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Even the third-party solutions that aim to turn this spying off aren't 100-percent successful.

Of course they're not. The proprietor determines how successful anyone's programs will be because with proprietary software the proprietor sets the rules. "Turning off" spying for proprietary software means nothing no matter what a GUI, configuration changes, or some admin tells you because none of these things can compete with the degree of control the proprietor has over the program or (in the case of proprietary OSes like Windows and MacOS) the system. One who uses such a system expecting privacy controls to respect the user's wishes is fighting a fight they cannot win, by design. That is the nature of proprietary (non-free, user-subjugating) software.

Therefore the decision has to be made: proprietors push you to consider what you really want. Do you want the freedoms of free software even if that means lacking some of the conveniences proprietary software ostensibly offers (some of those conveniences are genuine and robustly implemented but come with a heavy price of non-freedom, some of those conveniences are completely illusory and traps for people who write from the quoted perspective above like DRM)? Free software (software users are free to run, inspect, share, and modify) is available and meets a lot of modern needs even on older hardware that doesn't contain backdoors like the Intel AMT. Arguments against software freedom invariably come from those prioritizing convenience over the privacy users say they want (including standing by such speech by "jailbreaking" their phones; a telling word about the default status of the phone's user).

Choosing to support Open Source is not the same as using a Free Software license. And by "support" I did not mean "legally required to release source", if I did I wouldn't have used the word support. (the press release used the word support)

There are already OSI approved licenses from Microsoft such as Ms-PL and Ms-RL. With the Ms-RL (Reciprocal License) being like GPL in that it is a Free Software license, but unfortunately incompatible with GPL according to GNU

It's important to consider the goals of the GPL. You get great Free Software, but it's not a gift. It is sharing with rules that must be followed. You are required to keep it Free. And one of the implied purposes of the GPL is to cause more great Free Software to be made. This means that derivative works that are not shared really go against the purpose as well as the wording of the GPL.

Yes, and you don't get to change the rules either, Bruce.

What they're doing is not "tantamount to the addition of a term to the GPL prohibiting distribution or creating a penalty for distribution." The person to whom the code is distributed (for sake of argument, "you") remains free to distribute that code to anyone, and that anyone remains free to distribute the code to anyone else.

What they're doing is refusing to distribute a future version of the code to you -- which the GPL permits (e.g., limited availability). If they distribute the code under section 3a, they have no obligation to distribute the code to any other party, i.e., they cannot be compelled to distribute updated versions of the code to you.

Their only obligation to distribute a future version of the code to anyone in particular would arise under a support contract. But the GPL does not require that support even be provided, much less govern support contracts. If they want to condition further support upon non-disclosure of the code, they could do it stupidly -- by having long term support contracts, lump sum fees, and a termination provision (courts dislike forfeiture-like penalties) -- or wisely -- by having month to month terms, monthly fees, and simply refusing to renew at the end of the term. There's no mechanism, whether in copyright or contract, to force them to continue to accommodate a customer that they do not want to deal with after they've complied with GPLv2 section 3a and any support contract's current term has expired.

If they've done this wisely, they're within the letter of the license and this is another instance, like Tivoization, where the free software community is simply going to have to learn to adapt.

This means that derivative works that are not shared really go against the purpose as well as the wording of the GPL.

You haven't convinced me that this goes against the wording of the GPL. As to the purpose, since you've succeeded in having the GPL held to form a contract, you'll have to take the "four corners" doctrine, construction against the draftsperson, and all the rest of contract law along for the ride as well. Once a party can show literal compliance with a contract's terms, attempts to add "tantamount" obligations or argue "tantamount" violations become extremely difficult. In the end, both sides have to follow the rules of the document.

These machines are not certified to be 'open source', they are certified to be 'free' as defined by the FSF. Those are entirely different things.

Practical Differences between Free Software and Open Source

In practice, open source stands for criteria a little looser than those of free software. As far as we know, all existing released free software source code would qualify as open source. Nearly all open source software is free software, but there are exceptions. First, some open source licenses are too restrictive, so they do not qualify as free licenses. For example, 'Open Watcom' is nonfree because its license does not allow making a modified version and using it privately. Fortunately, few programs use such licenses.

Second, and more important in practice, many products containing computers check signatures on their executable programs to block users from installing different executables; only one privileged company can make executables that can run in the device or can access its full capabilities. We call these devices "tyrants", and the practice is called "tivoization" after the product (Tivo) where we first saw it. Even if the executable is made from free source code, the users cannot run modified versions of it, so the executable is nonfree.

The criteria for open source do not recognize this issue; they are concerned solely with the licensing of the source code. Thus, these unmodifiable executables, when made from source code such as Linux that is open source and free, are open source but not free. Many Android products contain nonfree tivoized executables of Linux.

source: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy...

Coveted by people who value computing in freedom, and not evaluating only by convenience and price as most computer users are taught to do. This is another example of the division between a free software activist and an open source enthusiast as the FSF pointed out years ago in a couple of essays (older essay, newer essay).

/. is mostly filled (since years ago) by open source enthusiasts—business-first commenters for whom software freedom is never celebrated for its own sake (sometimes even chastising software freedom should someone dare to bring it up), and where any discussion of software freedom is begrudgingly tolerated only on stories where software freedom is the only way to avoid the calamity described in the story. Otherwise, evaluations come down to convenience and price with virtually no acknowledgement for how things got to be how they are.SaaS, pro-DRM are the focus (even while virtually every DRM story is about how customers are being treated badly with DRM) with discussions focusing on tinkering at the edges (DRM scheme X is not as painful as DRM scheme Y) which tacitly accepts that DRM is right and proper, and plenty of excuse-making for those in power over computer users. It's sad for those who remember that /. conversations used to be far more insightful. Fortunately there are plenty of other tech discussions around these days and /. loses its relevance as /. has long come off as just another corporate so-called "journalism" repeater site with pointers to readily-available press releases. Interesting like watching a trainwreck, but sad knowing it was better and could be better again if more people were interested in mature discussions without belittling.

Coveted by people who value computing in freedom, and not evaluating only by convenience and price as most computer users are taught to do. This is another example of the division between a free software activist and an open source enthusiast as the FSF pointed out years ago in a couple of essays (older essay, newer essay).

/. is mostly filled (since years ago) by open source enthusiasts—business-first commenters for whom software freedom is never celebrated for its own sake (sometimes even chastising software freedom should someone dare to bring it up), and where any discussion of software freedom is begrudgingly tolerated only on stories where software freedom is the only way to avoid the calamity described in the story. Otherwise, evaluations come down to convenience and price with virtually no acknowledgement for how things got to be how they are.SaaS, pro-DRM are the focus (even while virtually every DRM story is about how customers are being treated badly with DRM) with discussions focusing on tinkering at the edges (DRM scheme X is not as painful as DRM scheme Y) which tacitly accepts that DRM is right and proper, and plenty of excuse-making for those in power over computer users. It's sad for those who remember that /. conversations used to be far more insightful. Fortunately there are plenty of other tech discussions around these days and /. loses its relevance as /. has long come off as just another corporate so-called "journalism" repeater site with pointers to readily-available press releases. Interesting like watching a trainwreck, but sad knowing it was better and could be better again if more people were interested in mature discussions without belittling.

Coveted by people who value computing in freedom, and not evaluating only by convenience and price as most computer users are taught to do. This is another example of the division between a free software activist and an open source enthusiast as the FSF pointed out years ago in a couple of essays (older essay, newer essay).

/. is mostly filled (since years ago) by open source enthusiasts—business-first commenters for whom software freedom is never celebrated for its own sake (sometimes even chastising software freedom should someone dare to bring it up), and where any discussion of software freedom is begrudgingly tolerated only on stories where software freedom is the only way to avoid the calamity described in the story. Otherwise, evaluations come down to convenience and price with virtually no acknowledgement for how things got to be how they are.SaaS, pro-DRM are the focus (even while virtually every DRM story is about how customers are being treated badly with DRM) with discussions focusing on tinkering at the edges (DRM scheme X is not as painful as DRM scheme Y) which tacitly accepts that DRM is right and proper, and plenty of excuse-making for those in power over computer users. It's sad for those who remember that /. conversations used to be far more insightful. Fortunately there are plenty of other tech discussions around these days and /. loses its relevance as /. has long come off as just another corporate so-called "journalism" repeater site with pointers to readily-available press releases. Interesting like watching a trainwreck, but sad knowing it was better and could be better again if more people were interested in mature discussions without belittling.

Coveted by people who value computing in freedom, and not evaluating only by convenience and price as most computer users are taught to do. This is another example of the division between a free software activist and an open source enthusiast as the FSF pointed out years ago in a couple of essays (older essay, newer essay).

/. is mostly filled (since years ago) by open source enthusiasts—business-first commenters for whom software freedom is never celebrated for its own sake (sometimes even chastising software freedom should someone dare to bring it up), and where any discussion of software freedom is begrudgingly tolerated only on stories where software freedom is the only way to avoid the calamity described in the story. Otherwise, evaluations come down to convenience and price with virtually no acknowledgement for how things got to be how they are.SaaS, pro-DRM are the focus (even while virtually every DRM story is about how customers are being treated badly with DRM) with discussions focusing on tinkering at the edges (DRM scheme X is not as painful as DRM scheme Y) which tacitly accepts that DRM is right and proper, and plenty of excuse-making for those in power over computer users. It's sad for those who remember that /. conversations used to be far more insightful. Fortunately there are plenty of other tech discussions around these days and /. loses its relevance as /. has long come off as just another corporate so-called "journalism" repeater site with pointers to readily-available press releases. Interesting like watching a trainwreck, but sad knowing it was better and could be better again if more people were interested in mature discussions without belittling.

The FSF considers the javascript required to access github "non-free" but that is not the same as proprietary I think. It's not closed source

Then where's the source code? The script file that GitHub serves is minified, and minified JavaScript is not "the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it", which is how both GPLv2 and GPLv3 define a work's "source code".

In addition, the requirement to run non-free JavaScript is not the only thing that prevents a manufacturer of networked appliances from just starting its own dynamic DNS service for use by its appliances' firmware. I have read reports that the people who handle PSL pull requests are backlogged, which could delay a product launch by months.

SSL is now completely free via let's encrypt.

Let's Encrypt requires a fully qualified domain name (FQDN) under a well-known top-level domain (TLD), not an IP address in RFC 1918 space or a name under a made-up TLD such as .local or .internal. So do all other CAs whose root certificates are included in Mozilla NSS, as a FQDN is one of the Baseline Requirements adopted by the CA/Browser Forum.

Domains are cheap.

Cheap enough for every head of household to buy and to continue to renew in perpetuity? Because buying a domain is the only way to get a certificate for hosts on your LAN that visitors' devices will trust, and a certificate is the only way you're going to satisfy the "Secure Contexts" requirement for recently introduced JavaScript APIs.

Free ones are available.

Namely?

If you're referring to subdomains offered by dynamic DNS providers, these providers have to be on Mozilla's Public Suffix List (PSL). If a domain isn't already on the PSL, and 20 other users of subdomains under the same domain have obtained certificates in the past week, Let's Encrypt will deny you a certificate, citing its rate limit policy. If a domain is on the PSL, each subdomain gets its own separate rate limiting bucket of 20 certificates per subdomain per week. In addition, submissions to the PSL must be made by the dynamic DNS provider as a pull request through GitHub.com, and use of GitHub.com requires running proprietary software written in JavaScript on your computer.

That would be false. It was after hiring him that Apple was willing to re license LLVM as GPL to get it integrated into GCC.

The patch I'm working on is GPL licensed and copyright will be assigned to the FSF under the standard Apple copyright assignment.

https://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/200...

What exactly is it that people find so horrible with automake+autoconf? The Makefile they produce is completely horrible to look at but the configure.ac, Makefile.am and .in files are actually (IMHO) quite straight forward and they have very good docs at i.e https://www.gnu.org/savannah-c...

Yet they don't respect creative freedom

An author is free to create a work. A subscriber ought to be free to create out the parts of a work that the subscriber doesn't want to view, including categories of parts listed by a service provider that classifies parts by category, and especially including categories that other legislation and regulation deem "indecent" or "harmful to minors" (such as 18 USC 1464, 47 USC 231, and foreign counterparts).

or intellectual property of others.

"Intellectual property" is a seductive mirage.

For the moment, let's assume that by "intellectual property" you meant copyright. What have studios done to show that their copyrights deserve more respect than the laws restricting dealing in works that are "indecent" or "harmful to minors", other than just existing?

There could be many explanations:
* GNU style formatting of block statements put braces on their own lines, indented half-way.

* Respondents refer not to left-side indentation but to how they line up comments, member names, parameters etc. This can be fidgety when using tabs only (unless you are using elastic tabs) and using spaces for this would make it independent of tab size.

* Other things indented half-way: Preprocessor statements, labels, etc. Indenting of #ifdef's around code become independent of the code it surrounds, switch-case statements don't become so deep. You could also argue that classes (and functions...) become more readable.

Then I guess we can now consider the x86 and x86-64 instruction sets subject to what Richard Stallman has referred to as the Java Trap. A free program with proprietary dependencies is trapped, and Intel is asserting that the x86 and x86-64 instruction sets are proprietary.

Could report the Violations of the GNU Licenses to the copyright holder which is the Free Software Foundation as stated in their website, but is this effective in any way?

captcha: infernos

This isn't about IP

Correct: it isn't about Internet Protocol, and patents and copyrights differ too much to be usefully lumped into a discussion of "intellectual property" in the abstract.

patents expire infinitely sooner

Patents are also stronger than copyrights in two ways that some believe compensates for their shorter term.

First, a patent encumbers everybody, not just persons who have had access to the subject of the exclusive right. A successful claim of copyright infringement requires the alleged infringer to have had access to the plaintiff's work. A successful claim of patent infringement, by contrast, does not require the alleged infringer to have had access to the plaintiff's invention.

Second, a patent covers a process no matter how it is expressed. A copyright, by contrast, covers only a particular expression of a process.

if the government actually gave a damn about authors, artists, or musicians instead maintaining the publishing industry, they could always write a law mandating (say) that author royalties be at least 25% of the retail price of the work

How would that work for a motion picture, which may have hundreds of contributors? Or would the author's 25% cut all go to a movie's producer?

Somebody should invent the -j option to make .

I'm not going to address any of your points but compilation, but I can assure you more cores means much faster compilation. I have compiled a complete Linux kernel in under 20 minutes on an 8 core machine with a traditional rotating platter drive. I don't know how fast it would be with an SSD and 30+ cores, but really fscking fast is a pretty fair estimate.

To me it says one of two things:

• A. Users of computing devices have turned away from laptops to chase the tablet fad but will soon return to laptops.
• B. "Consumers", or people who use computing technology primarily to view works created by others, have turned away from laptops, but people who create works will soon return to laptops after experiencing the limits of the iPad and iOS platform.

People use "consumer" to mean a lot of categories of users. Most are unflattering.

Detachable tablets such as Microsoft's Surface line and Apple's iPad Pro will lead the growth as consumers have turned away from laptops in favor of these more versatile computing devices.

Surface Pro perhaps. But I don't see how an iPad Pro, constrained by the App Store Review Guidelines, is "more versatile" than a PC that can run anything. In particular, the ban on time-limited free trials has hindered ports of applications from macOS to iOS. And even if you stick to free applications, it'll cost you $499 extra if you want to be able to compile them from source because loading applications onto an iPad Pro requires a Mac, which starts at $499.

I'm not saying ditch Windows. I'm saying let's fix this. If we can't fix it, then we ditch Windows.

You should be saying ditch proprietary software precisely because nobody but the proprietor (the very party you can't trust) is legally allowed to fix this (where the word "fix" is a fix from the user's perspective, of course, since the software already works as the proprietor has programmed it to work). That's what proprietary software means and that power over the user is why proprietors distribute their software without respecting a user's freedoms to run, share, and modify the software at any time for any reason. The system's behavior can change at any time, so even if someone monitors what a particular variant of a non-free, user-subjugating OS does now that can change later. Perhaps the software only does something bad under conditions one doesn't typically reach, or maybe an update changes how the software behaves. Furthermore, said software updates don't have to come through an updating program which seeks a user's approval before installation (such as Windows Updates).

The GNU Project has no shortage of proprietary Microsoft malware and that includes universal backdoors, snooping on user's activities, ignoring user's settings on so-called 'privacy' settings, and sending identifiable data to Microsoft and third parties ("even if a user turns off its Bing search and Cortana features, and activates the privacy-protection settings").

Have you read the right to read?

What? It's easy to disable newer features. And there's no reason you can't replace api calls with your own in an #include file, same as you do when you want to write code that needs to be portable.

My father runs an accounting business. His tax software is only available on Windows, and not as a service.

If he's stuck with some software then is he taking precautions for his business? Off-site backups, duplicate records, printed copies of contracts, licenses, etc?

Today's computer technology isn't like 1985. We have virtualization in the 21st century. And not just things like Playstation or Nintendo emulators. With risks like malware you need to be able to wipe your environment and re-create it if some asshat tries to lock up your business at gunpoint.

You can take that Windows instance, virtualize it, run as a VM on your Linux desktop.

Why?

Then you can backup the VM. Snapshot the VM. Migrate it to a cloud provider. You can even wrap a horribly unpatched OS instance that software could require behind a carefully tuned server firewall on a VM host.

Move the VM from hardware to hardware with guarantee this sh*tware accounting package will run exactly the same as before.

Infrequently used software? Put it in a VM and only run that fake machine when you need it. VMs boot in a lot less time than physical hardware.

As for cost, with Linux this is for free in terms of additional license cost over the cost of the original Windows license. VM software on most Linux Desktops is a click away. With tools like clonezilla or paid for disk imagers, the virtualization process is less time-intensive than setup of a regular backup solution. (A backup solution a business may be legally required depending on the market.)

there's a lot of proprietary software that many companies use that is only available on Windows. Most of it has no serious competition on Linux.

Not being beholden to someone else is a reason to run your own business. Otherwise you might as well be working for someone else.

Captive markets are the best. For profit and for control. Tax packages are some of the worst, with their required frequent re-purchase to keep up to date with the laws. Office software with horribly complicated and incompatible formats are close behind. Gamers are tied to whatever their games run on but as I mentioned with emulators they will switch when options are available. But gamers are consumers, but business people.

This is different from using the best platform for the best purpose. This is where someone else has made that choice for you.

People like the poor guy running a these tax packages not "running" an account business. He is actually just re-seller of that tax software who pays for that privilege. If he cannot do so for cheap enough then he won't be able to "run" his own business. If the tax software company makes it easy enough for the end-users then his business goes away, too.

Unlike a carpenter who can use whatever wood is best, this account uses what the tax company offers, possibly only in the way that they offer, on the tools that they require. The tax company can even pay the government* to mandate he does so only in their way.

This lack of freedom is what certain people were complaining about decades ago. It may look like he is his own man on the surface. But in reality the modern proprietary software world makes a sharecropper out of him. He turns his customer's money into profits for the tax software company and some spreadsheet company and some photo editing company. He has no choice in the matter.

Enterprise-level (read BIG companies) don't have these problems. If they don't want to run software XYZ on platform ABC they can pay to build what they want on their own schedule. That's often how software like AWS come into existence. But small shops and SAP "customers" don't get freedom like this.

Complaints about Windows-only software isn't really about GNU/Linux. It has been about free

At this point, who doesn't support AAC?

Free software operating systems, which strive to avoid all U.S. patents.

Maybe you mean the GPLv3.

I meant GPLv2.

The GPLv2, the version of the licence used by the Linux kernel, was written before software patents were such a problem, and doesn't have soecific requirements regarding patent licensing that the GPLv3 has.

Though the patent provisions the GPLv2 are less "soecific" than those in the GPLv3, they still exist. GPLv2 section 7 bans licensees of Linux from adding patented code under a royalty-bearing license and then distributing the result:

If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the Program at all. For example, if a patent license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.

GPLv2 section 8 even had a geographic limit option that appears to have been dropped from GPLv3:

If the distribution and/or use of the Program is restricted in certain countries either by patents or by copyrighted interfaces, the original copyright holder who places the Program under this License may add an explicit geographical distribution limitation excluding those countries, so that distribution is permitted only in or among countries not thus excluded. In such case, this License incorporates the limitation as if written in the body of this License.

Is music always produced in a factory and delivered to "consumers"? If not, "industry" might not be the ideal term.

I'm not sure if the set of approved licenses from the Free Software Foundation and Open Source Initiative are properly described in that way, but I am sure that approach misses the point entirely—you won't understand what the free software movement aims to achieve and why by looking at sets of licenses.

The open source group (I should not have called it a movement because open source is not a social movement) started over a decade after the free software movement started. 'Open source' is a call to a business-centric development methodology; a message chiefly aimed at businesses that essentially focuses on how software is developed. The free software movement is a social movement which talks about the freedoms to run, inspect, share, and modify published software—software freedom. The people who started the open source movement noticed that free software was gaining ground but they wanted to bring this message to businesses and drop the freedom talk perhaps in an effort to make sure proprietors could try to horn in on the benefits free software brings without having to distribute free software. In so doing the open source enthusiasts dropped the ethical underpinnings of the free software movement; the ethics of the free software movement are grounded in critical ethical examinations of how people ought to treat one another with regard to computer software. This is not an anti-business message, it's a message that doesn't place business desires first.

As Stallman points out (in a newer essay in a section called "Different Values Can Lead to Similar Conclusionsâ¦but Not Always" which revises an older essay on the same topic) consider the radical difference in how a free software activist and an open source enthusiast react to proprietary software: the open source enthusiast might remark in a way that notes how the proprietor achieved some convenience or technical achievement without using open source development methodology but then accept the program. The free software activist might remark on how accepting this program would mean giving up software freedom, then reject the program and set about writing or funding a replacement program so people can have the functionality that program provides without giving up one's software freedom.

The Free Software Foundation has a license list in which you can find almost all of the same licenses you'd find in the Open Source Initiative's license list but the FSF's list includes commentary on most of those licenses discussing one's software freedom under each license and the effect that license's choices have on the software freedom of derivative works: copylefted free software licenses and non-copylefted free software licenses. Consider how the OSI frames licensing choices—one picks from a large list of licenses ungrouped by what foreseeable affect they would have on software freedom. That's because open source enthusiasts don't speak of software freedom and don't arrange their resources along any lines having to do with software freedom (I recall an essay written by a Red Hat lawyer, linked to in a /. story some years back, which went out of its way to describe the effect of "copyleft"—the preservation of software freedom in derivative works—but without saying "copyleft" so as to not bring to mind software freedom).

I'm not sure if the set of approved licenses from the Free Software Foundation and Open Source Initiative are properly described in that way, but I am sure that approach misses the point entirely—you won't understand what the free software movement aims to achieve and why by looking at sets of licenses.

The open source group (I should not have called it a movement because open source is not a social movement) started over a decade after the free software movement started. 'Open source' is a call to a business-centric development methodology; a message chiefly aimed at businesses that essentially focuses on how software is developed. The free software movement is a social movement which talks about the freedoms to run, inspect, share, and modify published software—software freedom. The people who started the open source movement noticed that free software was gaining ground but they wanted to bring this message to businesses and drop the freedom talk perhaps in an effort to make sure proprietors could try to horn in on the benefits free software brings without having to distribute free software. In so doing the open source enthusiasts dropped the ethical underpinnings of the free software movement; the ethics of the free software movement are grounded in critical ethical examinations of how people ought to treat one another with regard to computer software. This is not an anti-business message, it's a message that doesn't place business desires first.

As Stallman points out (in a newer essay in a section called "Different Values Can Lead to Similar Conclusionsâ¦but Not Always" which revises an older essay on the same topic) consider the radical difference in how a free software activist and an open source enthusiast react to proprietary software: the open source enthusiast might remark in a way that notes how the proprietor achieved some convenience or technical achievement without using open source development methodology but then accept the program. The free software activist might remark on how accepting this program would mean giving up software freedom, then reject the program and set about writing or funding a replacement program so people can have the functionality that program provides without giving up one's software freedom.

The Free Software Foundation has a license list in which you can find almost all of the same licenses you'd find in the Open Source Initiative's license list but the FSF's list includes commentary on most of those licenses discussing one's software freedom under each license and the effect that license's choices have on the software freedom of derivative works: copylefted free software licenses and non-copylefted free software licenses. Consider how the OSI frames licensing choices—one picks from a large list of licenses ungrouped by what foreseeable affect they would have on software freedom. That's because open source enthusiasts don't speak of software freedom and don't arrange their resources along any lines having to do with software freedom (I recall an essay written by a Red Hat lawyer, linked to in a /. story some years back, which went out of its way to describe the effect of "copyleft"—the preservation of software freedom in derivative works—but without saying "copyleft" so as to not bring to mind software freedom).

Furthermore, after reviewing this GPL our lawyers advised us that any products compiled with GPL'ed tools - such as gcc - would also have to its source code released. This was simply unacceptable.

Of course it was unacceptable for your lawyers to have misadvised you so. In the vast majority of cases, the output of a GPL tool is not GPL. From the GPL FAQ:

the copyright on the editors and tools does not cover the code you write. Using them does not place any restrictions, legally, on the license you use for your code.

Some programs copy parts of themselves into the output for technical reasons—for example, Bison copies a standard parser program into its output file. In such cases, the copied text in the output is covered by the same license that covers it in the source code. Meanwhile, the part of the output which is derived from the program's input inherits the copyright status of the input.

As it happens, Bison can also be used to develop nonfree programs. This is because we decided to explicitly permit the use of the Bison standard parser program in Bison output files without restriction. We made the decision because there were other tools comparable to Bison which already permitted use for nonfree programs.

Interesting, they might have been able to use the 30 day allowance, even from v2 depending on the exact wording of the v2 licence due to the notes under clause 9, which allows you to use a later version of the GPL instead.

From GPL:

If the Program specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and "any later version", you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that version or of any later version published by the Free Software Foundation.

I understand this is /., corporate news and open-source friendly website (even to the point of apparently denying giving any credit to the Free Software Foundation). However it's worth noting that writing and talking about the GNU GPL as "open source" license makes it seem like an Open Source Initiative member had something to do with writing this license when that's not the case at all. In fact, the earlier versions of the GNU GPL predate the OSI and the open source movement entirely. And the GPL's principal author (Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation) repeatedly goes around the world giving talks describing why he started the GNU Project, wrote the GNU GPL, and pointing out that the open source effort is a corporate reactionary counter to software freedom. Stallman takes time in every one of his talks to point out that he is not for 'open source'. Indeed, the open source movement eschews software freedom. Please do take the time to read the essays and listen to rms talks to learn more about this.

I'm all for everyone (including open source enthusiasts) licensing software under the GNU GPL, but I'm also for understanding why the license exists in the first place and giving credit where credit is due. Its existence is certainly not due to anything 'open source' but instead to a driving interest in making and preserving software freedom. The work is (as Eben Moglen, long-time FSF lawyer, software freedom fighter, and excellent speaker has said) principally written by Richard Stallman. Just because press releases written by people who either don't know better or which to cast the license's history in a different light get it wrong doesn't mean you have to follow them.

I understand this is /., corporate news and open-source friendly website (even to the point of apparently denying giving any credit to the Free Software Foundation). However it's worth noting that writing and talking about the GNU GPL as "open source" license makes it seem like an Open Source Initiative member had something to do with writing this license when that's not the case at all. In fact, the earlier versions of the GNU GPL predate the OSI and the open source movement entirely. And the GPL's principal author (Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation) repeatedly goes around the world giving talks describing why he started the GNU Project, wrote the GNU GPL, and pointing out that the open source effort is a corporate reactionary counter to software freedom. Stallman takes time in every one of his talks to point out that he is not for 'open source'. Indeed, the open source movement eschews software freedom. Please do take the time to read the essays and listen to rms talks to learn more about this.

I'm all for everyone (including open source enthusiasts) licensing software under the GNU GPL, but I'm also for understanding why the license exists in the first place and giving credit where credit is due. Its existence is certainly not due to anything 'open source' but instead to a driving interest in making and preserving software freedom. The work is (as Eben Moglen, long-time FSF lawyer, software freedom fighter, and excellent speaker has said) principally written by Richard Stallman. Just because press releases written by people who either don't know better or which to cast the license's history in a different light get it wrong doesn't mean you have to follow them.

Furthermore, after reviewing this GPL our lawyers advised us that any products compiled with GPL'ed tools - such as gcc - would also have to its source code released.

Only in very limited circumstances is this the case. The output of a GPL tool isn't GPL unless the tool copies part of itself into its output. For example, the Bison parser generator copies part of itself into its output, and GCC copies libgcc and libstdc++ into a compiled program. But these are under a dual license allowing linking to proprietary software provided no GPL-incompatible plug-ins affect translation of preprocessed source code to assembly language code.

Furthermore, after reviewing this GPL our lawyers advised us that any products compiled with GPL'ed tools - such as gcc - would also have to its source code released.

Only in very limited circumstances is this the case. The output of a GPL tool isn't GPL unless the tool copies part of itself into its output. For example, the Bison parser generator copies part of itself into its output, and GCC copies libgcc and libstdc++ into a compiled program. But these are under a dual license allowing linking to proprietary software provided no GPL-incompatible plug-ins affect translation of preprocessed source code to assembly language code.

Furthermore, after reviewing this GPL our lawyers advised us that any products compiled with GPL'ed tools - such as gcc - would also have to its source code released.

Only in very limited circumstances is this the case. The output of a GPL tool isn't GPL unless the tool copies part of itself into its output. For example, the Bison parser generator copies part of itself into its output, and GCC copies libgcc and libstdc++ into a compiled program. But these are under a dual license allowing linking to proprietary software provided no GPL-incompatible plug-ins affect translation of preprocessed source code to assembly language code.

That statement was pulled from an old joke fake press release:

CREATORS ADMIT Unix, C HOAX

Your own argument selectively and deliberately misinterprets reality.

If people wouldn't make content without DRM, you and I wouldn't be on this website for many reasons, including the fact that the much of the software - both commercial and open source - that supports it and allows us to access it would never have been developed in the first place. Heck, MS-DOS is often cited as becoming dominant in large part due to piracy. And, as one can see, the content industry hasn't melted down in the years since the Internet rose, either, despite a lack of DRM for a large chunk of it. People develop software, write music, make videos, and many other things for reasons other than money. Those who do make money off of it continue to profit despite how often DRM is circumvented now. One example is - surprise, surprise - Cory Doctrow himself, the author, who makes money giving his stuff away pretty much for free. Even ignoring all of the uses of it such as, say, retail software, work would be created for hire, and even relatively recently, studies show that fair use is more valuable to the economy than copyright enforced work.

At this point, copyright has been perverted from its original intent and has become a net public burden. If the companies were reasonable and stopped, say, copyrighting everything for all eternity and trying to mangle general purpose computers into devices that they control, then it wouldn't be a problem. But it is, and DRM is a symptom of the disease. It, and copyright enforcement and privacy in general, are part of a general thrust to remove the ability of the consumer to control their own devices and dictate what can and cannot be done with them. "Walled garden" computing platforms, chips that prevent firmware modification, attempts to legalize restrictions on resale of cars because of software, tractors, lockout chips... it's all part of the same general trend, and it's a dangerous one at that, with accompanying laws that they just keep trying to ram past voters even though they have made their opinion plain, each time hoping nobody will notice (SOPA, PIPA, etc.).

The increasing strength of copyright has become not only a net public burden, but outright dangerous. When this topic comes up, questions like these attempt to dismiss the full picture of just what content is, where it comes from, and how it has continued to exist and be produced. Usually tired questions such as "you wouldn't work for free, would you?," are thrown out, which are basically straw men. That particular straw man would probably take a few posts to answer thoroughly, but to be brief, most of the software that runs the Internet was developed in part or in whole on a volunteer basis, plus the removal of DRM and reform of copyright do not necessarily mean the end of copyright protections. "You wouldn't work for free, would you?" in this context is a question that essentially and deliberately ignores reality. These loaded questions try to portray DRM-enforced copyright as the One True Hope with an extremely tiny, simplistic and biased model of how the economy and society operate regarding copyrighted work. But DRM is not a hope in any sense of the term, unless you want everyone's devices to be controlled by a corporation and/or government, and if anything it's what should be feared.

Anyone who is reading this who is interested, I would invite you to read Richard Stallman's short essay The Right To Read. Stallman, while espousing many controversial points, has some pretty darn interesting insights. This is one of them, especially since things are already progressing towards a future similar to what was portrayed in that essay. It is worth the few minutes it takes to read it.

The only worthwhile "after DRM" is "no DRM." You may oppose the end of DRM, for whatever your reasons (altruistic, selfish, both, or neither), but if this is gibberish then either you haven't read enough about this, or you don't care to because you've already made up your mind, screw the consequences.

This is the right answer. However, the "legal problem" for FOSS he talks about still persists (even it it's probably a made-up story). Because of this misunderstanding, Linux, FOSS has lost mind-share and goodwill. He and his team could have been proponents of free software, but instead they're now disappointed and muttering about some GPL license clause they don't understand the first thing about.

The solution is better information and education. However, FOSS has a long way to go here. Even within the community, there's ludicrous claims as to what the various licenses means, and what developers and users are entitled to. Richard Stallman's "Free Software, Free Society" is probably some of the better layman's texts on the topic. In addition to actually reading the license in question itself - they are usually no more than 10 pages of rather clear language.

Various FOSS components and systems have reached tremendous market share over the last 15 years. However, when it comes to this "legal problem", we're still in the early 90s as far as developer understanding and opinion goes.

Richard M. Stallman (rms, widely known as the founder of the GNU Project and frequent lecturer speaking for software freedom, the freedom to control one's computers by having the freedom to run, inspect, share, and modify the code they run) explained why the W3C can't get away from DRM ("digital handcuffs") starting around 11m40s into the interview. Around 15m16s rms pointed out why the W3 is structurally incapable of challenging DRM:

He [Tim Berners-Lee] should handle it by saying 'no' but he can't, really, and the reason is he set up an organization by the businesses that want to put in the most money. And that basically tells Hollywood, "Here's your opportunity! Turn us into your tool!". That's what the W3 has become: a tool for the businesses that will pay it the money."

Richard M. Stallman (rms, widely known as the founder of the GNU Project and frequent lecturer speaking for software freedom, the freedom to control one's computers by having the freedom to run, inspect, share, and modify the code they run) explained why the W3C can't get away from DRM ("digital handcuffs") starting around 11m40s into the interview. Around 15m16s rms pointed out why the W3 is structurally incapable of challenging DRM:

He [Tim Berners-Lee] should handle it by saying 'no' but he can't, really, and the reason is he set up an organization by the businesses that want to put in the most money. And that basically tells Hollywood, "Here's your opportunity! Turn us into your tool!". That's what the W3 has become: a tool for the businesses that will pay it the money."

Richard M. Stallman (rms, widely known as the founder of the GNU Project and frequent lecturer speaking for software freedom, the freedom to control one's computers by having the freedom to run, inspect, share, and modify the code they run) explained why the W3C can't get away from DRM ("digital handcuffs") starting around 11m40s into the interview. Around 15m16s rms pointed out why the W3 is structurally incapable of challenging DRM:

He [Tim Berners-Lee] should handle it by saying 'no' but he can't, really, and the reason is he set up an organization by the businesses that want to put in the most money. And that basically tells Hollywood, "Here's your opportunity! Turn us into your tool!". That's what the W3 has become: a tool for the businesses that will pay it the money."

Actually, Android and Tivo are 2 different things, even if RMS hates them both. If GPL 3 was concocted to deal w/ TiVo, a future version of GPL could deal w/ Android.

The deal w/ TiVo was the company putting the open source code on a flash memory which was then locked. Violating one of the GNU freedoms about changing the software on the box. Problem is that if TiVo allowed that, it would violate the DRM and content providers would instantly yank all rights from TiVo, eliminating it as an option from all the media companies. Of course, RMS opposes the DRM like ISIS opposes non-Muslims, but TiVo doesn't have that luxury.

Android is different in that the reasons RMS doesn't approve of them has more to do w/ 'respecting users freedom'.. One of the issues is about the way Android combines GPL 2 licensed Linux code w/ Apache 2, and there has been some discussions around that. But another issue that RMS has is the same issue he has w/ Debian. Just as Debian is dinged for offering unliberated software at all (even if albeit separately), the fact that Google uses unliberated applications for talking to services like YouTube & Google Maps. Even though those things are not technically a part of the OS (even though all phones or tablets automatically include them and don't allow their removal, unless one gets rooted). The other issue is Google Play's backdoor, which allows applications to be installed or uninstalled w/o the owner's approval. Like RMS, I disagree w/ that, but that has nothing to do w/ the GPL license.

At any rate, I have more respect for causes that provide solutions, rather than just rant about an issue. When the FSF guys provide us Replicant, HURD and all the drivers that would enable us to 'freely' (pun intended) replace our Windows and Linux software w/ GNU software w/o having to edit files in /etc/, I'll respect them more. Until then, they've done nothing to earn my support

But it's still hard to take Stallman seriously because he doesn't provide practical solutions to these problems.

WTF am I reading?! There's this thing called the GNU project. Maybe you've heard of it.

"the free software idealism has lost and will never win"

Never is a very, very long time.
Never is literally everything ever to come in the future.
Including thousands and perhaps even millions of years from now.
It will take billions of years before our sun is gone.
You could've written "will probably never win".
But you didn't, you wrote "will never win".
Humans have only had computers for less than 100 years.
Think about that for a moment.

"If you just tell them they can't have all that, you'll never win them over."

That's why what he says is often more nuanced.
See, for instance, his writings about DRM'd games.

we straight up give away huge swaths of ip land for a pittance in return.

This.

The real theft is not copying, but rather copyright itself!

Specifically, excessive copyright term lengths are theft of the Public Domain, and DRM is theft of device owners' property rights.

(By the way, "IP" is not a thing.)

Get some new lawyers. There's no reason your code developed or compiled with GPL tools is required to also be licensed under the GPL according to the GNU GPL FAQ

"Can I use GPL-covered editors such as GNU Emacs to develop nonfree programs? Can I use GPL-covered tools such as GCC to compile them?

Yes, because the copyright on the editors and tools does not cover the code you write. Using them does not place any restrictions, legally, on the license you use for your code."

The GNU Project told us about Microsoft malware long ago, including what is accurately listed "Microsoft Windows has a universal back door through which any change whatsoever can be imposed on the users" pointing to a mainstream media news reference from 2007 and another link indicating when this was used, and a pointer to a Condé Nast article talking about the (apparently ongoing) forced Windows Updates. Microsoft is also the first PRISM partner with the NSA joining on September 11, 2007, according to an internal NSA document so they have quite a long history of being untrustworthy but the underlying power they're leveraging comes from proprietary software.

Other proprietors are no more trustworthy. Apple didn't fix an intentional back door for 4 years, Apple didn't fix an iTunes backdoor through which others could have gained control of systems running the software. Apple joined PRISM in October 2012. Other proprietors with names you know (Yahoo, Facebook, Google, YouTube, etc.) joined in between the Microsoft and Apple partnerships.

The theme remains the same: it doesn't matter who the proprietor is (Microsoft in this case), proprietary software is always untrustworthy and this doesn't change even after applying lots of updates from the proprietor. Just because a new version is out, or a patch released does not mean the back door is shut or that you can verify their work (or even get someone more technically skilled to verify it on your behalf).

Now we have more confirmation of how the threats come from other directions, not just the proprietor, and that the threat is more organized than we commonly knew. Evidence like this immediately advances the discussion beyond the distraction of calling someone a 'tinfoil hat wearer' or other such nonsense, as did the Snowden documents. And WikiLeaks maintains their perfect record for authenticity in their publications—as far as we can tell these documents are what WikiLeaks claims they are. Proprietary software is always a threat. Software freedom is no guarantee of safety, but you're better off having software you can inspect, run, share, and modify (AKA control) than not. You simply can't trust proprietors to do right by you and all computer users deserve software freedom.

The GNU Project told us about Microsoft malware long ago, including what is accurately listed "Microsoft Windows has a universal back door through which any change whatsoever can be imposed on the users" pointing to a mainstream media news reference from 2007 and another link indicating when this was used, and a pointer to a Condé Nast article talking about the (apparently ongoing) forced Windows Updates. Microsoft is also the first PRISM partner with the NSA joining on September 11, 2007, according to an internal NSA document so they have quite a long history of being untrustworthy but the underlying power they're leveraging comes from proprietary software.

Other proprietors are no more trustworthy. Apple didn't fix an intentional back door for 4 years, Apple didn't fix an iTunes backdoor through which others could have gained control of systems running the software. Apple joined PRISM in October 2012. Other proprietors with names you know (Yahoo, Facebook, Google, YouTube, etc.) joined in between the Microsoft and Apple partnerships.

The theme remains the same: it doesn't matter who the proprietor is (Microsoft in this case), proprietary software is always untrustworthy and this doesn't change even after applying lots of updates from the proprietor. Just because a new version is out, or a patch released does not mean the back door is shut or that you can verify their work (or even get someone more technically skilled to verify it on your behalf).

Now we have more confirmation of how the threats come from other directions, not just the proprietor, and that the threat is more organized than we commonly knew. Evidence like this immediately advances the discussion beyond the distraction of calling someone a 'tinfoil hat wearer' or other such nonsense, as did the Snowden documents. And WikiLeaks maintains their perfect record for authenticity in their publications—as far as we can tell these documents are what WikiLeaks claims they are. Proprietary software is always a threat. Software freedom is no guarantee of safety, but you're better off having software you can inspect, run, share, and modify (AKA control) than not. You simply can't trust proprietors to do right by you and all computer users deserve software freedom.

Letting people install non-approved software is a different topic of discussion

Except it isn't, because this store is run by the same company that controls the whole platform, the platform in question is has by far the largest market share of any general-purpose computing platform, and the company has the power (because of the DMCA) to destroy the open nature of that platform at a whim.

The issues are inextricably related because we are one step away from an "only criminals would run non-approved software" endgame.