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Doesn't GPL have explicit anti-sue protection, with that whole section on lack of implied merchantability or warranty?

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
        it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
        the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
        (at your option) any later version.

        This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
        but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
        MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
        GNU General Public License for more details.

        You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
        along with this program. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.

From the GNU how-to.

Does anyone know how this would interact with the potential EU law?

I wasn't aware there were any ISP's that offered service in the middle of the Indian Ocean anyway.

Do they use their Internet access to notify the ship owners what their ransom is?

Ooh. I see, you were using the wrong term, which lead to my confusion.

"Piracy" is the act of attacking ships with weapons and either stealing their cargo, or the whole ship, and "pirates" is what people who do that are called. Lately its in fashion to ransom the ships.

Assuming you don't agree that 'making copies of music files' is a crime on par with attacking ships and ransoming them, maybe a different term would be more appropriate. Try one of the ones mentioned at:

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Piracy

One thing I see in the halls of the faculty offices that's really scary is that the textbook reps are pushing electronic books like crazy -- but these books are apparently distributed with DRM, on a rental basis, so that as soon as the student stops paying, the book stops working.

Sounds familiar.

there's nothing in VS license that prohibits you from making free-as-in-beer, or even FOSS, applications.

Nothing in the license, other than the fact that I failed to think of any way to recover the $600 cost of said license.

Again, I think you've missed the original context.

The context is that someone recommended Windows Mobile, which has "only" the Java trap, compared to the iPhone that has both the lockout chip and the Java trap. Sure, I get your point that a Java trap alone is preferable to a lockout chip, but both get in the way of porting free software to a platform.

Why run Matlab when you can run Octave?

Because Octave isn't 100% compatible (see http://www.gnu.org/software/octave/FAQ.html#MATLAB-compatibility), and regardless of whether it deserves it, Matlab is still the standard in a bunch of fields.

Yes, and it nowhere says my competitor is forced to redistribute the binaries to me.

Oh, for the love of... I never said it did. On that front, I was AGREEING with you.

While that is unlikely in the games market, this situation is common in the world of professional services where customers might actually pay a commercial rate for the man time required to modify a product to fit their needs.

Yes, but that's not really the situation that was under discussion, is it? In the scenario where a consultant or contractor is paid to add specific functionality to an existing product, the company paying them are probably only interested in using that product themselves, not selling or supporting it. In fact, depending on the nature of the product/changes, they may well desire not to redistribute it at all - which doesn't really make their version a competitor to the original, does it?

If someone wants to make a living making modified versions of GPL software as a consultant/contractor, good for them. In a scenario where the original author(s) of said software offer a similar service, people in the market for customized versions would be hard pressed to pick them over a third party not likely to know the code as well. (Admittedly there are many other factors that would influence such decisions, but being the original author is quite an advantage.)

GPLv3 FAQ regarding developing changes under NDAs.

Ahem is is in the public domain

A work can be free, but if it requires a non-free underlying platform, the work is Java-trapped. For example, applications for the Java platform were Java-trapped until Sun released Java as free software, and any Windows-only app that does not work in Wine is Java-trapped. And if the correct appearance of Ahem requires a patented rendering method, Ahem is likewise trapped.

It is true that we have been contacted by Apple's legal department, but that has never been in the clear intent of suing us

I didn't say Apple was suing the FreeType project directly. I was only saying that Apple hasn't licensed the patent for use in free operating systems or free web browsers. In such a scenario, Apple might sue the publisher of the operating system (e.g. Canonical or Red Hat) or the web browser (e.g. Mozilla Corp), even if it doesn't sue the FreeType project. That's why I want to know whether correct rendering of Ahem in Acid3 depends on hint bytecodes. If it doesn't, there's no problem.

Computed Gotos

Still alive. I hear it's a popular optimization technique for bytecode interpreters these days.

as far as I know linking to a GPL library will cause your code to be a derivate work, as far as I know only gcc is excepted from this.
That's why FSF created the LGPL licence. (even if they don't want you to use it)

The GPL (paragraph 3 in GPLv3, paragraph 6 in GPLv3) says otherwise. You can read the paragraph for yourself here, but to summarize the options it provides:

1. Provide the source on the same physical media as the binaries.
2. Provide a written offer, good for at least 3 years from the time of distribution, to provide any third party with the source code (or access to the source code) upon request.
3. Pass along the written offer you got for the source code. Permitted only for non-commercial redistribution.
4. Offer access to download the source code from the same place as access to download the binaries is offered.

In all cases, the GPL requires your competitor to make the code available to you or to provide it to you upon request.

That's good point.

Someone should fix the official GCJ FAQ:

Given that, and the idea that languages implemented using Gcc should be compatible where it makes sense, it follows that the Java calling convention should be as similar as practical to that used for other languages, especially C++, since we can think of Java as a subset of C++.

http://gcc.gnu.org/java/faq.html

Those nutty GCC developers, always putting up misinformation about the compilers they develop before consulting Slashdot.

So how is this approach different from GNU Hurd? http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/hurd.html

Because he sees a serious distinction between "free software" and "open source software."

"Free software" by his definition protects "the four freedoms":
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

So free software is a subset of open source software, in that free software will always have the source code available. But open source software is not "free" if it doesn't allow the user to use the software in whatever way the user chooses, if the user cannot modify their code and use it instead of the original (see "Tivoization" for how this could happen even with source disclosed), if the user cannot share the original software, or if the user cannot redistribute their modified version so others can benefit from the changes they have made.

So, in short, while RMS is all for open source code, he also wants more for the user and the community.

See also:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html

Because he sees a serious distinction between "free software" and "open source software."

"Free software" by his definition protects "the four freedoms":
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

So free software is a subset of open source software, in that free software will always have the source code available. But open source software is not "free" if it doesn't allow the user to use the software in whatever way the user chooses, if the user cannot modify their code and use it instead of the original (see "Tivoization" for how this could happen even with source disclosed), if the user cannot share the original software, or if the user cannot redistribute their modified version so others can benefit from the changes they have made.

So, in short, while RMS is all for open source code, he also wants more for the user and the community.

See also:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html

Ask him. I don't particularly care.

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html

Mr. Stallman, and the ever shrinking group of people who care what he thinks, need to grow up. [...] Everything has a cost.

You're making two unrelated points. When RMS says "free", about 90% of the time it refers to freedom, not price.

He's not opposed (I would assume) to pay for his computers or Internet connectivity. He's also not opposed to paying for software, but I assume he gets all his needs met by zero-cost (and free-as-in-freedom) software. I seem to recall him saying the FSF (presumably under his leadership) spent money, paying coders to write GNU userspace tools (grep, tar, that stuff).

What he is opposed to is other people having (undue) control over your (choices in) software and your data. That's what this is all about.

See for instance http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html and http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html for some views on freedom and money.

Mr. Stallman, and the ever shrinking group of people who care what he thinks, need to grow up. [...] Everything has a cost.

You're making two unrelated points. When RMS says "free", about 90% of the time it refers to freedom, not price.

He's not opposed (I would assume) to pay for his computers or Internet connectivity. He's also not opposed to paying for software, but I assume he gets all his needs met by zero-cost (and free-as-in-freedom) software. I seem to recall him saying the FSF (presumably under his leadership) spent money, paying coders to write GNU userspace tools (grep, tar, that stuff).

What he is opposed to is other people having (undue) control over your (choices in) software and your data. That's what this is all about.

See for instance http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html and http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html for some views on freedom and money.

Right, but there is more detail than what RMS was quoted as having said.

Specifically, it's okay to have SaaS when the AGPL is involved, e.g. at http://autonomo.us/ (a AGPL'd twitter app), and sometimes even when the GPL is involved, e.g. http://savannah.gnu.org/

However, there's one more big point to mention: We pay money (directly and/or with our data and ad-watching) for SaaS because they maintain this all for us. We don't need patches for bugs or security issues because they do it for us, arguably better than we can. As to new features, well that's where RMS's points hit home.

Odd. Looking at http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/hurd.html (which I assume is the definitive site for Hurd), I see:

The GNU Hurd is under active development. Because of that, there is no stable version. We distribute the Hurd sources only through CVS at present.

Although it is possible to bootstrap the GNU/Hurd system from the sources by cross-compiling and installing the system software and the basic applications, this is a difficult process. It is not recommended that you do this. Instead, you should get a binary distribution of the GNU/Hurd, which comes with all the GNU software precompiled and an installation routine which is easy to use.

The Debian project has commited to provide such a binary distribution. Debian GNU/Hurd is currently under development and available in the unstable branch of the Debian archive.

Given the above disclaimer on the Hurd parent site, I have to continue to believe and state that Hurd is still vaporware.

Software doesn't become free just because it offends people to claim otherwise. People who rely on software-as-a-service at cybercafes don't have full control over their data and are vulnerable to the whims of their software providers.

Or perhaps he could just run GNU/Linux on, say, an OpenSPARC based system.

It's not like nobody has ever thought of this before.

Do we still have the right to read?

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html

oh shit, 'ts happening

http://xkcd.com/225/

I think it's pretty safe to say RMS would agree that he has an "open and virulent bias against copyrights."

This is true only for software. A talk by RMS states clearly what he would like. Basically, functional works (encyclopedias, software) have no copyright, personal opinion/experience works (editorials, scientific papers) have copyright, though allowing verbatim copies, and artistic works have full copyright, but reduced in duration to about a decade.

If the FSF could rewrite copyright law, it'd be completely different. I'd say they have an open dislike (maybe not "bias") against the current typical use of copyright, especially for computer programs.

Spot on. A talk by RMS states clearly what he would like. Basically, functional works (encyclopedias, software) have no copyright, personal opinion/experience works (editorials, scientific papers) have copyright, but verbatim copies are allowed, and artistic works have full copyright, but reduced to a decade or so. There are some problems defining this categorization, but copyright already has to deal with some pretty grey areas, such as fair use.

KutuluWare said it well:

[...]

What RMS and ideologically similar people have proposed is this: software should not be covered under copyright law. You can see this ideal most clearly if you head over to http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/philosophy.html and read the two articles called "Why Software Should {Be Free,Not Have Owners}". While I disagree with his philosophy, he makes a pretty solid empirical case for why software should not be "owned" in the same sense that books are "owned" by their author or art is "owned" by the artist.

[... A] key point about the GPL and why it exists: because there is copyright law, the FSF must use copyright law to accomplish their goals. If software was suddenly declared ineligible for copyright, there'd be no need for the GPL because no proprietary software company could prevent people with access to their source code from modifying or redistributing it, nor could they prevent people from modifying or distributing binary copies of the software. This is a small step back from the current state where the group of people with access to the GPL'd source code includes everyone with a copy of the binary, but it's a giant leap forward in eliminating all the complex legal issues around who can copy what and where.

Solaris is open. If you don't like the CDDL license, too bad for you. The fact that it doesn't meet the requirements of an aging anti-commerce hippie doesn't make it less open. Hearing "change the license" is automatically a flag that some Linux fanboy is determined to paint the world in HIS colour, and EVERYONE ELSE must comply.

I prefer that Solaris be totally opened. I understand that not all of Solaris source code is currently available. From Wikipedia:

Sun has released most of the Solaris source code under the Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL), which is based on the Mozilla Public License (MPL) version 1.1. The CDDL was approved as an open source license by the Open Source Initiative (OSI) in January 2005. Files licensed under the CDDL can be combined with files licensed under other licenses, whether open source or proprietary.

Emphasis mine.

However, the Free Software Foundation states that the CDDL is free, but not compatible with the GNU GPL (meaning code cannot be shared between them, unless they were already dual-licensed):

This is a free software license. It has a copyleft with a scope that's similar to the one in the Mozilla Public License, which makes it incompatible with the GNU GPL. This means a module covered by the GPL and a module covered by the CDDL cannot legally be linked together. We urge you not to use the CDDL for this reason.

And yes, I know there is a controversy about GPL and CDDL.

Where do we have a right to copy others' work?

Where do I have a right to point a gun at you to prevent you from copying a song or poem that I wrote? Representing it as your own work would be fraud, which might justify a forcible response, but the idea that I ought to be able to threaten you with violence (through my proxy, the state) if you make a copy of a work I created and share it with a friend, is ridiculous.

If I had spent 2-3 years creating a novel, I certainly don't want somebody taking my labor without pay...

So you're opposed to book lending and public libraries? You're against the right to read?

Authors ought to get paid. A state-created artificial monopoly on making copies is a lousy way to bring that about.

You said:

GPL can "infect" a company's IP. And that's not a bug, it's a feature. RMS has said so himself and others are also quite clear on this.

The GPL is no more infectious than the "you can't sell the software that you build with this tool" clause of the license that accompanied "student" versions of MSFT's Visual C++ 6 and 7.

From the first link:

GPL and NDA

* To: gcc at gcc dot gnu dot org
* Subject: GPL and NDA
* From: Richard Stallman
* Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2001 05:07:10 -0600 (MDT)
* Reply-to: rms at gnu dot org

GPL-covered code may not be distributed under an NDA.
To do so is a violation of the GPL.

If someone asks you to sign an NDA for receiving GPL-covered code that
is copyright FSF, please inform the FSF immediately. If it involves
GPL-covered code that has some other copyright holder, please inform
that copyright holder, just as you would for any other kind of
violation of the GPL.

It is possible for a person or company to develop changes to a
GPL-covered program and sign an NDA promising not to release these
changes *to anyone*. This is a different case. As long as these
changes are not distributed at all, a fortiori they are not
distributed in a way that violates the GPL.

However, if and when the changes are distributed to another person or
outside the company, they must be distributed under the terms of the
GPL, not under an NDA.

This doesn't have anything to do with the licensing of works that derive from GPL-licensed code. Your inclusion of this information makes you look either illiterate or careless.

From the second link:

From: Phil Nelson
Subject: Inaccurate information in `GNU' section
Date: 23 Apr 2004, 09:33:30

Hash: SHA1

On Thursday 22 April 2004 11:45 pm, Peter N Lewis wrote:
> > > I'm confused by this. If it "does not contain code from any
> >
> >> GPL-covered software", then surely you can release it under any
> >> license you feel like, whether it can run stand-alone or not. If I
> >
> >A program can be free of code from a GPL-covered program, but it links
> >with a library licensed under the GPL, then it has to be under the GPL
> >as well. It is this catch, if you will, that led to the LGPL.
>
> This could only be true if you ship the binary with it linked.

First, the disclaimer, IANAL.

Second, I wrote gdbm for the FSF and have had many many conversations with Mr.
Stallman about the GPL and how it applies to libraries. The key to the GPL
is the understanding of "derivative work". I'll use gdbm as an example.

If code directly calls any of the gdbm functions, it *is* a derivative work.
Therefore, any work that directly calls gdbm functions and is distributed
must be distributed under the terms of the GPL. Of course, the GPL is
transitive, thus any program that has a call path that ends up in a gdbm
function is required to be under the GPL. (If distributed.)

If your code is written for the original dbm interface it is not a derivative
work of gdbm, even if you happen to use the dbm interface to gdbm.
It would be considered a derivative work of dbm.

I don't know if this would stand up in a court of law, but I'm very sure this
is what Mr. Stallman intended for the GPL. I have requested that gdbm be
put under the LGPL so that programs that use gdbm don't have to be under the
GPL, but he has chosen to keep the GPL on gdbm. Therefore, whenever people
ask about gdbm, the GPL and their programs, I must tell them that if they
plan to distri

I think so... perhaps you should try another operating system?

Be aware though, it's got a weird text editor...

GPL can "infect" a company's IP. And that's not a bug, it's a feature. RMS has said so himself and others are also quite clear on this.

Some GNU humour (couldn't paste it - Slashdot filters don't like GNU humour)...

http://cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewvc/*checkout*/emacs/etc/JOKES?revision=1.4&root=emacs

Cry me a river, dickhead. I submitted some very valuable imagery to Commons and Wikipedia -- some PD, most GFDL -- to make their particular set of projects better. You wanna use them? The GFDL says you must GFDL your derived works. Incredible, isn't it? You don't like it? TOO FUCKING BAD. Shit happens, the world isn't always to your liking.

Cry me a river. The GFDL also states that it can be relicenced as CC-BY-SA. If you submitted the work under a previous version, then you still agreed under the "or any later version" clause.

Incredible, isn't it? You don't like it? TOO FUCKING BAD. Shit happens, the world isn't always to your liking.

Seriously - try reading the licencing that you submit your work under, before whining about it.

Or you can use Gnash, which works fine with youtube.

If the Program specifies that a certain numbered version of the GNU General Public License âoeor any later versionâ applies to it, you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that numbered version or of any later version published by the Free Software Foundation.

Because your GPL v666 is not published by the FSF, you cannot relicense existing GPL'd software under it.

If the Program specifies that a certain numbered version of the GNU General Public License âoeor any later versionâ applies to it, you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that numbered version or of any later version published by the Free Software Foundation.

Because your GPL v666 is not published by the FSF, you cannot relicense existing GPL'd software under it.

How about this for a reason: the reason it's long is that the GFDL is encumbered by a number of clauses and options that are totally inappropriate for Wikipedia or a project like it. Their presence in the license terms can be confusing and off-putting to contributors (who will read things like 'We have designed this License in order to use it for manuals for free software'), and contributes nothing to the project.

Some of those particular options present in the license make GFDL content incompatible with Wikipedia. That means that content that is brought in, even though it is ostensibly under the "right" license, has to be scrutinized to ensure that the particular GFDL options that are used aren't going to present problems down the road. The proposed CC license would have no such possible wrinkles.

The GP poster is correct that the CC license has no ideological preamble that goes into specific ideology; compare the GFDL and the CC license in question. The Wikipedia ethos/ideology and the Gnu Foundation take on things are not identical; therefore, it makes more sense to use a license that is not specifically tied to terms and ideas borrowed from GNU.

Finally, GFDL is a barrier to the incorporation of a lot of good, free material into Wikipedia. CC is a much more common licensing type for non-software related things, like photographs. Getting and keeping good, free images to illustrate articles is a constant struggle on Wikipedia. It is made more difficult by the fact that very few people are posting new images with GFDL licensing, but there are a lot of people (or at least a lot relative to people using GFDL) using a Creative Commons license. A lot of media resources that Wikipedia currently can't use would be made accessible by this change.

A special clause the FSF introduced into the GFDL allows GFDL works to be relicensed, see Section 11.

11. RELICENSING

This was because the CC-BY-SA was a license that did not exist at the time the GFDL was the only free documentation license available.

The GFDL was intended to be part of the "licensing stack" for copyleft software; a counterpart to the GPL for copyleft software, where the code itself would be GPL, the documentation would be GFDL.

It was never designed to be used for sites like Wikipedia; but they wanted to make content freely available, and GFDL was the only thing really available to pick.

When more appropriate alternatievs came up, it makes sense that they adjusted the license to simply allow conversion to the alternative, for those class of works it was appropriate for, instead of trying to re-invent the wheel.

The GFDL license, under which the current Wikipedia content is licensed, has a "or any later version" clause, which Wikipedia uses.

With the newest update of the GFDL, the FSF introduced a new section, 11. RELICENSING, specifically designed to handle this update:

11. RELICENSING

"Massive Multiauthor Collaboration Site" (or "MMC Site") means any World Wide Web server that publishes copyrightable works and also provides prominent facilities for anybody to edit those works. A public wiki that anybody can edit is an example of such a server. A "Massive Multiauthor Collaboration" (or "MMC") contained in the site means any set of copyrightable works thus published on the MMC site.

"CC-BY-SA" means the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license published by Creative Commons Corporation, a not-for-profit corporation with a principal place of business in San Francisco, California, as well as future copyleft versions of that license published by that same organization.

"Incorporate" means to publish or republish a Document, in whole or in part, as part of another Document.

An MMC is "eligible for relicensing" if it is licensed under this License, and if all works that were first published under this License somewhere other than this MMC, and subsequently incorporated in whole or in part into the MMC, (1) had no cover texts or invariant sections, and (2) were thus incorporated prior to November 1, 2008.

The operator of an MMC Site may republish an MMC contained in the site under CC-BY-SA on the same site at any time before August 1, 2009, provided the MMC is eligible for relicensing.

Existing content contributed to Wikipedia was done under the GFDL license, which like the standard GPLv2 includes a "or later version" clause. Wikipedia's license includes this clause.
The latest version of the GFDL now contains a section I think written to specifically allow Wikimedia to do this. See section 11, "Relicensing" here:
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html

The CCSA is backwards compatible with the GFDL.

read the preamble here: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html

also this:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/quick-guide-gplv3.html

read the preamble here: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html

also this:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/quick-guide-gplv3.html

Yeah, that's why they call it the GNU General Public License , eh?

open source software doesn't have licenses. It is free. Well, at least free software is, "open source" is kind of a wash word as its been stretched to mean anything.

Please expand the acronym "GPL" for me.

open source software doesn't have licenses. It is free. Well, at least free software is, "open source" is kind of a wash word as its been stretched to mean anything.

"Free Software" means the enforced-freeness of the GPL, which is a subset of Open Source.

Not according to the FSF, which lists the 3-clause BSD license as a "GPL-compatible free software license".

What you describe here is called "copyleft".

The open source definition is a set of 10 criteria that "distribution terms" (i.e. a copyright license) must meet to be legitimately called "open source". The problem is that, if you're dishonest (and many people are), you can still use patent law or other means to render most of those criteria moot while still nominally meeting them.

On the other hand, FSF's free software definition only deals with the necessary results of those rules, rather than the rules themselves. It doesn't matter whether somebody's lawyers have figured out a clever way to cover all the "open source" checkboxes, unless you have the actual, meaningful freedoms to run, study, adapt, improve, and redistribute a program (including improved versions) to anyone for any purpose at any price, then the program is not free software.

The FSF has a fairly decent (and reasonably fair) comparison of "free software" vs "open source", entitled Why "Open Source" misses the point of Free Software

The open source definition is a set of 10 criteria that "distribution terms" (i.e. a copyright license) must meet to be legitimately called "open source". The problem is that, if you're dishonest (and many people are), you can still use patent law or other means to render most of those criteria moot while still nominally meeting them.

On the other hand, FSF's free software definition only deals with the necessary results of those rules, rather than the rules themselves. It doesn't matter whether somebody's lawyers have figured out a clever way to cover all the "open source" checkboxes, unless you have the actual, meaningful freedoms to run, study, adapt, improve, and redistribute a program (including improved versions) to anyone for any purpose at any price, then the program is not free software.

The FSF has a fairly decent (and reasonably fair) comparison of "free software" vs "open source", entitled Why "Open Source" misses the point of Free Software

Like, there's only one Linux kernel, only one C compiler, only one bash shell.. only one Perl, only one Java...

You are correct that there are only one Linux kernel, but there are other free UNIX kernels you could use instead. When it comes to compilers both LLVM and GCC are widely used. (LLVM is used in Gallum3D, the new acceleration architecture for X, and in Shark, a CPU agnostic JIT for OpenJDK. A C frontend not based on GCC is in development) There are many shells. Ubuntu, a quite popular Linux distro, actually uses dash as default /bin/sh. While it's true that only OpenJDK (if I recall correctly) passes the TCK for Java you also have competing implementations like Harmony, what Google uses on Android. You have more competition on the parts of the Java stack that takes less time to implement.