Slashdot Mirror
Explaining Open Source Software
scubacuda writes "Mark Webbink, Red Hat's general counsel, has written an informative article explaining free and open source software. Geared towards attorneys, he explains the various licenses and addresses several myths about OSS." One to bookmark.
Lawyers on both sides! Thats how the world was meant to work!
Trying to use sarcasm in text-based forums does not work.
Free as in beer
Where does the law stand on derivative works in software?[8]
The law on derivative works in software is not well established. The U.S. Copyright Act does not specifically address derivative works in software, and there are no U.S. Supreme Court cases immediately on point.
SCO?
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one the bus load of girls just went down.
This article is exactly what I need to explain open source to my dad, a lawyer. It's especially difficult getting the concepts behind open source across to him now that I'm writing open source code (BSD license, no less) for a *living*.
Thanks again, Groklaw. It's so wonderful having some lawyers on *our* side!
Lawyer: You mean you *want* it to be free?
If my answers frighten you, stop asking scary questions.
On the subject of using volunteers versus paid programmers:
"Remember, amateurs built the Ark. Professionals built the Titanic."
I really don't see whats so hard to understand about OSS. It's free and its meant to be distributed and you can edit it, but you've got to give credit to whoever made the orginial version. It's that simple. Well probably NOT that simple, I'm no OSS guru, but I think it's like that...
):
At least for me, this would severly hamper my ability to do work. For example, I sometimes use perl to parse through MAP files. So, if I wanted to download a FREE version of perl and run it, I have to go to some lawyer to explain why I want to use it? I can think of a hundred other reasons this would be a bloody pain, and result in a lot of bureaucratic hassle for engineers.
If my answers frighten you, stop asking scary questions.
Recently I've been introduced to an operating system known as Linux. Lured by its low cost, I replaced Windows 98 on my computer with Linux. Unfortunately the more I use it the more I fear that this "Linux" may be an insidious way for the Dark One to gain a stronger foothold here on Earth. I know this may be a shocking claim, but I have evidence to back it up!
To begin with, Linux runs numerous background processes. These processes are usettlingly termed "demons." Furthermore in order to start or stop these "demons" a user must execute a command called "finger". By "fingering" a "demon" one excercises an unholy power, much the same way that the Lord of Flies controls his black minions.
Also consider some of these other Linux commands: "sleep", "mount", "unzip", "strip" and "touch". All highly suggestive in a sexual nature. I know that our Lord cannot approve of these, and I urge them to be renamed to something appropriate to the Christian community.
Third, Linux uses a flavor of DOS known as Bash. Bash is an acronym for "Bourne Again Shell". On the surface this would appear to be supportive of the Lord. However, remember that even Satan can quote the bible for his own purposes! While I believe Linux may be born-again, its obvious by the misspelling of "born" that its not born-again in an Christian church. Will the lies ever cease?
Additionally, one of the main people involved with the GNU Free Software Foundation supports contraception and abortion. His web site even advocates government support of contraception. He also wears fake halos, and has quips about his made-up church that relates to his free software. I find such blasphemy to be extremely unsettling.
One must also remember that the creator of Linux, a college student named Linux Torvaldis, comes from Finland. I'm sure all the followers of Christ are aware of the heritical nature of the Finnish: from necrophilia to human sacrifice, Finnish culture is awash in sin. I find little reason to believe anything good and holy could arise from this evil land.
Finally, let us remember that there is an alternative to using the Satan-powered Linux. I think history has shown us that Microsoft is quite holy. I'm told that its founder, William Gates is a strong supporter of our Lord and I encourage my fellow Christians to buy only his products to help keep the Devil at bay.
Thank you for your time.
...(with a greedy look) hmm, I see many IPR infringements. Makes hard to decide from where to start? (Echoes of a Devilish laugh fading out)
YHBT. hahahahahahahhahahahahahahahaha
As an uninterested observer, I can attest that you are big-big bullshit spewer who is apparently incapable of recognizing one of the most common Linux trolls out there.
...and I think that any CXO of a "mainstream" company would have his eyes glazed over by the "Fundamentals of Copyright Law" section.
I suggest excerpting the article, to start with the "Myths of Open Source Section", as that looks short enough for most CXOs to handle, and then go with the rest if the CXO expresses further interest.
libertarianswag.com
Agreed. Let me throw in some assembly with my VB...
The article was targeting those people who actually believe The SCum Group when they say that the GPL is illegal. My impression was that the point was to settle the PHB's fear that Linux would get them into legal trouble. In that, I think the article succeeds admirably.
But is this really "News for Nerds"? Most of us know about the GPL and BSD Liscenses at least. More like "News for Suits".
I am officially gone from
Sorry, that was meant to be a reply to this post (which is a troll).
It should be obligatory that any person involved in deciding this case should have to read a writeup such as this one. All too often those making the decisions are as tech savvy as dung beetles. It has been successfully argued in court that a certain hacker (in the misused sense of the term) could not have possibly been responsible for a breakin because the end IP was not the same as his home one and that "IP addresses are like DNA. Identifiers that cannot be changed." When we have the technologically unsavvy making rulings on technology issues, how can we expect any differently? If this SCO case is won, it will probably be on the backs of people who can't figure out how to attach files to their emails.
.h files, error number listings, and parts of the C standard library because "they look the same as that 'er Linus thingy code", and as long as people continue to equate open source royalty-free software with an attack on capitalism. Perhaps in addition to an Open Source for Dummies, the courts need a Basic Programming for Dummies as well.
This has been long-needed. We demand that legalese be put into "plain English," should we not expect attorneys to require the same?
We need Open Source and related licenses explained for dummies (pehaps a book, anyone? Open Source For Dummies), for the those of us knee-deep in all of this who have a grasp of what is going on, and for the legal entities who will ultimately decide the case.
This case will never be won so long as people believe that SCO can claim
Yes, we need more articles like this one.
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
"We are Linux. Resistance is measured in Ohms."
It will be "News for Nerds" if there are any documented conversion stories that come ut of this article. Otherwise it's just like half of the pro-GPL posts on Slashdot.
If my answers frighten you, stop asking scary questions.
We're seeing a lot of details come out from each camp that makes more and more clarifications on the angles each (and by each, I mean SCO vs The World) is taking.
I'm noticing a trend of regurgitated BS coming out of the SCO camp, but intelligent, well-thought arguments coming from the otherside of this battle.
Makes me wonder why one little company would try to take on the world of opensource? The mindshare that SCO is fighting has to be exponentially larger than anything SCO has,
Can you ping me now? Gooood! | Manhappenin.Net - Things to do
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200312310 92027900
After all, they covered this last thursday...
alias uptime="echo '5:33pm up 22342352324 days, 6:28, 2124315623 users, load average: 2432.40, 12312.31, 123123.19'"
Don't believe in c programming??
So you don't believe in years of embedded systems, systems programming, pretty much all routing protocols, and all operating systems other than windows (I have no idea what MS Windows is written in).
Clearly we all recognize the hassles that result from having to clear software with a 'legal' department, however, I think we've seen enough BSA attacks on businesses to know that it's necessary.
Wait, did you say you used Visual Basic (I assume that's what VB means) on Linux? I thiugth it is only Windows only.
Cheers,
RoadkillBunny
Yep-Here and here and here and here
Ahh, go look for yourself:
Here
And remember, once the GPL, MPL, Artistic License, etc, have been cleared through legal, anything under those licenses is no longer barred from downloading.
Best Slashdot Co
Actually the quote says "...without first clearing the license terms with the legal department."
So for example, don't let your employees use GPL software until you understand what the GPL is. Fair enough. After you approve the GPL license terms, people are free to use GPL software.
Did you interpret this to mean that you would need approval for each piece of open source software? Because yes, that would be a huge pain! I don't think that is what the guideline meant. Getting an open source license approved once isn't a big deal.
----- rL
a lot of bureaucratic hassle for engineers.
This is the entirety of justficiation for the existence of most "corporate" "departments." It's also a very efficient way to ensure universal mediocrity.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
Yes, that is definitely idiotic big-company-think. I think a manager should be responsible for informally overseeing or okaying use of random new tools. Using a tool is very different from incorporating source code, copy-and-pasting material, and doing something that creates a potential legal issue. As a manager, if somebody says they need Winzip, emacs, bash or whatever to feel comfortable and get work done, then more power to them. It should be made completely clear to them that they can't download source code or software from any source on the internet for use as a part of a product, runtime component or anything like that without approval from a manager and legal. Beyond that, there's nothing you can do but trust your employees, make the potential consequences really clear, and conduct regular code reviews to spot anything potentially suspect (primarily just to spot shitty, lazy code, but if somebody really cut and pasted a bunch of code, it would probably be obvious if you knew their coding style, your company's coding standards, and so on).
It is a bureaucratic hassle, but it is a necessary one. Let's look it in a slightly different way: the lawyer has to support and defend the company's software use in court. This is basically a sysadmin type job: the network sysadmin defends the company's network from technical threats, and insures the smooth running of the network. To do this he needs to know what software is in use. The company's lawyer needs to defend the company from legal threats and insure the smooth handling of legal matters. To do this he needs to know what legal agreements the company is a part of.
Now, Perl should be a perfunctory check: can we use GPL software for development purposes? Yes, but make sure you don't use the code. Simple. Just like the IT department will want to know you are using a programming package, and have agreed to not write a virus to destroy the network. Why? Because they will get the calls when it breaks something, and they need the info to effectively do their job.
Help the lawyer do their job. It is as necessary in today's world as yours. Hampering them will just make them angry, and likely to want to retaliate by hampering you.
'Sensible' is a curse word.
It's the same thing where I work. Currently, all engineers are allowed to install whatever programs they want without consulting with anyone, but the management is considering a change to this. Personally, I think it should be as it is; we should be able to assume that professional software engineers know how the licensing works. However, the greatest concern is not that people might listen to pirated mp3s, but that someone by mistake would use GPL'd stuff in the release code. As the company makes proprietary software, this could be Very Bad, so I understand their concern. But I still think companies should trust the common sense of their developers.
(I have no idea what MS Windows is written in)
Windows is written in the lowest pits of hell!
; )
You can't take the sky from me...
*sigh*
BSA=~"Boy Scouts of America"?
I always evaluate licenses before I download things at work. I have a linux box where just about everything is GPL, and on my (xp) laptop, I can run Belarc Advisor to see what I have installed. This keeps me and my company out of hot water. I'm probably more laxed at home. In fact, only thing I can think of on my work machine that is commercial that wasn't given to me by work, is X-Win32, which I purchased a license for ...
FLR
Having reverse-engineered quite a bit of VB code, I can affirm your statement is correct by saying that VB is as close to interpretted as you can get without being interpretted.
Say what you will about Communism itself, but what it failed to do for Soviet Russia, it has succeeded in doing for the Open Source movement.
Free is good.
How many more freaking idiots are going to reply to this post?
Now, Perl should be a perfunctory check: can we use GPL software for development purposes? Yes, but make sure you don't use the code. Simple.
Which is precisely why it would never happen in the standard five-foot-wide-ass bureaucracy. Anyone who must have "knowledge" of something must also have "approval" authority, and therefore nothing will ever be accomplished.
When the ratio of the mass of an organization to its IQ reaches a certain value, the organization stops moving. Period. It's as certain as the laws of thermodynamics. In fact it should BE a law of thermodynamics.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
How about an explanation that works for suits?
Something like this:
- Open source and free software is like disk space. You used to pay $1000 for 1GB, today you get 1Gb for $1.
- This is possible because the Internet has made communications so cheap that the traditional huge costs of making software - design, management and infrastructure - have been largely eliminated.
- "Closed software" businesses like Microsoft would very much like you to continue paying 1970's prices for software.
- But the fact is that your competitors are benefiting from high-quality free packages like OpenOffice, Apache, PHP, Linux, and MySQL.
- You should really be switching your IT budgets from paying for software licenses to paying for support and custom development: this is the best way to keep an edge in the market.
Every dollar spent on buying overblown commercial software that has a free equivalent is a dollar wasted. Are you sure you want to waste your money?
Ceci n'est pas une signature
"Remember, amateurs built the Ark. Professionals built the Titanic."
...
Mild humor value aside
How many icebergs did the Ark bounce off of? And if we are accepting the Ark and Flood we have to also accept that God was piloting the Ark, have to take the entire story or none at all , and piloting was the problem with Titanic not construction. That is we are being fair and objective.
Personally if the pro Open Source lawyer is making statements like the above the document's credibility comes into question. Where there is one piece of spin and misdirection there may be more. I would prefer a objective unbiased legal analysis. The author should hold the jokes for the conference presentations.
But which is riskier, licensing practices that are constantly being challenged or those that, in their simplicity and effectiveness, have avoided challenge.
This is why the GPL, BSD, etc licenses are so wonderful. They are aligned with the user's needs. It's really tough to violate them as an end-user. You just download the software, use it, and you never even have to *accept* the license at all!
Just like anything else in life.. you buy a car, the car company doesn't really care what you do with it. Now, if you take it apart, learn how it works, and start selling copies for half price, they might want to chat with you.. but only a very small percentage of car drivers would do that. Even the ones that do work on their cars do it for their own personal enjoyment. Same with the GPL.. hack as much as you want, just keep your eye on the terms when you start re-distributing.
Once legal departments start to figure this out, free software will make bigger and bigger inroads. "Wait, you mean with FreeBSD we never have to worry about being targeted by the BSA? Whoa.. *mind blown*".
-----
Free P2P Backup, Windows & Linux
This may lead to proper understanding of GPL, BSD and other licenses... Slashdot replies may never be the same again ;)
You missed the point, there are two problems. One is source code, the second is unlicensed software. Having an unlicensed copy of a piece of software can be a huge legal issue. Not having a policy where software have to be approved in some formal way only makes the legal issue worse. "Big company think" is not universally wrong, occasionally they do the right thing. Whether the rare right choice being made was accidental or not I leave to a different discussion.
Lawyers inevitably want a say in everything. Their response to every question is going to be "don't do it unless you've cleared it with a lawyer first."
However, this is going to impede work. Quite simply, typical human systems to not have the capability to provide full diligence, and in fact numerous infractions occur "under the radar" in a typical organization. However, these "under the radar" violations generally allow an organization to have capabilities above what the larger structure can provide, because it is individuals making decisions.
As a parallel to Real Politik, unless you have immense legal resources and want to use this capability as a weapon against "careless" competition, it is much safer and enabling to maintain a workplace where you can say that you did not know what your employees were doing, except when it comes to issues such as safe computing. You may occasionally be bitten (and this is of course not recommended when it comes to safety), but it's better than completely clamping down on individual behavior to a degree that capabilities offered by resourceful and practical individuals are completely stifled.
At least for me, this would severly hamper my ability to do work. For example, I sometimes use perl to parse through MAP files. So, if I wanted to download a FREE version of perl and run it, I have to go to some lawyer to explain why I want to use it?
You exaggerate the hampering. Getting a set of development tools approved is a one time event and should already be in place. I've gotten legal approval for an open source library in a day. I think our lawyer could handle ActiveState Perl for Windows even faster. That is assuming the absense of a pre-approved list of development tools and assuming project managers have not been given the authority to approve such development tools.
I had a mouse
God spoke to me
"Of all the software to which it has been applied, none is better known than the Linux(R) kernel. In fact, the GPL has been applied to a majority of those software modules that are included in the best known of the Linux(R) distributions, such as Red Hat(R) Linux(R)"
How can he put Linux as an example of GNU software!? which is under the GPL license just for histerical reasons, and is not part of the GNU Project!.
And, even worse!, he uses the word "Linux Distribution" to refer to the wole GNU Project!, and even worse, an specific anti-freesoftware distro, deadrat! (i don't use the correct name, not because i want to flame, but because i don't use "(R)" after names.) He is puting years of work on the biggest technical-ethical project of the last century under the name of deadrat? He have just changed the hole purpose of the GNU Project to something similar to:
Q: "Give me Linux"
A: "Do you want fries with that?"
GNU is not the fries to complete the Linux combo, GNU is not part of Linux, instead, Linux is a different, and respectable project that has been used together with a bigger, older, and more important project, called GNU!.
Please don't forget where we come from, if we do, we are dead, and we will fall again in the hands of propietary shit, this time with an ugly and false freedom cover, suchs as deadrat was in the last years.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
"Closed software" businesses like Microsoft would very much like you to continue paying 1970's prices for software.
Gibberish.
1970s prices means that if you want a database engine you rent if from IBM at $40,000 per month, plus the cost of the two system programmers you need to keep the JCL running.
Microsoft prices mean that you get two database engines free with your word processor, and you don't have to pay again next month.
Some people here do have short memories.
1) If the LGPL allows you to call libraries but not GPL why doesn't all that runs on Linux has to be GPL? 2)"GPL licenses retain their copyright". What happens if A (that has all the copyrights) publishes under GPL. B makes a derivative work and also publishes under GPL. After 1 000 000 copies is out A changes their license to a commercial license one?
You mean as someone who has skimmed the surface of one of the languages. Don't pretend to know everything there is to know about VB. As someone who has embedded assembly in both, I can attest that your statement is bullshit.
Pascal.
Business Software Alliance. They're the people who break your thumbs if you're accused of pirating software.
1) Erm I am not sure what you mean there. The LGPL allows you to create a library and link non free code with it, i.e. use it in non-free code as long as you produce any modification you did to the original LGPL'd library. The kernel is GPL but you do not link against it. You link against the C library (glibc) which is LGPL'd.
2) A changes the licence but that matters only for subsequent software releases based on that source code. B's source code is still GPL'd because A's code which it was based on was GPL'd.
ok you get perl cleared, the sysadmin installs it on your machine (as a user in a business environment you of course should not be installing software).
At this point you have perl, so the sysadmin leaves it on your machine (Because of course, you shouldn't be uninstalling software either as a user, this should be a moot point since the sysadmin should have made doing this impossible for you).
Your a commercial nazi who simply wants my sweat to equate to not just free labor, but instant free labor where the result is already finished eh?
Tough shit, it doesn't work that way, any who distributes under the gpl isn't giving you something for nothing unless your an end user. They are giving you something for something. I don't want money, I want source code. Deal with it.
"(1) those that apply no restrictions on the distribution of derivative works (...) and (2) those that do (...) ensure that the code will always remain open/free)."
He's talking about derivative works. And derivative works of BSD code can be neither open nor free. This is the core difference between the BSD and GPL "class" of licences, and I find the classification good and the statement accurate.
Like it or not, this is very very important to corporations. You might not care that someone else is profiting (as in $$$) off your work, that your code doesn't "disappear" through use, but companies do. They're all about making profit for them, not for anyone else. If someone else is going to make money off it, they want their cut.
Alternately, they'd like to get compensated in another way - in form of the modifications others have made. The GPL licence is giving them a reason to release the code, the BSD licence does not. With the BSD licence, you're not guaranteed to get anything back - anything at all.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Good article, except for one missing bit. The author didn't explain of the legal basis of copyright licenses. I hear or read the term "license" so often I'd expect everyone to know the definition, but I doubt they do. I don't know it any more precisely than "formal permission".
Is "license" just the conventional name for any contract where a copyright holder promises not to sue for infringement as long as specific rules are followed? Or is "license" the formal name of a specific legal structure actually defined by copyright law?
It seems the former is true. In any case, the audience needs the legal definition of the term "license" in order to be sure that they're actually reading one, what basis it has in law, and whether it will provide sufficient protection against claims of copyright infringement.
------DO NOT WRITE BELOW THIS LINE------
You want a sys admin to download grep from the internet and save it on your harddrive so that you can use it? You want a sys-admin to download the emacs executable and install it for every developer who would like to use emacs? And I thought our IT department was a bunch of fascists
Windows (NT at least, not sure about 9x) is written in C.
hey!
This has happened before. What happens is that the GPL'd copies are still GPL'd and therefore not in violation of any license. Once you distribute something under the GPL, it is GPL'd period.
There is nothing which stops you from no longer providing licenses under the GPL (in which your case your development from that point for wouldn't be open to all), nor is there anything preventing someone else from taking what you had released up to that point and forking it, providing updates to it as well since the GPL license you distributed to them continues. The GPL can't be revoked short of a violation of it's terms.
Yes the sys admin downloads the software, tests it to ensure stability and then adds it to his system image. Then sends his army of monkey's out to install it on your workstations.
It's not like you'll really need more than one or two tools that aren't already provided and it's not like those will ever have to be installed again.
If this actually results in a significant amount of time on an ongoing basis then obviously it's more productive for you to use the tools you have than to save 2 seconds by using a different one. Using one you "prefer" but that doesn't actually save time is a waste of course.
It doesn't need to. The GPL only covers "derivative works", and Linus has specifically said that he doesn't consider code intended to run in Linux a "derivative work".
In my very limited experience, the problem people have with OSS is that they don't understand how anyone could possibly hope to make any money from it.
/.'ers call proprietary code. The second in no way implies or requires restrictions on access or distribution to the software, meaning that access to the source code & binaries can made available through a variety of licensing schemes.
That is easy enough to explain:
roughly speaking, there are two ways of making money from software: 1) supplying code and controlling access to it typically through the EULA, and 2) support and maintainence of software.
The first is what
Then it's straightforward to explain that if software is treated like widgets & sneakers, then of course, customer support is a necessary evil. If, however, you have software that you or someone else wrote for which there are customers willing to pay for support or tailoring that software to a particular need and market, then of course, there's money to be made from OSS software.
Then wrapping it up with a quick and dirty overview of the so-called open source community pretty much covers all the main points.
. . . anywhere in the article or the footnotes citing to a decision in which some fundamental aspect of the GPL was legally at issue. I will dig into the material deeper but has someone else found a reported decision yet? . . . Other /. posters have noted the importance of educating lawyers regarding the principles of open source philosophy. I agree. The 14th Amendment to the US Constitution was primarily enacted to guarantee freedoms of African-American citizens against repressive state governments.
In practice, the Amendment was read by courts to guarantee "artificial person" status and attendant constitutional protections to business corporations. (The intended beneficiaries of the 14th amendment waited until the 1960s to substantiate their nominally guaranteed protections via the civil rights movement.)
I realize its not the tightest of analogies, but I worry that mission of GPL is not yet on firm ground -- just as the mission as the 14th Amendment was not on firm ground in the late 19th century.
I'm laughing at clouds.
I think so. It's not the license that's so important, as what the program is used for. If an Oracle programmer wants to browse the web with Mozilla, that's fine. If he wants to download MySQL, that could be an issue.
From the article...
...just then RMS' head exploded into a million pieces.
The difference principally arises from so-called license compatibility, but in large measure the differences are principally philosophical and not substantial.
LilMikey.com... I'll stop doing it when you sto
Boss: What is Freedom Zero?
For some unknown reason, I am unable to access groklaw.net from china. I'm in Beijing, and have been repeatedly unable to read articles on there.
I always thought it was C++
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet;
A chrysanthemum by any other name would be easier to spell
Your analogy breaks down because:
1) In order to survive, everyone must obtain drinkable water continuously. This largely explains the vastness of the water industry ($5 Billion?) and its "near zero" cost. In an equilibrium, any product of human effort which must be obtained by everyone is bound to be both inexpensive (it defines the lowest common denominator) and result in an enormous industry. I'm not sure how this can be applied to open-source since it is not a necessity.
2) The actual cost of drinkable water is highly variable, rarely near zero and cannot currently extend at a zero cost rate to infinity. Hence, I see no meaningful water analogy for the high cost of code creation and the near zero cost of infinite distribution.
- Capturing rain is limited by the quantity and availability of rain and a means of storage. Land is not free, therefore how could rain or even rivers be free? If you do not capture enough water on your land this week or it becomes contaminated (standing water), how will you get drinking water? how much will you pay for it? As another poster mentioned, water rights can be a big issue when a town upstream starts taking too much water (or diverts a river)... it is the same problem of scarcity on a much larger scale.
- Pollution makes zero-cost water even more rare as it contaminates the atmosphere (in which rain is produced), wells, rivers, lakes, etc., thereby necessitating more expensive purification.
While superficially inflammatory, the AC's point (by deduction) is that Red Hat did not make its money by selling Open Source software, but rather by selling products and services related to that software.
In conclusion, please explain what particular insight your water analogy provides regarding how money can be made with open-source. As far as I can tell, the parent AC succinctly characterized all the sources of income related to open-source.
From the article...emphasis is mine.
/.ers know what it is but 99% of the population's eyes will glaze over when you mention it.
"Contrasting the Open Source and Free Software definitions, one finds that all Free Software is Open Source, but as administered by the Free Software Foundation, not all Open Source is Free Software."
I have not yet read the entire article, but this one statement is misleading unless you understand the difference between "free software" and "Free Software". All free software is not open source. However, all "Free Software" is open source. A matter of symantics that is not particularly well defined in the quoted paragraph. The distinction in regard to the capitalization of one and not the other is not clearly defined, which makes the statement seem false when it is actually true. Confused Yet?
Personally, I think the GPL is very clear about its intentions and use. The language is somewhere between normal speak and lawyer speak, which should be sufficient for anyone willing to actually read and understand the license. It is much clearer than your average insurance policy or any legal document written by lawyers. I think the essence of the problem is that most people don't understand the philosophy or the technical parts. Source code? Yeah, all of us
Uhhhh, yeah, thath dithgustin. [The lady's man]
And I can attest to that you're a moron.
I think that even though we already know about GPL/BSD, etc, this is still a great article. I for one am grateful that someone has pointed us to this because I do not have time to search for things like this. :)
IMHO, IANAL, TINLA, etc...
In his own words:
The true measure of Lincoln's character was that he was willing to subordinate his personal opinions on slavery to his sworn duty to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States".Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
You get bonus points for using the words "high-quality" and "MySQL" in the same sentance with a straight face. Postgres, maybe... but MySQL? Popularity != Quality. For reference, listen to a Britney Spears album.
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
IIRC, NT and it's successors are written primarily (>95%) in C++.
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
But the GPL isn't needed to use the software. If you don't unterstand the GPL you have some software as free as in beer. GPL is needed for (re-)distribution and modifing the sources.
b4n
Webbink's article gives the open source movement a lot of undeserved credit (GNU Emacs an "open source" program even though it was written initially by RMS and Guy Steele in the pursuit of software freedom years before the name "open source" was ever coined?) and the logic behind some of Webbink's points is in gross conflict with the FSF's stated logic (outside of a license manager program or encryption, copyright licenses are not what allow you to use a program; of the powers copyright regulates that have relevance for programs, copyright regulates only copying, modification, and distribution).
Of course, I wouldn't expect a bunch of people who routinely credit the GPL and LGPL as "open source" licenses to notice this. Placing a license on a list of approved licenses is nothing compared to writing the license and starting our community. To quote RMS, the open source movement "owes its existence to the idealism that movement rejects".
Digital Citizen
dispel the myth that Open Source does not produce innovation ... the paper is actually very well reasoned
I have to disagree with the paper's answer to the question of Open Source not producing innovation. My reasoning is that the answer cites Apache and SendMail, states that they are popular, therefore they are innovative.
This sounds like a Microsoft definition of innovation.
Was apache the first web server software? No.
Is it innovative to make a cheaper version of something that is already available and then price it less? Not really in my opinion.
Isn't the sendmail that Linux uses based on some non-free sendmail? It seems like a lot of Open Source software is simply a free version of something from the unix world.
Don't get me wrong. I am not against open source and I do think that open source can be innovative. For example, XML and XML-RPC are free technologies that are innovative.
Also, I'm not trying to badmouth Apache or sendmail. I just don't think they are good examples of innovation any more than Microsoft Excel is. Excel is probably the most popular spreadsheet ever, but it isn't innovative. VisiCalc, on the other hand, was innovative.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
You're thinking of the old MacOS.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF +MONDAY MORNING+ Cmdr Taco: I will not suck any more dick ever again. +MONDAY EVENING+ Cmdr Taco: *slurp* *slurp* *slurp* +TUESDAY MORNING+ Cmdr Taco: I will not suck any more dick ever again. +TUESDAY EVENING+ Cmdr Taco: *slurp* *slurp* *slurp* +WEDNESDAY MORNING+ Cmdr Taco: I will not suck any more dick ever again. +WEDNESDAY EVENING+ Cmdr Taco: *slurp* *slurp* *slurp* +THURSDAY MORNING+ Cmdr Taco: I will not suck any more dick ever again. +THURSDAY EVENING+ Cmdr Taco: *slurp* *slurp* *slurp* +FRIDAY MORNING+ Cmdr Taco: I will not suck any more dick ever again. +FRIDAY EVENING+ Cmdr Taco: *slurp* *slurp* *slurp* *slurp* +SATURDAY MORNING+ Cmdr Taco: I will not suck any more dick ever again. +SATURDAY EVENING+ Cmdr Taco: *slurp* *slurp* *slurp* +SUNDAY MORNING+ Cmdr Taco: Today is the Lord's day. +SUNDAY AFTERNOON+ Cmdr Taco: *slurp* *slurp* *slurp*
Help stamp out slashdot trolls--send $1 to GNAA PO Box 69 Key West, FL 32269-069