Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Tech Specs Prohibit GPL Implementations
abartlet writes "As described in this Advogato entry, MS is trying to pull a swifty with their latest 'release' of their CIFS (the networked filesystem Samba implements) Technical Reference. The licence specifically prohibits any GPLed or (or LGPLed) program from implementing it, defining it as an 'IPR Impairing Licence'! Fortunately the CIFS community is about to release its own Technical Reference based on earlier MS documents and long experience in attempting to interoperate with the MS product." Microsoft's claim is completely ungrounded - nothing written by a third-party can take away Microsoft's intellectual property rights. But it makes a good (read: confusing to the general public) justification for preventing others from interoperating with their software.
I actually made and published a program that did just that?
would they come after me?
I'm a big retard who forgot to log out of Slashdot on Mike's computer! LOOK AT ME.
Who cares about the license on the CIFS reference? The folks behind Samba obviously got along without this new document... how can the license be in any way legally binding?
Or is it totally ungrounded? Yeah, I'm leaning towards that.
Sure, he may be trying to make it so that Linux won't interoperate with Windows, but maybe he's just trying to get revenge for being tricked?
libertarianswag.com
Microsofts reaction to OSS reminds me of a small, bratty child that wants all or none.
Just by reading some of their documentation you're infringing on their rights to idiocy. Might as well pack your bags for the clink right now.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If they don't read the document, they're not bound to the license, and can still reverse engineer it, right?
Lendrick
Hmm, license terms that forbid GPL'd implementations. A crusade against open source. A government that can be bought, and $36 billion in the bank. At what point does open source software become against the law in the US?
When did the government of the US stop being for the people? It's not as if MS provides that many jobs or even pays much tax!
- Paul
That any license can say anything it wants to. It doesn't mean that this has any basis in legal reality. The point here is, truly, confusion over all else.
Luck favors the prepared, darling.
APL BPL CPL DPL EPL FPL GPL HPL IPL
Why not use every letter in the alphabet? It's only fitting, I guess, since there are a million ways to write code, why not have a million ways to license it?
I remember taking programming classes in college, and the #1 rule to writing code was don't write code, i.e., reuse existing code. With all these licensing schemes floating around, that's getting harder and harder, unles you only reuse your own code. Oh well...
(For the record, IPR sounds more like an Apple licenesing idea, what with the iMac, iPod, and tons of iSoftware.)
At least today's Friday...
-Space for rent
I'm not reading any of that. The further away from licenses like that I can stay, the better off I am when the SSSCA/DMCA squad comes to kick down my door with their jack-boots.
Seriously. If you're even using Samba, I wouldn't go *near* any CIFS/SMB information released by Microsoft. Or anyone else who attaches licenses to practical information and calls it a "trade secret", for that matter.
I'll continue to use (even older) versions of samba, and i won't care about the fools from redmond.
Life sucks.
If I write a BSD licensed piece of code that implements it, that's OK. I then release that to my friend (and only him). That's still OK. I can release to him, and I don't have to release to anyone else.
He then widely releases a GPLed derivitive work which is almost identical to my code. That's OK, as he hasn't read the tech spec so isn't bound by its terms, and the GPL and BSD licenses are compatible.
Hey presto. A legal GPLed work based on this document.
Go to the linked MSDN doc, and "Rate this Page". We can at least register our disgust that way.... (It's already at 1.3 out of 5, 1 being the lowest possible :-)
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Why not? Because any GPLd version would of necessity be a copy (in the moral if not the legal sense) of their work and would thus unethically divert profits from their business.
Implement any thing needed from the DOCUMENTATION in a Non-Gpl module, BSD, Apache, or other liscence.
This "LISCENCE" is for the documentation NOT the protocol. So friggin what, Samba team has done a great job reverse engineering other things before, wihtout docs.
Hell have a friend agree to the terms, read it, then TELL you how they do what they do, at that point there is no tactic agreement between you and microsoft, oyu recived the knowledge second hand and you partner had of course "no idea" that the information would be implemented in a GPL app.
Better yet, write a REVIEW of the documentation as a Journalist, a critique, perfectly acceptable under fair use laws, just make sure to critique the authors work on the spiciest bits of Information.
Sig went tro...aahemmm.....fishing........
Using GPL
Will encroach upon our rights
To control the world
Kodak saying no one else can make a set of chemicals that develop their film if they plan to give them away for free? Is there really legal ground for them to uphold this, especially having already been judged a monopoly in federal appeals court?
It is well known that one of the places that Window's succeeds in is small/middle sized network configurations. You plug in hardware, install (costly) software, and everything nearly automagically works. Files are shared. Printers are shared. With a little domain administration you can even tightly control it.
The fact that the Samba Team has created such a successful implementation of the same smb/cifs kills this completely. Note the "(costly)" part in my previous paragraph goes away if you use Samba instead of a WinNT Server. And no goofy licenses either(how many seats do I need to buy?). And now that Samba has set their sights on implementing recent features like Active Directory why wouldn't Microsoft be running scared? Take away this feature from Windows and you've undercut their monopoly on administration software of Windows networks.
Might they just now put code in their software to stop programs from running them like wine, like they did with DR DOS?
So we just license the implementing programs with NGPL. Not-GPL, that is. It just so happens that the license terms are exactly the same as GPL but it is not GPL.
Kind of like gnu is not unix.. I just couldn't come up with anything as clever.
Gosh, thats disguting.
If something is broken or has absurd use terms, nobody uses it in real life (e.g. Cars, stereos, whatever).
So why should people use Windows? Lack of IT vision?
This is kinda creepy.
Microsoft seems to have just banned any open source or even free (as in beer) CIFS implementations.
Then, my question becomes: what about interpreted languages? Many languages don't have a compiled form... does the license prohibit those?
Many other organization baulk at GPL.
Intel and HP for example had problems with the GPLed Mono project.
Microsoft seems to be OK with the BSD license. The don't seem to be against open source either
considering that the Microsoft Shared source code licence is pretty liberal.
the GPL!
1.4 "IPR Impairing License" shall mean the GNU General Public License, the GNU Lesser/Library General Public License, and any license that requires in any instance that other software distributed with software subject to such license (a) be disclosed and distributed in source code form; (b) be licensed for purposes of making derivative works; or (c) be redistributable at no charge.
Note the "or (c)"; oh no, free of charge! What will those godless zealots think of next, and how will Scrooge McDuck hold onto his billions this week!
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
It's an antimatter version of the GPL, like a GPL from the parallel Star Trek universe where everyone was evil.
Microsoft has gone ballistic. It has begun.
I guess I'll re-write my samba implementation modules...
What a moron I am! I should've thought of that.
sigh...
until noone is listening. There are tons of folks out here in support land that are getting fed up with the askew view those chowder heads keep spewing. Mark my words, Ross Perot will laugh at just how out of the loop those guys will have gotten themselves with their "you can't do anything unless we say" rhetoric. Seems to me that they are on a one way trip to being ignored after all the stuff they have been pulling the past few years.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This isn't my area of experise... but would it be possible for an open source implementation to be made for Windows? Samba for windows? If it is good enough, then the growing numbers of companies out there that want Windows and Linux to interoperate will have an alternative from the M$ machine with all the benefits of the free (both senses) world. The implementation could be independent on any M$ specification and thus be free from any M$ restriction completely
Microsoft Client for Windows
Microsoft Client for Netware
Microsoft Client for What Windows Should Be
World Standard Client (CIFS)
Click here or here.
We think we have the right to own everything.
That's what we said about the entire EULA until UCITA made it 100% binding - even the most outrageous parts (like not being able to unfavorably comment on the software).
These guys are not buying legalese for nothing. And even if the next round of bought-and-paid-for legislation doesn't make it on the books for a year or two, and they bring a baseless lawsuit, do you have $200,000 to defend yourself in court? Or will you just settle, pull your site and go home crying?
This is Microsoft saying "I dare you."
-David
We're on the road to Tycho.
...but I hit the "Rate this page" button and gave the license the lowest rating. What with all the /.'ing, betcha it becomes the lowest-rated page on M$'s site.
Jouster
P.S. Didja notice M$ lawyers actually managed to type "GPL" without their fingers burning off?
Okay, which is it?
I have read the patent page and I have read other articles. Some say it's Server Message Block and some (such as the patent page) say it's System Message Block. Which is it? What's the authoratative answer? I realize it's almost pointless but it's just one of those things that when explained improperly could make you appear to be an idiot to the wrong people.
This is actually good news in a certain way. It is yet stronger proof that Microsoft considers the open source community a very viable and threatening competitor.
Most likely they hoped that if they could squash open-source compatibility with windows networks, they could hurt some of the interoperability that is neccesary during the middle phases of migrating a company away from Microsoft (like the recent Merrill Lynch stuff).
The tides are still very very slowly turning, and barring the government helping them too much (and I do believe SSSCA-type bills are a boon for Microsoft if they pass), they will eventually lose.
11*43+456^2
And you're getting your legal advice from....???
(Yes, I like making fun of michael. After all, he hates us!)
I suspect that they are worried that a bit of GPLed code will somehow make it into a bit of the windows codebase - intentionally or otherwise.
;)
It only takes one programmer on the MS campus to fuck up and that could happen. I imagine that they're worried that then people would start taking them to court to gain access to the code.
C'mon - if you heard that MS has some GPLed code in Windows - which would you put your weght behind:
a) They just take the code out
b) They are forced to open their codebase
Yup - though so!
At the top of the license page there is an option to "Rate this page" The score is from 1 to 5. Right now its at 1.5 with 230 votes and growing.
I had to give them my 2 cents. I voted a 1.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It just goes on and on and on. It's like those people in the antitrust trial are lost in space, wasting vast amounts of time and effort dwelling over finer and finer points of legalese (which is exactly what Msft wants, splitting hairs indefinately) while the abuse of power goes on and on and on.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
APL BPL CPL DPL EPL FPL GPL HPL IPL...
I work at a bank where we still (duh) use big iron. One thing you DO NOT want to do is IPL.
It's very bad, especially if someone tries to do it while people in other timezones are usings those mainframe apps!
(For the uninitiated, IPL = Initial Program Load. It basically means restart the whole group of apps on the machine. In the old days, I'm betting this meant rewind the tape and reboot the room... er, mainframe.)
SlashSigTheorem: Humorous, Political, Critical, Constructive- If you have a
if You want to implement the Technical Reference, You must sign and return this Agreement AS IS. This is an offer to be accepted only on the terms set forth in this Agreement. If You make any changes to this Agreement, the offer is revoked.
That sounds awefully one-sided. Is the agreement even considered a "contract" when it starts like this?
sounds like Microsoft's been stuffing the ballot box again. Bloody savages.
Love,
Jay and Silent Bob
This has some far reaching effects.
Many manufacturers of NAS (Network Attached Storage) use GPLed OS that have been modified or reduced to their basic components to NAS appliances. I have seen many instances of Linux NAS devices, BSD NAS devices, and yes, NAS devices bases on Windows 2000 for appliances.
A little background:
A NAS device is an appliance dedicated to providing storage on the IP network. It's basically a stripped standard server with ease-of-use features added, and form-fitted into a smaller box. Extremely easy to set up, extremely easy to use.
Companies that make them:
Quantum Snap! www.quantum.com
Maxtor www.maxtor.com
Network Appliance www.netapp.com
IOMEGA www.iomega.com
Blue Arc www.bluearc.com
and the list goes on and on.
They all provide CIFS and NFS shares, some of the also provide Apple shares, and Novell shares. The point here is that many of them are based on GPLed OS. While their final product may be commercial, this development may restrict their use of CIFS. These products RELY on CIFS. Frankly this may be a ploy by Microsoft to sell more copies of Windows 2000 for Appliances, and take a heavy swipe at the Open Source community.
If NAS vendors can't use CIFS, and the latest CIFS has changed to mess up connectivity, they are dead in two years, as the OS upgrades catch up.
If there is a somebody who could clear that up a bit, that would be great.
I, for one, hope that continued compatibility for the CIFS standard continues in the Samba package. For Linux to lose that functionality, it would kill a lot of possible server implementations.
Note that this is not analogous to the GPL. The GPL is a license that lets you do things with copyrighted software that copyright law prohibits you from doing unless you get a license. But that approach doesn't work for a protocol specification because the copyright is on the specification, not the protocol, and so you generally don't need a license in order to implement the protocol even if the specification is copyrighted. (It may be possible to copyright protocols, but that seems like a long shot for something like CIFS that's mostly open anyway.)
This license gaffe is curiously analogous to Microsoft software. Usually, Microsoft copies other people's software badly. This time, Microsoft copied other people's licenses (the GPL) badly, trying to impose onerous restrictions on people who merely read a document. Microsoft's incompetence manages to reach new lows day after day, and I suppose that is an amazing achievement in itself.
The most effective strategy I can think of to fight such legalese is to amend the GPL to allow for a special MS-GPL, which would essentially allow you to release an otherwised GPL'd software that interacts with a Microsoft patent, as a special MS-GPL which would require you to still make the source code available, as well as all changes, but would also *require* you to charge $0.01 per copy of the binary code that the software developer releases, thereby negating the free-of-charge stipulation under Microsoft's IPR clause.
Microsoft will most likely amend their agreement to forbid releasing the software under the MS-GPL code, as well. However I would think it would be more legally difficult to distinguish an MS-GPL from a regular software license.
What do you use on an internal network, if not Microsoft protocols, such as samba implements? What provides file sharing, as well as encrypted authentication?
NFS tunneling isn't the answer, whether it's through experimental IPSEC implementations or ssh. Either is a hack that has to be implemented differently on each platform, that results in extra overhead - due to encryption of not only authentication but the session data - and that makes mounting volumes on different machines a challenge for the average user.
Rate it here. I personnaly rated it as excellent.
/. effect for polls as well ? :-)
Is there a
It sounds like, if you don't gouge people for money in return for your software, you can't reverse engineer the protocol?
Okay, well I'll just write my code in a pseudo-code form, and sell it for 50 along with a little utility to convert it into C code.
Mozilla's a nice operating system, but it needs a better browser.
I thought it was bad when they decided to put in their Frontpage EULA that you can't use Frontpage to defame or create pornographic websites. I thought it was worse when they said in the XP EULA that you can't use any other Remote Administration software besides Remote Desktop. But this is rediculous. It's annoying how much they get away with (even though these things may not be defendable in court)... argh.
"The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist fears this is true." --James
I suspect that they are worried that a bit of GPLed code will somehow make it into a bit of the windows codebase - intentionally or otherwise.
I don't think they're worried about that much at all. It just makes a good excuse to shut out anything GPLed, because it cuts into their sales.
"Ladies and Gentlemen of this supposed jury, Microsoft's accusers would certainly want you to believe my client was issuing confusing EULAs, confoundint their critics and confusing the multitudes, and they make a good case. Hell, I almost felt pity myself. But Ladies and Gentlemen of this supposed jury, I have one final thing I want you to consider.
Ladies and Gentlemen, this is Chewbacca. Chewbacca is a Wookiee from the planet Kashyyyk who carried a gun and ran from the mob. But Chewbacca lives on the planet Endor. Now think about it. That does not make sense. Why would a Wookiee, an eight-foot-tall Wookiee, want to live on Endor with a bunch of two-foot-tall Ewoks. That does not make sense.
But more important, you have to ask yourself what does this have to do with this case. Nothing. Ladies and Gentlemen, it has nothing to do with this case. It does not make sense. Look at me. I'm a lawyer defending a major software company and I'm talkin' about Chewbacca. Does that make sense? Ladies and Gentlemen I am not making any sense. None of this makes sense.
And so you have to remember when you're in that jury room deliberating and conjugating the Emancipation Proclamation, does it make sense? No. Ladies and Gentlemen of this supposed jury it does not make sense. If Chewbacca lives on Endor you must acquit.
I know he seems guilty. But ladies and gentlemen this is Chewbacca. Now think about that for one minute. That does not make sense. Why am I talking about Chewbacca when billions of dollars of recurring license revenue are on the line? Why? I'll tell you why. I don't know. It doesn't make sense. If Chewbacca does not make sense you must acquit. Here look at the monkey , look at the silly monkey.
The defense rests."
This might not have any legal basis, but how many open-source projects (SAMBA in this case) have the finances to prove it in court when Microsoft sues them?
Microsoft outlawed the GPL. We all know it was coming.
Linus, if you need help installing XP on all your machines, give me a call.
-Spack
DMCA(f) reads:
`(f) REVERSE ENGINEERING- (1) Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (a)(1)(A), a person who has lawfully obtained the right to use a copy of a computer program may circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a particular portion of that program for the sole purpose of identifying and analyzing those elements of the program that are necessary to achieve interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs, and that have not previously been readily available to the person engaging in the circumvention, to the extent any such acts of identification and analysis do not constitute infringement under this title.
In other words, the DMCA requires that programmers be able to access parts of a computer program "to achieve interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs" (i.e. porting a windows program to linux). If that access isn't provided then the programmer can legally circumvent a technological measure that controls access to the essential parts of that program for the purposes of porting.
I say we should rally the EFF and call them on it.
I also liked the idea posted about separating the CIFS code into a separate library. Then GPL code could link it in.
It's a shame, however, that thinking rationally probably doesn't count when it comes to Microsoft. Knowing Microsoft's history, this probably isn't about these things, but is some devious plot to divide and conquer the various open/free source crowds and to introduce FUD.
Shame it's come to this, isn't it? Kind of like a mate of yours who betrays you over and over and then when they finally may be telling the truth, you just can't come to believe it's possible.
Danny.
I have written over 900 book reviews
(that's for you Raymond, and you 34 million $ shares in VA).
ESR's stock in VA is no longer worth $34 million, or even $1 million.
Disinfect the GNU General Public Virus!
Its kinda funny that the thing that has helped M$ bcome who and what they are is now the object of their attacks. If someone had not come up with a Blind Reverse ENG of the IBM BIOS for all those clones they would never be in the position they are in. yet when someone manages to reverse eng one of their specs....!
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
Could this not be considered discrimination?
-- Knowing too much can get you killed, but knowing who knows too much can make you rich.
Funny how MS constantly says Linux and Open Source Software is bad and horrible and how no one should ever need to use it. Then MS comes out with license agreements like this to try and force people to not use OSS. If OSS is really as bad a solution to a problem as MS says then why must MS attack it? Hmmmm.. makes you wonder just how scared MS really is of OSS and how they are trying not to show it.
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If you read the license carefully you will see that it's also a license for U.S. patents 5,265,261 and 5,437,013. These patents are pretty similar, and the second seems to be an update of the first. They look to me like bogus software patents, covering the stunning invention of single-copy network drivers.
The Big Questions:
Will Microsoft attempt to enforce these patents?
Can Samba be implemented without infringing these patents?
A quick read of the patent gives the impression that adding an extra copy step would do it, in which case a user-space implementation should be safe. But I'm not sure. It depends on what level of abstraction they can get away with for "receiver" and "transport" and so forth. And it might be that any "computer system" with an mswindows client on one end infringes. IANAL.
A very intelligent and thought-provoking post, however I disagree.
/.). I am usually logged in with an account that I don't want to lose karma on, so I usually post AC when replying to OT posts. I do have other accounts - some of which I only use for the purpose of trolling, but, to be perfectly honest, I can't be arsed to log out and log back in.
/., you may then understand what it is like to actually have karma that you want to keep - then you too may find yourself posting AC to OT comments (or FP's).
I personally post AC when I want to reply to a comment that I know is OT (such as this one), therefore I know that if I post using the account i am logged in with, I will lose karma (especially these days with all the nazi moderators that frequent
When you go to big school and learn how to string sentences together you may find you *do* have the abilty to make worthwhile contributions to
He's still pissed off because he was taken in by that lame Canadian April Fool's joke.
Absurdity: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion. -- Ambrose Bierce
Please, that's the biggest load of BS. The license is completely invalid and unenforcible.
This is really an ANTI-GPL. Basically, it says you can't releasee any implementations under a GPL'ed license. Too bad for MS its totally unenforcible. GPL developers can release anonymously, and are all accross the world.
They could ignore this and MS wouldn't be able to do a thing.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
FSF should fight for the fact that Microsoft termed GPL/LGPL as "IPR Impairing License". Nowhere in GPL/LGPL would imply such an accusation. Unless Microsoft has any proof in their claim, they should thus remove alleged statement from their license.
It's as simple: any act of IPR impairing is a serious court case. If they've any stand they could have brought it to court. If they don't, just keep their big mouth SHUT!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I think what they are saying is "you have to charge for it, because even if you don't we will come after you and make you empty your wallet for violating our patents". Evil bastards. They are planning on beating up Samba developers and stealing their lunch money, basically?
Microsoft usually charges a fair sum of money for their documentation. If you buy it, and the code you write is GPL'd, then anybody can read how to make things work by just reading it. Even worse, to their eyes, they could *re-use* that stuff, without ever paying M$ one thin dime.
This *will* cost them. Aside from the lost revenues directly from the re-use, it could allow for free software to be developed faster, by re-using code, which would give it a competitive edge over the big companies who are writing everything from scratch, and must buy the documentation themselves.
Can't say that I agree with M$ doing this, but I can see a reason why.
Lemon curry?
Might this not be one part of the larger scheme? An attempt, albeit feeble, to keep any other o.s. from making inroads to M$ territory? If the interoperabilty between various operating systems suffers then the logical choice of o.s. is the one that we already have installed and working(barely). This will prevent mid-sized businesses from even trying an alternative o.s.
:p
Just speculation, M$ would never engage in such practices I'm sure
These are not the
I'm no lawyer, but the clauses in the license have no legal weight. No judge in his right or deluded mind would accept a law suit based on that clause. First off, the license doesn't void previous license as stated in the original post. Second, it does not prevent clean room reverse engineering. Since the developer would have to have agreed to the license if they downloaded the spec. If a person never read the license or agreed to it, the bite is toothless. All this does is prevent developers at companies from considering using open source code. The only real tangible effect is it will piss off corporate customers, who want to access their unix file systems from windows.
but since when did purchased laws stop people from saying bollocks and going right ahead.
There was a quote before the release of XP that a program manager stated that something to this effect would happen. You will have to pay royalties to make a CIFS compatable product.
This is not new for the industry, just new for samba/cifs. In the end though the upgrades CIFS standards will make CIFS one of the best network protocols to date for secure network file sytems.
It's nice to see Microsoft acknowledging that we can, per se, use the GPL as a weapon against dominating corporations. The GPL allows us to defend ourselves against such tactics as closed implementations. We're all familiar with the prediction that, if Microsoft had their way, no software other than that released by Microsoft would be able (read: permitted) to interact with Microsoft's own software.
I respect the right of a company to protect their intellectual property. If you put a countless number of man hours into developing a product, you want to protect theft. I encourage Microsoft to develop their own software. I encourage them to restrict the way their software is released to the public.
Despite this, I scoff at the yet-another-underhanded-tactic of limiting software produced by other organizations. Not only are they limiting competition, they're actually saying that without Microsoft's permission, you can't develop software.
You might argue and say, "yes, but the licensing agreement only limits GPL-like licenses, and doesn't prevent a company from developing their own in-house, non-GPL implementation of this CIFS protocol". But then we're all familiar with the strength with which Microsoft withholds information. Consequently, those choosing not to release their CIFS implementation under GPL must still request information from Microsoft regarding this standard. So, if Microsoft doesn't want you to write it, you don't write it.
Like I said, protect your software, but don't inhibit other companies or organizations for writing their own. It's clearly "if we can't write good software, no one will."
I ask this as retorical.
;-)
why not just charge 1 cent and make it a community practice forget got collect.
I mean the home beer makers have long gotten paid by peaple wanting to clean bottls that contain bad beer
Microsoft's claim is completely ungrounded - nothing written by a third-party can take away Microsoft's intellectual property rights. But it makes a good (read: confusing to the general public) justification for preventing others from interoperating with their software.
Why shouldn't microsoft explicitly prohibit GPL'd code from linking to their libraries if the GPL explicitly prohibits proprietary close software from doing the same thing! Thats a bit hypocrytical to complain about this...
It seems as though M$ has attempted to turn the tables on the GPL by creating a viral IP license.
We could call it the M$ VIP only license, only those deemed important enough by M$ will be granted rights.
Is that kinda like the XFL?
"You may use, modify, and redistribute this software freely, and must make it available to third parties under this license in the event that they are able to defeat you in a Grudge Match in The Iron Cage of Fury!"
At this moment, Bush, Arafat, Sharon, the oilindustry,the weaponindustry are preparing the third world war. Using the press on both sides of the world, (the muslim-world and the west) they are creating anger. In the muslim world the inacceptible war-politics of Sharon (they are doing A LOT MORE DAMAGE THAN IRAQ DID BY INVADING KUWAIT !!! Talk about hypocrisy from the USA ...) create a lot of NEW TERRORISTS ( think about it, as geeks you have brains : use them for godsake !) And in the western world, an image of fundamentalistic, religious fanatisism is projected on ALL muslims, not solely on the few (how many deaths have fallen on palestinian side and how many on israelli side ?) palestinians who commited suicide-attacks. So, when you think about it, you can imagine yourself a playground, where 2 kids are fighting for a toy, and one of the two kids(israel,palestina) has backup from a bully (the USA) and they have both a lot of friends, lets say each one half of the playground, which are getting angrier with the minute, and are considering taking their knives and guns out. Do not be fooled, stay calm : peace is the only solution.
This is not how textual information is bought/sold/traded. The information is not *licenced* like a piece of software. Authors of physics textbooks do not *licence* Maxwell's equations adding the condition that you may not publish any electric motor plans.
Eat at Joe's.
Couple question:
If you made a file system in a proprietary world, would you want others making copies?
Some claim abuse of monopoly, what is "true" competition? Copying the work, or making a similar product?
Posting anonymously to save my karma from the "Slashdot Think" moderators (and Michael, king of "monopoly abuse".
Brilliant! If I had points I'd mod you up!
-- MarkusQ
1.4 "IPR Impairing License" shall mean the GNU General Public License, the GNU Lesser/Library General Public License, and any license that requires in any instance that other software distributed with software subject to such license (a) be disclosed and distributed in source code form; (b) be licensed for purposes of making derivative works; or (c) be redistributable at no charge.
So why doesn't GNU sue MS for anti-competitive practices?
Now that the other reference is out, and presumably will not carry any of the baggage associated with the MSTR, obviously this will be the reference used and distributed to Samba developers. The most important message regarding all of this is that it appears that sworn notarized affidavits will now be required to work on Samba. That's just extra hassle, but it's best to do this as safely as possible to avoid the legal stranglehold.
ALL HAIL BRAK!!!
where's the script? You mean I have to click buttons to vote?
Microsoft has never tried to make GPL illegal. They dont like it. They do like the idea of free code though. They make it plainly clear that they support the BSD style license.
And I can bet you ANYTHING that if it was one of the BSDs that was threatening to take over their marketshare, they'd be singing a different tune about the BSD license.
--------
Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
First, let's take a look at their little clause on you not implementing this:
Pretty straight forward, but keep in mind that individuals fall under the category of "Company" since they're using the term interchangeably with "the undersigned." Here's where it gets really interesting is in the definitions of their terms:
Yes, it specifically names the GPL and LGPL, but it isn't limited to those two! It applies to any license requiring an open source distribution, the ability to derive something else from it (whatever they mean by that....), or requires the implementation to be free!
Ok...so we alrady knew that M$ has it out for open-source, but it seems they're trying to be a little sneaky about it in the next part...here's where anti-competitive tactics come into play(yeah...I know...we already knew about those too).
Let's now look at their definition of "Company Implementation" as used in Section 3.3 above.
What's this mean? Well, it means that M$ has a way of getting out of being "totally" against open source development by basically saying "Hey...we want you to still distribute free/open source implementations...just make sure it's only for an MS OS." Obviously, this is also an attack on Linux and any other OS, as well as popular implementations of CIFS on these platforms, such as SAMBA.
If it weren't for "double jeopardy" laws, Microsoft would probably be in and out of court on a daily basis, purely for anti-competitive business tactics.
US software patents apply anyway. No doubt over time you will see microsoft try and eliminate free software from the USA. Quite what they think will happen when software is 100 times cheaper abroad than the USA I'm not sure.
It does maybe also explain the US governments position and desire to look the other way and not punish microsoft. Perhaps they think that a combination of draconian patent lobbying world wide combined with Microsoft co-operation will let them suck all the money out of foreign developing nations by enforcing windows (plus NSAKEY and the like) on any that threaten to become the new economic powers.
Microsoft OLE DB Provider for SQL Server error '80040e21'
Transaction (Process ID 76) was deadlocked on {lock} resources with another process and has been chosen as the deadlock victim.
Rerun the transaction.
/library/shared/common/inc/SqlData. asp, line 434
If I recall the netbios stuff was codeveloped with Microsoft and IBM back in the OS/2 lanmanger days. I am not buying that none of that joint developed code will not be in any future CIFS implementations (for compatibility reasons)
Even if it is not IBM can say Microsoft reversed engineered there joint developed implementation. Since IBM is a friend to Linux and other open source endeavors maybe they can reread their old contracts and see if Microsoft can even do this.
So much for "We are already complying with the RPFJ, even though those evil states are blocking it".
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
According to M$ an IPR Imparing License is any license which requires in any instance that other software distributed with software subject to such license (a) be disclosed and distributed in source code form; (b) be licensed for purposes of making derivative works; or (c) be redistributable at no charge.
Acording to their own definition even the GPL is NOT an IPR Imparing License. Section 2 of the GPL says: In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under the scope of this License.
Neither the GPL or any other OSS license places such restrictions on redistribution to fall under M$'s definition of an IPR Imparing License
What you would do with this license is rather questionable since you can't sublicense and you can't implement such in a file server (see 3.2). So, you would undoubtedly need a different patent license from MS if you intended to build a file server infringing upon their patents even if you didn't use GPL/LGPL license terms. Note that this is contradictory to the explanation of their intent ("royalty-free basis for use on non-Windows client and server platforms").
Isn't "CIFS" just an implementation of SMB? And wasn't SMB/NetBIOS originally (Sep, 1984!) an IBM PC (Network Technical Reference No. 6322916, from http://samba.org/cifs/docs/smb-history.html) specification? So, WTF does Microsoft have stuff-all to say about it? They used the existing standard as the backbone of their own brain-dead networking protocol (LAN Manager), in a misguided attempt to compete with Netware (okay, bad example), and now they're concerned about protecting *THEIR* IP? I guess that I just don't get it.
Carthago delenda est!
Some of the documentation that comes with Samba points out that other Microsoft docs are almost useless. Microsoft's own implementations of CIFS differ from the standard in ways that could be called bugs if you're charitable or obfuscation if not. They had to do a lot of packet sniffing to get Samba to actually work. What's even worse is that the kludgy workarounds differ depending on whether it's 95, 98 or what have you.
Microsoft hereby grants Company a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, personal, transferable, non-sublicensable, license under its Necessary Claims to (1) make, use, import, and (2) offer to sell, sell and distribute, directly or indirectly, to End Users, Company Implementations that fully comply with the Technical Reference.
Microsoft wants to make sure anyone that sees its IP has agreed to its terms. You can make a product that End Users use, but you can only get the IP (ie. source) behind the implementation directly from Micrsoft.
This isn't a "scare people away from the GPL" tactic, this is a "protect Microsoft's IP" tactic. They don't want anyone to get their IP from anyone but Microsoft.
[The merit of that is, I suppose, open to debate; but this isn't an anti-open source crusade, per se, it's a "protect Microsoft's IP" crusade. Microsoft isn't releasing it to the public, it's licensing it for free to developers.]
Surely someone knows someone else in China, who can pose as frontman. I can't imagine China is going to take bossing-around by Microsoft at all well.
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
C'mon - if you heard that MS has some GPLed code in Windows - which would you put your weght behind:
a) They just take the code out
b) They are forced to open their codebase
I don't have the $$ or legal staff to force option B. What I'd rather see happen is that MS gets sued for damages for violating the software's license, and that money go towards paying people who developed the GPL'ed code.
(Remember, RMS first wrote it as part of his effort to destroy software companies whose founders had left the MIT AI Lab, leaving him all alone.) Why shouldn't those companies fight back? Their license doesn't preclude the creation of open source, since the BSD License, the Apache License, or the X11 license could be use on the code. It merely prevents the use of licenses which are, esentially, guns aimed at software developers' heads. Nor does it mandate your choice of license, as does the GPL. What's wrong with that? --Brett Glass
Can Microsoft legally prohibit the creation of GPL'd software with their software development tools? Really, this isn't a troll or flamebait, but an actual, honest question.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
First of all, there is no way Microsoft can enforce conditions upon the implementation of a standard (read: "standard"). Entering into a contract requires, well, that you enter into a contract.
Secondly, this is a -- if not the -- prime example of what's wrong with the "intellectual property" faction of anti-GPL types. The GPL in no way inhibits intellectual property. It is simply a software license that imposes contractual conditions on the use of software. It is only unusual in that it does not require payment.
Here's the argument that Microsoft and other anti-GPL nutballs are making: "You're not making any money off this, so we want to steal your intellectual property, violate the hell out of your license, and make money from our criminal activities." The underlying, unstated argument is, of course, that unless you're in it for profit, you have no intellectual property rights. This is utter bullshit, of course, and serves only to show what basically unethical and indecent people we're dealing with.
This would be exactly parallel to a clothing manufacturer telling people that they have established a pattern for shirts with two sleeves, and you are therefore not allowed to make shirts with two sleeves unless you promise not to donate your old shirts to the poor.
It's a pity that certain political factions like to lionize Microsoft as bastions of capitalism when Microsoft is itself devoted to strangling the free market at every turn. If Microsoft is as good as they say they are, why are they so afraid of competing in an open and fair market? Why have they adopted such a deeply un-American stance towards the fundamental values of political and economic liberty? Ballmer can spew all he wants about the GPL being communist, but as near as I can tell, it is Microsoft that is seeking to create a command economy.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
somme code that they can pakage whit windows
whitout realesing ther source.
It be simpler for them to implementend ther own
close source CIFS.but i guess they can't do that
by them self.
Windows _is_ open source whitout source.
Let's not follow microsoft here - publish our own "Samba" specification as an open specification available to everybody and prohibit microsoft from using it.
:-)
Time to start our own embrace & extend operation here
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I really dont get this stupid company called MS. I saw an interview where a MS spokeman said they had nothing against opensource community and thats why they shouldnt be sued for monopoly!
This story is far more interesting than we think, now those 9 states that are on MS side on the monopoly case will see the truth! MS acts with such stupidity that they cant see acts like this one just make their situation ever worse.
Why they do this? So linux cant succeed on desktop environment. They want to rule everthing! Micros~1, stop being such an stupid company, show us you can and give us better products. You wont win the competition by destroying linux, you will win by building better products (thats how linux is winning now)
Fabio - Sumare/Sao Paulo/Brazil/South America/Earth/Solar System/Milky Way/Universe
http://www.morroida.com.br
So interoperability supposedly risks loss of IP. If merely working together risks pollution, one would presume that working together by design, with knowledge of the "dangerous" side, with no alternative on the "dangerous" side would be even more risky.
MicroSoft software-produced documents fit in this category. If the GPL is a threat to MicroSoft, then MicroSoft is similarly a threat to all of their customers.
Of course, MicroSoft is doing this both to be inconvenient to open-source competition, and to put fear of the GPL in people's minds. But this also raises the possibility that MicroSoft will decide that they want to put you out of business and take all of your IP, and that they seem to think that would be possible.
Forget about the fact that Microsoft's attempts at restricting open source implementations are bogus. Let's ask: why even waste time on CIFS? Is enabling Windows clients to talk to non-Windows servers even the right thing to do? And if it is, why use CIFS? It seems to me that developing an installable file system driver that speaks a high-quality open protocol (NFS doesn't qualify) would result in something that's both easier to maintain and would work better than trying to reverse engineer Microsoft's latest protocol hiccup.
First of all, I can't believe how unbelievably childish Microsoft is being. It seems that the whole purpose to their licenses now a days is not to protect their property or spell out the terms under which to use it, but instead to simply attack GNU. This sort of behavior has positive effect other than alienating and pissing off people and companies (some their business partners ie. IBM) that have adopted GPL/LGPL licensed software for part of their business strategies. They could have just as easily worded their license in a way protect their precious (crap) intellectual property without the mudslinging. NDA's aren't a new idea.
quoth the license:
Secondly, this clause does not premit software licensed under a BSD-type license. Any license that is GPL/LGPL compatible is banned including BSD/Artistic/X11, because they "would subject such Company Implementation to the terms of an IPR Impairing License". According to MS's license, the license for a "Company Implementation"'s software would basically have to include the same "IPR Impairing License" clause specifically banning GNU GPL/LGPL.
That's the easiest way.
Imitate? Go for it
Write an open source, free implementation
They'll deny you support of your Windows machines if you are using Samba, or whatever.
wasnt microsoft obligated to open all its protocols due to agreenment with DOJ?
God, they are doing it again!
Fabio - Sumare/Sao Paulo/Brazil/South America/Earth/Solar System/Milky Way/Universe
http://www.morroida.com.br
What happened? Michael did law school overnight or something? How can he make this sort of statement and hope for it to even mean anything?
"Microsoft's claim is completely ungrounded - nothing written by a third-party can take away Microsoft's intellectual property rights. But it makes a good (read: confusing to the general public) justification for preventing others from interoperating with their software. "
I wish these Slashdot editors would stop making uninformed and potentionaly untrue statements. I don't know the real answer but at least I won't stand up on my soap box and shout XYZ.
Silly Rabbit...Sig's are for kids.
The real problem is that MS is claiming a patent on the underlying technology. They are offering a royalty-free license to non-GPL software. This is hard for GPL software to get around.
Does anyone understand what is being patented? Does it look like a valid patent -- I never got the feeling that this technology was particularly innovative.
Close. The GPL's purpose is to *enable* developers who want to kill software companies to do so in the free market. Behind every piece of GPL'd software is an individual who decided that they wanted to share their work in that way.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This is a lot like the EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL travesty currently taking place on lkml.
Pushin' 'n dealin', shovin' 'n stealin'
IANAL, but I found this statement particularly interesting.
So if this is true, and the samba folks violate the license, won't Microsoft, as the property owner, be compelled to show damage from violation of the license? Microsoft could (probably) claim that they experienced damages from any free (including GPL) implementation of those specs. But could they demonstrate damages specific to a GPL implementation? If not, why not just violate the license?
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
There's an easy bypass to such nonsense.
The Microsoft license doesn't prohibit BSD-like licenses (MS loves swiping BSD code). So, developer A uses the specs to implement a bare-bones BSD version, and releases that code only to developer B. Developer B then makes a derivative work of that, fleshing out the details, making it much more useful, etc, and releases that version under the GPL. (Nothing in the BSD prevents this.)
Now, of course, anyone is free to use the original BSD'd code in a non-GPL manner -- if they can figure out which code that is! Since the original BSD version was never publicly released, they have no way of doing that, so they have to use the GPLd version.
(Usual IANAL disclaimer applies, though.)
-- Alastair
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
You miss the point. The licence is not talking about the re-use of code. but about an implementation of standard. This is clearly different.
Do you ever read the GPL ? Do you understand the implication of non-free software ?
check out www.gnu.org
Why not create a GPLed NFS implementation for Windows? Just in case that this is really going to be a problem -- it doesn't look wholly like it. That way, people won't need to rely on MS's grace anymore.
Then we can do away with that strange SMB protocol, and rely on our own infrastructure and ideas. Why not grasp the control over the specification?
Um, the GPL says nothing about what happens if someone violates it. The damages are determined by the courts if it ever goes that far. I don't know what the typical damages are for copyright violation, but it seems unlikely that they would include source code disclosure.
Does anyone remember when Microsoft released Novell NetWare compatibility into its Windows NT operating systems? At that time, Novell was the dominant player, and Microsoft was playing catchup.
Microsoft quickly eroded Novell's network operating system market share, eventually becoming the dominant player in office network servers. Novell Netware installations now seem a rarity.
Microsoft, the dominant player, is now threatened by people creating compatible implementations of its own services. This turn of events, though not surprising, somehow seems ironic.
My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead, and that's the way I likes it!
Down with DMCA!
Down with DMCA!
Down with DMCA!
Wait, Microsoft violated it??
Hooray for DMCA!
Hooray for DMCA!
Hooray for DMCA!
fsckin' hypocrites...
All that means, is that if a programmer makes a compatable implementation, the programmer is not violating DMCA. It doesn't mean that the programmer hasn't done something else (such as violating a contract) that will get 'em in trouble.
In other words, if you defy Microsoft's license, they can't sue you for violating DMCA. Of course, that very same term of the DMCA also means that MPAA can't use DMCA as a basis for suing someone for writing DeCSS.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
The GPL forbids mix with propietary licenses. Whats the problem?
1.2 "Company Implementation" shall mean only those portions of the software developed by Company that implement CIFS for use on Non-Microsoft Platforms.
1.4 "IPR Impairing License" shall mean the GNU General Public License, the GNU Lesser/Library General Public License, and any license that requires in any instance that other software distributed with software subject to such license (a) be disclosed and distributed in source code form; (b) be licensed for purposes of making derivative works; or (c) be redistributable at no charge.
3.3 IPR Impairing License Restrictions. For reasons, including without limitation, because (i) Company does not have the right to sublicense its rights to the Necessary Claims and (ii) Company's license rights hereunder to Microsoft's intellectual property are limited in scope, Company shall not distribute any Company Implementation in any manner that would subject such Company Implementation to the terms of an IPR Impairing License.
I see nothing that says I cannot stand up and do a dramatic reading of my source code. Section A of the "imparing license" claims that you cannot distribute in source form, so does that mean in binary form only? What about interpreded form, just as java byte code... that is neither source-code, or compiled code... but neither? Also, the GNU, and derivitaves, are mentioned by name... very strange! Section B claims that you cannot realease your implementaion for the purpose of derivitave works, but since you cannot release the implementaion in source form, basically mean nothing, right? The 3rd part (section c) about releaseing your implementaion at no cost to others.
So the way I read it is that I can create my implementaion, release it under the BSD license, and charge a penny for it. I would have to use JAVA since the byte code is not technically source code. Or perhaps a mathmatical modeling language... is this thingking wrong?
Lastly, since the form requires a signatory, does that mean if I do't sign, that I can do whatever I wish?
It isn't a lie if you belive it.
As far as I can tell, this means that if you own a patent to something required to implement CIFS, then simply by reading the Technical Reference, you have licensed that patent to Microsoft.
Gotta love it.
any license that requires in any instance that other software distributed with software subject to such license
Creepy, well, ok... I almost always find MSFT creepy.
But read that again:
Doesn't it say that it forbids you to use a license which requires OTHER SOFTWARE distributed with yours to be subject to those conditions?
What the hell kind of license does that? GPL only covers derivative works, not other works distributed with the GPL'd original, no?
Is there any particular reason a CIFS implementor would have to agree to the terms of this license? The Samba guys have done just fine so far.
BTW, didn't Microsoft try similar shit (although without specifically attacking GPL) with proprietary Kerberos-like protocol's documentation? They were openly defied without consequences.
Licensing the specification for a so-called "standard"... what arrogance and cluelessness. The Ogg and PNG guys get it. The LZW and MPEG and Microsoft guys don't. That's why people are actively working to phase them out.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
GPL software should be properly re-licensed under a BSD style license anyway. Kinda unfortunate that he motivation came from M$, but I don't give a fuck.
Hmmm, now I really want Microsoft to die (I wasn't taking it too seriously before).
I'm no longer using Samba (switched to OpenAFS), but maybe it's time to make a donation to the team.
Or just kick down for the EFF again.
From the advogato articles quote on what constitutes a so-called "IPR impairing license":
[...]or (c) be redistributable at no charge.
Apparently, merely "not charging money for redistribution" counts as "IPR Impairing" according to the whacked-out crack-smokers at MS's legal department...
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
I didn't see that they were claiming SMB requires the use of a patent.
Gee, I'm so glad that we have software patents. They are great for promoting progress.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
#1 What would happen if this licence were applied to all future version of the MSDN & Platform SDK documentation?
#2 Why not create software for windows machines to interface with file and authentication systems on linux and other free platforms? For example, I have used Netware & DCE clients that replace the default GINA with thier own, and the netware client includes support for accessing Netware volumes. So you end up with windows client using a non windows machine for file sharing and access control. Wouldn't this pretty much have the same effect of letting everything work together, it just makes a windows computer use another systems protocol rather than the other way around.
Sound like it would make an interesting project; Maybe it hasn't been done because the ms enterprise apps are somehow want domain controllers and such (I'm not sure, I dont get involved any of that much)
-- Eric
Please learn to spell. Dumb ass.
bah this fucking post I made was a nice post I think it got modded down cause it was the first post. bah fucking mods... all my posts post at 0 as it is... I say fuck em down to -1 from the begining...
ERROR: Too many double-negatives. Unable to parse parent post.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
The DOJ must have their heads firmly up their asses.
I believe that its stuff like this that push Linux developers to create programs that are more M$ independent. I read an article somehwere that made a really good point. Linux needs to not worry as much with dealing with M$ products...yes being to interface with them is great but if we had more programs that were more appealing to the masses then there would not be as much as a need. Thses are the days when the SUPER MEGA KILLER APPS will really push Linux up in the desktop area.
I'd be interested to see Miguel de Icaza's rationale for why this can never happen to Dotnet and so entrap his Mono development. From any legal perspective, I can't see how one could distinguish between knowledge needed for interoperability, as with SAMBA, and Mono's need to know Dotnet details for portability.
Personally, I think that the extraordinarily destructive nature of Mono has yet to be perceived. Currently, most people probably view it as one more string to Linux's bow. Intentionally or not, it nevertheless marginalizes original developments such as Parrot. Once Linux devices on non-i86 platforms start proliferating, a void will emerge for cross-platform software support, and the options to fill it will be very limited. Let's hope IBM and Sun's commitment to the somewhat more ethical Java platform stays solid or we could be looking at a corporate coup of epic proportions.
Unlike what Slashdot posters would have you believe, MS loves the idea of open source and an open development community. They have been posting more and more of their standards online.
However, MS is clear that they do not like rabid liberal OpenSores Militancy as defined in the GPL. They like people to have choice and the GPL represents the same kind of lock-in that MS you to do in the Bad Old Days.
MS freely supports FreeBSD and other BSD-style licensed products.
Just so ya'll are clear...
... if they'd release full specs for a new version of their NCP file-serving protocol (that won't work with existing NCP clients such as what's supplied with Windows) as open source, preferably GPL. Give away the server-side.
NCP always has outperformed SMB/CIFS and has a much better design for its file locking mechanisms (remember the problem with SMB's oplocks and data corruption when you use a file-oriented database like dBase, Foxpro, etc hosted off a server share?).
Novell could then stand a chance of recapturing some of its glory by selling just the enhanced client that has proper hooks for the Novell directory service or other directory services, if they don't try to price it too high. And to stick it to MS, they should give away for free the client that works with Win NT4, 9x and older.
It's a pity that certain political factions like to lionize Microsoft as bastions of capitalism when Microsoft is itself devoted to strangling the free market at every turn.
There is no benefit to be gained from Capitalism alone. The benefit is gained from the struggle/balance between two opposing forces, buyers and sellers. They are opposing because each is trying to wipe out the other. Buyers want to maximize the "value" of the product they buy and minimize the price. Taken to its logical extreme, that means the value is infinity and the price is zero. Sellers want to maximize the price they can charge and minimize the cost of production. Taken to its logical extreme that means the price is infinity and the cost of production is zero.
The "benefit" of Capitalism occurs when these two opposing forces stand in relationship to each other in a manner "we" find pleasing.
The problem then is not that they are necessarily bad Capitalists, but rather, they are terrible members of our community. The answer is found in the problem known as the "Prisoners Dillema."
I want to be alone with the sandwich
Microsoft's claim is completely ungrounded - nothing written by a third-party can take away Microsoft's intellectual property rights.
Strangely reminds me of Richard Stallman's claims about the GPL...
So under C are all free licenses disqualified? I'm not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV.
My Slashdot account is old enough to drink...
a license fee of one wet honey glazed ham is due if the software is used consecutively for more than sixty thousand years.
I find the terms of the MS compatible GPL to be far too restrictive.
First, 60,000 years is far too short. I fully intend to be alive, youthful, and in perfect health in 60,000,000 years. Second, at that time, swine from whence honey glazed ham is made may well be extinct, and while genetic decendents of Long Pigs such as Bill Gates and the Honorable Senator "Disney" Hollings may still be present, honey made hams made from such creatures may not strictly qualify under the terms of the license, making it impossible to adhere to the terms of the license at all upon its termination in a short 60,000 years.
Instead, may I recommend a termination date 60x10^4000 years, and a fee payable in 1 cm^3 of common hydrogen or the equivelent converted energy thereof, calculated from Einstein's e=mc^2, payable upon that date, or the final death of the universe, whichever comes first?
That would offer the freedom I require, and the payment option (a cubic centimeter of hydrogen) is likely to be obtainable even in 60x10^4000 years, assuming the other criteria of the license termination (the end of the universe itself) hasn't taken effect.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
So we're not allowed to make a GPL version of Samba, but we're allowed to make a no-holds-barred, implement-this-as-proprietarily-as-you-like-and-ma ke-money-off-of-it-without-any cost-to-you-BSD-licensed version?
So perhaps the GPL zealots aren't happy, but isn't this doing wonders for commercial competitors as well as the BSD crowd?
2 - Communism. Yeah so what if some FSF members support some whacked political theories. It doesn't have much bearing on the GPL. The GPL is not communism, it's more akin to realizing that software is much more like art or music than it is like a watch or an auto part, and the way we go about licensing, copyrighting, and patenting software should reflect this.
None of the FSF members support any such 'whacked' political theories AFAIK. Certainly not RMS, to whome such nonesense is most often attributed.
While your overall point is correct, you are inadvertently buying into a portion of the very disinformation and FUD you are trying to combat, specificially a great deal of the anti-RMS ad-homonem, and baseless, attacks that make such accusations in the complete absence of any evidence to substantiate them.
RMS isn't and never was a communist, regardless of what his detractors would have you believe. Lacking in tact, and often diplomancy, yet, but an adherent to 'whacked' political theories? No.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
The funniest part is the reciprocal patent license which you must agree without seeing the specs! What if the spec requires some patent that I own but I didn't know. Just by downloading the spec, I have given them patent rights! So if you have some patents in the file system area and if you want to see if those patents are violated and you download the spec, you lost the patent claim! It seems, you must hire third party to verify if any patents are violated and if not you lose money by paying to the investigating firm. You have no right to check, if someone is violating your rights!
When I read this story, I figured it was another deal like the Kerberos/Win2000 thing. As some will recall, you could download the specs, but the self-extracting archive required you to agree to licensing terms before it would extract the document. Not so with the CIFS spec. It's just a WinZip self-extractor with no restrictions. It's available here. What you do with it is your business... though bear in mind that Microsoft might make it their business, too.
It says that if you use a VNC style app, you must have a valid XP Licence for the client machine (whether XP is installed or not, is irrelevant). To stop people from using XP Workstations as poor-man's terminal servers and giving multiple people access to the XP Desktop and applications, you need a valid XP licence for each machine that is going to connect.
You can hear the conversation here. The begining is in french, the two comics explaining the joke. The rest of it is in english and you can hear the guy who pretends to be Canada's Prime Minister talking to Gates.
First of all IMO BSD is not a license, its publid domain with a disclaimer. Now about the GPL, this is an age old arguement ... but lets just do it again, since you asked the age old question.
... and anyone who wants to use it (in something they distribute) has to pay back the favour.
Apart from RMS's beliefs there is one aspect of GPL which appeals to programmers, you supply something for free
GPL is a quid pro quo license, this usually snowed under by RMS's arguements but nonetheless one of the biggest reasons for its success.
RMS saw an inequity in those who took community source to profit without giving anything back.
Since none of the source that those companies that raided the MIT AI Lab was GPLd, he clearly didn't do it to destroy those companies.
He did it so people couldn't profit in the future from community developed code. Actually, there's nothing in the GPL that makes it impossible to profit from the code, it just makes it necessary that you give back to the community from which you benefitted. Seems equitable to me.
The GPL is no different from any Closed Source License (like SAP's for example). If you take Closed Source that you have licensed, you are not able to incorporate that into a product of your own. I don't see you complaining about how Closed Source licenses are attempting to destroy software companies.
The only companies that could be destroyed are those that want to take GPLd software and sell it without giving back the changes to the community.
The license seems to restrict Company implementation (which seems to apply to non-microsoft operating systems.) and the use of gpl/ gpl like licenses. But not when a Company implementation fails to apply i.e. win9x. If this is true then you could implement one for Win2k/xp/me/95/98/dos gpl it and then have someone who didn't look at the tech ref port it.. Since one is following the guidelines of the tech ref license and the other hasn't signed it could they do it right? Someone see a clause or something that closes the hole in the agreement?
Nobody suspects the butterfly!
The GPL is applied to software. These are specs. Having restrictive licenses on protocol specs, while legal, is Evil And Wrong, as it harms interoperability.
/me extends M$ the middle finger
Let's examine the choice of words, and their implications:
Well well. Note that there are no open source-ish licenses that attempt to impose terms on software "distributed with" the licensed software. In fact, the only such license I can think of off the top of my head that attempts to impose restrictions on related (not linked) software is... this one.
The LGPL doesn't do this. The full GPL doesn't do it. That's why there's an "and", not an "or" after the GPL/LGPL prohibition, as these licenses are not representative of the following prohibitions.
They don't mention the word, but they like to refer to the GPL as "viral" because it effects source linked to (not "distributed with") it. But the LGPL has no such effect. It's substantially similar to the Mozilla or Artistic licenses, neither of which are prohibited by this Microsoft license.
I think this is clear. This isn't about "viral" licenses like the GPL, because it covers the LGPL specifically as well. It's not about open source licenses in general (because none of them - including the LGPL and GPL - meet the "other software distributed with" condition). This is an open declaration of war only on the GPL and LGPL, and therefore on the FSF itself. Well, well, well.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
MS's statement could be valid in the US, but is definitely illegal in other countries. The European Software Directive (91/250/EEC of 14 May 1991 clearly states: Article 6 Decompilation:9 1L0250.html
1. The authorization of the rightholder shall not be required where reproduction of the code and translation of its form within the meaning of Article 4 (a) and (b) are indispensable to obtain the information necessary to achieve the interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs, provided that the following conditions are met:
(a) these acts are performed by the licensee or by another person having a right to use a copy of a program, or on their behalf by a person authorized to to so;
(b) the information necessary to achieve interoperability has not previously been readily available to the persons referred to in subparagraph (a); and (c) these acts are confined to the parts of the original program which are necessary to achieve interoperability.
Full text of the Directive in http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/en/lif/dat/1991/en_3
It is also of dubious enforceability in countries like mine (Argentina) where software patents are fobidden by law. For something being patentable, it must be an ``invention'', and software is not considered an invention as per Article 6.c) of Law No. 24481
No, you missed *my* point. GPL'd code means that the source code is available. The source code that implements calls to their APIs, which, if you went through them, you'd have to pay to learn. The source code is free. Hence, you'd be giving away stuff that they feel is their intellectual property.
:)
Microsoft's standard business model is at risk here. Normally, if another company writes something that sells well, M$ buys the company, and either buries it or assimilates it into themselves. They can't do this with GPL'd software, there's nobody to buy.
Heck, they can't even realisticly threaten free software - their lawyers would have to intimidate every single author of free software on the planet, and that takes lots of time and money. They see free software as the biggest threat to their corporate life - they can't buy it, they can't intimidate it, and their only ways to stop it are by buying new laws to prevent it (they're trying this, too) and keeping people from writing it with licenses.
I fon't think it'll work. Thankfully, there are people out there who *enjoy* coding, and do it just for the fun of it. M$ doesn't understand that, thank goodness
Lemon curry?
Knowing Microsoft, their next step will be to implement a completely new filesystem, encourage (force)
everyone to upgrade, and protect it with encryption (if they claim that the encryption is
for protection of a user's intellectual property, then perhaps the DMCA would have more teeth
in this situation), and/or patents (somewhat akin to what they did with ASF).
You sir have hit the nail right on the head!
Here it is:
MS to overhaul files for next Windows
-DF
Google Cache
.
By way of example but not limitation of the foregoing, COMPANY shall not incorporate any Publicly Available Software in whole or in part into any part of the WORK or use Publicly Available Software in whole or in part in the development of any part of the WORK in a manner that may subject the WORK, in whole or in part, to all or part of the license obligations of any Publicly Available Software.ÿ ?Publicly Available
Software? means each of (i) any software that contains, or is derived in any manner (in whole or in part) from, any software that is distributed
as free software, open source software (e.g. Linux) or similar licensing or distribution models; and (ii) any software that requires as a condition of use, modification and/or distribution of such software that such software or other software incorporated into, derived from or distributed
with such software (a) be disclosed or distributed in source code form; (b) be licensed for the purpose of making derivative works; or (c) be
redistributable at no charge.ÿ Publicly Available Software includes, without limitation, software licensed or distributed under any of the
following licenses or distribution models, or licenses or distribution models similar to any of the following: (a) GNU?s General Public License
(GPL) or Lesser/Library GPL (LGPL), (b) The Artistic License (e.g., PERL), (c) the Mozilla Public License, (d) the Netscape Public License, (e) the Sun Community Source License (SCSL), (f) the Sun Industry Source
License (SISL), and (g) the Apache Server license.ÿ
This is not a problem. You are still free to create a NAS device that uses a GPL'ed OS and speaks Samba. The only restriction is that your Samba implementation must be licensed under non-GPL terms. BSD terms would work.
Build stuff. Stuff that walks, stuff that rolls, whatever.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"End User" shall mean a third party customer or potential customer to whom a copy of Company Implementation is licensed, delivered, or otherwise provided primarily for such customer's or potential customer's use, and not for further sublicense or distribution.
You can't sublicense the Company Implementation. I think releasing to PD would count as 'sublicensing'.
Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.
- Nietzsche
The name CIFS simply applys 'COMMON Internet File System' Protocol... I don't see anything common when the only people that can use it is them. you get a 'common inet file system' only guess what, it's not common, and you can't use it on half ur network (applying half your network is *nix) :)
I understand what i say will not hold legally, but isn't this somewhat of a problem?
- Zac Epkes
I know NFS blows, but why is nobody concentrating on developing another network file system? Yes we want to accomodate those Windows clients but, duh, why not write a client add-on to Windows for the hypothetical non-CIFS file system..? Why not just do an end-run around CIFS?
... to prevent Microsoft, its employees, and agents from using code covered under the GPL?
/\/\icro/\/\uncher
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I took a quick look at the claims in both of the patents. Now, IANAL, but to me it looks like the patents describe optimization techniques to avoid copying network data buffers within the networking client, not the server or the network protocol. If that's true, then Samba doesn't have to worry about infringing these two patents.
Read the license: You can only distribute to End Users. End Users can't redistribute. Hence, you cannot distribute under any license that allows the recipient to redistribute it.
/. geeks are completely underqualified to be getting angry about licensing issues. No one here can (or can be bother to) actually read the legalese. The key here is only Microsoft can distribute the license to distribute the CIFS IP. You can distribute your implementation of it, but the people you distribute it to cannot.
What's obvious is
All this GPL crap is a side-effect of that, and is just distracting from the main point.
The MSGPL license, for GPL implementations of MS protocols need only include the clause that changes must be available in source code form or in binary digits tattooed across the backside of the author, and that a license fee of one wet honey glazed ham is due if the software is used consecutively for more than sixty thousand years.
You're not looking nearly close enough. Notice:
What does this say? It says that your license can't affect other software distributed with your software. For example, say I write an implementation of ls and an implementation of cat. Under a clause like this, the license for cat can't require that I release ls under a license requiring one of (a),(b), or (c) above. Note that the GPL doesn't even go this far. The GPL requires that extensions to the software be released under the same license. That's extensions, as in part of the same software, not other software, as defined in the license. It does not require that software released in the same tarball be released under the GPL. I can write my cat implementation under the GPL and my ls implementation under the BSD license, tar them up together, and release them.
In essence, the licensing restriction here has no teeth to bite with, because aside from explicitly mentioning the GPL/LGPL licenses, it prohibits licenses which don't even exist.
Speaking of which, does anybody know why there
aren't any XFL games on lately? I was looking
forward to the season and the Million Dollar Game!
I've seen ftp-servers functioning from within the filemanager.
;)
My suggestion is this: Make a 3rd party plugin for the file-explorer that connects the coputer's filesystem with the network. Base this plugin on Samba (of NFS for that matter).
The specs ar already known. Integration with Linux networks is guaranteed. M-soft can do with their network-protocol what they want.
Who needs their protocols anyway?
Extend and embrace
Privacy is terrorism.
Just another bit of evidence to throw out at the trial. If that isn't anti-competitive I don't know what is.
That said, look at section 7.7 of the license:This is effectively a 'poison pill' provision. Section 3.3 details IPR Impairing License Restrictions. So, 7.7 says that if the Judge in the antitrust trial says "no, that's monopolistic, you can't do that", then MS pulls the entire license, and no one gets to play!
Sections 3.6 and 3.7 (Reciprocal Patent License and Defensive Suspension) combined prevent anyone from filing suit for patent infringement if they (a) hold patents, or can sublicense patnts without a fee, that apply to CIFS, and (b) implement CIFS.
In fact, section 3.6 is very important:Now, isn't the bolded section a 'Viral License'?!?
We are the Music Makers, and We are the Dreamers of Dreams...
Microsoft license makes everything free. The only restriction it puts is that you can't distribute source with more restrictions that they have. GPL simply don't work in this case because it is RESTRICTIVE license and requires source code to be suplied. That's a GPL problem I think. Microsoft just found a way to fight with GPL restrictions by ensuring that people will have freedom to do whatever they want with their specs.
By targetting the GPL, Microsoft has made it clear that they want to be able to take our work without any obligations whatsoever. They want to steal our work. A year ago, this would have been an absurd thing to say, but their new zeal for GPL-bashing makes it a workable slogan. We should be saying to this everyone we can!
Back in the 80's, a very popular company was the sort that existed solely to buy and sell stock, and thus was basically a company of stock owners. They produced nothing, and until the early 90's offered no services... however they made tons of money. Now we would refer to them as sort of a commodity broker, or perhaps just the middleman. Microsoft is becoming more and more like this, and it is hard to refer to them as a technological firm anymore. Rather they are more of a technological middleman. They do still produce things, but more in the publisher scheme anymore. They put so much into marketing and lawyering that it might just be better if they formally reorg'd and announced themselves as technological brokers.
Lets look at it from a newspaper business. They don't report on the news, nor do they operate the printing presses. They do not edit, nor do they perform the image and layout changes. They do not run the paper mills of course and do not make ink. They do not package the papers, nor run the database that holds the subsciber information. They do not deliver the paper either. What they would do is be the upper management in certain positions of the newspapers corporate office (mainly for marketing and legal). They would probably wait by your lawn, and take your paper from your doorstep, convert it to a format THEY want you to read (and laugh if you ask to see the native format) then throw it into a pile of dog poop in your neighbors lawn. (which btw is farther of a walk then your door where it originally was placed). They will also intercept all calls you make to the classifieds and 'tweak' your requests into something you don't recognize in order to 'help you'
If they notice a special interest newsletter (perhapst the 'rock gardener monthly' ran by your elderly neighbor) they will break into her house and repeatedly threaten her until she either quits, sells to them or dies. Once they then acquire her business, they will then claim it was their own 'innovation' while changing it 'embrace and extend' to be nothing like it used to be. It will no longer be available to everyone, but only people who have 'Mailbox 2000'.
http://geraldholmes.freeyellow.com/
I swear it's like watching a game of chess that ol' Bill is playing with the Open Source folks :)
Discrimination? Remember - in this country it is illegal to single any one person or entity out just because you don't like them.
Anyone remember yesterday's story about the company (Pets Warehouse) which sued over the postings? They felt discriminated against and after suing they managed to get an estimated $15,000,000.00. Makes me wonder how much money M$ is willing to lose. I'm sure some smart lawyer will pick this up and immediately file a lawsuit over it.
This is not to also mention reverse engineering is still legal and M$ has no say so over someone doing that. They can cry DMCA all they want but RE is still RE and it is still protected under law. Too bad M$ only has a couple hundred people working on their SMB stuff and open source has thousands. Not my problem.
So, what makes anyone think that the Samba team won't just re-license under the BSD license instead? It doesn't seem to me like it'd be all that different a change for the end-user, as long as the original tarball is available from the samba team directly to keep it clean of tampering by outside parties interested in breaking it. So, so what? If M$ wants free code, let 'em have it. If they break something, it can always be fixed.
You are all fartheads.
Linux is used to Fud attacks. ,Licnesing, Patents,
This is only one front of the war MS will wage.
They will open several others.
Legal, ie
Illegal, bribe businesses/patners to not use Linux
threaten businesses/parnters to not use Linux
If existing laws don't give them the ammo , then
they will influence the quasi-corrupt governement
to make new one that do.
They will fight hard and dirty.
They will stop at nothing.
at least as far coninuing to be economic serfs ....
in the new global hi-tech economy.
never mind information, national economies want to
be free
of billg leechware.
are the one they invents themselves.
I think that microsoft is really doing it to scare people off people who have neither the money nor inclinaton to defend their work in court. If I were writing an Open Source widget that was covered by this, and I found a nasty looking letter in my mailbox from Microsoft, I think i would just unplug the website and pray they leave me alone.
dominionrd.blogspot.com - Restaurants on
So does this mean the Samba group's in trouble?
This doesn't seem like it's gonna stop anyone... but if it did that would really suck.
Sigs pose an operational security risk and help the baddies aggregate data. I guess commenting does too, oops.
Doesn't this seem like it's furthering their status as a monopoly? Can lawyers use Microsoft's current tactics as an example in the current USDOJ case against them? It seems like that since they have already been found guilty of being a monopoly, they should have to stop using tacticts to further their monopoly. Or is it that they are able to do whatever the hell they want until a punishment is handed down from the "justice -hehe" system?
This license sounds like it's bogus, fraudulent and illegal.
According to the "agreement", you have the right to read the document without signing this contract. In fact, by making this document publicly available, you DO have the legal right to read it. Microsoft has published it, and Copyright law is very clear about your rights with regards to published works.
You are not required to accept this license. Simply don't sign the form, and go ahead with your free implementation of the protocol.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
payable when you meed the programmer next time.
what else can I say?
realkiwi
There's a big loophole there. Although it specifically mentions the (L)GPL, it does not cover any other Free or Open Source license.
"that requires in any instance that other software distributed with"
They are talking about aggregation. So you can use any OSI or FSF approved license other than the GNU licenses, because none of those licenses make any claims on other software distributed with the software.
I say let's tweak Microsoft's noses a bit. Put Samba under the *old* BSD license, with the advertisement clause. Then if Microsoft wants to use that code in their own stuff (which is clearly their intent with this clause), then they have to credit Samba in all adds relating to CIFS.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
It constantly amazes me that Microsoft will constantly try and force any competition out of the way by any means. Don't they realize that if linux does survive in the office then it can be revenge time for linux and block ALL M$ products. Imagine old bill's face when he realises that his product has been shown the door because it is incompatible with any of the new linux systems..
I would love it if for one day all admins running GPL webserver/dns server (or anything connected to the internet in any way) just to stop all packets with microsoft headers from getting through. Imagine how much chaos this would cause.. They would do that to us if they could so it should be us that do this to them before they do it.. I can imagine it now as a huge switch just switching Microsoft off in a fraction of a second..... how satisfying... Mark.
---- There are 10 types of people in the world. Those that understand binary and those that don't
Reincarnated already?!
If there were an open source NFS client for Windows with as much community support as Samba enjoys, then the open source community would be in the driver's seat with respect to network file sharing.
Jason the Lazy
What Microsoft is basically saying. If you receive access to NDA documentation, you can't redistribute, or release source code for software that was developed using NDA information.
That doesn't stop one from reverse engineering protocols and releasing that information.
Personally, We should stop bothering trying to support the CIFS and just develop our only GPL version of Windows File Sharing. CIFS is pretty crappy to start off with. Its full of incompatibly issues between different MS OS's (Win 9x, WinNT, Win2K, WinXP). I know we can do better than Microsoft anyday, have produce a faster, more secure, and stabler Windows File Sharing protocol than Microsoft could in their dreams.
From Advogato:
It's simply time to acknowledge the reality of the situation, and go our own way.
F*ck Micro$oft; f*ck interoperability with Micro$oft; let Micro$oft and its ilk rot in hell, stewed in their own juices, which they most certainly will.
Two worlds, one the world of darkness, and one the world of light.
Guess which one is Micro$oft?
Which one will you join?
t_t_b
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
Dude you cited a law about copying for backup purposes, which is irrelevant to the point the original author was trying to make -- i.e., this backup copy exception has nothing to do with the fact that you still have to agree to the license before use.
...a corking idea
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Microsoft is just trying to ensure that should
anyone write an implementation that's better than
theirs, they can grab it and include it in their
own products.
(I'm kidding, but Microsoft's behavior is often
stranger than fiction, so who knows.)
Ben "You have your mind on computers, it seems."
I can't see the problem here.
1) If you don't sign the license or in any other way consent to the license you are not obligated to follow anything written in it. You can just happily ignore it. The license changes nothing!
2) If the samba-team have used patented material in any way, M$ could have sued them a long time ago. And this has nothing to do with this license.
There is thus nothing knew to this.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
a) read that $hit b) write your stuff c) send in that stuff as some annonymous geek at some kind of server in Iraq or something like that d) Micro$oft can't do a thing e) Micro$oft want to sue the guys of that site (suspecting them of breaking their stupid rules (wich are in 99% of the case illigal). f) it comes in the news. g) lots of people download it. h) Micro$oft can't retrieve your info, so they can't sue nobody. i) geeks around the world implemented that code into their code.j) I Micro$oft is sueing the geeks wich implemented that code into theirs code, they rever to your site (wich doesn't exist anymore), so nor they nor microsoft can prove they reversed-engineered it or not. k) world peace :D
If at first you don't succeed, then sky diving definitely isn't for you.
I think the code without all the other samba code (licensed under GPL) will be pretty useless. Yes, this certainly is a workaround, but it will allow the samba developers to actually use the docs (thus they don't need to reverse-engineer) and also effectively force people to accept the GPL, without breaking rules.
Judges can (and do) set aside NDAs.
The reasons are:
1) NDA contrary to public interest. One of the fundamental principals of contract law is that no contract requiring a person to break the law is enforceable. Cooperation with authorities in investigating a crime is a grey area, but few judges will be quick to enforce an NDA that interferes with legitimate law enforcement actions.
2) NDA too broad. An NDA should cover specific things that that would cause harm to the other party, but it can't be a blanket ban on all speech. If an NDA tries to cover too much, e.g., if you can't even discuss why Sen. Disney's bill is a bad idea, then it's likely to be unenforceable since you can no more surrender your right to free speech (subject to *modest* restrictions) than you can agree to sell yourself and your children into slavery or you can agree to be murdered.
3) NDAs can't cover common knowledge.
I think there may be other limitations as well, but the point is clear. A NDA, like all other contracts, only means what a court decides it means.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
Yes it is like a game of chess. With all the short term feints hiding a long term strategy. In this case the long term goal
beiung controll of a critical percentage of the servers on the Internet and corporate LANs. This seems to be far harder for
them to do than they had originally thought. I believe the primary contributer to this delay is the improper balance they
palced in features vs. security for thier products. This is not surprising since they have been fairly succesfull with a featrue
first strategy.
Going forward, they will obviously need to revese this policy and neutralize the GPL at the same time.
Doing one is hard enough. Doing both will be herculean. To do both they need their entire SW development teams to
completly change directions AND convince the general public that the GPL and the LGPL is bad.
I am curious to see what the next move will be.
As has been said before, this is not a battle. It's a chess game; MS has no use for GPL, BSD or any other licence that has the potential to weaken thier position or strengthen thier competitors.
MS wants us to sacrifice our GPL castle and move our king into a corner. MS's ability to dominate the chess board will be so much easier with the GPL gone.
Switching or sticking with a licence out of ideology would be as effective as using the bishop all the time because you like diagonal movement.
Instead, we should continue to be aggressive just not foolishly so.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
the MS license prohibits X from licensing an implementation to Y stipulating that Y must release source code as a condition for releasing a product at all. That's obviously different from MS prohibiting X from releasing a product (say based on scripts) such that the laws of nature make the stipulation.
it's only because slashdot moderators are as dumb as you are that you have a +5.
Interested in learning Chinese or Japanese? check out Chinese/Japanese-English Dictiona
I guess the best parade to that we could do would be to write a really good, free (as in beer and libre) NFS client that would be really easy to install on windows even for the most clue-less user.
Then we can have everybody using NFS instead of CIFS.....
i was just wondering if i am still banned from posting because of that damn communist jamie mccarthy.
Oh, yeah, this initially was an April fool joke. But maybe it should not have been...
-- Did you try Tao3D? http://tao3d.sourceforge.net
AFAICT there's only a problem if you require the source code to be distributed. Can we then just make a GPL v2.5 (or whatever) that doesn't require source code availability, but instead says that one of 2 things must be provided: 1) source code *or* 2) rot13 of source code.
Since the source code is no longer required under this approach, we can still get the spirit of the GPL while working around MS's clause.
At least, IMHO, IANAL, YMMV, etc.
Various ramblings
I have not heard anything about Patents. I think that Advogato post is exaggerated that bit a little. The documentation on CIFS that has this Royalty Free License associated with it is just a dumb Windows Help File:
= 37530
.chm file wound up in the out-bin. Don't read into this too much folks. There is no way MS could use this as an angle on revoking previously released information about these protocols.
www.microsoft.com/downloads/release.asp?ReleaseID
It's derived from the same old documention that was released as an IETF draft several years ago. The SNIA took over that doc and reformatted and added a little bit to it. It is freely available here:
CIFS Protocol Document Version 0.9
I think MS is just going to release whatever they have on this sort of stuff under this "Royalty Free" license to appease the DOJ and this silly
If they release something that we actually need like the IDL to their DCE/RCP calls under this "Royalty Free" license, is that bad or good? I think it's good. It's certainly better than nothing at all. I think new products with great interoperabilty with Windows would emerge. Viable companies would be formed around this stuff. There's no reason why a company couldn't release binaries for free. And this information will eventually trikle down into the Open Source community anyway. It's unavoidable regardless of any fandangled licenses.
Well, you can charge as much as you like for GPL'd software too, see this. Consultants charge an arm and a leg for freely available information, what's new? The GPL simply makes sure that the end user can use their software as they please, modify their software as they please and redistribute their software as well as their changes (better stated here.
MicroShit threw that language in to confuse people about the GPL. Too bad for them that simple and honest licenses are so easy to read and interpret. All of their nonsense comes to an end when people simply look at the source. Ah, so simple it's been the same since 1991 or so. Can you think of any MicroShit license that has remained so stable? You could fill a phone book with all the small print M$ has put out in the last ten years. Confusion is nothing new to them.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
RMS would be bald, he would have a pot belly and beady little eyes, and he would have an unhealthy fascination with prostitutes.
jhw
Step 1: Person A reads docs, creates bsd-licensed patch to samba (or bsd-licensed example code, etc).
Step 2: Person B takes Person A's bsd-licensed code and merges it into samba etc. This is legal under the bsd license.
Step 3: Profit!
Free Java games for your phone: Tontie, Sokoban
Instead of reverse engineering SMB and Active Directory why not release new GPL licensed Windows components to replace the authentication and file sharing components in Windows?
There are already published APIs and hooks for this. Examples would be the Netware login and the commercially available Windows NFS clients.
Release Login and file sharing protocals that install onto Windows PCs and replace those functions (with push-button install and headache free useability).
When MS says that a restriction applies to "Foo, and all other Bars", when Foos aren't Bars in the first place, does that restriction still legally hold up in court?
What would happen if a license said, "This applies to people born after 1980, and other octogenarians", when there exist no octogenarians born after 1980? Does it apply to all people born after 1980 because they are explicitly mentioned?
I guess what I'm asking is, legally, what is the boolean representation for the phrase "Foo, and other Bars":
- The set of all things satisfying the
condition: (Foo) or (Bar)
- The set of all things satisfying the
condition: (Foo and Bar)
Seeing as how Bar is a null set in this case, it's an important queestion to ask, because the set reduces to either just FOO, or the null set, depending on whether it's ORed or ANDed.Well, maybe it's not so important after all, since this would hinge upon getting a lawyer to understand not only the licenses involved, but also the technical jargon of what is "linking" a program and so on. Since I have my doubts about that ever happening, the MS license will probably stand, and idiots will continue to spread the myth that the GPL is viral, and the implicit lie contained in this MS license will help that along a little bit.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
And if the Samba team colses the code and make the program available as "free trial"?
\m/
If I develop code but am forbidden to release it under the license of my choice, then aren't my IP rights being impaired?
Why does MS get to have their cake and eat it too?
Anyone remember why the OSI model for the networks vas developed? The biggest problem then was that the big companies supplying network solutions didnt bother making their products compatible. Microsoft is in on good a path to get us all back to that steenkeen hole of sneakernetting =P...Standards are the consumers biggest friend and to great extent many companies very good friend. Anyone really thinks that the internet would have gotten off ground if it still was proprearity? The day TCP/IP was released to the public was the single biggest moment in the history of the internet. To release a standard and then trying to prevent certain competition from using it is probably illegal for a monopoly because it locks out competition by non competetive means. I hope this will be brought to the attention in the ongoing trial. This if anything shows just how far Microsoft is willing to go just to stomp out ANY competition. Best ofcourse IMHO would be an own OSS fileshare that had clients for all oss out there. Why play their game all the time? You think apache would have been good if it had been based on a reverse engineer of IIS? *LMAO*
HTTP/1.1 400
So put the sources on a server located in a country that Microslop has no patent protection in Not my problem
Brett, I really thought you would have better things to do than troll /.
GPL only mandates your license if you use GPL licensed code. No one is holding a gun to any developer's head forcing them to use GPL code to develop thier own code are they? ARE THEY?
If you know of any instances of code being developed at gunpoint I'm sure we would all love to hear about it.
IOW, despite your name recognition, you're still full of, well, I'll leave that to the reader's imagination.
"control of a critical percentage of the servers"? Try "control of everything even vaguely technology-related." If the server market was their real long-term goal, how does releasing the Xbox help? Note that they didn't ever bother with the game console market until Sony started talking about becoming a "digital entertainment hub" or some such. Suddenly MS swung into action, because they saw their position being threatened...
I just had to comment that this is just funny. In Open Source there really aren't "warez". It's the people so hooked on Windows that they can't get away from overpriced, bloated software that they can't afford to feed their addiction who deal with "warez".
Consider Open Source hackers as farmers. We feed ourselves and are happier for it. If you want something from us, pay what the market demands. Even if it or I demand nothing.
Someone ought to implement this supposed new version of CIFS immediately, in plain defiance of their stupidity. Let M$ go ahead try to sue them--this would be especially effective if the program was written by some teenage kid from a small town. Then make an enormous public fuss about it and watch M$ be annihilated by half its employees leaving and its stock price falling to peanuts.
Here's how my lawyer would interpret it:
My Lawyer: Gimme $10,000.
Me: Ok, here it is.
My Lawyer: OK, here's my opinion. Your screwed. Go home.
Only he doesn't sound a bit like Chretien. The DJ was far too intelligible.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
This goes against your second point. The settlement was bought. Bush has clearly sided with Microsoft. I wonder why? And how can you read that book and then say yawn? You are right that the gov't has never been for the people. I like Zinn's statement that Democrats are the second biggest supporters of Big business. I stopped reading the book because it disgusted me. And to think how many other Americans are receiving the same "US history" education that I got in high school. The only thing that is encouraging at least progress is going in the "right" direction (i.e. the derivative is > 0 (let's hope i'm right)).
1.4 "IPR Impairing License" shall mean the GNU General Public License, the GNU Lesser/Library General Public License, and any license that requires in any instance that other software distributed with software subject to such license (a) be disclosed and distributed in source code form; (b) be licensed for purposes of making derivative works; or (c) be redistributable at no charge.
.
Hopefully, the emphasis will makes it clearer. The statement expressly forbids the GPL and LGPL, and then, separately, goes on to forbid any license that requires other software to be licensed with any of the enumerated terms; basically, they're trying to forbid 'viral licensing' under terms they don't like/feel can out-compete them, through that clause and case (b)
Basically, they're concerned about any code they reuse from resulting projects 'infecting' Windows with the GPL. That first 'other software' clause does permit the BSD license; it does not require that other software distributed with it be subject to terms (a), (b), or (c). In fact, depending how you read (b), it's hard to say if BSD/PD is the *only* license permitted; if a copyright holder chooses to restrict derivative work in any way (basically, by exercising copyright), isn't that too an exertion of a license?
Erm, I should've previewed. If you're going to mod it up, hit this corrected version; apparently Slashcode doesn't allow for bold and italic on top of eachother, or I've hit a Mozilla bug. This version has correct emphasis.
.
--
1.4 "IPR Impairing License" shall mean the GNU General Public License, the GNU Lesser/Library General Public License, and any license that requires in any instance that other software distributed with software subject to such license (a) be disclosed and distributed in source code form; (b) be licensed for purposes of making derivative works; or (c) be redistributable at no charge.
Hopefully, the emphasis will makes it clearer. The statement expressly forbids the GPL and LGPL, and then, separately, goes on to forbid any license that requires other software to be licensed with any of the enumerated terms; basically, they're trying to forbid 'viral licensing' under terms they don't like/feel can out-compete them, through that clause and case (b)
Basically, they're concerned about any code they reuse from resulting projects 'infecting' Windows with the GPL. That first 'other software' clause does permit the BSD license; it does not require that other software distributed with it be subject to terms (a), (b), or (c). In fact, depending how you read (b), it's hard to say if BSD/PD is the *only* license permitted; if a copyright holder chooses to restrict derivative work in any way (basically, by exercising copyright), isn't that too an exertion of a license?
...to their assholeishness?
And I'd gotten it all the way from 13,000 to 19,000+ all by my lonesome! Freakin' microsoft... now I'm really pissed! They will feel the fury of my bunghole!
Danny.
I have written over 900 book reviews
After their Linux desaster last year - can anyone point to someone who actually believed any of their FUD in the anti-linux campaign? - and given that they are losing big money on their xbox and that winxp is not the huge hit they wanted it to be I think this must be an act of desperation. There are enough loopholes that this can be circumvented legally and if MS carries on this manner I can imagine companies simply not upgrading their MS server software.
What company (those big enough and those intelligent enough to read the licence) can actually have any incentive to use MS' server software?
1.What *real* business advantages does any new MS server offer that is not adequately covered by existing products?
2.What advantages do companies have in spending money on the product *and* a technician/admin compared to a Linux/BSD server product that requires *only* a technician/admin (software costs being negligable on the latter)?
3.At what point do MS licences become so unwieldly (WPA/IPRimparing etc) that it becomes impractical for it's customers to use MS software?
4.At what point does the prevalence of an OSS solution in the industry mean that an initiatve of MS is doomed before it even begins due to lack of traction with the industry?
If I were doing any aquisition I would ask myself some questions like these.
Makes me almost want to hang up the keyboard, smash my monitor and remove the fans from my processor before going to McDonald's to be trained as a fry technician.
:p
Think of the development I could do there. Hey, I do like to cook.
Then again, I'd probably come up with a great idea, but be sued into oblivion for violating one of Burger King's patents on the preperation of sliced potatos.
fROM tHE bOOK oF tHE dEAD:
3.3 IPR Impairing License Restrictions. For reasons, including without limitation, because (i) Company does not have the right to sublicense its rights to the Necessary Claims and (ii) Company's license rights hereunder to Microsoft's intellectual property are limited in scope, Company shall not distribute any Company Implementation in any manner that would subject such Company Implementation to the terms of an IPR Impairing License.
So you see, there really is no way to get to the GPL from that -but- reverse engineering can... It's not as though that's even remotely a problem either... The security of m$ networking packets has always been a joke and will inevitably continue to be. SAMBA SHOULD DOCUMENT ITS REVERSE ENGINEERING EFFORTS FROM THE GROUND UP AND MAKE A GREAT MANY BACKUPS OF THAT DOCUMENTATION. THE SAMBA PEOPLE ABSOLUTELY SHOULD NOT READ THE m$ CRAP SPEC. You can bet it'll be about as reliable as the lousy assed RTF [rich text] spec! Reverse engineering is more reliable than m$'s own specs anyway. They've proven that time and again. I'm quite confident the Osrc community will not waste its time with this new pile of dung that the great elephant of redmond has shot out. No, we'll leave it to the vultures, let there be no doubt of that.
And so for those dependent on m$ sw - you now have a great deal more to worry about. For from hence forth you may only write compatible software based upon your master's specs if the master deems it right and good. And for those of us who are free of m$ shackles -- we rather have absolutely nothing to worry about and a great deal to be pleased about; as we watch the beast continue to devour itself while it tries, flailingly at best, to devour us!
fROM tHE bOOK oF tHE dEAD:
3.3 IPR Impairing License Restrictions. For reasons, including without limitation, because (i) Company does not have the right to sublicense its rights to the Necessary Claims and (ii) Company's license rights hereunder to Microsoft's intellectual property are limited in scope, Company shall not distribute any Company Implementation in any manner that would subject such Company Implementation to the terms of an IPR Impairing License.
So you see, there really is no way to get to the GPL from that -but- reverse engineering can... It's not as though that's even remotely a problem either... The security of m$ networking packets has always been a joke and will inevitably continue to be. SAMBA SHOULD DOCUMENT ITS REVERSE ENGINEERING EFFORTS FROM THE GROUND UP AND MAKE A GREAT MANY BACKUPS OF THAT DOCUMENTATION. THE SAMBA PEOPLE ABSOLUTELY SHOULD NOT READ THE m$ CRAP SPEC. You can bet it'll be about as reliable as the lousy assed RTF [rich text] spec! Reverse engineering is more reliable than m$'s own specs anyway. They've proven that time and again. I'm quite confident the Osrc community will not waste its time with this new pile of dung that the great elephant of redmond has shot out. No, we'll leave it to the vultures, let there be no doubt of that.
And so for those dependent on m$ sw - you now have a great deal more to worry about. For from hence forth you may only write compatible software based upon your master's specs if the master deems it right and good! And for those of us who are free of m$ shackles -- we rather have absolutely nothing to worry about and a great deal to be pleased about; as we watch the beast continue to devour itself while it tries, flailingly at best, to devour us!
I still believe the ONLY reason M$ approves of other OSS/free licenses but not the (L)GPL is very clear. The others (like the X11 used for zlib, BSD used for their TCP/IP stack or the MIT license used for kerberos) allow M$ to be a parasite of the open source community without requiring them to ever give back. Only the GPL actually REQUIRES them to return the EMBRACED and EXTENDED work they produce off software they've usurped from others.
I still believe they finally realize their source will be looked at soon by other parties and they're scrambling and panicing about the reaction from others when it's seen they've actually used GPL'd code in their source for years (speculation only) illegally. They're trying to discredit the GPL from a legal point of view to support their case in court when that happens.
Isn't Microsoft digging itself into a new anti-trust hole?
;)
Granted, the majority of the competition is "in business" for remunerations other than money. But they do present legitimate competition - they are just bad business men
Microsoft is again punishing organizations who's business practices they dislike.
Take OpenOffice, for instance. It works with Microsoft file formats, as Microsoft has a monopoly over the desktop market. They could not survive as viable competition if Microsoft declared these formats off limits.
It would make an interesting court case. But I don't think Microsoft is looking to take anyone to court; I see this as a small theatre in their attack on open source software - yet another smear on GPL software's reputation as being a reliable alternative.
GPL is an enabling license. It allows people to do things with code that they usually are not allowed to do. It's not as enabling as the BSD license, but very deliberately so.
What is this possible danger you speak of?
A world with a lot of GPL software does not preclude commercial (non-GPL) development. It does make it harder for companies to sell crap. To me this seems like a good thing for all parties, save for those in the business of marketting sows' ears as silk purses. And good riddance to them.
The benefits are a much better educated programming community. Even if one is developing commercial software, one can learn from the wide availability of source in a GPL-rich world. Sure you can't copy that source, but it's not like you can now, anyway.
Redmond WA (AP) Steve Ballmer announced today that Robert Novak will succeed Rick Belluzzo as president and chief operating officer effective May 1, 2002. Novak, known for his shrewed business savy and wizardry of the law, is best known as proprieter of petswarehouse.com. Novak in a prepared statement said "I'm fortunate I have this opportunity to protect Microsoft from every evil conspiracy. I look forward to mobilizing all the legal forces to sue the pants off of every 2 bit commie coder that even thinks of publishing source code for anything that Microsoft distributes - including Telnet and FTP!" Bill Gates reacted with "Bob's our kinda guy - we got a kick of how he settled with those rabble rousers by making them put banner ads for his company on their lousy webpages. God Bless America!"
Books on these protocols are published all the time by third parties which do not require a license agreement to read their documentation. Despite the fact that these are not from the "horse's mouth" some third party reference docs have been know to be just as complete as those coming out of Redmond. Use those to implement the protocols, without fear.
Also, I very much doubt that MS could enforce such a license since they would need to PROVE that you learned the information from their documentation.
GJC
P.S. I am not a lawyer, these are just my opinions.
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep
RMS saw an inequity in those who took
They didn't "take" anything. The code they used was still available for free to anyone. This is not taking, and it is perfectly equitable.
community source
It was not "community source." It was code developed at government expense for the benefit of any and all members of the public to use. There was no closed "community" at all.
to profit without giving anything back.
Because the code was available to anyone for free, its market value was zero. Any profit that arose was due to value which was added by those developers. Because the profit arose entirely from their own work, they deserved the profit. To attempt to take it from them is mean-spirited and confiscatory.
Since none of the source that those companies that raided the MIT AI Lab was GPLd, he clearly didn't do it to destroy those companies.
You're intentionally distorting history, or are perhaps ignorant of it. Stallman attempted to destroy those companies by creating equivalents of their products and giving them away -- in the same way Microsoft attempted to destroy Netscape. When he found that he could not do this alone, he wrote the GPL as a way of recruiting more people to join his vendetta. See Steven Levy's excellent book "Hackers" for background.
--Brett Glass
Abide by MS's rules.
Don't release CIFS code under the GPL. Instead, write a new license that is extremely similar.
Those who would give up liberty in exchange for security and DRM should switch to Microsoft Palladium!
You haven't read the law, have you. In fact, you don't even know what UCITA stands for, do you? I can just see you right now, scrambling to google to look it up so you can make another nagging little comment.
Pop quiz, hotshot: How many software companies have opened offices in Virginia and Maryland in the last two years?
I don't know whether you're in denial or you're just terminally stupid. I suppose I'd guess both.
We're on the road to Tycho.
LOL
Very good idea - hope someone mods you up.
He felt that the source was "community source", because he'd spent so much time himself working on it.
I'll have to check that reference, but I don't see that GNU (the OS) has much in common with the Lisp environments that those companies were working on. Can you provide a quote that backs this point?
Brett,
Back when you and I used to hang out on the M$ forums at SJMercury.com, I used to really admire you and think you were really cool. Good job of undoing that with this post.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Seriously, shrink-wrap/click-through licenses for software are unclear enough in their legal interpretation, this goes much further in assumptions of the ability for legal enforcement.
Unless a document is released under a NDA which is signed and returned prior to accessing the document (or falls under another paper contract, such as your employment agreement), nobody can normally tell you what you are allowed to do with the information you learn by reading a document.
Besides, you can always work around something like this even if it were enforceable (which I seriously doubt), e.g. by having someone read the document and write another document or non-GPL implementation based on the document from which GPL-implementing people can get information.
I don't see that GNU (the OS) has much in common with the Lisp environments that those companies were working on.
You are correct that, from a technological standpoint, they actually had very little in common. But they did have one thing in common that, to Stallman, was of overwhelming importance. Both the software that drove the LISP machines and UNIX were commercial software.
Stallman had declared war on all commercial software and its creators when the founders of the two LISP machine companies departed the AI Lab.
Can you provide a quote that backs this point?
Sure. See Stallman's GNU Manifesto, where he interleaves statements about the AI Lab -- and how he wants to destroy programmers' prospects of getting good jobs outside academia so that they won't leave -- with ones about why he "must write GNU."
--Brett Glass
I have heard numerous people say that this isn't a big deal because MS isn't going after the BSD license.
Well, not yet. IANAL, but I can and do read. It's a legal strategy. Today you take one enemy to court, if you win, you have already beaten every other enemy.
Roe Vs. Wade wasn't against every city/state in the US that had laws restricting abortion. They just had to win one time.
I went and reread the manifesto. I'm not getting that "The GPL's purpose is to kill software companies". In the Q&A section, he acknowledges that it may be the effect that software companies that don't "share" source will not be able to survive.
The purpose is so that he can always share in source that he himself helped write. He feels that this goal extends to other like-minded individuals.
How can one say that his purpose is to kill software companies when he says:
Which is an outline to how software companies will run in his imagined world of GNU dominated software.
To say that the purpose of the GPL is to destroy software companies is equivalent to saying that Project Gutenberg's purpose is to destroy the reprint houses. That may be a result, but it's not the purpose.
You ignore the point that I made earlier that every other software license has the same goal, to eliminate competition. Somehow, this is only vicious when it's done by a community and not by a corporation?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I was caught in this debate many years ago, and someone produced a digitized sound-bite from Linus with the "lie-nucks" pronunciation. After much confusion we realized that the sound file he had gotten off the web was someone else reading a statement attributed to Linus. The source if this misleading sound file?
MSNBC of course.
-- MarkusQ
Who will fund development of GPL software for the good of all when it's not important enough for anyone to fund on their own? The danger is that we'll be less likely to see any "spectacular" software because most developers will stop at "good enough" instead, assuming they get that far.There's certainly a lot of crappy proprietary software out there. There's also some spectacular proprietary software, such as Google's search engine. There's plenty of crappy free software out there along with some spectacular free software. Neither side has consistent quality. Anyhow, I agree -- good riddance to those companies selling crap software. (SoftRAM is an excellent example -- their product was flashy but completely worthless.)
What about companies who want to sell good software? How will they make enough money to defray the cost of software development if free software is the norm, and anyone can get their software free from a buddy instead of paying for it? When no customers are willing to pay for proprietary software because they've bought into Stallman's rhetoric? Those companies would be doomed, no matter how good their software may be.
Stallman would be pleased, of course. He wants to obliterate proprietary software from the world, and the GPL is his chosen weapon to perform this genocide. Stallman's goal is an all-out war, with the GPL and "free software" on one side and all proprietary software on the other side. There can be no doubt on this point; he wrote articles about Why Software Should Not Have Owners and Why Software Should Be Free which make his hatred for proprietary software quite clear. Choice quotes include:
- there is no limit to the harm that proprietary software development can do - A rather strong statement considering that the usual argument in defense of the viral nature of the GPL is that one can pretend it doesn't exist and do without it. One could equally pretend proprietary software doesn't exist, yet there is "no limit" to the harm it can do?
- since the owner has a monopoly on changes, the fee tends to be large - Maybe, or maybe it's expensive because custom programming is difficult work that takes a lot of skilled labor, of which there is a limited supply? (Did Stallman make a living charging nominal fees for custom work? Or did he charge $300/hour?)
- society shouldn't have owners for programs - This is a pretty unambiguous statement of his viewpoint and goals.
- programmers often work for the Foundation for half of what they could make elsewhere - So programmers should have to sacrifice their income for the good of all? Stallman says $35,000/year should be sufficient incentive to program for a living; did he ever do custom programming work for $17.50/hour?
- [a moral obligation to support developers] does not apply to proprietary software developers, since obstructionism deserves a punishment rather than a reward - Now he's not just saying to prefer free software over proprietary software, but that those proprietary software developers deserved to be punished for their "obstructionism"? That sure sounds like "fighting words" to me...
- the users will learn to support developers without coercion, just as they have learned to support public radio and television stations - If the public is so willing to support public radio and television "without coercion", why must they inevitably resort to pledge drives?
- withholding information that could help everyone advance is a form of combat - The GPL does exactly such withholding from proprietary developers, hence the GPL is a form of combat. Again, there's no doubt that proprietary software is an enemy here, not just something to coexist with.
- if we are to judge views by their resemblance to Russian Communism, it is the software owners who are the Communists - This is a bizarre accusation, and hypocritical, considering the diatribe elsewhere about "name calling".
- most of what I have to say is addressed only to those who share the premises I use - Nobody is allowed to question the premises used; let's just preach to the choir.
- the owner can lose only if the person who made the copy would otherwise have paid for one from the owner - True, but most people won't pay if they don't have to. When free software is the norm and the vast majority won't pay, how will development be funded?
- society needs to encourage the spirit of voluntary cooperation in its citizens - Great sentiment, and a wonderful ideal. Unfortunately, nobody has found a way to implement such a utopia. It seems that individuals are too self-interested to do what's best for everyone, most of the time.
- if your friend asks to make a copy [of proprietary software], it would be wrong to refuse - So now it's immoral not to break the law? If the law is wrong (not a given), then civil disobediance should be a choice, not a moral obligation...
Stallman treats this as a war, make no mistake about it.This goal could be achieved by convincing proprietary developers to go back to the old ways and start distributing source code with their products again. They could also allow their customers to modify that code to repair bugs or add features according to that customer's needs. They could even be allowed to redistribute such changes to other customers. These are good things, and there's no reason not to encourage them; they pose no inherent danger to the industry.The problem is not with the users getting source; the problem is with demanding that all users be allowed to give the software away at will to those who've never paid anything for it. This destroys the market for that software. Nobody has proven that altruism works on a large scale. No rational person (or company) would shoulder the burden of funding development for everyone when that burden will exceed the value to that person or company, no matter how valuable it might be to the world.
Stallman claims his goal is the empowerment of the users. This is partly true, but the fatal flaw in his philosophy is demanding the right to give away the work of others for free. That's just a form of neo-communism, and no matter how lofty the ideals, there's no proof that it can work as a viable economic model. Many nation-states have tried, none have been very successful. Why should we believe that the GPL's form of communism will be more successful than those nation-states?
If Stallman truly wants to empower the users, he should focus on the value of sharing source and allowing modifications, not his neo-communist ideas about how we're morally obligated to share anything we have with our friends on request...
Deven
"Simple things should be simple, and complex things should be possible." - Alan Kay
It only displays me kind of a menu with Lynx...
My Karma isn't excellent, damn it! (And
I'm going to try and summarize your argument in order to attack it, but I may be misrepresenting it; if so, please accept my apologies in advance!
The key point seems to be if there is a large amount of no-charge freely-copyable software available which is adequate for most tasks, then it will be impossible for companies to economically produce very good commercial software. The reason for this being that too many people will be happy to make do with the free alternatives, and so the cost of production of the really good software could never be recouped.
This may indeed be a force towards the production of less commercial software. On the other hand, the availability of a wide code-base that is freely available for use in free software means that the cost of development of new free software is also made that much lower. If the market ever reaches such a state (and I admit to being highly sceptical that it will while the current IP regime remains in place), then in those areas where free and commercial software are competing, the same force that makes the commercial software less viable makes it more likely that the free software can be cheaply and easily shaped to fit the task.
There are some areas where such competition seems less likely, such as those where there is a large amount of non-code labour required. The primary example here is that of modern computer games. Here novelty and pretty graphics are desired to the degree that people will happily buy new games regularly. This situation would not change for the worse in a free-software dominated world.
If a company can produce really good software that is different in kind to existing free software, then that too is certainly saleable. If there is nothing in the same class as the Google search engine, then there's nothing preventing Google from marketting its engine to companies in the same way as it is now. If there were something in the same league then it probably would be cheaper for those potential buyers to pay for the devlopment and refinement of the existing free software, especially as such development, drawing upon a very wide base of publicly available code in the free-software dominated world, would be much quicker.
I really can't see large scale free software availability destroying any software industry that currently exists and produces software that would not be available in a free software form.
The other benefit of such a world is of course that there is a lot of software that people can use, as software, for no cost. If it's good software (and for free software to dominate, it'll have to be at least in the same league as current commercial software) then aren't the users of that software getting more financially efficient use of their computers and their time?
I think you may also be misrepresenting Stallman's position some, but that is somewhat tangential to the original direction of the argument.
Modify the GPL to make it more free than it already is and name your version the TAG... This Ain't GPL. Then license your code under that. Is it really that hard?