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A contributor's "essential patent claims" are all patent claims owned or controlled by the contributor, whether already acquired or hereafter acquired, that would be infringed by some manner, permitted by this License, of making, using, or selling its contributor version, but do not include claims that would be infringed only as a consequence of further modification of the contributor version.

So in your example where you sneak in the patented code, you're just not "the contributor" in the sense of the license, AFAIK, so your sneakily adding the patented code into the repository and subsequently downloading it doesn't imply that you can practice the patent license granted by the "contributor" because you're not the "contributor" of the patent.

Disclaimer: IANAL itsmonday iamverytired

> Sorta like how the FSF didn't make the tools, but they own the label.
You what!?

You are obviously not very informed on this subject. Go and read up.

I'm paricularly against the "Tivoization" clause and cannot for the life of me see what benefits it gives to the copyright holder or user of the code.

In the case of your software (i.e. a Sudoku for mobile phones), the GPLv3 guarantees the user the four freedoms (use, modify, distribute, improve), making it impossible to circumvent the GPLv2 with hardware devices. What could happen in your specific case is that a telco takes your code and starts offering it as for-pay download to their user's mobile phones—only that users cannot share it because there is some sort of hardware lock in place.

If you do not like the GPLv3, chances are you never liked the GPLv2 either. The GPLv3 is not a revolution of the GPL concept, it is just exactly the same ideas adapted to a world where it has become possible to circumvent version 2 by methods unforeseen when it was written. If you are alright with people taking your code and not contributing back, by all means use BSD instead.

> gcc does thread-safe initialization of local static variables -- Visual C++ does not.
  VC++ does do threadsafe static initialization.

You're dead wrong and grandparent is dead-right. References follow.

GCC: http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc-patches/2004-08/msg02293 .html
MSVC: http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2004/03/ 08/85901.aspx

Microsoft's position is that the standard requires their (undesirable) behavior. I guess GCC either disagrees or is providing a language extension. For what it's worth, MSVC doesn't have a great track record on correct standard interpretation. (C++ header file naming bug, for one example...)

> And in any case, gcc runs on windows so it's not exactly a windows issue is it?

gcc runs on everything. Consider it a comparison of the "native" compilers of both OSes.

> Windows has better support for multithreaded apps, it has a far richer set of thread/process synchronisation objects (mutexs, critical sections, semaphores, alertable wait states, events) than unix does.

Now you're just throwing out random terms for multithreaded programming concepts, all of which can be implemented in any OS that provides an API for multithreaded programming. As is typical, the Windows uses a nonstandard, proprietary API, while Linux uses an open standard (the POSIX pthreads library).

Just to make it clear that the Windows API is not "richer", let me point out that you can actually write a wrapper around either API that makes it look like the other, and people have done so.

> Now, as far as 32k 'busy' running threads leaving the machine still responsive... let's just try that out..

Don't be retarded. But since you already were, my sibling poster has responded that this doesn't kill Linux stone-dead, though it does slow it down quite a bit, so you even lose your own retarded benchmark contest. Ouch.

How exactly is this story connected to the gnu project? I could only find their statement against proprietary standards (such as M$ Word). They are not the inventors of odf, though they of course support odf. But what makes them so special that they deserve to be tagged in this story, instead of sun for example?

"One major danger that GPLv3 will block is tivoization. Tivoization means computers (called "appliances") contain GPL-covered software that you can't change, because the appliance shuts down if it detects modified software. The usual motive for tivoization is that the software has features the manufacturer thinks lots of people won't like. The manufacturers of these computers take advantage of the freedom that free software provides, but they don't let you do likewise."

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/rms-why-gplv3.html

The mission of the FSF is to enrich the way users interact with the software they use via the guarantee of "Four" principle Freedoms that not only underpin but inspire a global community of F/OSS software developers and users, a large proportion of whom would never have chosen to participate or contribute without this guarantee. Tivo found a clever way to bypass Freedom One and thus exploit this community via a clever application of DRM, saving itself millions of dollars in proprietary software development & licensing costs in the process. Revising the GPL to prevent further such abuses of this community is therefore not only a natural response but an obligation of the FSF as understood by its constituency.

Linus may be brilliant but he simply misunderstands this, and he would be delusional to think his operating system could have achieved the momentum it has under any subset of these four freedoms.

Can I modify the GPL and make a modified license?
You can use the GPL terms (possibly modified) in another license provided that you call your license by another name and do not include the GPL preamble, and provided you modify the instructions-for-use at the end enough to make it clearly different in wording and not mention GNU (though the actual procedure you describe may be similar).

If you want to use our preamble in a modified license, please write to for permission. For this purpose we would want to check the actual license requirements to see if we approve of them.

Although we will not raise legal objections to your making a modified license in this way, we hope you will think twice and not do it. Such a modified license is almost certainly incompatible with the GNU GPL, and that incompatibility blocks useful combinations of modules. The mere proliferation of different free software licenses is a burden in and of itself.

Does GPLv3 require that voters be able to modify the software running in a voting machine?

        No. Companies distributing devices that include software under GPLv3 are at most required to provide the source and Installation Information for the software to people who possess a copy of the object code. The voter who uses a voting machine (like any other kiosk) doesn't get possession of it, not even temporarily, so the voter also does not get possession of the binary software in it.

        Note, however, that voting is a very special case. Just because the software in a computer is free does not mean you can trust the computer for voting. We believe that computers cannot be trusted for voting. Voting should be done on paper.

You know, after EGCS (and the associated bazaar development model) became the official GCC branch, I kinda figured they'd face the same problem as the kernel does of producing a GPLv3 branch--with thousands of contributers having provided their work under GPLv2, it would be impossible to track them all down and get their permission to relicense their work as GPLv3. Yet I see announcements for GPLv3 trumpeting the fact that the GCC project is "on board". Can someone explain to me what I'm missing here?

While Torvalds is undisputably a great engineer, on some non-technical matters he tends to rely on his engineering reputation to substitute for sound arguments.

One error that Torvalds makes is that he falsely characterizes what the FSF has said in the past about the act of choosing a license.

The FSF believes that such an act is an exercise of power, not of freedom. Thus, just as the FSF can and does exercise power to upgrade the license of GNU software to GPL3, so too would the FSF agree that Torvalds can and does exercise the power to keep the Linux kernel under GPL2.

In order to be hypocritical here, the FSF would have to claim the ability or justification of their choice but deny Torvalds' his. However, they did not do that; they simply see any such choice as an exercise of power and not of freedom. Torvalds' argument relies on people somehow believing that the FSF has claimed something special that he cannot.

Too often, Torvalds just throws out claims, hoping that they will stick. He appears to be decreasingly trustworthy on some non-technical matters.

13. Use with the GNU Affero General Public License.

Notwithstanding any other provision of this License, you have permission to link or combine any covered work with a work licensed under version 3 of the GNU Affero General Public License into a single combined work, and to convey the resulting work. The terms of this License will continue to apply to the part which is the covered work, but the special requirements of the GNU Affero General Public License, section 13, concerning interaction through a network will apply to the combination as such.

If you decided to start a fork project but you had not ever contributed a single line of code to the project, how would you feel that you had the right to create a fork? Who do you think granted you those rights to you in the first place?

most authors entered into the license the good faith assumption that later versions would be compatible with GPL 2

GPL 3 is not compatible with GPL 2 no matter how much the FSF claims it is.

The whole idea that there is a philosophy behind the GPL and that is the spirit, not the words that are written down to satisfy the lawyers is just lost on the guy.

So say that the FSF vilifies other licenses is pure hyperbole! The page merely points out why certain licenses are (or are not) compatible with the GPL, and whether or not they are as good as the GPL at preserving the four freedoms.

Actually, you're spreading a bit of FUD yourself.

You can use OSS all you want and your IP is safely yours. It's only when you want to incorporate OSS software and code in your own code that you are then bound by the OSS terms.

For example, you can:
use OpenOffice to write all your documents
use Gimp to do your image processing
use vi/emacs to edit your source code
use gcc to compile your program (be careful what you link to)
use PDFMaker to generate PDFs from your programs
use Firefox to browse the web
use Thunderbird to handle your e-mail
use apache to serve your web pages
and so on

and your code and works are still completely your own, free to distribute in any way you see fit.

You are free to use OSS in any way and for any purpose. It's only when you want to redistribute it in some way (including incorporating it into your own work) that you incur any restrictions.

I refer you to:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLOutput
and
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#TOCWhatCa seIsOutputGPL

Actually, you're spreading a bit of FUD yourself.

You can use OSS all you want and your IP is safely yours. It's only when you want to incorporate OSS software and code in your own code that you are then bound by the OSS terms.

For example, you can:
use OpenOffice to write all your documents
use Gimp to do your image processing
use vi/emacs to edit your source code
use gcc to compile your program (be careful what you link to)
use PDFMaker to generate PDFs from your programs
use Firefox to browse the web
use Thunderbird to handle your e-mail
use apache to serve your web pages
and so on

and your code and works are still completely your own, free to distribute in any way you see fit.

You are free to use OSS in any way and for any purpose. It's only when you want to redistribute it in some way (including incorporating it into your own work) that you incur any restrictions.

I refer you to:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLOutput
and
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#TOCWhatCa seIsOutputGPL

Bzzt! Thanks for playing.

Is GPLv3 compatible with GPLv2?

        No. Some of the requirements in GPLv3, such as the requirement to provide Installation Information, do not exist in GPLv2. As a result, the licenses are not compatible: if you tried to combine code released under both these licenses, you would violate section 6 of GPLv2.

        However, if code is released under GPL "version 2 or later," that is compatible with GPLv3 because GPLv3 is one of the options it permits.

You appear to be confused. How does Adobe "own" PostScript? The newer revisions may be hindered by patents, but the earlier language levels are decades old at this point and long past the point of having patents. The language is highly standardized and well documented.

That CUPS is "built around" PostScript is unsurprising, as it's been the Unix standard for printing for decades. Applications write PostScript and hand it off to a printer demon. And this is hardly a CUPS issue. If your printer natively handles PostScript, CUPS doesn't do any PostScript processing; it just merrily hands your input off to the printer. CUPS only cares if your printer doesn't support PostScript, in which case it hands the PostScript input to GNU GhostScript (another old open source product) which interprets the PostScript and converts it to something your printer can handle. If PostScript were somehow proprietary, I'm pretty sure the Free Software Foundation wouldn't be shipping GhostScript.

Yes, thanks, as I said above I know about LLVM - superficialy of course, but enough to know the overall plans. What "worries" me in that isn't that they can dump GCC, is that I have serious doubts that they will make their developments available to others if they are not forced to do it. It's their call though.

The conspiracy theorist in me wonders if this is the payback for the "User Product" language in part 6 of GPL3 ( http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html ) - which seems to be aimed at making GPL software cooptable for purely business purposes.

The more rational side of me observes that IBM probably sees itself writing the business logic side of the web services architecture in the future, and doesn't really care much who wrote the middleware so long as it just works. Letting people write middleware without fear of IP lawsuits would tend to facilitate this.

I've seen the infamous thread in question. I think your real problem is that you should have tried some other place to answer your question.

It's a GRUB error so you should start with the folks who make GRUB.
http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/grub-devel

Google turns up some useful links as well:

http://www.mail-archive.com/bug-grub@gnu.org/msg10 991.html
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread .php?t=112412
http://forums.scotsnewsletter.com/index.php?showto pic=12845
http://www.webservertalk.com/archive291-2006-7-157 9685.html

I know the Ubuntu board should have helped with the problem, but the people who participate in that board are likely to be just as new to Ubuntu as you are. In these so called easy to use distros, you'll see this problem a lot. I have a similar problem with fedoraforum.org. Most of my questions go unanswered, get answered wrongly, or it feels like I'm talking to a Comcast customer support script reader. This is because most of the users are not Linux gurus, but inexperienced people. There's nothing you can do about this except look for help else where and if you find the solution post it back to help educated them.

It's not only a matter of price. It's also a matter of your freedom. I prefer GIMP, not only because it can handle everything a non-professional can possibly want, but also because it is free software (under the GNU General Public License).

To say that copyright law doesn't track copies is an odd view of the law. You almost seem to be arguing that only a distributor can engage in "copying." That's not the law.

For the umpteenth time, the law explicitly provides for certain forms of copying. Your previous examples of loading a copy on the hard drive and RAM (which is what I was responding to) do not apply.

Section 117, Paragraph (a) of United States Code:

(a) Making of Additional Copy or Adaptation by Owner of Copy. -- Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided:

(1) that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner, or

(2) that such new copy or adaptation is for archival purposes only and that all archival copies are destroyed in the event that continued possession of the computer program should cease to be rightful.

Read it, reread it, and read it again until it makes sense.

If Bob used P2P or an illegal FTP site to download an unauthorized copy of software do you think that what Bob did was legal because he did not engage in "copying"?

Sir, this is a dictionary perfect example of a "strawman argument". I would request that you cease such nonsensical arguments immediately, and please pay attention to what is actually being said.

We agree that it's not needed in the U.S. if you already own a copy and just want to run it. You agreed it's needed if you want to install it on your 2nd computer.

I'll be honest with you, you're not making any sense at all. If you agree with these things, then why continue to invent scenarios for the GPL to kick in in which the GPL does NOT kick in?

I can't tell if you agree the GPL is required to modify the software (it is).

I was actually quite clear on the circumstances regarding modification:

You can probably [modify the software] without invoking the terms of the GPL, simply because the copy is your personal property. (See: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#InternalD istribution [gnu.org] for an example situation.)

To add to that, any modifications you do that you don't share are effectively a no-op. Since no one ever sees them, there is no way for the terms of the GPL to apply.

In standard copyright parlance, modification of a computer program is an act of creating a derivative work. Now the copyright laws specifically state in Section 103 that only the owner of a copyright can prepare a derivative work. However, Section 107 explicitly curbs those rights per "fair use". Here's the section in its entirety:

Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include--
(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
The fact that a work is unpublished shall

Seconded.

Where I really draw the line is in "friending" people that you've never met except via Facebook/Myspace, and that you have no real connection to otherwise. It seems like at that point, you've transformed what's basically a useful online addressbook into ego-boosting wankery.

I really like Facebook, but I guess I'm just not really into "social networking." (Whatever that means, exactly.) To me it's a good way to keep track of people's changing contact information (it was so much better back when they had an automatic export-to-VCard option) and occasionally to browse photos (although, if you have more than a handful there are better places to go, like Flickr).

Ultimately what I want out of Facebook is just a version of 'finger' that's simple enough for non-technical people to use. As they've gotten further away from that core functionality, it's become less compelling.

TiVo wasn't really a loophole as the license was never intended in its original form to cover situations like that.

Actually it was, as I'll explain.

Where in the GPLv2 is there any indication that companies have to give you full access to every bit of hardware you purchase, just because it features GPL software?

If you're arguing about intent -- and you are -- then you can't look just in the license itself. For that, you need to read into the history of the GNU project:

I had already experienced being on the receiving end of a nondisclosure agreement, when someone refused to give me and the MIT AI lab the source code for the control program for our printer. (The lack of certain features in this program made use of the printer extremely frustrating.) So I could not tell myself that nondisclosure agreements were innocent. I was very angry when he refused to share with us; I could not turn around and do the same thing to everyone else.

Now, think about that example for a minute: RMS merely wanted his hardware to work. In this case, the software was restricted by a non-disclosure agreement. But what if, instead, the printer had been restricted by DRM'd firmware? In that case, RMS would have been complaining about DRM instead!

The only reason the GPL hasn't included prohibitions against DRM from the beginning is that it didn't exist. Hence, it's a loophole.

However, this doesn't address Microsoft's assertion that it doesn't accept the GPLv3 license, and is thus unaffected by it. In general, a license such as the GPL is a license given by the copyright holder to do something that would otherwise be prohibited by the copyright law. In the case of the GPL, it gives third parties the right to distribute the copyrighted material - something which without the license would be copyright infringement. Microsoft asserts that what it is doing with their voucher system is not illegal distribution under the copyright law definitions.

"Developers that use the GNU GPL protect your rights with two steps: (1) assert copyright on the software, and (2) offer you this License giving you legal permission to copy, distribute and/or modify it."

"You may not propagate or modify a covered work except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to propagate or modify it is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License (including any patent licenses granted under the third paragraph of section 11)."

"You are not required to accept this License in order to receive or run a copy of the Program. Ancillary propagation of a covered work occurring solely as a consequence of using peer-to-peer transmission to receive a copy likewise does not require acceptance. However, nothing other than this License grants you permission to propagate or modify any covered work. These actions infringe copyright if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or propagating a covered work, you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so."

In the long run, making programs free is a step toward the post-scarcity world, where nobody will have to work very hard just to make a living. People will be free to devote themselves to activities that are fun, such as programming, after spending the necessary ten hours a week on required tasks such as legislation, family counseling, robot repair and asteroid prospecting. There will be no need to be able to make a living from programming.

The GPL2 does not say that you can use any later version of the GPL.

The "suggested usage" of the GPL, which is in the appedix after the end of the terms and conditions (and thus not binding on the GPL),is to say that you release the code under GPL2 or later. However that suggested usage is not part of the GPL2 itself and you may choose to use that suggested usage or any other usage.

Anyway, Linux is technically not GPL2, but a GPL2-derived license (See the Note at the top of COPYING). The distinction is that the Linux License makes a clarification that an application program is not a derived work of the OS, but is just normal use of the OS. (RMS would like to muddy the water and claim that all code used with a GPL2 OS should be released under GPL). It also states in the most clear language possible that GPL3 does not apply.

Sure, sessions will work for sites like forums. However, is there going to be anything shown by session length that won't be shown by page views in that case? What about pages that you can really spend days to weeks at a time staring at, such as the glibc manual or the Coyotos microkernel specification? If the user never refreshes the page before the end of the session, information-packed sites aren't going to be measured at all.

Dedicated Twitter attack bot dedazo claims:

The whole thing is "cleverly" designed to make sure that you end up looking like you're attacking free software or defending Microsoft when you try to question his bullshit.

There's nothing really clever about it. I advocate software freedom and show how M$ fights it. When you engage in your typical, straw men and M$ style name calling:

the implication that free software is absolutely perfect and everything else is absolutely useless, the ever so odious "GNU/Linux" Stallmanite koolaid push and empty promises of nirvana if only everyone would just be reasonable and see the world in the same "join us or die" black and white shades as him.

You are indeed attacking free software to defend M$ and that's what you are paid to do. That and your silly mod point game. I doubt it's much of a living, because talk is cheap, and I know it's a complete waste of life.

for the lazy, this is the article which the OP was talking about when he mentioned the "right to read"... http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html

It really is worth reading. Fascinating and scary at the same time. Not that long, and contains an update which brings the current trends we've seen to light within the context that RMS sets out in the parable.

This is a direct attack on GNU Radio, a project that every self-respecting hacker should at least know about, if not actually using it.

When you download a program onto your hard drive, you make a copy. When you load it into RAM, you make a copy.

The law doesn't agree that these copies constitue infringement. From Section 117 of US Code:

(a) Making of Additional Copy or Adaptation by Owner of Copy.-- Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided:
(1) that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner, or
(2) that such new copy or adaptation is for archival purposes only and that all archival copies are destroyed in the event that continued possession of the computer program should cease to be rightful.

This was tested in Vault Corp. v. Quaid Software, Ltd., where the judge explicitly upheld the right to load computer software into memory in order to use it. MAI Systems Corp. v. Peak Computer, Inc. would later create an exception to this if you loaded the software into the memory of someone else's computer, but that is irrelevant to the situation at hand and actually supports my point. (Copyright law was also amended in 1998 to allow for Peak's maintenance usage to be legal.)

Futhermore, the GPL states:

The act of running a program using the Library is not restricted, and output from such a program is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the Library (independent of the use of the Library in a tool for writing it).

Another point to keep in mind is that the GPL is very specific in its language. Whenever it talks about copying, it uses the phrase "copy and distribute". It is thus understood that these actions are expected to happen together. Distributing a copy you already have is an invocation of the first-sale doctrine and is a well known "loop hole" in the GPL. (Not really a loop hole, mind you, as it's not really exploitable. You have to destroy your own copies when transferring the ownership. This is per US Copyright law Section 117 Paragraph (b).)

The distributor made or otherwise obtained copies that he's providing you. This is what's known as the "first sale".

No, the "first sale doctrine" means that a copyright owner can't control the resale of a copyrighted work.

Don't confuse the first sale with the first sale doctrine. The first sale is when a specific instance of an item is sold. First sale doctrine is a legal construct that says that rights cannot be further restricted past the first sale. The effects of First sale doctrine are codified for software distribution in Section 117 Paragraph (b) in such a way as to make the tracking of the license more important than the tracking of the individual copies. According to that law, I am distributing the software if I give you a copy and keep my own copy. If I give you a copy and destroy my own copy, however, I am transferring my rights obtained under first-sale to you.

Without the GPL you can't make a copy (right 1) you can't make changes (right 2) and you can't distribute (right 3).

Without the GPL, you can perform #1 under certain circumstances of copyright law. (As discussed above.) You can probably do #2 without invoking the terms of the GPL, simply because the copy is your personal property. (See: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#InternalD istribution for an example situation.) #3 is meat of the GPL and the core of its legal capabilities. That's why Section 5 of the GPL explicitly states:

You are not required to accept this

Read GPLv2, which states:

0. . . . Each licensee is addressed as "you".

. . .

9. The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions of the General Public License from time to time. Such new versions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to address new problems or concerns.

Each version is given a distinguishing version number. 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. If the Program does not specify a version number of this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software Foundation.

I, personally, can choose the license version I wish to be bound by, but I can't force anyone else to accept the version I want, unless I'm the original author of the work.

Sure, but why would they bother? They do not lose much by GPLv3, really. And let's not forget it isn't just gcc, but all applications and libraries that goes GPLv3+.I could be wrong, but I think a non-trivial amount of useful projects will migrate to GPLv3.

You don't know much about compilers, do you? :) Try to read one of the change logs. Or consider that C++ will soon be updated to C0x, which means changes.

Read GPLv2, which states:

0. . . . Each licensee is addressed as "you".

. . .

9. The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions of the General Public License from time to time. Such new versions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to address new problems or concerns.

Each version is given a distinguishing version number. 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. If the Program does not specify a version number of this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software Foundation.

Re: How can MS be bound by GPL3 if they avoided using GPL3ed code after June 29?
Yes, you can. "GPLv2, or later"

You are (intentionally?) misrepresenting what the GPL says. If Microsoft distributes GPLv2 then ***Microsoft*** gets to choose if they are bound by GPLv2 or GPLv3. Example, I downloaded Apache back when it was covered by GPL2. I can make changes to it and distribute those changes under v2 or v3 if I want to. The people who made Apache cannot force me to upgrade to v3. However, now that v3 is out, Apache will be distributed under v3. If I now download Apache, I'm stuck in version 3.

So the answer to grandparent's question, "can MS be bound by GPL3 if they avoided using GPL3ed code" is that yes, MS avoids being bound by it. Basically they would have to never update linux - or fork it - but what they have right now is GPL2 and GPL2 it shall stay.

read GPL2 for yourself

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. If the Program does not specify a version number of
this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software
Foundation.

See this essay or, if you prefer, an updated version of the essay by Richard Stallman (without whom we would not have the free GNU/Linux operating system). It explains the big differences between Open Source and Free Software. You can also look it up on Wikipedia.

See this essay or, if you prefer, an updated version of the essay by Richard Stallman (without whom we would not have the free GNU/Linux operating system). It explains the big differences between Open Source and Free Software. You can also look it up on Wikipedia.

Back to the subject at hand: Even if the iPhone had GPL'd software, it means nothing. Apple does not need to open the iPhone/OS X API; all they need to do is to point to a source repository somewhere on the net. In fact, if they did not modify the source code at all, they only need to point to your repo to satisfy the GPL requirements. The GPL source redistribution clauses are only triggered when you are redistributing modified software.

The solution is really simple

No, it really isn't. LGPL is the only general solution right now for a typical commercial application, and it presents problems with IP; specifically, section 4d, which boils down to providing code for the user to recompile that links to the LGPL'd libraries (not likely with most commercial IP models), or depending on the fact that the user has the library on their system already, which you can't do, because if they don't, your app, and therefore your whole commercial premise, is down the drain. A commercial application has to be install and run. Anything more than that and complications and problems ensue. Either way, because there is a license involved, legal has to sign off on it and that takes time, money, and can in some cases bring the entire process to a halt when legal won't sign off on something the license requires (such as source code distribution.)

Here is 4D for reference, emphasis mine:

4. Combined Works.

...

d) Do one of the following:

0) Convey the Minimal Corresponding Source under the terms of this License, and the Corresponding Application Code in a form suitable for, and under terms that permit, the user to recombine or relink the Application with a modified version of the Linked Version to produce a modified Combined Work, in the manner specified by section 6 of the GNU GPL for conveying Corresponding Source.

1) Use a suitable shared library mechanism for linking with the Library. A suitable mechanism is one that (a) uses at run time a copy of the Library already present on the user's computer system, and (b) will operate properly with a modified version of the Library that is interface-compatible with the Linked Version.

I am amused every time I see someone showing utter ignorance of the basic GPL premise after lurking around slashdot for, according to slashdot ID, at least five years. You had plenty of time to learn four simple lines of the free software definition but you chose to spread FUD instead.

GPL is the only license that equaly protects freedom of software producers who opted to show their code and users of that software.

The article, however, is not about that. It is about defectiveness of the iPhone by way of using policy driven DRM which restricts FREEDOM of people who purchased device and media to use the same device and same media as they are pleased.

Piracy in the terms of Copyright Infringement have been around at least since the days of the Founding Fathers in the US, where a good deal were actively involved in printing (or closely associated with someone that was...why do you think the freedom of press is so encoded into the constitution).

But piracy has been used to mean copyright infringement for at least a few hundred years. As fluid as English is as a language, and as easily as we pick up and drop words, this is a term that is embedded deeply and not used incorrectly simply because a bunch of fucking idiot nerds want to pretend the term is only valid when prepending 'Of The Caribbean'.

This is the worst part about the RMS influences...his insistent need to convince others words do not mean what they actually mean so that in an Orwellian sense, change language towards his own belief:

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

There use to be a page around this word by RMS that goes into further FUD, but I cannot find it right now.

Don't get me wrong, I believe the RIAA has overstepped their bounds on most of their lawsuits. I am a former signed artist to one of the signatory labels to this organization and do not believe in suing the people that love my music. At the same time, there needs to be some stop to wholesale give aways of other peoples properties. It isn't just about MP3s, I've found one of my best friends albums, one that I contributed significantly to on tune, available in FLAC with full album art. People seem to know no bounds...its the internet asshole syndrome...anonymity allows people to do what they wouldn't do in public simply because they can't be seen, and thus it's right. Fuck that.

And to get back from my rant...Berne Convention, 1886 -- codified Piracy as a legal term worldwide for over 100 years for copyright infringement. Tennyson complained of piracy of work 10 years earlier. Oxford listed it much earlier.

Still, I have no doubt that any of these facts will keep the same idiots from throwing out the Copyright Infringement Is Not Piracy arguments.

*BUT* you can't actually upload the newly produced firmware, because the iPhone is DRMed to the bone with Trusted Computing chips, and as such does only run signed and crypted code. The DRM architecture in the iPhone takes away your freedom as an end user to play around with FLOSS inside the firmware.

[...]
For an executable, the required form of the "work that uses the Library" must include any data and utility programs needed for reproducing the executable from it.

I can't see what in the iPhone can be potentially violating the GPL. I thought they released WebKit changes back to the community and as it's LGPL they don't need to release Safari's entire codebase.

They are similar but not the same.

From http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-fr eedom.html

The fundamental difference between the two movements is in their values, their ways of looking at the world. For the Open Source movement, the issue of whether software should be open source is a practical question, not an ethical one. As one person put it, "Open source is a development methodology; free software is a social movement." For the Open Source movement, non-free software is a suboptimal solution. For the Free Software movement, non-free software is a social problem and free software is the solution.

Regarding Open Source software from http://www.opensource.org/

Open source is a development method for software that harnesses the power of distributed peer review and transparency of process. The promise of open source is better quality, higher reliability, more flexibility, lower cost, and an end to predatory vendor lock-in.

The confusing part is that the GPL (and many other licenses) is both a Free Software license and a Open Source license. Some people choose it to further Open Source and other use it to further Free Software.

I guess choosing which ideology to support depends on what one is ultimately willing to sacrifice; freedom or quality.

Sure. But Open Source software is not going to uphold your freedoms, only Free Software will. Any freedoms that Open Source software gives you is just incidental to the development methodology used. They will be the first to go when sacrificed for some technical merit.

Here's an amusing quote by RMS about Free Softare and Open Source from here,

The GNU GPL is used by developers with various views, but it was written to serve the ethical goals of the free software movement. Says Stallman, "The GNU GPL makes sense in terms of its purpose: freedom and social solidarity. Trying to understand it in terms of the goals and values of open source is like trying understand a CD drive's retractable drawer as a cupholder. You can use it for that, but that is not what it was designed for."