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Fink Maintainer Steps Down Due To GPL Infringment
DShadow noted that
the Fink maintainer Christoph Pfisterer has resigned
largely because of GPL violations by openosx and macgimp, as well as macosx.forked.net.
There's definitely some tension between the mac world and the Open Source and GPL worlds. Certain amounts of culture clash are inevitable, but hopefully great projects like this will continue, and commercial vendors will be able to play nice without alienating developers. The good news for Macheads is that fink will continue just fine.
the gpl's there for a reason - it's a community effort and you can't take from the community and not give back. i don't think resignation's the answer - how about fixing some of the problems instead? if you exit the game, you loose by default - keep playing!
free (as in mp3s) electronic music
BTW, being a long-time Mac user myself, I'm totally clueless to how these kinds of open source issues are worked out, but I am curious about it. These kinds of issues can't be new. Can any of you more acquainted with this topic offer any sort of precedent for these kinds of issues/disputes?
--Rick
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
Ok, I read through the supplemental information and his attitute to the first guy posting to Sourceforge just seemed wrong. Not knowing this guy, he seems very abrasive and doesn't understand that not everyone is a freaking computer genious. Yes, people who don't read the manuals are annoying, but when you YELL at someone you are turning them off big time. Especially when it seems that the guy just downloaded an old version of mysql and there seems to be no indication that the new version is required. It really comes down to the fact I can't get over HIS USE OF SHOUTING in what seemed to be a normal civilized support request.
Pbur
this fink maintainer (Christoph Pfisterer) really does need to get off the project, and onto some valium. reading the threads he posted after his rant one gets the impression that he is on a permanent caffeine-stress-hairtrigger high. jeez.
The email exchange between him and the supposed gpl violators is a hoot. The very first response Christoph got from the company was "did we screw up? tell us how to give proper credit," and Christoph then proceeds to continue bashing and raving.
It really sounds like christoph needs a major vacation, the stress seems to be breaking him. I don't know any of the people/orgs involved, but just read his rant and the links he posted at the bottom.
Situations like this underscore the real strength (and weakness) of the GPL. The strength is that the GPL has worked so far without any large-scale legal challenge. There's a strong social understanding that comes with GPL'ed code, that you give back to the community from which you've taken.
The weakness is that the GPL would probably lose in court, to some degree. This is because copyright law and, in many ways, the legal system, in the US and elsewhere, were never designed to work in accordance with the common good, especially when it comes to issues of property, and even moreso when it comes to the issues of intellectual property (really just an illusion of modern society).
Therefore, when approaching breaches of the GPL, it's probably in our best interest, as a community, to not immediately threaten legal repurcussions, but instead work on other ways to pressure entities to abide by our community's standards.
Any entity that uses GPL'ed code in bad faith ultimately will recieve a pretty bad reputation in the growing free software community. Also, if they're not willing to abide by our rules, what says that we should abide by theirs? For instance, if Microsoft rolls a bunch of GPL'd code into a new product, then we retain an ethical (if not legal) right to distribute the resulting binary of that product as much as we'd like.
I didn't intend this post to be as long as it is, but basically, think about this: Do we see free software as a phenomenon? Something that just happened? Or as a movement? Something that we all made happen? If it's a phenomenon, then the best we can hope for is that the GPL sticks, on a legal basis. If it's a movement, then we're going to have to be prepared to come together and face challenges. So far, although a lot of us haven't acknowledged it, we've functioned as a movement, and we've been very successful. Witness the FUD that Microsoft used to spread about Linux. Our responses to that FUD ended up making MS look more like sore losers than better producers.
Also consider that it's possible the struggle for collectively owned information and intellectual property may some day move far outside of the internet, and into the real world. That might require a whole new re-evaluation of our tactics and ideals.
Okay, enough ranting.
I understand that this guy is working for free, But if you are not prepared to deal with users who need some help, why in the hell are you developing end-user software? I work as a developer, and idiotic questions make up about 20% of my average day. Read some of the email exchanges with openosx, and with users on sourceforge, and you may come away with the same impression I did, mainly that this dude has a real short fuse and nasty temper. Remember, he VOLUNTEERED to do this project, nobody was forcing it on him. If he doesn't like it, go start another project, or find a cushy commercial position (he's obviously talented enough to get paid some real money).
Where's my lobbyist? Right here.
The majority of this guy's decision to resign actually sounds like he's tired of dealing with what shareware and freeware authors have been dealing with for years, with only the good will of people to get any compensation or credit (most shareware on the Mac is not time-limited). The Mac community does have a high standard for software performance and does expect polish from its programmers.
It results in a fair amount of whinery, but it sounds like this guy is going to be shocked when he finds that users in the professional world will be just as nasty, plus they'll threaten to withhold payment.
The e-mail exchange didn't impress me a lot either--it sounded like he had one or two points that the guy was willing to concede on, but he blew up and brought other things into the mix for a flame-o-rama.
So I'm sorry that he's no longer a Mac developer, and I'd encourage him to put his studies first. On the other hand, I'm not going to get too worried about the nature of the Mac community over it.
So many maintainers of various projects have "resigned", but many of those have quietly returned to the projects after a short hiatus.
This freak will be back and answering support requests. He may not like it, but like others before him, he needs it.
legal, yes. ethical? no.
I know I wouldn't purchase anything from a company that was found to do this.
Let's face it, one of the few benefits of working on opensource projects is the kudos - if parasitical companies start coming along and ripping projects off in this way, it's going to have a pretty severe impact on the developers of the ripped-off projects.
Heck, at first Mandrake was nothing more than RedHat with KDE. They happily took RedHat's GPLed installer (and other features) and put Mandrake in where RedHat had been.
That's Free Software.
Now, it sounds to me like the people that these groups that were actually selling copies of this software should have been a little more careful about giving credit where credit was due if for no other reason than ticking off the primary developer is a bad deal.
Now, the fact that forked.net wasn't providing source code along with their binaries, is a different story all together. The GPL does not guarantee that the original author will get credit, instead it guarantees that the end user gets source code. If you want credit then use a different license. Just remember that advertising clauses and the GPL don't mix, so you won't be able to use any GPLed source in your new product.
Sounds like something I read recently:
o uk ov/
http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue4_10/bezr
(section: "Cult of Personality, burnout of the leader")
As a maintainer of my own growing project on sourceforge I often emphathize with the items listed in this paper. Some people have a tendency to put an enormous amount of pressure on themselves. When this happens you naturally become very defensive and intolerant. This is probably lessened when you have a strong core group.
Time to take a vacation.
Fsck cluebie moderators. I'll say what I want, offtopic or not. And fsck having to qualify every bloody statement just
Over the last two days, I've set up a couple of new Macs at work, and used Fink to throw all the extra goodies that I needed on. Ever since I started playing with it around 0.20 time, I've found the whole distribution to be wonderful.
I really meant to post a "thank you" note at some point. I wish I had. I can't possibly account for how much time the Fink people have saved me.
OK - from reading the background material, I think that Christoph has made some dubious assumptions about people at times, and attacked people a little too eagerly - but these are really just symptoms of someone working way too hard for too little reward. I get like that at work sometimes.
How about we all take a little bit of time today to send out a simple "thanks" email to one person involved with one piece of free software that you use regularly. It'll only take a minute or so, and may just keep that person feeling good enough about doing what they're doing that they'll keep on doing it.
Just go and do it now. Slashdot will still be here when you get back.
Wasting your time since 1997.
Or is it that because they hold the Copyrights, so they can specify how the materials are used? If that's the case, then aren't we contradicting the usual Slashdot opinion that copyright laws should protect the copyright, and not be used to enforce the license restrictions (or copy protection)?
I'm sure this kinda stuff has been brought up before, and I'm not trying to stir up trouble or argue... I'm Just curious.
_______
2B1ASK1
In his funny email exchange this guy claims that the violation is the same as if someone took RedHat and repacked it without giving RedHat credit.
He misses the point that that is FINE. In fact, mandrake did that for a while, with a few changes.
The GPL means you can copy, rename etc as long as you contribute the source back, and make sure copyright in the source is accurate.
He needs to get a grip.
I don't know what exactly is happening to the crowd on slashdot as I haven't been reading it much lately. However Christoph from what I read in the email exchange was genuinely trying to educate this guy on several different things. First and foremost he was trying to point out the way the GPL works. Secondly he was trying to help macosx or whoever those people are along the lines of not violating the GPL and or BSD. Thirdly all he was asking for was a little recognition, there are alot of installers for windows based machine that say "This installer uses blah" or "Wise Installer or whatever it is blah", the point is blantantly stealing someones code and making some tiny patches and distributing it publically deserves some credit even if it's not stated in the GPL; especially for money, it's called just covering your ass regardless. Last but not least he was trying to help the guy make stuff clear. How would you like if you went to buy a copy of "Said Program" and in the box there was an early access beta of the program but they didn't tell you? From what I can see Christoph is trying to save himself from a barrage of emails asking him to help fix something that he doesn't even know about. When the email discussion starts he clearly states that he found out through a third party. I don't know whether the third party was a developer, programmer or a bitching user. It's not fair to have to be subjected to some companies problems for support when they use your product and don't tell you.
All in all.. I'd have to side with Christoph.. as a developer and systems administrator I know the frustration that he's going through and it's not significantly burn out. It's releasing free code and supporting and at the same time dealing with people making money of your free work and time, not giving credit where it's due and then subjecting you to their customers barrage of email questions making money based off of your product. It's not fair; I use Mac OSX and I was going to purchase a couple of those cd's to save me some headache but I'll be goddamned if I support a company that doesn't support the authors they make a buck off, via code, recognition and/or money. The GPL wasn't meant to make developers sweat shop workers.
Having worked customer service for the last 10 years, I have to make this comment. You should not be doing customer relations or customer service in any way shape or form. You simply cannot handle the stress...
It took me about 3 years to develop an attitude that didn't make me want to kick my cat or yell at people for cutting me off in a gas station after work.
If you can't take the stress of dealing with idiots and morons, you should not be a project leader/maintainer. Especially for Mac users! (Not a dig or a flame!) But they aren't known for their technical self-help-can-do attitudes. These folks are used to the = MacOS 9 and not a Unix based system like MacOSX. They are used to simple easy to use software and operating systems.
What I learned was the ability to not give a shit if I pleased these people. Don't get me wrong, I truly care to help people and do so every single day. But I always see the same idiots over and over calling me to walk them through the same exact procedure over the phone. Most of these guys/gals are a communications nightmare who can barely use a mouse and they don't know how to listen nor follow directions. We are talking about 3 hour phone calls to accomplish something that should only take 10min.
That said, I can relate to what you are going through. I've written over 300MB worth of web pages detailing all sorts of technical data and my own technical teammates still line up at my desk with questions that are answered in the documentation. Heck if the techs don't read it what makes you think the end users will?
However, it is a crime to just loose it with a customer. Even if that customer is not paying for your services (mine sure as hell aren't...). It was even worse that you publically did it in an open forum. Heck in a professional environment, if I am going to tear someone a new asshole, I take them into a private location where no one else can hear us and I let'em have it.
What you need to learn to do is to roll with the punches, dodge and weave to avoid the bullets, and still maintain an easy going attitude. I do not carry these frustrations around with me. I have learned to exercise extreme patience. If you cannot learn to do this, stay far far away from customer service positions.
I do the bare minimum for the idiots and morons but go the extra mile for the ones who are at least polite and pleasant. If an idiot happens to be at least pleasant and nice then they might get extra help.
Things you could have done:
1. Made an email template with RTFM and links to the FAQ, etc. in it. The latest versions that have been tested, etc. Just forward these automated responses to the idiots.
2. You could just ignore the morons, heck you are not making money on this. You don't need to email all of them. I am sure people like Linus ignore emails all the time.
3. Setup a survey to find out just how many users are actually happy with the Fink project. I bet they outnumber the ones who were pissing you off!
I would gladly piss off a dozen users who are too obnoxious to bother reading the manual
Which is fine as long as the manual in question is usable. All too often in the open source world, the manual is useless unless you already know what you're doing. Apache and PHP do a good job of getting the user up and running quickly. MySQL does a very reasonable job as well. Too much software ignores that fact that spending five hours reading documentation just to get one thing to work is an extremely frustrating experience.
Make the obvious stuff (the purpose for downloading the software) ridiculously easy to accomplish. Make the rest accessible. That will keep a lot of users off your back.
- Scott
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
Having just read through the details of what happened here, I don't even see this point. The person selling the CDs wasn't actually aware that any credit was being missed out, and upon being informed of this problem, offered and in fact did rectify it. I think all of the problems here come down to a clash of personalities and the fink maintainer expecting his name up in lights or something, while the CD distributor (IMHO rightly) focussed the credit upon those who wrote the original program (ie GIMP) and only mentioned the porting efforts embodied in fink as a side reference.
Chrispy - I'm on your side.
/.ers are right - shit happens - sounds like you need to take it a little less personally. And this post is right on - take a break and get back into it when the time is right.
I love Fink - it's one of the reasons I love Mac OS X - it opens the world of UNIX apps to Mac users... I think it's shitty that others don't appreciate the hard work involved - but I think the other
GREAT WORK..... I use it every day!