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RMS Responds To Allchin's Comments
Thanks to Dan Gillmor for pointing out RMS' response to the commentary from Microsoft's Allchin recently. The comments are pretty normal for RMS - the delineation between Open Source and the Free Software Movement, and what the differences are, as well as his non-opinion of "intellectual property". I've been notified that this response was a draft of RMS' - we'll update it with the final when it's ready.
I think Microsoft is basically making some assumptions about copyright that don't add up. Let's take a simple scenario: the government develops some software, and releases it under the GPL.
Now, if the government made it, they own the copyright, and as such can sell the code to interested parties such as Microsoft under a different license. Alternatively, Microsoft can get the code under the terms of the GPL gratis.
If instead the government had released the code under a traditional proprietary license, then Microsoft can still license the code if they want to "extend" it. They just don't have the option of extending it under the terms of the GPL.
Now, of course, if people make GPL'd contributions to the government's code, and the government incorporates those changes without getting copyright, then the "proprietary license" option disappears to a certain degreee. That being said, those are improvements that wouldn't exist at all under the traditional proprietary license, so I still don't see how this can be seen as a problem.
So, can someone tell me the scenario under which the GPL would give Microsoft, or any other "innovator" fewer options than if the code was released in the more common manner?
sigs are a waste of space
The criticism that the GPL harms innovation is obviously silly but what strikes me is that the Microsoft comments are heavily leaning towards portraying the GPL in a generally negative light.
They're probably hoping people won't realise you don't have to use it.
I couldn't give a good god damn less what you may or may not vaguely recall reading when this was a hotly-debated issue on slashdot several months ago.
My actual experience trumps your fuzzy recollections every day of the week.
For what it's worth:
Here's how it was explained on previous episodes of Slashdot versus Microsoft:
Kerberos is designed to be an Authentication protocol. Which means it can verify who you are.
It does not attempt to be an Authorization protocol, which means it has no ability to tell the system what rights you have.
A Unixy example of this is that Kerberos can tell your system that you are in fact a user named 'root'. What it can't tell the system is that you have a UID of 0 and therefore have Superuser rights. (MS is of course using their SID concept instead of UID/GID.)
Now, if you've had any experience with NDS or LanMan Domain security, you'd know that the primary purpose of directory systems is to centralize authorization management: mapping a single user list to a various ACLs and other privledges on hundreds or thousands of boxes around the world. So a non-extended Kerberos would have been useless to Microsoft, or anyone else trying to sell a directory management system to corporate america.
On the flipside, your company probably wasn't using Kerberos for anything unless you had some different system for mapping authentication to authorization in place. What sucks, is that right now, there is no mapping between the MS authorization system and any other system you might want to use. But you can see the possiblities -- a single login system that gets you Local Administrator on your NT box and wheel access on your Unix box.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Mosaic: Once again privatly funded research. NCSA Mosaic i belive.
;-) It was a publically funded, open source (before the term was coined) project from the start.
NCSA? Private? That would be the national centre for super computing applications, would it? At the university of illinois at Urbana-Champaign?
That's not what I call private funding
Similarly, of course, NCSA httpd, which started apache.
In fact, you could reasonably say that the web was invented in a free software environment. I'd call that a significant innovation.
I think ssh counts, too. Not open source now, of course, but the first versions were, and as far as I can remember, it was the first secure telnet thing. Maybe that was stelnet though (but that's open source too), or a kerberised telnet (oops, open source as well).
Jules
-- Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a perl script.
It should be clear from this paragraph that RMS is only interested in his own freedom, not your freedom. In particular, not your freedom to refuse to share.
It is not just his freedom, but the freedom of users everywhere. But, even ignoring this, he *does* respect your freedom to refuse to share. As you know (I know you know because I've seen your comments here before and I'm on your FSB mailing list), you can take a piece of GPL'd software, hack it to hell, and not distribute it. You can use it for whatever. What the GPL prevents, as you well know, is preventing people you give copies to from sharing.
So, your comment should read, "It should be clear from this paragraph that RMS is only interested in his own freedom, not your freedom. In particular, not your freedom to prevent others from sharing" (emphasis added). Now, proprietary software companies are founded on the basis that this is a true freedom - in particular, Microsoft (or at least Allchin) believes it to be so key to their business that other ways of doing things must be stomped out at all costs. But, RMS does not believe in a freedom to prevent others from sharing. Please don't misrepresent him.
Become a FSF associate member before the low #s are used
All right...
MS Bob(tm): Innovative attempt to introduce user friendliness to computing. So user friendly, if you typed your password incorrectly 3 times, it would offer to change it for you.
MS Ergonomic Keyboard: Combines a keyboard with breasts. As close as many geeks will ever get to touching breasts.
MS Wheel Mouse: May be an actual innovation. Seeing as how Microsoft defines innovation differently from the rest of the world, this one must have slipped through somehow.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
2) Even if they did and won, they'd have to go to the original copyright holders and ask permision to use the code or risk being sued for copyright violations. And they can't use any of my code if they don't accept the GPL. Period.
3) Many of these companies use the same tactics in their own licenses, but instead of granting you additional rights above and beyond copyright (As does the GPL) they take rights away. And they've pushed for legislation to strenghten their ability to do this. If the GPL falls, their EULAS would fall into question. They don't want that. The GPL is much more likely to stand than your run of the mill EULA.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
All the GPL being outlawed (which wouldn't happen, it would be more subtle), we wouldn't lose much. We'd rerelease it under the GPL. Very little is actually GPL'd because of the GPL. It is much more common for people to avoid the GPL because of it.
The Open Source community cares little for Free Software, but makes different demands.
If I announced that I was part of the "community" and would sell GPL licenses (which I can do, I just can't stop you from redistributing), you'd al flame me, while I'd be legally in the right.
The right to a downloadable ISO, web site, and ftp site, is NOT a right that the GPL ennumerates.
Why is this a war. RMS has the right idea. He didn't go and talk Netscape into open sourcing Navigator. He didn't talk AT&T into openning Unix, he went and wrote his own.
We need more coding, less Slashdot ranting. The goal isn't world domination. If you want the freedoms that the GPL provides, only use GPL'd (or less restrictive, a la BSD) licensed sosftware. If you want global domination, go grab your dice and a war game and play, otherwise stop with the mental masturbation.
RMS gets credit for many things. He is an idealist and DID something to make his ideals work. ESR is an opportunist who wrote an completely preposterous essay and tried to steal the thunder of someone actually doing something.
The whole "open source" process fails for large projects. All the significant projects are run by a small group. While Linux has many "contributers" the core team is small, and Linux's development is slowing because of the management issues.
The best free software (Emacs, Apache, Perl, Samba, GCC, etc.) are ALL small teams or individuals writing great code. Even if they get contributions, the direction is set by a small group. The "Open Source" projects that ESR talks about are among the weaker links (Mozilla is the prime example, but I'd argue that Linux falls in here... all the stability arguements are in contrast to Windows, which by engineering tradeoff has more features and less stability, not against other Unixes. Does anyone here REALLY feel that Linux stacks up against HP-UX, Solaris, AIX, or BSD 4.4 Lites in stability? I mean the kernel, not the mess of software).
The Mythical Man Month holds...
Open Source is the trojan horse to destroy Free Software. By focusing on the convenient instead of the ideals, once the Millions of Eyeballs theory falls to the Mythical Man Month, then Open Source becomes passe.
Show RMS some respect... y'all run his code, use his license, and piss on his work because it isn't convenient to placate your corporations?
What the hell?
Governments (US and otherwise) might choose to encourage free software by, for example, requiring software developed in academia with government funding to be distributed under the GPL. US policy was close to that until the Reagan years, when it switched to encouraging commercial exploitation of intellectual property developed in academia.
Governments might also choose to use GPLd software, with mods and extensions done by government employees coming out under the GPL. That's scary for Microsoft. Suppose, as a cost-cutting measure, the US General Services Adminstration made a decision that all government web sites would run on Apache, implementing it by ruling that higher priced (non-free) software could not be procured with Federal funds. That's what this is all about.
Well, the web started out in the FS/OS world- remember that Mosaic was the original basis of both Netscape and IE- or is that still too old for you? Of course the counter point is that nobody can come up with a new, user-facing product category that originated at Microsoft, either. Everything they do is copied from somebody else. Their implementations may be nice, but they're still copies of others' technology.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
Netscape were sued by the NCSA for the use of the name Mosaic, not the actual source, see here for details.
Unix, apache, sendmail, Mosaic (where both Netscape and IE sprang from) to name just 4. There is no one true path to innovation, it just irks me that the great imitator throws the word about as if they've had one original idea in the whole of their existence (unless you count Microsoft Bob or the dancing paperclip, I suppose).
If a group of people donate their time to build a house, does this hurt the home-building industry?
When doctors donate their time to help people (for free), is this a threat to doctors who just want to make money?
If I give a cup of sugar to my neighbor am I undermining the super-market?
Heck, if I grow food and give it away (which I do), I'm REALLY hurting people! Geesh! And I thought I was just being nice!
No, it is completely believable, because you omit a crucial part of the GNU goal: create a Unix-compatible operating system. With such a goal, it became possible for him to "eat the problem slowly by the sides", so to speak, for that way he could start working on existing, proprietary Unix systems. Make a little utility to replace cat -- trivial. Make a little utility to replace ls -- easy. Make a not-so-little utility to replace grep -- not so easy but totally doable... you get the point. If you make them with portability in mind, it makes total sense to attack the problem "outside in".
I'd also say the fact Linus' kernel fit so perfectly in that missing slot WITHOUT IT BEING LINUS' INTENTION speaks a lot for the wonders of portability.
Put a sticker on the distribution - "Contains GNU tools" if you like. After all, there isn't all that much stuff in your average Linux distro that couldn't be replaced with a non-GNU version.
Do you know of any free (as in speech) non-GNU C or C++ compiler? How about all those gazillion classic-Unix command line utilities?
Having said this, RMS is an extraordinary individual and people should have respect for what he has achieved.
Amen to that bro.
He's done a lot for the Linux community and he wants to be recognized. So let him ask that he be recognized
As a note - I see RMS as a very principled person, I dont believe he wants to maintain the "GNU/Linux" moniker simply to get credit for himself (and I don't see your comment as stating this succinctly, I just want to provide some clarity on what I believe to be the nuance of his purpose)
He wants to maintain the clarity in the Meat Space in order to keep focused on Free Software - which is undoubtedly his loftier and very amiable goal.
Allot of people believe RMS to be an egotist, based on his writing, but I see him as being more pragmatic - he is sticking to this 'GNU/Linux" point in order to reinforce and maintain the profile of his true goals.
Where does he say that? The exact quote please!
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
By the way, thanks for saying that the system's real name is GNU/Linux. However, it really helps to make things clear if you refrain from abbreviating it to "Linux". Then you can distinguish between GNU/Linux, the whole system, and Linux, the kernel. That would only have required 16 more characters in this article--and you could have won most of them back by replacing "usually known as just plain Linux" with "often called `Linux'"
This has always seemed to me to be one of the stupider things that RMS always harps on. I wish he would just give it a rest. Sure, GNU/Linux is technically more correct, but the world has standardized on Linux.
Well, let's see:
- I can vote for the officials who are going to govern me
- I can practice my religion openly, in contrast to two of my grandparents who were literally the only members of the families to survive the Nazis
- I can criticize the government without fear of retribution
And here's what I can't do:- Buy one copy of Quicken and install it on two computers
- Make my own carbonated beverage and sell it as Coka-Cola
- Break into computer systems I'm not supposed to be in
- Cause everyone else to vote for Ralph Nader
Yes, on the whole I think I'm way ahead of people in Malaysia, Saudi Arabia or China.You remind me of the Ask Slashdot where the questioner was waxing enthusiastic about life in countries that dodn't belong to the WIPO, like Afghanistan. Know what? If the right to warez is so important to you, go live in Afghanistan. Of course, the Taliban won't let you own a TV.
Richard Stallman writes: "The standard, free software version of Kerberos cannot communicate with Microsoft's modified Kerberos server."
a nn ing/security/kerbsteps.asp
I have a DECstation 5000/133 at home which was running NetBSD 1.5. (I'm now back to Ultrix 4.5)
I also have a Windows 2000 Server running Active Directory that I wanted to use as a Kerberos authentication server.
So I downloaded the latest Krb5 software from MIT's distribution site. I compiled this under NetBSD and installed the various binaries, etc.
I then went to Microsoft's site and read this document:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/library/pl
Which describes how to configure your Kerberos client to authenticate with a Win2k domain controller.
I sat back, opened a telnet session to the NetBSD box and successfully logged in to the box using my Win2k password.
This works, it works very well.
I'm planning to set my Sparcstation up to authenticate the same way, as well as my DECstation now running Ultrix.
Richard Stallman is wrong. The free kerberos can communicate with the Microsoft server.
Interesting. It never occurred to me before that the GPL is also an "embrace and extend" strategy. While RMS and Bill Gates seem to be polar opposites, they both play the game the same way -- Microsoft prefers that Microsoft code only play nice with other Microsoft code and RMS prefers that GPL code only play nice with other GPL code. Both hope to eventually conquer the entire software industry through network effects. The GPL uses viral licensing while Microsoft uses proprietary secrets, but it remains the same game, and Microsoft has been more successful at the game.
Does this make RMS hypocritical for criticizing Microsoft's "embrace and extend" practices while essentially playing the same game? His goals may be noble and selfless, but do the ends justify the means?
Deven
"Simple things should be simple, and complex things should be possible." - Alan Kay
The Open Source Movement is content to co-exist with proprietary software--that is why I do not support it. The Free Software Movement has a more ambitious goal, to replace proprietary software with free software that respects your freedom.
It should be clear from this paragraph that RMS is only interested in his own freedom, not your freedom. In particular, not your freedom to refuse to share.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
The Kerberos community was incensed when they saw this, but they had no way to stop it. Kerberos had been developed at MIT, and released as free software--but not under the GNU GPL. The lax license used for Kerberos was no bar to Microsoft's plans. If the Kerberos developers had released Kerberos under the GPL, Microsoft could not have undermined it in this way.
This doesn't make sense at all--Kerberos is an open protocol (RFC 1510), so how would GPLing one specific implementation prevent embrace-extend tactics? The worst that could happen is that Microsoft be declared non-compliant, but even that didn't happen because Microsoft was simply using bits specifically reserved for implementation-specific use.
This seems like such an obvious error, am I missing something?
--
Then, he throws the obligatory intentional misstatement: Why focus on the distinctions between open-source and free software? Allchin didn't address the distinction.... Pretty much guaranteed to draw a bevy of people screaming how Allchin explicitly drew the distinction between GPL and non GPL code and explained how it was only the GPL code that was Un-American.
Then, he employs the standard technique of quoting out of context, ala "I have no opinion 'intellectual property rights,' and if you are thoughtful you will have none either." Read the rest of that statement in the original story and you'll see what I mean.
The final part of Chuck's troll demonstrates his knowledge of the community he is trolling. In this case, he knows the /. geeks don't have much respect for the mental capacity of marketroids so he suggests Stallman, a mental giant, is not up to going toe-to-toe with marketers and executives.
I'd have to say, Chuck - you pulled out just about every trick in the book. And judging from the response, I'd say you succeeded.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
"A few atoms won't even light a match" - Dr Jones, 1933
Although it pains me to agree with an M$ representative who is speaking in his company's commerical interests, I must agree with Allchin that free software and open source primarily clone existing user-facing commercial products rather than innovating in that space.
Tim
You know what? I hold RMS in the highest respect. If I had to choose one reason, this would be it: the Free Software Foundation is not a "pet-project" to him that was interesting for a few days and then faded to the back of his mind. He believes strongly in something, and he does what he believes. Ten years later, he is still doing what he believes.
I can't believe anyone would complain that:
I'd like to know, if the distinction between two philosophies is a "tired argument" then what exactly is Microsoft's argument? Every single sentence that comes out of that company includes the word "innovative." Well, if Microsoft is so innovative, why do their products suck so much? Why, in order to increase their profits, do they have to send lawyers after a free software community? This is, after all, what this story is all about. They want to damage the community in such a way that will benefit them. Is that what you call innovation?Let me tell you what I believe. Innovation is finding out what is better for the consumer and then delivering a solution that satisfies all involved parties. Innovation is raising yourself by climbing higher, not by pushing others down. Microsoft actually never rises. They only push others down and step on them harder and harder. They constantly destroy the software industry for their own benefit. In my opinion, if anybody is spouting a "tired argument," it is Microsoft claiming how innovative they are. They aren't.
Richard Stallman, I salute you for your efforts. Keep up the fight and never give up.
To think intelligently about copyrights, patents or trademarks, you must think about them separately. My views about copyrights are too complex to fit in this article, but one general principle applies: they cannot justify denying the public important freedoms. As Abraham Lincoln put it, "Whenever there is a conflict between human rights and property rights, human rights must prevail."
I have never heard any coder so frquently invoke the mythological heroes of the American nation.
orwell's 1984 would call this doubleplusgood duckspeaking, i.e. lots of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
It makes a lot of open sourcers and free software folks feel good about themselves and their movement, when, at least in a small part of their souls, they should be at least somewhat concerned that Allchin's offhanded, unprepared commentary got such widespread press coverage.
The great abolitionists of the 19th century used their wonderful oratory to combat slavers, whose crude cuss words and uncouth bribes beat the orators every time. They had to fight a war to work it out.
RMS has to directly take on Microsoft et al. I work with a third party and I will tell you, high-faluting speech about abe lincoln will not win that war. What will win that war is systemic, on message and practical stuff about pertinent American values- in this case, free enterprise.
Goat sex free since 2001
Everything you need to know in order to fully understand the RFC-complaint changes that microsoft made to their Kerberos implementation can be freely found online or in the MSDN materials. A good place to start would be here.
The changes microsoft made were to make kerberos understand the more flexible security model and ACL scheme in Win2K, and are not at all an attempt to embrace and extend. If you're running Win2K, the changes are crucial. If you're not running Win2K the changes are irrelevant, so they're not going to entice people to migrate away from the MIT implementation.
This is a misreading of what he said. He did not say he was against them. He said he had no opinion at all on them because the whole term is too encompassing for one opinion to cover all the things the term covers. He's right beyond a shadow of a doubt here.
I would say this one attempt to misread what he said casts a great deal of doubt on your ability to make even the vaguest stab at objectively judging his opinions.
I will agree with you that he trotted out the whole 'Open Source' vs. 'Free Software' thing again, and it wasn't particularily relevant in this case. A few of the things he said are relevant though.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
He mentioned their decision to embrace and extend Kerberos in Win2000. I thought that this was a particularly good choice because it showed:
An example of free software so innovative that Microsoft wanted to use it (scratch the "Free Software stifles innovation")
How a BSD-style license, which Microsoft advocated, let them take it and
How Microsoft then turned around and screwed the people who had written the software in the first place by deliberately destroying interoperability
I'd like a large serving of evidence and proof please.
Having hacked around the binaries of the MS Kerberos implementation, I can find no evidence that they've used any of the MIT implementation of Kerberos.
So what makes RMS so sure that it is using their source code? After all, the spec is out there online for anyone to implement for free. Why does he think they didn't do that?
Pretty strong claims to be making in public. Well, here's one in return -- Richard M. Stallman, You are a LIAR -- Back Up Your Claims.
Heck, I'll even challenge him to a one-legged arse kicking contest if he's interested.
Simon
Coming soon - pyrogyra
What salient points do you want RMS to discuss? As RMS never grows tired of stating, he is a representative of the Free Software Movement which is about freedom at all costs, while most people including yourself are members of the Open Source movement which is willing to compromise with closed source developers.
They're the responses of someone who's been spouting the same party line for the last twenty years and who will gladly and graciously take any opportunity to do the same anew. This isn't a criticism of the free software movement.
Yes, it is. You're so called tired party line is the ethos of the Free Software Movement. People like you and ESR are members of the Open Source Movement which RMS keeps pointing out in the article (did you read it all?), he is not a part off. The Free Software Movement is not about compromise it is about "Give me freedom, or give me death".
Finagle's First Law
Richard Stallman has to repeat his message because people are too daft to understand it. that Allchin doesn't get it is not very surprising, but that the open source hangarounds don't get it is downright disappointing.
if I were RMS, I'm not sure I would be so patient. I would probably blow up every now and then, when people don't bother to make the mental effort to understand exactly what he is talking about.
One very nice aspect of Stallman's commentary is that he provided a solid example of Microsoft's behavior relative to Free Software. He mentioned their decision to embrace and extend Kerberos in Win2000. I thought that this was a particularly good choice because it showed:
Having a nice solid example is a big step up from the generic rantings so popular on slashdot. Instead of "Microsoft wants a license that lets them swipe free software for their own ends", Stallman has shown that Microsoft has used more permissive licenses to swipe free software and screw existing users.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
Did you actually read what he said, or were you just looking for a nice quote that you could use out of context to give you an excuse to say something nasty about him? If you had a shred of honesty you would have noted that the full context was:
He's not saying that he's against IP rights generally but that they're such a diverse issue that treating them as a monolithic concept is stupid. I'd say that's a very fair comment and shows that he has probably thought about the issue a lot more than most talking heads who blather about the necessity of protecting intellectual property in the media.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
<takes deep breath; exhales loudly> What's this got to do with anything? What part of "open source" don't you get? The source code of these programs is openly available and open to modify! Hence: Open. Source. Hello?! McFly?!
I figure you've got this mental image of "open source" as being the product of the übergeeky, hunched over their machines into the small hours, surrounded by a debris of fast food wrappers and mouldy styrofoam coffee cups. Open Source has nothing to do with this stereotype.
That these programs were developed by "private initiatives" and "corporate consortiums" (sic) is irrelevant. Whether these programs were written by the weird on extreme coffee jags or by 9-to-5 MIS minions in suits is irrelevant. Whether these developments were funded by large corporations or done on one's own dollar is irrelevant. The point is, they've made the source code publically available. These "corporate consortiums" have given something back to the community. They have put their money where their mouths are for open standards. They have not locked up their source code behind NDAs and attempted to pervert open protocols and justified this antisocial behaviour by claiming the right to "innovate" like Microsoft have done. These organisations should be applauded for their public spirit, not sneered at.
For this reason, I find it dispicable that companies, such as Microsoft, Sun, etc. would take an open source piece of software and release a proprietary version, often without even providing credit to the original developers. THis practice is plagerism, plain and simple and is a far greater threat to intellectual property than the GPL. But it is legal without the protection of the GPL.
Copyright laws do not exist to make Bill Gates, Steve Balmer, Jim Allchin, Larry Elison, and others as much money as possible. They exist for the purpose of encouraging expression of ideas. When code is copyrightten and kept secret, this is a serious misuse of copyright law and in some ways threatens the entire system. (Patents are another story.)
The GPL is about returning copyright law to its original intent-- the intent to share expression, and this ideal, I believe is one of the things that RMS referrs to in his article.
The software industry is still in its infancy, and this is why companies like Microsoft continu to profit on the upgrade cycle and why cusotmers continue to buy the products. Very profitable but not very sustainable.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Has anyone considered the possibility that RMS might just be an email bot with a web spider hooked up?
I mean, how hard could it be?
Grep the file for "Linux" and if there's X amount of "Linux"es in a certain context, fire off a slightly randomized rant about proper use of GNU/Linux.
Check for certain key words in any discussion FSF or open source, and then fire off a rant.
It couldn't be *that* hard.
Hell, I'm surprised there's no perl script out on the net which lets you auto-create an RMS response to any given statement.
If you release it under the GNU license (wait... he likes the GNU license, right?) he could even use it himself (assuming he exists at all) and save himself all *KINDS* of effort...
Hey, RMSBOT?
I am pro open source Linux, because it should be FREE as in beer, not free as in french revolution.
I like beer. I don't like guillotines.
pvh
"The wise man proportions his belief to the evidence." -- David Hume