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Government-Funded GPL Software
tgw writes "Tom Adelstein has an article in 'Linux Journal' on how a major milestone in US government-funded OSS recently passed - virtually unnoticed." Slashdot has mentioned this company earlier.
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Yes but how long before various forces demand DRM of varying forms be put in GNU software? Once the government gets involved then the people that control the government do as well.
"It's so convenient to have a system where everyone is a criminal" - A. Hitler
...with some software. I mean, look at it this way, a LOT of R&D and coding time can go into a piece of software and who better to fix the bugs and modify (in a positive manner) than the public. In addition to the fact that it won't cost the government shit to let the public find all the holes and patch them up so they don't have to [spend money doing so themselves].
So I guess the cliche applies here:
1. Government Funded GPL project
2. Unleash on public
3. ???
4. Profit!
Whether this is good or not, someone, within 30 comments of this post will post a jab at Bush.
schild
editor, f13.net
Yeah, when I want security enhanced, I'll stick with tinfoil hat, thank you very much.
Help! I'm being repressed!
Linus Torvalds will be the richest man in the world!
It should be public domain, without any restrictions on its use.
Amen to that, brother.
See you at the klan meeting tonight?
But now the Linux kernal will be rewritten in ADA!
Why?
it's bad enough that the government robs me of my money (taxes); it's adding insult to injury to use that money to create free software, that will potentially compete with the way I make money in the first place! (writing/selling non-free software)
Was it Ronald Reagan that said the nine scariest words in the english language are "I'm from the government and I'm here to help"?
"Is this just useless, or is it expensive as well?"
The article talks about the government releasing software under the GPL, and not about government intervention in GNU/GPL projects.
/rant
In many cases, assuming the software is not proprietary, the work is available to the whole government for unlimited use and it falls under the public domain. Public domain materials can be requested by anyone...
Please READ before you post. It's very frustrating to see posts exactly opposite the subject of the article.
What about hardware? I'd really love to try one of those F-22's....
I think that all publicly funded software (except that with a security concern) should be released under the GPL. The people paid to have it made, the people should be the ones to benefit from it.
The preceding message was based on actual events. Only the names, locations and events have been changed.
What about SELinux? I belive the NSA paid for its development and it is GPL'd.
This post written under Gentoo-linux with an SCO IP license.
GPL favors some forms of businesses over other forms, and thus causes marketplace bias; public domain (no copyright at all) is the traditional, and best option for government.
or is it inexpressibly sad that this ISN'T a no-brainer? That so many people apparently have no problem with the government taking our tax money and using it to fund projects that never see the light of day? Whatever the government uses my money for, unless releasing it endangers national security, it SHOULD be released for the public to use. We paid for it, after all. And the private sector can undoubtedly come up with applications for it the government didn't think of. Everybody wins.
Bush: He's Liberal in all the wrong ways.
Since it's GPL'ed, and since I don't want to fill out that stupid contact info form, can someone just mirror the file? Thx.
Govt should fund open source SW, as closed source SW vendors will use their power and money to create laws that will close down OSS. That is really the blind spot of libertarians, free traders, etc--they fail to see to see how the so-called "free maeket" is really just a license to allow wealthy entities (e.g., corporations, etc) to manipulate and control lesser entities (i.e., all the rest of us so-called "humans".) If we want an increasingly high standard of living, then we have to engineer a government that will give it to us. Govt is just a machine. Designing machines has NEVER been easy. There aint no such as a free lunch, and a free market is certainly no free lunch, although it comes pretty close to that for corporations and the wealthy and upper income class.
Homo Sapiens Americanus--A documentary in p
The anti OSS machine if awoken could have killed the seedling.
Is this story from the good Linux Journal or from its evil twin?
You're thinking of Linux Gazette. Or possibly Linux Today. I don't think Linux Journal has caught onto the trend for having an evil identity yet. Still it might be a good idea to start a boycott now and beat the rush when they do.
But I couldn't figure out what this guy's software actually does. Anyone?
If you take the position that software is a natural monopoly like the phone company used to be, then it only makes sense that it should be socialized rather than trying to regulate it into behaving (like they used to try to do with the phone company).
ie public domain but you must give credit in the source code?
I know most people are in love with the GPL
but the government stuff is free...id rather just let users use it free while ensuring that it was not appropriated or falsely credited to a private company.
...on the governmental software road. The simple fact is that proprietary systems gradually grow old, flaky, clunky, bloated and support is withdrawn from them (just witness the EOLs of various versions of Windows and Red Hat Linux we hear about here now and then). Open source software, on the other hand, can be hacked upon by anyone who wants to use it, any new functionality can be grafted on or removed, and the result can be redistributed for nothing? How can proprietary software complete? It's just that simple.
Companies pay taxes as well. If this were released into the public domain, or with a less laden license such as the BSDL, then both profit and non profit users would have the same starting position and no advantage over each other. Since companies help fund this, why shouldnt they be allowed to use the code in a closed manner? It doesnt diminish the value of the origional code release, and allows the funders to make use of it in a way that isnt dictated to them.
You are absolutely right. But if the government can get around this with closed-source by contracting things out, you'll have to forgive me if I don't shed a tear if they do the same with open-source software.
to not release to the public paid-for goods that they have paid for
But can't this be said about public domain as well? In that case businesses take GPL code that all people paid for, modify it, profit from selling the binaries of the derivative and (possibly) not disclosing their new source? If businesses don't cooperate, people and the government then lose money. GPL then would be better for government and the people. I'll stick to the FSF on this: GPL gives better protection, unless there is a specific reason to opt for LGPL or public domain.
Isn't cfitsio technically GPL released by NASA?
As the article states, the government is supposed to be required to put out code in the 'public domain', it appears they had to use a loophole in the law to get this done.
Perhaps an exception for the LGPL would work here. The code could be used with commericial products while still keeping with the copy-left philosophy.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
There's also a pragmatic reason to favour GPL. Many OSS developers prefer GPL to BSD, and therefore you are more likely to get fixes if you release under GPL. Besdies which, it's a myth that GPL harms "commercial developers" - indeed they cannot take modifications closed, but they can certainly benefit from the use of the product, and they can even sell it.
I don't get to put "license restrictions" on the taxes I pay, so the government should not be allowed to put license restrictions on code it develops with those taxes.
The GPL is fine for private authors to adopt if that's what they prefer, but it should have no place in the public sector. As another poster points out, it unfairly favors some users over others.
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
On a secondary note...ah oh here goes...why is it that anyone on /. that says something negative about Open Source, or Pro MS, is automatically a troll?
http://jayceecorder.blogspot.com
If you RTFA, you've realized that:
"Subject matter of copyright: United States Government works: Copyright protection under this title is not available for any work of the United States Government, but the United States Government is not precluded from receiving and holding copyrights transferred to it by assignment, bequest, or otherwise."
For example, Diebold voting software is government funded project but it alone did not make it a public domain, where is in this case, one of the vendor released its government funded software as GPL.
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
I wonder if the government would be willing to give a tax credit to programmers who submit bug-fixes or enhancements to their OSS software?
If "disco" means "I learn" in Latin, does "discothèque" mean "I learn technology"?
What is news about this, apart from the misconception that it is the first Gov funded GPL software? Hellooooo... Has anyone ever heard of DARPA?
Oh well, what the hell...
should be free. It should be free without any restrictions on its use.
If it were not noticed, then it would not be slashdotted. I am not notioced, therefor not slashdotted. To slashdot has many meanings, one of which is to notice.
From the article:
In many cases, assuming the software is not proprietary, the work is available to the whole government for unlimited use and it falls under the public domain. Public domain materials can be requested by anyone, but in practice the people who know about an internal government project are limited. Thus, being available to the public does not mean anyone would know to ask [for it]. So is it really public?
A little later:
The advantage of an Open Source Software license is that the code must be published--I assume that to mean that it must be made available via the Web. An Open Source Software license creates clear commercial rights, making it more likely that government funded code will result in something beneficial for citizens, including eGovernment re-use that cuts costs--and hopefully taxes someday.
This seems to say that public domain software does not have to be accessible, whereas open source software does. I'm not quite sure why this is, though. Is there some sort of acessibility clause in the GPL?
"Now gluttony and exploitation serves eight!" - TV's Frank
this is so stupid it isn't even funny
freewrl might be though!!
freewrl
freewrl has been funded by the canadian government for a few years now
back in the day we didnt have no old school
In that case businesses take GPL code that all people paid for, modify it, profit from selling the binaries of the derivative and (possibly) not disclosing their new source? If businesses don't cooperate, people and the government then lose money
No. The decision to GPL or not GPL a piece of publicly-funded code should not be based on an expectation of future earnings from that code.
If it is, then the code should be developed (and funded) by the private sector, not the public sector.
historically quite a bit of software was released via public domain by government
The best thing about the GPL is that it's simply not possible for a company to then exploit it without giving some benefit back to the people who paid for it. (And yes, I understand that companies pay taxes too). For example, the GPL prevents small, meaningless changes which simply change protocols without adding value.
Suppose you're a government funded researcher who produces some nice chat software which is placed into the public domain. What can stop AOL, which is a huge and influential company, from making a slight change to that software and then bundling it with AOL 10? If they bundle their new, incompatible chat software, they create a huge user-base without contributing anything. They could then leave it at that, or charge non-AOLers $10 if they want to be able to chat with their customers. You might argue that this is a good thing, but I think it's doubtful. And this approach isn't available to anyone except big SW companies.
Far better to use the GPL. If AOL wants to use the SW they paid for, they can do so. If they want to improve it, they can do that too, but they must distribute their source, so they can't create a huge "incompatibilty-hole" amongst the people who originally paid to produce the software.
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
Yeah but firstly, the US government aids and abets proprietary software, which is much MORE restrictive than the GPL, so whining about the GPL without complaining about them is major-league hypocritical, and secondly, the GPL doesn't stop anyone profiting from the software, including companies, it just stops people profiting with certain types of business model that abuse people's freedom.
I think the interesting thing about this article is that distributing the software was apparently an afterthought.
All of the details about who holds the copyright and distribution of sources or binaries should be in the contract. I don't see how you could negotiate a price without doing this. For example, I might deliver the system more cheaply if I own the code.
The government, or each department, should have a policy on how contract software development is done.
"Keeping the code under the GPL keeps a large segment of the public who paid for it (corporations looking to sell proprietary software) from using it."
Do you mean corporations looking to sell proprietary software such as Cisco & Microsoft, who pay no federal income tax?Many works of the US Gov't, the CIA, etc. are in the public domain, whilst I am a big beleiver in the GPL, I think it would be fairer for Tax-funded software to be in public domain.
Granted, the GPL doesn't actually prohibit MegaCorp(TM) from using it, but most MegeCorp's business plans are not (yet) GPL-compatible. Although, maybe if this large body of Gov't GPL software was approaching ubiquity for whatever it does, this may encourage MCs to accept it.
Windows is only $500 if your time is worthless.
The first GPL required US government funded project I know of is the NYU GNAT project which is an Ada GCC front-end, see History in Wikipedia
This was back in 1994 or some such.
Laurent
laurent@guerby.net
If it were public domain a developer could create a derivative work and release that under whatever license they wanted. Additionally, Microsoft could include bits of the code in the next version of Windows and not have to disclose the rest of the Windows source.
Really? How are companies like IBM using their power and money to create laws that will close down OSS? I want specific references, not vague conspiracy theories.
Come to think of it, can you give an example of Microsoft enacting laws to close down OSS? I've heard them make a lot of speeches but nothing really on the legal front.
"If we want an increasingly high standard of living, then we have to engineer a government that will give it to us..."
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
Far better to use the GPL. If AOL wants to use the SW they paid for, they can do so. If they want to improve it, they can do that too, but they must distribute their source, so they can't create a huge "incompatibilty-hole" amongst the people who originally paid to produce the software.
This is patently incorrect. If they want to use (in any way, shape or (modified) form) GPL-ed software, they can do so without restriction. However, if they distribute it to someone who is not in-house, and have made modifications, they must also make the source available to them (and for that matter, to anyone else).
I hate it when people assist in the sullying of the GPL name when they attempt to defend it.
The previous sig has been removed due to
Do you mean corporations looking to sell proprietary software such as Cisco & Microsoft, who pay no federal income tax?
Sure they don't pay federal income tax, but that doesn't mean that they don't pay large sums of money over to government leaders in other ways.
Taking some deductions on income tax is not the same thing as not paying any taxes at all.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
Diebold software is not paid for by the U.S. government. Voting machines are purchased by state and/or local governments. The federal government doesn't pay for or control them. And the copyright limitations put on the U.S. government by the law cited don't apply to state and local governments.
But you then get a fork. The P.D. version gets rapidly abandoned, in favour of someone else's GPL fork, which doesn't really suit the govenment. Also MS could still ship GPL software with windows (like a "distribution") if they wanted.
It does not unfairly favor any users, just certain uses. These uses are fundamentally antisocial and ought to be discouraged whenever possible.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Granted, the GPL doesn't actually prohibit MegaCorp(TM) from using it, but most MegeCorp's business plans are not (yet) GPL-compatible.
Most Megacorp business plans are 100% GPL compatible, it isn't even an issue for them, because most Megacorps are not in the software distribution business.
But what is the domain of the public?
... It might not be morally correct, but it's how the government sees it.
"Public domain" has a specific meaning when applied in the copyright sense. It means a work over which no one may claim copyright protection.
I'd say that the domain needs to be limited to US citizens only.
That's really weird, you express a personal opinion and then (erroneously) say that its the position of the USG. You are 100 percent wrong. USG works are in the public domain, as such, anyone in the US or not, may use them as they see fit.
...thus saving us from being blinded by any more of that horrible code.
Just read some of the crazy follow-ups to this post, if I didn't know better, I think I was in 1917 Russia. Look, just beacuse you losers can't make a dime from your software doesn't mean you should work hard to prevent others from taking your good ideas to market and profiting. Yer all belong in a loonie-bin. My guess, none of you's actually even write software. Wacko-leftie commies -- go vote Nader, will ya?
NSA Secure Linux is GPL. It has to be, since it's a set of patches to Linux. It's now part of the standard kernel, even.
I think what he was trying to say was that the loophole exploited in this case should be closed. If the government funds a project with tax dollars the project should not have GPL-like restrictions placed on it.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
Fairy nuff, perhaps I should have been more specific and said Software MCs. I figured that in context this didn't need clarifying.
Windows is only $500 if your time is worthless.
And most of that code went to UC Berkley, and was released under the BSD license.
Taking some deductions on income tax is not the same thing as not paying any taxes at all.
The article he linked to said that neither company paid any taxes, at least for the latest tax year. If you want to refute that then go ahead, you may be right, but given that he provided a link in which actual figures were cited and you just said what amounts to "they do pay some, I can't hear you, la la la", I'd say he's winning the debate.
he doesn't even quote RMS like a good parrot;
back to the FSF for your retraining
how about this big law suit between microsoft an IBM about linux being based on their IP.
its not officially microsoft, but it might as well be (they are funding it because longhorn is late)
i know microsoft dont own UNIX ip but you get my point
if you ask Mr. McBride
my other sig is a commando
No, its not MS, its SCO. But anyways, that does not involve MS or anyone passing laws or pushing Congress to pass laws that will hold back OSS. The lawsuit is based on existing intellectual property laws (which BTW support OSS as well as closed source).
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
Why is software different from a road surface, or from police and fire protection? I payed for those, and I expect them to be available to me in the normal order of things. Companies exploit that fact for profit all the time. Why is code different?
These uses are fundamentally antisocial and ought to be discouraged whenever possible.
Maybe in your country. Not in this one (the USA).
The GPL requires redistribution of the source code with any binary, or at least the offer of that code should the receiving party wish to obtain it. Public domain software, while free of any copyright, may be distributed in binary form with no public access to the source code. Public domain isn't necessarily open source.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
There's an old Dilbert cartoon in which the boss says the workers are going to get money for each bug they fix.... Wally says "I'm gonna go code myself a car!"
There's no way anyone will get tax credits for fixing bugs.
Wow, it sounds like you think its unpatriotic to release code under a license that doesn't restrict uses to the US.
How might things have turned out differently if those foreigners that started the Linux kernel, Mysql, OpenBSD, Python, Ruby, KDE, Mplayer, etc had said the same thing about letting American's profit off of their software.
Ah, spoken as someone that has never worked in a government funded organization.
Public universities would never, ever go for this, and they shouldn't.
Public funding is a grant; The same way that public funding for the arts is a grant. Once funded, the government can't swoop in and take what was done.
The government shouldn't be putting any restrictions on what people do with the money they get, and that includes MAKING someone put work in the public domain. ANY work. That includes software.
A lot of software does get released in some form or another, but it should be by the developer's choice, not the governments.
Anyways, here is MS's Annual Report which seems to state they paid nearly $5 billion in income taxes. Maybe you don't think $5 billion is that much, in which case can I borrow $20?
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
Just this week a local government department released an RFP for a high-value (>CAD$50k) project which requires exactly what EZRO offers. Odd, isn't it?
In the answer to this RFP, you must indicate if your solution already implements a series of features, or whether it can be accomplished in the next 3 months. So that's 3 months and at least $50k to add features to an OSS project...
It seems very odd to me that we should insist that it is the government that should release the software, when it is much simpler to sell them modifications to software that's already open.
I'm not 100% clear how to accomplish that goal yet.
Looking for RFP's to bid on doesn't give you much time to research existing projects and get used to the codebase and start contributing features. Trying to get a good comparison of various projects -assuming you managed to find enough to compare- is often like trying to understand theological arguments.
Alternatively, you could just specialize in or start an OSS project that you knew was going to be needed by many agencies (Collision information management system, electronic medical record...), get a team together and bid on all RFPs on the subject, starting with the ones requiring the least features/customization.
Either way, there are low-hanging fruits here where we can underbid the commercial vendors with technically superior solutions.
Has anyone tried this kind of approach? Are there any domains you know that are ripe for an OS solution?
Information: "I want to be anthropomorphized"
Ok, but then why should you be allowed to put license restrictions on that tax-funded code?
I am completely for government funded GPL
I do not agree with your statement of "who better to fix the bugs and modify (in a positive manner) than the public"
Sure, if the public wants to take the software and modify it--they can fix the bugs they create--but the government i hope would take the time to fix their own bugs--rather than rely on 'the people' to.
I would be more in favor of said government software (paid for by the people) to be completely in the public domain--BSD style license. No strings attached.
Troll, Troll, go away and flame again some other day
I just built a piece of GPLed software and linked it against XFree86 ver 4. Your saying I'm antisocial if I distribute this instead of relinking against XFree86 ver 3.3.6?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
umm, actually if AOL wanted to replace AIM with a pay service, they could still use an open protocol and open software, nothing prevents them from having paid account verification, If knowing how the software worked meant automatic access to the network, the network is really fucking insecure
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
In the late 70s the US Dept of Energy (DOE) funded the development of a chemical process simulation system. This software is used by chemical engineers in the design and analysis of chemical plants or refineries. The development was done at MIT and was planned to meet the needs of the synthetic fuels industry (think gasoline made from coal)--needs not met by the currently available commercial systems.
The product of this project, called Aspen, was released as public domain (might have been a BSD-style license). The public domain version was very buggy and not particularly complete. I led a group of engineers that were using the public version of Aspen to do simulations. I spent almost all of my time fixing bugs.
Meanwhile, the core development team formed a company called Aspen Tech to further develop Aspen and to distribute it (as closed source). Aspen Tech had their closed-source version of Aspen (called Aspen Plus) debugged and running very nicely in no time. Aspen Tech has since been very successful and Aspen Plus is now one of the leading process simulators in industry.
So here's the results of this story:
1. Taxpayers paid for a system.
2. Aspen Plus users paid Aspen Tech for the system.
3. The companies that sold competing systems had their tax dollars used to fund a competitor that eventually put most of them out of business.
4. $$$$ (For the guys from the MIT development team.)
There was a movement to get universities, national labs, etc. to cooperate on the public version to debug and support it. There was not a lot of interest in this at the time.
But you then get a fork. The P.D. version gets rapidly abandoned, in favour of someone else's GPL fork, which doesn't really suit the govenment.
You can get a fork at any time with GPL software.
The government will pay the contractor to ensure that any upgrades to the software meet its requirements whether its GPL, public domain or proprietary. If the contractor thinks it can keep costs low by creating a GPL derivative work its free to do that.
Also MS could still ship GPL software with windows (like a "distribution") if they wanted.
It could do as you suggest if it merely packaged the software with Windows. MS could not create a derivative work (ie mix GPL and proprietary code) from the software and not release it. Why should the government prevent this from happening?
>> What about hardware? I'd really love to try one of those F-22's....
I don't want your derivative work to fly above me though.
oh please, stop yer whining
Try to avoid being so obviously deceitful, especially when the whole message thread is there for everyone to look back on.
The claim that was made was that Cisco and MS "pay no federal income tax". The post is still available above.
You replied to this by implying that they were merely "taking some deductions" and explicitly referred to income tax. The post is still available above.
It was pointed out that the original post linked to an article supporting its position.
So now you to pretend that the original claim wasn't about federal income taxes at all. Deceitful post immediately above.
You try BOTH to pretend that it wasn't about income taxes, it was about federal tax in general AND in the next paragraph of the same post, to pretend that it wasn't about federal taxes it was about income tax in general.
Seriously, was anyone supposed to buy into any of this?
Ok, but then why should you be allowed to put license restrictions on that tax-funded code?
I never said I should be allowed to do that. Using the code is not the same as restricting the code.
As long as I can't take the code away from you, you shouldn't care what I do with it. If I want to fork it into a private closed-source project, and lose the benefits of further public development, then that's my mistake to make, right?
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
He's exhibiting the sort of sanctimonious authoritarian judgement that earns you "+3, Insightful" on Slashdot, but very little in real life.
They got paid for further work, and the universities find it valueable, or they wouldn't fork over the money. If it was GPL, you've had a chance that the Aspen Tech company would _not_ have fixed the software; and that it would have been aother few years before another company entered the market, etc. If it was so easy to fix the software, why didn't you beome the maintainer?
Go cry me a river.
In that case businesses take GPL code that all people paid for, modify it, profit from selling the binaries of the derivative and (possibly) not disclosing their new source?
Yes. That's what you call a restriction. It's a right that you should have that the GPL takes away from you. Why shouldn't a person or business be able to use software without disclosing the new source?
Less rights = less freedom. The "free" in Free Software applies to the software, not the people using and developing the software. It's an abortion of the word "free"
Isn't legal precedance generally considered to be law?
You're probably right in that it won't hold back OSS from working in the domain that it currently operates in, but it will prevent it from spreading further.
Some guy responded saying by claiming that MS might not pay any federal income tax at all.
I pointed out that just because MS takes deductions on income tax does not mean they don't pay any taxes at all. I then elaborated after it became apparent that you or whoever replied to me didn't get it and pointed out they pay other taxes, plus their investors and employees pay huge amounts of taxes. Thus MS income goes to Uncle Sam to pay for this software.First, the original claim was not about federal income takes at all, but rather about all taxes that go to the federal government. Try hitting that little "parent" link on the post next time.
Some guy responded saying by claiming that MS might not pay any federal income tax at all because they make deductions.
I pointed out that just because MS takes deductions on income tax does not mean they don't pay any taxes at all. I then elaborated after it became apparent that you or whoever replied to me didn't get it and pointed out they pay other taxes, plus their investors and employees pay huge amounts of taxes. Thus MS income goes to Uncle Sam to pay for this software.
Any big words you need help with in there little buddy?
I know I'm being mean to him, but morons like this tend to piss me off. Sorry mods.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
Oh, please. This is not the first time us gummint related software got released.
Major milestone? I think it is a step down from what we had. Think CSRG. Where did they get their funding?
Government paves a road. Private firm comes along and paints diamonds on one lane of that road....and tells you that you can no longer use the "SPECIAL LANE" without paying. GPL > BSD style for govt funded projects.....if the *base* of the code was government funded, derivative projects shouldn't be closed.
When in doubt, parenthesize. At the very least it will let some poor schmuck bounce on the % key in vi. (Larry Wall)
If it was totally free, then someone could instantly take it and GPL a slightly changed version. So you still would get a GPL one.
But I think this is because they would like anyone who uses it to add to it. It's to make sure public property stays public.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
Yet another GNAA troll. The sig exploit is getting old. :D
Luckily I happened to be there before he removed the GNAA link in his sig, then watched him put it and pull it back again
His posting history is full of links to GNAA sites.
Whether this is good or not, someone, within 30 comments of this post will post a jab at Bush.
...
what does Bush have to do with anything? you just fulfilled your own prediction by bringing him up, completely non-sequitur.
but then, bushies are good at self-fulfilling prophecies, aren't they
seriously though, does bush have -anything- to do with this story? i think not.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
But there is no new precedent with this case. Copyright law has existed on the books for years, and this case will do nothing to change it. The allegations are that IBM used copyrighted Unix code in Linux, which would be illegal if SCO can establish it. In fact, it would be illegal under the same law that protects OSS code.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
Then you'll just have to wait for open molecular manufacturing like the rest of us.
--
Power to the Peaceful
I have to say I found the article lacking on a couple key points.
/. say why they think its a good idea but I have no idea what reasons the USG thinks.
First, since DevIS owned the copyright they could have released it as GPL. Why donate it the USG at all, especially if it cost them $20k to do so?
Second, once the USG had the copyright, why was it licensed under the GPL. What interest does the government find served by having the code under GPL? Specifically, since USG info is usually public domain why not release it as that? I have heard plenty of people on
It sounds like the Open Source Industry Alliance wants to be able to say that the USG owns a piece of GPL'd code. Maybe that's good, maybe there's a strategy, but I can't tell from the article.
Really? How are companies like IBM using their power and money to create laws that will close down OSS? I want specific references, not vague conspiracy theories.
So, if I cannot show such a a law already created, then it will never happen, eh?
Fortunately, it is NOT as simple as the SW vendors just passing a law at their whim. If that were the case, then it would now be illegal to use OSS. It is not. But what happens is that --over time-- the powerful entities in any "free market" use their power to consolidate their gains and protect themselves from competition. Not exactly a novel idea, BTW. Check out a bird nest with two chicks in April, and then drop by in May and you will often find the bones of the smaller chick on the ground. Oops! There's goes the competition!
What happens is that the foundation is laid first. This is where the propaganda comes into play. Maybe some of us have heard of FUD-type propaganda directed against OSS from powerful vendors already. So aint it so! They even try to get their propaganda into young minds at school. They cultivate congressmen and Senators. It may take a while for their elected lapdogs to get into position, much as a lion may stalk a baby gazelle.
"If we want an increasingly high standard of living, then we have to engineer a government that will give it to us..." ...at the expense of others. Bill Gates is an American citizen too. Why restrict his right to produce inferior software products?
Because he is the lion and we are the lamb. End of story.
Because you don't like Microsoft?
I would hope that our govt treat Microsoft as I would treat a useful but dangerous machine--with great care. Microsoft can be useful to us, as a chain saw may be useful to me, but if we do not control it, it may wound us.
I but I still respect MS's right to exist.
We, the people, through our servant, the American government, ALLOW Microsoft to exist. It only exists if we want it to. We OWN this country. Not Microsoft.
Your engineered government inherently infringes on the rights of other people,
And it had better do so when our general welfare requires that it do so (cf. "The American Constitution").
Homo Sapiens Americanus--A documentary in p
If SCO were to win this case (not bloody likely) then there would be a precedent against open source projects. Stealing source code is definitely a practice that falls under copyright laws. However questioning the source of source code in open projects is a new precedent. Depending on the results of the case, we could see bunches more.
It was my understanding that the Federeal government generally can't copyright things. Assume for the sake of argument that this is correct. Then the question that instantly comes to mind is the following: if the government can't copyright something, then when it makes a derivative work, it can't release it under the GPL. To use GPL'ed code you must agree to license your derivative work under the GPL if you release it. However, if you can't coyright the work, you can't release it under a license. Since you can't release you are not given permission to use the original work in the first place.
Thus if we assume that the Federal government can't copyright a work. The conclusion is that it can't take GPL'd code and modify it since it can't follow the license terms of the original work.
In reality, the legal standing of baseball players would not change at all. Their image may be changed, and there would be the increased threat of more convictions, but legally nothing would change.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
Bullshit: as soon as you said "however" there was a restriction. You may think it a benign restriction; harmless in its effect but it is a restriction none the less. With out expressing an opinion on the GPL itself, I wish the pro-GPLers would stop saying that the GPL is not restrictive. It is! It may have fewer than other licenses and they may or may not be less odious but there are still restrictions and so, qualitatively, is no different than any other license. If you want to relase software with out restriction use the public domain.
under the help america vote act via the federal government.
http://fecweb1.fec.gov/hava/hava.htm
small cut from the text of the act:
HELP AMERICA VOTE ACT OF 2002
Page 116 STAT. 1666
Public Law 107-252
107th Congress
An Act
To establish a program to provide funds to States to replace punch card voting systems, to establish the Election Assistance Commission to assist in the administration of Federal elections and to otherwise provide assistance with the administration of certain Federal election laws and programs, to establish minimum election administration standards for States and units of local government with responsibility for the administration of Federal elections, and for other
purposes.
Just for clarification purposes
begin short generic rant
Personally, I think it's a complete total scam and an effort to have even more powerful vote rigging capabilities by criminal elements embedded inside the government. Like in most other circumstances the last several decades, the federal government is usurping states rights, because they can, by taking such a huge slice of everyones wealth, then doling it back to the states as long as they play along with their various royal edicts. And it doesn't hurt those efforts of continual passing of bogus laws in that the feds control the so called "supreme" court who have complete discretion on which cases they will hear or not hear, and by the federal legislature having carte blanche to pass clearly unconstitutional laws whenever they feel like it. catch 22 combined with the carrot and the stick basically. When dealing with the feds, it's heads I win, tails you lose according to how they interpet things.
end rant
This arguement is pathetic at best, by releasing under the BSDL the government or the public LOOSE NOTHING, where as in your analogy above, they loose the use of a lane.
IF the project was released under the BSDL or a similiar license, both companies and the public have exactly the same starting point, so they gain exactly the same advantage. What each person does after that should be entirely up to them, the mere fact that someone decides to modify it and not release the changes does not change the fact that you have access to the origional code, THEY LOOSE NOTHING.
Under the GPL companies are discriminated against, as they cannot use code that they paid for within their own projects without loosing control of that projects sourcecode, so why should they have funded the governments code development in the first place? With the BSDL you allow everyone to get the same head start, and if a company decides to make money off it, well, then the public has the same chance to do so as well.
Why keep secrets to the public?
You mean "lose".
I agree with you that if you want software released without restriction, yes, you should use PD (or BSDL). I am simply stating that the GPL police aren't going to come knocking at your door if your version of rm does something theirs doesn't, and they want it.
The previous sig has been removed due to
The logic goes a bit like this:
For the sake of this argument, assume a better analogy -- a ladder and a series of pulleys. Every step you climb up the latter costs (something) and use of the pully is free. The government pays to have a pully hung at a certain level, and everyone may use that pully for free. In a BSD style license, a company may use the government pully and then climb the ladder a bit, setting their own pully and charging for use to that higher level. In the GPL style license, pulleys hung after using a free govt-derived pully must also have no cost.
Now, in this scenario, taxpayers fund the hanging of the first pully, for public use. But a company has a profit motive and wants to invest a little to get good results, so they use the first pully, climb a bit, and hang a new one. [Note: This metaphor encapsulates many of the dual-licensing schemes -- gpl & commercial use for proprietary product] They haven't paid back the taxpayers for their use of the pully. If the first govt hung pully had NOT been free, the company would have had to pay -- and taxpayers aren't being passed those savings. In short, the marginal investment of climbing a few steps is nothing without the prior [free] public investment....and as such, they shouldn't be able to charge for them.
[The typical retort is that "thit just shows how the GPL is viral, and that a few lines of GPL code can take over a huge project." If you have a huge project with thousands of lines of code, and you are incapable of writing your own proprietary 3 line solution to do the same thing as some GPL'd code, then you deserve to go bankrupt. ]
When in doubt, parenthesize. At the very least it will let some poor schmuck bounce on the % key in vi. (Larry Wall)
Yet another blind GPL fan boy.
And this is a bad thing why? What is so inherently evil about businesses that they shouldn't be allowed to use a business model that uses some code developed by the government and then freely released to all? If they wish, they can take that public domain code, make changes, and release it GPL if they wish. You have the same option. Of course, the public domain code would always be public domain, and thus entirely free; nothing can change that.
The one and only purpose of the GPL is to ensure that derivative works (plugins, models and the like) get an open source license (in this case the GPL). Is netcat any less free because it's public domain? Is OpenBSD any less free because it's licensed under a BSD license that allows companies to make derivative works and indeed distribute the original code in a binary only license?
There's a half truth going around about the GPL being viral and somehow infecting code you don't want to. We all know that's bull, but it's based in this truth. If you want to base a product on GPL code, you have to release any of your additions and modifications under the GPL as well, meaning you are giving away your code to the public. That's the price you knowingly pay up front for using GPL code (thus it isn't viral since you choose to use the available code, but later don't want to pay the price).
If tas payers fund a government body that creates some code, why should they use a license that requires that anyone else release their changes freely? Did not those corporations that might want to use the code pay taxes as well? Public domain is the fairest way for everyone to play ball.
Slackware, what else when it must be secure, stable, and easy?
The GPL is designed to force everyone to give their software away. Ask ESR about it.
The government shouldn't be restricting use of the software that the U.S. taxpayers paid to develop.
The government should not be able to GPL this software. It should be free, not under governmental conttrol.
Many posters are correct in that generally the govt releases only public-domain software. In practice however most of the time they just buy stuff...note that IBM and MS both make a killing off selling the govt software...even making custom changes but doing it in a manner that keeps the product in house so it's not public domain. In practice much of the software work done for the govt never sees the light of day. It's done by small developers that then dump the code when the project is done. The developer keeps a copy to use for whatever, but the govt department files it away never to be seen again. Chances are if you ask for software..provided you'd know what to ask for in the first place...you'd be told by the deparment manager it was "confidential" to the department...that manager would typially have no access to the source to even help you out. It's a neat scam where the commercial interest develop software but it's never REALLY the government's so it fits thru a loophole.
What this is REALLY about is getting the govt to turn to something like sourceforge first rather than their "old boys" contacts. Right now there's not equal footing. There's much precedent for the govt supporting the "underdog" ...corperate "affermative action" is rampant still. The govt deals with a great deal of money in their contracts..enough to build a good sized business from scratch in many cases!!! You'll notice that MS biggest customer is the US Govt! why haven't WE the people got anything from that deal? Where's the Public Domain Windows code that the govt paid for? What MS is deathly afraid of is that the govt will start spending money on "buying" OSS projects much like they buy MS software. All things being equal, there's no difference in donating money to an OSS project to improve it and buying thousands of coppies of windows and demanding specific features! the commercial companies are just trying to keep the OSS projects from benifiting from govt spending in the same way THEY are. After all, even a fraction of the money the govt spends on closed-source software would feed OSS projects for YEARS!!! Not to mention the mindshare of OSS being "standard" to talk to the govt.
The GNU General Public License (GPL) was written years before there was an "open source" movement. Linking together the open source movement with the GPL misstates history and authorship. The language used in the GPL and the freedoms it talks about are not part of the philosophy of the open source movement, they are part of the free software movement which created the free software community we still enjoy today 20 years later. The real author of the GPL is the FSF (most notably, Richard Stallman and Eben Moglen). In a post to the GCC mailing list responding to someone who wanted to help the "open source community", RMS said
ESR would similarly miscredit the open source movement when he referred to a number of programs as "open-source" projects even though they were written before that movement existed:
Maybe the authors of the various BSD OSes and the authors of the Linux kernal don't mind being lumped in with that movement, but ESR also includes Emacs which was co-written by RMS, founder of the free software movement. Emacs was most certainly not written with the open source movement in mind nor to benefit those ideals. Emacs was written to benefit the free software movement. RMS has repeatedly stated how he does not want to be lumped in with the open source movement. The FSF provides a concise and informative description of the differences between the two movements which includes RMS asking the reader to know enough about the movements to distinguish between their philosophies.
So what did the open source movement do? The Open Source Initiative placed the GPL on a list of approved licenses. Open source advocates have contributed to practical projects and endorsed the GPL. I'm sure the free software advocates have no issue with endorsing the GPL and increasing its use. But the reason this license protects ones freedoms to share and modify software so well is not due to anything anyone at the OSI or the open source movement has done. Thus it is not fair for that movement to receive credit for the GPL.
Digital Citizen
Public domain software, while free of any copyright, may be distributed in binary form with no public access to the source code. Public domain isn't necessarily open source.
So, the license has to require public access to be "open source"? Or what's your point? Or are you not making a point and just blithering.
Public domain is never open source, at least, via the OSI definition, beacuse it is not copyrighted. OSI is a set of requirements for copyrights, like GPL and BSD. And OSI is largely silent on the issue of redistribution, it doesn't require it nor does it not require it. Please don't talk authoritatively about a subject to which you clearly know very little about.
When the govt wants HARDWARE they typically put out a request to submit projects. [at this point the ideas are still held by their respective submitters] Once the proposal are in, the govt contracts 2-3 to research & develop the project at the govts expense. At that point all of the money spent on research tools, development, and any copyrights or patents issued become property of the govt upon the project's completion.
With something like the F22 there was the YF22 adn YF23 developed by two different companies at the govts expense. Once the two prototypes were completed those projects were "closed" and technically all material went back to the govt. The govt then decided which plane they thought meet their needs more and picked that to manufacture. At that point the govt rebids the work out again and typically all of the companies subbmiting research get to bid on the finished product even if their's wasn't the winner...although the research winner generally gets the largest share of the contract due to their "pre-paid" costs and experience.
As far as getting prints of the F-22 you'd need to wait 50 years for them to be non-classified!
I don't understand why this sort of thing doesn't happen more often. In fact, I suspect that the GPL license, may be too restrictive and not enforceable. US citizens have a right to receiving that code (and other information) in the public domain under the US Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). (There are limits regarding national security, etc.) This has already been done with software in the past.
The US Department of Veterans Affairs has been actively developing and using the VistA (Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture) software since the 1980's. This software has a proven track record and is used in hundreds of healthcare facilities of all sizes. Many agree that it is at least as good as multi-million dollar systems from companies like Siemens, GE, Cerner, and McKesson.
The VistA software has already been released to the public domain under the US Freedom of Information Act. Since then an active open source community has grown around that freely available code and is even being used in non-government facilities around the world. More recently the open source community and the VA developers have begun discussions on how to combine their efforts.
So if you know of any useful software developed by the US government, speak up and ask for it to be opened up so everyone can benefit!!
a fun experiment would be for the shiny new AGIS ships [loaded with NT servers!] to crash during combat [perhaps take casualties] and the govt demand the source to windows to fix it!!! There is a very real danger of the feds doing that particularly during war time. MS is just a little too cocky...and crappy customer service could get them in a world of hurt!!!
If taxpayer dollars support software development, it should be released to the public domain, without the additional restrictions imposed by the GPL. People should be able to modify and sell the code without having to release their modified source.
Vote for Pedro
Your analogy is not a good one because the company actually takes part of the (scarce) road built by the government and prevents people from using it. This would not be true for software in the public domian.
----- Question authority, but not ours. Hate the man, but we're not him.
How is this a troll? The govt. shouldn't be spending taxpayer money on sw, and then putting arbitrary restrictions on how the sw is released, just because socialists like RMS think it's a good idea. I second the parent, only BSD style licensing please. Any ture libertarian will agree as well (assuming they even thing the govt. should be spending money developing sw in the 1st place).
Vote for Pedro
It's not the govt's business to be writing software for the public. If they happen to write some software that's useful for the govt. and the public, and want to release it, they shouldn't restrict it's use. The US govt. isn't a charity for free software. It's owned by all US citizens, who should have the freedom to use the software as they wish.
Vote for Pedro
Companies pay taxes as well.
No they don't. Really. At first glance, it may appear that companies pay taxes but they really don't.
In fact, it is their customers that pay the taxes as part of the final price, the company is just a middleman.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Do you mean corporations looking to sell proprietary software such as Cisco & Microsoft, who pay no federal income tax?
"I'm sorry Fred, but since Bob doesn't pay any taxes I'm going to have to kill your cat..."
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
"Government paves a road. Private firm comes along and paints diamonds on one lane of that road....and tells you that you can no longer use the "SPECIAL LANE" without paying. GPL > BSD style for govt funded projects.....if the *base* of the code was government funded, derivative projects shouldn't be closed."
This is a completely irrational arguement. The carpool lane exists as govt. law, and has nothing to do with private companies. The govt. doesn't build roads, and then say they can only be used by private citizens, not companies for business purposes. The govt. should not be restricting software uses since we all paid for it, so we all own it and can do what we please with it. The US was not founded on principles of socialism, and I'm tired of people trying to change the US into that sort of country.
Vote for Pedro
The govt. shouldn't be wasting my tax money hanging pullies. They should only be paying for software that they need internally. If they find it's useful to others, and they decide to release it, they should place no restrictions on the source code.
Vote for Pedro
Government paves a road. Private firm comes along and paints diamonds on one lane of that road....and tells you that you can no longer use the "SPECIAL LANE" without paying.
You know very well that that is not The case in software. A more appropriate analogy would be "government paves a road, private firm comes along and creates a driveway leading to a parking lot in front of their locked door."
A good example is the TCP/IP stack. It doesn't matter what Microsoft does to its copy of the TCP/IP stack, nor how much they charge for it, because the original is still there untouched and undamaged.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
The only restriction the GPL has is that someone can't take the work other did and keep others from it.
Anyone can use GPL software, but not everyone may be able to profit from it. Think about roads maintained by taxes. Anyone can drive over them, but corporations cannot charge tolls on people who use them.
Why should corporations have the sacred right to get profits from software developed for the government, but not from roads built for the government?
"it just stops people profiting with certain types of business model that abuse people's freedom."
There is no possible way for a business that simply offers a product to abuse your freedom. If you don't like what they offer, you can always go somewhere else. Your arguement is irrational. The only abuse of freedom is that of the govt. by restricting what taxpayers can do with software they paid for.
Vote for Pedro
If tas payers fund a government body that creates some code, why should they use a license that requires that anyone else release their changes freely? Did not those corporations that might want to use the code pay taxes as well? Public domain is the fairest way for everyone to play ball.
No, that is not "fair" - it is biased towards the corporations.
If something was created with public money, why should the private sector be allowed to appropriate it? Isn't it quite appropriate (har har) for software developed by tax money to carry a license that ensures that it can only be used in ways which benefit everyone who paid for its development?
..and the winner of the "quickest cry of 'racist' for no reason" goes to....
the previous AC...
take a bow, comrade
"It does not unfairly favor any users, just certain uses. These uses are fundamentally antisocial and ought to be discouraged whenever possible."
The US is based on individual rights, not socialism. If the govt. told you what you were doing was not in the best interest of society, you would scream bloody murder about how your rights were being violated. But when it's someone who you don't like, you seem to have no problem laying down the law about what their rights are, and telling them how they should run their lives.
Vote for Pedro
Educate yourself, the klan is branching its hatred out. It ain't just 'bout racism anymore.
try, try again.
History has "proven" nothing. But it has certainly shown that cooperation pays off big, even if it sets up the exploitative elements of society to take credit for and milk money from the vast resources and effort expended by those who came before them.
If you think history is just just a series of repetitios old themes I don't think your explorering your world very well.
We've come a long way baby!
(I'm simply skipping past your "communist utopia" straw man)
Kind Regards
"A few great minds are enough to endow humanity with monstrous power, but a few great hearts are not enough to make us w
Bad start to an article when the first line contains a blunder like that...
Agreed. And the GPL is what makes sure that it will stay in the public domain. Releasing software without the GPL will let anyone convert, with minor modifications, a software from public domain to proprietary. Where in the Constitution is it written that tax money should be used to give profit to corporations? If the corporations don't want to cope with the GPL they are free to write from scratch their own software. But they may also use the GPL software released by the government on the same basis as everyone else. How's that for a "fair way" for everyone to play ball?
Exactly! That's precisely why they should use the GPL.
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
Word can't express how much I agree with this statement. Mod up.
Not only is the government releasing GPL software, they're doing it for Linux, not for Windows. That's gonna chap BillG's ass when he finds out... :)
you must remember, the us government isnt just one group of people, it's split into many many sectors.
and believe it or not, some sectors still hold interest of the public. and would do things like this to make things better.
it's just the bigger, more commonly heard groups of the government we hear about that are corrupt, etc.
hi,
Once again information is "required" to be submitted to a government agency under the authorization and protection of the Privacy Act of 1974 [and its ammendments]. However, the information being collected is done via a standard web form with the httpd protocol. No encryption. Thus, violating the Privacy Act of 1974 which requires government agencies which collect such information to protect it. Clear text transfer of information, last time I checked, is not considered protection.
sTc
Most things worth doing are worth doing twice. -- me I think or was that my boss' methodology?
the KKK is also into GPL/OSS software development too? Didn't know that.
What you say makes sense only because you didn't quote the whole of my post. The example I was talking about involved AOL distributing the "enhanced" chat application to all of their customers. So obviously they would have to distribute their new source. If they only intended to use it in-house it wouldn't make the slightest difference whether they used the GPL or some othe licence.
And, having had the cheek to correct me by quoting me out of context, you then go ahead and say something which is "patently" incorrect:
They are not obliged to make their sources available to anyone other than the people they have distributed their binaries to. They can't restrict the re-distribution of the source to people who are not customers, but it is not their responsibility supply the source to anyone else.
In future, please read the post you are responding to, and don't quote out of context in order to make some pettifogging (and incorrect) point. Thanks.
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
There is no possible way for a business that simply offers a product to abuse your freedom.
What if they offer a product that, in its production, contaminates your local streams and lakes?
What if they offer organs... harvested from people they kidnapped?
What if their product is a now-copyrighted television program that used to be public domain, until the new law recently mentioned that says re-broadcasting something in the PD makes you the new copyright holder automatically?
What if they offer DNA profiles, after buying the national "arrested (but not convicted) people DNA" database?
What if they offer voyeuristic movies of you?
What if they offer "protection", mob-style?
What if they offer bottled water, after purposely fouling the local drinking water to make it unpotable?
What if they offer "purified" water that is actually contaminated?
What if they offered a (working) mind-control device?
What if the government passed a draconian law and they offered the technology to implement it?
Which forces the companies to lower prices in order to remain affordable to their target market, thereby reducing profits.
Or, at least, that's how it works in markets with succifient competition. It kinda breaks down in monopoly situations.
becuase the private sector pays taxes too - more so than you and me individually (with the exception of really large businesses that can write off most of it, this still applies to most businesses)
this is like saying that you and me should be able to enjoy free police protection from our own tax money but corporations are not allowed police protection at all - they should hire their own private police, despite the fact that they pay taxes too.
the software should start out in the public domain. if government research develops a new algorithim funded through tax dollars, the source code should be released into the public domain, not into some quasi-free GPL like license that prevents you from making use of it in your own larger program without releasing all the source code
as a one-man software company, why can't I write closed-sourced software with this code incorporated? I paid my fair share of taxes.
GPL != public domain. Public domain means you are free to do whatever you want with it, including make money off of it and not release your other source code that makes use of it.
Precisely. You just need to remember those three little words: "Embrace and expand". Imagine if the government went out and released a new video codec, the best one out there yet. However, as there are already quite a few video codecs out there, nobody seems particularly quick to adopt it. However, Microsoft sets their beady eyes upon it, change it a little bit (just enough to make it incompatible), patent it, then make it the default choice in the next version of Windows Media Player. As it's the Windows default, and a good codec to boot, it becomes very widespread, and anyone who wants to view it without Windows Media Player is up shit creek.
Well, that might seem like a good scenario to you, but to me it seems that Public Domain software is a good way to get ripped off. I really wish it wasn't, but that's just the way it is, and that's why the GPL exists.
Whats wrong with AOL using software like this? AOL pays plenty of various taxes, as well as their shareholders.
I think they are more than welcome to use publically funded source code.. as long as they've paid their taxes fair and square.
if the public feels slighted at this, then they can choose not to buy AOL's products and force them to act differently.
the whole world doesn't use AOL.. most people don't. AOL is not going to lock out other users on the internet from chatting with their users
In that mindset then, people dont really pay taxes, they are just a middle man for their employers.
What about shareholders?
As for some posters comments about granting companies, who are also taxpayers, the same benefits as everyone else, I believe the GPL does that just fine. Under the GPL they have the same rights to use, modify, and distribute as individuals do. It just prevents them from gaining any special advantages compared to individual taxpayers or even other companies. And while PD would not prevent individuals from comitting such abuses, it would still produce a very unlevel playing field because large corporations are in an inherently better position to benefit from such practices.
So I believe that GPL is a much better choice for Government developed software than PD or BSD style licenses. Being able to reap some of the benefits of your tax dollars is good. Being able to destroy the value of those benefits for all other taxpayers is not.
"...we have to engineer a government..."
Everybody knows of laisser-faire economists but when have you last met a laisser-faire engineer?
Don't worry about the bridge falling down, the "free market" will take care of it!
"it unfairly favors some users over others."
I'm not sure if you're right or not. Which users does it favor?
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
What software do you write? Its hard to say if you're correct or not unless you tell us what software is competing and why.
Because the government cannot own copyrights.
The argument naturally devolves to the oft-debated point that shareholders should not pay taxes on dividends because that would be double taxation.
No. That would be impossible anyway unless you were somehow able to shut down the original author's webserver. The GPL restricts you in that someone can't take the work that they did themselves and keep others from it.
If a program is released under a BSD-style license and someone else takes it, modifies it, and decides to release it as a commercial application without sources, then it's only their modifications that they're denying to the public. The original version would still be just as available as it always was.
"And the GPL is what makes sure that it will stay in the public domain."
No, the GPL ensures that it is *not* in the public domain, but that enhancements *are* covered by the GPL. The government should choose between public domain and a GPL style license on a case-by-case basis.
If a government funds the from-scratch development of a project there may be no reason to release under GPL, or BSD for that matter. Whatever rights are granted to the software should be granted only to the taxpayers. I'm not interested in funding the development of other nations, especially these days.
"There is no possible way for a business that simply offers a product to abuse your freedom. If you don't like what they offer, you can always go somewhere else."
Well I differ with you on what constitutes an abusive relationship. An abusive relationship isn't one which the weaker party can't necessarily escape from, but one where one party holds far more power than the other - if you can leave the relationship, but at a grave cost, such as never being able to use a computer at all, then that's an abusive relationship.
As an analogy, people were often 'free' to be christians in the Warsaw pact countries during the cold war. However, being an active christian was likely to involve state surveillance and harassment such as being denied job promotions or whatever. By your definition of the term 'abuse', however, that wasn't abusive. People did actually have a choice. They could chose between foregoing their beliefs or being harassed. According to you, that's not abusive.
(There were, of course, worse crimes committed against christians in the eastern bloc - those are irrelevant for this particular argument)
Being told that you MUST use proprietary software, or not use a computer at all (which was the case before about 1991 or so) is an abuse of power, even though it isn't outright coercion. Being told that you must have DRM-enabled software, that you must dial up microsoft.com or whoever and be spied on every time you switch your computer on, being denied the right to look at or change the software on 'your' computer, and being made to fork out large sums of cash every 3 years or so in order for your computer to be able to talk to the rest of the world IS an abuse.
It only stops being abusive when we DO have a reasonable choice without being, in this case, ostracised, economically speaking. If free software is killed, (it won't just die a natural death, patent laws or DRM-type legislation, or the annulment of the GPL, or some sort of hardware restrictions will be needed to kill it) then we'll go back to your fairly stark, 'non-abusive' choice - either be subjected to proprietary handcuffs and surveillance, or never use a computer again, and be effectively ignored by the rest of the world.
This was the case before 1991 or so, but then, the economic consequenses of not having a computer were less severe than they are now. We're very, very, lucky to have a real and fair choice now, and it was only made possible by the creation of the GPL.
"Your arguement is irrational.
I'm not irrational, I just disagree with you on what certain words mean.
"The only abuse of freedom is that of the govt. by restricting what taxpayers can do with software they paid for."
I'm glad to see you're opposed to government funding and support of proprietary software.
I'm sure there are plenty of other things.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
Yes.
Naturally, they're pretty much forced into the KDE camp. "Glu Glux Glan" sounds too much like the title of a pr0no film.
Absolute balderdash. Government software should be in the public domain. Here's why:
First of all, companies paid for the software too through taxes. I don't understand why you think that they should be prevented from ADDING VALUE to the software and reselling it. It's not that the company is STEALING the software from the people; the people still have exactly the software that the government created. But when companies ADD VALUE, they should be able to sell that ADDED VALUE at the market price. If they try to sell it at too high a price, then a competitor will enter the market. Or perhaps the government should have finished the job the first time, if they're really releasing the software for the common good. If the government had done a good enough job in the first place, then nobody would pay for the ADDED VALUE.
Secondly, the GPL discourages companies from ADDING VALUE. Without the ability to sell the software at market price, companies have absolutely no incentive to improve upon the government's work to make it more useful to the whole of society. Users of software cannot afford to do inhouse development to fix the GPLed software's problems, and for the types of the software that the government is likely to release, there will probably be no giant community willing to chip in either. Therefore, it makes sense to allow companies to profit by ADDING VALUE to the software, since that makes everyone better off in the end.
I cannot overstate the issue: the GPL does not guarantee that people will ADD VALUE to software, especially in special-purpose software. The public domain allows people to copyright changes, which in turn provides an incentive to ADD VALUE. And finally, companies can only charge as much as the ADDED VALUE is worth; otherwise, people will use the public domain software as-is.
Thus, placing government software in the public domain will better serve the public as a whole.
Actually, I think it was "I'm gonna write me a minivan". And the PHB says, "I hope this drives the right behavior".
ie public domain but you must give credit in the source code?
You can't put something in the public domain and still dictate licensing terms.
And Sun can include bits of the code in the next version of Java, and Linus Torvalds can include bits of the code in the next version of the Linux kernel and a FreeBSD contributor can include bits of the code in the FreeBSD-CURRENT, etc., etc., ad nauseum. Therefore, what's your point?
It's a very dark ride.
The plural of "American" is "Americans". It isn't "American's". Fucking retard...
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
That's bullshit.
Let's consider some non-GPL software like FreeBSD. Nokia and Juniper use FreeBSD in their routers. Have FreeBSD became proprietary? No. Are Nokia and Juniper's FreeBSD versions proprietary - yes. They are different OSes because of proprietary software included. Just consider them as branches.
BTW tax money were used to write software to use by government. If the same software might benefit somebody else it is even better. And I say it is good corporations make money from whatever software they use because emploeyes and stockholders also people.
And question for you - do you believe that GPLed software can't be used to give profits to corporations? So those Linux crowds who swear by Linux companies are wrong? ;)))
That's why software should be under BSD license. You may do whatever you want with software. You just can't change the license on it.
Sorry, perhaps that wasn't clear. What will probably happen is that the project forks into 2. The PD original is quickly GPL'd and then improved. The PD original will bitrot, because all the developers move to the GPL version. But the government is then left carrying the dead, P.D. fork. As to why the gov. should prevent MS from making proprietary derivatives: it's because MS then would be able to obtain lock-in. Also, government software should remain open - so that any citizen can continue to participate.
that's not true, if you read original article it says DOL owns license.
The comment I was replying to maintained developers wouldn't improve the software if it was public domain because they would prefer to contribute their work to a GPL'd project. I was pointing out that releasing the software as public domain does not preclude GPL'd development via derivative works. At the same time it would allow the software to be used in proprietary products. I think the government should opt to allow for the largest range of uses, as it does in general for information it releases.
Whatever your point was, you managed to fail to make it to me.
Examples, please!
What is the difference between a small revolutionary change and a large evolutionary change?
So you're advocating security through obscurity?
The fact that the original version is still available and could be easily modified to be compatible with A0L's trivially modified verson simply by reverse engineering the protocol change?
It's not that I'm against the GPL; I like it. Nor do I think that the government should be funding development of closed source software or anything.
It's that the government is not motivated by copyright at all, when it does things. Nor does it need to be -- it has the power to tax, and it is intended solely to work for the people. Government works should universally be in the public domain. This lets anyone use them in any way, for any purpose at all. There is not even a trade-off as with the BSD or GPL licenses, where you trade the extra freedoms you get with having to give freedoms to others likewise. There's simply no need for that with the government.
I don't mind if they encourage private persons to release under the GPL, but the government, and projects contracted by the government, should remain in the public domain. This is already partly required by 17 USC 105. I'd go further and force it on states and foreign governments, and extend the scope of who it applies to, but it's the right way to go.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
The reason this person is right that the government should not GPL their software but use and contribute to only public domain software is because it can also help businesses who rely on software to make money. And this would boost the economy. Personally I think having the government use the BSD license or public domain is because in can then in turn go into non-free as well as free software, which is much helpful to a capitalist economy.
Creative Demolition
No, I'm arguing for as many safeguards we can get with something as dangerous as a nuclear plant, one of which is to keep potential terrorists from knowing any potential soft spots in security. This isn't an instant messaging client we are talking about here. One guy finds and exploits a vulnerability, thousands of people could die.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
Maybe he's wrong about OSS, but there is no doubt he's on the money about big boys in free markets running the show to a greater degree than they should. Take the RIAA as the most convenient example of such.
Son, you can't handle an F-22. First of all, unless you've already been flying high performance fighter jets for *quite some time*, and are already well-accustomed to the kind of G-forces they'll subject you too, you'll be puking your guts inside out very shortly after takeoff.
This article has some details on what I'm fairly sure is the same project. The article is trying to pitch Python but may still be of interest.
I'm currently working on a government owned ROV and am having serious issues with the display and control programs on the system. All of the software was developed by third party companies and own the source code to it. Now if I want to do any reworking of the software it has to be through them and they ain't cheap. So much for the taxpayer's dollar.
I'm a virgo and on Slashdot. Coincidence? Yes.
If you actually attempt to download the software you get a registration page that reads:
.GOV site but is this ok with the GPL?
Workforce ConnectionsTM Source and Installation Download
In order to download the complete Workforce ConnectionsTM source code and installation software, you must provide your information including a valid email address. The password to enable you to download the files will be sent to that email. Please provide the following information.
I'm glad to see GPL software on a
The article claims that "a Cabinet-level federal agency released a software product under the GPL, making it the first tool of its kind to be licensed by the US government free of charge to public and private sector organizations."
The National Institute of Standards and Technology, part of the Department of Commerce, regularly makes its software available to all comers. The software I know about does not use the GPL, but that doesn't mean it isn't free of charge. In fact, NIST does the GPL one better, because a lot of their free software comes with the phone number of the people who wrote it, and hence free tech support.
I don't know if this is part of the DOC mission, or just the culture that pervades NIST, but I do know that the people there I have dealt with view the public release of their software as a direct consequence of developing it on the public's dime.
If it was totally free, then someone could instantly take it and GPL a slightly changed version. So you still would get a GPL one.
What would be the point of that? The original code would still be totally free, so a company could still use the original in their proprietary products without giving anything back. GPLing modified code wouldn't force companies who used the original code to release their modifications. You'd just be wasting your time. You might as well wait till you have some substantial changes to make. The original code would be available for ever.
Intellectual Property
Intellectual: of the mind
Property: that over which one has control
Why does this sound contradictory? You say you understand that companies pay taxes but in the same breath you imply that they did not pay for the software.
For example, the GPL prevents small, meaningless changes which simply change protocols without adding value.
Yay, my favourite GPL FUD. "We must stop these nasty companies from selling the free code!" They are not charging money for the freely available code, they are charging for changes to the code. It doesn't matter how "meaningless" a change is, if the market decides it is worth paying for then that change has value.
Example. Microsoft takes public domain (more likely BSDL) software, presses it onto CDs and drops it in a shiny box. No other changes. They charge $100 for it. If the market will bear this price then yes, the shiny box and convenience of a CD is worth $100. It doesn't matter how trivial the change is, if people will pay for that change then the change is worth the price. Value has been added.
Now if everyone decided that the change was indeed worthless then Microsoft would have to obey the market and start looking for a landfill in New Mexico for all those CDs.
Serve Gonk.
Our government has increasingly over the last serveral decades lost sight of itself as an essential service. That is, a necessary evil, that needs to be pruned within an inch of it's life on a regular basis, and who's only reason for existence is the ability to provide certain global services in a method and manner more cost effective and efficiently than 50 smaller institutions tiled over the face of our nation.
Producing, using, and supporting GPLed software is precisely the kind of behavior one would hope from a government which was, benevolent, transparent, committed to providing superior service to it's citizens, and working towards a growing common resource that each and every citizen could use and prosper from. Nothing could be more democratic, and nothing could improve our current society more than loosening the grip of special interests.
Let our government be a service to all it's citizens. Promote a future that insures the value of the commons, and promotes the health and happiness of the common man.
Genda
Sure, no problem. Just enter the air force and prove you are able to do it without damaging yourself or anything else. (That is, pass all the pilot's training, medical examinations, background checks...)
Regards, Ulli
Simple things should be simple, complex things should be possible.
Isolated speaking, you're absolutely correct. But when it's in the context of a chat program distributed with AOL, it's very obvious we're talking about the latter case. Maybe he should have said "distribute their source with the binary" to make it very clear, but his post comes across as completely reasonable and yours as a quibbler. Informative quibbler, perhaps, but quibbler none the less.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Many people would keep modifications under the GPL because they believe in it.
The GPL version would be likely to rapidly become better than the original.
I meant modified code.
Sorry for unintentionally speaking nonsense.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
Suppose that the software is available as public domain and a company sells a derivative. Then the people who pay for that are paying for the additions made by that company. You are free to use the costless, public domain version if you don't agree with that bargain and I think that many people will (unless the additions in the closed sourced versions are very compelling, in which case the additions seem to very valuable, and the company deserves to be paid for that).
What I don't understand is how people and the government lose money in all this. If you don't want to pay for a closed source derivative, then you are free to create an open source alternative or use the public domain version. If you believe that the derivative is valuable to spend money on (presumely, because it saves you more money than you have to spend on it), then you don't lose money there either. On the contrary, a rational Homo Economicus will only spend money to earn more, so he would actually make money.
I'll stick to the FSF on this: GPL gives better protection, unless there is a specific reason to opt for LGPL or public domain.
You may make this choice for your own software, but you should realize it is a quid pro quo. You spend your time to create software and in return you expect people to 'pay' you with the changes they make themselves. You don't actually give away your software in the sense that you don't expect anything in return. It is different for software created by the government. That software has been fully paid for and the government shouldn't expect people to 'pay' again, since many of the people who paid taxes don't want that (programmers who program open source software under a different license than the GPL or who program closed source software). In reality, GPL source code will be unusable by those groups of programmers, which means they pay taxes for something they cannot use.
GPL then would be better for government
That would depend on what their aim is:
- If they want to stimulate the economy, then public domain is probably the best choice (since more people can use it and save money). And unlike the standard handouts to (big) coorporations, this one actually benefits small business and individuals as well.
- If the goverment wants bug-fixes, then public domain (more eyes) is probably the best choice.
- If they want to have more features added, then it's unclear. I don't think there has been any research into the amount of (valuable) code that is returned with different licenses. The GPL forces the return of code, but the public domain results in more users and my gut feeling is that willing contributions will generally be much more valuable than 'forced' contributions.
So in the end, the public domain may well be better for the government than the GPL.That is simply not true. Companies pay tax on their profits. If they make no profit, then they pay no taxes. So there are companies that take money from customers, but not enough to make a profit, so they pay no tax.
Posters recognized by their sig,
I don't know why it sounds contradictory. Perhaps I wasn't clear, so here we go again: All taxpayers paid for the development of the software; I don't think it's fair if some of the taxpayers can then modify the software in such a way that some other taxpayers no longer have access to the full benefit for it.
It's a funny thing about the world we work in that you can make a worthless change and charge for it and make money from it, even though the market wouldn't choose to pay for that change if they knew what they were paying for. Effectively, if AOL bundles a modified version of the chat software, the people who get this version don't know or care about it. It's only when they find that they can't chat with non-AOL using friends that the problem starts. And if you say that AOL isn't that big so it doesn't matter, assume that it is Microsoft, with their 90%+ share of the market which does the bundling.
This is not a counter-example. If they were charging $100 for the SW, there would be less of a problem, because people would actually have to make a positive decision to use it. But that's not the way they would do it. They could create value out of the SW without having to charge for it initially, because of their dominant position in the market. You might argue that they deserve to be able to do this because they've built up that position etc etc, but that is an ideological arguement; it is not value-free.
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
Actually, since a single company is considered a single "commercial entity", which is similar to an individual, then that company can in fact keep changes to themselves. It's only when they start to distribute their newly modified version that they have to release the code too.
Just something to chew on.
The GPL is about taking some freedom away from the developer, and giving it to the used, based on the fact that there are more users than developers, so it increases the net amount of freedom. The developer loses freedom to close the source, and to hide modifications, but the user gains the freedom to enhance and share any copy that comes to his hands. In the case of government stuff, it's the same case, most citizens are users, so it's better to focus on their freedom (GPL) even though it shaves some of the freedom of the developers, compared to public domain.
This ignores twenty years of Microsoft history. Microsoft's strategy is to take an existing, BSDL, section of code and insert it (closed source) into their products. Later, when convenient, they make a slight backwards compatible change and wait for everyone to use it. Because it's closed and backwards compatible, nobody knows they aren't using the original. Five years later when they have more market share, MS removes the backwards compatibility and segments the market. This either locks customers to them, or "demonstrates the shoddy quality of their competitors".
They've tried to comoditize every protocol they've ever had significant market share in. HTML, Kerberos, Word documents (pointless changes every version), etc. They'd try TCP/IP as well except that they need the backbone of the internet and it's not leaving Unix anytime soon.
This isn't just Microsoft, look at everyone who will jump up in response to this post and say it's just good business sense. Feh. Good business sense, in the long run, is rounding up everyone who says that and killing them. Then, twenty years down the road we've been much more efficient because nobody keeps trying to fragment the user base of critical infrastructure.
Because of the risk of this, the risk that someone will intentionally try to sabotage the market to gain more control, I feel that all standards-implementing software *must* be GPLed before I'll trust it. Because of this, if the government (the funders of the invention of the internet) invents something I want it GPLed. Otherwise we're just sticking our necks in a noose for the next Microsoft to yank us around by.
>And the GPL is what makes sure that it will stay in the public domain.
You must be kidding. Public domain has no restrictions, no fear of GPL based lawsuits, no long approval period while your company's legal department reviews the license,....
Taxpayer funded software should be public domain. Free for me or anyone else to use without restrictions.
So let's try this ...
You know Bill G8s, that relatively secure, yet sucking, software making guy, he himself donkey dicks even; I caught him donating money to charity in church today. Yes, church on Monday ... some people really should get off of their lazy asses to work ... and control us open-sorcerors with his usual big corporation, Apple, again ...
I've wondered about this. There has always been the controversy over the alleged theft of the BSD TCP stack, amongst other things. When the source for windows 2K/NT was leaked, how many such similar violations were found?
Much as I wouldn't be surprised to see it happening, I haven't heard much on this myself. I also won't peek at the 2k/NT code because I wouldn't want to be later accused of incorporating MS code in my own projects.
I don't get to put "license restrictions" on the taxes I pay
Yes you do. Donate money to a charity. That's tax-deductible. You have given your money to a specific cause instead of letting the government do what they want with it.
Microsoft has tried to do this to standards. But in every case where the standard was backed by free implementations or true standard specifications, they have failed. They tried it with HTML, but as soon as we got a free Mozilla, people started writing pages to the standard again. They tried to do it to Kerberos, but had to very quickly change back to the standard. They never even tried to change TCP/IP. The only places where they have succeeded in EnE is with proprietary standards.
I feel that all standards-implementing software *must* be GPLed before I'll trust it.
Then I guess you do not trust TCP/IP, Ogg/Vorbis or the X11 protocol. That last one is interesting, because people did try to make it proprietary. But like Microsoft, they did not succeed.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Ah, but they do still have access to the full benefit of the publicly funded software. It's still freely available. Modifying freely available software does not make the original disappear. The authors of the modification should be allowed to do with it as they choose. You seem to think that all software should be free, I disagree. It would be wonderful if it was, but I will not force this view on others.
It's a funny thing about the world we work in that you can make a worthless change and charge for it and make money from it, even though the market wouldn't choose to pay for that change if they knew what they were paying for. Effectively, if AOL bundles a modified version of the chat software, the people who get this version don't know or care about it. It's only when they find that they can't chat with non-AOL using friends that the problem starts. And if you say that AOL isn't that big so it doesn't matter, assume that it is Microsoft, with their 90%+ share of the market which does the bundling.
I agree. The market is deeply stupid, particularly when it comes to high-tech. So? The potential for correction is still there: the original free software. What is stopping anyone from doing the exact same thing AOL or MS did? With a truly free license, nothing.
This is not a counter-example. If they were charging $100 for the SW, there would be less of a problem, because people would actually have to make a positive decision to use it. But that's not the way they would do it. They could create value out of the SW without having to charge for it initially, because of their dominant position in the market. You might argue that they deserve to be able to do this because they've built up that position etc etc, but that is an ideological arguement; it is not value-free.
I'm having difficulty parsing this. Are you saying it is bad that MS can give software away for no charge? I'm really not sure what your point is.
Serve Gonk.
Think of it this way: company A makes widgets. They sell for $1 each, and cost .50 to make. Profit to the shareholders is .50 each widget. Now the government decides to tax the profits of company A at, say, 50%. Net profits are now only .25. The shareholders become upset, so company A raises the price of widgets to $1.50. Now profits are back to .50, the shareholders are happy, and the pitiful consumer's taxes have now gone up.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
The developer loses freedom...but the user gains the freedom to enhance and share any copy that comes to his hands
This makes the user a developer, no? ;o) Of course, I know what you mean. The original author, practically speaking, loses most of the opportunity to profit from his work. To me, that seems to be the greatest shortfall of the GPL scheme. It almost makes the author's work a public service, which might not do much for the author personally, but (as you seem to say) does a lot of good for society at large.
Anyone care to comment on how developing GPL software might benefit the developer personally or directly?I develop GPLed software, but it is custom software.
The catch is that the _author_ chooses GPL, you make it sound like there are only two steps. When I GPL _my_ work, I want to take freedom away from the _next_ developer, and give it to the _following_ users/developers. It's my problem to find a good way to get money. Working is much less profitable than stealing (legally or ilegally), but it is ethically acceptable, while stealing is not. The same with licenses. Proprietary licenses are unethical, even if they gave you more money, that's not the issue. (and I don't think they are more profitable, BTW).
So, the license has to require public access to be "open source"? Or what's your point? Or are you not making a point and just blithering.
It has to give access to the public, yes. How else would the public initiall get the source? If they can't get it, then it isn't open. This is discussed in section 2 of the definition. If the public has nowhere to acquire the source of the public domain work, then it is closed source by a failure to meet section 2 of the definition. OSI is not silent about redistribution, and it does require it in section 1. That's why it's entitled, "1. Free Redistribution".
Also contrary to what your post says, public domain is always open source when source is included by the OSI definition because it meets the definition which doesn't require a copyright. In fact, the word copyright never even appears within the definition. The OSI definition of open source is not a license like the GPL or the BSD License, it is a definition. If you do not restrict certain rights from the end user, then your product is open source regardless of copyright.
To quote your own post, Please don't talk authoritatively about a subject to which you clearly know very little about. I'd give you proper credit, but you would only speak while hiding as an anonymous coward.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.