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RMS Condemns "UnitedLinux" per-seat License
dep writes "Likening the practice to Windows, Richard M. Stallman has issued a brief statement condemning the per-seat licensing that it appears will be employed in the "UnitedLinux" core distribution. He calls upon developers to refuse to allow their work to be used by such a distribution."
If United Linux thinks they can "unseat" RedHat by using a per seat license, they are dead wrong, regardless of what RMS thinks.
Good luck at your going-out-of-business sale, United Linux.
No, Vern. They just let him in.
no. no. no. RMS is *not* trying to kill a derivative work being distributed under the GPL. You can't put per-seat restrictions on GPL software. The 'problem', in RMS's eyes, is with the non-GPL software that is also being packaged in UnitedLinux. Those pieces CAN be licensed in a per-seat manner. RMS is saying that if everyone licensed their software under the GPL, then distributions wouldn't be able to have restrictive licenses like this.
RMS is not actively trying to "kill" anything, and he definately isn't tackling something being distributed "under the GPL". He is making a very intelligent point about the non-GPL'd distribution of binaries that UL intends:
"[United Linux] cannot restrict the GPL-covered programs in the system [with per-seat licensing], because that would violate the GNU GPL, but the system also contains non-copylefted programs which are points of vulnerability. Free software developers, please don't let them license YOUR program per seat. Use the GNU GPL!"
That isn't hubris, it's consistency with the same message that RMS has been putting out for as long as I can remember: "Restrictive licensing doesn't respect the non-side-constrained freedom of individuals to do as they see fit with software and source."
Hurray, it's fun to bash RMS, isn't it?
We who were living are now dying
With a little patience
It's amazing how many people can't be bothered to read 3 paragraph article before spouting off a complete load of shit about it.
If you had read the article you would realise that Stallman, contrary to some of the fights he picks, is actually being quite reasonable here.
What he's saying is that he doesn't approve of the licence, and that authors should beware of licences other than the GPL because they may not protect their work from being kidnapped like this.
Also, it's worth pointing out that in this case Linux and Main went to Stallman for his opinion, he didn't get on a soap box and force it down anyone's throat.
--
Andy
But they can not restrict someone, who gets the source, from re-releasing binaries of the packages, as long as they also include the source. And if they release the binaries, they can not restrict the person who receives those binaries from re-releasing them. This is what the GPL guarantees. That if you get a copy of the code, either in source or binary form, you can give it away. Which means that per-seat licensing of binary GPL'd code is a violation of the GPL since it prevents the receiver of the code from re-releasing that code.
I don't know, but it seems to me that UL are saying that you can't re-release their own code, not the GPL'd code on the system. And if that's the case they're no problem. But if they're restricting the usage of GPL'd software (in either binary or source code form) then that's a violation of the GPL which provides that once you receive code you can give it away.
But, IANAL, so take my opinion as such.
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
You said:
"nobody likes the title GNU/Linux, nor uses it"
Wait a minute here.
Do you ever use Linux before, or are you just one of those "parrots" that utter whatever others have said ?
Ever heard of Debian ?
Do you know that the Debian distribution calls their Linux "GNU/Linux" ?
It only goes to show how pathetic some of you can really be. None of you have done as much as RMS, and still you pick on that guy just because of the "GNU/Linux" thing.
Tell you something, sonny, nobody is perfect. Not RMS, nor Ghandi or George Washington.
Remember the famous quote
"Judge not, lest thou be judged"
The way you ( and others like you ) judge RMS is EXACTLY the way others are judging you. The majority of the OSS people may disagree with RMS's stand on "GNU/Linux", but we DO respect what he has done, and we WILL NOT pick on that guy just for the fun of it.
If you are really somebody, show us your stuffs, and let the rest of us judge your worth.
Please stop picking on RMS.
Thank you !
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Second, what you say is entirely unproven. The software economy would not necessarily collapse. It might even get a lot better. We don't know yet because it hasn't been tried. Most of the people engaged in writing software for a living do not write software that ends up shrink-wrapped in a box on a retail shelf. Most developers write custom code for complex one-off applications that, even if the code were GPL, probably wouldn't be very useful except to the customer it was written for.
In fact, what we might see is a boom of software employment as companies took major packages and hired developers to add bits and pieces that they felt were valuable for their business. Of course, you're right. No one would make money selling software. They would make money writing it.
I do not have a signature
Insightful, huh?
RMS says:
"[...] Free software developers, please don't let them license YOUR program per seat. Use the GNU GPL!"
The point RMS is making is that this use is NOT permitted under the GPL, so by using the GPL for your own software you are refusing!
Did you read the article? His statement is only 3 sentences, after all.
In other words, if everyone licensed their software under the GPL, nobody could make any money selling that software. The software economy would collapse, and hundreds of thousands of people in the US alone would be out of work.
This is a popular misrepresentation of the software industry.
Most programmers are employed developing custom systems that never leave the buyer's premises. In such cases, software licensing is irrelevant. Only a small fraction of programmers are emplyoed making software that gets sold on a store shelf. The ratio may on average is like 19:1 depending on which job sites/pages you look at, but I suspect it's much higher than that.
To these programmers, free software is actually a huge benefit. In fact. a good deal of free software also comes from these developers as a by-product of work they do for hire.
Oh, you meant it can destroy the shrink-wrap software economy? Ho hum. Only Microsoft really makes money doing that anyway. Everyone else must offer service and support on top of that to survive.
RMS's intentions may be more noble than you think.
I guess my thinking here is that the GPL should protect the GPL'd software just fine. If you get a copy of United Linux and want the GPL'd parts of it, you can just pull out those parts. You can get the source code if you like and do what you want with it. If they want to release proprietary parts of the system, that's their business decision to make.
If it is true that open source software is a better way of doing things, that it is more compelling, then this is a perfect test case for it. What will companies think about paying per-seat licensing and having to manage all the licensing nightmares associated with it when most of what they are buying is under the GPL? Will they look to a more open alternative? Will they even care?
RMS seems to be fundamentally afraid that all his claims about open source software are wrong. If it's as good as he claims, then why is he worrying about this. United Linux should get steam rolled by higher quality and cost-efficient software from other places.
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I concur with RMS: Boycott all companies at all involved with per-seating licensing of GPL software.
-- Ken Kinder ken@_nospam_kenkinder.com http://kenkinder.com/
he seems to suffer from the Slashbot notion that developers who use a BSD license, for instance, are too stupid to realize they're allowing their code to be relicensed
As a user of the BSD license, I wondered if Ransom could relicense my code under a per-seat license. The obvious answer is "yes". The not so obvious answer is "yes, but so what?"
No matter what Ransom does to my code, my copy and my users' copies will still be free. Nothing he can do can alter my cvs repository. Furthermore, the users of Ransom's per-seat version are still going to know that there's a free version out there. That's because Ransom can't remove my copyright or permission notices.
But what if Ransom makes a derivative of my code and licenses that per-seat? The answer is where RMS and the BSD advocates part ways: code that I didn't write does not belong to me. His derivative bits are not mine and I have no ethical claim over them. His version is not my version. If RMS is correct in saying that "software should not be owned", then derivative software should be owned even less.
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