasonable cost of providing storage media etc.

There is no ambiguity about the meaning of the GPL licence. That's the real benefit of being able to have GPL-licensed free software as opposed to any other type of open-source software licence. I'm not saying one type of licence is better than the other for all purposes. However, if you value your right to redistribute source-code then the GPL licence is probably the best choice when considering which software to use.

I think your program would have to be GPL since the jar file is. If your program depends on a library and is basically useless without it then it constitutes derived work. It doesn't matter if it's you or the end user that loads the library together with your code.

This FAQ answers your question. Of course that's the FSF opinion on how to interpret the GPL, but you do risk a lawsuit if you don't GPL your code

Upgraded to 10.2.4 the other day, and it went perfectly... my httpd.conf was replaced, but that was expected. diff3 is your friend and mine.

To hell with C dull.
Will it provide the same wonderful `compatibility' that VB.NET has?
Java is here to stay, and (though whipped by C++ or even experimental D) beats many OOP platforms in ability (library & lang), and especially platform independence.
Java, like it or not, will be around for a very long time.
What about GCJ?
When the parent dies, the child still lives.
http://gcc.gnu.org/java/
http://www.gnu.org/software/classpath/

Now where's that double espresso I just made...

To hell with C dull.
Will it provide the same wonderful `compatibility' that VB.NET has?
Java is here to stay, and (though whipped by C++ or even experimental D) beats many OOP platforms in ability (library & lang), and especially platform independence.
Java, like it or not, will be around for a very long time.
What about GCJ?
When the parent dies, the child still lives.
http://gcc.gnu.org/java/
http://www.gnu.org/software/classpath/

Now where's that double espresso I just made...

To hell with C dull.
Will it provide the same wonderful `compatibility' that VB.NET has?
Java is here to stay, and (though whipped by C++ or even experimental D) beats many OOP platforms in ability (library & lang), and especially platform independence.
Java, like it or not, will be around for a very long time.
What about GCJ?
When the parent dies, the child still lives.
http://gcc.gnu.org/java/
http://www.gnu.org/software/classpath/

Now where's that double espresso I just made...

I have never used it but I heard its more object oriented and better then Microsoft's CLR so its not a total copycat of .net but this makes languages like smalltalk and eifel more easily ported. It has several million lines of code already completed and is advancing quite far for an early product. Mono might be ahead in regards to the actual c# compiler but the dotGNU is ahead with the CLR equilivant. Go check it out.

FTP is marginally better supported by interactive text clients, which means that geeks who haven't gotten any new software in the past decade will find it more convenient.

Really, it doesn't make sense to call HTTP wimpy when it's what's used to distribute The linux kernel, perl,
glibc, and so forth.

wget does both and does it well.
http://www.gnu.org/software/wget/wget.html

One of the goals of Perl 6 is to make non-trivial projects possible. That's good. The way it's being done is bad. Perl was once a lightweight, extremely flexible language. Now it's become a huge ugly monster. People wanted OO, so a nasty hack was bolted on top to allow some semblance of it. Now this nasty hack is being expanded. Sure, the code's different, but the basic form is the same. Kludge upon kludge upon kludge; I'd much rather have a nice, clean, pure language (and not one with loads of irritating whitespace thank you very much).

The same goes for the syntax. All the switching between $, @ and % is really irritating (ask a newbie how to get at the length of the keys array of a hash inside a hash, for example), and the changes proposed for 6 are just making this worse -- it seems that Larry, in his infinite wisdom, wants to prefix every data type with a different hard-to-type character. Perl was only designed for the three data types, and adding more is a mess.

Perl 6 is a complete rewrite, but it keeps all the mess which has accumulated over the previous versions. This is not good. Sure, my const int $var = 27; may look neat (in the same way that, say, Pascal does), but $var isn't entirely constant, or entirely an integer, it's just a hack which makes it sort of behave like one. The whole thing is an exercise in pseudo-computer science masturbation with little real purpose except to please the managers who dislike the one thing that makes Perl special.

On a similar note is regexes. I'm an avid fan of regular expressions simply because a nondeterministic finite automata is far more flexible than linear code. However, Larry must have been smoking that cheap $2 crack when he wrote this . Does he want Perl 6 to be flex or something?

I won't be going on to use 6. It's a nice idea, but it's completely unnecessary. It won't make large projects any easier to manage (the language is still, at heart, an almighty hack -- an impressive one, but still a hack). It won't make OO any cleaner. It won't make development any faster. To put it bluntly, Perl scripts will still look less beautiful than our friend Mr Goatse. I'd prefer to use a language which has always been pure synthesis of science and engineering, not some half-baked imposter.

Perl 6 will be nice, but I'm guessing it will be the end of Perl. It can't do what it wants to do whilst still being based upon a nasty mess. There are now other options, which provide all of Perl's power and none of the mess. Sorry, but BSD^W Perl is dying. Larry is buggering it up the ass without lubricants, just like Shoeboy is doing to Larry's daughter.

When you have a crime to investigate, and you have no suspects, where do you start? Obviously you begin by looking at the person or persons who have the most to gain by perpetrating the crime.

This is why we must consider: who had something to gain from the disasterous crimes of September 11th? Obviously not Osama Bin Laden, who would net no financial windfall from the destruction of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Although he has loudly applauded the "terrorist" acts of September 11th and even tacitly taken credit for them, there is no reason to believe that he is anything more than a bandwagon jumper. Being blamed for the destruction of the World Trade Center has done more for his image than any amount of militant Islamic rhetoric.

But if not Bin Laden, then who?

It so happens that on December 11th, "coincidentally" 2 months after the tragedy, Credit Suisse First Boston quietly agreed to pay out US$100 million in order to settle an 18 month old investigation into its handling of certain high-profile technology IPOs (Initial Public Offerings). One of the most controversial amongst these being the IPO of VA Linux Systems, Inc. (LNUX) .

VA Linux Systems, Inc., now known as VA Software, is widely derided as a poster child of the dot-com bust, though inexplicably still in business. At the time of the IPO, VA Linux (Software) shares opened trading at nearly 10 times their $30 offer price, closing the first day of trading at $239.25. This meteoric rise made many early investors rich, strangely on account of a company which purports to sell a hobbyist operating system which can be obtained for free on the Internet. "The VA Linux initial public offering is a prime example of market manipulation in an IPO by investment banks, their customers and the issuing firm," said Steven Schulman, a partner in the law firm Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach, which specializes in filing shareholder suits.

"Because certain favored customers of the investment banks agreed to buy shares in a new issue at inflated prices in the aftermarket (in return for getting an allocation of the shares at the initial offering price) the share prices to which the IPO eventually soared were actually driven by artificial market forces," continues Schulman.

But what does the VA Software (Linux) IPO have to do with the attacks on September 11th, and what has that to do with the Credit Suisse settlement? Well, considering that VA Linux (Software) got CSFB into trouble in the first place, it stands to reason that the VA Linux (Software) Board of Directors were complicit in the stock fraud from beginning to end. As the investigation progressed against CSFB, the unscrupulous VA Software/Linux executives, their pockets bulging with filthy lucre plundered from trusting, hard-working investors, must have realized that their days in the country club were numbered if the SEC discovered their wrongdoings.

The SEC, or Securities Exchange Commission, is a federal regulatory agency, and cannot be bribed. Therefore, with a possible stint in federal prison looming large, Larry Augustin and the rest of the crooks, including outspoken gun violence advocate Eric S. Raymond, decided to undertake more active means to halt the investigation.

The Plan

It so happened that all the evidence in the CSFB/VA Linux investigation was held at the SEC Northeast Regional Office in Manhattan. More specifically, 7 World Trade Center, Suite 1300. The board decided that a simple burglary or arson attempt would not be satisfactory to destroy the evidence; anything so simple had a significant chance of being botched, and regardless of success would leave too many witnesses or living accomplices.

It was then that Eric S. Raymond suggested something he had read in a book by Tom Clancy. Crashing two planes into the World Trade Center Plaza would guarantee the destruction of the SEC offices, killing the operatives and possibly a number of SEC investigators at the same time. The plan seemed flawless, and would cost little more than the price of a few plane tickets. In a secret session, the board voted unanimously in favour of Eric's suggestion, and began to put it into action.

VA Software/Linux, at the time of planning the attacks, had no shortage of H1-B visa workers, who they employed for the purpose of writing and improving hacking, encryption, and other terrorist tools for the Linux operating system. It had been decided that a hand-picked few of these foreign H1-B workers would be used as the "patsies" in the operation. A contest was held, and the most zealotous Linux advocates were chosen for this secret assignment, direct from the board of directors. They accepted their mission after being told that, if successful, it would guarantee the adoption of Linux in the desktop market.

Alan Cox was brought into the fold to provide some planning and logistics for the mission. It was he who determined that since there was no adequate flight simulator software for Linux, the patsies would need to train at a flight school in order to pull off the plan successfully. It was also his idea to hijack a third and fourth plane for the purpose of crashing them into Washington D.C., to express his extreme rage over the DMCA, or Digital Millenium Copyright Act. The board of directors agreed with this addition to the plan in the hopes that it would help divert attention from the purpose of the WTC attack.

The H1-B workers were given false identities by using Linux hacking tools. Once they had attended the necessary flight training, they stayed at the Massachusetts home of Richard M. Stallman for a brief "faith building" retreat. During this time spent at the house of Stallman, between the nauseating stench of patchouli, Stallman's incessant, pitiful recorder playing, and Stallman's droning seminars on the grammatical and syntactical accuracy of various statements by Microsoft representatives, the H1-B workers were effectively hypnotized to the point that they were ready to lay down their lives for Free Software. It was then that they departed for Boston's Logan International Airport to board the planes.

(The preceding inside information has been obtained from a credible source close to the VA Linux/Software Board of Directors. He/she is in hiding for obvious reasons in light of this damning evidence, but has presented hard, physical evidence of VA Software/Linux's complicity in the events of 9/11 to federal investigators.)

Troll 68 of 208 from the annals of the Troll Library .

When you have a crime to investigate, and you have no suspects, where do you start? Obviously you begin by looking at the person or persons who have the most to gain by perpetrating the crime.

This is why we must consider: who had something to gain from the disasterous crimes of September 11th? Obviously not Osama Bin Laden, who would net no financial windfall from the destruction of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Although he has loudly applauded the "terrorist" acts of September 11th and even tacitly taken credit for them, there is no reason to believe that he is anything more than a bandwagon jumper. Being blamed for the destruction of the World Trade Center has done more for his image than any amount of militant Islamic rhetoric.

But if not Bin Laden, then who?

It so happens that on December 11th, "coincidentally" 2 months after the tragedy, Credit Suisse First Boston quietly agreed to pay out US$100 million in order to settle an 18 month old investigation into its handling of certain high-profile technology IPOs (Initial Public Offerings). One of the most controversial amongst these being the IPO of VA Linux Systems, Inc. (LNUX) .

VA Linux Systems, Inc., now known as VA Software, is widely derided as a poster child of the dot-com bust, though inexplicably still in business. At the time of the IPO, VA Linux (Software) shares opened trading at nearly 10 times their $30 offer price, closing the first day of trading at $239.25. This meteoric rise made many early investors rich, strangely on account of a company which purports to sell a hobbyist operating system which can be obtained for free on the Internet. "The VA Linux initial public offering is a prime example of market manipulation in an IPO by investment banks, their customers and the issuing firm," said Steven Schulman, a partner in the law firm Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach, which specializes in filing shareholder suits.

"Because certain favored customers of the investment banks agreed to buy shares in a new issue at inflated prices in the aftermarket (in return for getting an allocation of the shares at the initial offering price) the share prices to which the IPO eventually soared were actually driven by artificial market forces," continues Schulman.

But what does the VA Software (Linux) IPO have to do with the attacks on September 11th, and what has that to do with the Credit Suisse settlement? Well, considering that VA Linux (Software) got CSFB into trouble in the first place, it stands to reason that the VA Linux (Software) Board of Directors were complicit in the stock fraud from beginning to end. As the investigation progressed against CSFB, the unscrupulous VA Software/Linux executives, their pockets bulging with filthy lucre plundered from trusting, hard-working investors, must have realized that their days in the country club were numbered if the SEC discovered their wrongdoings.

The SEC, or Securities Exchange Commission, is a federal regulatory agency, and cannot be bribed. Therefore, with a possible stint in federal prison looming large, Larry Augustin and the rest of the crooks, including outspoken gun violence advocate Eric S. Raymond, decided to undertake more active means to halt the investigation.

The Plan

It so happened that all the evidence in the CSFB/VA Linux investigation was held at the SEC Northeast Regional Office in Manhattan. More specifically, 7 World Trade Center, Suite 1300. The board decided that a simple burglary or arson attempt would not be satisfactory to destroy the evidence; anything so simple had a significant chance of being botched, and regardless of success would leave too many witnesses or living accomplices.

It was then that Eric S. Raymond suggested something he had read in a book by Tom Clancy. Crashing two planes into the World Trade Center Plaza would guarantee the destruction of the SEC offices, killing the operatives and possibly a number of SEC investigators at the same time. The plan seemed flawless, and would cost little more than the price of a few plane tickets. In a secret session, the board voted unanimously in favour of Eric's suggestion, and began to put it into action.

VA Software/Linux, at the time of planning the attacks, had no shortage of H1-B visa workers, who they employed for the purpose of writing and improving hacking, encryption, and other terrorist tools for the Linux operating system. It had been decided that a hand-picked few of these foreign H1-B workers would be used as the "patsies" in the operation. A contest was held, and the most zealotous Linux advocates were chosen for this secret assignment, direct from the board of directors. They accepted their mission after being told that, if successful, it would guarantee the adoption of Linux in the desktop market.

Alan Cox was brought into the fold to provide some planning and logistics for the mission. It was he who determined that since there was no adequate flight simulator software for Linux, the patsies would need to train at a flight school in order to pull off the plan successfully. It was also his idea to hijack a third and fourth plane for the purpose of crashing them into Washington D.C., to express his extreme rage over the DMCA, or Digital Millenium Copyright Act. The board of directors agreed with this addition to the plan in the hopes that it would help divert attention from the purpose of the WTC attack.

The H1-B workers were given false identities by using Linux hacking tools. Once they had attended the necessary flight training, they stayed at the Massachusetts home of Richard M. Stallman for a brief "faith building" retreat. During this time spent at the house of Stallman, between the nauseating stench of patchouli, Stallman's incessant, pitiful recorder playing, and Stallman's droning seminars on the grammatical and syntactical accuracy of various statements by Microsoft representatives, the H1-B workers were effectively hypnotized to the point that they were ready to lay down their lives for Free Software. It was then that they departed for Boston's Logan International Airport to board the planes.

(The preceding inside information has been obtained from a credible source close to the VA Linux/Software Board of Directors. He/she is in hiding for obvious reasons in light of this damning evidence, but has presented hard, physical evidence of VA Software/Linux's complicity in the events of 9/11 to federal investigators.)

Troll 68 of 208 from the annals of the Troll Library .

I've used Linux since pre-1.0. I simply have chosen not made it my religion. It gets the jobs I need done, done. For other tasks, I may use other OSs and applications - whichever one makes the task easier. I did have Linux as a religion way back in the day when I was in my late teens and early 20s, then I realized that I was being stupid. You don't have to make something a religion in order to be excited about it.

Let's clear something up right now.

Many people equate "religion" with "strong feelings". That's just not the case. I've known a few religionists who kept their feelings to themselves, and I've known quite a few so-called Atheists who took it upon themselves to cure the world of religion.

IN this case, in this specific case, it's not a religion. Many of us have very strong feelings on the matter, but you're forgetting the one single trait that makes religion what it is:

Faith.

In order for something to be a religion, you must accept something as fact without proof. I realize this definition attacks many of the basic scientific principles, but is the scientific community really all that different? Heh. I know I just stepped on quite a few toes, and while I don't know a lot of scientists, the ones I do know tend to agree with me on the matter.

With Free Software, we do not take anything on faith, necessarily. Freedom has been proven time and time again to increase productivity, standard of living, and make people generally happier. WIthout freedom in its roots (even if not quite in its implementation), would the US have risen to a world power in just 200 years? Better yet, compare Russa of today to all previous Russias. They finally have freedom in a big way, which they've historically *never* had. Are they better for it? Are their citizens happy? The ones I know say they are. Therefore, it's safe to say that we can accept "freedom" on a strong basis of historical fact as being an inherently good thing for us as individuals, and for society at large.

With that said, then, Free Software is merely an extension of freedom into our lives as software developers and software users. It entails certain responsibilities on both developers and users, and establishes a basis with which business, trade, and socializing can continue (socializing as in "communication" not as in "fascism"). But nowhere is anyone expected to buy into free software based solely on faith. You are expected, required I could say, to find out everything you can about it before making your decision, and to ultimately make your own decision.

Not only are these behaviors different many/most/all churches in history (i.e. we want you to think for yourself, they don't), but it's also fundamentally different than some basic principles involved in religion (such as instructing parents to teach their kids all about religion before the kids are old enough to think it through and reject it as stupid, which it is).

I realize some individuals in the community periodically come off as being religionists on the subject, but it sure in the fuck doesn't help when everybody has to ask RMS if this is right or that is right or if this violates the GPL or if that violates basic principles. Think for yourself and you'll never be led astray because you will always go where you mean to go.

I've used Linux since pre-1.0. I simply have chosen not made it my religion. It gets the jobs I need done, done. For other tasks, I may use other OSs and applications - whichever one makes the task easier. I did have Linux as a religion way back in the day when I was in my late teens and early 20s, then I realized that I was being stupid. You don't have to make something a religion in order to be excited about it.

Let's clear something up right now.

Many people equate "religion" with "strong feelings". That's just not the case. I've known a few religionists who kept their feelings to themselves, and I've known quite a few so-called Atheists who took it upon themselves to cure the world of religion.

IN this case, in this specific case, it's not a religion. Many of us have very strong feelings on the matter, but you're forgetting the one single trait that makes religion what it is:

Faith.

In order for something to be a religion, you must accept something as fact without proof. I realize this definition attacks many of the basic scientific principles, but is the scientific community really all that different? Heh. I know I just stepped on quite a few toes, and while I don't know a lot of scientists, the ones I do know tend to agree with me on the matter.

With Free Software, we do not take anything on faith, necessarily. Freedom has been proven time and time again to increase productivity, standard of living, and make people generally happier. WIthout freedom in its roots (even if not quite in its implementation), would the US have risen to a world power in just 200 years? Better yet, compare Russa of today to all previous Russias. They finally have freedom in a big way, which they've historically *never* had. Are they better for it? Are their citizens happy? The ones I know say they are. Therefore, it's safe to say that we can accept "freedom" on a strong basis of historical fact as being an inherently good thing for us as individuals, and for society at large.

With that said, then, Free Software is merely an extension of freedom into our lives as software developers and software users. It entails certain responsibilities on both developers and users, and establishes a basis with which business, trade, and socializing can continue (socializing as in "communication" not as in "fascism"). But nowhere is anyone expected to buy into free software based solely on faith. You are expected, required I could say, to find out everything you can about it before making your decision, and to ultimately make your own decision.

Not only are these behaviors different many/most/all churches in history (i.e. we want you to think for yourself, they don't), but it's also fundamentally different than some basic principles involved in religion (such as instructing parents to teach their kids all about religion before the kids are old enough to think it through and reject it as stupid, which it is).

I realize some individuals in the community periodically come off as being religionists on the subject, but it sure in the fuck doesn't help when everybody has to ask RMS if this is right or that is right or if this violates the GPL or if that violates basic principles. Think for yourself and you'll never be led astray because you will always go where you mean to go.

Despite the fact that free software is sometimes sold, e.g. by the FSF, the Gnu General Public License guarantees that free software has the legal property that nobody is allowed to prevent anyone from distributing any free software completely free-of-charge, even free software that is being sold by someone else.

"OS software is free as in speech, NOT as in beer."

Yes, that sometime is true of "open-source" software but free software is free as in speech, AND as in free beer.

Perhaps if you carefully re-inspect the GNU license (and if necessary, find a lawyer friend to interpret it for you) you will see that MS is following the licensee rights of the GNU license.

Remember, they have the same legal rights to distribute, package, and even warranty (these include the ability to charge a fee under the GNU license) GNU licensed software as you or I do. The GNU does not specify that Multi-billion dollar corporations do not have the same terms to follow as you or I.

The beauty of the GNU license is that it IS open to the little people instead of JUST the big people. This is done by not discriminating, regardless of the licensee.

Also, Mandrake and RedHat do indeed also "offer free 100%-OSS versions of their stuff. Every tool that Mandrake develops is GPLed". That is their right to choose to do. They may also, at their choice (as MS does) choose to offer 100% closed source commercial versions of their stuff. Because MS does not release software they've developed under GPL or GNU license does not mean that they do not have the right to do what they do. They may ALSO distribute (according to the license terms of the software being distributed) any GNU software they want to (even alongside their closed source software).

As long as they don't violate the terms of the license (and I bet you a buck they have really expensive lawyers making sure they don't) what they are doing is perfectly legal, and you and I have the right to do the exact same thing (if we wanted to).

If you want to just say Microsoft Sucks and are a bunch of assholes because you don't like what they do, that is your right. But do not claim they violate licenses that they don't.

Rubbish! If you're in the part of the industry that doesn't just run applications on desktop boxes you're going to take Java's portability very seriously. Why? Does Sun provide a JRE for the Mac? IBM's pSeries RS/6000s? How about your zSeries mainframe? Or your Nokia mobile phone? Or your SGI box? Out here in the real world people take these other JVMs seriously.

The fact that I can performance test my code on multiple hardware platforms, multiple JVMs and multiple application servers, then make the decision about deployment, is exactly what makes Java important to me and the companies I work for.

"Even today, you better not try writing a Java compiler that compiles to anything but Java bytecode, or that extends the language."

What, you mean like

• GCJ, that uses the gcc back-ends to compile Java to native code, or
• Pizza, that adds generics, function pointers and algebraic types, or
• GJ, which is the where the Java 1.5 generics support was prototyped.

"They were very litigious in the beginning, suing Microsoft to keep them from messing with their platform. A platform they [Sun} fought fiercly to keep proprietary and closed."

I think we can both agree that Sun and Microsoft have tried (or will try) to use the law to protect their technical vision for Java and .Net respectively. The difference is in what that technical vision is. Sun sued Microsoft in order to make sure that different implementations of Java would be compatible across platforms, because that is their technical vision (remember "Write once, run anywhere?"). Microsoft are attempting to patent .Net, and the suspicion is that they will use it to prevent compatible implementations of .Net on different platforms. Now do you see the difference?

Some people would have you think differently. We here at reality would propose calling such people "fucking morons", but then would be labeled "troll", so instead we are going to call them "fucking idiots"

Your interpretation of US copyright law is just wrong. Maybe you're confused because software publishers write EULAs forbidding behavior which is illegal anyway.

Copyright is about copying, not "distribution" (although it often occurs soon after the reproduction).

You may check the government's page on the law. It says

"the 1976 Copyright Act generally gives the owner of copyright the exclusive right ... To reproduce the work in copies"

"Distribution" doesn't matter. You cannot make copies. Simply burning 10 CDROMs and hiding them in a shoebox is illegal.

(There are exceptions to the law, allowing you to reproduce a work in limited quantities, but none would permit you to execute a program twice. Two exceptions are: you may be able to create a single backup, but never use it unless the original is destroyed. And, creating temporary copies as necessary to view a work, such as loading software into RAM, doesn't count as "reproduction")

An additional confusing factor may be this GPL FAQ entry. It states that "copying within an organization is not distribution". Distinguishing beteen "distribution" and "copying" is irrelevant both to copyright law and the GPL, as both forbid "copying" as such.

From the GPL, section 5.

Therefore, by modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License

So they did agree to it.

So it is enforcable. Period.

Now, in their situation I'd say that space is certainly an issue (With the tough goal of fitting all of the supporting software and applications for the IYONIX computer into just 4Mbytes of ROM, from the press release), so it's not worth jumping to the conclusion that they're hiding something.

Further, I note that the press release mentions specific, new versions, and that the email to LKML never stated which version was checked for the match.

Further, how was it found, in absence of the source, that it still contained the actual working code? I'd like to know that, because many compilers commonly spit out some boiler-plate binary code.

Now, your comment indicates a slight misconception (but another program of theirs (called the HAL)) about kernels. 'HAL' stands for "Hardware Abstraction Layer", and is an integral part in modern kernels. For most operating systems less primitive than *cough* DOS *cough cough*, the HAL provides functions for device drivers and software applications, such that the kernel is the only software that directly manipulates the hardware. That said, these functions are an integral part of the kernel (without regard to where it's a microkernel, exokernel, or monolithic), not things which can be considered a separate work and put into public view by itself. In fact, this is the section of the GPL that M$ likes to FUD about regularly: the "viral" part of the license. It indicates explicitly that if you use ANY GPL'd code in your project, the whole thing inherits the GNU License (and thus, must be distributed with source.) After all, by the terms of the GPL, the RiscOS kernel can be considered a derivative work, under the admission of the PCI and bridge setup functions.

Thus, as best as I can determine, the press release seems quite self-contradictory. I suppose that's why they used the wording "should like to respond" instead of the more common "would like to respond". In so doing, it could be construed that the statements about versions 5.x are, indeed, false, and that the truth in the release comes after the phrase "For the avoidance of doubt".

To place the separation there, though, also leaves the line above it (There are no plans to use GPL derived code...) in question, and can thus be interpreted as "hey, we violated the GPL in our RiscOS. And we reserve the right to do it again..."

On the other hand, perhaps the announcement that the code is available and conforms to the license, in their minds, is to be inferred by the press release...

Now for the good ol' disclaimer: IANAL. I don't even try to be. :)

In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under the scope of this License.

The GPL is not a contract: "You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License."

I love the GNU Public License. That's such gloriously plain language. It's really the meat of the GPL. It's a bit formal, but plenty readable by the majority of people literate in english. (Don't read english? try a translation.) It's a darn shame it's buried halfway through the document.

The GPL is not a contract: "You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License."

I love the GNU Public License. That's such gloriously plain language. It's really the meat of the GPL. It's a bit formal, but plenty readable by the majority of people literate in english. (Don't read english? try a translation.) It's a darn shame it's buried halfway through the document.

A GPL violation is a GPL violation. If you use GPL code in your product, the modified code and anything it touches must be made freely available to *anyone* who asks.


if i take gpl'ed code and modify it for internal use do i have to release the code to any person who asks for it?

your comment would suggest yes, but that is not the case here.

from the gpl
"
For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether
gratis or for a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights that
you have. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the
source code. And you must show them these terms so they know their
rights.
"
so if i have not recieved the software, then i'm not entitiled to the source. this entitlement comes with the software and not by the action of modification. in other words you must have the product in order to have the rights associated with that software.

the GNU compiler for the Ada language is being funded by the US Air Force, which believes this is the most cost-effective way to get a high quality compiler

schon's question is wildly misinformed.

RMS never, ever claimed that the old BSD license was not a free software license. His objection to it was not that it forced you to include the copyright notice, as every free software/open source license does that. He objected to the advertising clause, and also pointed out that it was being widely violated. The reason is that if there are 75 contributors to a distribution, each using the license, then every web page offering a download and every company offering a CD for sale would have to list all 75 contributors' blurbs in their ads. And this is not a hypothetical: at one point, the FreeBSD distribution contained code from 75 contributors all demanding a line in every advertisement.

So his objection was purely pragmatic: the old BSD license was a pain in the butt to comply with for any project with many contributors. The BSD folks wound up agreeing with him, and got rid of the thing.

See here for the whole story.

Short response: D.U.M.B. A.S.S.

Long response: You're still dumb, but here's why. First, making the source available for download does NOT cover the source redistribution part of the GPL, so the whole "not having an FTP server" doesn't matter. You have no responsibility to make copies of GPL software available to others for free or for cost. See the first question on the GPL quiz for more details on this.

Second, he can charge whatever he wants for sending you a copy of the program. $0, $1, $100, or $1,000. As long as he makes the source available with it, or at the cost of redistribution, everything is fine.

I really really REALLY wish people wouldn't randomly throw RMS bashes into other good articles. "Oooh, it's a GPL-related article, let's bash RMS." I'm not a huge fan of RMS, and I still call it "Linux", but I hate it when people just go off on the guy. I hate it even more that I have to go and write a response to something this stupid and waste my time. How this got modded up to 4 (oh.. it's 5 now), I don't know..

Bah!

Who has the power to enforce the GPL?
Since the GPL is a copyright license, the copyright holders of the software are the ones who have the power to enforce the GPL. If you see a violation of the GPL, you should inform the developers of the GPL-covered software involved. They either are the copyright holders, or are connected with the copyright holders.

Just be careful about the definition of "derived works" vs. works that coexist, or works that link against system-integral libraries. Non-GPL works can coexist with GPL works, and non-GPL works can link with GPL libraries under certain circumstances; similarly, GPL works can link with non-GPL libraries under the same and similar circumstances (such as a GPL program linking with the Standard C library of the compiler).

This is covered in the GPL FAQ, specifically this answer seems appropriate.

[...]other than the fact the source code is completely open and free for modifications?

I doubt the FSF would use the term "open" to describe Free Software. According to "Why Free Software is better than Open Source":

We are not against the Open Source movement, but we don't want to be lumped in with them. We acknowledge that they have contributed to our community, but we created this community, and we want people to know this. We want people to associate our achievements with our values and our philosophy, not with theirs. We want to be heard, not obscured behind a group with different views. To prevent people from thinking we are part of them, we take pains to avoid using the word ``open'' to describe free software, or its contrary, ``closed'', in talking about non-free software.

I attended one of ESR's talks, and while it took me a long time to realize, ESR's top selling point ("you can always take development in-house"), is not a simple pragmatic argument. It is an argument based on freedom.

Either you or ESR have that exactly backwards. The Open Source movement was founded partially on the idea that talking about freedom was distancing the audience the Open Source crowd mainly wanted to talk to--businesses--so they dropped discussions of freedom with discussions of practical benefit. The Open Source movement talks about practical advantage and dismisses freedom. As a result they accept licenses that the Free Software movement does not accept including the Apple Public Source License (or APSL). The two movements have different philosophies and different goals.

Particularly telling in the link above is the story about the trade show in 1998:

He [the representative from a software organization] said, ``There is no way we will make our product open source, but perhaps we will make it `internal' open source. If we allow our customer support staff to have access to the source code, they could fix bugs for the customers, and we could provide a better product and better service.'' (This is not an exact quote, as I did not write his words down, but it gets the gist.)

People in the audience afterward told me, ``He just doesn't get the point.'' But is that so? Which point did he not get?

He did not miss the point of the Open Source movement. That movement does not say users should have freedom, only that allowing more people to look at the source code and help improve it makes for faster and better development. The executive grasped that point completely; unwilling to carry out that approach in full, users included, he was considering implementing it partially, within the company.

The point that he missed is the point that ``open source'' was designed not to raise: the point that users deserve freedom.

So no, the Open Source movement is not about freedom. They merely champion the practical advantages that come from having the freedom of Free Software. If you want the freedoms of Free Software, the Open Source movement is indeed a mistake.

you miss one point...
opensource != free software
read about the difference here

The reason the FSF does not approve these translations as officially valid is that checking them would be difficult and expensive (needing the help of bilingual lawyers in other countries). Even worse, if an error did slip through, the results could be disastrous for the whole free software community. As long as the translations are unofficial, they can't do any harm, and we hope they help more people understand the GPL.

Prof. Moglen has already thoroughly answered this question, so we should not be wasting a question in the interview on asking it again. All he will do is either point to the same answer or summarize the same answer. I therefore ask the moderators to mark the parent down as redundant.

You should check out Mr. Moglen's article about this very issue.

Do you believe this claim is correct in all US jurisdictions, or do some state laws allow licenses like the GPL to be revoked by the copyright holder?

Microsoft's anti-GPL offensive this summer has sparked renewed speculation about whether the GPL is ``enforceable.'' This particular example of ``FUD'' (fear, uncertainty and doubt) is always a little amusing to me. I'm the only lawyer on earth who can say this, I suppose, but it makes me wonder what everyone's wondering about: Enforcing the GPL is something that I do all the time. Because free software is an unorthodox concept in contemporary society, people tend to assume that such an atypical goal must be pursued using unusually ingenious, and therefore fragile, legal machinery. But the assumption is faulty. The goal of the Free Software Foundation in designing and publishing the GPL, is unfortunately unusual: we're reshaping how programs are made in order to give everyone the right to understand, repair, improve, and redistribute the best-quality software on earth. This is a transformative enterprise; it shows how in the new, networked society traditional ways of doing business can be displaced by completely different models of production and distribution. But the GPL, the legal device that makes everything else possible, is a very robust machine precisely because it is made of the simplest working parts. The essence of copyright law, like other systems of property rules, is the power to exclude. The copyright holder is legally empowered to exclude all others from copying, distributing, and making derivative works. This right to exclude implies an equally large power to license--that is, to grant permission to do what would otherwise be forbidden. Licenses are not contracts: the work's user is obliged to remain within the bounds of the license not because she voluntarily promised, but because she doesn't have any right to act at all except as the license permits. But most proprietary software companies want more power than copyright alone gives them. These companies say their software is ``licensed'' to consumers, but the license contains obligations that copyright law knows nothing about. Software you're not allowed to understand, for example, often requires you to agree not to decompile it. Copyright law doesn't prohibit decompilation, the prohibition is just a contract term you agree to as a condition of getting the software when you buy the product under shrink wrap in a store, or accept a ``clickwrap license'' on line. Copyright is just leverage for taking even more away from users. The GPL, on the other hand, subtracts from copyright rather than adding to it. The license doesn't have to be complicated, because we try to control users as little as possible. Copyright grants publishers power to forbid users to exercise rights to copy, modify, and distribute that we believe all users should have; the GPL thus relaxes almost all the restrictions of the copyright system. The only thing we absolutely require is that anyone distributing GPL'd works or works made from GPL'd works distribute in turn under GPL. That condition is a very minor restriction, from the copyright point of view. Much more restrictive licenses are routinely held enforceable: every license involved in every single copyright lawsuit is more restrictive than the GPL. Because there's nothing complex or controversial about the license's substantive provisions, I have never even seen a serious argument that the GPL exceeds a licensor's powers. But it is sometimes said that the GPL can't be enforced because users haven't ``accepted'' it. This claim is based on a misunderstanding. The license does not require anyone to accept it in order to acquire, install, use, inspect, or even experimentally modify GPL'd software. All of those activities are either forbidden or controlled by proprietary software firms, so they require you to accept a license, including contractual provisions outside the reach of copyright, before you can use their works. The free software movement thinks all those activities are rights, which all users ought to have; we don't even want to cover those activities by license. Almost everyone who uses GPL'd software from day to day needs no license, and accepts none. The GPL only obliges you if you distribute software made from GPL'd code, and only needs to be accepted when redistribution occurs. And because no one can ever redistribute without a license, we can safely presume that anyone redistributing GPL'd software intended to accept the GPL. After all, the GPL requires each copy of covered software to include the license text, so everyone is fully informed. Despite the FUD, as a copyright license the GPL is absolutely solid. That's why I've been able to enforce it dozens of times over nearly ten years, without ever going to court. Meanwhile, much murmuring has been going on in recent months to the supposed effect that the absence of judicial enforcement, in US or other courts, somehow demonstrates that there is something wrong with the GPL, that its unusual policy goal is implemented in a technically indefensible way, or that the Free Software Foundation, which authors the license, is afraid of testing it in court. Precisely the reverse is true. We do not find ourselves taking the GPL to court because no one has yet been willing to risk contesting it with us there. So what happens when the GPL is violated? With software for which the Free Software Foundation holds the copyright (either because we wrote the programs in the first place, or because free software authors have assigned us the copyright, in order to take advantage of our expertise in protecting their software's freedom), the first step is a report, usually received by email to . We ask the reporters of violations to help us establish necessary facts, and then we conduct whatever further investigation is required. We reach this stage dozens of times a year. A quiet initial contact is usually sufficient to resolve the problem. Parties thought they were complying with GPL, and are pleased to follow advice on the correction of an error. Sometimes, however, we believe that confidence-building measures will be required, because the scale of the violation or its persistence in time makes mere voluntary compliance insufficient. In such situations we work with organizations to establish GPL-compliance programs within their enterprises, led by senior managers who report to us, and directly to their enterprises' managing boards, regularly. In particularly complex cases, we have sometimes insisted upon measures that would make subsequent judicial enforcement simple and rapid in the event of future violation. In approximately a decade of enforcing the GPL, I have never insisted on payment of damages to the Foundation for violation of the license, and I have rarely required public admission of wrongdoing. Our position has always been that compliance with the license, and security for future good behavior, are the most important goals. We have done everything to make it easy for violators to comply, and we have offered oblivion with respect to past faults. In the early years of the free software movement, this was probably the only strategy available. Expensive and burdensome litigation might have destroyed the FSF, or at least prevented it from doing what we knew was necessary to make the free software movement the permanent force in reshaping the software industry that it has now become. Over time, however, we persisted in our approach to license enforcement not because we had to, but because it worked. An entire industry grew up around free software, all of whose participants understood the overwhelming importance of the GPL--no one wanted to be seen as the villain who stole free software, and no one wanted to be the customer, business partner, or even employee of such a bad actor. Faced with a choice between compliance without publicity or a campaign of bad publicity and a litigation battle they could not win, violators chose not to play it the hard way. We have even, once or twice, faced enterprises which, under US copyright law, were engaged in deliberate, criminal copyright infringement: taking the source code of GPL'd software, recompiling it with an attempt to conceal its origin, and offering it for sale as a proprietary product. I have assisted free software developers other than the FSF to deal with such problems, which we have resolved--since the criminal infringer would not voluntarily desist and, in the cases I have in mind, legal technicalities prevented actual criminal prosecution of the violators--by talking to redistributors and potential customers. ``Why would you want to pay serious money,'' we have asked, ``for software that infringes our license and will bog you down in complex legal problems, when you can have the real thing for free?'' Customers have never failed to see the pertinence of the question. The stealing of free software is one place where, indeed, crime doesn't pay. But perhaps we have succeeded too well. If I had used the courts to enforce the GPL years ago, Microsoft's whispering would now be falling on deaf ears. Just this month I have been working on a couple of moderately sticky situations. ``Look,'' I say, ``at how many people all over the world are pressuring me to enforce the GPL in court, just to prove I can. I really need to make an example of someone. Would you like to volunteer?'' Someday someone will. But that someone's customers are going to go elsewhere, talented technologists who don't want their own reputations associated with such an enterprise will quit, and bad publicity will smother them. And that's all before we even walk into court. The first person who tries it will certainly wish he hadn't. Our way of doing law has been as unusual as our way of doing software, but that's just the point. Free software matters because it turns out that the different way is the right way after all. Eben Moglen is professor of law and legal history at Columbia University Law School. He serves without fee as General Counsel of the Free Software Foundation. Copyright © 2001 Eben Moglen Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.

I thought it worked the other way around.

You can't put GPL code into an LGPL application, but you can put LPGL code into a GPL application.

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but since the BSD license is listed as being [1] "GPL Compatible" by the FSF, you could take the kernel, redistribute under the BSD license, then make your changes and redistribute again with a mere mention of "Thanks to ...".

In a situation like this, you'd probably find that the JAR was licensed under the LGPL, which works differently (I'll let you read it rather than try to explain it).

Standard can't forbid adding new libraries to environment.

A standard can forbid whatever it likes. I could argue that since "Java" meant not only a programming language (like C++), but also a runtime environment and a set of libraries (larger than what, say, "C standard libraries" provide), that extending those was violating the standard.

In comparison to other standards, we've known for a long time that Java isn't an "Open Standard" like C++ or TCP/IP. (Especially in the past, when Microsoft's offenses occured). There's no public committee to approve amendments to the standard- what Sun says goes. They had wide latitude to redefine the standard as it suited them.

Looking at it from this perspective, one might think Microsoft foolish to sign a contract agreeing to ship Java, when the definition of Java could change in the future. That may be, but they did sign.

(Apple might also be in violation on "nonstandard library extension terms"- but they probably don't have the same contract terms as Microsoft did, and Sun won't waste time targeting a small fish until the big one is taken)

However, I don't even need to discuss new libraries. Microsoft introduced incompatibilities to the language itself. Features like delegate (a new keyword!!) don't provide access to any underlying Windows(tm) functionality- they just change how program internals work.

When GNU C++ did this, they were punished, although by gentle community opposition, rather than lawsuits, as they had no contractual obligation to the standards holder. (And C++ was understood to be a platform-bound language anyhow)

Or if somebody ships a Linux claiming conformance to LSB, but adds some proprietary applications to it, he violates the standard?

The Linux Standard Base specifically mentions that extensions are allowed. Therefore they don't violate the standard. If a standard disallows them, then yes, that's in violation. If a standard is silent on the topic, it needs revision in version x.1.

Here's a pertinant quotation:

We have even, once or twice, faced enterprises which, under US copyright law, were engaged in deliberate, criminal copyright infringement: taking the source code of GPL'd software, recompiling it with an attempt to conceal its origin, and offering it for sale as a proprietary product. I have assisted free software developers other than the FSF to deal with such problems, which we have resolved--since the criminal infringer would not voluntarily desist and, in the cases I have in mind, legal technicalities prevented actual criminal prosecution of the violators--by talking to redistributors and potential customers. ``Why would you want to pay serious money,'' we have asked, ``for software that infringes our license and will bog you down in complex legal problems, when you can have the real thing for free?'' Customers have never failed to see the pertinence of the question. The stealing of free software is one place where, indeed, crime doesn't pay.

But perhaps we have succeeded too well. If I had used the courts to enforce the GPL years ago, Microsoft's whispering would now be falling on deaf ears. Just this month I have been working on a couple of moderately sticky situations. ``Look,'' I say, ``at how many people all over the world are pressuring me to enforce the GPL in court, just to prove I can. I really need to make an example of someone. Would you like to volunteer?''

If Castle does not accept the terms of the GPL, or the GPL is declared to be invalid, then standard copyright law applies and they are infringing. They cannot and will not be allowed, by any Court, to "cherry pick" from among the various clauses of the GPL those that they choose to accept, and those that they choose to decline.

-renard