Slashdot Mirror
The SCO Boomerang and the Strength of Linux
karvind writes "PJ of Groklaw has written an insightful article on benefits flowing from SCO's litigation: GPL stands up in court, the community bonded more tightly than ever, encouraged increased support for FOSS and last but not the least heightened awareness of the benefits of using GNU/Linux systems. Article is also on Yahoo and NewsFactor."
Dear Slashdot users,
:)
I'm an IT / technology fan and have been a slashdot lurker for quite a few months now. I'm interested in improving the site and recently myself and a group of investers have been in discussion with the guys at Andover. We have made them an offer they cannot refuse - In short, we are planning to buy Slashdot. It is much in need of a makeover and if all goes to plan here are my ideas so far:
- Website look and feel change: Come on, it's no longer 1998 guys.
- Bring the site in line with current web standards as is suggested here.
- Keep the current line of editors but base their continued employment on their performance and a quarterly vote by readers. If an overwhelming amount of readers want a particular editor to leave then their opinion will be taken into consideration. On the other hand we could go for a completely new team of editors - what do you guys think?
- Dupe prevention scripts. This has been requested time and time again and now it will be implemented.
- Remove the karma system. All this has done is make karma whoring a competition. It is ineffective and a waste of time.
- Remove the moderation system. I don't really feel it adds anything: for example I see too many posts moderated out of sight just because the poster's opinion is not in line with Slashdot group think.
- Less intrusive adverts. I'm considering google text adverts as a replacement to the current ads.
- Make slashdot more international: I know it has traditionally been a US-centric site but it would be good to see more of a balance of articles from around the globe.
- Roland Piquepaille - articles linked from this guy's blog have to go. So far as I can see he adds no content to articles and we may as well have them from the original source.
- No more subscriptions: Everyone from now on will be treated equal and enjoy the same features without having to pay.
- More user features: Enhanced profile (similar to Fark perhaps?), longer sigs, image attachment to posts (up to a certain size and only after a user has made a certain amount of posts, say 50?)
I would appreciate any further suggestions from readers - either leave a reply to this, or drop me a line.
Thanks and hopefully I'll provide more news soon
-Dr Jöran Bjornsson
j.bjornsson@gmail.com
The GPL was not "tested in court" the lawsuit was a contract dispute between SCO and IBM. Though i think it may have resulted in a few more PHB's hearing about linux and maybe being curious how it could save money to switch.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
the community bonded more tightly than ever
*cough cough BITKEEPER cough*
... is not effective against charging penguins!
--- Attorneys Assisting Citizen-Soldiers & Families -
The GPL is so robust that, when violators are confronted with it, they invariably fold. It has been a complete non-issue. Even SCO does not argue that the GPL is invalid, only that the FSF and IBM haven't enforced it fairly.
The GPL is a work of sheer genius.
"will i be sued if i use this free software"
Microsoft is placing full page ads based on this angle in trade magazines now.
While the reality of being sued may ( or may not exist ), they are doing their best to instill the fear of it into businesses, so they will stay with 'safe' software.
With all the free press, its only helping Microsoft do this.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
1: Calling the system by it's proper name is trolling?, wow.
2: You want RMS to die?, do you want 20 years of fight against the stablishment, the GPL, the FSF, and 60% of the software on your average distro to die with him too?.
You sir, are an uneducated bastard.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
RMS and his cult is holding back the commercialization of free software. Maybe GPL 3 will fix some of the problems, but as long as RMS is running the show, we can't enjoy the full commercial potential of the software.
That's reason enough to wish that he'll fade away.
Dear Sir. The proper name is Linux, because that's
what it was named by those who wrote it.
And they are the ones who gets to name it, nobody else.
And they married and had many children.
Treehugger? Treehugger... Treehugger!
Free Software exists so that you can be a computer user without being held hostage by whomever owns the software you use. That was RMS's idea, that's the whole purpose of Free Software. Comercialization is something that may happend, but it's not the main purpose for having free software.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
Please go read some history. RMS started writing GNU in 1984. By 1991, it was allmost finished, only lacking a kernel. Torvalds with the help of many hackers that were members of the comunity that RMS created, wrote the kernel, Linux.
The system is still called GNU, whether you use the Linux kernel or not.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
The trouble with Free Software cult is that like any good fanatics, the cultists are hellbent on forcing the same ideology on everybody else. Let's take the Tridge vs. McVoy+Linus fallout as an example. Tridge is willing to destroy someone's livelyhood just because he feels that any closed software is a crime against humanity.
The references to being tested in court is for the part Pamela mentions about SCO wrapping themselves in the GPL flag in court against IBM charges of copyright infringement. Also, one of the other cases had an element of GPL in it iirc.
And in Germany, the GPL has been ruled on in two cases where the GPL was held to be enforceable. I believe Stu Cohen or Eben Moglen have used those two cases as examples of cases that are going to be used in international law as a basis for future decisions, and will probably be used for similar legal reasonings in court decisions to come in the US.
So the GPL has been tested in court, at least twice directly in German court, and at least twice indirectly or as part of preliminary arguments for pre-trial hearings in the US.
How the fuck you got modded up to +5 insightful when you're talking out of your ass is beyond me. 5 mod points for first post?
"I am a goat fucker!" -Richard Stallman, 1994
A bit of MIT/LCS lore here.
RMS used to live on the 7th floor of LCS. That's where he used to have his office before he resigned in protest over the commercialization of something or another. But they let him keep his office, and he lives there, because he refuses to have an apartment. (Given the rent rates in Cambridge, the assholeness of most landlords, I don't blame him. Rather than live in my office, I chose to move to Texas, and the change in rent rates and lack of state income tax resulted in an immediate %25 pay raise. RMS doesn't have that option because we have the death penalty for people like him down here.)
Anyway, RMS has or had a number or geek chick groupies. I wouldn't call any of the ones I've seen "hot", really -- well except for this one little psycho jewish undergrad from NYC. He would sleep with them on the sofa in his office. That's why he got kicked out off floor 7, and down to the 3 floor, is that the cleaning staff complained about pulling used condoms out from behind the sofas. No joke. You can use this information for trolling if you wish, but it's all true.
RMS has a phobia of water that prevents him from showering. This is part of this post I know from first hand experience, because I myself have observed him taking a sponge bath in the 3d floor mens room in LCS. Apparently once he had a girlfriend who he was totally in love with, and she convinced him to take one shower a week. It was a traumatic experience for him each time.
RMS also has a phobia of spider plants. When RMS starts bothering a grad student and going to his office and talking to him constantly and getting him to spend all his time writing free software, the grad student will complain to someone on the floor, and they'll let them in on the secrete -- get a spider plant in your office. The next time RMS drops by, his eyes will bulge a little and he'll say " Umm. . . I wanted to talk to you about hacking some elisp code . . . why don't you stop by my office sometime ?" and make a hasty exit.
One of his more nasty habits is picking huge flakes of dandruff out of his hair while talking to you. At least he doesn't eat them, like some people I know.
Now, I know everyone loves to make fun of RMS, and I'm feeding that a bit here, so I'd just like to say that I think he really is a genius, on the order of Socrates (another filthy slob who couldn't keep a normal living arrangement, and lived in a barrel) or Ghandi or Ezekiel. Everything he has ever said to me, while sounding naive and idealistic and stupid at the time, turned out to later be correct.
The only thing I fear in his philosophy is his interest in reducing population growth. Everyone else I know of who was obsessed with that "problem" turned out to have facist or totolitarian tendencies, and I think that the problem will solve itself as more and more of the world moves into a middle class type existence.
But on everything else, bitter experiences have taught me he is right. I will not use any non-GPLd or lGPLd software, and I look forward to being able to buy only "open" hardware. I would like to see software patents completely eliminated, and with the development of digitial communication, I see no reason why shouldn't simply repeal all of Title 17 and do away with all copyrights. They just aren't needed. I expect to spend much of my life being paid to write software, and I just don't see copyrights has helping me in anyway.
PJ in the article says everybody knows that GPL software has no risks (or no more risks then other software). Well it's not true, a lot of of CIO still don't know and/or are still thinking of linux as if it was 1995.
If they were not like that, the article she wrote would not have been necessary. So, it is a good thing she wrote it, but there is no boomerang effect, just yet.
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
No url, but here is the magazine and page #:
March 7 edition of Information Week ( print version ) Pages 30 and 31.
Entited "Adding up the costs of linux vs. windows? Be sure to add the intellectual property risks, too."
I have seen it elsewhere too, but that is the only hard refrence i can remember.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
did you see that guy erupt in RevolutionOS?
Nope. Got a link?
Is it OK if I save it and GNU/troll /. with it?
not until the Gecko does the robot.
makes me stronger.
--Nietsche
of course. A troll is a thing of wonder.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000 0A9GLO/102-8242904-2582534?v=glance
It's well worth watching, if you're interested in the history (although, as you can probably tell from the reviews, somewhat self-serving). I can't find any sites that deal specifically with his rant, but here's a vaguely relevant slashdot article:
http://slashdot.org/articles/03/06/08/1534249.shtm l
Does anyone have a pic, just out of interest? =)
hurts like hell.
"will i be sued by Some near-bankrupt COmpany shilling for Microsoft if i use this free software"
Tridge wanted access to the metadata of the source, which requires Bitkeeper. Instead of agreeing to the license and using a proprietary product, or faced with not having access to the metadata and using cvs instead, he decided to clean-room reverse engineer the client of Bitkeeper, not the Bitkeeper server.
.doc format, and about a few thousand other FOSS (and proprietary including Microsoft and Sun) apps.
McVoy, on the other hand, has more than just altruistic motives imho.
Some history on McVoy, and more recent on Tridge, so you can read up on the subject and adjust your post once you are informed, because your current post shows that you are talking out of your ass. Unless you have a problem with clean room reverse engineering, in which case you have a problem with Samba, OpenOffice's implementation of compatibility with MS
it's perplexing to me, this "stallman doesn't bathe" meme. does having long hair automatically make you filthy?
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
Everyone thought that SCO would make Linux look bad and childish to companies all around. ;)
Who thought that BitKeeper would be the culprit, eh?
"And no one cares "parse" you pseudo-programmer-elititist style"
He just kicked your ass logically and so your reponse was essentially to say "nyah nyah nyah".
Idiot.
I see no such statement by PJ in that article, or anything even coming close to it. The best I can find is this sentence: "Everyone is now more aware of how licenses, including the GPL, work."
So where did she say that "everybody knows that GPL software has no risks"?
Go ahead, I'll call your bluff. Name one lie in that article. Didn't think so.
You know, where the author of GPL -- Mr. Stallman -- lives, right? Cambridge, MA...
The dominant view of property in that town may be very different from yours. For example, this is the city that had the most anti-landlord legislation for years (resulting in great tenant-landlord animosity, of course). After the state-wide referendum repealed most of it several years ago, many people in Cambridge keep campaigning to put them back in. Tenants, you see, are people too.
Now, I don't know Mr. Stallman's views on the subject, but I would not be at all surprised, that his answer to the question:
is quite different from yours.Back to your original question, users are "people too", aren't they?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Well... the guy doesn't have posts moded above -1 in a long time (at least as long as I can see). So, why bother responding? There are way to many idiots in this world...
"It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." -- Prof. Dumbledore
The big lie behind this FUD is that by using M$ software, or any propriatory packages, you are somehow covered against being sued.
However, people may remember not long ago, M$ SQL Server developers were being threatened with lawsuits, due to a patent conflict. See this Register Article...
The licence of your software really bears little relevance to how likely you are to be sued IMHO.
users are people too, indeed.
The GPL doesn't directly effect users. It is a license to copy and distribute.
There is no direct impact on the user,and certainly no additional burden. Except for the logistics of getting the software on the computer in the first place, GPL software is identical from the user perspective.
The argument then becomes "who owns the code" and you are in a contract dispute.
IF the code belongs to the developer than the license choice is theirs.
If the code belongs to the "company" the choice belongs to them.
All important , who's code is it?
Copyright law says you can't copy something without permission from the copyright holder (personal and fair use notwithstanding). Period.
The GPL does nothing more than _GRANT_ permission to people that agree to abide by its terms. Period.
That's it. If you don't agree to the terms, you don't have the permission that it grants, and you have no more permission to copy it than if the GPL weren't there at all, but the work was still copyrighted.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
RMS may be a little freaky... Okay, he's a LOT freaky. I think that most people are put off more, though, by the near-religious aspects of his approach to free software.
I'm a big free software fan, but I frame it in highly practical terms. Copyright is a monopoly, by definition--to some extent, it's a justifiable monopoly, because of the benefits of guaranteeing an economic return to the parties that create and fund its development. It helps to economically rationalize the costs of software development, because the work of creating it can be rewarded in a way that would otherwise be difficult.
But the downside of the monopoly is pretty big, too--proprietary lock in is the big one, in my mind, but there's more. If you're reliant on closed-source software, you usually have to take it as-it, bugs and missing features and bloat, and all. OSS tends to encourage a lot more flexibility, interoperability, and choice in the way things work. The business benefits of these freedoms are huge, no question.
The great thing about OSS is that it still allows revenue streams for software creators and funders. The creators of MySQL get a lot of consulting business based on the fact that they know the software better than anyone else. People who make big Linux kernel contributions can find jobs easily with companies that need Linux expertise, because they have a proven qualification in that area that means more than a million certifications. So the people that contribute have a payoff.
And GPL-style licenses are more effective at preserving these revenue opportunities than BSD-type licenses, because they tend to prevent proprietary code-forking, which keeps projects under the control of the original creators more easily.
This is the great realization of OSS that can be couched in purely economic terms: all the benefits of copyrightable works, but minimizing the negatives of the monopoly that comes with it.
I don't know how much RMS agrees with this particular sentiment, but then again, I don't really care.
Remember Microsoft's own research showing that its own FUD was backfiring on Microsoft.a lloween7.php
http://www.opensource.org/halloween/h
Case 1) Microsoft ad pulled by [South African] ASA.i ness/2003/0303 201315.asp?S=Software&A=SFT&O=FRGN
6 7
The Advertising Standards Authority of SA (ASA) has ordered that a Microsoft ad implying that its software will bring about the extinction of the hacker is to be pulled for being "unsubstantiated and misleading".
http://www.itweb.co.za/sections/bus
Case 2) Microsoft slammed over misleading Windows Linux claims
THE UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has upheld a series of public complaints over an advert in a magazine comparing the cost of Linux versus Microsoft Windows.
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=180
"Unless you have a problem with clean room reverse engineering"
If he's got a problem with reverse engineering, he must be buying all of his PCs from IBM right? I mean, wasn't the BIOS reverse engineered?
http://www.macintouch.com/pchistory.html
http://www.macintouch.com/pchistory.html
http://www.jmusheneaux.com/01.htm
Links from a quick google sesssion.
all the best,
drew
http://www.ourmedia.org/
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free
One effect has been to make use of OSS within IBM very difficult because of concerns from clients and company lawyers following the SCO suit. Even if you want to use something like Mozilla on your desktop you need to get this signed off by the suits; actually using OSS on a day to day basis within IBM is very difficult.
In a word: yes. Picture all those filthy woodstock hippies. Bloody hippies. Damn bloody hippies...
I have to go take my meds now.
"The trouble with Free Software cult is that like any good fanatics, the cultists are hellbent on forcing the same ideology on everybody else."
This is different from the music copyright cult that the record companies practice? They too are hell-bent on forcing their ideology on everybody else, and they appear to be willing to actually use *force*, instead of mere persuasion.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
When did that happen?
encouraged increased support for FOSS and last but not the least heightened awareness of the benefits of using GNU/Linux systems
When did that happen? Actually, Open Source and Linux had entered into the Pointy Haired Boss's "Lexicon of Buzzwords" shortly BEFORE the problems with SCO, so that circumstance was a cooincidence of timing rather than a result.
So, in closing, http://pvponline.com/archive.php3?archive=19990818
I want RMS to dye his hair and beard blonde and go touring with Ashlee Simpson, opening up her act with chants in praise of GNU software.
The system is still called GNU, whether you use the Linux kernel or not.
The GNU tools were ported to Linux; Stallman et al (apprently you included) are trying to argue that this means GNU should be part of the name of the whole since Linux is "worthless" without the tools.
That is just petty squabbling over the fact that GNU didn't manage to make a proper kernel before Linux came along - as you indirectly state.
With the whole "GNU/Linux" thing, GNU gives off the impression of "tag-alongs" trying to ride the coattails of the more successful Linux "brand", instead of making a name for themselves. Pathetic.
More information is available at: http://www.abend.org/article.php/20050415020842653
as well as at:
http://www.abend.org/article.php/20050417132713784
Pamela specificly mentions where the GPL was tested. SCO made claims about how the GPL was invalid. IBM counter claims that if that were the case SCO was in violation of various copyrights and SCO folded.
The GPL won't really be "tested in court" until someone is sued for refusing to release source code. The CherryOS case is one among a large number of examples of how fast everyone faced with a clear cut GPL violation has folded. The only disagreement I've heard between the legal community and the FSF is that legal community actually thinks the GPL is possibly more "viral" than the FSF describes as being.
A nitpick.
The GPL might end up apply to use. To "use" software you have to make a lot of copies and some derivied works. Up until now these have all fallen under "fair use". You sell the copy on cdroms so that people can copy to their harddrive then to ram then to caches, then create derived works in JITs, microcode....
What some commercial companies are arguing is that these fair use rights should be restricted. So for example buying a license to OSX does not permit you to run it under PearPC. Since the GPL deals with derived works (i.e. you have the right to make as many as you want of whatever type you want) this would cause the GPL to apply to use. It wouldn't create any obligations however.
It is common courtesy to give credit where credit is due.
RMS was the visionary who started the free software movement, and the GNU toolset is what allowed the kernel made by Linus to actually DO anything.
Even if you're not courteous enough to actually give credit to those whom it's due... at least don't be so ignoble as to try to take it away when someone else acknowledges the people who made things possible.
It just makes you look like a discourteous and classless ass.
promisory estoppel: A doctrine in which a non contractual promise may be made enforceable to avoid an injustice.
I forget what 8 was for.
is feeling like a french fry right now... pretty darn salty.
What a fantastic writeup. Thank you Pamela for all the meticulous research and the great writing. It is nice to know that there are people like you who can communicate to the world so lucidly all the wonderful aspects of FOSS, and argue so intelligently the real facts, which the likes of Microsoft and their kind have tried so very hard to distort. You are a beacon for and a comfort to, the FOSS community. What's the opposite of FUD? Joy, Assurance, Certainty? Whatever it is, you're it.
Agreed 1000%!!! ALL victimless "crimes" should be stricken from the books. Unfortuantely too many people don't learn from history.
FalconShould there be a Law?
While I occasionally slip up I almost always preview to see if my posts need editing before submitting. I need to do this because most of the tyme I see an err I made.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Ah, the home of MIT and the Model Railroad club where many hackers got started in the 1960s.
FalconShould there be a Law?
It was up when I visited less than an hour ago.
FalconShould there be a Law?
No.
/. may say by posting I give unrestricted rights to them, but thats not related to the GPL or my browser).
If you read the GPL carefully (it seriously sounds like you havent - I suggest when you have a bit of free time that you pop over to http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl.txt and read it through - its quite interesting, and may well clear up a lot of confusion you have) you will note that it applies only to taking the GPL'd source code, and adding it (or adding other code to it) to produce a new program. It specifically says it does *NOT* apply to the act of loading the program onto hardware (which would include to a harddrive, into a CPU, all steps of its execution including whatever microcode might be involved).
"Making copies to CD" would fall under 'distribution', not 'use'. And you are only restricted (by the GPL) if you distribute *modified* copies. The basic premise is, if you are distributing a binary/complied program, that anyone that you distribute it to, has the ability to compile the same binary themselves, and the ability to pass that ability on to anyone they choose to distribute it to. It is unimaginable to me that someone *choosing* to license and distribute code that they wrote (or have copyright of) under the GPL, would ever interpret the GPL in the way you are thinking. Also note that the terms that commercial companies might want to impose on the persons who buy their software has nothing to do with what the GPL imposes.
In the case of fonts, only if you took a GPL'd font, and modified it to make a new different font, would the GPL come into play. And even then, unless you distributed the new font (and again, merely using it to produce a document wouldnt count - I mean actually distributing the font itself, in such a manner that someone else would be able to use it to produce a document), it would require nothing. If you did sell (or give away) copies of the font, you would be required to give away the 'source code' (is there such a thing, as regards to fonts? If not, then the entire thing may be moot anyway) to your new font.
Using a font to write a document would *not* require that the document be distributed under the GPL, or that it be distributed at all. If you use a GPL'd math-formula program to write and print some formula (maybe even the one that is the answer to life, the universe, and everything), you arent suddenly required to license your formula under the GPL - you can keep it secret, put it in the public domain, or license it under any terms you choose. Lets say I was using a GPL's web browser to type this post - doing so wouldnt require that this post be GPL'd, or remove my copyright to this post (now the TOS of
The GPL doesn't even require you to distribute modified works. The *ONLY* thing it requires, is that if you *choose* to distribute either a modification of the program you received under the GPL, or another program, that incorporates source code from the program you received, that you also make available the source code of the new program.
In other words the licenses scope is determined by copyright law's definition of a derived work.
Now what you may be thinking of is this passage:
My post specifically addressed that the courts are reconsidering exactly what "running" vs. "copying" is in terms of copyright law. So yes this would have impact on the GPL in terms of software.
Finally on the fonts issue:
The *ONLY* thing it requires, is that if you *choose* to distribute either a modification of the program you received under the GPL, or another program, that incorporates source code from the program you received, that you also make available the source code of the new program.
You are flat wrong regarding only distributing modified versions requiring source. Section 3 is quite specific that any distribution requires source " You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it,
under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of
Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following: [valid methods of distributing source listed]"
So in summary:
1) The GPL applies to any distribution
2) What constitutes a derived work vs. work constitutes use is a function of the law not the license, so court ruling dealing with commercial licenses will have impact.
3) The binary form of a word processing document can be in violation of a copyright claim even if the printed version is not. A trivial example would be distributing a work with the entire text of a best seller in a white font embedded within the document.
That some copyright holders/plaintiffs/etc might be wanting courts to change those definitions, no one who chooses to have the GPL apply to their work is going to interpret them that way - eg no one is ever going to *sue* someone, for running (and by running, I mean by what we currently understand it to be) the program they wrote and distributed under the GPL.
So
1) Ok, you're right.
As far as distributing unmodified copies, most distribution of GPL software is by source anyway.
And yes, I suppose when 'commercial' binary redistribution is done, (for example, redhat) then yes, they have to provide for anyone that get the binaries to be able to get the source as well. But no one is going to get sued for copying a redhat CD and giving it to their friend, and not including the source. Perhaps there should be a distinction between individual copying of an already mass-distributed work (whereby the source is already publically available from any number of places), and business distribution of an aggregated set of works.
2) Since the party that would have standing in any suit regarding the use of a GPL'ed program is going to be the author or an entity that the author(s) assigned copyright to (eg the FSF), and that person or entity is likely to *support* the GPL, and its intent, its highly unlikely that any such plaintiff would ever interpet 'running' to mean anything other than what we currently interpret it to mean, and is therefore highly unlikely to initiate a lawsuit over it. No one else is going to have standing to sue anyway.
3) The original issue was if *you* wrote (eg you are the original author, and hold copyright), a document, and used fonts which were GPL'd (which to be honest Im not even sure makes sense to begin with, the GPL was written with software in mind, not data such as fonts), wether your document would somehow be GPL'd. That is absolutely a ludicrous position, and the only one with an interest in putting it forward would be a company which makes and sells proprietary fonts, as a means of creating FUD about those 'free' fonts. Im not terribly familiar with how fonts are made - do fonts even have a 'source' concept? Is there a 'source code' for fonts, that one cannot easily convert the 'compiled' form of a font back to? And I dont mean the bitmap result of rendering a font, I mean the fonts you would install into postscript or a word processor for it to be able to use - is there any way to distribute those that prevents someone else from using and/or modifying them?
Also, the mere existence of a particular form of some content is not a violation of anything. Now if you took a best seller novel, and *made* a copy of it and distributed it without permission, then it doesnt matter what form or media you used.
Personally, I beleive the current interpretation of copyright goes way too far. The original concept is "Protect, for a time, the exclusive rights of the authors of original works to profit from those works" - personal copying and other copying not done to make a buck, should have nothing to do with it. Note that that doesnt mean 'guarantee authors the right to profit', it means only 'no one else is allowed to claim this as theirs and profit from it'
Unfortunately, the copyright laws were written in a time where the concept of individuals having the ability to easily duplicate something like a book was unthinkable. A better name for it with today's technology in mind should be "Publish-for-sale-right". Eg, I wrote this book, and only I can sell (or authorize others to sell) copies of it.
Med time!
Yeah. Them and the abolitionists. Always trying to cram their ideals down our throats and wrecking people's ways of life.
Bastards.
-Peter
Perhaps there should be a distinction between individual copying of an already mass-distributed work (whereby the source is already publically available from any number of places), and business distribution of an aggregated set of works.
.pdfs this is mandatory for uncommon fonts.
There is. The GPL specifically allows for non commercial distributors to point to readily available public sources for source.
Since the party that would have standing in any suit regarding the use of a GPL'ed program is going to be the author or an entity that the author(s) assigned copyright to (eg the FSF), and that person or entity is likely to *support* the GPL, and its intent, its highly unlikely that any such plaintiff would ever interpet 'running' to mean anything other than what we currently interpret it to mean, and is therefore highly unlikely to initiate a lawsuit over it.
I agree its unlikely for any individual person. But when we start talking tens of thousands of people the unlikely becomes likely. Worse yet we have companies which can change their attitudes very quickly especially after: buyouts, mergers, bankrupcy... The rights could end up being owned by someone with entirely different attitudes.
he original issue was if *you* wrote (eg you are the original author, and hold copyright), a document, and used fonts which were GPL'd (which to be honest Im not even sure makes sense to begin with, the GPL was written with software in mind, not data such as fonts), wether your document would somehow be GPL'd. That is absolutely a ludicrous position, and the only one with an interest in putting it forward would be a company which makes and sells proprietary fonts, as a means of creating FUD about those 'free' fonts. Im not terribly familiar with how fonts are made - do fonts even have a 'source' concept? Is there a 'source code' for fonts, that one cannot easily convert the 'compiled' form of a font back to? And I dont mean the bitmap result of rendering a font, I mean the fonts you would install into postscript or a word processor for it to be able to use - is there any way to distribute those that prevents someone else from using and/or modifying them?
Vector or scalable fonts are series of instruction which are executed by an interpreter or "precompiled" to the right sizes / shapes at "run time" (print time or when displayed to the screen....) There really isn't much difference between a scalable font and a Perl or Java library in terms of what its used for. More common are font formats that go through 3 levels (this would be like Java source -> Java binary -> running on JIT). Font instructions are often placed within the binary form of the document (usually either before the text or before each page), for
The courts have already settled on distributing fonts within a document constitutes distribution and is subject to license restrictions. So this really is comparable to distributing a java library within a java applet.