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Microsoft Clarifies Jim Allchin's Statements
twivel writes "This Yahoo article clarifies their position. It is not "open source" software that "destroys intellectual property", but in fact it's the GNU General Public License that does. I can't wait for RMS' response. " What's interesting is their retroactive clarification that it's about taxpayer-supported software - a silly assurance, IMHO. Why? Because taxpayer software should be kept open - we paid for it, we should be able to use it. Locking it up into companies is not the answer - but Microsoft at least acknowledges other potentials, like the BSD license [?] . Check out Dan Gillmor's take on this - well done.
An easy solution to the "dilema" between your view and the pro-government-using-GPL view is for the government to dual license the work. GPL everything, but offer some sort of small fee license for closed-source work. I know this is at odds with your idea of "free for everyone", but remember that Microsoft and Cisco aren't taxpayers (they didn't pay any taxes last year). ;-)
This would do something to enrich the social fabric, at the expense of rich people getting richer.
-Paul Komarek
The licensing is what Allchin addresses. A restrictive, proprietary license would allow the government to sell the software, but most people would say that the Government shouldn't engage in commerce. Releasing under the BSD license would allow the private sector (both foreign and domestic) to sell derived works, which would encourage a competitive market for derived works. Under capitalist ideology, free and competitive markets are most efficient at creating wealth and most effective at furthering productivity-enhancing innovation, both of which lead to increased GDP. Releasing under GPL would effectively forbid such a market from developing.
For a simple example, the Government decides to pay $100,000 for a file-input CLI which accurately calculates personal income tax. The Government releases the software under BSD. TaxSoftCo Inc. invests $50,000 to build a snazzy GUI around the code and nets a profit of $10,000. Members of the Free Tax Software Consortium donate time worth $10,000 (which doesn't count toward GDP), receive a grant of $2,000 from some industry-supported foundation and build a free GUI which lacks some bells and whistles. Red Menace sells $5,000 worth of support on the free version. Net GDP: $167,000 plus productivity gains from easier-to-use software.
Now release the software under GPL. TaxSoftCo doesn't release because investment costs are now $150,000 (minus some private sector efficiency gains). Red Menace sells three times as much support due to increased usage of the free product. Net GDP: $117,000.
Now assume no government involvement whatsoever. The Free Tax Software group can't get together the $112,000 needed to build the free tax return app. TaxSoftCo invests $150,000 and makes $30,000 profit. Net GDP: $180,000 minus productivity losses from people who now can't afford the product or its free alternative.
Probably nothing yet. But if the $2 trillion US Government decides to go fully GNU, software companies would have difficulty competing and innovation (which sometimes takes the form of a talking paperclip) would suffer. The argument for breaking up MS is essentially the same as the argument against GPL: both use anti-competitive pricing and exclusive contracts.If a business is viable, the business should be able to compete against free, volunteer-based alternatives. No business should have to compete against the government.
And customers won't either. If the "few changes" cost the company 10% of the original cost of development to build, the only value the company adds is that 10%. If they try to profit as if they'd built the whole thing from scratch, another company (or a free software group) would undercut them, and people wouldn't buy their software. If that software is under GPL, you're really only buying the service package. The (financial) incentive for your vendor to invest in innovations on these products is far less than it would be if the vendor could profit directly from the innovations. Any innovations the vendor pays for will profit the vendor's competitors more than the vendor itself. The GPL forbids you from selling add-ons, open source or not, for GPL-licensed software. You must give the add-ons away for free under GPL or not distribute at all. Who would hire us and why? My guess is less people would be hired and for less compelling reasons.Yes, but, well kinda.... You can't release the source for their stuff. You can't produce a competing product using their stuff. MFC && Tools++ would most likely be put under the lgpl meaning that you can link to them (dynamically) and distribute your stuff however you want. All the commercial software (Oracle, Wordperfect, etc) under Linux would be impossible otherwise.
Not so. Caldera, SuSE, Redhat, and blah all sale manuals and support.
I think that people aren't (well the dumb ones are) objecting to companies making lots of money off of tax-payer investment, without giving anything back. For instance, Microsoft and Cisco paid no income tax last year. When was the last time you paid no income tax?
Microsoft does very little to improve the social fabric of the US. In fact, many "corporate individuals" do very little to improve the social fabric in proportion to what they gain from our society--for instance, a market. And for some reason this doesn't seem to bother Americans. Except me. For an example from Microsoft, IIRC, they didn't let temp workers bring their kids in during one of those "show your kids where you work days" at Microsoft. Can you imagine anything more mean-spirited?
-Paul Komarek
The problem i have with this logic is this. Why should my tax dollars go to fund projects that M$ can grab and sell back to me. I persoanlly don't want to fund microsoft R&D with *tax* money
My choice seems to be to steal the sony laptop/iPAQ (so I don't pay Microsoft) or pay microsoft, if I want the sony/iPAQ.
You choice is hardly limited to those. Try a different manufacturer. Or build your own. The only way Microsoft will get any money off of you is if you voluntarily give it to them. So don't!
Freedom is not convenient. Nor will it ever. Get over it.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Red herring alert! Nobody suggested that in this thread. But both the original article and the clarification were clearly hinting at outlawing the GPL and possibly open source in general.
Talk about a Red herring, the article did not "clearly hint" at outlawing the GPL, rather it hinted that taxpayer money shouldn't be used to fund GPL software. Here's the quote:
In other words, Microsoft representatives warned, "anyone who adds or innovates under the GPL agrees to make the resulting code, in its entirety, available for all to use ... [which] might constrain innovating stemming from taxpayer-funded software development."
I read this as Microsoft saying that if the government releases code under the GPL that many developers will be less likely to use that code because doing so precludes them form making any money. Like it or not, making money is what drives this country.
That would be playing a dangerous game -- the result could be a legal precedent that limits or even invalidates the MS EULA, especially if the judge figures out that MS is trying to blow smoke up his robe.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
No product can stand against SQL Server -- because it keeps falling over.
-Paul Komarek
Both Napster and GPL have the effect of denaturing intellectual property. That Napster is a black market doesn't change this fact -- its effect is freely available, freely copyable music. That GPL is a voluntary decision made by each contributor also doesn't alter the fact that it spits in the face of IP.
A world without the state's grant of monopoly rights to creators would operate exactly as the GPL does. GPL is like a sign on a post stating "Trespassing, Please! (But only if you allow me to trespass on your land.)" It's legal, and its legality is consistent with the principles of property rights. But its effect is to create a large commune where land is owned by the commune and for the commune. Inside the commune, private property does not exist. Yet from the outside, the commune is identical to other private property. Do the commune-dwellers oppose or support private property rights? Does the commune's existence promote or harm the institution of property?
Extracting money from users of a program by restricting their use of it is destructive because the restrictions reduce the amount and the ways that the program can be used. This reduces the amount of wealth that humanity derives from the program. When there is a deliberate choice to restrict, the harmful consequences are deliberate destruction.
The reason a good citizen does not use such destructive means to become wealthier is that, if everyone did so, we would all become poorer from the mutual destructiveness. This is Kantian ethics; or, the Golden Rule. Since I do not like the consequences that result if everyone hoards information, I am required to consider it wrong for one to do so. Specifically, the desire to be rewarded for one's creativity does not justify depriving the world in general of all or part of that creativity.
There was also this:
People who have studied the issue of intellectual property rights carefully (such as lawyers) say that there is no intrinsic right to intellectual property. The kinds of supposed intellectual property rights that the government recognizes were created by specific acts of legislation for specific purposes.
But that's exactly what I was talking about. A natural copyright is the same as an intrinsic copyright. And both birds are 100% imaginary. No, the FSF does not have a natural right to control distribution with the exception of their right to choose not to distribute the work in the first place (that is if they keep the toothpaste in the tube, that's fine, but they can't put it back once it's come out)
This is however an entirely different kettle of fish than an artificial (or positive) right to control distribution, which we certainly do labor under. But we have that artificial right for the purpose of promoting progress in the arts and sciences. We do not have it for promoting Bill Gates' bank account, though if that's the best way to accomplish the goal of promotion, fine.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
The private party (aka Microsoft) could use this as a preferred form of software investment (god knows it has worked in other industries): spend cash lobbying for publicly funded r&d rather than DIY R&D. Not only would this strategy reduce R&D cost - it would reduce R&D risk: The private party also gets the added benefit that this public works project carries the government's imprimatur, which effectively insures both liquidity and lockin.
GPL (as applied to public works) prevents Congress from being overtly manipulated by cash rich giants like Microsoft. Any other license would encourage Microsoft to sponsor lobbyists to control public funds. This is simply the way big government and industry work together - when the risk of investment gets too high, they push it onto taxpayers.
Consider the odd case that a corporate lobbyist didn't instigate the public works project. Without GPL, the fruits of this project benefit the parties with the best sales channels... There is no level playing field here. And once the public works project is started, then the benefactors would lobby to keep the benefit, further marginalizing the benefit to taxpayers...
Imagine: you run some important piece of software, and one day in the future, you decide to change it. But nobody would show you the source, even though it was obtained freely once upon a time before (liberal sense, not gratis). It has happened before and it will happen again. The BSD license offers no legal protection to software. Even if you were the original author of Version 1.0. The bloke denying it gto you could use the excuse that Version 2.0 belongs to him, and he does not have Version 1.0 anymore.
Those restriction where in the 4 clause BSD licence, Berkeley relicenced everything later under a two clause licence and there is no more the advertising clause.
The BSD licence is really the less annoying of all now, basically you must keep the headers and don't lie (claiming that you did something you didn't).
Anyway...
isildur% strings /mnt/dosc/WINDOWS/ftp.exe | grep California
@(#) Copyright (c) 1983 The Regents of the University of California.
OK, I'll tell you. It's not "free."
The GPL begins with an intentionally misleading "preamble" that states that it makes software "free." It then goes on to impose onerous restrictions on the use of the software by the one group of people who can make the best and most productive use of it: programmers.
What the GPL really says is, "If you're an end user, use this program for free and don't buy one that costs money. That'll undercut those Evil People who are trying to make a living producing software. But if you one of those evil people, you can't use it as the basis of your own work. To enjoy a reward for your hard work, you'll have to reimplement everything from scratch -- lots of dull, boring work before you can add anything new. And in the meantime, your market will be destroyed because many people will find the GPLed version adequate for their needs. Just try to make a living in this product category, sucker!"
In short, the GPL is an instrument of Richard Stallman's spite against commercial developers. For the history of this, read the book "Hackers," by Steven Levy.
The GPL is especially nasty because it it discriminates against a field of endeavor: the production of commercial software. This violates point #6 of the Open Source Definition. This means that GPLed software is not Open Source. And it's certainly not free.
--Brett Glass
Of course, this defeats the purpose of defacing and upending the standards in the first place, since competing software could easily be updated to be compatible with the new version.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
Egoboo , on the other hand is both open source and one of the best games i've played in a long time. :)
ALL YOUR MISTRANSLATION ARE BELONG TO US.
Microsoft keeps microsoft's competitors at bay. GPL wasn't on the radar when MS gained it's market share.
You seem stuck in the idea that a single company has to "rise to compete" with microsoft. Nobody wants another microsoft. I'd prefer a 1000 companies in a competitive marketplace making money on vertical apps & services -- sharing the common infrastructure via GPL.
Saying that the GPL destroys intellectual property is a poor mental model. This is better: think of the GPL as a company with the largest R&D department on the planet. This company licenses its IP to literally anyone for what is normally a very reasonable price.
If you choose to reject this price, you are free to invest the money to create IP of your own.
"Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon filled with magtape, or a 747 filled with CD-ROMs." -- The New Hacker's Dictionary, MIT Press, 1993
This responce seems even worse than his first statement. Now it sounds like he's complaining about not being able to use Linux's codebase for Windows XX. And yes, they're probably happy with the BSD licence, precisely for that reason. His statements lean towards getting the existing GPL changed or encouraging people to think less of it's current form, so that if Windows becomes open sourced, by matter of court, Microsoft's PR and marketting devisions won't have to deal with so much flak when we discover code taken/adapted from Linux. Cover thine arse..
The `/. trolls would come out to tell him that it wasn't a real troll, since it didn't scream 'First Post'... -alexjohns
You need to get a clue. You have to pay for Windows9x whether it is installed or not. That's the terms that PC manufacturers have to agree to in order to get a discount from Microsoft. Sounds like a tax to me.
Don't really know the sudden popularity, but it's been growing for several years now, just waiting for its time. The quote actually comes from a Sega Genesis/Megadrive game Zero wing. Whit that kind of language you are sure to get a cult following.
-Jaakko
When I said "TCP/IP hadn't been available under the BSD license", I meant an implementation of said protocols was available under the BSD license.
As a result, the various OS makers had two options:
1) Develop an OSI implementation from scratch.
2) Use an implementation based on the freely available (and modifiable/redistributable, even under closed source licenses) BSD TCP/IP stack.
That is why Internet actually works. That's why an array so huge of different operating systems could actually connected with each other without compatibility problems. I mean, we are talking about people who couldn't settle for a common floppy disk format here.
Anyway, if this people *didn't* have access to a TCP/IP implementation they could do whatever they wanted with, they would end up implementing the bloated and accounting-oriented OSI. Notice that OSI is an actual international standard, while TCP/IP is not (just a de facto one).
(8-DCS)
Fads just happen. I kiss you!
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Well, it would work like this. One day, a meeting is called with Company X top developers to discuss the introduction of a networking stack on their operating system. They have really very few choices. They can develop their own protocol from scratch, but that would be costly and would take them very long, which would put them at a disadvantage against the competition. They could buy the network stack from someone else, but that's playing into competition's hand, and they would always stay at a disadvantage, so that's not really an option. And they can write a network stack for a public protocol. Of course, all being educated people, they know the Big Thing around the corner is ISO/OSI (I MEAN it -- that's what everyone thought until early 90s). At this point, though, one developer makes the following remark:
"Hey, some researchers in University X created a network protocol and released the source code free of cost. All we would have to do is release the source code for our whole operating system if we were to use their code!"
At this point the whole room falls into histerical laughter and, having broken the tension, they set forth to write their OSI stack.
(8-DCS)
But can the bottled water companies ask the government to ban regular water suppliers? "We're selling you our product for your own good- everything else is polluted!! Think of the children!!" But in reality, most of the public water supply is just as drinkable- and much cheaper!
The bottled water companies are selling a "commerically purified" version of something that covers 90% of the planet for free. What is Microsoft selling by comparison? ; -) Asking the government to dry up all the "lakes, wells, rivers, and oceans" to leave only their product is simply not going to work.
Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball
If you own a platform, you can make it so that only your modified version will ever work. Because you can keep these trivial and harmful modifications to yourself, the original authors will loose control of their work on your platform. This way, only you will make money selling the original work.
Failing that, or at the same time, you get a bunch of lawyers to threaten, harass and finaly ruin the original author. After all, his "free" product might interfere with your earnings. Anything is possible in a world with one click shopping.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
While trying to follow the threads of these conversations, it becomes clear why opersource software does not fly with the buzzard,Microsoft.
At one time, the use of acronyms and abbreviations was required to save bytes, but this is no longer true. What turns most of use old school(ed) simple minded users off is what we call geek. For the most part, it is greek to us. We do use lots of "share ware" however, and enough of us even pay a fair price for it that the author(s) can make a living. We also do use General Public License software, too, but only that which we can download, install, and especially, understand the directions; "If at first you do not succeed, read the directions". Our hangup is the lack of basic use of the language by those who document. Learn to use the basic tools taught in our schools! Forget acronyms, abbreviations, and technical terms, come directly to the point at hand and be very clear in meanings. In other words, simple is better when dealing with simple users. Simple users equals the general computer USER public; the 90% of all users who use at least one of the windows operating systems. We may become frustrated with Microsoft, but at least we can understand and USE it (barely).
Retired dinosaur, simple user, volunteer, guinea pig
Except that the DMCA has provisions that make it a crime to reverse engineer. I believe this applies to trade secrets and Excel's format is probobly protected.
"A few great minds are enough to endow humanity with monstrous power, but a few great hearts are not enough to make us w
> Doesn't that seem a bit silly? What part of the GPL would they attack? What would they sue for?
Easy. They get one of their puppet companies (MindCruft) to publish something under the GPL, "steal" the code from their puppet, and pay their puppet to take them to court with a lawyer who will blow the case. Court finds GPL worthless.
Nothing's hard when you've got billions of dollars to spend on it. (Possibly excepting innovating, which must be hard indeed, since even all MS's $$$ can't seem to acheive it.)
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Who ever thinks this can not be more wrong than wrong can be.
1) The government spending is not going to make or break the economy, unless it is alot. A billion is not that much in the big picture.
2) Almost all of Government spending can be considered a waste of money and resources, except for services that need to done that the free market can't provide (Feeding the poor, low cost medical care, free education, and other preventive expenses).
If the government does not spend that billion on software, because they get the same for free, it can provide other services or return the money to the tax payer so they may spend the money as they truely wish.
A counter agruement can be given that open-source software is nothing but good. If you get something for free, you can spend you money on other things, the cost of living is less, and the amount of work one must do to live is less. Thus the standard of living increases for all.
Governments care greatly about the economy, and there's no other way to measure it. If GDP falls, we are said to be in recession. When it rises, we're in a boom. So if the people in government believe the conventional wisdom that they can best serve their fellow citizens by continuing GDP (and tax base) growth, then they are forced to accept Allchin's argument on GPL. Allchin could even go farther in this logic by blaming some of the current economic slowdown on the increased "destruction" of property caused by the recent growth of Linux.
I could also blame Microsoft for the slowdown. With everyone having to spend too much money on MS software, since they take away from other investments that might make the economy really grow. Of course, if you look a 1) I would not believe that.
Linux O Muerte!
There is a fine distinction in different values of typical "IP" that Microsoft as well as the MPAA try to make us forget: The monetary value of the intellectual property in a pice of GPL'ed software is close to zero (although there are other sources of monetary value to be had, as e.g. Red Hat and SuSE prove). However, the use value of this piece of software for our society is much higher than that of an equivalent piece of proprietary software, because on the one hand, more people can afford to use the software (beer-free) and on the other hand, the software can be used for more purposes (speech-free).
Similarly, the overall economy is not loosing money if people copy music or programs illegally. The money lost to the publisher is offset by the value of the program that the reciepient gains. In fact, the overall economic gain is likely to be positive, since people may accept free copies who would have never paid for the program.
This does not mean that I support illegal copying (I prefer really Free Software for my tools, and I am willing to pay for my games). However, most arguments by publishers about so-called piracy are just garbage.
Stephan
Wow, I can't believe all you /.'ers missed this one :)
If you want proof, try this...
Right click on either C:\windows\winsock.dll or C:\windows\system\wsock32.dll, click on Properties, click on the Version tab, look at the discription field.
What more do you want? No strings, no quickview, it's built right in.
Man who stand on toilet, is high on pot.
I've seen a lot of speculation that M$ may decide to challenge the GPL.
What if they don't want to use GPL code?
What if they already have?
Since M$ was hacked recently, what if they're afraid someone got a look at their code and may recognize some of it being from GPL software?
Maybe I'm just too tired today, but that's just something that occurred to me.
They're sore about all this incredibly innovative software being released under the GNU Public License that they can't take, tweak, and release as a product!
After all, I'm pretty sure that Microsoft is an entity founded on a copy of BASIC that someone else wrote and gave away-- before the GNU Public License existed.
Damn straight they're going to attack this as soon as possible, probably by finding some smaller corporation to test the waters for them. They'll pay for the lawyers. They'll pay the lobbists to tell the lawmakers in states all across the nation that GPL'ed software should not be trusted. They'll plant fear uncertainty and doubt by confusing people about free software. They started doing it in Europe, it'll be a matter of time before they do it here. We need to start telling our lawmakers that this software has potential to save billions of dollars of taxpayers money.
Watch for MSN to start filtering content that points to obviously Open Source software projects.
It's going to be interesting times...
Or maybe I'm just paranoid...
_______
computers://use.urls. People use Networds.
Everyone please think about it. These is always a scheme behind what Microsoft says or does. Open your eyes.
The GPL works by a specific mechanism and application of copyright.
Congress controls copyrights. And according to a recent appeals court case involving the extension of copyright Congress doesn't even have to comply or demonstrate the "promote arts and science" preamble in the IT section of the constitution. And even if they did have to comply with that clause they would be arguing to conservative judges that are more than likely to see it as a good thing.
Laws that are specific and focused are given more tollerence in court. It would be easy to make illegal the mechanism of how the GPL propagates without really affecting anything else. It can be specifically targeted and overnight the congress could effectively turn the GPL into the BSD license.
Even if Congress was not bought it would be popular for being anti socialistic. But imagine if Bill was willing to spend a quarter of a billion to guarantee that a proper clause was tacked onto something otherwise very popular? He has donated many times that to charity and to probably equally as much paying off his lawyers. Spending money to get rid of problems is how microsoft works.
He didn't say it was a right. He said it was a cause. Americans for Widgets have a cause. Americans Against Widgets also have a cause. Causes aren't the same as rights.
Additionally, what do you mean by 'morally owned'? If you mean, authors of software should be able to claim credit for their authorship, I don't have any immediate problems with it. (it may require closer study though) If you mean, authors have a natural right to control the distribution and use of their works, copies and derivatives therof, you're wrong. There's no such thing, the law (in the states anyhow) has never claimed such a thing, and it really doesn't matter what people thing. A large number of people are opposed to free speech too, depending on how you pose the question, and it doesn't mean that they're right either.
I can tell you though that copyright is entirely different than freedom of speech. MS does have as much right to release closed source software as newspapers do copyrighting their news. At least, as long as Congress considers either to be copyrightable, which they don't actually have to. (software wasn't for some time)
And there's nothing that prohibits MS from refusing to release their source.
But on the other hand, what about this? What if Congress decides that in order to get copyright at all, MS must place their source in the Library of Congress. If they do, the source is copyrighted, but publicly readable. (like any published material) And only if the source is up does MS get to hold a copyright on the binaries. There's nothing that prevents Congress from doing this. And there's nothing that prevents MS from choosing not to accept what the government's big print giveth, even though that means giving up what the small print taketh away. There is after all, no natural entitlement to copyright.
Also, note that the GPL is kind of like environmentalism for a software 'commons.' If they gave without strings (e.g. BSD, public domain) there's nothing that prevents other people from taking and not continuing to sustain the source from which it comes. The constant lengthening of copyright terms are an excellent example. Disney takes fairy tale stories and makes movies. But they don't let people take the movies and make other movies, which is essential to the whole issue of copyright. The point is to have the most movies, not to protect Disney's pocketbook.
The GPL is a method of letting people take but requiring that they add to what can be taken. Its a choice; no one has to take at all. And it would be moot if there were no copyright at all. I don't think that it's accurate to call it proprietary though. It's not in the same spirit as that at all.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
What classical meaning? Last time I checked the Copyright Clause of the Constitution was still the same as it always was. And given as how it derives from good thinking about the nature of speech, utilitarian systems are about the only justifiable form of copyright.
But I think that Stallman believes that the goals of copyright (hint: not to make money for copyright holders) would be better served if there weren't any on software. I don't know if he's against it in general. I doubt it though.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
They don't. It isn't.
My mom is not a Karma whore!
It makes sense that they're Pro-BSD, considering their entire TCP/IP stack is based on BSD code. Can't go trashing that, can we?
Potential my ass. Plenty of good, widely used software is BSD. And the authors don't give a rats behind if some company wants to use it. Author's choice not to have some other company poorly reinvent the wheel and terrorize the poor customers.
In a loose sense of the word, MS is right that the GPL "destroys" intellectual property. The relevant question is whether or not this is a bad thing (I'm inclined to think it is not!)
You'd wonder why they don't just shut up and keep making software the way they've always done it...demonic licenses and all.
O'Toole's Commentary on Murphy's Law:
That would depend on your dependencies! Who's code are we talking about? These strings are meant to protect all of us. Let's first look at it from the original programer's point of view, then a vendor's.
If I write code for the state that's all mine GPL it you have to come to me to close it up, OK and we might both be happy. I might not want to do that because I'd hate to have your company use the money you make off my code to tell me to cease and dessist one day. Still, if it's all mine, I'm sure we can do this.
If I do the same thing using other people's code, I can't give you permission to republish their work, except as GPL'd code. That's because I'm not the only orignial programer. I've benefited from other people's work and passed it on. You should too, or convince all the other nice people to agree with you. If they were all forced to GPL their code, it might not be as hard as it looks.
Now let's say I want to make money off this thing, and I had nothing to do with it's creation. Hey, I've got some good ideas and I can extend your work, should'nt I get something for that? Not really. I'm just a crummy vendor at this point, looking to steal someone else's work and make a buck on it. Would'nt it be better if I just contributed and made my money as a consultant, like lawers, doctors and engineers? Nothing is hidden in those fields, why should this one be any different?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Bingo! Here's the Library of Congress link: http://www.loc.gov/copyright/circs/circ1.html#piu
You can't remove the BSDL. But you can add additional restrictions for it's distribution. A ton of people get this confused, but it's the truth- yes, that does mean I can take a version of FreeBSD,"embrace and extend" and sell it closed source (or even with source, but restrict redistribution)
I'm not saying this is a bad thing. All of my work has been released under the BSDL (or in some rare exceptions, public domain). I don't even think it's "stealing" -- I'm one of the biggest BSDL bigots out there, but you have to understand- someone can, under the myopic slashdot definition, "steal" BSDL software.
-bugg
I worked at Microsoft on the Visual C++ team for a couple years
The only good MS product! When using Linux, this is the software I miss the most. Linux has no development environment that even comes close - and the few that do come even vaguely near have ridiculous learning curves.
Still, it could have been worse, they might have said vi is un-american.
All you dweebs railing against GPL are missing the point: we are talking about software that is funded by tax dollars. THis means somebody got Congress to allocate moneys... Y'all are quibbling about some narrow, pedantic meaning of freedom: if publicly funded software is not GPL'd, what prevents Microsoft from using tax dollars from both building the firmament for its next round of product,and, getting free marketing to boot?
It seems to me (NAL) that it is extremely unlikely that the GPL, or any term of it, would be invalidated. What is more likely to happen is that some portion of it would be interpreted in a way that changes how most people have used it; for example, what "distribution", "source code", "incorporate", "independent and separate works", "normally distributed with the major components" mean, and how dynamic linking is affected by the GPL and LGPL; what about plug-ins, what about source code distributions which use both GPL and restricted libraries (e.g. the RIPEM controversy), etc.
If they released it under the GPL, well, then (obviously) it could only be used in GPL'd projects. This is discriminating against all those who make proprietary software, and against all those who make open source software that isn't GPL (which is a lot, if not the majority of it).
I have no problem with someone making proprietary derived works from government-funded, BSDL/PD/whatever software...the original release is still there for everyone to use. You can use it in your GPL'd project (as long as there's no advertising clause), you can use it in your BSDL project, you can use it in your proprietary project, you can use it whenever or wherever you please, which is how it should be since everyone paid for it (not just developers of GPL'd software).
If you release it under the GPL, then you can only use it with other GPL'd code. If the government releases open source, taxpayer-funded software, they should not be restricting its reuse to only one type of open source software (especially one that invokes as much criticism and controversy as the GPL). And they should not be restricting it to reuse only with other open source software, either.
If everyone paid for it (including proprietary software vendors, or those who have perfectly legitimate reasons for not wanting to release their code for whatever reason), then everyone should have the opportunity to benefit from it. Especially in the case of the GPL, which can be as polarizing as abortion or gun control amongst otherwise friendly and reasonable people.
I'm not sure how you can say that TCP/IP wouldn't have taken off if it had first been made available under the GPL. It's quite possible that we'd not only still be using TCP/IP, but that a whole lot more software would now be available under the GPL instead of being proprietary with fractured standards.
The right most people who are posting think exists -- the right for any citizen to use IP created in a university in the U.S. via a government-sponsored project -- does not exist. The Baye-Dole Act gives non-profits the right to exclusively license this IP to anyone they wish.
> It would be like the government one day decided to give every citizen a government-made
> car. The market for private cars would collapse, and the government would have erected a state-run
> monopoly over the automotive industry.
But, if the government could give everyone cars, they'd still have to produce them which means auto workers would be making them. But, assuming that these cars *were* pulled out of thin air, doesn't it make sense to give one to each citizen instead of making them buy something that is no longer a scarce comodity?
I mean, the government is for the people. Seems to me that giving everyone a car will do more good for more people than keeping the car companies around which helps the owners, a small fraction of the people.
> Who would hire us and why? My guess is less people would be hired and for less compelling reasons.
My current job hires one full-time programmer just to work on development tools. He tweaks our CVS, writes testing tools, debugging tools, etc. And in my last job I wrote front-end modules for a DB (Access or Paradox) specifically tailored for the company. Ordering systems designed to fit our needs, DB queries that the accountant wanted, etc. Nothing new, stuff they could have done with a spreadsheet and a DB without forms. But they wanted it made easier enough to hire me for a year and a half as I tweaked, added, etc. (I also did some other things, I'm not that slow. But all custom software that nobody else would get any use from, even if it were released.)
> The GPL forbids you from selling add-ons, open source or not, for GPL-licensed software. You must
> give the add-ons away for free under GPL or not distribute at all.
Not quite. You can sell apps that run in X on Linux. They don't have to be GPLed. That's a way. The other alternative is to release GPLed software for free and sell the documentation and such.
I *guess* that Cygnus was successful, but I can't find any bank statements to prove or disprove that. My point is this: While there are a handful of successful purveyors of GPL'd software out there, the vast majority of companies could not make money in this fashion. I agree that MS's tactics are just plain wrong and should be frowned upon. I feel this same way about RMS and the FSF bunch. Surely there is some middle ground here. IMHO, the GPL is not representative of a "middle of the road" solution. The FreeBSD license is a much better compromise, as it maintains the status quo. You can still have free software, and you can still have proprietary solutions.
One other thing to think about. What if MS had a Linux distro, or if they took FreeBSD, "customized it" and released it (binary only) as a free OS? What do you think would happen to RedHat, et al, then?
Certainly you have to give MS credit for placing themselves in such a position of strength.
Anyway, it's interesting to think about.
Spending $1 billion on GPL efforts is not burning $1 billion.
GDP is a balanced equation: expenditures = income.
If government expenditure is used to finance open source development efforts, that money will be included in GDP expenditure measurements. It will be balanced on the income side as wages, profits, and investment interest.
Besides this, one small nit: government expenditure is not monetary policy, it is fiscal policy (i.e. budgeting & taxes -- not interest rates or money supply).
-Stu
I hate to stoop to this, but search the directory system32 for files containing "Regents" or "Berkeley" or "California" depending on what you have installed, you get about 50 or so hits on the various network related utils. Im not saying that Microsoft is a ripoff of BSD. I mean, Edlin is 100 microsoft kwalitie, since 1981 baby. However, they certainly havent been shy about borrowing source code when it was convenient.
Sure there are a handful of high-profile projects spearheaded from these countries, but my point was that this stands in contrast to a country like Germany where open source develoment is a way of life.
My (perhaps erroneous) way of assessing this is to look at where patches come from when I release something onto Freshmeat.
I'll get stacks from Germany, lesser numbers from Poland, Russia, UK, Switzerland or Austria (never both... hmmm...), the Skandies and the USA, two each from Japan and Korea, dribbles from Australia and NZ, one from South Africa three months later, and that's usually it.
Another responder made the very legitimate point that Australia does not exactly enjoy India's population density, so perhaps each individual Australian may well be pulling more than their weight without showing up on the radar.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
To an extent, I DO agree with Microsoft. I'd much rather have government sponsored or funded research that produces software be required to be in the public domain than to allow it to be kept proprietary by a private company. If that means that it also can't be GPL, I'd still be for it.
Now, I'd still prefer that it be required to be GPLed, but I can see that some companies and people might not agree with that, and I certainly support their right (even if they are Microsoft) to try to convince the legislators that government policy should be to require it to be public domain. However, it is just as legitimate a point of view to try to convince them that it should be GPLed, or some other "open source" license.
What would be inconsistent would be to allow publically funded software to be made proprietary AND to disallow the GPL.
Fact: The government funds public works.
Fact: Private industry induces (lobbies) elected officials to spend taxpayer money on their behalf.
These to facts make it very possible for private industry to abuse the public trust in the name of public works. Without restrictions on the products of these public works, these public works becomes the most economical way for a sufficiently powerful company to develop products. GPL is the only license model that is sufficiently restrictive to guarantee that public works are not purely for the direct benefit of lobbyist. Symmetry is not the issue. Protection of taxpayer's rights is the issue.
This sounds an awful lot like that GWB (or was it Dan Quayle?) quote, "It's not pollution that's harming the environment; it's the impurities in our air and water that's doing it." Don't you think?
I rang, you rang, we all rang for orangutang!
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Whatever they are, those guys at Microsoft aren't dumb.
It takes balls for a half-a-trillion-dollar company to take on the role of troller on Slashdot. I mean, it could easily backfire, but so far they are playing out the differences nicely between the supporters of the GPL and the people who seem to be offended at the very notion that it requires something in return from them.
Erwin
I dont quite get your argument here. If you use other peoples code, use it to make your program work, how does that prevent others from doing the same thing? If I used public code in my closed program, you are still allowed to that public code.
If you dont like the fact that others can do this to your public code, then dont call it 'free' call it something else. The open source definition of free is misleading.
My claim is as follows: the BSD vs GPL debate which Microsoft has entered by endorsing BSD and vilifying GPL is confused by misconceptions about freedom, and these misconceptions, from my reading at least, seem particularly widespread on slashdot.
The problem starts with the beer/speech distinction between types of freedom. I admit that at first glance this distinction has a certain appeal to it - free beer obviously is free in a different way from free speech. However, what this distinction misses is that every freedom for one person involves taking away a freedom from someone else. Once you grasp this idea, it is obvious that any talk of GPL being more free than BSD or vice versa is utter nonsense. What does make sense is to talk of one license (or system of government etc) offering more freedoms of a certain flavour. Which flavour you prefer depends on your tastes and how much you stand to benefit or lose when that flavour is enforced. Criticisms of the flavours other people prefer (e.g. calling it "Un-American" or the splurges of moral indignation regularly seen on Slashdot) when they are not backed up by a reasoned argument based on something other than freedom are just as nonsensical as criticisms of other peoples preferred flavours of ice cream!
Now, the flavour of freedom much of the open source community prefers is to be free to view, copy, and modify the source code and, in some cases, to prevent others from removing this freedom when they modify the source code and distribute binaries. On the other hand, the freedom Microsoft and many closed source vendors prefer is the freedom to recoup their investments and make profits by requiring users of their software to buy a licence for the software.
Now for the question posed in the parent:
Why should our governments contribute to closed-source development?
Well, one reason is this, open source GPLed developments lack a flavour freedom that is important to some people (MS shareholders are also people!). Of course, other people like the flavour of freedom that comes with GPLed developments. As ever in politics, the answer will involve trying to find the best way of reconciling conflicted preferences. What it does not involve is a choice between freedom and lack of freedom -- it is a choice between different flavours of freedom.
Yes, that's one possible scenario. You haven't shown how it is the only possible scenario, nor even why it even the most likely scenario.
"everyone" didn't think that ISO/OSI was the Next Big Thing, certainly not at the time that TCP/IP was introduced and became popular.
Need a good book or web site for a paper i am writing about the history of microsoft and gate. from past present to future my thanks for any one posting a reply
"I have no problem with Allchin's call for public projects to use code that's not subject to the GPL's restrictions and to adopt licenses they view as less threatening to innovation. That's up to developers."
The developers are being paid. It is not their project. It is the taxpayers' project (as intermediated by Congress.) In private industry, where I work as a developer, is it my choice to choose the licensing model for the software I build? I think not.
In the public world, only restrictive use of public works prevents the taxpayers from being co-opted by private industry. Too often, the taxpayers get co-opted; and, to that end, GPL is a solution here. No other licensing would be restrictive enough to prevent companies like Microsoft from manipulating Congress to do their bidding. GPL makes it very difficult to profit EXCLUSIVELY from the results of public works.
It may be politically correct in technical circles to assume that the choice of licensing model for public software is a "developer's choice"; but, it is sloppy thinking. The taxpayers should be protected from those who would use taxpayer money for individual gain. GPL is most likely the only way to do it...
Meanwhile, everyone in the world is free to start a GPL'd project based on the DOE code, or to incorporate that code into an existing GPL project. So when you say:
I think that even if the DOE code is intended to only benefit Microsoft, it will still, by virtue of its license, benefit all people trying to write audio players.
Maybe you can postulate a government-funded project that is closely married to the Microsoft platform and could never be useful on Unix. But such a project would be equally problematic if it were GPL'd.
This is not correct. All previous contributers must be contacted and give consent if you change the license. But the GPL license allows to sell software even if there are other contributors.
I disagree with your oter points as well, but don't have the time or energy to discuss it right now (call it a cop out if you will, but it has been a long week!)
Consider the argument that is used in the case for "free music". You know, the bit about "If I make a copy of your stuff, I do not deprive you of your original copy..." This logic follows that there has been created an artificial scarcity of a product, so as to make hoards of money from something that people want/need, when in fact anyone and everyone could have that copied music without paying a dime for it. Now take this same philosophy and apply it to software. Commercial software takes code and sells it to people in much the same way as music, keeping bad people from sharing their software. In fact commercial software companies go to great lengths to try and enforce these artificial scarcities of available software. Here is the basic problem with these two opposing views of the situation: one interested party seeks to ensure their rights to give and get something for free, the other seeks to ensure their rights to keep something for their own profit, and keep others from profiting from/ giving their product away. Both vantage points have viability. The solution is simple: figure out what side of the line you stand on and stay there. Don't be a hypocrite. Don't expect to get something for free and not be expected to give something back if you use that free code. If you think that commercial software is the way to go, buy all of your software, and be content to sell whatever software you produce. If you would rather share with others, then expect that they should share with you as well. And don't use commercial software, unless you are going to pay for it. (just as commercial software companies can't use GPL'd software unless they are going to give it away.) The choice is yours entirely. And by the way, neither point of view is Un-American. One is just distinctly Socialist, while the other is distinctly Capitalist. Remember that there isn't such a thing as 100% of either system, but rather a blending somewhere in the middle. In short, this is a controversy that has no perfect solution.
Russian Russian Russian RussianDollSig DollSig DollSig DollSig
Value-added features. Everyone had an operating system. Features exclusive to one's own OS were (hell, still are) selling points, advantages one had over the competition used to entice customers.
Opening the source code would negate that advantage, which was considered very important (lately it has been downgraded to just important). It would be unthinkable for them to do that, and if you believe otherwise I have this nice open bridge I'd like to sell you.
"everyone" didn't think that ISO/OSI was the Next Big Thing, certainly not at the time that TCP/IP was introduced and became popular.
Oh, no? Perhaps it was just my impression that OSI was in the the plans of every telco in the world, that OSI was the most talked-about networking protocol in the specialized magazines, that the very study of network protocols was centered around OSI, that every big OS company and telco were part of the OSI design committee?
Or perhaps my memory of that time is not as good as yours. Who knows...
(8-DCS)
http://www.webgurus.com/matic/graphics/49255.gif
I could say something on topic, but I think it's all (and more than all) been said. Besides, I'm giving up "Arguing about the GPL" for Lent, and figure I should make an early start.
"The Crystal Wind is the Storm, and the Storm is Data, and the Data is Life"
The poster above believes that asking to be paid anything at all for one's labor constitutes treating users of that software "like dirt." In reality, it is those who take such a mean-spirited attitude toward others who treat their fellow man "like dirt." This is unethical, and is one of the reasons why the GPL is likewise unethical.
--Brett
*snippitty snip* "anyone who adds or innovates under the GPL agrees to make the resulting code, in its entirety, available for all to use ... [which] might constrain innovating stemming from TAXPAYER-FUNDED software development."
We know Cox pays his taxes, and Stallman, but does Linus? NO! He's Swedish! That's who these bastards are after! Let's eat them alive! SPAM MY MINIONS! SPAM THOSE SERVERS! BUAH! BUAH! BUAH!
What? I was out for smoke okay; what'd you want? FP? Feh.
"Yeah...it was the numbers that were irrational, not the murderous cult of vegetarians...." -- Hippasus of Metapontum
As a US government employee I thought I would illuminate people on US Government policies on buying software.
;).
As a starting point, there are several default clauses the Government uses in buying software.
For all software the government pays for the development for they get "unlimited use." This means they can do whatever they want with the software. This does not mean the company that wrote the software can't sell it. What it does mean that if company A wrote the software and is selling it, the government can, if it thinks it is in the government's best interest, set up company B as a competitor.
If the government pays for part of the development and a private company pays for the rest, the government gets "limited rights." This means the government can do whatever it wants to the software inside the government and for government contracts. If company A writes the software the government can give software to company B to work on a government contract. However company B can't sell the software without a contract with company A.
If the government buys off-the-shelf software, like Microsoft Word, they are limited just like everyone else to the EULA.
The above rights can be negotiated away for the proper exchange of services or money. Say if company A wants to sell the software it writes for the government and not let the government set up a competitor it can accept less money for the contract and the contract will use the "limited use" clause.
By the way, I know for a fact some government agencies use Linux. There is no requirement that all government computers run Microsoft Windows. Some computers the government uses can't run Microsoft Windows
PostgreSQL beats SQL server in every way and it's getting better rapidly
--
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
Think what I might of Microsoft, King George they ain't.
Believe it or not, it's not always that easy to avoid the Microsoft tax - and in many circumstances, the principle just isn't worth the increased expense and effort.
When I need dozens of computers the same day, my only hope is to go around cleaning out all the electronics and office supply stores within a reasonable distance. I can't wait around for some dinky garage assembler in Flurjnik, Minnesota to scare up enough neighbor kids to put them together and mail them to me.
When I'm buying equipment in government or corporate situations, there are often regulations or contracts or purchasing guidelines that limit me to certain vendors. And I can promise you that any vendor who is the beneficiary of such a thing is collecting taxes for Micros~1.
Trust me, when I signed the paperwork granting me authorization to make major purchases on the government's tab, jail was definitely a stated consequence for failure to follow the rules.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
WRONG. Debian is a non-profit entity under the umbrella of the non-profit Software in Public Interest Inc. The Debian Project itself never sells any CD-ROMs for profit. Rather, it accepts donations from other individuals or vendors who sell Debian or Debian-based products.
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
So Linus, what are we going to do tonight?
The same thing we do every night Tux. Try to take over the world!
Big deal. Doesn't change my point one bit.
The issue of whether or not GPL code can be sold for profit has already been decided. Many Linux distros out there are already doing it.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
> Mozilla exists, and can't be destroyed.
One word: Konqueror.
Especially for windows users - it renders pages a lot like IE does (and you can even use the mozilla renderer if you really feel like it.) Plus, it's reletively fast, and easy to use. I've given up my last windows PC, and have been using Konq exclusively for the last week or so. No complaints here.
-- Fester
-- Fester
"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows."
I think I'm going to GPL the statement "i=i+1" and its variants, "i++" and "++i." Then, anybody who derives a program from my code will necessarily have to GPL theirs....
someone can, under the myopic slashdot definition, "steal" BSDL software.
Misappropriate? Possibly. Exploit? Maybe. But steal? No way. The best defense against definition myopia is a good dictionary.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
It is not a tax because the manufacturers "agree" (your word) to buy Windows from Microsoft. In addition, the consumer has to voluntarily "agree" to purchase the hardware. No one is being compelled. On the other hand, the tax I "owe" the IRS is compelled. If I disagree I go to jail.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
When I'm buying equipment in government or corporate situations, there are often regulations or contracts or purchasing guidelines that limit me to certain vendors
Then it is the government agency or corporation that is voluntarily choosing to use manufacturers that employ Microsoft products. In your own domain you can do whatever you want. Your employer or client cannot force you to buy Windows for your personal use.
Trust me, when I signed the paperwork granting me authorization to make major purchases on the government's tab, jail was definitely a stated consequence for failure to follow the rules.
But you wouldn't be going to jail for "tax avoidance". Microsoft had nothing to do with it. If the rules said you had to purchase Dell+Redhat and you bought a Compaq+Windows instead, you would face the identical consequences.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
When I need dozens of computers the same day, my only hope is to go around cleaning out all the electronics and office supply stores within a reasonable distance. I can't wait around for some dinky garage assembler in Flurjnik, Minnesota to scare up enough neighbor kids to put them together and mail them to me.
I had to come back and respond to this point because it's still annoying me.
First of all, there is absolutely no need to go all the way to Flurjnik to get computers without Windows. Have you ever heard of Penguin Computing? VA Linux? And those are just two names for Linux preinstalls catering to businesses. Many others exist and also for *BSD. And I don't need to mention the hundreds of other alternatives to preinstalled-Windows. Don't excuse your lack of shopping savvy by inventing a fictitous tax.
You current state of freedom, absent any external coercion, is a product of your previous choices. If you're stuck in a situation where you have to buy 100 computers NOW, then that odds are overwhelming that it was you that got yourself into that situation. What if your situation called for 100 flatbed trucks right NOW, and the only local supplier was Ford, but that Dodge could have them ready for you in a week. Would you then be paying a Ford tax? I don't think so.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
If the GPL is so great, and all software should be free, and free software is inherently better, why isn't there a desktop OS that is better than Windows?
By "better", I don't mean from a technical or clean coding perspective, I'll concede that in a heartbeat. I mean one that provides all the features that allow people like your grandmother and your uncle Tom from Jasper, Indiana to use their computer easily and without hassle.
The answer is: because there's no money in it. You'll be hard pressed to convince me that a group of coders out there will just one day want to get together and write a new OS to do all the things that people want Windows to do. Why not? Because they have to eat.
Microsoft can make and improve Windows for what all the "other" people out there want because those people are willing to pay for it. Therefore, Microsoft is willing to invest time, money, and people in it. I don't think most Microsoft programmers would be sitting figuring out how to code OLE unless Microsoft was paying them a lot of money to do it. It certainly isn't my idea of a sexy, fun coding project. But because customers wanted to do it, Microsoft put time and money into it.
I think arguments that all software should be free are very, very naive. Who's going to code the application that does payroll accounting for restaurants? I don't think most people here find that an interesting project, and most restaurant owners ideas of computers is the shiny screen with that "rat" thing attached. But there is a commercial demand for it, so someone will make it to make money off of it. What is wrong with that? (Other than an anti-market mentality, I'm not interested in the philosophy debate, thank you)
The GPL is a great idea. For people that want to make sure their work is available to everyone (and that's a wonderful ethic to have), and that future renditions of their work will also be available to everyone, the GPL works well. But the argument that "all" software should fall under the GPL is ridiculous. There are some products that will only get created by people that have a financial incentive to build them.
Somedays it's just not worth chewing through the restraints...
I don't see why it's a good thing that you can take a public program developed by the government, make a few changes, make it proprietary, and sell it. Sure, it makes people money, but so does slavery. Note that I'm not saying you advocate slavery, I'm just saying that not everything which results in the transfer of cash is really a good thing.
If someone can't compete against free software, imho, they don't deserve to be in business. Imagine me trying to argue that FAQ maintainers are cutting into my business selling how-to books. If I didn't provide a better product, why would I deserve any money?
And it's not like there'd be less of a market for programmers, we'd just be hired to customize things.
I think people would still sell add-ons, but they'd have to sell a modular add-on, or an open source one. There's nothing extraordinary about paying for open source software... The company I work for has spent ~$50k on a realtime OS and they're looking for spend another $25k or so on another. Both of these have source code available and could be implemented for free. We're buying them to get the service package. One of these is also an addition to Linux. We've had great luck in buying open source, we get a superior product (the companies realize we read their code, they don't produce sloppy work) and we know what we're getting because we downloaded and tested it beforehand.
No, that's what I meant. If they released a Linux distribution (complete with source in compliance with the GPL). When I was referring to binaries only, I meant a BSD release only.
Don't know exactly what would happen, but I can imagine that the big dogs in the Linux world (Red Hat, Caldera, SuSE, etc.) wouldn't like it very much.
You can hear the MS hype machine ramping up now!
No one was ever fired for buying Microsoft, and now it's free!
It would be interesting to see.
Well the thing is, they don't work fine as is, atleast in the case of ftp.exe. No support (that I can tell, anyways) for PASV ftp through firewalls/NAT, and very little in the way of support for restartable transfers (again, that I can tell). You could manually issue a REST command, but these are the sorts of things that should be built-in. =)
Shrug, I just think it's shoddy not to do some of the work yourself. I agree with you technically, there's no problem with it.
All I know about Bush is I had a good job when Clinton was president.
cd /mnt/cdrom/support/debug/i386/symbols/sys #NT4CD
strings tcpip.dbg | grep -i bsd
_BSDUrgent
_BSDUrgent
Thoughts on tech, Software Engineering, and stuff
The problem I have with the GPL is the SEVERE promotion of standarized software. Assuming that peers have the ability to reuse code (as they do under the GPL), the features of competing software will maintain nothing but balance, and innovation will only become waiting and copying. Many argue that this is good, seeing as how it promotes more innovation of the working body and increases competition, but innovation can only proceed to a certain level with a limited amount of resources (As with the GPL, selling the software is difficult, as it can just be downloaded, etc. for free) So, my question is: With the GPL, how is it beneficial that companies do not have to strive to out-do, so to speak, their competitors, as they can simply use the competing code in their products? Software standardization, in that sense, (otherwise, standards are very good) under the GPL (BSD, LGPL, the list goes on), only promotes laziness and strikes a lower limit of innovation on corporations and non-profit organizations, alike.
The solution: The Magna Open L:icense. It promotes the sole benefit (in my eyes) of OSS: peer review. Other than that, redistribution, code reuse, and modification is completely regulated by the original developers. Yes, software should have owners. The social program that we have turned the GNU movement into (or has it been that way from the beginning?) is drowning the software industry into incentive-less cheating. It's time for freedom for the real world. The ideology of the FSF doesn't and will not work.
-----------------------------------------------
I completely agree.- --------------
In order to fully understand this situation, you need to have a very good understanding of both micro- and macroeconomics, which, no offense, a lot of slashdot readers don't have. There is a lot more to the MSFT case than the software itself. The entire American market must be put into perspective.
-----------------------------------
I have purchased many fine servers from VAlinux and couldn't be happier. They do not, however, come on a moment's notice.
Sounds like you just haven't had the same sorts of jobs/clients that I have. While it may be my fault for accepting an urgent request to get a lab full of machines up by 8am the next morning, I would strongly dispute that the situation was of my creation. In any case, it doesn't matter. The situation comes up. You claimed the Microsoft tax was avoidable (and sure it is if you're just worrying about the computer in your basement), I phoned in from the real world to point out that's not always the case.
No, but the situation is not analogous. I can get computers from any number of manufacturers on a last-minute basis. They equal the set of mass-market PC manufacturers with broad retail distribution.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
The point isn't whether or not it's BSD or GPL, but whether or not this sort of thing benefits Microsoft (see subject). For all those, I could have named other items like Mozilla or Gnome. The point is that these items, simply because they're free, don't hurt the little guy and benefit Microsoft. If you read posts for the ideas rather than the details, you may learn something.
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
My own personal use is of trivial interest. I buy a computer every three or four years. Likewise your shrill proclamations of successful avoidance are of little consequence
The effect of the Microsoft tax on society is measured in the millions of purchases where it is assessed, whether because of channel availability, or purchasing rules, or simple broad ignorance.
Now you're just being silly. Nobody argued that Microsoft tax compliance was enforced by the IRS.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
Well, good for you! I'd love to see these issues get taken care of too, but that's got nothing at all to do with how software is licensed. One can write GPL software and still spew rhetoric about fixing the economy and the presidency. No mutual exclusivism here.
I don't know any two people who use MS word for exactly the same thing, but I can tell you that far more than 500 use it. Same goes for excel and any other MS (or other closed source) product. Software evolves to provide different solutions.
It does both. That's how it works. If you don't believe me, file a bug report for your favorite buggy linux program and watch yourself be supported.
Are free software and solutions mutually exclusive? Not in my experience, and if you've ever used free software you should understand this.
Funny, so does my linux system. Strange how that works...
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
But then, suppose the original author dies, or stops writing software. Everyone else now has to play by the rules of the GPL. No future modifications may be locked away. The license works even when the author dies. Isn't that good?
It'll be like the GPL in that it allows free src code distribution like the GPL does, but it'll have the BSD clause that forbids complete plagarism, it will forbid you to take a program's source covered by my license and make it proprietary, you'd have to make that part open. It will also allow publications and music to be distributed under it and any exerpts of them must recieve your permission and license and must be quoted whole or in part. I know enough about litigation to make it a legally water-holding document and it will be the ZionNet ZNGPL and I'll probably make a ZNLGPL if it goes well. Originally it was only for my stuff but I think it'll fix alot of the problems of people feeling forced to use the BSD of GPL/LGPL licenses because they think (and until lately) have little other option.
my Karma ran over my Dogma
why Corel failed too....
Have you ever tried to use photopaint? Wordperfect wasn't bad but they bought that. Most corel created software was quite complex. I think Adobe helped in the current state of corel. As for thier linux distro, I don't think they really understood the linux concept.
This is just my opinion.
If ignorance is bliss, the world is full of blissful people
How can this be when they are FSF donors?! ;)
Just take a look at Thank GNUs page the the FSF homepage, and search for Microsoft on the page. Microsoft Corporation is listed there...
--
A member of the first GPL-ed software project in my country
If I'm a taxpayer, and I Microsoft Windows XP$#&, does Microsoft Software become "taxpayer funded software" then? Oh... wait a minute... ;-)
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
If MS were to steal GNU/FSF code, then the FSF would defend it (that's a benefit of assigning your code to the FSF). If MS were to steal someone else's code, it would be up that individual/organization to defend their license against MS. Of course, the FSF or EFF could always aid with legal advice.
The GPL also prevents small developers from re-using publicly available code in their own products, again preventing them from competing with Microsoft.
Microsoft doesn't need to copy or use GPLed code, because it has more money than [insert the name of your favorite deity here]. It can afford to hire endless armies of programmers to implement anything it wants. So, the GPL doesn't keep it from creating software. Not being able to incorporate GPLed code in a closed source product is a non-issue to Microsoft. It's only an issue to companies that might one day rise to compete against Microsoft. So long as those would-be competitors are forced to rewrite things in order to make money (you can't make money from GPLed code), they'll be spinning their wheels instead of going after Gates & Co.
So, why is Allchin making nasty remarks about the GPL? Because -- as he ably proved when he testified during the Microsoft trial -- he's clueless. (Sigh.)
--Brett Glass
Because RMS is a license specialist, and you are not. RMS has put a LOT of thoughts into the GPL, crosschecked with lawyers, and he's very bright. Take the BSD publicity clause for instance: a mistake. Whatever change you make to the license to suit your taste, you would probably regret if you were to think more about it.
You don't fix a Beethoven Symphony unless you're a composer. The same apply to software licenses.
Borland is still doing ok. I use thier products almost every day. Borland is also moving to the linux world. Can't say I am happy with the $700+ price tag on kylix. But if you look at the concept below it I think borland will stay around.
If ignorance is bliss, the world is full of blissful people
1) Up until June 12th, 1999 *MANY* people/companies were in violation of the 4 clause BSD licence. These days, the only way you can 'rip off' BSD code is to remove the BSD copyrite.
2) Microsoft's own attempts at making their own TCP/IP stack blew goats. (and, it can be argued there are goats still being blown) And Linux has had, what, 3 'total re-writes' of the TCP/IP stack? How does the internet and TCP/IP benefit from having poorly written TCP/IP implementations trying to talk to the rest of the net? How do the projects benefit from re-invention, when all they have to do respect the wishes of the copyrite of the TCP/IP stack....and just not remove said copyrite?
What would Microsoft do with extra resources? Write OS software that one could be proud of?
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
See, Dictionary.com obviously has it wrong. THEY say:
Innovate: v. intr
To begin or introduce something new.
But EVERYBODY knows it SHOULD be like this:
Innovate: v. intr
To profit from the labor of others, ideally without giving said others credit, recognition, or royalties.
Now Microsoft's business model makes PERFECT sense. I'm so glad they clarified their position.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
"I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on TV."
:) ). They are entirely free to come to the conclusion that the intent of the GPL is to release something into the public domain, except for an attack on commercial software developers.
You probably work with computers, so naturally you have a logical view of the law as hard, inflexible rules that are applied with machine-like precision, except corrupt judges or incompetent jurors.
Your mechanistic predictions support this theory.
You honestly think a judge is going to say "Okay now, everyone using GPL'd software has to stop immediately." just because that is the simplest interpretation of copyright law? Judges are charged with coming up with practical interpretations of the law. They don't like to cause chaos if they can find a way to weasel out of it (and I mean "weasel" in the nicest way possible
Let me put it this way: if you went to court over what you thought was an unfair and illegal term in your apartment rental contract, would you expect the judge to simply say the contract was broken and therefore you must move out immediately or face trespassing charges (since the landlord owns the apartment)? Of course not, you'd expect him to change the contract, possibly nullifying odious restrictions, without asking for your landlord's permission. Judges can do that when presented with an illegal contract.
If they decide that the GPL isn't entirely kosher, they might very well decide that the permissions of the GPL stand without the restrictions.
---
MS is definately telling the truth (well, sort of).
The GPL is definately a borg-ish license (funny considering the picture of good old Bill that slashdot uses). This isn't a bad thing, but it is accurate.
The half-truth is the nonsense about it constraining "taxpayer funded software developement". Obviously he must mean the Microsoft-Tax, since otherwise I would expect that anything developed with money from the public, should be owned by the public.
There are several reasons that Microsoft could be doing this:
1) They are trying to cut down Open Source in the eyes of the uneducated (gee... there's a shocker)
2) They would prefer people use the BSD license so they can just take code and use it internally without worrying about things like having to extend their own code.
3) There is GPL code in an MS product and they are testing the waters to fight the GPL in court.
This last item is uncertain. Without a code review how can you really know when any closed source project uses open source code? Since an independent code review will never happen, this is a moot point (although I doubt even they would do this deliberately since their lawyers would eat them alive).
The amusing bit was the articles comment that Sun is embrasing the GPL. It makes sense. All Sun cares about (for the most part) is selling hardware (and more and more Java). If MS came out and supported Sparc over Intel for WindowsXP Sun would back off (maybe). Right now they are trying to hit MS where it hurts, in the Office Suite.
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
I wrote about some of this awhile back:
Microsoft and the Art of War
The more you know, the less you understand.
Here's what this means: In other words, Microsoft representatives warned, "anyone who adds or innovates under the GPL agrees to make the resulting code, in its entirety, available for all to use ... [which] might constrain innovating stemming from taxpayer-funded software development."
It means that a company or individual cannot extend existing free software code to create a new product that they might "own." This means that companies concerned with keeping their code proprietary, which has been shown to be an excellent business strategy, will be discouraged from working with GPL'd code. Some GPL pundits will say "Great! We don't want them using our work for profit anyway!" Others might realize that their work is still freely available and now a (hopefully) improved version is available for sale. The GPL, in this view, is stifling innovation by discouraging people from extending current code because those people would then be forced to give their code away to the world.
I'm not sure whether I agree with this, but it is certainly something to think about.
-Jack
Could someone please explain to me what this means?
It means that M$ is upset that the govt might give something back to us the tax payer. Also if the govt is giving it away then maybe people might believe it is better than their "paid for/rented" software. I'd almost bet that even the people at M$ was confused, which is why they felt the need to clarify it.
And innovate ~ theft in the M$ dictionary.
If ignorance is bliss, the world is full of blissful people
Just like there's moolah offered to people who can find missing persons, I think GPLers must set up a fund for finding STOLEN GPL software. If we could raise a few $1M, it would already be pretty sweet, wouldn't it? Now if it turns out that MS did steal GPL'ed code, it will be a major blow to them. And I think, considering that Windows is a BIG piece of software, the odds are, GPL'ed code might have sneaked in somewhere.
Wroot
Perhaps there is some confusion here. If I release a software under BSDL, for example, that software will *STAY* under that license, period. I can release it under other licenses, as the copyright-owner, but that does not "remove" that source code with BSD license on it from existence.
The question is whether we derivative works of that software to be kept open, or if we want that software to be taken maximum advantage off.
Since we would all be using OSI if TCP/IP hadn't been available under the BSD license, I know to which camp I belong.
(8-DCS)
What exactly is Microsoft trying to say? I really don't understand. Do they think that the GPL should be illegal or what? Aside from being blatantly unconstitutional, that would be just, well, stupid. I hope that no one, especially not in the government, is falling for this blatant BS. Its obvious that Microsoft is worried that the government might use open source softwate instead of Microsoft. So they are making these retardo statements so that the government buys more of their products. Mod this down, I don't care...I'm too angry to be coherent.
---
---
---
"Against stupidity the very god themselves contend in vain" -Johann Schiller
People, groups, etc playing a I win You lose type of game are very frightened by people who choose to not play that game, who are not intmidated by that game, and who play a game where everyone wins, since that means that they gotta loose because their opponents win.
utter lunacy, of course. In other words, they loose power if you do not play their game.
just find a better game.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
the geek code, for software licenses
------ Work is so much easier when you don't
of public funded software development.
they are worried if more and more of software
developed at Govt/university centres they won't be
able to help themseves to it, & make a pile of $
off it as they are accustomed to.
Oh, & they are also more than happy to take most
of the Credit.
The it industry invented the Internet.
No. The internet came out of govt funded institutions. What private industry did was to build,capitalize and some would say, exploit it.
Getting them to admit that is hard to admit.
Must be against Libertarian dogma.
Same thing with the human genome.
Turns out that the Celera relied on data from
their publicly funded rivals to finish the job.
The key thing is that the Public will get a better
return on their investment thru the GPL.
Bcs the discoveries and knowledge won't be
borged and will be free to grow in an environment
that allows growth thru both "real" competition and co-operation.
GPL doesn't destroy IP.
The community still has control over the IP.
It's just that they it used in a way that is not
exclusively about money.
Wroot
C:\>strings winnt\system32\finger.exe | more
!This program cannot be run in DOS mode.
eRich5
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`.data
.rsrc
WSOCK32.dll
ws2_32.DLL
MSWSOCK.DLL
MSVCRT.dll
KERNEL32.dll
USER32.dll
finger
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WSOCK32.dll
putchar
isspace
isprint
fflush
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exit
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<b>@(#) Copyright (c) 1980 The Regents of the University of California.
All rights reserved.</b>
exe\finger.dbg
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Linus T. has done a whole s#!t load for open source software. But remember it isn't open source software which is supporting him financially. Its his work for Transmeta.
>Whatever change you make to the license to suit your taste, you would probably regret if you were to think more about it. Yeah, The part where I offer non-exclusive commercial use licenses(for $$) sure has me staying up nights. >:)
I may sound troll-ish but look at ESR and the geeks with guns initiative. Open Source is ARMED.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/cixel
for a few years microsoft will try to beat linux and other open source projects down and after realizing that they are not going to win will embrace linux, come up with their version of winux and claim that they were the biggest supporters all along.
say it aint so joe, say it aint so...
Either give it away or get top dollar, but never sell yourself cheap.
Start with two companies who are both on the same side; that of the GPL. Company 1 takes the GPL'd work of company 2 and flaunts that it's used it in proprietary work.
Company 2 sues company 1. They both present a good case, but of course they end up proving the GPL to be legal ( since they're both on the same side).
Company 1 looses on purpose, a precedent is set, the GPL gets publicity and a bunch of great arguements for it displayed in court.
Maybe it could even be fought on judge judy :>
"just connect this to..."
BZZT.
Liberty.
HA! They've already screwed themselves on that one when they won the case Apple brought against them for look & feel. Basically, there is no IP in look & feel now, and there's nothing MS can do about that.
IE is available for solaris.
--
Microsoft is big enough that it can develop or reimplement almost any feature. They want to stop the GPL mostly because the increasing amount of GPLed software is liberating people from the dominance of Microsoft software. The GPL is a serious threat to Microsoft's business model.
Free Software: the software by the people, of the people and for the people. Develop! Share! Enhance! Enjoy!
I know this post, and it's parent is just another troll, but why is it that every single American I've ever talked to automatically associates all social programs, and communism with dictatorship and the destruction of democracy. It may shock some of these people, but even the United States is not a true democracy, nor is it a true capitalist nation. Pure communism has been shown not to work, likewise pure capitalism also fails. Nearly all of us live in mixed systems that try to ballance certain amounts of capitalism with communism to try and deliver some of the benefits (and drawbacks) from each system.
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
Quite the contrary, it is closed source software that contrains innovation. Microsoft would have us believe that everyone having access, and the ability to make changes to GPLed code is in some way limiting? Strange. I thought is was the other way around.
The ability to benefit from others work can only make things happen more quickly. It's a way of thinking that MS uses quite often in it's marketing. They say, "Let us create software so good you can just do what you have to!". And this is what the GPL is all about. You get the code, so when you want to write software, you don't have to waste time writing it all again (because the code is locked up under licenses), you can get on with writing additions to the software, making it better, instead of just making is the same.
GPL enhances innovation, because software developers can do new things, instead of having to reproduce current software to get around licensing issues. It can't be much simpler than that.
More importantly, (and I should stress that I don't live in the US, so I don't benefit from saying this), if the software is tax payer funded, then it should be made available to the tax payers without limitation. Tax payers should be able to get their hands on the source code and use it. The tax payer owns this software, it's theirs. And as something they own, they should have total access to it.
Given total access, innovation can only be magnified, because the less replication of software people need to do, the more they can be refining and extending software to meet more of their needs.
How exactly is it stealing if you license some code from someone else?
What libraries do you use when you code? By your logic, you're stealing that library code (because we're ignoring the possibility that you might have been granted a license to use that library).
Bridgeguard: what is your name! Jim: Jim Bridgeguard: what is your mission! Jim: To embrace and extend the holy grail Brideguard: what is your favorite color! Jim: red, no blue Bridgeguard: Into the pit! Jim: I wouldn't do that if I were you. I was simply misunderstood. I retroproactively say blue. Bridgeguard: Bullshit! Into the pit! Jim: Communist. AHHHHHHHHHH!!
The most important thing any republican needs to know.
I suggest the following license:
Use of this code is subject to the following restrictions;if Microsoft
GPL terms apply
else
BSD terms apply
fi
I'm pretty sure that the number one country by contribution would be the People's Republic of Berkeley. Remember BSD Unix, BIND, etc. It's a pretty huge contribution from one little city.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
If Linux is a threat....why is it a threat?
Unix Roots? Us old Unix hacks have heard for years that Unix was dead.
So Unix is not a threat.
Open Source? The GPL? Given the tying of the GPL to Linux, if the 'strenght' is the 'GPL', then turn the strength into a problem.
This is the opening volly of the 'lets slam the GPL' by Microsoft. Allchin is on message. If they can get enough people to believe "Open Souce is BAD...GPL is BAD" then Microsoft wins.
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
This reminds me of something ...
Allchin: Open-source software is like a stream of bat's piss.
Spin Doctor: What he meant was that it shines out like a shaft of gold when all around is dark.
--
Every bloody emperor has his hand up history's skirt [Peter Hammill/VdGG]
Actually I see that they have a point. I does actually think that using someting like the BSD licence is better at all for software paided by tax money. Actually thats where the BSD licence started. The BSD licencfe gives everyone the right to at the same level pick up what was created with tax money and start from that point. Then do WHAT ever they like with what the goverment created. I one likes to earn money on the additions, fine, I one likes ti add them into *BSD, fine, if one likes to add it to Linux, fine. But in the situation of GPLed code only the last is a possible option. Then the goverment gives GPL licenced software an advantage over the rest and thats almost as unfair as giving it to a software company only.
This is going to sound like a Troll but think about it for a minute before answering. Its really not ment as one.
You said:
"Anyone who is paid by the government to produce software, should be obliged to make the software available, for free, to everyone, with no strings attached." (emphesis mine)
Okay, I will agree with this statement but add that the GPL adds a 'string'. It requires that I am not allowed to use that code in an unrestricted manner (ie. a Closed Source project). A BSD style license would allow people to use the code in Open Source projects or in Closed Source ones.
Now, I also agree that if it was produced by taxpayer dollars, then if you want to do use it for Commercial gain, tough, you should re-impliment the code yourself. On the other hand, I can see that perhaps the LGPL might be more apropriate if the work is involved in producing a standard (ie. a referance implimentation) and it can be encapsulated into a library. This would allow it to be used by both closed and open source projects, and would hasten the adoption of the standard, while requiring that any change the closed source project attempts to make to the library (embrace & extend perhaps), is propogated back out to the community (if the use of the code can be monitored in some way).
Perhaps the reference library covered under the LGPL and the actual code itself covered under the GPL, might provide the msot flexability, but maintain the ability for closed source projects to still utilize the work while not surpassing the rights of the individuals.
Just a few thouhts.
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
I also think that it could well be argued that the license is prejudicial against commercial software developers with malicious intent.
Can you please explain how the GPL is prejudicial against any developer, commercial or otherwise? Anyone is free to use GPL'd programs, and anyone can modify and redistribute them, they just have to agree to the terms of the license. The GPL says nothing about commercial development, and contrary to your perception of FSF philosophy, RMS actually encourages the sale of Free software. Redhat is undoubtedly a commercial entity (full of commercial developers), and the only negative things I have ever heard RMS say about them is that they say "Linux" instead of "GNU/Linux" and "Open Source" instead of "Free Software." Microsoft, BTW, is also free to modify and distribute GPLd software, they just have to agree to the terms first. How in the world can you honestly think this is prejudicial or malicious. The fact that I choose to release the Stupendous-Transmogrifying Time Travel Simulator (TM) under the GPL does nothing whatsoever to Microsoft's ability to write their own software and sell it. They could even write a clone of my program, and as long as it doesn't use any of my GPLd code, I can't do anything about it. This is malicious!?! The horror! Compare this to proprietary software licenses. They don't give anybody the right to redistribute or modify anything under any circumstances.
Then there's the question of whether a lawsuit against a GPL violator could actually be awarded damages. The copyright holder is not using his copyright to secure a profit for himself, and it's damage to just such a profit that's supposed to be reimbursed in a copyright suit; you're not supposed to be awarded damages just because you don't like the way the violator makes his living. The courts might very well toss out all cases as frivolous.
Why don't you go out and test this theory yourself. The Disney company no longer distributes Song of the South, and they intend to keep it that way. By their own admission, they will never again make a profit off that movie. By your reasoning, you should now be free under copyright law to take your old videotape of the show and start running off your own copies for sale. Go ahead and try it and see how far Disney makes it in court before the case is thrown out.
Remember, we're talking about copyright here, not profitright. I don't have to attempt to make a profit off my code in order to be fully protected by copyright law.
Just imagine:
Bill gates and RMS walk into a boxing arena.
In the old Mad Max fashion it's "Two men enter, one men leaves":
RMS catches Bill in a recursive acrynum...
Bill tries to embrace and extend RMS...
Live video feed on Slashdot...
hehe...
Gilad.
Do you have some insight to back up your claims? Or else, it's just a _different_ claim.
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
I think the fact that MS sided with the BSD license is going to drive a lot of people to the GPL.
Yes, M$ could leagaly release something under the GPL that uses GPL'd code. But realisticly, I wouldn't hold my breath.
If ignorance is bliss, the world is full of blissful people
Obviously the guys at microsoft have never played any zero sum games, it's all about domination and winning. Microsoft cant admit that they just cant write a good tcp stack so they jack someone elses fortunately for them the people from whom it was taken didnt mind. They gobble companies whole and then have the balls to say they're innovating you're not innovating when you do that are you. The vicious circle of M$ swallowing technologies whole and excreting out new and assimilated products just dosent appeal to me.
Care to elaborate on that?
__
__
Debian
Nonsense. If the GPL is found to have no legal grounding then the software license reverts to the standard copyright, which means NOBODY except the author can distribute the code. The author is then free to pick a license other than the GPL (presumably the GPLv3 which corrects whatever is found lacking).
For a court to rule that GPL'd code is public domain is to steal intellectual property from the author and give it to the public. No court has ever done this. It would create such a dangerous precedent that even GPL hating companies like Microsoft would oppose such a ruling. It would be the destruction of ALL intellectual property.
The vast majority of the desktop and workgroup server software that the U.S. govt. buys is Microsoft product. Of course they are worried about the time when politicians and taxpayers start to question that use of funds, compared to a free beer alternative. Their aim with these remarks is to give their political allies some cover for counterarguments. It would be 'anti-business' to save taxpayers money by using Free software, blah, blah, blah...
And of course, anybody posting anonymously on /. must be a communist...
I gave up sigs almost a year ago.
The real problem for M$ is that when they submit diffs they'd get rejected because they'd resemble something like this:
*** ftp.c Tue Jan 24 10:38:38 1983
--- ftp.ms.c Tue Mar 27 21:39:00 1998
BR> *** 3,7 ****
! #define VERSION "ftp @(#) Copyright (c) 1983 The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. "
--- 3,7 ----
! #define VERSION "ftp @(#) Copyright (c) 1983 The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. (c) 1998 Microsoft "
Free Online Woodworking Resources Directory
Microsoft has been able to bury various products by Lotus, IBM, WordPerfect, Borland, Corel and Novell. The GPL might just suffer the same fate.
Can Microsoft bury something that doesn't depend upon profit?
--- Justin Dearing http://www.justaprogrammer.net/ We're just programmers.
"Free Software isn't really the problem -- it's Free Software that's actually free software."
At least, that's what I imagine they mean.
.sig last updated Jan. 14, 2000
How can someone agreeing with you be clueless?
Free Software: the software by the people, of the people and for the people. Develop! Share! Enhance! Enjoy!
Hey there moderators... get this post up there! It's poorly formatted, but it definitely doesn't deserve a 0 value just because it's AC!
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
Why don't you go out and test this theory yourself. The Disney company no longer distributes Song of the South, and they intend to keep it that way. By their own admission, they will never again make a profit off that movie. By your reasoning, you should now be free under copyright law to take your old videotape of the show and start running off your own copies for sale. Go ahead and try it and see how far Disney makes it in court before the case is thrown out.
Disney has giant lawyers with sharp pointy teeth and a hundred arms each. They would come charging across the courtroom hurling boulders and screaming their terrifying battlecry, which no man can abide with soul intact.
What matter law to such titans?
---
There's a UNIX version of IE5.5??? Where? Don't cut off my dick please, but I'll try it if it's free. ----> http://www.microsoft.com/unix
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
I was establishing the general principle that a judge can modify illegal contracts.
---
Microsoft's point is, the Government should act to prevent the use of the GPL, and similar licences, both for software used in, and developed by, Federal/State/etc authorities.
Microsoft don't care what the point of the GPL is, they care that the Government doesn't mandate use of it.
~Cederic
--
This is a bit off the topic, but as far as I know in the European Union competition law there are exemptions from some legislation unless the company is "too big". For example, "too big" companies cannot legally use some marketing strategies like buing off space from stores to keep smaller competitors out.
I cannot remember the exact percentages, but in the case of MS they clearly have too much market power. This is one of the reasons why MS has gotten in some provisional trouble with EU Competition Commissioner.
But correct me if I'm wrong..
-miKa
Once they have the big bad US government on their side then they can begin lining the pockets of the world trade organization or key members of the EU in order to leverage US policy decisions in the world markets. After all, the United States has a long history of being sure that their view of intellectual property is the correct one and should be used as the standard in international trade.
this space intentionally left blank (oops)
And heck.... multi-million dollar loby with rich crooks in office and the next thing you know Free Software is illegal
I'm only half-kidding. I hope rms writes a fantastic response, and someone else talks to legislators.
Republicans are Nazis. LetsRiot!
Well, but releasing something under the GPL dosen't prohibit you from licensing the code under some other license as well. It is not uncommon for an author to release their code under a license such as the GPL, and then make availible a different license allowing the software to be used in a proprietary environment for a charge.
There's many good reasons, here's one of them:
Microsoft wants ideas, implementations from smaller companies and innovative people to be available to them. But it doesn't want to share all that it has receieved. In the end making it a one-way black hole system.
When a person is unable to share with others what he or she receives. That person becomes isolated and lonely. It seems this might apply to companies too.
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
But there are plenty of bad, even malicious contracts out in the world of business, surely that doesn't invalidate them? A contract doesn't have to be fair, it just has to be agreed to. Commercial software developers can use GPL'd code or not, depending on whether they agree with the license terms. It's no different from licensing QNX, etc. - you have fixed obligations under your license, and if the terms place you at a disadvantage, well then you shouldn't have agreed.
But this works for video game publishers all the time - people who violate the copyrights on old games are still prosecuted, whether or not the game publisher is still making a profit on the game or even offering the game for sale at all. Copyright enforcement itself isn't scaled by the financial magnitude of the violation, although I admit that normally damage awards are. I don't think you could sue anyone for compensatory damages for violating the GPL, but you could probably force them to stop violating and possibly get punitive damages.
It's true that the GPL has iffy parts. The one that makes me the most nervous is the idea that a contract may not be valid without "consideration" changing hands - one would then have to prove that the hope of receiving future software enhancements from the parties receiving the GPL'd code is equivalent to "consideration". But I don't see the points which you've raised as particularly questionable.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
My gist is that "innovation" doesn't die at the implementation level. To say you can't use an innovative idea without using the original implementation is the point Microsoft is trying to make. It's the difference between them saying "Let's take all of the source from the Linux kernel and make it ours" and "Lets take a look at what made Linux good and model our new kernel after those same ideas." Microsoft wants to sell you on the notion that you can't do one the latter without the former. It is simply a patented attempt to spin a complete lie into FUD.
Ahh, but according to Microsnark it is restrictive because anything that they would develop under it, they would have to give away. If they can't make money off of it, it must be restrictive to their business model.
Mind you, considering that they are still planning on going to the "rental" plan of software, they even more then before loathe the idea of "free software".
Kierthos
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
With all of the comments about Microsoft's propensity to use BSD licensed software, is it possible that they have also coopted GPL'd code and are in fact beginning to mount an attack on the GPL's validity (legally) in a manner that allows clears them of wrongdoing or liability for their infringement?
/. after all. If the editors don't have to, why should I? ;)
A twisted thought, but a thought none-the-less. Feel free to flame away. I just wrote what came out. I didn't spend much time thinking about it...this is
-fp
(submitted to Microsoft Corporate Services)
Hi,
My name is Jason Thane, and I'm C and C++ developer living and working in Seattle, WA. Many of my colleagues have previously been employed at Microsoft in the past and have liberally extolled the virtues of employment there.
I have often considered the possibility of applying for a position within Microsoft but unfortunately will do so no further after today reading an article on dailynews.yahoo.com concerning executive Jim Allchin's comments regarding Open Source software and the GNU General Public License. Allchin's comments seemed to indicate that Microsoft believes our nation's lawmakers should consider Open Source software "a threat" to innovation and the development of the computer industry.
This statement is SO inflammatory to myself and many of my colleagues in the industry that it is suddenly little wonder to me why the brightest people I know have no interest in working for Microsoft.
If Microsoft continues to spew blatant propaganda and ignorant nonsense such as Allchin's comments, I have a feeling Microsoft's "best and brightest" might not be as good or as bright as many engineers who have chosen to avoid the company. Such as myself.
One more thing - Open Source software should be considered one of the most positive phenomena in the history of the world: a community freely sharing ideas and effort in order to create utility for all of its members. With hope our lawmakers will understand how much more important to their constituents (THE PEOPLE) that phenomenon is than the interests of Microsoft, Inc. I don't consider myself a political activist, but in this case the propaganda is so outrageous that it demands I write my elected legislators and urge them to work to protect Open Source and the future of the software industry from this company.
Sincerely,
Jason C. Thane
jasoncthane@REMOVECAPSNOSPAMbeirdo.com
If you're going to post, post something intelligent. PLEEEEEEAAAAASSSSEEE!!!
If you use open source, you have to give the source away. At first glance, "it's Free!". But then, when you modify the source, you have to give it to everyone else.
I would say it's a "catch" that Stallman put in the GPL; you don't pay now, you pay later with code.
But... if you think harder, you actually don't have to give the source away. It's not like I patch a program here and then I have to send an email to freshmeat saying "Hey! I patched xmms so it doesn't take much memory! It doesn't even have a display now!" You can keep it, you don't have to tell anybody.
--
Stallman should have patented the Open Source idea and take money from Sun and Microsoft. We would be rich by now (rich in code, bought with the money:)
The rest of it grants you ADDITIONAL rights that you don't usually get under copyright law! It's basically a contract that says, "You are free to modify and redistribute the program if you agree to realease any modified version under the GPL". Basically, Stallman is using copyright law to say "I don't want anyone to be able to benefit from my work without sharing back into the community", which I can't find any problem with. So what the hell is with people calling it restrictive?
Interesting ideas. Had medeval monks had the power and desire to, would they have opposed the printing press?
IIRC, the church was very against the idea of printed books. Someone that published an English edition of the Bible was punished for heresy.
What OSS will bring an end to is a lot of shrink-wrapped software, but it won't stop people making money from it in support, enhancements and bespoke software. I've been in IT for nearly 12 years and I haven't written a single piece of commercial software, it's all been in-house to meet a specific requirement.
"Microsoft will plagarize [sic] whatever it wants to, regardless"... bingo... they have largely plagiarized their XP GUI look from MacOS X, etc etc etc
No, they can't. Again, they're all dropping like flies when they try. And that's the stated purpose of the GPL: to run them out of business.
They just can't follow the Gates business plan.
If they use the GPL, it makes no difference what business plan they try. They're lost.
--Brett
I agree with you on most points, and admire how you developed your argument... but I also wonder how companies like IBM and Sun that pass for bastions of capitalism can "afford" to support open source and other commie-pinko endeavors while Microsoft can't (8wire.com has a brief analysis of the contrast between Microsoft's and IBM's attitudes towards Linux and open source). I also can't resist pointing out that a far greater percentage of Finns (Torvalds' comrades) than Americans enjoy the fruits of their nation's success, though I can't say for sure how many of them drive Lincoln Navigators and have personal climate-controlled wine cellars.
There's no way they'd do that. It would be a massive PR blunder. The press would take a very dim view.
cover your ass.
You're not obligated to pay sales tax (at least in the UK), since essentials are not taxed. A tax is also a levy on goods that is paid every time you purchase those goods. Since a percentage of the cost of every PC sold (apart from very small dealers or if you build it yourself) includes the price of Windows 9x, that is a tax.
And in related news, the French government, on hearing that Linux is un-American, immediately ordered 2 million copies of Mandrake.
Like the article says though, they're a fan of the BSD-style license. The BSD-license allows them to incorporate any or all portions of the code, w/o the "un-american" implications of the GPL. I think the Mozilla thing was more out of fear of the Anti-trust litigation.
I agree w/ a previous poster that there is no objective proof of this statement (regarding the TCP stack), but on the other hand, there is no reason why microsoft couldn't and wouldn't do this.
But taking a second look, the Win32 TCP stack doesn't compare to the BSD stack, so I don't even know where this comment is coming from.
If you don't believe me try it for yourself.
Bravo. I've never seen such a good parody of Micro$peak. You don't work for them, do you?
JET Program: see Japan, meet intere
a rose in the thorns :)
good to see english/logic mangled so badly so well encapsulated. kudos. this makes my day.
fred
I think that one fact that many are overlooking is that corporations, including Microsoft, are tax payers too. Therefore, they should be able to leverage government funded work to achieve their goals. Of course, in Microsoft's case, the goal is absolute monopoly power over the software market and exploitation of the consumer. However, at a fundamental level, they should have unrestricted rights to use government funded public work for their own purposes within the framework of copyright laws, etc. I detest Microsoft personally but I can kind of see where they're coming from on this particular issue...
My OSX Public Beta CD came with one.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
...and it might not matter.
Most of the restrictions in shrinkwraps are equivalent to the restrictions on an owned copy (the law was tweaked to allow software sales without licenses some time ago). Losing the license is not that big a deal.
I've never really heard of the terms against reverse-engineering (the only real thing that differs from simply purchasing a copy) being enforced.
I think they're mostly there for scare value, like the "FBI warning" at the start of movies. It also serves as a reminder to people that they aren't allowed to give copies to their friends; something that is a little counter-intuitive and many people didn't seem to understand in the early days of computing.
---
Microsoft is worried that they might not get to benefit freely from government funded creations. Microsoft would rather see such developments released under the BSD license, which they can freely take any and all 'innovations' they desire from the code. I would agree, however, except I'd go one step further -- all code developed either under contract or by government workers on paid time should release the source code into the public domain (without license). Tax payers paid to have the code developed, so all tax payers should get to benefit from it, in whatever way they want.
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
If the GPL doesn't hold, wouldn't that mean that you would have NO license to the GPL'd product, not that it would revert to public domain? Keep in mind that you don't need to slap a license on anything for it to be copyright'ed, the mere act of publishing it is enough. And by default, only the copyright holder has the right of publishing - any rights to publish and redistribute the work except as under fair use provisions are limited to what has been granted you by the copyright holder.
If software can not morally be owned and the law says that it can be owned then your only moral recourse is to release it under the GPL to minimize the damage that the current bad law dose. Why dose not one understand the the GPL is a "stop gap measure" to make the most of our current bad legal situation where software can be copyrighted. If congress did away with software copyrights, trade secrets, and NDAs (i.e. killed anything to prevent the spread of source code) tomarrow then you would see RMS out celebrating the death of his own GPL.
Blech. The GPL is neither particularly restrictive nor nearly as complicated as most people seem to think. For practical purposes, the GPL means three things to most users:
That neither restrictive nor difficult, particularly if you tend to distribute the software as source. The GPL just looks big and intimidating because it's written in legalese to make it harder to dodge in court.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
"people communicating ideas and building a better future for all? When did greed and competition displace hard work and cooperation?" um, that sounds dangerously communistic to me! but "the destruction of a free market? One shoe fits all and by the way, it only comes in black" that sounds fascistic to me... (silly me! there i go again, thinking these naive rubes have a clue in the first place!) get thee behind me, thou convoluted nave... practitioner of pretzel logic!
If you don't like it because it's different than a 'standard' license, then don't use the code; nobody's forcing you.
AC comments get piped to
Government investments are often justified as adding in some meaningful way to the economy as measured by GDP and other economic statistics. Proprietary software lives up to this expectation - it can be sold, it has value. How can the "product" of GPL software be quantified in such a way as to add to these statistics? If it can't, then spending $1 billion on free software is equivalent in monetary policy terms to burning $1 billion.
Governments care greatly about the economy, and there's no other way to measure it. If GDP falls, we are said to be in recession. When it rises, we're in a boom. So if the people in government believe the conventional wisdom that they can best serve their fellow citizens by continuing GDP (and tax base) growth, then they are forced to accept Allchin's argument on GPL. Allchin could even go farther in this logic by blaming some of the current economic slowdown on the increased "destruction" of property caused by the recent growth of Linux.
Yes, but where is the flaw? America and capitalism are synonymous. Commoditizing information is commoditizing work product. While I think you have a strong point to make, many in this community enjoy a comfortable lifestyle due to success in the capitalist system. Take a look at the passionate discussions on this board about Napster. If it is proven that the growth of GPL crashes markets and lays off workers, many will question their support of it. This could be a big, long fight.
Yes, it seems like MS think they can just rollback the world after each oopsie.. Hey! Wait a minute, maybe they can! Maybe that's how they have survived so many crappy products! If this is not proof, nothing is!
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
No you don't.
/cygnus/netrel/src/binutils-20001221-1/bfd/coffcod e.h line 765 in styp_to_sec_flags
You get:
$ strings TCPIP.SYS
BFD: BFD internal error, aborting at
BFD: Please report this bug.
Could be wrong but that just looks like strings generated an error.
Yours Sincerely, Michael.
why Corel failed too....
I don't think they really understood the linux concept
In case there is any confusion: Corel is not in the Linux business because MS bought a part of the company.
This is the only reason.
Lets make sure we done feed *ourselves* Markatroid FUD. M$ destroyed Linux at Corel because of Corel Suite, Corel Distro and WINE.
M$ was likely motivated because having Corel abandon Windows would have thrown up a massive red flag for the US DOJ. Outside of Adobe and Macromedia (maybe) what 'standard' desktop apps *ARENT* M$ dominating? They couldnt have put Corel out of business and not gotten spiked by the USDOJ. They invested in Corel for the same reason they invested in Apple.
No they don't. You don't lose copyright by not protecting it. You're thinking about trademark rights. Copyright is only limited by fair use, what licenses you grant, and a time period - which when it comes to Disney seems to be neverending (Congress seems to have a tendency to extend copyright in general whenever any of Disneys major copyrights are about to expire)
they've copyrighted the licence!?!
That's rich. That just made my day. Thank you RMS!
I hate politics, especially in the computer industry.
--
There's no problem that cannot be solved with a suitable amount of high explosives
A naive reader of M$'s "correction" could be fooled into a rather negative view of GPL'd software, especially if it's used by the government. They make it sound as if you are obliged to GPL any software you developed if you used any GPL'd software to develop it. Say, for example, I work for the government and used emacs to edit a C program, and gcc to compile it. A naive reader of the M$ blurb might conclude that you have to release the C program that you developed under the GPL.
This spin might succeed at getting a lot of people turned off on open source software. Why, they ask, should programmers in business or government be required to share all of their work, no matter what it is? It might be nice to do so, but shouldn't they have the choice not to?
Of course that's not what the GPL requires -- you only have to share any changes you make on the GPL'd products themselves, not on anything you create using them; and the government is unlikely to get involved in projects like emacs, gcc or the Linux kernel, so the issue probably won't come up at all.
It's a clever bit of FUD on M$'s part, because this impression will have to be answered by open source advocates with another "correction", and the distinction is complex enough that the broad public may never get it.
Always keep a sapphire in your mind
It's simple. This is a CYA from the spin doctors in Redmond. Not too obvious, are they?
Why not tailor the GPL or BSD style licenses to you personal tastes
This is something I am noticing much of as late. I dont think this is a Good Idea(TM). GPL is very well understood. GPL makes an 'environment' in which people understand what is - and is not - permitted to do w/ their code. If I come along and release my software GPL AND the SNL (SubtleNuanceLicense) then the SNL may (likely) be more restricitve than the GPL. This makes for confusion - and conflict. The GPL Software is chugging along at a nice clip - there are alot of significant projects coming to fruition. If people start thinking that they like the GPL except for this-that-andtheother and make their own XYZL we may see this 'comfortable and universally understood' environment (the GPL environment) collapse because of Legal Whoring(TM) and Power Grabbing(TM) and Intellectual Property Asserting(TM).
The GPL means one thing: share. We all understand that. Lets not try and share under our own terms and conditions.
If Microsoft want to use GPL code there is nothing stopping them going to the author and asking / paying them to release a special version of their code to them under a different license. This can then be used under this new agreed license and would not restict or stifle innovation. Microsoft would continue and so would the GPL'd software. Plus Microsoft would be funding OpenSource.
Certainly no-one is arguing that the GPL is not a restrictive license. As most people here know it is , in fact, extra-ordinarily restrictive. I personally have always been a bit scared of overly restrictive licenses and when I release software I right I am sure to use not only a BSD style license but my own language which specifies what I consider fair use. In that, I think the solution lies. Why not tailor the GPL or BSD style licenses to you personal tastes and check out their legality with your local friendly law student or lawyer? Where is freedom of choice ? I don't like being told what to do. Not by Bill Gates, RMS, or anybody else that wants to tell me how to practise my craft.
Sort of, but it's often a difficult decision to be informed about, and an even harder thing to avoid, since the Microsoft tax is levied on hardware purchases from almost all major PC manufacturers.
I think you're still trapped in the 1500s (which would explain how you've managed to avoid the Microsoft tax). We don't have "rulers" anymore (at least in democratic societies). We have governments which carry out tasks on our behalf. And we pay taxes to plenty of entities that have no authority over us. I pay taxes on goods exported from many countries, to the governments of those countries. I pay taxes to UNESCO when I visit certain historic sites. I pay taxes to governments of states I would never visit (e.g., Texas) when ordering goods from there by mail in certain circumstances.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
. . . since they basicly riped *BSD's networking layer right out and put it in Windows. That could have never worked if it was under the GPL.
Please, no flame wars about BSD vs GPL. I'm sick of them.
------
Not a typewriter
an intelligent being! (truth folks, just truth) shoot him/her, QUICK! (sarcasm folks, mere sarcasm)
Well, at least in regards to it being an "intellectual property" destroyer. Intellectual property, for Stallman, is the commoditizing of information, which the GPL exists to prevent. So, I don't think he'll object to the statement, what he (and I) object to, is the rather flawed conclusion that this clarification makes.
Why should our governments contribute to closed-source development? It doesn't benefit their citizens, on the other hand, Expect is great tool that came from Government open source (it's public domain, mind you)
Also, it's convenient for Microsoft to support the BSD license, as it's a frequent source of Microsoft applications. (Run 'strings' on ftp in Windows NT/2k and you'll see)
The GPL prevents this, hence, Microsoft cannot easily 'embrace and extend' GPL software.
In no way am I against the BSD license, but it does facilitate the opposite of what the GPL represents.
----------------- "I have a bone to pick, and a few to break." - Refused -------------------
Oh, geez. I just got visions of Jean Chretien on the Royal Canadian Air Farce. Damn, that was funny.
They can steal stuff from BSD-licensed software without any problems, thus enhancing their "Intellectual Property". GPL makes them give it back, along with any enhancements, thus devaluing their "intellectual property". I believe Exchange includes BSD-licensed software -- parts of sendmail, maybe? THe copyright includes "the regents of the university of california."
I wonder if they will mount a legal challenge to the GPL now? And how will they do it? Release a closed-source version of some GPL program, perhaps, and then litigate it? They wouldn't lose much -- the 'penalty' would be for them to release the source for their modified program, which I doubt they would care about anyway. I also wonder if another company would defend the GPL -- IBM perhaps? Sun, now they they're including Gnome with Slowlaris (yeah, we'll see)?
- - - - -
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
I assume by "Australia and Finland" you mean "Germany", since that's where all the active developers (aside from those who came from UK or France or Austria or Mexico or wherever and then moved to California) seem to be.
Australia is definitely near the top of the list if you're comparing to Equatorial Guinea, Nauru, Kyrgyzstan, and Surinam. Otherwise I think you're suffering from a wee bit of myopia.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
MS is a very large and powerful company that feels threatened by a small but up and coming group of people. Of course they are going to attack their competitors. One way of doing that is too put a bad image in the public mind for Linux and all things Linux or I guess more specifically now GPL. The public will choose in the end what the best solution to there needs is. I just hope that it is a solution for the people by the people.
What good is a used up world, and how could it be worth having? --Sting
"...Because if you are taxpaying, you are not deserving of the innovating stemming from your tax-paying-paid developing, which, because, uh, if everyone can be using and adding to the source coding, this innovating will be belonging to the tax-paying, and not to whomever the tax-paying are paying to be developing.
"And then maybe your base will not be belong to us," he added.
Interesting ideas. Had medeval monks had the power and desire to, would they have opposed the printing press?
:)
I think Microsoft may have something though: If a free version of software exists, there will be no economic incentive for someone to go out and make a commercial version unless the commercial version is significantly better than the free one.
I don't see this as a problem, except for the companies that make money selling mediocre software. Business will be able to take advantage of free software to build their own in-house solutions, and software companies will have to concentrate on a few really good products instead of many so-so ones.
Companies that depend on fewer products are more risky, but even Microsoft with the hundreds of titles it sells has a volatile stock price. There is also a risk that the commercial titles will be more expensive as a result. But if they become too expensive, free software will serve as a check on the price.
Accoring to Eric Raymond, most of the software developers out there work on in-house systems anyway, so it is a boon to the greatest number of programmers.
I think William S. Burroughs one said "Word is a virus" How prophetical
JET Program: see Japan, meet intere
Of course.. why didn't I think of that?!
BSD software is `ok' because Microsoft can use that code. Like the TCP/IP stack, and kerberos code that was borrowed for Windows 2000. But those poor inovative coders at microsoft will have to code their own versions of GNU software from scratch! Those poor muffins..
So when is Microsoft going to publish Windows 2000 on a BSD-style licence again?
What's interesting is their retroactive clarification that it's...
Most clarifications are retroactive. Kind of hard to have pre-emptive clarifications.:)
IMHO, as per
J:)
Oh well, no point in steering now.
Perhaps "open source is an intellectual-property destroyer", but I fail to see how stifling creativity follows from the above statemnt.
The unquestionable truth is that whenever there is open exchange of ideas, innovation grows without bound. For example, the Holy Wars of Europe brought a spread of ideas which led directly to the Renaissance.
Guttenberg's printing press also led to the "free exchange of ideas" -- books were cheap! Those that adapted to the new society survived, and used information as a tool, rather than trying to stifle its creation.
I think open-source follows in much the same vein: a cheap, widely available spread of ideas, which brings together disparate concepts into a new and technologically advancing arena.
That Microsoft fails to recognize the benefits of open-source only serves to show their soon-outdated concepts of society.
Will they fall quickly? I doubt it, but I think history shows that innovation thrives on the spread of ideas which the open source concept embraces.
i can't believe Yohahn's post only got a (Score:1)... that post is an insightful bit of deconstructionism!
But GPLed software is available for anyone to use. Right of unrestricted use is part of the license. Closed-source software companies can even distribute GPLed software. Microsoft could release its own distribution of Linux if it particularly felt like it. They just aren't allowed to slap on a different license. In fact, IIRC, Microsoft already does distribute some Open Source software (under its original license) as parts of some of its multi-part software packages.
Actually, I agree that government originated projects shouldn't be licensed under the GPL. I think that it's probably better for them to be released under something like the BSD license or public domain that allows the broadest possible use. But that shouldn't stop the government from contributing to GPLed projects already in progress (i.e. NSA high security Linux) if doing so is a good way of achieving government aims.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
Ahhh!!! I get it! So open source software is evil and will send the world straight into the fiery pits of hell. Unless it's open source software that can be bought out and made closed source.
Why was I so stupid to have not seen that before?!?
Everyone knows one of their primary strategies is to sit on standards bodies just long enough to extend the standard with proprietary hooks. "Embrace, extend, destroy." Any license that forces proprietary changes become part of the public code base is completely at odds with the way Microsoft defaces... er... I mean embraces... standards.
---
The GPL is definately a borg-ish license (funny considering the picture of good old Bill that slashdot uses). This isn't a bad thing, but it is accurate.
Except that the GPL dosn't go activly seeking other programs to asimilate. Whereas Microsoft certainly enguages in this kind of behaviour.
Without a code review how can you really know when any closed source project uses open source code?
Without such a review you have no idea what is in the program at all. Therefore certain projects should never use closed source programs. These include functions of government such as military, security, taxation, etc.
There is no Microsoft tax
Yes there is.
A tax is an involuntary monetary obligation
If I want to buy an iPAQ or a HP Jordna to run NetBSD, part of the price goes to Microsoft.
In 1986, when I wanted to buy a Compaq PC, part of the money of the price went to Microsoft.
Whether or not Microsoft gets one penny of yours is entirely your decision.
In a strict sense yes. If I want a sony laptop, or a iPAQ, then Microsoft gets more than one penny of mine. My choice seems to be to steal the sony laptop/iPAQ (so I don't pay Microsoft) or pay microsoft, if I want the sony/iPAQ.
Would you prefer the term "user fee"? How about "mandatory license"? Microsoft tax is also a correct term, because the payment is for software I don't want and won't use.
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
Well, from what I grasped from the article M$ doesn't like the GPL since leagaly it restricts them from using GPL'd sorce code in their software.
If you plan on using someone elses work in your project to save yourself time and trouble then you should comply to their wishes on how that code is used. If you dislike the GPL license then don't use GPL'd code.
I guess they feel it is destroying their freedom to innovate*
*innovate - (from the Microsoft dictionary) The aquisition of any code or idea that will make our products better, preferably in a way we can claim we created it.
If ignorance is bliss, the world is full of blissful people
> If the government is going to be paying people to produce software, the software should be open for all taxpayers to use.
I like that idea in principle, but in practice it's not all that simple. For instance, the government used taxpayer money to fund the White House, but that doesn't mean Joe Citizen can schedule it for a week's use during summer vacation.
Conceivably there might be circumstances where they would produce software for limited distribution as well.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Sun and IBM both have GPLd software, and they should have lawyers to match any other company.
There is no Microsoft tax. That term was orginally used in a very bad analogy.
A tax is an involuntary monetary obligation to a ruler. Microsoft is not a ruler. You are not obligated to buy any of their products. Whether or not Microsoft gets one penny of yours is entirely your decision. They haven't received a penny from me since DOS 3.3.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
> The body of work out there under the GPL is quite humongous and therefore I cannot believe that a court would just throw away the GPL
Possibly very important in this regard is the fact that some $BIGCOMPANIES now like the GPL or even have their own variants, so that if a court case ever came down to the traditional "biggest wallet wins" it does not necessarily mean that the GPL would be stricken down.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
> Mozilla exists, and can't be destroyed.
:)
No, but it can't be used either. It's not quite stable in its current state.. But soon, it will be. And I bet that lack of a good web browser is holding a lot of windows users back. I, for example.. As soon as I have a good browser under linux, bye-bye windows.
> Office. Office clones exists.
I use StarOffice - it works well and it's free. The place I work for uses it for computers that can't justify a 600$ office 2000 license but need a word processing app. It's not as good as Office 2000, but it does the job.
> Backoffice.
Open Source has almost all of this, and more, without the annoying licensing restrictions.
> SQL Server
Look at PostgreSQL lately ? Or mySQL, for web applications ?
> Analysis Services
You got me here..
> Visual Basic
VB is an interesting, yet sucky piece of software. Kylix anyone ?
> Third partey apps
Wine is getting better
What I find odd is the implicit claim that all taxpayer-funded software is released under the GPL. I'm sure the Regents of the University of California will be interested to learn this "fact".
Hmm... sounds like a plan.
"Will we have to bring our own source, or will they have some for us?"
A steaming cup of soykaf would be real wiz right now.
Of course Microsoft acknowledges the BSD license. Many, including myself, believe that everything with Microsoft's name on it that actually works is either copied, purchased or stolen from someone else. The BSD license allows Microsoft to get functional software at no cost, and in fact, Windows NT networking includes much BSD-licensed code. The proof was shown in someone's response to another /. story.
If the government is going to be paying people to produce software, the software should be open for all taxpayers to use. Including closed-source software companies.
Remember how anyone who did government-funded research in the US had to put in place provisions allowing the US government to use their research for free? The same should apply, only more broadly, for government-funded software projects: Anyone who is paid by the government to produce software, should be obliged to make the software available, for free, to everyone, with no strings attached.
Oh, and WTF is a retroactive clarification? Is it supposed to be in contrast to a proactive clarification of the form "I am about to say something confusing, but what I will really mean is..."?
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
And that would mean the GPL had reached its goal. ;-)
Ulli
Simple things should be simple, complex things should be possible.
then they can't use the GPL, or make any modifications to GPL'd code. AFAIK, the federal government doesn't hold copyright on anything it creates, as it belongs to the people. Anything created is in the public domain, such as maps and stuff. I know they use various contracts with private companies to get around this, but that's beside the point, I'm talking theory here. How does that affect government workers modifying GPL'd code? The modifications are public domain, so that doesn't compromise the GPL, and the public domain sections of the code could in theory be extracted and used freely without GPL restrictions. This latter option is difficult, as GPL'd modifications to the PD code may have been made. So the GPL does in practice make it difficult for federal workers to create code in the public domain, if they also use the GPL. The PD sections would have to be archived separately and made available to the public.
no text
In other words, Microsoft representatives warned, "anyone who adds or innovates under the GPL agrees to make the resulting code, in its entirety, available for all to use ... [which]
might constrain innovating stemming from taxpayer-funded software development."
s/innovating stemming/stealing/ surely?
Micro$oft isn't missing anything. They have started watching OSS for real. They admitted Linux is top threat.
The signals are clear. They're after us. Like it or not, this is open war, and Microsoft is going to play _dirty_. It's the only game they can play, and it's just started. They have proved before to be masters in the Art of FUD. Go figure what they'll come up with...!
Of course M$ likes BSD. Of course M$ complains about GPL. They will do whatever they can to sh1t on it, you can count on that!
Yesterday we were just buzzing around M$. Now M$ is after us. High time for the FS community to realize this and switch strategies. Cleaner code may not be enough this time.
Am I oversensitive? My $.02 BTW...
13-4=54/6
Bill Gates and Richard Stallman are finally coming to a face off.
"Most of you steal your software... What hobbyist can put years into programming, finding all bugs, documenting his product and distribute for free?"----An Open Letter to Hobbyists, Bill Gates, Micro-soft, 1976
"GNU... is the name for the complete Unix-compatible software system which I am writing so that I can give it away free... Once GNU is written, everyone will be able to obtain good system software free, just like air."----The GNU Manifesto, Richard Stallman, Free Software Foundation, 1985
Microsoft Windows vs. GNU/Linux, today
Free Software: the software by the people, of the people and for the people. Develop! Share! Enhance! Enjoy!
Remember, nothing prevents commercial distribution of GPL'ed code. Companies can, and I'm sure will, take tax payer funded GPL'ed code, extend it and make those products available for sale. That's fine. The commercial linux distros are all available for sale, too. But taxpayers should not be required to pay for software they already funded. Paying for packaging and support is another matter.
I am not a GPL bigot. I believe that whoever writes the code gets to pick the license and in many cases the GPL is a bad idea. In this case, however, Microsoft should be scared. If government development is GPL'ed, they lose all access to it. If it's under a BSD-type license, they get it all for free. We need to educate our legislators on why Microsoft's stance is still wrong. The GPL is the best gaurentee that public code continues to benefit the public.
GPL doesn't destroy IP (author's maintain their copyright), it just destroys authors' ability to exert singular dominion over that property. So they still "own" or at least have originated, the source, they just cannot horde it. Property laws were written when it was obvious that no item could be simultaneously and exclusively owned or used by more than one person. With the advent of computing, product becomes a lot more like ideas, in that they are infinitely reproducably and non-appropriable, than like physical items. Hopefully it's just a matter of banging enough clue into lawmakers. It's not about what's fair (as Bill Joy is concerned), it's about what *IS*. Once we define what digital/intellectual property is, then we can start creating new solutions to the old fairness question (tackled in original patentsand copyright law). Un/Fortunately this will make some markets based on scarcity evaporate. ("Gutenberg, stop immediately! Do you realize what the printing press will do!?? People won't be beholden to a select few for their information and education! Terrible!")
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Tribes? :)
-IronWolve
http://www.tribalwar.com
My favorite quote:
..."quoted Allchin as saying, "I worry if the government encourages open source, and I don't think we've done enough education of policy makers to understand the threat
Should actually be read:
"I don't think we've "donated" enough funds to the U.S. government so that they see our way as being the only alternative in this matter."
Co-founder and designer at Music Nearby: http://musicnearby.com
c:\winnt\system32>strings ftp.exe
!This program cannot be run in DOS mode.
Rich[:
.text
`.data
.rsrc
WSOCK32.dll
ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US
GetConsoleMode
CreateFileA
KERNEL32.dll
@(#) SOMEONE SET US UP THE BOMB
exe\ftp.dbg
!SEINEEW ERA SREENIGNE EPACSTEN
.exe
cpeterso
This makes me ask the following questions: If he meant the GNU GPL then why didn't he say that instead of saying "open-source"? Did he say "open-source" instead of GNU GPL because he does not know what he is talking about? Is MS really trying to say "If a license does not allow us to take the work and ideas of others for our own profit then its a bad license." ? Mr Allchin, if you can not say what you mean then could you please shut your hole?
I might be mistaken, but last time I heard, the greater majority of innovation does not come from taxpayer funded projects. In fact, we could really do without most of the taxpayer funded "innovation". The IRS and other taxpayer funded entities are innovating in ways I would prefer them not to.
Microsoft's position is obvious, of course. They don't want the US Federal government creating any universal policies to support only Open Source products as other countries have done. Microsoft is well aware that while Linux may not offer 100% of the "features" that Microsfot products do, it wouldn't be much of a stretch to adapt, especially if there was some work put into it.
Also, if there was interest in large scale budget cuts, the Microsoft tax would be a significant factor. Microsoft is well aware of this fact, as they would feel it from the other end.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
But taking a second look, the Win32 TCP stack doesn't compare to the BSD stack, so I don't even know where this comment is coming from.
If you don't believe me try it for yourself.
What's this? This is like when your friend is eating lunch and says "My god! This soup tastes like crap! Here, you try it..."
Sorry, but I fell for that once, and the second time is "shame on me". ^_^
The enemies of Democracy are
You are entirely correct, there is no proof. I was under the (apparently mistaken) impression that Windows 2000 used FreeBSD's IP stack because of nmap OS fingerprint results.
Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
I'm proud of my Northern Tibetian Heritage
I wonder what they really have up their sleeves? I mean what kind of mega corp would be making statements like this. What are they really afraid of? Are they scared if everyones making free software they won't make any money? Are they afraid that they can't make software any better than the free software that is out there? Maybe I'm giving them to much credit to think this is a part of something else. But I can't help wondering what the real deal is because it seems so ludicrous.
cpeterso
It isn't open source that's supporting Alan Cox, it's the work he does for RedHat, oh errr...
Could someone please explain to me what this means? The Microsoft speak is too thick for me.
If software is taxpayer-funded, then the taxpayers should have a right to use it; the GPL doesn't prohibit that.
If it has a GPL license to begin with, then whoever adds to the project should be educated as to what that means. Personally, I think that people should be educated on the terms of Microsoft's standard licensing agreements--they look much more sinister (here's one; spot the violations of your rights that the DMCA will legalize...).
If it doesn't have a GPL license to begin with, then don't use the GPL if you don't want to, or release it under multiple licenses instead. Nothing should stop you from doing that.
And what does 'innovate' mean in this context? I have yet to see Microsoft innovate, but they use the word all the time. Does it mean "make money", or "exploit the user"? How are they (mis)using that word?
Will the real Bruce Perens Please Stand Up
I think he might be thinking of Andrew Tridgell (Australian author of samba and rsync) and Linus Torvalds (Finnish author of Linux).
Australia is definitely near the top of the list if you're comparing to Equatorial Guinea, Nauru, Kyrgyzstan, and Surinam. Otherwise I think you're suffering from a wee bit of myopia.
I think what he was saying was Australia is one of the biggest contributors per capita. For a country with only the population of the greater New York area, a lot of massive developments have come out of it. There would be no Samba without Australia, and no Enlightenment. (Say what you want about E, but Rasterman initiated the radical change from old-style FVWM window managers, to the new Desktop environments, like E, Gnome, and KDE).
A lot of Gnome developments have come out of Australia, and many Debian gurus are Australian (including the Release Manager, I think). Much of the cutting-edge Linux kernel/file-system experimentation is done in Australian universities, and quite a lot of miscellaneous network development is done by Aussies. Overall, Australia's contributions to Free Software can't be disregarded.
I agree with you, many European countries have made larger contributions than are generally recognised, especially Germany (which is where many KDE developers are from, IIRC). This is the point the earlier poster was making: the U.S. Government shouldn't try to restrict Free Software, because it is a global movement, not just one based in the USA.
If Microsoft are getting genuinely worried about the GPL, as this article would suggest, then it would seem that it's working.
I personally cannot wait for the day when we don't need to worry about software licenses because there is no such thing as non-free software. Until that day, I believe we need to release (almost) all our code under the GPL, or we have the potential to unwittingly help those who are against freedom (witness the large chunks of BSD code within the various MS operating systems). Microsoft speaking out so strongly against the GPL proves that this is obviously the correct tactic to be taking.
--
Blaming GW Bush for the Iraq war is like blaming Ronald McDonald for the poor quality of food.
Or do they think that one day the film will become a source of income again?
Hey wow, I didn't catch that ftp uses BSD code the first fifty times I read it. Thanks for pointing it out. You people are so utterly pathetic, that you take one little utility out of the whole system and make it your, ah ... point? Assuming you had one?
As a matter of fact, can you point at any other command line utility besides ftp? You did say "any", didn't you?
--
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
Grow up. Microsoft mentioned GPL in a series of very lame, generic statements. It doesn't sound like somebody who's scared to death, or someone who even cares too much.
If they were, they'd say something meaningful. If that's possible from m$.
----------
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a 747 filled with CD-ROMs.
IBM® Developer Kit for Linux® on Itanium(TM)
IBM-SOAP has been contributed to form the Apache SOAP project.
IBM is major contributor to Apache's Xerces-J code base
Computer hardware giants Hewlett-Packard, Intel, IBM, and NEC are joining together to fund an independent, nonprofit laboratory to help speed the development and testing of enterprise-targeted Linux projects.
Vested interest? Sure. IBM is not the powerhouse they used to be but IBM, Intel, HP, Sun (etc) do know how to play the capitol hill fiddle.
It will indeed be a very, very interesting next couple of years.....
Like Allchin did, you seem to have confused the meanings of "Open Source" and "Free Software". Open Source is more about the source being "open" because doing so allows for a superior model of software development and not so much a political or ethical mantra like "Free" (as in freedom) software.
If Microsoft is afraid of the GPL disadvantaging them, they should start to ask themselves why people would choose to use a license which restricts them.
The answer is pretty simple: self-interested businesses like Microsoft have demonstrated themselves to be so often prone to abusing the good-will of people that they are now opting to choose to limit that capability by choosing a license like the GPL.
While I'm certainly one to contribute cash gifts to schools, I do not see much harm in a University generating some revenue on liscencing, but there is the control question.
If I developed a revolutionary new process for my graduate work and my university claimed it as their property (as I used their facilities, heat, light, etc. in the pursuit. How would I be able to continue development in the public or private sector?
--
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
The difference is that the GPL is based on copyright, not use.
With a EULA, you have a right to do anything you want with the software (the media's yours-- you bought it), until you open it. Then your opening of it binds you to the terms. Basically, the fact that you're using the software means you must have agreed to the license.
With the GPL, you can do anything you want with the software, except distribute it. The copyright is owned by the author, which means you don't have the right to distribute it, unless you accept the terms of the GPL.
There will never be a case of GPL violation that goes before the courts. If someone violates the GPL, they will be sued for copyright infringement. They will then have to prove:
a) that they accept the GPL
b) that the GPL permits what they are doing.
The problem with Microsoft's statement is that merely copying code that someone else wrote is NOT innovation!
Innovation is coming up with something new of your own. What Microsoft wants to be able to do is to take a piece of code developed by public funding and use it whole-hog in their own products. Clearly this not innovation, it is COPYING!
If someone releases a piece of code under the GPL that expresses an innovative idea, Microsoft is perfectly free to use the underlying idea in their products without encumberance, so long as they write their own implementation. How is this a threat to innovation?
Cimminy.
MOVE 'ZIG'.
I think it is pretty obvious which License is written with charity in mind, and which isn't.
One more point: the file formats of Free Software projects may become the de facto standard for the government and people who deal with the government (i.e., all U.S. citizens at a minimum). This effectively toasts Microsoft Office's monopoly.
OpenSourcerers
They simply misread "BSD license" for "BSOD license". I'm surprised that haven't sued the guys at UCB.
"The cost of freedom is eternal vigilance." -Thomas Jefferson
What could be more unamerican than the destruction of a free market? One shoe fits all and by the way, it only comes in black. Enjoy your rental warez, sheep.
What could be more "american" that people communicating ideas and building a better future for all? When did greed and competition displace hard work and cooperation? (it's rhetorical, folks, i know when it happened).
Why shouldn't the government spend money on gpl coding and products? They are already spending horrendous amounts of my tax dollars in corporate welfare for Microsoft, every fscking year.
There right wing corporate welfare (Hi, Mr. Gates) and left wing social welfare (you could work, but ya don't).
I would very much like to see some seed money from the gov to open source and gpl projects. Just cut back on the MS welfare and spend it on Linux.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
No open source product can stand against SQL Server
All in all I pretty much agree - but what about postgresql & GPLInterbase (Phoenix?)?
But wait till they clairify it even more. What they are really getting at, beating around the bush, is the fact that they don't want the so call "software crisis" solved. Because in doing that the whole foundation upon which MS has built it's empire will crumble. But Ma, if the software industry can't keep up with the task to be done then why not make the whole process of programming easy enough for everyone? Yep, it's most certainly possible!!!!!!!
3 S.E.A.S - Virtual Interaction Configuration (VIC) - VISION OF VISIONS!
So they favor the BSD license over the GPL because they don't want to give and take, just take.
Sounds a lot more like freedom to MOOCH than to innovate.
..but the question should perhaps be 'do we want IP in the software business?'.
I personally hope that IP ownership has reached its high water mark and will recede a little. I thank God that Knuth and numerous other giants didn't/wasn't able to patent all the algorithms they devised, otherwise every Computer Scientist would need to have an army of lawyers going over his code with a fine toothcomb.
I think that some form of IP protection is needed, but not the current 20 year duration that software patenting places on some ideas, or the injustices of the DMCA. A good wheeze for MS would be to write a new version of Windows with ROT-13 code and thus say that anyone who reverse engineers their products has broken the DMCA.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Actually, the GPL is even more fair use than lending books through public libraries. After all, libraries take books that were written with commercial interests and make them available for free or a nominal fee.
The developers of GPL'ed code, however, know from the beginning that it will be available away for free.
C - the footgun of programming languages
In other words, Microsoft representatives warned, "anyone who adds or innovates under the GPL agrees to make the resulting code, in its entirety, available for all to use ... [which] might constrain innovating stemming from taxpayer-funded software development."
Isn't this a contradiction or at least misleading? Why should taxpayer-funded development be owned by someone else than the public? To me it seems as if the GPL protects something here. To these Microsoft guys, everything that is free is not profitable and thus a thread.
It just amazes me how Microsoft has been interpreting the word 'Innovation' these days.
It also doesn't make Microsoft good or bad.
I'd rather spend my time working out reasons to lower taxes, increase education spending, get rid of dumb ass George Bush for president and get the economy back on scale
And guess what, businesses need to make money off IP and everything else they make money off of to provide you software. Commercial/GPL/Free or downright public domain, it doesn't matter. Someone has to support it. Your dumb ass comment about "For every small company that can't make money writing GPL software, there are 500 that can make money by using it" is pathetic as well. How can software evolve if 500 people are using this piece of software in a different solution? Is the community not only supposed to use thee software but support it as well?
Don't you know that 99.9 percent of the people who exist and use computers, use them to solve specific issues? How can a computer be of assistance to people who want a solution rather then a piece of software for free?
I pay for a quality. Believe it or not, Microsoft's software as of lately is pretty damn amazing.
I've got a 1,200 dollar PC that can play MP3's, Watch DVD's, Surf the net, email friends, chat, do my taxes, play games, trade stocks, and most of all work.
I paid for that right, and i chose microsoft products on that PC because they are powerfull enough, simple enough and stable enough to get the job done.
I also chose linux for my server for the same reasons, powerfull enough, simple enough and it gets the job done. BUT i also BOUGHT linux becuase i don't have time to goober around with everything when there is a whole world outside begging time and i'd rather be out in this world then sitting around saying everything should be free.
>>In other words, Microsoft representatives warned, "anyone who adds or innovates under the GPL agrees to make the resulting code, in its entirety, available for all to use ...
In other words, "The people who wrote the original code licensed under the GPL have the audacity to tell us (Microsoft) how we can use their code!!!" Imagine that...
Is is possible that Microsoft just doesn't understand the definition of the word "innovation"? It seems that MS thinks that 'innovation' is a financial term.
This was a fairly big deal for me and I wasn't even on the Internet Explorer team. Imagine the grilling those guys got.
Other companies may covertly use GPL'd code, but Microsoft is very, very anal about avoiding it. They understand that they are a target; they are always under the spotlight and cannot afford the PR disaster that would happen if they were caught using GPL'd code in a non-compliant fashion.
They may implement something from scratch, or find an alternative, but it certainly won't be done by the same people involved in an audit of GPL code.
Best regards,
SEAL
First point, sure the GPL forces derivitaves and modifications to be released also under GPL and this IS more restrictive than the BSD and other liscences. I'm not that fond of it all the time either..... But Microsoft? Isn't that like the wolf calling the greyhound a threat to the lives of sheep everywhere? How open source software of any breed can possibly be seen a threat to innovation by Microsoft, land of NDAs and open-source rip-offs, is beyond me.
Secondly, the "intellectual property" that the GPL restricts ripping off of is NOT the same as restricted innovation. Do you see a cool and innovative idea that you want to use in your product? THEN WRITE THE SOURCE FOR IT FROM SCRATCH! Original works that are based on a premise or idea that isn't patented was fair game under US Code last I checked.
How GPL software can ever be more of a threat than closed source software in government work, software that always come with plenty of potential for sabotage and bugs and little peer review.... I'll never understand that argument.
Bill, fire this idiot.
A single thing is clear in the article. Microsoft is scared to death.
Finding why is quite easy. RMS wanted to kill IP, or at least to guarantee that you can use a computer without selling your soul. He deserve credit for starting the fight.
But MS didn't care about RMS.
Then linux came. A toy operating system. MS was a bit scared by linux, because it attacked its bottom line. They used FUD tactics against it, and failed miserabily, because it only gave linux more momentum. MS could have destroyed linux a few years ago (hiring key developers, releasing a MS linux, playing strong-arm with early adopters and media, dealing with EOM to close hardware, obfuscating protocols, actively detroying linux paritions at install, challenging the GPL, pushing BSD ahead), but the anti-trust trial probably prevented this to be done at full force (they did a bit of everything, but no real move). All in all they were not really scared.
Then, in a couple of years, IBM embraced linux, Sun embraced GPL, several office clones where released, desktop environments were becoming standard. This is scary.
What are the key applications of MS ?
* The OS. Free OS exists
* Internet Explorer. A key app to get people hooked to windows. Mozilla exists, and can't be destroyed.
* Office. Office clones exists.
* Backoffice. This is ta big advantage remaining. No open source product can stand against SQL Server or Analysis Services. But joe random user don't care.
* Visual Basic. Another advantage, cause it is the de-facto development standard on windows. They integrate it in every app, to make it ubiquitous.
* Third party apps. Mostly DirectX games (see around yourself people that use computers. What are the apps they use that have absolutely no free counterparts ? Recent games. Most lusers I know that run windows at home uses IE/OutlookExpress/Word and 5 or 6 games). Be sure that the x-box strategy is the to re-inforce that.
Anyway, FUD have been showed not to work.
GPL prevents embrace and extend.
Note that the sole protection (beside its huge amount of users) of 'open source' is the GPL. This is what prevent MS to "compete" (ie: getting inter-operability by using the code, modifying code, then preventing open-source to play catch-up).
Anti-trust trial is over (anyone that think that US govt will do anything is dumb beyond belief).
Microsoft is flexing its muscle and will probably try many simultaneous tactics.
Getting govt to refuse GPL would be a huge point to them. What they really want is probably to get universities to ban GPL (something like : you can't get govt fund if you produce GPLed code, or better, if you use GPLed code). It is a war for developer mindshare. It'll take years to get that. They need to pervert public perception of the GPL. They need to dramatically decrease the amount of GPL developpers.
Another attack angle that is obvious is the divide tactic. MS will play BSD against GPL. Unfortunately for them, the issues of GPL vs BSD are well known, and most intelligent people understand that both licenses have their use (and LGPL have its use too).
An interesting attack angle is the court challenge of the GPL. You can bet that millions of dollars are currently spent to find how, and to bribe key people. But will MS have the balls to challenge the GPL ? This would be a disastrous PR, in an order that have never been done before. They may loose big time.
Most promising angle of attack, is to totally change the rules of the game. Getting content protection into the hardware, promoting the use of 'trusted' system software and 'trusted' media applications, is a way to prevent *any* digital media to be delivered to open-source platform. OTOH, it is also a way to push people into a 'free' media system. After all, it is the proprietary software mess that started the free software movment. Making media distribution proprietary is perhaps the best path to a free-media system...
Anyway, the free software camp is getting stronger everyday. It will definitely be an interesting fight.
Cheers,
--fred
1 reply beneath your current threshold.
Allchin's concerns, eWEEK was told, stem from GPL paragraph (2B), which states, "You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License."
... [which] might constrain innovating stemming from taxpayer-funded software development."
Are they saying that my creating/innovating something, then licensing it under the GPL so that it will exist in the state that I desire (free as in speech), is un-American? Isn't that what the Microsoft EULAs included with all their software, even their "free beer-ware", is designed to do?
In other words, Microsoft representatives warned, "anyone who adds or innovates under the GPL agrees to make the resulting code, in its entirety, available for all to use
How is it un-American for hundreds/thousands/one or two people who work for the government (any government) to take their paychecks (taxpayer money), purchase a PC and Net connection, and use those taxpayer-funded resources to create a mail/groupware client that will handle text/RTF/HTML/XML email, calendaring, To-Do lists, address books and collaboration WITHOUT automatically running the Virus of the Week before the user can stop it?
Perhaps it's because the GPL is not a profit/vulnerablility/upgrade-protection license.
--
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
As for the GPL license, I don't particularly like the policy behind it, and I think RMS's recent approach to using it is too heavy handed. But, then, I don't particularly like Microsoft's "we own your firstborn son" licenses either. The legal foundations on which they are based are similar, and if Allchin complains about the GPL, well, he might lead the way and get rid of Microsoft's heavy-handed licenses. See, what Allchin is really saying is that he is concerned when other people use copyright and software licensing laws in ways that interferes with Microsoft's business.
And he probably senses that economically open source software is a threat to his company because open source makes sense: it is finally a good mechanism to distribute software development costs equally, whereas all Microsoft can offer is having customers pay hundreds of dollars year after year for "improvements" they don't want in the first place.
Well, tough cookies, Allchin. Basic economic theory tells us that in an efficient market, Microsoft won't be making much in the way of profit. So, learn to live with it, and innovate a bit on the software side for a change.
. . . that Microsoft does get what they're asking for. What will happent ot open source software as it exists today? If US universities can't/don't produce GPL'd source do we suffer any? Some of the best hackers I know of exist OUTSIDE the US. And there's no way in hell the government is going to tell me that I can't write open source in my own home. Open source will continue regardless of whatever rhetoric they throw at legal authorities.
"If I were to ask you a hypothetical question, what would you like it to be about?"
the vi/emacs debate. of course they will probably remind everybody that the dos editor is best.
"This only restriction of the GPL exists to prevent code from becoming locked away - something that the BSD does not prevent"
If that was all it di, then the requirment would be that you only had to release the GPL Code in source form with anything that you distribute. That way the GPL code couldn't be locked away.
Spot on. Moderators, up the parent of this thread!
/. readers with first hand experience with Allchin? (most people who survive a double-barreled "negotiation" with an experienced M$ hit-team tend to take the cash and move to a tropical beach or teach kindergarten and never touch a computer again).
Allchin is a thug. An intelligent thug, but a thug nonetheless. He plays the heavy in negotiations where M$ are trying to bully a smaller company into giving away their only asset for a pittance. Are there any
Allchin is a top-level M$ exec, and as such he must sit in high-level strategy meetings. Certainly the topic of these meetings is how to ensure their glorious leader can sleep better at night. So when a strategy committee punted around ideas on what is causing the holy emporer to lose sleep, the GPL came out as a major cause. The solution, obviously, is to attack the GPL by changing the laws it is based upon. If Disney can change copyright laws through the Bono act, M$ can tweak laws to eliminate the viral effects of the GPL.
So there is quite clearly a cleverly hidden M$ agenda to influence lawmakers in the US, and probably in the EU as well. Allchin just shot his mouth off to make himself seem smarter to some reporter, and tipped M$'s hand. Now they are in spin control.
If M$ follows their usual course of manipulation, there is already a "Political Interest Campaign" underway in Washington DC to "educate" senators on the evils of free software to the american way of life. There is a group of M$ lawyers creating some new laws which can be given to a senator's aides, and subsequently passed off as an original work by the "All-American Hero" senator. Those laws will change copyright slightly so the GPL loses its protections, and will cause the whole body of work to become public domain, or the copyright will be handed over to a "controlling IP body" similar to the MPAA/RIAA.
Others (TheDullBlade) are touching on these ideas in various threads, but missing the point on how the courts will be given new laws in which to invalidate the GPL.
Expect this to be a long and drawn out fight. I'll be keeping an eye on DG-13 activities for signs of changes to copyright law in the EU. Whatever influence M$ attempts in the US, they also tend to attempt in the EU.
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
I concur wholeheartedly. Exactly my observation.
Those guys at MS are smart dudes and they're not in the business of divide and conquer since yesterday. If you disagree with this view of things just look up and down this story-page and whitness the minefield of licence-bickering exploding left and right. The real problem is, that their tactic has a fair chance of success. Luckily though, not every OSS-activist is a licence-nazi (whatever his/her preferred might be).
-> just relax and leave the flamethrowers in the closet.
Roland
and oh yeah: Mod this Yohann-guy up!!
>Except that the GPL dosn't go activly seeking other programs to asimilate. Whereas Microsoft certainly enguages in this kind of behaviour
Okay... so the GPL is a sort of STD that turns people's hair blue? Like, everyone can see that your partner has it, but if you get it, it's your fault?
I'm tired
TheNewWazoo
If Microsoft is against the Government using freely-licensed code because it "might constrain innovating", then they leave the alternative un-explained. Would someone please explain to me how using closed code will make me more innovative?
> the federal government doesn't hold copyright on anything it creates, as it belongs to the people.
Cool !
You wouldn't happen to know a reference where I could read this?
"You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License."
Isn't that really saying that any GPL code you modified must be GPL'd and that when you sell the modified product you can't charge extra to give them the GPL licence. But can't you still charge for the code?
For example, I will give you this product for $20, but I can't offer to sell it for $10 under a non GPL license instead. Code costs whatever, but license must cost and be unconditional.
Granted if I sell it to you, you can give it away for free (or charge for the code yourself) but I still have ample opportunity to make money.
It's turtles all the way down.
Bear with me a moment. I'll get to what I mean by this.
Okay... MS's argument is that since the GNU license does not permit derived works to be non-free, programmers can't start with a GNU code base, improve on it, and make money off that innovation. Since programmers can't make money off of improving a GNU program, and trying to develop the same thing from scratch is much more expensive in terms of research, they won't be motivated to try. Their belief is that GNU software will lead to a propogation of mediocre software instead of the best that programmers can do (ignore for a moment the fact that this is clearly a case of the pot calling the kettle black)
An exact opposite of this license (that is, closed source, where reverse engineering is prohibited) is equally, if not more imposing on innovation. If code is protected by law, not only can a person not use that code as a starting point for research, but in some cases, it may even prohibit independant development of an improved solution (a specific example of this being DeCSS). At least with free software the stuff can still be developed, but by prohibiting the innovation of new ways to solve problems which have been locked and sealed by the law actually stops anyone else from ever even developing improved code in the first place. Which is a greater imposition to motivation to improve on an existing program? Cost? Or the threat of legal action if you do?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
What a surprise! I wonder why...? here you go, a license that lets you steal code, modify it a bit to make proprietary and will only run on your plateform, and the cherry on pie, you get to keep for yourself! Then when this 5 minutes job is finished you can call it.... INOVATION. Her... isn't what happened to Kerberos? Somehow I personaly find it hard calling inovation, a 5 minutes job modifying open protocoles to make them proprietary. No offense to you BSD guys but I think Micro$oft believe your license is definitely the best thing since sliced bread. Dom
Ban GPL is like banning public libraries, or trying to restrict books in schools - because it takes food out of the authors mouths - lost sales. Melina - how you you put up with this? Rightly ,fair use was established and enshrined. GPL is fair use. One thing for sure, Famous people donate to libraries and research. Those that attempt to pull this infrastructure down will go down as dogs and lepers. too late to clarify - your name is mudd.
It is worth noting that the GPL does not prevent Microsoft from using, improving or distributing the code. The GPL gives exactly the same right to Microsoft, as it gives to "the little guy".
The only thing that can prevent Microsoft from using GPL'ed code, is Microsoft itself. The restrictions imposed by the GPL, which are the same for Microsoft as for everyone else, may conflict with their business model.
What a great time to clarify this question. Can Joe Shmoe sell GPL'd software to the masses for a profit as long as he adheres to the terms of the GPL? Or is not making a profit on the software one of the terms? Yes, I am clear on the fact that Joe Shmoe can include a shiny instruction manual and support for money. If this is the case my next question is why not? The GPL is as American as warm apple pie. It brings competition to the playing field, something that the United States has always worked to achieve. What do you think Micro$oft intended to accomplish with these comments and why are they telling this to lawmakers? Are they trying to save their own asses or scare lawmakers into doing something?
This is one of those posts that will generate a lot of noise with only one signal: "Yeah, big surprise. They can and do rip off BSD so of course that kind of OSS is OK."
I think the real important thing to remember, and this may throw some logs on the GPL vs. BSD debate (although I hope we can avoid that) is that the GPL is working as intended. It's scaring the crap out of the guys who aren't willing to support the kind of freedoms that the GPL is engineered towards. Meanwhile, the BSD license falls in to an area that's total freedom in which everyone can do what they like, which is perfect for the juggernaut from Redmond.
I think at this point it should be painfully clear that the distinctions between Linux and BSD on a technical level are becoming slimmer and slimmer as they grow towards each other in terms of implementation, while the ideological gap caused by their licenses grows wider and wider.
In the end, I suppose it comes down to how much you value the freedoms of your rulers (i.e. Microsoft). Because rulers get special powers (such as the force of a monopoly) do they get to retain the same rights that you have that are in place largely to protect the little guy? Your answer to that question pretty much determines the license you should release your code under and vice versa, so choose wisely.
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
The GPL is definately a borg-ish license (funny considering the picture of good old Bill that slashdot uses). This isn't a bad thing, but it is accurate.
Maybe we need an RMS Borg icon too!!!
Look, I'm as big of an advocate for open source as the next guy, but I'm sick of hearing people complain about Microsoft and their intellectual property. Why? Because it's a company that spends billions of dollars on creating products, and that gives them every right to hide their source and distribute their products how they see fit. Just because you pay for a product doesn't give you the right to the knowledge of how it was built. When you buy a car, do you get a set of blueprints? When you go to McDonald's, do they give you the recipe for the secret sauce? When you order telephone service, does that give you the right to use the phone line for whatever you see fit? Of course not. And just because you bought Windows doesn't mean you have the right to the source code. Further, Microsoft's attempts to squash open source software are futile. There is so much legislation that goes through congress all the time that's utterly mad and gets rejected, as will this. Therefore, it makes no sense to attack the other side with the same fury as your opponent. Declaring that closed source software is evil in retaliation that open source is evil is equally as retarded. Both models have their strengths and weaknesses, but that should be left for later discussion. Out.
He can return the product for a full refund.
Unlike the product he produces.
If that is what you're saying, that's quite an interesting point of view and I can only wonder how the courts would interpret that. I assure you that one day this will be argued in front of the Supreme Court.
-bugg
if microsoft doesnt like opensource, then they don't opensource their products, right? no one's telling them to, why should they be able to tell companies not to? i'm not exactly familiar with either the GPL or BSD liscences, but i assume that a company or developer knows exactly what they are doing when they release a peice of software under one of them; if someone writes a program, it should be used exactly as the author wants it to be, and if they want it opensource, who's gonna tell them they cant do that? that's the way i see it. as far as microsoft goes, i've never liked or even respected them, but they do have a lot of credibility (as about 80% or therabouts of desktop computers are runing their software), so they may have a big impact on this issue.
First some assumptions:
1) You have the right to expect payment for software you have written.
2) You have the right to set whatever payment you want for the software you have written- if you don't like it (or think I'm asking too much), *don't use my software*.
3) Using someone's software without paying for it is *piracy*.
So far, I don't think I've said anything so radical that Alchin would disagree with me. But here comes the twist. I define the GPL as payment in kind. The cost of using my software is that I get to use *yours*. The cost of being able to modify my code is that I get to modify yours. Quid pro quo.
If you don't like this deal, DON'T USE GPL'D CODE.
Here's the punchline. By advocating that you should be able to use GPL'd source code without paying for it in kind, that is *piracy*.
...that courts will rule that GPL'd software is in the public domain, especially GPL'd software that doesn't properly specify contact information to negociate other terms or even who actually owns the copyright.
I mean, shrink-wrap licenses are weak enough when they explicitly state who you're forming a contract with.
I think the viral licensing clause puts it on very shakey legal ground.
I also think that it could well be argued that the license is prejudicial against commercial software developers with malicious intent. The FSF propaganda supports this ("It's exhilarating standing up to an evil empire." anyone?). This might be enough to break the GPL legally.
I just don't think the GPL will stand up in court against a serious attack by a large commercial interest. It really stretches the bounds of contract law, and was, after all, designed to attack proprietary software developers.
Then there's the question of whether a lawsuit against a GPL violator could actually be awarded damages. The copyright holder is not using his copyright to secure a profit for himself, and it's damage to just such a profit that's supposed to be reimbursed in a copyright suit; you're not supposed to be awarded damages just because you don't like the way the violator makes his living. The courts might very well toss out all cases as frivolous.
---
It's a commen myth, again repeated by the Microsoft drone, that says that software funded by public money is somehow different from other software and is somehow magically always Open Source. This is simply not true.
I've written software at several universities in the US and Canada. Generally either the *university* owns the rights and licenses the software -- take a look at the Internet Explorer "about" box some time -- you'll see that Microsoft licensed the original NCSA Mosaic source from the University of Illinois. The authors had nothing to do with that (as several of the authors left to found Netscape, I'm sure they weren't in favor of giving Microsoft a helping hand)
Or as in incentive for working there, a university may choose to give all rights to the originators. This is in fact the policy of the University of Waterloo and resulted in many spinoffs such as WATCOM and Open Text.
I have nothing against the GPL -- indeed I have written a gene-finding program that is licensed under it. However nothing except my own wish to do so required me to do so.
1. MS EULA takes away rights.
2. GPL grants rights.
Also, although neither has been fully testing in court, given the nature of contract law, it's questionable whether the MS EULA is enforcable (was there compensation from both sides, was it agreed to by both sides, etc). GPL, on the other hand, includes clauses that cover all the aspects of contract law I studied in my one term of it (offer & acceptance, consideration, lawful purpose, proper form. The only questionable one would be competence of the parties, since it depends on whether or not you're competent).
This is why they say 'stifling innovation' whenever anything demonstrates the absence of innovation on their part.
If the goal of establishment of Intellectual Property is to create economic advantage for the holder of IP, then yes, the GPL will remove the economic advantage of IP over time. Sometimes the IP is expressed as software.
The GPL does exactly what RMS intended.
The fun part will be to see if Microsoft can gain traction on pointing out the IP issues, trotting out how Corel had trouble compling with the GPL, How the GPLed embedded linux in the virgin webplayer was not abided by. I can hear it now.... "if the GPL is *SO* simple, why did corel blow it? How about the failed Virgin webplayer....did it fail because of GPL enforcement?" If they can get companies to feel the 'advantage' of the GPL is a 'disadvantage', the people who've been pushing "open source == GNU/Linux" will have to scramble to start pointing out the existance of BSD.
Microsoft has been able to bury various products by Lotus, IBM, WordPerfect, Borland, Corel and Novell. The GPL might just suffer the same fate.
Let the games begin!
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
Allchin must be high on something to slam the GPL. I would much rather see a large group of programmers be innovative on a GPL'd project, instead of some corporate wacko and his group of what he calls "the best of the best" ramming similar stuff down our throats that is over-priced, and not of the best quality.
With this statement Microsoft is trying to obfuscate alchin's comment so it doesn't sound so stupid. That's where the taxpayer-funded part came in. It's just there to confuse, since it makes no sense and they don't elaborate.
They also pointed out very clearly their next target. It's the GPL and they have it firmly in their sights. Believe me when I say that, even as we speak, there are many lawyer man-hours preparing for a full blown attack of the GPL being paid for in Redmond. They are most likely preparing to come down on the GPL with all their might as soon as their antitrust case is resolved (or settles down, depending on Bush).
I will be anxiously awaiting Microsoft's big move as it is sure to be impressive.
"just connect this to..."
BZZT.
Liberty.
That isn't proof. WinSock is the Windows Socket interface, which is based on the Berkeley Socket interface. The WinSock DLLs convert the mostly standardized socket API into the native Windows's networking interface.
This does not indicate in any way that the Windows TCP/IP stack is derived from BSD code. (Although, I wouldn't be surprised if it was. nmap misidentifying Win2k as BSD is a bit suspicious.)
---
The Hotmail addres is my decoy account. I read it approximately once per year.
One thing I remember from a Prior Project was that the Men In Suits did not want us to use gcc (actually glib) because of the GPL. They actually had read the Offending Paragraph and felt that, of course, linking in this GPL software would require anything we developed to be GPL as well. Not that we did anything all that Intellectual to keep as their Property, but nobody wanted to mess with it.
I say all that to lead up to this: there surely is an aweful lot of proprietary software out there that was linked with glib and nobody has released it under the terms of the GPL.
Now, a reasonable effort must be made to defend a Trademark in order to keep it. Could some judge somewhere decided that the very proliferation of proprietary software using glib has thinned the GPL's hold on it?
Source code should be truly free, not open source free. Im not saying that no source should be GPL, I am just saying that GLPed code is not truly free and people should not say it is.
With software no one can sell? They're a software company. They make money, and employ people, based on being able to sell software. It isn't possible to make money selling free software - the pricetag just doesn't allow for much of a profit margin. Why do SUN and IBM support the GPL? Because they're hardware companies. Software is trivial to them. Now for all of you bashing Intellectual property, think about this one. Do you make a living programming? You won't without IP. How many people is VA Linux going to lay off? You can only make money (and this includes making a living programming, not big greedy monsters like Big Bad Bill) so long as you can make people pay you for your work. If your work is available for free, who would pay you for it? ESR seems to have answers to this, but they're really the same reason that SUN and IBM support OSS: they don't care about software, they make hardware. ESR also concedes that OSS is not right for every project.
M$ is not trying to ban the GPL. They are trying to get publicly funded projects to use the BSD license instead. This is not an unreasonable request. Basically, if software development is funded by everyone's tax dollars, why should it be licensed in a way that discriminates against some taxpayers?
BSD licensed software can be incorporated into GPL software or proprietary software. Hence, it is symmetrical and unbiased in this debate. That is appropriate for something publicly funded.
Now, a good case could also be made for licensing publicly funded software under the GPL. Namely, that it is not in the public interest to encourage the growth of proprietary software, which has proven to be harmful. My point is that this is a legitimate debate (if you even think the government should be funding software development, which is itself a legitimate debate.).
From what I remember he should have been protected by the whistle blowers act but MS disregarded that too and they eventually settled
Microsoft defends cookie jar
I'm glad that gave this little clarification. I can only assume then, that they would have no problem with me writing shell to replace explorer.exe and copying a WinME CD with the replacement, and selling for my own $80 correct?
Feel free to point me to any false logic with that, until then I will be working on it, any feature requests?
Here's what they are REALLY saying now:
OK, open source is OK, when it is licensed under licenses like the BSD license where we can steal the code, "embrace and extend" it, and make it proprietary.
But that GNU license is UNFAIR COMPETITION... We can't make a MS Linux without having to reveal our source.. Sniff-Sniff. Why, that's UNAMERICAN to deny Corporate Rights...
Don't you all think that is pretty much what they are saying? That they hate the GPL because it prevents them from taking code and making it proprietary?
Also, I think it is obvious that MS is going to next try to challenge the legality of the GPL. M$ is trying to spin the GPL as evil, anti-American, etc to lawmakers and government types...
How do we counter this?
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
But now Microsoft has basically said he's evil. Which I'm sure, deep down in his heart, he has been waiting for. :-)
"Doubt your doubts and believe your beliefs." -- Switchfoot, Ode to Chin
I don't they want to get rid of the code. I think they just want to try and invalidate GPL so they can steal some code that is already released under it and claim that it furthers the inovation of "quality software".
Just because they say that's what they meant doesn't mean it's what they meant.
It's possible (hell, likely) that they were testing the waters-- seeing if anyone would support an "Open Source Software Is Evil" stance.
Now that they know it just makes them look dumb, they claim it's copyleft they hate-- which is something you'd expect them to hate.
And it all blows over.
What MS doesn't like about the GPL is that it prevents them from STEALING any code that is licensed under it! They sure would prefer everything be licensed under BSD, it would then be all theirs for the picking! And of course they have already DONE this with some BSD licensed code! (Then again, so has lots of people). The GPL is a two way street, BSD is a one way street. Both are valid models, it's up to the programer to decide what's important to him when he chooses a license.
Is it me...or whenever ms opens their mouth, only garbage comes out......
Slashdot Hypocrisy at work?
I think this is a misrepresentation of Microsoft's position. They are not claiming that tax funded software must not be made available to the public. Merely that people must be free to use that software as they choose and not be required to open source their software as the cost of using it. This is why they make mention of the BSD license.
This is not to say that I support Microsoft's argument, just that I wish to clarify it.
Can somebody explain to me the difference between a Microsoft EULA and the GPL? Both are 'by using this software, you're agreeing to the terms' type licenses. If the MS one is considered 'unenforcable' because you're not signing anything, negotiating anything, and need to accept it just to get at the software, why isn't the GPL? Not trying to troll, just honestly curious; they seem to me to be funamentally the same thing.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Keep in mind, the FTC wants to know why Corel failed too....
Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1992-1951
It only took them more than a decade to figure this out. What a crack legal team.
This is particularly amusing. Apparently the word "innovation" now means "take existing code someone else wrote, and sell it as your own after making possibly trivial changes". The BSD comments preceding this quote seem to support that conclusion as well.
It also shows a complete lack of understanding of the nature of open source. It's a GLOBAL effort, not an effort funded solely by the USA taxpayers. If it was possible to measure value to the Open Source community as contributed by country, I'm sure Australia and Finland would be at or very near the top.
So perhaps Australia should send a great big invoice to the USA government, demanding payment for all the code the USA has been using for free? No, because that's not the point of open source. The point of open source is to increase the value of software to SOCIETY AS A WHOLE, not to the select few individuals that happen to be in the right place at the right time when IBM decides to throw money around looking for a cheap OS for a rushed personal computer project.
I forget who said that you can judge a man by the enemies he makes. RMS and the GPL are looking better all the time.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Argh, that argument makes me mad everytime I see it.
Just because someone uses your code for their propritary software does not diminish its usefulness to you.
It is the same line of thinking that equates copying an mp3 with stealing a physical CD.
Open source software can continue to grow at the same rate as it does today, even if comercial software spins off of it all the time.
They can use your code, but they cant take it away from you.
unless they use patents, but that is a different story . . . .
--brent nelson
It's called (drumroll, if you please) INNOVATION!
So, what did Mickey$uck do to the BSD stack to break it so bad?
O'Toole's Commentary on Murphy's Law:
So, the problem with GPL is that MS cannot steal it and use it in their own products...
maybe i'm missing something, but what taxpayer-funded software is he talking about?
and, isn't the "problem" with free software that if people can freely redistribute and modify it, then sales of the original developer will be hurt, which would cause corporations to be less likely to develop software (and so called innovative technologies)? if the development is being funded by tax money, then there is no need to worry about sales. the developers would continue to do their thing anyway if all they are worried about money and it doesn't make sense to release the software under anything but a free liscence, since the development is already subsidized and freeing the software will win the support of a community of talented developers some of whom are almost always willing to contribute to a worthy project.
someone please clarify.
It seems to me that Microsoft's objective is to prevent the U.S. Government from using Linux or other GPLed products. A recent example of the sort of thing Microsoft is worried about is the NSA Linux project which is GPLed (of course) and the use of Linux at places involved in government-sponsored research like Los Alamos.
If the government starts large-scale development in a GPLed environment then companies like Microsoft will be affected in several ways:
From here the whole thing can snowball out of (Microsoft's) control. Personally, I like the idea.
OpenSourcerers
Um, I don't really know the history of BSD's entire development, but...
FreeBSD and GPL/Linux both are open-source. While Microsoft has a great deal to lose if GPL code is used or even influences their development, no such worry exists for people working on BSD implementations. Like GPL coders, there's a lot of independent/freelance/hobbyist coding going on in the land of freeBSD, isn't there?
What are the odds of there having been any code migrated from GPL to BSD inadvertently under a less-stringent standard than Microsoft is imposing on itself? I realize that, since BSD predates GPL generally, it's not much.
But still...
I get all warm & fuzzy imagining a countersuit from the GPL side of the fence on any code found to have made this migration. It'd potentially force Microsoft to share source for huge additions they've made to all code that 'embraced and extended' an invalid BSD copyright (and was instead held under GNU's license). I'm not just talking outright cut-n-paste copying of code. There's a stringent clean-room requirement enforced on commercial cloning, and I doubt that BSD can document that high of a standard. One coder having been exposed to a project in GPL and migrating to implementing it in BSD would taint things legally.
Incidentally, this is another reason to hate the DMCA's laws about decrypting/reverse-engineering a product. How could you ever prove it in court under that sort of restriction!? "I'm willing to pay my fine for reverse-engineering the code, your honor, but that's how I found out they used my stuff!"
it seems that microsoft is just trolling shouldnt everyone just let them spew and look like idiots all by themselves? i mean why wreck a perfect record!!
back in the day we didnt have no old school
Also,
4. If you modify the software or create other software that links against the GPL'd code, your new code also falls under points 2 and 3.
This is the viral aspect of the GPL, as it means that the original GPL'd code "infects" any new projects in which it is included, forcing them to be released under the GPL as well.
Here is the gist of how gpl destories IP.
Say I have a commercial code base, and have patented some truely unique idea in it. Government research releases something that has a lot of value for a lot of different products, so I want to use it to benifit my product too, except there is a catch, the gov released it as gpl. Now I can choose to use the work with my product and give up my patent to allow my code to because gpl along with the gov work, or I can choose to not use the goverment work and waste work that was supposed to benifit everyone.
There is a reason linux libraries are mostly lgpl.
True enough, except for the part about pure capitalism having failed. I don't believe that this particular experiment has ever been attempted.
And would the BSA storm in and stand up for our rights?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
There is no schism. It is imaginary.
__
__
Debian
Trying to justify what came out of Jim Allchins mouth is making you look real bad.
A better approach would be to declare Jim Allchin an idiot, this way it doesn't make it seem like everyone at the company is in the dark, just this one moron heading up the windows software development.
"The Most Fun Possible on 4 wheels" is at SunBuggy in Las Vegas
If there was a way to attempt to drive the dagger down the center of the free software/open software community this is it: Focus on what makes the GPL zealots and the BSD zealots dislike each other, the supposedly "viral" property of the GPL.
Never mind the fact that both appear to support an ethic of re-contribution of code (GPL does this legalistically.. BSD does this informally).
Microsoft is beginning to learn how to fight a community. The first thing you do is divide them.
This is why non-violent movements don't work as well these days. PR firms and lobbying interests have been very good at keeping activists focused on their differences, rather than their common goals.
Please don't let this happen here. If this becomes a larger public issue, don't let this divide the community.
apparently they still don't get it
they're saying it's the GPL specificaly that's the threat because it requiers that if you use GPL'd code in your program, you must release the source to the program in its entirety
I do wonder why they couldn't simply write their own code instead of stealing someone elses and thus not be constrained by the GPL? HEEEELLLLLOOOOOOO, Earth To Microsoft, This Is LOGIC SPEAKING.
They want to rip on only that code which they can't use themselves. (Techincally they *could* use GPL code, if they opend up parts of Windows' source code, but that's not going to happen.)
These hypocrites at MS aren't slamming open code in general, just open code that requires them to reciprocate. Code they can use without giving anything back for it they have no problems with.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
I am NOT free to use GPLed code without being FORCED to act accordingly. By using it, I am bound by the laws and philosophies of open source. People may say, "well if you dont like our mandate, then dont use the code." Now how is this freedom?
A software license should grant you the permission to use it freely (the real meaning of free, not the bastardized open source definition), while releasing the authors from liability.
Of course this post will be modded as -1 Flamebait by Andover and brainwashed open source groupies.
... NOT intellecual-property legislation.
"In other words, Microsoft representatives warned, "anyone who adds or innovates under the GPL agrees to make the resulting code, in its entirety, available for all to use ... [which] might constrain innovating stemming from taxpayer-funded software development.""
If someone wants to make money off of software, would it not be more appropriate for him to do the work himself, instead of leeching off the work of others and trying to keep all of it?
From this it seems that M$ is really trying to get the government to invalidate the GPL, so that they can get free access to all of the open code generated from publicly funded sources (For example, Universities.) and incorporate it into their products, allowing them to do things like "extend" open standards and continue their attempts at market dominance by keeping everything proprietary to Windows.
Yep, and I actually love it. This from someone who used to work with Photoshop several hours a day...and besides, I was tired of handing my files to people and saying, "Oh yeah, before you use that, make sure to convert that to CMYK, 'coz it's still RGB" if I'd been a weenie and used GIMP (and don't ever try to use GIMP for large images...friends don't let friends use GIMP for prepress.)
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
In my view, government funded software should be free for as many people (taxpayers) to use as possible - including Microsoft.
So I think it's entirely appropriate that the BSD software (probably the most widespread government funded software) is released under the unrestrictive BSD licence.
If Microsoft use the code, so be it. The point is, ANYONE can use it - there should be no exceptions just because we happen not to like certain people/companies.
(As an analogy, there are people in the world who I don't much like, and would rather they didn't profit off my software - but if I CHOOSE to release my software under the BSD licence (as indeed I do) then there's nothing I can do about this, and that is as it should be.)
The GPL on the other hand is less appropriate for government funded software, as it is more restrictive and places additional requirements on those who use it. These requirements may been seen by the free software movement as GOOD (and indeed I think that they probably are!), but that is not the point: EVERYONE should be able to use the government funded software as they wish, which they cannot do with the GPL.
Indeed, RMS very sensibly resigned from the MIT AI lab before commencing work on GNU, so the GPL licence is entirely justifiable here. But if the Berkely CSRG had decided to release their software under the GPL, I feel that would have been inappropriate.
arnald
The concept of free software is better, but the software itself is sometimes not.
My statement wasn't meant to imply that, though I believe it is often true. I meant "it is more desireably that a piece of software be open or closed", not implying a quality comparison between two specific pieces of software.
The enemies of Democracy are
...really?
So, where's my $50?
:-)
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
Got quickview installed? Good. Now plop winsock.dll and wsock32.dll into quickview. It gives you all the copyright info and everything. IT IS BSD CODE.
sheesh.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Youre damn right that microsoft loves the BSD license. Take open any microsoft command line utility (ftp.exe used as example here) and what do you see????
Copyright (c) 1983 The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
Sweet Jesus! Is this what I think I see? Shame this isnt linux code instead of BSD code.
I agree with everything you're saying except for this:
"Free software is better."
The concept of free software is better, but the software itself is sometimes not. Just because a program is open source dosn't mean that it's necessarly of a higher caliber than a given closed source program. Just something to think about.
-Aaron
I mean to say that when MS starts spouting off about "EVIL OPEN SOURCE IP DESTROYING HACKERS", we as a group need to respond.
When MS has thier silly little ad about a server that hasen't been visited in eons, it needs to get challanged. When they say they run better, we need to get in thier face and ask "Better How?" When they say .NET is the future, ask future of what, your bank account?
How about a not-for-profit (non-profit would be better, but they are pretty closely regulated by the states and subject to MS pressure on our "elected/appointed" officials to close them) that is dedicated to fighing this crap with our point of view? That is to say, take MS to task over this kind of shit.
As long as the OS and Linux horse lies there for the whipping, expect to get whipped. It's only when we fight back with our own law suits for libel or slander that we can stymie MS. What do you say? Too stupid to work?
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
MS won't last another 10 years.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
When the OS wars are over - Unix will be the winner, only it'll be called Microsoft Windows..
"Straddling the sword of technology..."
I started programming in the 1970's when software was closed and proprietary and things were a lot like what Microsoft probably thinks it wants today. Let me tell you, software was in a TERRIBLE state back then. It was a standing joke among programmers and systems designers how inept the in-house programmers at shops like IBM and DEC could be, on the rare occasions when people who ponied up 5-6 figures for "source licences" (usually readable printouts on microfiche!) had the chance to check what they were doing. Not to mention that the languages were painful and "human factors" consisted of remember which side of the fanfold printout sheet your answer tended to appear on, or what the PF2 key did on each of a dozen different screen forms.
All of this was swept away, blown away, and utterly transcended by the academic-centered and openly developed software revolution of the 1980's, which continued into the 1990's. Software had to adapt to the reality that "little people" could out-program the big houses in a few weeks or months of spare time work.
The GNU project and its open-source peers have been the engine that drives honest software development for years. Without them, those applications on the $1,200 PC would be about five times crappier than they are.
Open source and the GPL are not "destroying" commercial intellectual property - they are making it earn its keep, by setting the "bar" of functionality at a level where commercialware is forced to add real value or risk being ignored.
There is a role for both open source and commercial software. Neither community should waste oxygen trying to claim that the other is evil.
It doesn't make sense! Even if billions of bucks are put into some public coding, the coding is still there. If Microsoft uses it as they see fit, that is linking it to their own code, the original code is as free as ever.
Look at it this way: I write 30,000 lines of code. This code is fine and can be used in a larger project of maybe 3,000,000 lines of code, should these 30,000 lines determines how the rest should be licensed?
It is a matter of choice, but for public money I would prefer that a non-political license is used, like the BSD, so some may use it in a GPL project, others in their own way. That is freedom.
:-) = I am happy
:^) = I am happy with my big nose
C:\> = I am happy with my OS
In a similar move, Microsoft and Intel both made investments in Avid, the maker of the market-leader for video editing software. Sure enough, a while later, Avid declared that they were moving from Mac to NT. They deployed aggressive sales tactics to get people to make the switch. Then, when the people who actually use the software rebelled, they ended up largely dumping the move, stranding the poor fools who actually bought Avid for NT (which, incidentally, never worked as advertised).
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
TCP/IP stability and thoroughput is directly related to the rest of the OS. Just because the stack is robust, doesn't mean that the network card drivers, shared memory architechture, I/O buffers, virtual memory handling, and about a billion other "insignificant" things are up to snuff.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade