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BeOS Boo-Boo: Violating The GPL -- Updated
Bruce Perens writes "Be is violating the GPL on my software. While it's something they can easily fix, it's a good example of why people need to keep track of where the software they are using came from, and what license is applied to it. We've got the full story over on Technocrat.net." Updated 23:15GMT by timothy: Thanks to reader Eugenia Loli, who wrote: "Andrew
Kimpton from Be, was on the phone with Bruce Perens earlier, and Be is clearing up the issue once and for good! Please read the important update."
Funny how everyone gets all uptight if someone copies a bit of source code here or there, but then turns around and fires up Napster or Gnutella without thinking twice.
Slashdot editors: -2, inflammatory journalism.
Bruce Perens: -1, shooting first and asking questions later.
Slashdot readers: +1, keeping calm and displaying some maturity about the issue!
The TCP/IP stack has had almost a year to improve. It has NOT in any substantial form. And the performance compared to the BSDs, aka the "other" free open sourced OS, is really crap. Frankly, you don't know what you are talking about when you state that the TCP/IP stack is going to get better. By whom? What coders? You have to do substantial work to improve that code.
I'm not worried about someone carrying off my code; if they do, I'm happy it could be used and improved in that manner. It facilitates both public AND private ventures--your Linux companies are just a media blitz of the year, going down quickly because they have no assets--even their bread and butter code is nothing.
To state that your TCP/IP stack is better is simply false. To state that RMS created freedom or covered "your ass" is false--I don't use GPL code in my work, and my OS is more secure, free to distribute, use, modify, and include in products--it's called OpenBSD.
"If you eliminate the problems you are left with the truth" is simply advocacy of the lowest form. Your statement doesn't even make sense, and what about the freedom to innovate and create in the TRUE form of exchange of information? BSDs allow this; GPL'd OSs don't. Look at the *quality* and you'll quickly see the difference.
btw, you don't have more developers. You have more leaches, more users, more dotcoms, more money, but not better programmers or people. Linux may be winning the popularity contest, but the "movement" is quickly becoming simply a FUD contest with any other OS out there.
We're sorry. Honestly. We didn't know. We won't do it again. Did I mention we're sorry? I mean REALLY sorry. If we had known then what we know now, this never would have happened. I'm glad we made this error, so that this travesty shall never again occur. We are so so SO sorry.
we'll never use the GPL again
"This assumes that Linux's developers are more competent. But let's compare TCP/IP stacks of say, FreeBSD and Linux. Well, FreeBSD blows Linux out of the water."
A great deal of sites run linux including slashdot and no one's really hurting.
Har! Good one. Have you seen how unresponsive this place gets at peak hours? And many more sites of significant size run FreeBSD.
It works for me. Most of my processes are run in virtual memory.
You have no clue what VM is all about, do you?
Didn't NeXT do this way back when with GNU software in NeXTStep (I'm specifically thinking of gcc)? No one bitched and moaned about it then... I never got to see the source for the gcc compiler, though they wanted to charge a $10K distribution fee for it when I asked... True story. What is the difference between when NeXT/Apple does it and Be does it?
As RMS says, GNU is *not* affiliated with the open-source movement. You're not entitled to have the source automatically bundled on a silver platter with the product, or else Debian and Red Hat would be major GPL sinners.
But since Linux is not fully multithreaded, using a fully journaling filesystem will be a large performance hit. And if BSD had any problems with Pentium Pro's, then why does cdrom.com still use FreeBSD running on a dual Pentium Pro system?
I must actively enforce my copyright or the next fellow will have a big loophole to step through.
Bruce, did you check with a lawyer before making this statement? Do you understand that copyrights are not like patents and trademarks, that you don't have to go to court to enforce them all the time, in order to maintain the copyright? Did you check with the FSF attorneys?
I have to agree with the many posters who conclude that this fuss was foolish. On top of the previous outbursts, after which Bruce apologized and promised not to do it again--he can't resist making a spectacle of himself.
Look, Bruce, Be even had to admit that Electric Fence didn't work for them and so they left it in, even though they didn't use it, just so users who like free software might be able to make it work. If you think it's so valuable, why don't you help Be get it to work properly? Otherwise, we might all conclude that not only are you a jerk, but your software is just as stupid as you are.
Moderators: I call for some software rewrite here so we readers can moderate out Bruce Perens ourselves.
1. Get some Slashdot community status. Write some GPL software.
2. Wait for large company to violate GPL; post inflammatory remarks on Slashdot, using the status obtained in step #1 to get your flamebait turned into a "news item."
3. Write dozens of replies to defend yourself from the people asking why you didn't even contact the company first. Watch them get moderated up.
4. Instant karma! Good job!
5. Write more GPL software. Repeat from step 1.
If Boo Boo is violating the GPL, I wonder what Yogi has to say about it?
+
This is what I think a lot of you are missing....
You appear to be incorrectly assuming that /. readers actually read articles being highlighted, rather than simply charging in to the comments area ready to display their preconcieved prejudices.
This is what I think a lot of you are missing....
HE DID WORK IT OUT ALREADY, as he stated in his article, he signed a release to let Be use it in the OS despite the restrictions placed by the GPL.
As copyright holder, he is allowed to do that. Remember, the GPL is copyleft, with the intentional meaning that it is an addition to copyright, not a replacement.
You know, I see this is as a good thing that Be and Bruce worked things out so quickly and decently, and that there was no legal BS that was needed.
After all, isn't this what we're always complaining about on here? The legal system getting in our way? Is it TOO hard to recognize the fact that some people are above having to resort to such petty measures, and for christ's sake, figure it out themselves?
You be the judge, but I think the fact that Bruce saw a useful application for his program in another operating system, had no resentment towards the company (who obviously had made a mistake considering the way that library is constructed), and even allowed them to continue using the code.
This is the way that things SHOULD be done, IMO. The posting was simply a description of what was going on.... After all, what if Bruce didn't catch this, and some.... "news service" got ahold of it first and raised a big ruckus *AHEM* before anything could get resolved? Things may have turned out differently.
-Erik-
Not to mention all that paper and ink would cost them a LOT more.... Not to mention wear and tear on the printer that was used to copy it....
:)
Imagine the SAMBA source tree being printed out and sent... CDROM would be much easier
-Erik-
How could you not have a poor opinion of Be Inc. after an episode like this. Apparently they have included software in their distribution without reading the licensing agreement! This reminds me of the Dilbert cartoon where Dilbert clicked on the Accept Agreement button on a piece of software and found out that he had agreed to be Bill Gates's towel boy.
On the other hand, at least they have taken the necessary steps to clear up the problem rapidly. In my book that speaks highly of Be Inc. We all make mistakes, fortunately Bruce isn't out to crucify Be Inc. for theirs.
Many pieces of code (especially interactive ones) have copyright strings embedded in them. For example, programs like emacs show copyright information at start-up (I think). Some less interactive programs will show copyright information if you pass them an option (--version or --copyright or something).
It's Be's responsibility to make sure they're in compliance with the licenses regarding any software they decide to use which they didn't write. The GPL is no different. If this means their only options are to Open-Source the offending code or completely rewrite it, then so be it. If they wanted to keep the whole OS proprietary, they should have written it all themselves and not relied on Open-Source software to do some of their work for them. They shouldn't be let off the hook just because they're a corporation, as some would advocate.
So what punishment would you recommend? drawn and quartered?
No, simply that they should have to either comply with the license or remove the offending code. If that means they have to Open-Source the lib, so be it. If it means they choose to rewrite the whole lib rather than Open-Source it, that's fine too. But they should comply with the license.
Yes. Let's look more carefully.
What happens if someone gets GPL'd software, then releases it to me under a different license
They can't. I have a copy of Microsoft Windows, but I can't license it to you under the terms of the BSD license. Or the GPL. In fact, I can't licence it to you at all! Why? It's not my code! I have to have ownership over the code in order to license it to anyone under any circumstances.
since I have never been bound by the GPL for this particular piece of software, couldn't I just release it under whatever license I wanted (in accordance with the license under which my GPL-violating friend gave me the software)?
Assuming the original software was released under the GPL and only under the GPL, then the GPL is the ONLY license its available to you under. By claiming you're not bound by the GPL, you are in fact claiming you have no license to the software at all, so in fact you're committing piracy.
Furthermore, if I was interrogated as to the identity of the GPL-violator from whom I got the software, would I be under any legal obligation to reveal it?
IANAL, but since under the circumstances you've described, you're in possession of stolen goods, I would assume the same rules apply as when cops find you in possession of physical hot merchandise, whatever those rules may be.
It seems to me this is a rather easy way of circumventing the GPL (and if it's not, you could always download the software in a country where software licenses don't apply and re-release it any way you like)
Within that country, perhaps, but not back into this one. You still don't have any license to the software, and by releasing it yourself under a different license you're probably committing fraud in addition to piracy...
--
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
I vote speech. I buy software all the time, I have no problem with paying for what I use. I'm happy to do so when the product is good. But it's annoying not having the source code to tinker with. I rather pay money for software that includes source that receive for no money software with no source...
Of course, if you'd asked me a few years ago when I had no money, I might have answered differently... :)
--
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
This is a really proud day for me. Really proud. I'm proud of all of us. Thanks to /.'s unique capacity to obnoxiously overreact to such violations, the GPL has maintained it's integrity yet one more day. Thanks to /., we no-life geeks have commanded the immediate attention of Apple, Be, People magazine, Microsoft, LinuxOne, and the sattelite company that was going to yank Serbia's internet access about this time last year. (did I miss anyone?) Can you imagine any organization of that size scrambling that quick to appease any other group of people, short of the Justice Dept? Damn, thats power. That's power the likes of which I never feel when I *vote*, that's for sure. If only people had "irrational" love for the constitution like they do for thr GPL, this would be a loud yet great country!!
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
You just don't get it, do you? The issue isn't whether you are right or wrong about whatever licensing issue. I don't doubt you have a strong case every time. My objection is to your turning every discussion into a jihad. I'm glad you're willing to endorse licenses that change to meet your standard, but as far as I'm concerned, your job isn't done until you've calmed down the pitchfork-waving mob of zealots you've incited. Of course, given that you've now posted 22 times to this discussion with only an occasional glimmer of recognition that you might have behaved inappropriately towards Be, I can't expect to you to understand the point I'm making.
I can only profess to be neutral regarding Be using GPL software. I'm not out to encourage them to use it as you think I should be, I'd just as well see their customers use an Open Source OS.
Whatever. My point remains -- whatever it is you want them to use, antics like this will have the opposite effect.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
One assumption everyone is making is that Bruce submitted this to slashdot. I'm assuming he put it up on his little page, and slashdot picked it up and made it into a story.
Huh? The story announcement says...come to think of it, it's right at the top of this page! If people are assuming he submitted it, that's because the story says so.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
I quite delibrately made an example of them, so that other people would not make the same mistake. I made it very clear that they did not have bad intent, and they have already promised to fix the problem. Companies have to exercise due dilligence on the software that they use.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
---
Are you using EXT2FS? I hope someone doesn't pull the plug on you, it probably won't come back.
What kind of crack are you smoking here? I've put the ext2 filesystem through hell since it's been out. I've never seen it not recover. Damn man, pull your head out of your ass before you post.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
What are you smoking?
If Be doesn't have mozilla support then they are screwed. Be doesn't have a decent web browser. There own web browser is very light weight and only handles HTML. If Be doesn't get a browser that supports at least java/java script they are never going to make a big den't in any desktop. Like it or not the web is a big part of using a computer both in a business enviroment and at home.
"... That probably would have sounded more commanding if I wasn't wearing my yummy sushi pajamas..."
-Buffy Summers
Goodbye Iowa
That's fine, if you can show that your program indeed works with a different, non-GPL library. Otherwise it depends on a GPL library and is therefore derived work (if you take the source code into your program or if you compile the GPL code to separate object files and link it with your program doesn't make a difference).
Let's take programs compiled with lesstif for example (I don't think lesstif is GPL but rather LPGL or something else, let's just assume it were GPL). Programs using this library wouldn't need to be GPL since they could just as well be used with commercial Motif (which lesstif tries to emulate).
If there is no replacement for the GPL library however then you are bound to GPL rules. The program obiously combines GPL code, which it depends on, into its own code. "It could theoretically run with a different library" doesn't count IMHO if there is no different library. If that were a valid point anyone could take GPL code into their proprietary programs since they just could have theoretically written it themselves.
Are you using EXT2FS? I hope someone doesn't pull the plug on you, it probably won't come back.
Yeah under Linux I've had two file systems corrupted badly enough that they couldn't be repaired due to brown outs.
I object to that term "group of raving lunatics".
I am a raving lunatic acting independently, and I do not presume to speak for any of the other independent raving lunatics.
But more to the point, This won't make me angry at Be. I would like to see Be have good success, because it means more choice for users, even if I wouldn't choose Be for my own computers.
I have an interest in seeing what violations of the GPL are out there, and what is being done about them. If Be does the right thing, then I say that it is a case of no harm, no foul.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
I get annoyed at people who keep trying to make the GPL into the LGPL. If the author had wanted proprietary programs to link into his library, he would have made it LGPL.
Does no one have respect for the coders wishes anymore? He wrote the friggin thing!
-David T. C.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
I gueese Bruce needed to get a shout in the stream.
Its like a bad married couple....Stallman gets press and you can be sure in a few hours you will see Bruce pop up with something.
Welcome to the world of Dueling Divas.
Meanwhile back on the ranch....
Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap!
There IS a submission credit: Bruce Perens. It's in the same style as everything else today:
Bruce Perens writes....
david-currie writes....
Sander Sassen writes....
I didn't just pull it out of my hat. :)
Plus, there's the "We've" in the item that clearly indicates it was Bruce writing.
_Deirdre
In fact, Bruce's page allows the public to post comments.
Unless they're running Netscape 6 or Mozilla, in which case it doesn't work, but that's not the point.
Angry little troll aren't you?
:)
Finkployd
if he supports anarchy, then he would support my stealing of GPLed code
:)
Another AC with no idea what anarchy actually means...
Hey, if you don't support anachary, then you would support killing infants born with any disease
See I can make silly connections also
Finkployd
Amen to that.
Nope, IIRC the GPL states that the source must be made available on a comonly used medium. I strongly doubt that a supermodel is a comonly used medium for transmitting code. Then again, I'd probably pay for the supermodel.
-matt
I was responding to a previous post that cited a passage [which they termed the "infamous viral" clause] as being the basis for disallowing linkage by proprietary programs. That post was incorrect. On purusing the GPl itself, I found an explicit prohibition. My argument is therefore invalid.
From http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html :
This General Public License does not permit incorporating your program into proprietary programs. If your program is a subroutine library, you may consider it more useful to permit linking proprietary applications with the library. If this is what you want to do, use the GNU Library General Public License instead of this License.
__________
If you can go to bed, knowing you did a valuable thing today, you're very lucky. If you can't... it's not bedtime
1. That's outside the Terms and Conditions, so it's not real clear that would have any actual legal force if the rest of the T&C had been followed to the letter.
2. "Incorporating your program into proprietary programs" has not been clearly defined within the License. It is conceivable that a court of law would rule that dynamic linking is not incorporating a GPL program into a proprietary program.
Thanks! Those are useful insights.
For the record, I have no intention of linking GPL libraries to proprietary software. I just want us to keep our eyes open, and not listen to our own echos when it comes to the weight of GPL.
It's a remarkable document, but in a certain sense it's still in 'gamma testing' (released to the public but the real-world shakeout isn't over) I'd like to think that we could be prepared for GPL2 (if needed) without lots of bug-patched GPLs (1.012a , etc) What a nightmare that would be! Even 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 would be no joy for us.
__________
If you can go to bed, knowing you did a valuable thing today, you're very lucky. If you can't... it's not bedtime
So may I ask, why would you sign a release
for them? Isn't this
a. A good place to make a stance in court if
need be?
b. A good way to drag a proprietary piece of
code into free/open software category?
I haven't been able to access the Technocrat.net article all day. If I had moderator priveleges, I would moderate you as "Informative", since I would have assumed other people haven't been able to see the article over there either.
Just my $.02 though.
In a word: Yes, or rather, I would say yes.
_One_ library file has been created that contains object code deriving from both proprietary and GPL sources. Therefore, it's pretty clear to me that the result is a derived work.
What is not clear to me, however, is:
1. Whether a program which is dynamically linked to a library (meaning that the program and library are seperate files, and the library is loaded when the program needs a function from it) is a derived work under the law;
2. Whether the GPL does in fact prohibit dynamically linking programs under any other license to GPLed libraries.
The world may never know...
Glückwünsche, haben Sie Slashdot ermordet, indem Sie zum korporativen Druck beugten und Subskriptionen einlei
I have no problem with that, I didn't intend to bash Be - I like them. I just wanted to point out why I think it was ok from Bruce to make it public. He didn't bash Be either and even on /. there seem's to be nearly no bashing. ;-).
In the end it's just publicity for Be
But it was clearly a failure on Be's site and I don't see why this failure should not made public. If a company wants to work with GPL'ed code they take a certain responsibility. It's the same with every other license.
...wouldn't community relations have been better served by a private email to the Be engineers?
Why?
I really like beos, and it's a great OS.
But I think it would have been even greater if they bothered to read the fucking license of software they incorporate
Really, is it that complicated? Just because you can get your fingers at some code, why on earth do you think you can use it at your will.
If I find an envelope of money on the street with a name on it, is it really complicated to figure out what to do next?
They deserve a public slap in their face, and then let's go on with the usual business.
Really! You really like it that much? Have you every FUCKING used it?
yup, unfortunately it has no pppoe driver last I checked, but I don't see your point here...
And now BeOS has been branded by Bruce as a BAD company
Where did Bruce say anything which makes you believe that?
and months from now people will still swear to NEVER use that GPL violating OS.
Yeah, there are idiots on this planet, we have to live with that. And also Be.
Was there any other way for Bruce to help other companys from avoiding this mistake?
It might help PHBs to understand why programmers have to be careful with other people's rights.
Yeah, and I'm really not an gpl-zealot.
But the consequences of that oversight are not that bad as they could have been. If I ship a software and somehow something proprietary gets on the cd, I'm in really big trouble.
One of the big software shots (adobe, ms etc.) would give a damn if it is an oversight or not.
Take for instance some of adobes non-free (as in beer) TrueType or Postscript fonts for the design of a corporate logo. If their lawers come to you and you say "Oh, it was an oversight, sorry, will never happen again" they'll laugh at you.
This has nothing to do with the gpl, I just have the feeling that companies are much more carefull in dealing with the properties of other companies than that of private individuals.
There are numerous other examples, like photographers being ripped off by companies using their work without paying royalties. Sometimes it's also just an oversight. They just seem to happen more often without a big legal gun aimed at your head.
Treatment of the gpl-licensed software which belongs to one person (not to a company) is just one example.
Did it ever occur to you that it might be an oversight?
Perhaps they did read the license. Perhaps, in releasing the code for the other numerous pieces of GPL software that Be uses, they simply overlooked this one (or it fell through the cracks).
Not every slight to the GPL is intentional, you know.
http://www.benews.com/story/3073.1.html
"Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty and the pig likes it."
He's apologized, it's over. Although it would probably be nice if he posted it on his site and sent a retraction (or at least an explanation) to the sites he contacted.
--
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
Is Bruce starting this flamefest terrorist-style to "make his agenda public" OR ZDNet-style to get a slashdot effect against the website he's constantly pushing? Either way, pretty pathetic.
--
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
I haven't gone to the site (because I think this whole thing is a hit-generating stunt by Bruce) BUT, I think you are hosed in the head.
..."We've got the full story over on Technocrat.net"
/..
Bruce Perens writes
Are you sure this last line appeared on technocrat.net? If it didn't (and I can't think of a reason Bruce would link to himself), then here's your implication that Bruce submitted this story to
--
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
Did you talk to anybody at Be to get it straightened out before you started posting it all over the place?
--
Pretend there is some witty statement here.
Also...and I'm being totally serious here, what part of the GPL says it can't be linked with proprietary componets? I can't seem to find that in the Terms of Use....
It is in condition #2 of the GPL, which reads (in part): "These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program, and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it."
This is the (in)famous "viral" part of the GPL. Some people think it is a bug; I see it as a feature.
Well, the way I read the GPL, they could theoretically make the source available only in hardcopy mailed upon request and still be GPL compliant.
Those kind of tricks don't work. Part 3a of the GPL specifies that if you distribute a GPLed program in a binary format, you have to "Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed... on a medium customarily used for software interchange". I don't think that anyone could credibly argue that hard copy would meet those requirements.
Section 3 goes to say that the source code has to be in "the preferred for of the work for making modifications to it". This rules out distributing shrouded or otherwise-obfuscated sources.
I would hardly call Bruce's post a smear campaign. He explained how Be made a mistake and is now fixing it. If anything, I think that it casts Be in a good light, as a company that respects the GPL and will not hesitate to correct any oversights.
-- themenace
How about GCC? It's the default compiler in BeOS these days. I think the compiler is a fairly significant "innovation" Be has capitalized on.
It sounds like the situation is already settled. Be admits wrongdoing and promises (and acts) on making ammends, Bruce doesn't persue litigation. Everyone is happy, no blood was shed.
I take it Bruce has informed Be of this problem and given them chance to rectify the error before publishing this story..
It's those BSD zealots that are the phonies. They claim that letting every crook and swindler mooch of my intellectual property is somehow more moral than requiring quid pro quo on enhancements to my software. And they call RMS a commie... sheesh.
there's no such thing as bad advertising. Especially when it's, "Hey we screwed up, but look how fast we can fix it."
The smear campaign COMES FROM the public, which is a bit different that normal, remember, this is GNU software.
--
+&x
'scuse me, this wasn't advertising, it was publicity, and there's no such thing as bad publicity. When getting paid in full is having people talk about you all day long, I'd say they did a pretty good job. They should thank Bruce for the free PUBLICITY.
--
+&x
Several ethernet drivers were snarfed from Linux, lilo code(?), maybe some more, if I remember correctly. I think Be fixed the problem there too (pay for, or release out of sympathy?).
why did Mr. Perens not contact Be? He obviously hasn't, or he would have mentioned this in his article instead of guessing the cause of this misshap.
So is this the best way to deal with (possibly unintentional) GPL infringement? Get it right on Slashdot saying that BeOS is violating the GPL before even contacting the violater?
Seems more like an intention to give BeOS a bad name. Let's all bash BeOS!
I totally understand the need for protecting software that falls under GPL, but I've seen people dealing with these kind of issues a bit more delicately...
Breace
Allow me to protest. I have worked in places that used BDS/OS (Commercial BSD variant from BSDi) and there were some servers that crashed because of file system problems, like freeing an already free block. These crashes regularly required manual intervention.
Note that this was not a case of a power outage corrupting the disk, the disk corruption caused the crash!
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
What can we do?
File a lawsuit?
Nah... there has to be a better way.
--- If OS were buildings, then the first woodpecker to come around would erase 95 % of civilization.
Just a little nitpick. It is not simply enough to make the source available. You must accompany the binary with a written offer to provide source (see S 3.b of the GPL, reproduced below).
"3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under S. 2) in object code or executabe form... provided that you also do one of the following:
a) Accompany it with the complete... source code...
b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than...
c) Accompany it with the information... as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution...)"
So. They haven't done a). They can't choose c). Do they have an explicit "written offer, valid for at least three years..." included with the package? Otherwise they are contravening the license.
As for the ethics of this issue... How is it that the corporate apologists will stand up and cheer the enforcement of illegal license restrictions imposed by corporations on closed source software, but hypocritically refuse to support small open source developers' attempts to impose reasonable restrictions in their licenses.
This corporation is getting software for free (as in beer). The only thing that is asked in return is that they keep the software free (as in speech). If they don't feel they can comply with the terms of the license, they have a few options. They can:
a) Develop a replacement themselves.
b) Search for a replacement released under a different license.
c) Negotiate with the owner to be licensed under different terms.
They can not simply ignore the license.
They neither provided the source with the binary, nor did they provide a written offer of the source with the binary. The GPL is quite clear on this issue (see section 3 of the license) Distributors must provide either the source (including modifications) or a written offer of source (including modifications) if they are distributing the binary.
That said, it is relatively clear that this was an oversight on the part of Be. They are fixing the error. It is important, however, that we remain vigilant and know the rules should the next violation, from another company perhaps, not be so benign.
those are all single processor and not SMP boxes. a true multithreaded stack would have the capability to break itself into multiple threads and spread across multiple processors. check the BSD source code and see for yourself. there are several large locks around most of the stack. im not saying the BSD stack is bad - its really good on single cpu machines. multiprocessor machines are a whole new ballgame. even openbsd cant support multiprocessor yet and freebsd has just got into the game.
i have no idea. they shouldnt be using old pentium pro machines...its not safe. journalling filesystems are the same as non journalling ones excepting the journal logs (metadata) and a few other changes.
one word : standards. the opensource community thrives on them and makes reference implmentations available to *anything* thats a standard whether open or not. gcc is far superior and standards compliant than 99% of the commercial compilers, linux strives to be POSIX compliant along with BSD, tar and gzip are open standards and used extensively, gimp uses open formats for reading images etc.
uuh..where dyou get all this from ? benchmarks have shown linux and BSD IP stacks are roughly on par with each other since they both use the same large single threaded locks (although this is changing in linux 2.3 but not in BSD). Virtual memory is roughly equivalent - they both use the same basic structures. BSD is slightly faster on the locking since they take a risky approach which linux rejected since it would fail on a small segment of pentium pros (check the kernel archives). reiserfs, ext3 are both journalling as is XFS..so you can complain about ext2 NOW, but for the future linux will overtake BSD's filesystem.
The weird thing is that NT's multithreaded IP stack blows linux AND BSD out of the water..at least for now with multiple ethernet cards and card/cpu affinity.
Bruce Perens clearly knows about this, considering that he linked to it in the second paragraph of his posting. The issue is that his program is not among them, and, if I understand it correctly, could not be distributed with other, closed code under the terms of the GPL anyway (that being what the LGPL is for).
You are free, I believe, to release a non-working version of a product
I certainly hope so. Not that I would want someone to begin distributing products that don't work, but honestly, can't you distribute what you dang well please as long as the product isn't illegal and you're not doing it in an illegal way? Of course I realize that [one of] the questions here is whether or not it's actually illegal to distribute non-working product but I firgure you can, simply because you're free to make it, even if you have to/do want to make it non-working. I would especially agree you're in the clear if you tell people that it doesn't work.
I mean, one of the purposes of distributed computing (well, at least in trying to crack algorithms) is that you're distributing "product" that doesn't work... trying to find some that does! (well, in a whacky sort of way)
Insert mind here.
Oh, yeah, and no one in the open source community ever steals anything. Oh, I guess since no one makes a profit with open source this means making your look-and-feel or semantics look like commercial stuff is ok.
Look at most popular window managers. They look less like X and more like Windows than anything. But, I guess its ok since they just switch around the meanings of the window controls and make the user interface a pain in the butt to use. It may look the same, but it works different, so, uh, "... we didn't steal anything."
UGH The /BINARY/ was distributed - hence, bruce did not illicitly obtain and crack the binary. He just ran "strings" on the published binary. He might as well have eyeballed it with a hex editor. That's hardly "breaking into" anything.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
This is to all the posters here that don't
like the GPL and who complain incessantly about it.
How can you crybabies complain about the GPL "making your like a pain in the ass?"
If you don't like the terms of the GPL, the
solution is SIMPLE.
DON'T USE GPL'ed SOFTWARE!
"ohhh! but there's some cool GPL'ed code that
would make my life so much easier if only it
weren't GPL'ed...oh misery..."
Shut up. Too bad. If the author released it under the GPL, and you don't like that fact? Too freakin' bad.
Just quit whining and write your own code then.
You people whining about the GPL and how you don't like its "viral" provisions make me sick, you really do.
GPL'ed software is a GIFT. It may not be exactly what you wanted, but HOW CAN YOU SIT THERE AND COMPLAIN!!!! Ingrates.
(Ah, I feel much better now...)
Bang the head that doesn't bang!
There was more bile directed at bruce because it backfired on him. i'm sure this isn't what he was expecting. It is very unprofesional for him to have sent the item into slashdot in the first place. but lets also not forget that slashdot did post the story without doing any checking. Its time slashdot realized the power it has and must do a better job of making sure it is not being abused by its submiters. for a weblog,linking to a bad story is just as bad as publishing it in the first place.
Oh well, another humourless bastard moderator.
I quite delibrately made an example of them, so that other people would not make the same mistake.
Dear Mr. Perens,
If I remember correctly, several months ago you did chastise one Eric S. Raymond for making a public spectacle of you and his dissention toward you. As the body of your numerous messages implied (in the constant bickering going back and forth between you and the aforementioned ESR) your central point was that Mr. Raymond should have come to you if he had a problem with something you'd said or done. Is it not fair, then, that Mr. Raymond deliberately made an example of you in that situation? Shall I hold you to this ideal you've set forth, despite your having indicated different feelings some months ago? Would you like to retract your comment or do you still believe that you have the right to "make an example of them?"
Thanks,
Kalani
___
The ends are ape-chosen, only the means are man's. -- Aldous Huxley
... drive-by flamings about BSD licenses being "obviously superior," ...
:) (quote from Spock)
I will not remind you of which you know so well.
You fail to read the license at significant peril.
I definately agree with this. Always read the license.
Ummm... Where exactly did you make it clear that they have already promised to fix the problem? I don't see that anywhere in your letter. The end result being that you appear to have posted the letter w/o first contacting Be about this violation.
Adam
Well, it may be no harm to the GPL, Bruce Perens, or his software, but it may be harmful to Be. Whether the raving lunatics are acting independently or as a group, many people may walk away from this with a bad opinion of Be.
Adam
I certainly agree with your point... However, I still feel that the polite thing would have been to wait for a response from Be, not let members of the OSS communitty crucify them as frequently happens on Slashdot. You're point would have been just as effective, if not more so.
Adam
"Yes, doing it in the aftermath might have been nicer, though. Maybe I screwed up."
:-)
Well, at least you see my point... Your message would have just as easily gotten to the ears of the popele you haven't caught, and, at the same time, you would have come across more as someone who wants to resolve these issues, not escalate them
Adam
I think the earlier poster meant "settle the situation" and wasn't taking about a legal settlement.
Adam
Wouldn't it have been more polite to have resolved the issue with Be and *then* warned others to be more careful, rather than getting a group of raving lunatics pissed at Be for something even you feel was unintentional?
Adam
But surely you're aware of the response other companies have received when making unintentional mistakes like Be did? Surely you were aware that they would probably end up getting quite a bit of nasty e-mail, or nasty press, by publicizing this mistake *before* getting a response from Be? Surely you were aware that posting this letter before getting a response from Be was going to put you in a bad light with many people who *agree* with you about the situation?
Adam
If he would have used the BSD license this would have happened, the code would be in there, the source would not be available.
The difference is that under the BSD license that would be LEGAL and there would be nothing Bruce could do about it. with the GPL it is NOT legal,and he CAN do something about it.
Everyone is attacking Bruce for reporting this so early. I would like to ask, if it wasn't Be, but MS, that made the mistake, would anyone be attacking Bruce? Or would we have about 50 MS flames moderated to +5 Insightful?
Keep it impartial!
[Sorry, but I know that this is offtopic. Moderate it down if you feel so.]
--Carpe diem!
Can't be any worse than the LinuxOne violation (Where's the source code?) Aren't there bits of the BeOS kernel that are GPL'd as well? -JBMCB First Poster! Horray!
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
OK, we can debate the use of the word innovation, but BeOS is based on alot of good ideas that have strong open source examples. For example the kernel architecture seems very much like other open source micro kernels. A lot of software for BeOS is recompiled OSS, which don't get me wrong, is great and alot of the idea behind OSS.
:)
I am a big fan of BeOS and find what they don't with their desktop OS truely innovative, but that innovation did not come without open source examples. When the developers of BeOS use GPLed software they should stick to the license (as they usually do) and perhaps follow suit by GPLing more of BeOS itself.
Call innovation what you want but I see a lot of "new ideas" getting reused here and I like it. I just want to see that the use of such ides is not being locked away for no one to see.
I agree. Be has capitalized a great deal on inovations from the open source community and I feel that it would be sad at this point if they didn't come forward and admit a mistake here.
Compare the following, from technocrat.net (my apologies to Bruce for pasting him), with the parent of this post:
o ,ef_print.o,efence.o}
Be has already contacted me and promised to fix this problem. But I'd like people to be aware of it because it points out what can go wrong when you use other people's software without checking the licenses.
BeOS has a C library called libroot.so . This library contains a number of components under the GNU LGPL license, and Be is distributing the source code for these components in their FTP archive. They also have some proprietary components in that library, which they distribute in object form. It looks as if Be is making an honest effort to comply with the LGPL license.
Bruno Haible tipped me off that my Electric Fence program, a malloc() debugging tool, is also part of Be's libroot.so . Electric Fence is under the GPL, not the LGPL. That license would not allow it to be part of a library with proprietary components, although Be could distribute it in a separate library.
It turns out that not only is Electric Fence in Be's libroot.so, but Be is distributing it in object-code form, without source, as if it were one of their proprietary components. Of course this is also against the license. The archive that contains it is here on their FTP site. My files extract from that archive into src/kit/malloc/obj.i586.dyn/{ef_malloc.o,ef_page.
This is an honest mistake by one of their engineers, and will be quickly fixed. It's an example of why it is important to keep track of where your software came from and what license it's under, and read the license when you use somebody else's code.
What is happening here legally? I now have to sign a relase for them, because the software is already in distribution. I'll sign it, but you don't want to get your company in this position unnecessarily. Be is going to be a lot more careful about this now, and your company should, too, if you are embedding other people's software in your product.
Thanks
Bruce
End quote. Jefus!
Your mouth is like Columbus Day.
I suppose you could be nice give them a chance to correct the situation...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Am I missing something? According to the actual linked story, the software in question was under the LGPL... doesn't the LGPL let you take the code and include it without source in a closed source product?
I thought LGPL was the non-tyannical version of the GPL that gave people the freedom to choose the license that best suited their product instead of forcing them to conform to an Open Source authoritarian rule.
Esperandi
No. Licensing is important to those who care about it. I, for example, could not care in the slightest if Be used my code with out releasing the source code, and if they make a zillion quid from it, then bully for them. I enjoy coding, I don't enjoy licenses, so I spend lots of my time coding and zero time on licenses.
IMHO, when these sort of things crop up, the question should be "is this thing fundamentally bad?", not "Does this break the GPL?", if it really sucks then the GPL should be able to stop it. However, and I'm not saying that this has happened here, there is a risk that people will catch companies out just for breaking the GPL, when what the company is doing is harmless.
In other words, the GPL should be there to stop people doing things that suck. The GPL should not be there just to stop people breaking the GPL. The two things aren't always the same.
cjk
You will forget this sig before you next see it
>I quite delibrately made an example of them
>Yes, doing it in the aftermath might have been nicer, though. Maybe I screwed up.
Maybe? There's no question you screwed up, and you should publicly apologise to Be. So what if they used your insignificant little scrap of code, you wanted other people to use it anyway, or else you wouldn't have gpled it.
If you back over my mailbox, I'm going to at least ask you to fix it before I retaliate. Be backed over your mailbox on their way to work. You taped a note to their front door asking them to correct their mistake, and then chucked a firebomb through the window without even waiting for them to come home and read your note.
I think you're just hungry for publicity and don't care how many fires you start to get people to look at you.
I don't see why Bruce had to draw attention to what he already believes is a simple, honest mistake. It would have been more professional to deal with it privately and only make it a community issue if Be ignored him or refused to fix the problem.
I think he answered this in his post by saying: "it's a good example of why people need to keep track of where the software they are using came from, and what license is applied to it."
I think that he is right to warn developers to watch for violiations of their GPL code by pointing out a good example.
-rt-
-rt-
** Evil Canadians are taking over the world. Learn about the conspiracy
He may have just put it up on his page (which is read by a comparativly small group of people). Since there is no submission credit, I assume that Slashdot editors just happened to pick it up from Bruce's site.
/. editors revise the post... you must be confused.
Excuse me, but did you read the post? We've got the full story over on Technocrat.net seems to imply that it was not a copy of something on his site, considering he's advertising it with his famous sig. Further, the post does give Bruce writing credit. Unless this is one of those cases where
-rt-
-rt-
** Evil Canadians are taking over the world. Learn about the conspiracy
"Then they take 3com driver code by Donald Becker. Becker nails them, and ends up dropping the complaint and selling them a BSD licenced network card driver for six figures."
It wouldn't be the first time something has happened to NIC drivers he's written. While trying to set up my Netgear 10/100 card I stumbled across some mailing list articles that shed light on the fact that Netgear was including his Linux drivers on disk without the GPL or any mention of him. I forget exactly how that issue was resolved, only that the newer version seems to be alright. However if he really was able to sell thefolks at BE a bsd licensed version of some drivers for 6 figures then more power to him. Here is great way for open source programmers to make money. It's only a shame that it takes catching someone doing something wrong in the process...
I just wanted to take a minute and thank Bruce Perens for posting and responding several times to this discussion. By answering people's questions, he has prevented (hopefully) a witchhunt/flamewar against Be, Inc. in what was obviously an accidental violation of the GPL. I wish everyone remained so clear-headed on Slashdot.... :-)
-- Sent from a computer.
Moderate the above back down as flamebait.
thanks for informing without flaming
-Marc
Did they say no?
What rule have they broken then?
I haven't seen any proof that they have actually violated the *GPL yet..(If there is any let me know and I will gladly retract the previous statements...)
-Marc
OT: BTW, OpenTracker has some nasty bugs - is there a source release that corresponds to what was included in R5? Expect a hack on OpenTracker and OpenDeskbar to jump out of my computer soon.
"The romance of Silicon Valley was about money - excuse me, about changing the world, one million dollars at a time."
Visit
Dear Lord. I'm sure the individual in question meant political anarchy, which advocates the destruction of current government as a means towards creating a better government, which is a philosophy I subscribe to.
"The romance of Silicon Valley was about money - excuse me, about changing the world, one million dollars at a time."
Visit
That's my understanding at least. I hope I'm wrong, and that this isn't another instance of somewhat shaky reporting by /. :o)
Got Rhinos?
The DMCA does not outlaw reverse engineering. It outlaws bypassing a method that controls access to a copyrighted work, or distributing a tool to do that, without the authorization of the copyright holder. It happens that reverse engineering is usually not a defense against the DMCA, but you still need to committ the underlying violation.
For example, in the DeCSS case, if people had been charged for trade secret violations, reverse engineering would be a valid defense. It usually isn't a valid defense against DMCA violations, but reverse engineering isn't in and of itself a violation of the DMCA.
Since Be doesn't have some "copy"-protection scheme built into their libraries, the DMCA doesn't apply.
the same people in this discussion, on the side of the GPL, are on the same side that believes that pirating music and software is part of their "free right", knowing full well that it violates copyrights and or agreements.
What's your point? Are you saying that because a subset of people who use the GPL don't agree with copyright law, Be shouldn't be held accountable for violating Bruce's copyright?
Yeah, but it was encrypted as "!eineew a si snereP ecurB"
Considering the fact that Be actively maintains GPL'ed software for BeOS and releases the mods on their FTP server I am truly doubting Perens's claims. As far as I know all code is released on their FTP server because I've seen it numerous times listed on BeWare. He might be right, but to me this just sounds like another example of an open source zealot trying to bash a closed source vendor. Open source is flat out unprofitable for most software product types. Here's just a few such examples:
MP3/Movie tools
Game engines. Can anyone honestly say that if Q3's engine was GPL'ed right now that anyone other than the Unreal team would make a new, innovative engine for the time being (as in until the release of ID's next engine).
Utilities like cd burning software. Most software can't be supported through tech support and such. That to me is the biggest flaw in the GPL. It doesn't allow small time developers to open up and make code. A better license would:
Allow the developer to sell binary only cds and such
Keep others from being able to sell versions of the software for a profit that haven't been heavily modified. You wouldn't want someone changing the corporate logo and selling their own rip off of your product
Allow closed source vendors to use the code in their products so long as they release the modifications. In other words don't make them release all of their new product's code, just the modifications they made to the open source code they borrowed.
Free music from Jack Merlot.
No. As Mr. Perens has said, he is fairly sure it was a mistake. This is by no means a "smear campaign." If you want one of those, look at practically any M$ press release about Linux and/or free software. This is someone doing something illegal and it being used as a reminder to others to be careful and make sure you know what the lisence says.
-RickHunter
That would be the best way, but that isn't the Slashdot way. Or it isn't the Slashdot way as I perceive it. The Slashdot way is usually fanatical, up in arms, "your mother looks like my donkey" or "your donkey looks like my mother", whichever way round its meant to be.
Excuse the cynicism. No wait, don't, it's just my opinion.
OK, so the cat's out of the bag and it looks bad, right? Well, not exactly. A response from a Be engineer can be found on BeNews here.
So it seems that the library in question is part of the BeOS distribution (both Personal Edition and Pro), but the library in question is never actually used.
IANAL, but it seems to me if you accidetnally include something like that but never use it, are you still violating the license? Perhaps the law could be twisted either way, but I say look at the root of the matter. What were Be's intentions? What damage has been done to the holder of the license?
What tidal wave of flames? I've seen a few here and there, but most responses have been reasonable. I've seen far more bile directed at Bruce than at Be, here.
"I imagine that Bruce is correct: this was likely unintentional. I also imagine that there may be more instances of this withing Be's libs. I mean, iut is a versatile, Posix compliant OS, so there could be a number of other apps being used in the same way."
The funny part is that there are many, many, GPL'd apps included with BeOS. The even funnier part is that most of them come with Be-modified source. I hesitate to say "all of them" simply because I'm not omniscient and maybe there isn't source for one or two somewhere, but it surely isn't intentional. Be has one of the most open software policies known to man, compared to other commercial products of its size. Hell, there's an entire book dedicated to the technical details of the file system.
That is not the point! He did it publicly without EVEN giving be a chance to correct the mistake. I think that is fairly not nice. Be may have not done the right thing by releasing the code but EVERYONE makes mistakes and this is just another nit pick like so many other things that I just dont want to hear about unless the company is stagnant and unwilling to cooperate.
I thought the GNU GPL and Lesser GPL allowed "mere aggregation" of object files. Can .o files be extracted verbatim from a .so file? If so, the .so creation process is "mere aggregation."
Will I retire or break 10K?
Erm, forgive me if I'm wrong, but afaik, if ONE snippet of code you use in your system is GPL-ed, your code should also be GPL-ed, because you are not allowed to link to GPL-ed code from closed source software.
;)
If this is true, BeOS should be totally GPL-ed as well. Can anyone enlighten this a bit? (I'm sure someone can
--
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
Now THERE is a baseless generalization. Care to back that up in any way?
Go here and keyword search on piracy
Here is a direct quote: "Note that the GNU Project recommends avoiding the term piracy since it implies that sharing copies is somehow illegitimate."
I could site numerous other examples.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
If you follow the hyperlinks a little deeper, you get:
Publishers often refer to prohibited copying as ``piracy.'' In this way, they imply that illegal copying is ethically equivalent to attacking ships on the high seas, kidnaping and murdering the people on them.
If you don't believe that illegal copying is just like kidnaping and murder, you might prefer not to use the word ``piracy'' to describe it. Neutral terms such as ``prohibited copying'' or ``unauthorized copying'' are available for use instead. Some of us might even prefer to use a positive term such as ``sharing information with your neighbor.''
This is plainly NOT a reference to copying GNU software, but to illegal copying.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Am I wrong here?
Well, yeah. Let's see; MS has a long, well-documented history of virtual theft (pardon the pun). Remember Java and J++? MS has gone out of its way to squash competition by using their competitors' own stuff against them. And, of course, MS has been declared a monopoly by the Department of Justice (IIRC).
Of course we'd be saying "MS is evil!!!!" Even the department of Justice says so.
Then there's Be, which has yet to be declared a monopoly by even a single Department. Apparently they made a simple, easy to make, honest mistake which they are fixing.
While I'm ranting, maybe everyone who rushes to put up "Don't jump down their throats" posts should read the friggin article! Gasp, a good idea? Heaven forbid.
---
Dammit, my mom is not a Karma whore!
Same thing there, they hacked lilo sold it and never released the source changes.
I would not be surpriced if the new "free" system uses loadlin to launch.
> Actually, I doubt that the "strings" command is reverse-engineering. But I didn't break into anything, the code was distributed.
So if the code was distributed??? What is the problem????? First you complain that they distribute in object form, then you say they distribute the source. Make up your mind.
Actually, I know that the other problem is that they distributed it with proprietary code, which everyone else here seems to have forgotten, nevertheless your self-contradiction doesn't look good... especially to the morons on here.
Well yes, the GPL is certainly a bureaucracy. Commercial code isn't, is that what you are implying? There are a lot of lawyers making a damn fine living off the commercial code bureaucracy.
The bureaucratic nature of the GPL stems from the very fact that conforms to the commercial code to the letter, NOT because of some imagined oddity of the GPL itself.
Really, the whole issue is pretty damn simple. If you want to function in the common commercial sphere, buy the rights to use and release commercial code. The money you pay garners you certain rights and responsibilities. That monetary payment is your responsibility to the authors of the commercial code.
If you use the GPL, release the source code. That is your responsibility to the authors of said code. It is the proper payment for use of the code. Notice I didn't use the term "propriatary" when discussing commercial code. This is because, contrary to popular belief, GPL'd code is propriatary! The authors own it. They can license it under any legal terms they so choose. If you don't like the terms, *don't use it,* but don't use it and then bitch about it's provisions.
Hell, write your own damn code.
What's so damn hard or evil about that?
I would not point to slashdot as a gem of linux's power and stability. It may be a high volume site, but it is probably the slowest/least reliable site that I read regularly. How many times have you opened slashdot, just to wait for it to get around to loading?
I use GCC on my solaris machine. Does this mean you want sun to gpl solaris? Oh, and I use it under FreeBSD... so gpl that also. Oh I forget, you want to gpl everything. Kinda reminds me of the Russian Revolution.
--
Frankly, I'd be scared as hell of using GPL'd code in anything after seeing this.
"How about the phrase "Electric Fence 2.0.5 Copyright (C) 1987-1998 Bruce Perens" Embedded in efence.o object. I'm sure Be will try to comply with this - the GNU sources were out pretty quick after the R5PE release. The only problem is that they can not use GNU licenced source with Be's closed source to make the same library. It might be difficult for be to split some of libroot.so into libgnu.so [)amien"
It looks like it was just sloppiness. Over on technocrat there is a post that supposedly quotes Be's Allan Anderson.
You know, it's ironic...because we don't actually use the specific Electric Fence
stuff anywhere in our code. We had been looking at making it work with some
MALLOC_DEBUG levels, but it never worked right. So, tho it is in libroot.so, it never
gets used. We just never got around to cleaning it out.
We'll fix it. Too bad we won't fix it before the Pro CDs go out...
So it got into a lib during development, never actually got incorporated and was not removed. I guess I can buy this considering the number of members that are in a library like that. Bruce's point is still valid. When you start thinking about integrating GPL code, you have to be pretty rigorous about keeping track of it. This isn't even something that they need in there and look at the hassle it will cause. What is the solution? Keep all the GPL code in a separate lib so it doesn't get forgotten?
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
then I wish I was an idiot.
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
--
Have fun: Join D.N.A. (National Dyslexics Association)
As I don't really know what's going on with this, I can't answer the question. From what I've seen, it looks like Bruce acted hastily, trying to raise some muck, but that's only based on what I've seen from /. comments. Take that as you will.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
This belongs in the "probably unintentional, but egg on their face" department.
BeOS has a C library called libroot.so . This library contains a number of components under the GNU LGPL license, and Be is distributing the source code for these components in their FTP archive. They also have some proprietary components in that library, which they distribute in object form. It looks as if Be is making an honest effort to comply with the LGPL license.
Bruno Haible tipped me off that my Electric Fence program, a malloc() debugging tool, is also part of Be's libroot.so . Electric Fence is under the GPL, not the LGPL. That license would not allow it to be part of a library with proprietary components, although Be could distribute it in a separate library.
It turns out that not only is Electric Fence in Be's libroot.so, but Be is distributing it in object-code form, without source, as if it were one of their proprietary components. Of course this is also against the license. The archive that contains it is here on their FTP site. My files extract from that archive into src/kit/malloc/obj.i586.dyn/{ef_malloc.o,ef_page.o ,ef_print.o,efence.o}
I'm assuming this is an honest mistake by one of their engineers, and will be quickly fixed. It's an example of why it is important to keep track of where your software came from and what license it's under, and read the license when you use somebody else's code.
Thanks
Bruce
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
And before you accuse me of dodging the question, I don't really care, and don't want to take the time to figure it out. As I don't use BeOS, I don't really feel the need to go out of my way to determine if there really is a GPL violation. I'm sure Bruce and Be will work that out, one way or another.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
In other words, if someone supporting the GPL claims to be an anarchist, they CANNOT support the GPL since it is after all a rule/duty. I suppose who could argue that the GPL goes against the "accepted standards of conduct" but since those standards include the existance of software licenses, I'd have to disagree with that view.
In other words, Be is being an "anarchist" when the violate the GPL! Yay for them! Support them in their cause!
Oh well, whatever. I'm sure that just like RMS uses "free" in a strange way, people who call themselves "anarchists" use anarchy is a strange way. I'm sure someone can find holes in my views, that's OK. Not disrespect to anyone really intended, just my current POV.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
We live, as we dream -- alone....
The story text certainly impies that Bruce wrote in to Slashdot. Or perhaps Hemos like to make up quotes. No, a more likely answer is Bruce wrote in to Slashdot.
I will give no credence to those who pull these kind of stunts. He should have at least tried to contact Be. Nope, he's just looking for hits on his site. Too bad he couldn't handle them.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
I've been wondering about that. How legal would it be to license something under your own license with the condition:
Any circumstance not explicitly covered by this license shall be covered by the GNU GPL, version 3.1337. Any circumstance not covered by this license or the GNU GPL is outside the scope of this license.
Does anyone know if that's allowed?
~~~LXT~~~
Life is like a computer program: anything that can't happen, will.
Might be a little off topic here, but Slashdot, when are you going to stop using Be's old logo? Frankly I think its a little disrespectful. I mean their new logo has been in use for over a year... Check their homepage for the new one.
Beer I agree.
Keep the baby out of the way, or asbestos-pad the delivery room!
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Visit
no....im saying when 75-80% of slashdot posters think its ok to violate copyrights (including stallman, which is obvious in his interviews), don't get pissed when someone gives you a taste of your own medicine...
it's like being part of the Nazi party: you shouldn't get angry if people hate you for killing jews, Even if you didn't. Don't mis-interpret this...im just using it as an example...nothing more
Look at Napster
Im not saying Napster is at fault..the users are at fault for sharing pirated Music. Im saying Slashotters say music should be on Napster Because it gives the artists free advertising, but of course the Artists don't like this, and music is being shared, for free, against their will. But what about the up and coming artists who want their music to be free? Well..why don't we have a napster with Just new-artists Music. You see, you are becoming a group that is like the lower-class of society. If you can't have something..take it. If it's not by your rules, fuck'em...make them go by our rules. It would be fine for me, if beliefs were to just release things like software and music, for free. But even stallman thinks that ALL music/software should be free. What the HELL kind of FREEDOM is that?? It's freedom of speech(or religion for some people) to have such beliefs...and that's fine...but when the freedom of others are taken away....is where it should stop....
guilty by association
the same people in this discussion, on the side of the GPL, are on the same side that believes that pirating music and software is part of their "free right", knowing full well that it violates copyrights and or agreements. It shows me how hypocritical a society can be when the rights that they are fighting for, are the work of a brainwasher such as stallman. But you will fight this till the end, because you don't realize the consequences or the truth.
------not flamebait, or troll just my $0.02
Freedom isn't a one-way street
What I said was in THIS discussion...
The point I was trying to get across was that the same people who think sharing copyrighted music is "free rights" are the same people think that Bruce P. should stand up for his rights for the GPL violation....clearly Hypocritical....
Be's Allan Anderson responds:
You know, it's ironic...because we don't actually use the specific Electric Fence stuff anywhere in our code. We had been looking at making it work with some MALLOC_DEBUG levels, but it never worked right. So, tho it is in libroot.so, it never gets used. We just never got around to cleaning it out. We'll fix it. Too bad we won't fix it before the Pro CDs go out...
All the more to use BSD or like licensed code. Not necessarily because the code is better or worse or even because of the license itself, but to avoid the circus of misinformation, OS zealots, and publicity from OSS evangelists.
/., turning it into a trolling affair.
Heck, just the outcry from this is ridiculous. People make mistakes. (And you have to look no further than your own "favorite" OS linux and the number of its security holes...you ain't perfect.) Perens should have contacted Be directly, waited a bit, but no, he goes and blasts them on his own site,
They probably DO keep track of their software and made an accounting error. Heck, keeping software licenses straight is hard enough if you want to use a mix of programs out there.
If there is any reason not to use GPL'd software, and there are plenty, e.g. your company has no assets, you just created your own. The license is a tool for enforcement; instead, it's simply being abused by its own advocates. Welcome to the religion of the millenium--software licenses.
This is "informative"? The man asked a worthwhile question, and as best as I can tell Perens dodged it. Instead Perens jumped on problems that did not need to be attacked twice, and made a cop out excuse for his actions against Be. Sure, Perens has the right to his own intellectual property. The author did not deny this. But since when does the right to do a thing, equal the necessity (or the moral justification?) for a thing? The mere fact that you are legally (or even morally) entitled to act a certain way, does not mean your position is coherant!
It would be as if I am a black belt in Karate, and claimed I could kick anyones ass without any help. But when challenged, by a 90 pound novice weakling I call in for reinforcements. Sure, you may argue self-defence. You may even win in court. But this is not a defense for why you could not just use your fists.
The author made a very valid point. If the Open Source process itself is so superior, why does it depend on the rule of law (and/or, in this case, geek paranoia) to prevent its source from being coopted? If the open source zealots are to be believed, closed source has nothing additional to offer the consumer. If consumers aren't purchasing it en masse, then it isn't even really a violation of GPL. So why all the concern Bruce?
The most obvious explanation is that Open source does not live up to the hype. That it fundamentally lacks things that propietary software has. That propietary development can easily add value to the product for the consumer. Consequently, somewhere tucked in the back of the minds of open source developers is the belief that it need protection. This may or may not be reasonable. But it certainly cannot add up to Open Source being all things to all people at all times in the greatest way.
I think that his whole point, while not to embarass BeOS, is to make sure this is public. It is a good way to make sure that some of the open and not so open source companies know that there are people out there watching to make sure that the various opensource licenses are being kept. If he quietly went to them and they took care of it, which I am sure they will do, no one would know. This way, the changes can be made in a very non-adversarial way and set a precedent for other companies.
Says BeNews last week, Be Posts R5 GNU Sources. Including a link to the location with the updates.
>I don't see why Bruce had to draw attention to what he already believes is a simple, honest
>mistake. It would have been more professional to deal with it privately and only make it a
>community issue if Be ignored him or refused to fix the problem.
Because dealing with it quietly and professionally wouldn't generate nearly so many ad banner impressions for Andover and technocrat.net as making a big loud angry controversy out of it has... self-serving tabloid journalism at its finest.
Color me unimpressed, too.
--
On the other hand, if some company violated the copyrights on someone else's non-GPLed software they would find themselves in court. Why exactly should GPL software be any different?
Honestly, I don't see how getting a lot of angry email from Linux fanatics is too much of a price to pay for the theft of copyright material. This sort of screw-up would have cost Be Inc. big money if they had "borrowed" someone's proprietary code.
Bruce is certainly being much more calm about it than he needs to be. After all, it's not like Be Inc. is doing him a favor using his software. It's Bruce that has done all of the work, and now Be is doing precisely what Bruce was trying to prevent when he released the software under the GPL.
Linux fanatics are a picnic compared to intellectual property lawyers. Be should count themselves fortunate that Bruce is being as reasonable as he is. If he were an unscrupulous sort he could probably do Be Inc. some serious harm.
Guess you don't have that much Unix experience, then. I've seen this on SCO, Interactive, BSD/OS, SunOS, DG/UX and yes, Linux. Probably others, too, but my memory's a bit hazy... FWIW, SCO was by far the worst for this.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
People seem to be making two responses to what I wrote. I apologize if I'm not paraphrasing accurately:
/. zealots. If I sound like I have a grudge, it's about this: two companies who make products I use and love, Apple and Troll Tech, decided to try out an open source strategy while still allowing themselves the possibility to earn a living, not just hype. In both cases, instead of trying to address the weaknesses in their licenses in a friendly and cooperative way, Bruce Perens chose to be inflammatory. The result was FUD storms directed at both companies, that ignorant zealots still carry on long after the problems were fixed. (I've written some minor KDE apps and still get flame mails from GTK zealots who see my name and Qt on the same Freshmeat page.) I'd hate to see the same thing happen to Be over something this marginal.
If Be had done the same thing with proprietary software, they would have a had a harsher response.
First of all, I doubt that. In a a case like this, most companies would have had their lawyer send a letter. Still, even if it's true, it's irrelevant. Remember, the idea here isn't just to fight misuse of GPL software, it's to encourage companies to become comfortable with free software and the unfamiliar requirements it involves. To me, dealing this way with a subtle and unintended violation of the GPL is a strong disincentive for a company to write or redistribute free software.
This isn't a smear campaign. It's just getting the facts out. In fact, it makes Be look good!
Maybe I'm missing something, but isn't Bruce Perens posting in 20 different places that he deliberately played this out to make the maximum amount of noise? Isn't he saying that he decided to do that before giving Be any chance to address the issue?
When I wrote "smear campaign" I wasn't referring to Bruce's words, but to the combined result of his provocation and the reactions of the knee-jerk
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Hm. Am I allowed to reverse engineer copyrighted code in order to find evidence of a copyright violation? :-)
Bruce Perens.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Yes, doing it in the aftermath might have been nicer, though. Maybe I screwed up.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
My copyright string is in the .o file, with my name in it.
Bruce Perens.
You might have that one backwards, actually.
Bruce Perens.
The question of whether or not disassembling someone else's code to look for an infringement is legal is an interesting one, though. I reject the analogy that it's like breaking into someone's home to look for stolen property. It's more like looking into the window of their car when they've parked it in front of your home.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
I don't freeload music and I don't want other people to do that. What made you think I did?
I am sick of us having to chase these things down. Publicity is an effective tool for stopping that. At no time did I threaten to sue Be, and I knew I didn't have to, but I don't know the same thing about the next guy who comes along. I must actively enforce my copyright or the next fellow will have a big loophole to step through.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
No way would I have gotten Troll to change its license without the public outcry. They had no reason to do so except that the community didn't like it. The day they fixed their license I publicly endorsed it. Regarding Apple, that was even worse. ESR had gotten up on stage and endorsed it! That took major fire-fighting on my part to undo. And the most ironic thing about it is that even after Eric's endorsement, the Open Source Initiative board has still refused to certify the license even though I thought version 1.1, which addresses all of my criticism, was fine. So, Eric really should not have been up there endorsing version 1.0 .
I can only profess to be neutral regarding Be using GPL software. I'm not out to encourage them to use it as you think I should be, I'd just as well see their customers use an Open Source OS. Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
AFAIK, yes, that is OK. After all, what is it that you're getting when you buy a 2 CD set of binary only Debian or RedHat? The difference, (which I'm not sure that Be has pointed out) is that the GPL is littered all over linux disks - it'd be pretty difficult to NOT know that the software was GPL'd if you went looking for the software's license. And of course, they'll provide the source whenever you ask them to. Seems like we don't have much information with this. Anybody want to let us in as to whether or not Be has made the consumer aware that the software is GPL'd?
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
This is GPL it involves me almost as much as it involves Bruce. I respect Bruce but he does not represent me. This is a G motherfucking Public Goddamn License.
I need to know. Face it; this is the best protection we have.
Not some Court, or Lawyer, But Shame Shame will be our best defense, as this becomes more common.
Closed source must allways be viewed with a jaundice eye, Corporations can't be Friends they are designed for one purpose to make money. They are not evil, but one must be wary of them.
Nice people don't steal, They are stealing from you, why play nice?
"Think of it as evolution in action."
GCC is fine and good, but it still isn't what I'd call an innovation. It's a compiler implementation - no matter what the quality is, it's still not innovative in the strict sense.
Innovation is doing something that nobody has done before, or at the least deviating widely from the norm in the implementation in such a way that is non-obvious to others working on similar projects. Whatever the very first compiler was would be considered innovative, but I don't really see GCC as being so itself.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
This is all good stuff, but is it innovative? It's not that commercial/proprietary companies didn't know the benefits of open standards, it's that they didn't care to use them (usually so that they can ensure lock-in).
This is almost the same thing as if an oil company developed a super-efficient electric car and then buried the research, only to have someone else do the same thing. It's not innovative the second time around, but it arguably helps people more.
That said, this is something that people should demand of commercial vendors. Open-standards, even with closed-source software, are very useful indeed. Just not terribly innovative.
Really, the only main innovation that open-source software has brought to the table that I can see is the open-source aspect. It's a good development for many uses, but it's not a (technological) innovation, really.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
How many times have most protocols been re-coded?
Great example! TCP/IP from Berkeley was released under the BSD license and almost nobody rewrote. Everyone took the BSD TCP/IP code and incorprated it into their products. Well, everyone except Linux and the HURD. You see, Stallman's GPL wouldn't let them use BSD code. And this is why Linux's TCP/IP stack is still one of the weaker ones in the industry. Further proof that the GPL is only a partial solution.
That's funny my computer has been turned off multiple times without the "proper" shutdown sequence and it has almost always worked perfectly.
"almost", hmm, "almost", thank you for proving my point. With every other Unix version (and Windows NT, since I am at it), I have never seen a drive consistancy check require manual intervention.
If you're not giving out the modifications in source or binary form, you're fine.
You'd only be in violation of the GPL if you were distributing your modifications and refused to make source availible.
DNA just wants to be free...
AAaah, see...that makes alot more sense. So if they put...oh i don't know....a readme in the FTP directory that sayed "The following software, blah blah and blah are GPLed, email gpl@beos.com for the source" they would be in the clear?
Also...and I'm being totally serious here, what part of the GPL says it can't be linked with proprietary componets? I can't seem to find that in the Terms of Use....
but isn't that the distributation, not the actual linking? Distrubition can be GPLed ( ie, source made available ) but what if you distrubite them sepeartly?
What is considered distrubition in the terms of the GPL?
And the most important question is..does any part of BeOS rely on this library? If you can just put in a disclaimer saying "this package require this GPLed package" can you not get away with a propritary license? Or is the disclaimer then being interpreted has making that GPLed package part of your program?
=-=- Keep in mind, I have NO idea what i'm talking about -=-=
SgtPepper
From http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html :
This General Public License does not permit incorporating your program into proprietary programs. If your program is a subroutine library, you may consider it more useful to permit linking proprietary applications with the library. If this is what you want to do, use the GNU Library General Public License instead of this License.
---
What the hell are you talking about? I'm a big proponent of the GPL. I also agree that pirating copyrighted music is illegal. Heck, I even think it's immoral.
I also think that the recording industry ranks slightly below pond scum, but I still don't advocate theft.
So fine, that's your $0.02, but keep those pennies to yourself, and don't speak for me...
---
In most cases, as source is closed, that's not an issue. That aside, in most states, one can't sue unless one has demonstrated that one has *tried* to settle differences without a lawsuit and been unsuccessful.
In other words, there's the warning shot across the bow before the courts. Let's see a warning shot across the bow -- IN PRIVATE PLEASE -- before convicting someone in a court of public opinion.
_Deirdre
Well, Be *could* just GPL their other software. There'd be no change in functionality, and more software would be freed.
GPL is free as in speech but, just like commercial software, there is a "cost". For commercial products, the author wants money. Under GPL, the cost is that you must free your software. Some people think that's a good thing, and they release their software under the GPL. Some people don't want to pay this price. They're still free to link to it in these round-about ways, and they're also free to *not* use it.
Bruce happens to be someone that doesn't write software for a profit, but he wants more software to be free. Why should he make in convenient for Be to use his labor, with no compensation, and not follow his wishes? The GPL is his only defense if he wants his software to remain free. BSD and public domain are nice... if you don't care if your software remains free and don't mind people making millions off of your work.
> Can you explain what anyone gains from Be moving your code from one library to another?
Let's pretend that Be used commercial code and forgot to pay the cost of the license. Ask your question again:
"Can you explain what anyone gains from Be paying your license fee?"
In this case, the answer is simple: the author gains because he gets paid the license fee. The answer to your question is that Bruce gains because his software remains free. He would gain even more, and Be wouldn't have to work-around anything, if Be would free their software...
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
Your right. While I agree that a little 'community pressure' might be necessary to get a company in line, these Slashdot 400 message spasms are way more than is required.
I'm sure that months from now, long after Be has fixed the problem, people will be still be yelling that they will never use that horrible GPL-violating OS.
There's still people out there that believe that QT or Apple Darwin is not under an Open Source(tm) licence, long after those problems have been fixed. People still have bile for Corel after what was a minor and debatable mistake.
Once Bruce Perens has branded somone a infiltrator or an enemy, it's hard to get the word out that they are not. I think he should keep his warnings off of Slashdot and stick to more cozy and rational places like Technocrat or the Debian maillists.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
I never said you do not have the right to protect your work. In fact, I said you did, if you did not notice. Nor did I say that you, or "all", Open Source advocates participate in piracy. I did, however, question your justification and reasoning for doing so. Although I admit I have not kept close tabs on your assertions lately, I'm quite sure have asserted Open Source to be "better", in so many words, in almost every category of interest. Thus, I still must persist: If Open Source is so superior, why do you feel compelled to use any and all means (e.g., "publicity") to stop it? Why would anyone pay more for less? And if people are doing this of their own volition, why should you care?
Heh, no such thing as bad publicity eh? Why don't you tell that to the Dow Corning, makers of sillicon breast implants? You know that there has not been one shred of evidence against silicon implants for causing these supposed conditions (in fact, they've done much the opposite)? Yet they can't sell them anymore, no matter how hard they try. Now, I'm not saying I particularly approve of ditses getting their breasts enlarged, but there are legitimate uses for these (e.g., breast cancer survivors), and the company serves a need. In fact, there are legitimate uses for silicon. It is actually one of the safest substances known for medical implants, yet any company that produces medical grade silicon is scared silly that a med tech company will ever use their product without their permission, such that they can be sued. So much so that they will actually go to court to stop you, simply because they can be sued....This might seem a little bit offtopic, but this was the result of bad publicity. The media effectively smeared them, triggering these law suits and what not. The bad press harmed not only the silicon breast implant makers, but also the hundreds of medical technology companies that would use silicon to improve safety and performance. So here is atleast one case of horribly bad publicity. There are many many more.
Furthermore, in this particular situation, we're talking Be getting smeared by, say, 80% of the slashdot community. Since no one else outside of slashdot or the "open source community" could particularly about such niggardly issues, how does Be benefit? It's not as if this made it into the frontpages of mainstream media, or ever will. At most, they benefit from awareness from slashdot readers. In reality, how many slashdot readers do you think don't already know about Be? At worst, they annoyed a large swath of geeks who are morally, or atleast theoretically, supportive of the "open source" movement. Even though in reality, only a small percentage of those who "support" Perens are actually convicted to what they say, this "publicity" has more potential to hurt Be than help them.
My sentiments exactly. Something tells me though that Perens had every intention of dodging my question. So I really doubt he'll have the courage to bite the bullet now. I mean, gasp, can you imagine admitting that open source has flaws? That might just be non-religious!
Boy 0 for 2 you are really bad at reading today. Yes, there is no question in the post I responded to. Perhaps you are confusing question with statement.
Political anarchy is the removal of a current government to replace it with a better one, and that still has nothing to do with pirating software as the previous poster indicated.
Finkployd
Not a good day for you, eh?
Considering I'm able to express myself without swearing and attacking, I'd say I'm having a better day than you.
I never denied that Bruce posted here, I said we don't know for sure since he posted on technocrat and it could have been picked up by slashdot editors. It's since been pointed out that a quote in the story is "we have more over at technocrat..." thus indicating that he DID submit it. So I was wrong, and I give you credit for doing a background check on my other threads.
As for the accuations, Perens claimes that he found his copyright string imbedded in the BEOS library binary file. Since he would be pretty much kicked out of the Linux community if he just made this up, I'm assuming he is telling the truth. It's easy enough to check if I had BEOS where I am now.
What part of this whole story did you think involved ME making the accuations, Bruce made them, I simply discussed them in my original post.
Any while we are on the topic of baseless accuations:
There not one single shred of evidence that the code in question is GPL code.
Care to prove that?
They have not committed any violations.
Do you have the evidence to back this up? Other have claimed that they DO have the evidence to the contrary.
Finkployd
Here is you post where you claim to ask me a question, in it's obscene, derogatory glory:
Perens is a whiner. There not one single shred of evidence that the code in question is GPL code.
If it is, all they have to do is make the source available, per that communist license that the bearded freak created. They are under no obligation to distribute as you or Perens see fit.
Now, you GNU freaks get upset when they don't follow your own little rules for using the license. They have not committed any violations.
Stop making up the rules as you go. that, of course, is the Stallman way. "Do what I say, until I change my mind, again" and of course G**/Linux, the most disgusting appropriation of others' work ever.
Please kindly point out what you felt was a question.
Finkployd
Note that the GNU Project recommends avoiding the term piracy since it implies that sharing copies is somehow illegitimate.
Yes, that's true. Perhaps that's because sharing copies of GNU software ISN'T illegitmate.
Finkployd
Before you attempt to lecture to me take a look at your first post and see who sounds more mature. You don't start with much credibility when you title you message "Attention dipshit..."
The whole basis of this huge thread is that I decided to believe Perens right off the bat, while you wanted for him to post evidence (which he actually didn't and even if he did it still could have been made up since neither of us have greped the file ourselves).
Perhaps we could have come to this understanding earlier had you have not started out like some vulgur young kid who thinks he knows everything.
Finkployd
Well, Bruce posted how he got the evidance, course even if he posts the greped file in question and shows you the copyright string, are you going to believe him? You made up your mind from the beginning that there is no evidence, while I made up my mind that I belive the people claiming there is evidence.
Finkployd
Hmm I asked you to point out where there was a question, and you seemed to (dare I say it) avoid doing that? Interesting
.o file, with my name in it.
But you are right, there was a question in the next post, I believe it went a little like this:
How do you know there is a violation?
I didn't answer this question? Try looking at the next post.
My asnwer was to cut the part of Bruce's story that explained how he found the violation.
Bruce also answered like this:
My copyright string is in the
Finkployd
I never made up my mind from the start.
What selective memory you have
There not one single shred of evidence that the code in question is GPL code.
They have not committed any violations.
Finkployd
One mistake everyone seems to be making is assuming that Bruce submitted this to slashdot. He may have just put it up on his page (which is read by a comparativly small group of people). Since there is no submission credit, I assume that Slashdot editors just happened to pick it up from Bruce's site.
but since they distribute the object. via FTP, they'd probably have to distribute the source that way too.
:)
Well, the way I read the GPL, they could theoretically make the source available only in hardcopy mailed upon request and still be GPL compliant.
Course, the way a mainframe systems programmer reads a license and the way a lawyer reads it are probably worlds apart.
Finkployd
No, it implies nothing of the sort. The quoted text is taken straight from Bruce's website. Hemos could very easily been surfing his page and come across the story himself. The point is, we don't know what happened.
Finkployd
the same people in this discussion, on the side of the GPL, are on the same side that believes that pirating music and software is part of their "free right"
Now THERE is a baseless generalization. Care to back that up in any way?
Finkployd
Here's a free english lesson for you, if there is no question mark (?) then there is no question.
Nowhere in that offensive, rambling attack on everyone you could think of did I find a question.
Since you are asking one now, here goes:
(from the story)
Electric Fence program, a malloc() debugging tool, is also part of Be's libroot.so . Electric Fence is under the GPL, not the LGPL. That license would not allow it to be part of a library with proprietary components, although Be could distribute it in a separate library.
It turns out that not only is Electric Fence in Be's libroot.so, but Be is distributing it in object-code form, without source, as if it were one of their proprietary components.
I currently don't have the tools on my work computer to verify this for myself, so I'm going to take their word for it.
Next time you want to have a conversation with someone online, try acting civil and not like a whiny 5 year old that needs to sit in the corner.
Finkployd
The bruce perens writes could mean that he wrote it on this site, I've seen sorties picked up before that weren't submitted by anyone per se that started the same way.
However, I missed the "we've got the full story over at technocrat.org" part at the end, so you ARE right.
Sorry, that last line should have been in italics also, you made both statements in your forst post.
I must have read that as "they've got the whole story...". You're right.
Finkployd
You're seriously dodging the question. Your feelings on the matter is that Be is a threat to your software because they do not allow you to maintain/develop/support your IP if its closed source. If you're worried that they'll do a better job than you, then you are effectively stating that you believe closed source to be a better form of software development. If I'm wrong, then please tell me what your feelings on the matter are.
Bravo. States his point very well.
Be Inc violated a license to distribute copyrighted material. Bruce made an announcement about this. Where is the smearing? Be broke the law. Bruce is letting them simply fix the problem for the future and get away with distributing currently illegal stuff. Bruce did nothing but state the truth in a public setting.
Furthermore, bruce never advocated not using Be products, nor indicated that Be is evil, nor in any other way impaired Be's future business or reputation. Be was not materially injured in this (people who are going to use BeOS are not going to be extreme GNU types anyhow). Oh, and Be is responsible for the misdeeds of its employees in a commercial capacity, so by the one engineer in Be making this mistake, all of Be did, so this isn't misdirection of blame, either.
Where on earth is all this, you mistreated Be by revealing their mistakes before they could correct them. It would be nice to notify Be beforehand. It's hardly necessary and they don't suffer in any material way from not being notified first.
Besides, this isn't the first GPL violation that Be has done. You'd think that the first one would have sent them a message.
They laughed at Einstein. They laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. -- C. Sagan
Well, this is kind of a dead givaway:
.c files (leaving the authors copyright notice intact at that.)
localhost% cd obj.i586.dyn
localhost% ls
ef_malloc.o ef_print.o malloc.o
ef_page.o efence.o mcheck.o
localhost% strings * | sort | uniq | more
Electric Fence 2.0.5 Copyright (C) 1987-1998 Bruce Perens.
If they reimplemented the functions, that was pretty nice of them to give credit to Bruce anyways. I'm sure this is an oversight on their part. I mean, why would you follow the GPL on dozens of packages and include many MB's of source on your FTP server, and then try and "steal" four
Be has a reponsibility to scrutinize the licenses of such code, not hope someone spots it and tells them [1]. you can bet that if a similar mistake occurred with a proprietary lib, heads would roll.
I'm not anti-Be, but everyone has to realize that it's *their* job to respect the GPL. this *is* the high road, compared to the standard corporate solution: a lawsuit.
[1]
IANAL, but AFAIK Copyright law does not have quite the same 'defense' requirement that Trademark law has. [A trademark must be defended or it may weaken or lapse]
Even if it did, Bruce would have even more reason to bring each infringement into the open. Since he might not catch every infringement, he could at least show he vigorously pursued the ones he caught
__________
If you can go to bed, knowing you did a valuable thing today, you're very lucky. If you can't... it's not bedtime
Heck, Bruce is usually the first, and loudest, to mention GPL violations and clueless companies (remeber the stink about Corel). If he states, repeadedly, that it is probably just an honest mistake then I would generally believe him. Let's just make sure that Be fixes this little indescretion and not sweat it. I would hate for a nifty OS like Be to be drug through the mud if it isn't deserved.
-- Remember: Wherever you go, there you are!
If your company is thinking about using MS source code? Well, think twice, because if you do anything that could be construed as a violation, even if it's clearly unintentional, it is going to be met with A HUGE LAWSUIT AND YOU WON'T GET A CHANCE TO ADDRESS IT AT ALL UNTIL YOU COUGH UP SERIOUS DOUGH!!!
It's three days later, but just in case you check your posts for replies...
GPL violation != MSEULA violation in ANY way
ALL licenses derive their legal autority from copyright law. Violate the GPL? Violate copyright law. Violate the MS EULA? Violate copyright law.
Just couldn't get through a story without mentioning MS could you?
Nope. Nor could I get through a discussion of the automobile industry without mentionaing Ford, GM, or Chrysler (now Daimler-Chrysler). It's really hard to discuss industry issues without mentioning industry leaders. Industry leaders also make good examples, as most people are familiar with them. Would you know what I was talking about if I mentioned 21COS's EULA? I doubt you've ever heard of the company, let alone read their EULA.
1. That's outside the Terms and Conditions, so it's not real clear that would have any actual legal force if the rest of the T&C had been followed to the letter.
:-(
2. "Incorporating your program into proprietary programs" has not been clearly defined within the License. It is conceivable that a court of law would rule that dynamic linking is not incorporating a GPL program into a proprietary program.
That, of course, would depend on who would have the better (read: better-paid) lawyers, assuming a case ever went to trial
Glückwünsche, haben Sie Slashdot ermordet, indem Sie zum korporativen Druck beugten und Subskriptionen einlei
Wow. Criticizing Bruce Perens about failing to advocate the GPL properly.
FascDot, you have *balls*...
Okay, slow down now. There he is. Up ahead. Roll down the window. Get ready. NOW!
BSD RULEZ GPL SUX WE R 3L33T D00DZ
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Yes. It covers distribution. You are free, I believe, to release a non-working version of a product that requires the user to go get a library themselves in order to make it work.
Seems to me they posted sources for all the GNU components of libroot.so, but not for their own proprietary components. The problem is, this brings them into violation of the GPL.
Though the spirit of the GPL is alive and well here, and they are using a single library instead of dozens of separate libraries.. it's really just packaging....
but..
the GPL states that a work based on a GPL'd work must be GPL. This means libroot.so, in it's entirety must be GPL, or not be distributed, or use no GPL code. Period.
For an OS developed by a relatively small company like BE, it sure is fast and stable. I've had it boot in 11 seconds on my pentium III 500 (correctly recognizing my voodoo 3 and turtle beach montego as well as my network card). All I had to tweak was the display resolution since it did not automatically recognize my pnp monitor.
The main issues with BEOS right now are lack of software and poor hardware support (luckily no problems for me though), otherwise it has everything I would like in an OS. If there would be a usable web browser on it I might consider using it on a more regular basis. Also I'd like to see proper Java support on it. My impression is that Java could run really well on this OS due to thread friendly nature of BEOS.
Jilles
Did you ever consider that websites are dynamic?
/. and changed his website AFTER some of the people (like myself) commented on the article on /..
Bruce worked it out with Be AFTER the appearance on technocrat &
You can even see his comment about it here for yourself. You will also see that the previous poster was incorrectly saying that Bruce signed a release. He hasn't signed anything yet.
Breace
I read the piece Bruce posted on technocrat.net, then read through the thread here (At a score of 3. Only so many hours in the day.). And there was quite a bit of heat being sent at Bruce. So I went and re-read the original piece. As far as I can tell, Bruce is simply saying "Look, Be made a mistake. They're fixing that mistake. But here's a real-world example of why it's important to know your licenses." That's all. Here's a violation that happened by accident. Luckily, everyone's being sensible, and fixing this reasonably.
This really has nothing to do with GPL, or Open Source. It has to do with licensing.
If MS had done this, all you Linux zealots would be strutting around, stroking yourselves and saying, "See, MS is evil!!!!"
You people are just plain funny.
Oh come on. The last time was in the bootloader somewhere, and that was back in the DR releases. Both cases were also fairly minor points, in this one it was a confusion between the GPL and the LGPL.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Actually there are currently 2 ports of Java2 to BeOS. One is coming from Be themselves in close cooperation with Sun, and one is coming from an independant group based on Kaffe called BeKaffe.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Hello, what is this vehemance against the BSD license? I doubt the BSD license people think that nobody is going to rip of them. I think they know that and the point of placing something under the BSD license is to let people use it in propriotory projects. If they wanted to "protect" their code, they'd use the GPL, or (heaven forbid) come up with their own license?!!!!
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
You're forgetting Donald's ethernet drivers which they grabbed a while ago too and incorporated into their kernel. This makes three times that they've done it, THAT WE KNOW ABOUT.
As someone else pointed out. Nobody forced them to use Bruce's code, Donald's code, or the bootloader code. The very fact that the public's been so permissive is what's surprising.
I'll be adding my two pennies, if anyone is interested.
First, Be inc. always tried to comply with the GPL by publishing the source of the GPLed software they used. I have a BeOS 4.5.2 CD on my shellf, and the sources are there, in gzipped packets.
Second, I think Bruce handled this issue in a relatively nice manner, but NOT completely unpeccable. Be is a small company that gives credit to the OSS by using some and giving some other back to the community. As I understand, a BeOS engineer called almost immediately (in less than 6 hours?) to clarify the issue. Could not Bruce wait and then post a story with a title "Be involuntarily violates GPL, problem alrady solved"
Third, do you realize how bad this is for the GPL? Big companies (like Nokia, for example) were unwilling to use GPL-ed software anyway, giving BSD much bigger a chance, exactly because of this kind of potential incidents. Now the management will have confirmed their fears: "If we use GPL, we put ourselves to risk of lawsuits". Companies like Nokia are a very sweet cake for several interest grops (and their lawyers) that are waiting for an opportunity to sue, no matter how frivolous the lawsuit may be. It's all about money. I can tell you, Nokia is avoiding GPL like poison, and this story won't make them use it, either. BSD, on the other hand, seems to be welcome.
I am NOT against the GPL, not at all. But I think handling this matter more gracefully could only benefit GPL.
Sigged!
If I ever wrote any software that I was going to release under a free license (my bigest program to date is about 20k of data summarization in Perl), I would release it under the artistic license or a BSD style license. I don't really dislike the GPL, but I dislike RMS, and his communistic attitudes, and if I released something under the GPL, people may interpret that as agreeing with his politics, rather than just choosing a licensing method.
I find it somewhat ironic that the GPL is not covered by the GPL. You can see Stallman's opposition to real freedom in the fact that he won't allow licenses based on the GPL with modifications.
--Kevin
Hey, Bruce (are you listening?), you seem to be the best GPL evangelist around. Have you considered writing such a document? You could leave many questions unanswered, like "dunno, this is a grey area, ask RMS...":) Even so such a faq would be of great help.
Alright, now you are just babbling here bud
Have you ever even DONE software development? I wonder.
First im not qualified to speak about Be's resources but I will tell you about what really happens with software.
Ideally you want someone upper level to audit and check for things like this. realistically it cannot always happen.
Some of the time tasks get assigned to maybe one or two people and VERY little peer review will happen and htey will say there work is completed it gets packaged into a final binary distro.. BAM. Insta GPL Violation.
Dont just say because be has resources mistakes cannot happen. Replace Be with microsoft.
Don't be stupid. Bruce has every right. Microsoft made the mistake not him. Microsoft has so much resources that this simple mistake should not have taken place at all. This make me wonder how many other GPL codes they have stolen...
Bah Bah Bah.. What was that? a backdoor in a MS product? They have resources no? Why is there a security backdoor? Why are there facetious strings embedded in one of my dll's?
Bah bah bah
Jeremy
Grtz, Jeroen
Secure messaging: http://quickmsg.vreeken.net/
GPL, LGPL, MPL, QPL, BSD, ... Too confuse, I need 10 lawyers to build a shareware on Linux ? And they are not agree. be carefull.
Since you don't have access to the source, you really don't know, do you?
Is there actually any proof that I missed that says conclusively whether they've violated the license or reimplemented code?
The crucial point is that Licensing is Important. You fail to read the license at significant peril. That's even true for BSD-like licenses.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
This is the second time that BE has been caught violatng the GPL "by accient". I suspect that if debian went throgh the whole BEOS and audited it with a decompiler they wold find a few more violatons. It's not that BE is evil or even particularly careless. It's just that it's damnd hard to keep track of which license governs hich pice of software. especialy when you borow so heavly from the GNU/Linux codebase.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
The library can't be linked with proprietary components. That's the first problem. The distribution of the .o files, and the library itself, didn't come with the requisite written notice about the source being available. So, yes, if they put the notice there, they'd be legal, but since they distribute the object. via FTP, they'd probably have to distribute the source that way too.
Bruce Perens.
Um, what innovations of the open-source community?
Seriously, this is 100% not a troll. From what I've seen, the open-source community usually seems content with reimplementing features from other operating systems (often superior to the software they are copying).
But innovation? Not really. People throw that term around far too loosely. Seriously - What major open-source innovation has Be capitalized on?
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
I theory eventually linux will surpass BSD in this area. Bigger user base and more competent developers with the source code and developers who will listen will always equal a better product.
This assumes that Linux's developers are more competent. But let's compare TCP/IP stacks of say, FreeBSD and Linux. Well, FreeBSD blows Linux out of the water. Let's compare virtual memory. FreeBSD virtual memory is simply incredible which why big sites run FreeBSD. NetBSD's new UVM is quite interesting and I wish I had time to look into it further. Linux's VM contains nothing insightful or even intelligent. Let's look at the file systems. Traditional Unix file systems included in the BSDs and SVR4s are rock solid. Are you using EXT2FS? I hope someone doesn't pull the plug on you, it probably won't come back.
Be is distributing it in object-code form, without source, as if it were one of their proprietary components.
:) ), isn't this allowed under the GPL as long as you make the source AVAILABLE? Now of course if they don't mention that it contains GPLed software and the GPLed parts are, by rights, available in the original source form, then they might be violating the GPL. And yes, it might be breaking the spirit of the GPL, but is it breaking the letter?
Correct me if i'm wrong ( and I'm sure someone will
Just a thought. Other then that, i do hope BeOS rectifies what you view as a mistake, since has the authour of said software it should be your choice on how it's used. ( then again some will argue that the GPL takes that away, *sigh* let the holy wars commence )
SgtPepper
You will note, if you look that every single other item in the gnu/r5 tree (see? they knew and they were acting clued) has source. I looked quickly, but it does seem that this was an oversight.
It certainly didn't need to be shouted this loudly. Did Bruce actually contact them privately first or did he just yell to the media?
A single omission does not a clueless company make.
No one screamed this loud when Linuxcare's Bootable Business Card was distributed without source (this omission was corrected, but there was a period of several weeks when it was an issue). When I handed one to RMS, he was polite but firm about it (as he should be), but he didn't post it to a web page and submit it to Slashdot.
_Deirdre
Before the flames attacking the GPL and how hard it makes life on software engineers come out in full force, let me remind everyone something.
Nobody put a gun to BE's collective head and forced them to use the code that Bruce had writen. They activly went out on the net (I'm assuming) and found it. When someone allows you to use their work under a license, you have a (moral and legal) obligation to read and follow their license agreement. If you don't like the GPL, don't use GPLed code, it's that simple, folks.
BEOS decided to use someone else's GLPed code in their program, didn't follow the rules, and is being called on it. I'm sure they will comply and this will be settled quickly.
Finkployd
One assumption everyone is making is that Bruce submitted this to slashdot. I'm assuming he put it up on his little page, and slashdot picked it up and made it into a story.
We really don't know what happened behind the scenes, Bruce may have e-mail BE, then started a thread on his site to let people know what was going on.
Finkployd
I'm not saying the issue should be kept hidden, I just thing Bruce missed the chance to take the high road on this one. I don't know all the details, but it seems like this is catching Be off guard.
I'm sure Bruce would even be willing to post their reply right on the same page with his message.
Exactly. Bruce and Be could have worked out the details and posted a message together stating the issues and the resolutions. That way we would have people saying "Bruce and Be are cool people." Instead, we have people jumping up and down shouting "Look what Be did! GPL violation! KILL! KILL! KILL!"
Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating a bit, but I think you get the idea.
--
then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel is just a freight train coming your way
Another testament to the fact that moderators don't have a clue. I cut-and-pasted the text in my reply directly from the article just to see how it would get moderated, and look at the results:
Moderation Totals:Redundant=3, Informative=2, Total=5.
What does this imply?
2 out of 5 moderators don't read the articles
3 out of 5 moderators do read the articles
Those statistics might not be so disturbing if they only applied to people replying to the article, but these are the people who are actually moderating others' replies? That's pitiful.
Whose fault is that? The people who make Slashdot suck. (I'll give you a hint, it's not CmdrTaco or Hemos).
Geesh, Bruce, if you set out to deter people from reusing/leveraging your software (which is the point of free software, after all) you could scarcely have done a better job...
Sony:hardware::Microsoft:software
CompactFlash: IBM Microdrive, Flash, Ether, Modem, etc.
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
Actually, the GPL is a public license. So the issue is not just between the author and the violator or the license, but also with the public as well.
I think keeping GPL issues as a public forum is a good thing. That way, people remain aware of the issues involved in their rights under the license, and companies are less likely to get away with not observing it.
If Be wants to post a reply, they are free to do so on the Net. I'm sure Bruce would even be willing to post their reply right on the same page with his message.
--- "So THAT's what an invisible barrier looks like!" - Time Bandits
It's nice to see companies (like Be) using free software as part of their commercial product. Why? Because something that is implemented by free software is, by definition, not implementing a proprietary API. If Microsoft chose to use glibc 2.1 for the next Windows release (which is possible as glibc is LGPL), wouldn't that be good for everyone? MS would finally have a decent CRT (slam), and programmers would have an OPEN, PORTABLE API for programming on Windows. Everyone wins. Same thing for Be.
:)
While I don't particularly like either Windows or BeOS, I do prefer Be as a company. They provide POSIX interfaces, and complete documentation for all their systems (and the source for components that are GPL/LGPL, unless they make a mistake as in this story). And one of their API functions is is_computer_on_fire(). Gotta love that.
Then what example needs to be made? All you seem to have done is whip slashdot into a frenzy that I'm sure will cause more than a few hate mails to arrive in someones inbox at BE. This company would need to be made an example of if they refused to do anything about their violations. Instead you have treated them like children, going and shouting to the rest of the class, "Hey guys hey guys Johnny isn't playing fair!!". This story should NOT have come out the way it did.
-Marc
Flame all you want....I'll Post more
Okay this is a very serious issue and I hate to ignore the issue at hand. Bruce if you are out there I admire ya a lot.. But I think you thrive on this sort of thing. Finding any little irksome problem and capitalizing on it etc. I understand this is a avenue of letting us all know about it but why not give Be a chance before you subject them to this type of crowd next time? Hmmn?
Companies who use the goodwill and other benefits of the GPL need to be self-policing. Be does a pretty good job, but some things were missing. By publicizing this, Bruce Perens has provided incentive to other companies to make sure to follow their own license. GPL violations can usually be easily fixed, but any company using the GPL is in the best position to find its own violations. The public does not have time to audit each and every business, so publicizing GPL violations when they occur should lead to better adherence by all. Harsh to Be but better for all. And Be should come out a winner, too. The next article on /. (on this topic) will be about how Be responded in a timely manner and fixed its gpl problems.
...but you don't want to get your company in this position unnecessarily. Be is going to be a lot more careful about this now, and your company should, too...
The first paragraph of the Bruce Perens' article sums it up:
Be has already contacted me and promised to fix this problem. But I'd like people to be aware of it because it points out what can go wrong when you use other people's software without checking the licenses.
Plus this clip from the last paragraph:
--
He lives in a world where those who do not run the client software of the omnipresent meme are unacceptable.
Revealed that the library in question actually contained the string "Bruce Perens is a weenie!"
- My password is slashdot
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
It is fundamentally inconsistent of the Open Source community to claim that:
a) Open source is the best. That it always more bug free than closed source. That it is more innovative than closed source. That it provides better support. etc. etc. etc.
b) Closed source (propietary software) freeloading of Open Source code represents a large and significant threat to the movement.
If Open Source is so great, why worry about propietary efforts? If a company comes along and merely extends Open source software, why should this be a great concern to Open Source advocates? If these advocates are to be believed, there is no way that propietary extension could be better (ultimately). What rational person would pay money for an inferior value? [By value I mean, not only how the software in and of itself performs, but its support, and the extent to which moving to or from it actually benefits the user in real life] So why worry?
It would seem to me that these people, who want to assert both "A" and "B", are either blind followers or they understand on some level that propietary software offers some significant benefit over and above what that same open source effort offers. Bruce Perens is particularly aggregigious here in my opinion. In some ways, I can respect RMS more here (even though I have the least in common with him). I've never heard him purport Open source per se to be the best thing since sliced bread. His objections to propietary software is based on "moral grounds", so he can object to propietary freeloading relatively consistently. This is simply not true of the vast remainder of the Open Source camp.
While it is Perens' right try to stop Be from "freeloading," I think he is wrong. I question his motives. I question his thought process, and I question this slashdot public opinion, which is best described as an avalanche. Furthermore, it seems to me that many (but not all, I realize) Open source zealots want to have their copyrights and burn them too. They want the right to freeload music, but don't want software companies to freeload from them....
I believe Open Source offers some significant advantages to propietary software, but is not black and white. When I see anyone painting with such broadstrokes, I'll question them. If I get flamed, and modded down to -43423 so be it, such is the price for honesty.
Lord Stallman, I await thy orders on when to begin the BEos inquisition. I have several hundrd GNU warriors armed and ready. We have secured yaks to carry us into battle.
Know this, O' Lord Stallman, ye who hath given the world this wondrous tool called GPL, know that we will lay our lives down to protect the integrity of Copyleft. For what kind of man would live in a world where Copyleft was not protected. Show me such a man and I will show you that the Earth is round !!!
Hark, my warriors. Let us rejoice in what we are about to do. May the next battle take us to the BSD infidels. I would love nothing more than to excise that Devil Theo from this world and send him and his fellow savages to Hades !!!
It's a warning to others to be more careful.
The warning I would take away from this is:
So your company is thinking about using the GPL, or GPL'd software? Well, think twice, because if you do anything that could be construed as a violation, even if it's clearly unintentional, it is going to be met with a public smear campaign without first giving you a chance to address it.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
There is some software already going to the CD-presser and the retail channel, and I asked their attorney to write a release that will let them continue to distribute that. I will sign it.
I would not have put this in the public eye except that it's something that people have to be more careful about - be sure you know whose software you are using and what license it has - you ignore that at your peril. Thus, I publicized this example.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Bingo. A lot of the Be folk are just as much friends of open source as anyone. The choice to work at a proprietary OS company is something that I *can* understand, even if Bruce and RMS can't. Be's offices have a vitality and energy (not to mention a whole bunch of old hardware) that I haven't seen often.
I don't see why Bruce had to draw attention to what he already believes is a simple, honest mistake. It would have been more professional to deal with it privately and only make it a community issue if Be ignored him or refused to fix the problem.
I agree. I doubt they would have ignored him or refused to fix the problem, but I'd be willing to bet that they may re-engineer it not to use his code.
_Deirdre
To sum up:
1) Be made mistake.
2) You found the mistake and
a) posted it on your news site
b) posted it on another news site known for it's hasty reactions
c) THEN contacted BeOS to get more information
3) Someone questioned whether you ought to contact Be
4) You claimed you "made it clear" that you had contacted Be
5) When someone notes that you didn't "make it clear" you admit you hadn't mentioned that when you posted the story
I think the REAL point here is that you haven't read the Advocacy-HOWTO.
Free Software is about love (i.e. sharing) or, at worst, tough love (I'll play nice with you if you play nice with me). All you've done is instill fear in current and future GPL users. They'll be careful all right--careful to avoid the GPL.
--
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
Wouldn't it have been better to work this out with Be in private and then post it on the net?
You have every right to protect your rights, and I encourage you to do so, but you don't have to knock Be down to do it. Both of you could have come out looking better if this was resolved before it was common public knowledge.
--
then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel is just a freight train coming your way
Now, Free Be has had 700,000+ downloads, many of them Linux users who are trying the OS for the first time, and some inconsistencies come to light. So as the OSS zelaots preach: "With many eyes, all bugs are shallow."
I imagine that Bruce is correct: this was likely unintentional. I also imagine that there may be more instances of this withing Be's libs. I mean, iut is a versatile, Posix compliant OS, so there could be a number of other apps being used in the same way.
I guess a more thorough audit of what actually is included in BeOS may be necessary, at least by someone who knows what to look for. I'm sure that whatever conflicts arise could be corrected in short order, but I'd hate to see my fave OS get caught up in licensing hell.
--sugarman--
I've just spoken with Bruce Perens, and acknowledged that we at Be have indeed 'boo-booed' with our use of Electric Fence in libroot.so.
We're working to remove Electric Fence from libroot.so and to place it in a statically linked library that can be linked against when-ever needed (typically for debugging). We'll then also distribute the full-source to the static library.
Our plan is to complete this by the end of the week and to update the downloadable package from free.be.com and also to include the updates in future revisions of BeOS Pro.
Andrew Kimpton
Be Inc.
...wouldn't community relations have been better served by a private email to the Be engineers?
As has happened in similar cases (I'm thinking Corel's gafs), Be will probably recieve a LOT of angry/nasty/rude email from some of the more fanatic GPL/Linux advocates.
I don't see why Bruce had to draw attention to what he already believes is a simple, honest mistake. It would have been more professional to deal with it privately and only make it a community issue if Be ignored him or refused to fix the problem.
Dana