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Tracking GPL Violators
An anonymous reader writes "Earlier this week, open source developer Harald Welte made headlines when he personally served warning letters to 13 technology companies for alleged GPL violations. Now in a ZDNet interview, Welte explains the challenges behind tracking down these violators and how he persuades them to comply."
When I saw this story, I immediately thought of that simpsons episode where Homer has the internet startup, and Bill Gates tells his two goons to "Buy him out, boys"
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
(and first post...go me!)
repost +5 comments and get your karma up up up... what I'm doing here?
"Steve Jobs invented the world" -- Bill W. GATES
Instead of tracking gpl violations the editors of /. should spend some time tracking duplicate stories"
Moderators, don't mod this up, since i will repost this comment on a new story next monday.
1. License software under GPL. Worry about who is using it illegally, devote efforts to tracking down violators and prosecuting them. 2. License software under BSDL. Sit back and relax with a beer.
hello dear sirs my name is jamesh i are india (bihar) can u guide me install red had linux 9?
Kneecaps?
that they had the sense to serve on SCO..
Please tell me they did..
Cut out the viral GPL text or replace it with a free one like BSD and release the code out into the wild.
Code wants to be free.
It's easy... just tip off the BSA. Aren't they the organization that's supposed to enforce stuff like that?
There is a lot of violation of Open Source stuff. A lot of violation is being found on MorphOS where a lot of Open Source stuff is being used.
ixemul, libnix, gcc, binutils and other things and when asking for the source codes then you get a reply telling you that the sources got lost. But still the stuff is being worked on and put in the binary release of their OS.
how do you violate a license agreement that allows you to do as you please?
I mean he's tainting GPL software by making it sound like it has onerous licensing requirements.
When in reality anyone can bypass that requirement simply by sticking the software in a library/DLL and late binding to it.
Even then the source only need to be offered back to the owner, not to everyone. So he's making it seem like the GPL is trouble and he may be a troll.
He certainly has no standing in the GPL unless he is also a copyright holder.
Using and modifying GPL code is absolutely legal. What is illegal is distributing it only in binary form, and not allowing access to the modifications. This difference isn't very well stated in the article (yes, I read the article, and anyone who doesn't read past the first page won't see it on the second page), it simply says it is illegal to use the code.
Or should we just Slashdot the scum ;-)
There are some voices on Slashdot that claim that GPL violators are just like file sharers. (And that to treat them differently is hypocritical.)
Indeed, both discussions are about copyright. But they are also more fundamentally about fair use.
The GPL is based on the author's copyright and a very generous fair use license that promotes shared investment in the work. When a company takes GPL'd work and resells derived works without respecting the author's copyright, they are taking someone's work and reselling it without respecting the original author's rights.
Now to file sharing. Yes, this is also about copyright and fair use. However, it is rarely about restricting access to a work, it is about broadening that access.
The moral debate is simple: all technology, all creative work, all artistic creation and invention is the result of a continuous cultural stream that stretches back to the origins of our species. Every single creative act is a pebble placed on a mountain built by our ancestors.
Slashdotters tend to understand this intuitively. We don't like patents because they claim ownership of something we know to belong to us all. We don't like GPL violators because they take common property and resell it under false pretenses. We don't like DRM because it takes common property and fences it off. We tolerate file sharing and defend those who do it because we know that the alternative is cultural sterility, decay, and evetually extinction.
There is no contradiction here. Anyone who takes sacks of pebbles from the mountain and says "these are now mine" is a simple rogue, legalised or not, and we all know it.
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I did a little snooping and found .-.-.-.
.-.-.
MorphOS Developer Connection Terms Of Use
1 Content copyright
Files and data you get access to within the MorphOS Developer Connection (MDC) may not be copied or spread in any way without prior written permission from Genesi Luxembourg S.à.r.l (Genesi). No part of this website may be copied. Forum entries may not be quoted or copied outside of this website unless you are the sole author of the entry you quote.
on the developers license for morhpos
So i would say if they are using GNU licensed code , like a GCC version for morphOS then they seem like a rather heavy violater
after doing some more reading i discoverd this
http://www.morphos.net/
morphos.net where many morphos developers are rather irate over lack of payment
Something odd going on in MorphOS land not doubt
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
The Taïwanese company X-Micro responded to the letter, and said they didn't know about the GPL licence restrictions... Wow, they can make hardware, but they can't read a licence agreement.
I've written many free software tools over the years. I've licensed these using the GPL, BSD licenses, and finally switched a couple of years ago to GPL for everything.
Why? There are several reasons:
1. I relicense the same source code commercially. This means companies pay for commercial licenses which do not have any GPL-like requirements. This is of course my right since I'm the author. It provides some nice income. Not possible with BSD licenses.
2. Other free software developers are given a competitive advantage when they use my GPL'd code. Commercial developers can choose to pay if they want to escape the GPL license. When I used BSD licenses, I was actually giving a competitive advantage to those who reused my source code in commercial products.
The GPL is a weapon, of course, and no-one likes being at the receiving end. But for any developer who has spent years (decades, even) writing open source, it's an excellent and far-sighted choice.
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Simply talk to the **AA. Tell them that so and so company is about to release GPL software that is designed to download all sort of movies and music in a fully encrypted fashion. Watch how fast the FBI move in.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
You can't mod someone "potentially just too ignorant to know when not to post"
We tolerate file sharing and defend those who do it because we know that the alternative is cultural sterility, decay, and evetually extinction.
I'm pretty sure that copying the latest crap from Hollywood/Universal Music is *contributing* to the decline.
; )
PS Extinction is surely hyperbole no?
Not a Troll: I couldn't find the list on their website. If they haven't published it, I guess the list is not GPL'd. Maybe they don't feel they can trust the unwashed masses. Alan Cox can know but not us.
I don't want to use the "I" word but it seems warranted in this case.
Sending letters to copyright violators is usaly something that APB of sweden and I think MPAA http://www.mpaa.org/ does. Many file-sharers oppose this. And use the same argument as RMS http://stallman.org/ that you still have your copy after the copying. So that must mean that the GPL people still have their software after the companies have copied it. So what have the GPL people to complain about.
If you make something and don't share it your in the wrong? Sorry but that doesn't work.
The whole twisted idea of trying to disassociate ownership from original works is a very selfish position.
Those pebbles that came off the mountain only did so because someone put the effort into doing so. If you want their pebbles you can meet their requirements or go get your own. You however do not have a right to take their pebbles just because you might have/could have/would have done it. Anyone who wants to take the effort/work of others without compensation is just a selfish bastard.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
So, if you use the public domain, how do you prevent people from abusing your work? By naming them when they take work without credit, by avoiding them and refusing to cooperate with them in any way, by expressing respect for people who share work freely and who give proper credit, and by gently trying to convince others to do so.
Many companies which ignore the GPL don't understand the benefits open sharing of their code contributions would give them. It's important for us to communicate better how an open source development model helps everyone (an open code contribution may inspire others to contribute more, to fix bugs, and so on; it is much easier to maintain over version upgrades when it's in the main tree). The problem with the GPL is that it's not a tool of communication. We have focused too much on forcing people to do the right thing, instead of convincing them of the benefits of our approach.
We also need a generally accepted registry for public domain works so that it is provable who the first creator of a work is (that's also necessary as a defense to make sure other people don't claim copyright and sue people for using a work that's in the public domain).
I do value the copyleft effect of the GPL. I think its significance is overestimated, but it does have value. In spite of the arguments above, I think it is of enormous importance that we avoid a split between the copyleft and the non-copyleft camps. In the larger scheme of things, these differences of opinion are minor, and what is important is that we all support the goal of free content. So while I don't approve of the means in this case (GPL enforcement), I do approve of the end (more free content). Still, I ask you to consider putting your code in the public domain.
I used to publish documents under teh GNU GDL, the GPL for text http://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl-howto.html - but after actually reading it I found it had some very strange points that kind of limits "fair use" (freedom) as I instended. Now I use Creative Commons 2.0, a license I find more suited for the modern Internet.
9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation
All property is a compromise. The reason we don't live in a socialist paradise (which we used to, a hundred thousand years ago before agriculture and the concept of 'property') is because without ownership, common assets lack stewardship and can be degraged. The tragedy of the commons...
Defining an asset as "property" is a compromise for those cases where it is less evil than the alternatives.
There is no other moral justification for claiming ownership of something. No natural law that says "this land, these animals, these trees are mine to use, eat, burn".
Now, please explain how defining a song or program as "property" is less evil than the alternatives? Artists don't create when they can't sell records? Untrue. Programmers won't work except for money? Laughable.
The truth is that you can hardly prevent people from being creative and generous with their works. It takes large and oppressive regimes to get artists to sign up with the RIAA and equivalents, to get movie makers to work within "the studio system", to get programmers to accept that money is more important than dissemination of their ideas and works.
Copyright is a compromise that - like patents - must provide demonstrable value to the entire community, not just the law makers and their friends - or must be questioned and reviewed.
Personally I'm a prolific writer and programmer and I do think that I have the right to do what I want with my work, but within reason. If I can't maintain my source code, improve and invest in it, I should lose the rights to it.
Property rights should, morally, be tied to stewardship. Take care of something, and we the people grant you the right to "own" it.
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Allright, I'm going to have to weigh in on this. The GPL was designed the way it was for one reason: To protect the software from predators. Its a copylefting scheme. The major flaw in the BSD liscences is that it does not protect the code from proprietary and commercial intrest such as Microsoft, who want to take the code, create proprietary version of it, and sell that code when they have no right too.
GPL violations are like plagarism. Real Copyright infringement as the wishes of thhe author, is not cited, or noted in the closed proprietary Version denies the contribution of the original author.
As per the file sharing isssue. Filesharers DO Give credit to the original Author, they keep a working Works Cited list in Playlists and the ID3 Tags.
Same thing, different medium.
I'm slowly converting all of what I refer to as '3d graphic stuff' to public domain. (Not that that is important at all)
I do it because it generates a bigger income - well, bigger than any other method of access control. Some will rip apart each graphic for their own use, but the people who want custom work will pay to get it done. If it was easy, everyone would do it I guess.
This is not meant to be an advertising slot for my own wares, just a curious change of mind that had a net financial gain. (That's my intention anyway)
"If companies are only using GPL-licensed software internally, they only need to distribute the source code to their employees."
Is he sure about that? First time I have heard this as a requirement.
all the best,
drew
http://zbcw.sourceforge.net/
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free
OS X
retard!
Even the big companies that donate to big OSS projects aren't going to donate $$$ to litigate specific GPL violations.
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
This is the best argument against the GPL I have ever heard.
"Orthodoxy means not thinking--not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness." --Eric Blair
X-Chat has made their windows version shareware, without consent of contributing GPL developers, and they refuse to give the source to the windows binary (which is obviously different since it has a copy protection scheme)
3 words 1 hypocrite
The RIAA is a weapon, of course, and no-one likes being at the receiving end. But for any musician who has spent years (decades, even) writing music, it's an excellent and far-sighted choice.
Sorry if someone's posted this already, but the link from that page to http://gpl-violators.org/ is half-broken. It contains an extra double-quote.
Assume I was drunk when I posted this.
Make that http://www.gpl-violations.org/. My sig manifests itself -- not posting sober. Happy Saint Jack's Day. :-) The URL redirects to the one in parent, though.
Assume I was drunk when I posted this.
It is costing ~$16K to litigate each case, but the loser pays. And Welte is pretty confident.
This post written under Gentoo-linux with an SCO IP license.
The same argument says, we don't need to outlaw slavery, just keep telling slave owners that free men are more productive and efficient. If they enslave us, well, we've made our point right?
Microsoft's BSD-derived code is locked in a vault in Redmond. Their GPL-derived code is on an FTP server for everyone to share and enjoy. They didn't do that because they believed someone's hand-waving argument about "benefits open sharing of their code contributions would give them" - that would have just made them laugh, because it isn't true. As platform owner it's in their interests to keep that code locked away like the BSD stuff. They released it because the GNU GPL obliges them to do so.
So, you keep telling the slave owners how rotten their luck is, with the cheap labour and absolute right to do as they please, and I'll keep freeing slaves. We'll see who ends slavery first.
The scary part of http://gpl-violations.org are the announcements : stuff like :
s -g igabyte.html
http://gpl-violations.org/news/20041022-iptable
"As part of the agreement, Gigabyte will show its appreciation of the Free Software movement by making a donation to the netfilter/iptables project."
Sounds a lot like extortion. Way to go Welte.
"So, if you use the public domain, how do you prevent people from abusing your work? By naming them when they take work without credit, by avoiding them and refusing to cooperate with them in any way, by expressing respect for people who share work freely and who give proper credit, and by gently trying to convince others to do so. "
That's never going to work.
Scenario: you write a successive UNIX derivative, and it is put into the public domain, then installed into a successful embedded product that is sold by the millions across the world.
You find that it includes your public domain work, entirely abused and not credited.
What do you do?
You complain, try to shame, etc.
What do they do?
Nothing, because nothing compels them to, and they continue to ship millions of this product, because all the people that like it, either can't hear you, or simply don't care.
At least with the backing of legislative statute (i.e. copyright law) you can _compel_ them to do something, with the foundation of hundreds of years of law and courts behind you.
"The best response is: "No, we don't. We use the public domain. So there.""
Very immature, and little wonder your opinions aren't taken highly.
Is there a e-mail address where we can anonymously send information on suspected violations??
Gorkman
Dude. You rule. Excellent work, and excellent attitude. All your work will soon be available at my site. And being you are such a nice person, all of them will give you credit and link back to your site (nice of you to give me the choice of saying they are mine, though).
9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation
modification, do i have to disclose that i am using it and include the source?
what constitutes 'modification'?
is compiling it with a commercial compiler rather than gcc a 'modification'?
twisted minds want to know!
... A company named A developed a software product and
SELLS it under license of GPL. It offers source code on CD ONLY to registered customers of its product.
AFAIK, this situation is OK and fine with GPL (RedHat, etc).
But imagine: a person STEAL the CD with program codes from company A. Can he put the codes into internet? Will it be a legal GPL-d code?
I think no.
quit being such a fucking asshole.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
If one's going to run closed source shareware on Win32 either way, why wouldn't one just run mIRC over X-Chat?
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
You find that it includes your public domain work, entirely abused and not credited.
They would be perfectly within their rights to do that, and I would be happy they found my work of value to them. How did it harm me in any way?
By the way I have released a considerable amount of my work under public domain. (I am not the grandparent poster.) In some cases I have found parts of it used without acknowledgment, and when I discover these I am usually amused and even find it flattering. In most cases people credit me and even thank me for making it public domain. In fact this response is encouraging me to release more stuff to public domain over time.
What do you do?
You complain, try to shame, etc.
Perhaps that's what you would do. Perhaps there those of us who are above that.
Has anyone has to use the courts to enforce the GPL?
Has it actually stood up as being of any relevance?
No, not an anti GPL troll here, im really curious if we have yet to PROVE it has legal weight behind it.
Was hoping the SCO/IBM thing would do it, but that apparently has fizzled out..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The best response is: "No, we don't. We use the public domain. So there."
No, a much better response is: "Reasonable copyright laws, with durations and scope that actually maximize the public good, serve our purposes as copyright owners just as well as laws that are insanely restrictive and have uselessly long terms. GPL software authors would be perfectly happy with copyrights that lasted 28 years, or even less."
As for the argument that we should simply allow everyone to choose whether or not they want to share their changes to their code, rather than "enforcing" it through the GPL... either you're naive or a Microsoft et al shill.
There's nothing morally wrong, or inferior, about using the GPL, any more than there's something wrong with wanting to be paid for your work. Following your line of thought, you should also donate your physical labor to the public good as well, right? And, more specifically, donate your labor to your employer and then argue that you've donated it to the public good.
Developers use the GPL because they hope to get paid for their work. Not paid in currency, typically, and the payment isn't guaranteed by any means, but they do want to be paid by receiving improvements to their own work. The logic is: "I want to write X because I need X, but I don't have the time or resources to create it all by myself. Perhaps if I write half of it, producing something useful but not really complete, and publish the code under the GPL, others will contibute their time to help me complete it. And perhaps they'll even help me make a better X than I would have even if I had time."
Of course, you can do the same thing with public domain code, but if you use the public domain you run a much greater risk of not seeing any of the improvements.
The notion that you can successfully shame people into sharing is simply naive. In particular, it doesn't work well if the non-sharer has a large advertising budget and you do not.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
(I am not the grandparent poster.)
"You complain, try to shame, etc. "
Perhaps that's what you would do. Perhaps there those of us who are above that.
RTFP you AC: the upper poster (UP) said that's what _he_ would do as a "viable" model for avoiding copyright laws. I completely disagree with the UP.
He makes a very valid point about the dangers of duel liscencing technologies
So tell me, Elo, old snoot, how's Adequacy.org doing these days?
Nortel Networks for many of their their Alteon products
F5 Networks for their new "Buffalo Jump" products
Posting as an AC for reasons I won't go into, but I have attempted to contact each company and each has refused the request for the Linux code they use in their products.
Several points here.
First, the community is free to take and modify our software under the GPL.
Second, we accept patches and changes to the software but under condition that the copyright is transferred to us. If the authors do not want to do this, that's fine. If they agree, we take over the work and maintain it and it becomes part of the "official" package.
Lastly, this situation is extremely rare. The community mainly consists of users, some who provide feedback on problems, a very few who provide error reports and possibly fixes, and a tiny number who actually contribute. Assigning copyright to us has never been an issue.
What violation is there here?
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OK, I should have said "Perhaps that's what he would do." Happy now?
Then you haven't though what happens when a big player takes your work and don't want to contribute back. A really big company won't care at all if you whine and moan about them not playing credit to you, and you soon will end with a scenario like that of the Unix wars (which lead Stallman to develope the GPL in the first place).
The coertion in the GPL is only to be used against the sharks who don't adhere to the rules and would damage the open, common pool.
Also I don't agree with GP assertion that public domain is libertarian. Closed, proprietary code is libertarian.
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
We also need a generally accepted registry for public domain works so that it is provable who the first creator of a work is (that's also necessary as a defense to make sure other people don't claim copyright and sue people for using a work that's in the public domain).
Copyright does not require novelty, so I'm not sure what you'd gain by this. Of course, meaningful deposit is an important thing, and ought to be manditory for copyrighted works and optional for public domain works.
-- 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.
As for the argument that we should simply allow everyone to choose whether or not they want to share their changes to their code, rather than "enforcing" it through the GPL... either you're naive or a Microsoft et al shill.
Jesus. Why don't you accuse him of being a Communist, member of al Qaeda, and a witch while you're at it???
Can't you counter the parent poster's argument without relying on ad hominem name calling?
Then you haven't though what happens when a big player takes your work and don't want to contribute back. A really big company won't care at all if you whine and moan about them not playing credit to you, and you soon will end with a scenario like that of the Unix wars (which lead Stallman to develope the GPL in the first place).
The coertion in the GPL is only to be used against the sharks who don't adhere to the rules and would damage the open, common pool.
and the copyright law is used against the sharks that don't adhere to the rules (pay for an artist's work).
if a company uses code, why do they need to contribute back to the community? How does it damage the common pool? the original code is still there, open and free. The pool is not damaged.
When I saw this story, I was reminded of all the pro-piracy articles this site trumpets out. I haven't yet heard a valid reason for the double-standard. Why is piracy not theft, but GPL violations are often referred to as such? Why is respecting intellectual property important for the GPL, but not for the RIAA? If infringing copyrights against the MPAA and RIAA is a "gray area," why are GPL violations so clear-cut and enforceable? And finally, why is the RIAA bad for going after individual P2P infringers, but guys like this can go after individual GPL infringers?
I'm genuinely curious to hear people's answers.
Oops, my bad. I meant MP3s, not GPLed open source. And by the Man I meant the RIAA.
it's a shame the grand-parent doesn't understand the finer points of copyright (but who wants to anyway?); still, "demanding" that people assign their copyright to ?you? for inclusion is a little distasteful; it goes slightly against the philosophy and original intentions of the FSF, I suspect
so basically if I had valuable contributions to a company's GPLed work, I would distribute the patches/complete source myself rather than submit to such conditions
as an aside, accepting contributions from the community with copyright assignment means ?you? can claim ownership of the copyright(s) of all the work in question, but you couldn't actually claim to have produced it all yourself, as this would be some kind of misrepresentation; presumably you could only say "I wrote almost all/most/some of this work, and own the copyright(s) for all of it"
GrimRC
The pool is still there, but the market has changed and the company that forked and closed the code may have a competitive advantage over the people using the community owned code - because it can use the modifications contributed from the pool, but people using the pool can't use the modifications done by the company. This advantage would be considered unfair by many, and the GPL is designed to prevent it.
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
Microsoft's BSD-derived code is locked in a vault in Redmond. Their GPL-derived code is on an FTP server for everyone to share and enjoy. They didn't do that because they believed someone's hand-waving argument about "benefits open sharing of their code contributions would give them" - that would have just made them laugh, because it isn't true. As platform owner it's in their interests to keep that code locked away like the BSD stuff. They released it because the GNU GPL obliges them to do so.
Microsoft runs a business for profit. If I were them, I wouldn't want to release my sourcecode either. Currently, most flavors of linux that have a gui (KDE or Gnome) copy parts of the microsoft windows gui. If they released the sourcecode to windows, many parts of it would be used within linux (or any other competing operating system), which is something they don't want.
it reminds me of the old saying: imitation is the biggest form of flattery.
If Microsoft sucks so much, why are there so many imitations of their products in the open source community?
and if you think Microsoft doesn't innovate, show me a remote tool for linux (server) that is as fast as windows RDP. I have tried as many as I could find, and none can even compare.
I think in many cases, innovation is driven by profit. When something is not profitable, a person is less likely able to work on it full-time, because they have bills to pay. They are also less motivated when it comes to some of the small, boring tasks that are required in a polished application. This seems to slow development time down from a couple of months to a couple of years. Im using sourceforge and freshmeat as examples of OSS projects that I have examined.
So, you keep telling the slave owners how rotten their luck is, with the cheap labour and absolute right to do as they please, and I'll keep freeing slaves. We'll see who ends slavery first.
slaves and software are two different things. Slaves are people, with rights that do not deserve to be kept against their will.
Software is something that a programmer creates. The programmer has the right to do whatever they wish with their sourcecode. If you do not like this, you can always write something equivalent or better (you have the freedom to do so).
I would feel like a slave if I was forced to release all my sourcecode under the GPL. Just because you want something I have created doesn't make me a slave owner. It makes you envious.
You don't actually expect juvenile little trolls like Bird to RTF anything, do you?
The pool is still there, but the market has changed and the company that forked and closed the code may have a competitive advantage over the people using the community owned code - because it can use the modifications contributed from the pool, but people using the pool can't use the modifications done by the company. This advantage would be considered unfair by many, and the GPL is designed to prevent it.
unfair advantages? it's called business. You can always create your own advantages rather that forcing others to give you theirs.
look it up.
Find and replace GPL'ed components with BSD components. Free enterprise and innovation from within corporations and small business will only happen if companies are able to protect their intellectual assets. Use of the GPL reduces or even eliminates the incentive for companies to innovate due to license entanglements with the GPL. The long term consequence to software will be stagnation of innovation and a reduction of brilliant people involved in said innovation. Using BSD licensed software eliminates this long term risk to innovation and software as a whole.
Companies: please don't support the GPL by compling with it. I implore all of you to not cave to the FSF and their sham of a license. Don't violate the license either. Instead, fix your errs and rip out GPL bits and replace them with BSD alternatives. It'll hurt, but that's the price that organizations need to pay for being braid dead and not thinking about the licenses involved in their products (or the price for letting managers circum to GPL zealot employees).
Companies sponsoring innovation (either internally or externally in the form of Open Source) will result in continued advancements in technology. The GPL poses a greater risk to the health of innovation than Microsoft. The long term consequence being small software businesses will find it harder to compete against large software corporations because the barrier to entry (base libraries, tools, software, data, etc.) for completing complex projects that can be sold will be sufficiently high and prohibitive. Who in business wants to create a product that you want to sell, but are obligated to give away for free?
Well written software doesn't require much service: it should sit in a closet and tick away for years, even decades (provided hardware will run for that long). The "paid commercial support" argument is flawed in that it only applies to substandard products that are either poorly written, buggy, are made of non-durable components and break, or is poorly documented and *requires* commercial support. BSD licensed software lurks like a dark horse on the Internet, free for the taking and often without support. How come? Because the market for support is too small to have proliferated into something mainstream. Why? BSD software is generally written or used by paid engineers who write/assimilate software with a high degree of skill. In short: it just works.
BSD licensed software makes markets work and allows free enterprise to exist for small businesses. GPL software stagnates markets and maintains superiority of large corporations due to licensing constraints.
As a commercial software vendor, if all OSS utilities became GPL'ed, I'd end up going and buying a Microsoft SDK to author a commercial product. The reason ASPs became a popular business model during the dot com rush was largely due to the fact that the OSS base libraries and tools that could get a company up and running easily, were all GPL'ed and prevented companies from shipping their product because that would've required shipping their source code too. Anyone want to bet that if companies shipped appliances instead of offering services via an ASP model, that more customers would still be using those appliances and that the technology crash would've have been as severe?
Support innovation. Cease using GPL software. Buck the trend and use BSD/MIT licensed alternatives to GPL software/libraries/operating systems. Compete effectively, efficiently, innovate where possible, and reap the rewards for technical excellence.
-- Sean Chittenden
YHBT. HAND.
GrimRC
Specifically:
Can't you counter the parent poster's argument without relying on ad hominem name calling?
I made no ad-hominem attacks; the "names" I called him were exactly what I said they were -- the only explanations I could think of for why his arguments made sense to him.
Further, I did explain why his argument was evidence of naivete (and chose not to pursue the "Microsoft shill" option at all).
I notice that you didn't bother to add substantively to the discussion, however.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
No, but if you find someone willing to be the defendant in such a case, please let Eben Moglen know. He's been trying to find someone that foolish for many, many years now. The problem is that when people who have been violating the GPL talk to their lawyers, they quickly settle, rather than taking the case to court. It's almost as if the lawyers for the opposition think the GPL is just too strong to challenge.
The fact that the courts have never had to enforce the GPL should say all that needs to be said. Oh, except in Germany, where the GPL was upheld by the courts recently. Don't try this trick in Germany, no matter how foolish you are.
The SCO/IBM thing has not fizzled out - it's just going through a tedious series of delays. But, at the moment, SCO is now fervently claiming that they have complied with the terms of the GPL, even though they were running around and calling it unconstitutional, unenforcable and void. (Guess their lawyers finally had a look.) Their current position (in court at least) is that, despite all the nonsense they spouted, they are still entitled to use the GPL themselves as a defense against charges of copyright infringement (which is really all the GPL is). So, suddenly, when it might help them, the GPL turns out to be wonderful! Here's SCO's Memorandum in Opposition to IBM's Motion for Partial Summary Judgment on its Counterclaim for Copyright Infringement (Eighth Counterclaim) for your consideration. Note that they say: If SCO is unwilling to challenge the GPL, who does that leave us with to do the testing that you so much want to see? Find us a fool, or shut up about "it hasn't been tested in court."
Indeed it does sound like extortion. Esp. that good 'ole Welte is the recipient of the cash-ola! But hey, it's all for the good of the GPL, right? Yeh, baby!
It damages the common pool because a significant portion of the utility value of software for end users is based not on the software itself, but on how many people use the software.
For instance, to use a currently popular piece of software for an example, the utility value of Bittorrent is so great only because of the large number of users. The same is true, to a greater or lesser extent, for most software. The proprietary vendor can sabotage the utility value of the community software to end users by leveraging a pre-existing distribution network, as in Microsoft and Kerberos.
This might be seen as biting the hand that feeds you, but diminishing the value of software in that manner only reduces the value for end users, not developers. The source code retains the same value to a developer regardless of the size of the end user base. Because of this, the ideal situation for a proprietary leech developer is one where the proprietary version has captured 100% of the end user base, while almost all development occurs on the community version. There is almost no business incentive for the proprietary developer to contribute back to the community pool, so the vast majority do not. BSD and other public domain-ish licenses are only ideal when you are developing primarily for the sake of other developers.
In short, it's cool for developers, but it leaves your end users pants down, grabbing their ankles, waiting to get forked.
What is:
;-))
(I don't drink beer
all about? Are you better than us beer-drinkers? Whats your BP/pulse/cholesterol/IQ? Do you also not: Speed / Fail To Turn Signal / Ogle Married/Underage Ladies / Dance with Rosie Palm?
Sanctimonious self-righteous sh*ts really irritate me to no end. Have a nice life.
-- Experience is a wonderful thing. It enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.
Which is just fine if they're the sole copyright holders. The copyright holders can relicense the stuff anytime they feel like it.
I suppose you will offer me a free iPod if i send you my name, address and cc number ?
No thanks. Ill just wait until some loser thinks he's found 'his' code in my product, and has the stupidity to sue me.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The legal trick here is quite subtle (but is supported by the FSF). You must never "distribute" your software to your employees. You must only let them "use" it. Do not confuse using and distributing.
As long as the employees always copy from disks belonging to the company to computers belonging to the company across networks belonging to the company to servers belonging to the company, they have never actually been given a copy of the software themselves.
This means that there is no obligation to follow the GPL with regard to the employees (or anybody else) until they actually distribute. Even then, the GPL obligations only apply to the people they distribute to (e.g. customers) who may choose not to distribute back to employees in any case.
Normally, the FSF sees this as protection of privacy. There is one exception, Application Service Providers, where the next version of the GPL was planning to use a different mechanism, related to public performances, to ensure that application users should get access to the applications they use.
You still haven't answered my question: why do you think code is different from CDs/movies/books? So let me ask it one more time. Why do you think code is different from CDs/movies/books? Maybe I'm not making myself clear: what possible reason could you have for thinking that copyright laws don't apply to source code the way that they apply to CDs/books/movies?
I dont think they are different really.
I just wont run around reselling others artistic work as they were not 'released' in the same way that the 'code' in question was.
In comparison, if i have sheet music that was release, then i feel i can do what ever i want with that.. just not the orginal work.
( we are beating a dead horse here )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
You can always create your own advantages rather that forcing others to give you theirs.
I say again: that's why the GPL exists. You can think of it as designed to create for open source code a business advantage over a "public domain" situation, which is doomed to the "Tragedy of the Commons". There is nothing in the GPL "forcing others" to give away their freedom, since they're free not to use GPL'd code.
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
GPL code always seems like the author is saying "hey, do what I think is right, and you can have this code". If you happen to agree with what he thinks is right, this isn't really a problem, but if you have a fundamental problem with those ideals... the author is essentially asking for your soul.
Now, I don't know about you, but I'm not trading my soul for code. And I don't think it's fair to ask anyone else to trade *their* soul for code, either. So I'll stick with the BSD license.
Politics really don't belong in the open source trenches, anyway -- they distract us from writing code.
Microsoft cheerleader, blue flag waving, you got a problem with that?
I'm glad that you read the FDL license and concluded independently that there are some real problems with the license. (The FDL, and the problems with it, is a common debate topic on debian-legal) Among other things, it introduces many more undefined terms than the GPL (what counts as DRM?) and would allow someone to attach a forty-page political rant to a technical document, and no one would be able to create a derivative of the technical document without including the entirety of said rant.
Note that this precludes using pieces from a bit of documentation in comments of GPLed code, if the section copied as comments is sufficiently large so as to be beyond fair use.
However, there is another license that can be (and in fact, has been) applied to documentation, is perfectly compatible with mixing with GPLed code, and that doesn't contain those strange DRM clauses. Namely: the GPL itself. It doesn't work if you want to insist that every update of your editor manual contain your treatise against French nuclear testing, but that's not a problem for everyone.
Whilst you might find arguing for weaker IPR harder, in should also be accounted for that you weaken the resolve of supporters of stronger IPR, so that the political effect is probably neutral.
Economically, though, copyleft is a necessity. Without the GNU GPL or similar, efforts put towards creating free software advance free and proprietry software equally, but efforts towards creating proprietry software advance only proprietry software. This means that the more efficient model does not necessarily win through; the GNU GPL is a necessary market correction.
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