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."

Comments

The winds of change....

[JBjornsson]

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

Re:The winds of change....

[Badanov]

Slashdotters, especially love freedom and democracy, but not when it comes to their employment.

I got a better idea. Subject your own job to a vote of slashdot.

I bet you'll hate the outcome.

Re:The winds of change....

[Anonymous Coward]

So start your own site. Good luck

Re:The winds of change....

[M0riarty]

I concur, except keep the look and feel as-is, and do not allow image attachment to posts, believe me, you won't like the results

Re:The winds of change....

[Anonymous Coward]

image attachment to posts

Are you completely insane?

Re:The winds of change....

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this some kinda weird 419?

Re:The winds of change....

[LiquidCoooled]

Everyone seems to bitch about Roland, but looking on the slashdot hall of fame for most active submitters, I find that Roland is second.

The first person(prostoalex ) has more accepted submissions, also has a blog, and has nobody complaining about him.

Without regular roving reporters, digging out interesting stories, slashdot would be shit.

I have not come across a single article where Roland forces people to his blog, EVERY single article blurb links directly to his original source, the blog is just another more indepth writeup, you are NOT forced to go there at all.

However submissions by sheeple to NYT and salon etc are far more annoying by forcing signups and payments just to read the news.

The rest of your suggestions are pretty much spot on however.

Re:The winds of change....

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Slashdot users,

I am not your mom. Do you write to your boss with the word 'dear'?

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:

Good luck. Like anybody gives a shit.

- Website look and feel change: Come on, it's no longer 1998 guys.

Doesn't matter. I come to slashdot to get news, not have visual blowjobs.

- Bring the site in line with current web standards as is suggested here. [alistapart.com]

Don't care, won't care.

- 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?

Turn Slashdot into a democracy? With the quality of trolls, and dead nigger assiociation members that like to hang out here I think that it would be like leading lambs into a den of wolves.

- Dupe prevention scripts. This has been requested time and time again and now it will be implemented.

How about dupe prevention editors? I think that would be much more usefull.

anyways the idiots that care about dups and spend evenings complaining about it obviously are to much of nitpickers and should be ignored.

Similar with gramar nazis. These are a tiny minority of people that get their rocks off by continiously finding flaws in others. Should be ignored by sane people.

- Remove the karma system. All this has done is make karma whoring a competition. It is ineffective and a waste of time.

It provides people with a purpose in life. If you take it away it would be akin to taking away the points system in Worlds of Warcraft.

The heads would roll and the blood would flow. Best just leave it if you value your life and the lives of your family.

Just like me being a anonymous luser. I come to /. for entertainment and news. Not to not to waste 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.

The ignore the commits and talk about it on your own newsgroup with people that agree with your viewpoints.

It's safer that way.. you realy don't want to know what people think, do you?

- Less intrusive adverts. I'm considering google text adverts as a replacement to the current ads.

The adverts are not intrusive. If you care, you should stop becuase it doesn't matter.

- 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.

It's US centric because the vast majority of people that submit articles and read /. are US geeks. Start a EuroDot if you want.

That sounds a lot more usefull then any of the dozen obviously bullshit bullet points you posted here.

BTW it's obvious your full of shit about buying /.


- 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

Re:The winds of change....

[droleary]

The first person(prostoalex ) has more accepted submissions, also has a blog, and has nobody complaining about him.

The people modding you up should be banned from moderation permanently. Why, and why is nobody complaining about prostoalex? Because he's not linking to his site(s) as part of the article. At least not in the last 10 submissions I bothered to double-check. Can you point out to any link whoring by prostoalex that is anywhere close to the Engadget shit we've seen?

Without regular roving reporters, digging out interesting stories, slashdot would be shit.

Yes it would, and that's why Roland is covered in feces while prostoalex is clean. The latter is reporting what they find, while the former is just trying to direct you to their web site. It's like those fucking blurbs that try to get you to watch the local news. "Is milk killing your children? Tune in 11!" Fuck that kind of non-informative sensationalism and fuck you for supporting its Slashdot form.

Re:The winds of change....

[LiquidCoooled]

You should check back, every single article links to the author as the first thing, the bloody blog is linked there.

As a rebuttal, show me one place where you are forced to view Rolands blog without actually being able to read the original source article.

Re:The winds of change....

[rpozz]

I think the difference here is that not only is there no direct link on the article to his blog, but his blog doesn't seem to contain his submitted stories. Maybe he just has too much free time.

Roland, however, has a link to his blog relating to the story on every article, which has ads based on traffic, so he's obviously making money every time he posts.

Re:The winds of change....

[LiquidCoooled]

You think slash or NYT or gizmodo or fark or any or the other sites don't make money?

We live in a commercial world, where exposure = advertising revenue.

Sitting on a commercial advertisement supported site complaining about a link to another page with adverts is just hypocritical, especially when you don't appear to be a subscriber or contributor.

Remember though, there hasn't been a single article submitted by Roland where the user was forced to pass through his blog to see the entire article. His blog is a summarised writeup of the pages and links he has found, and has actually been useful on occasions when the original server falls to its knees by the /. effect.

I wish him the best of luck, and think his knack at finding interesting articles is a credit.
I'm pleased he posts on slashdot, and hope the trolls don't push him away.

Re:The winds of change....

[wayland]

Suggestion #1: Get Slashdot to post an article on this after you buy them out, and you will get much better quality responses.

<i> - Bring the site in line with current web standards as is suggested here.</i>

Please do :).

<i>- 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?</i>

Keep the ones we have, but base their performance on their actual editing. They loose points for poor spelling/grammar, and dupes. They can regain a very few points for posting an article which gets over 1000 comments. After a few months, the better editors will give you an idea of what is possible, and you can tell the others to lift their game or get out.

<i>- Dupe prevention scripts. This has been requested time and time again and now it will be implemented.</i>

How about dupe detection scripts, with extra points being lost by editors who don't use them. If they really want to post a dupe, make them link to the previous article in the summary.

<i>- 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.</i>

The two above are pretty much tied together. If the moderation system goes, I'll probably head elsewhere too (technocrat?). To me, part of the value of Slashdot is that the lurkers occasionally come out of the woodwork when their own company/project is discussed. I suspect other lurkers like the mod system too. There are plenty of unmoderated forums out there.

<i>- 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.</i>

If you do this, it'd be great if you could put them in categories. I personally would skim everything, but it would mean that the people who like Slashdot the way it is could continue using it that way.

<i>- 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.</i>

Is someone submitting the original sources?

- 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?)

1. Postflood
2. Post images (goatse)
3. Profit!!!

With the image attachment, if you keep the karma/mod system, possibly you could allow it to people who have had excellent karma for months, but I think this is your most widely hated suggestion.

HTH,

Re:The winds of change....

[droleary]

You should check back, every single article links to the author as the first thing, the bloody blog is linked there.

You need to screw your head on straight if you think it's out of the ordinary for the submitter's contact link to reference their own blog. Roland does the same and that is not the source of the disgust towards his practices.

As a rebuttal, show me one place where you are forced to view Rolands blog without actually being able to read the original source article.

The issue is not that some links don't exists, but that he whores his links in as though they're related to anything other than his own ad revenue. Here's the solution: if he wants to talk about the articles he submits to Slashdot, he can fucking do it on Slashdot like everyone else.

GPL

[Lehk228]

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.

Re:GPL

[vadim_t]

None is needed, as the other post says.

If I understand it correctly, it works like this. When a company is about to go to court, they realize that the GPL is the only thing that gives them the permission to distribute the code. If they try to argue that the GPL doesn't apply, then they suddenly have nothing in their favour at all and are clearly guilty of copyright infringement.

No wonder it never went to court, because it's clearly an unwinnable situation.

Re:GPL

[gvc]

I cannot parse your sentence. I think you are saying that SCO v. IBM does not test the GPL. It certainly does. IBM's eighth counterclaim says:

"124. SCO has infringed and is infringing IBM's copyrights by copying, modifying, sublicensing and/or distributing Linux products except as expressly provided under the GPL. SCO has taken copyrighted source code made available by IBM under the GPL, included that code in SCO's Linux products, and copied, modified, sublicensed and/or distributed those products other than as permitted under the GPL. SCO has no right -- and has never had any right - to copy, modify, sublicense and/or distribute the IBM copyrighted code except pursuant to the GPL."

Re:GPL

[stam66]

gvc said:

I cannot parse your sentence. I think you are saying that SCO v. IBM does not test the GPL. It certainly does.

And no one cares "parse" you pseudo-programmer-elititist style. The parent clearly said he thought IBM did not test the GPL - even though he is wrong.

Definition of Parse:
parse (as in "analyze") v. : analyze syntactically by assigning a constituent structure to (a sentence)

It is not the same as saying I disagree...

Re:GPL

[aug24]

You don't seem to quite get how the GPL works (as don't many, many people, including Darl McLies). Apologies for the slightly reactionary tone of that sentence, but it's important to understand exactly what it is and how it will be used in court... read on:

The GPL is a license to use copyrighted software. As such it will never be 'tested in court' in the sense you describe. However, it is a (perhaps the only) defence against a charge of copyright infringement, where the code user cannot demonstrate some other license to use the software[1].

In fact, SCO is using it as its defence in the 8th (iirc) counterclaim, which is where the court then will determine if SCO has fulfilled all the licence terms. That is all the 'test' it will ever get, and all we will ever need.

Once you understand that, the idea suggested by Darl that all GPL works should be declared Public Domain becomes clearly visible as the idiotic idea it is: it would involve stripping copyright from hundreds (thousands!) of works for the benefit of exactly the same type of people who are currently having copyrights extended so they can continue to make money off long-dead artists (eg Sonny Bono).

Justin.
[1] AFAIK there is nothing to stop the owner of some code both relieasing under the GPL and simultaneously licensing it for commercial use for money. After all, why should the owner of some code not do as he/she wishes with it?

Re:GPL

[Xformer]

Clearly an unwinnable argument, that I clearly remember SCO trying to use earlier in this whole mess. Their lawyers tried to proclaim the GPL as invalid, and that argument was tossed pretty quickly.

Therefore, the GPL was tested in court, and it stood rather well.

Re:GPL

[gvc]

`And no one cares "parse" you pseudo-programmer-elititist style.'

I see your command of English syntax equals that of the original poster.

Re:GPL

[squiggleslash]

There's one case where it might be a good thing to get it tested in court.

Suppose a developer suddenly announces that they do not want their software to be GPL'd any more. They own the copyright on the entire thing, so unilaterally announce that anyone using the software now needs to pay a licensing fee.

Someone who obtained the software under the GPL assumes the conditions still apply to their copy of the software and redistributes it. Developer immediately files suit, saying that the GPL is actually not a real license, that it's invalid, and that the person who's distributing it is violating copyright law.

To recap:

In June, Developer distributes Software 1.0 under GPL
In July: User receives copy of Software 1.0
In August: Developer announces Software 1.0 users must pay a fee for using Software 1.0 and is not be allowed to redistribute it.
In September, User takes Software 1.0 and gives copies to millions of anonymous strangers, including full source code.

In October, Developer sues User for Copyright Infringment, claiming GPL is illegal

In this case, it actually is important that the legality of the GPL be confirmed. In the unlikely event it wouldn't stand up, this would really send shockwaves through the entire computer industry as it would immediately open the question of whether any licenses are legal (FOSS or otherwise), and it would mean, for instance, Linus-with-a-moustache (evil Linus) would be in a position to sue Red Hat, IBM, et al, for copyright infringment. An enormous burden would subsequently be put on trust, which isn't something the average PHB is going to be likely to want.

Before anyone accuses me of spreading FUD, I have no doubt the GPL is legal and would be upheld in court, if for no other reason than there are legal principles against suing people for things you promised not to sue them over. But it is the one legal case I can think of where the whole "you must agree it's legal otherwise you never had a license to begin with!" thing doesn't support the GPL.

Re:GPL

[niittyniemi]

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.

I'm getting increasingly pissed off with PJs "analysis" of how the GPL has stood up in court in this case and been shown to be robust. Yet I've yet to see any arguments given to the court about any aspects of the GPL and certainly not the more controversial stuff like: what constitutes linking?

If no arguments are put forward vis a vis the GPL then how can she say that it's been tested? She's hoodwinking herself and others and exaggerating greatly.

My opinion is that any license longer than about 12 lines can have holes shot in it, given enough lawyers, enough money and enough court time.

My further opinion is that rather than embracing GPL/Linux, most companies look for unencumbered code such as BSDL.

If you were developing some (proprietary or otherwise) app that needed something like readline, do you grab an encumbered library like GNU/readline or an unencumbered version?

BTW, if you want a hint, stay away from her Groklaw site. It's full of IANALs looking through the tea-leaves of the GPL and giving their worthless opinions. It requires you to have a lobotomy if you're to get any pleasure out of reading it....I suppose some wannabe lawyers might get some pleasure out of it but they're just a subset of those who've had lobotomies.

The primary threat to Linux is a broken development model and assimilation by big companies - RedHat, IBM. Not the merits or otherwise of the GPL.

The only thing that this court case has represented to most PHBs in mid-size companies is "Linux maybe illegal but if I buy a Linux server off IBM I'm probably in the clear" hence furthering the stranglehold of the big companies on Linux and the direction it goes in.

Re:GPL

[dmaxwell]

Promissory estoppel at the very least would kick in. The developer would also have to 'splainin' to do why he licensed under the GPL in the first place. Contracts are binding on both parties to an agreement. A license binds the the licensor as long as the licensee is in compliance. A compliant licensee who has become dependent on the software may even be able to sue the reneging licensor for damages.

Re:GPL

[schon]

The GPL is a license to use copyrighted software.

Actually, it's not.

The GPL is a license to copy and distribute copyrighted software.

Other than that, your post is correct.

Re:GPL

[hacker]

"They own the copyright on the entire thing, so unilaterally announce that anyone using the software now needs to pay a licensing fee."

You cannot retroactively revoke existing licensed software.

All new users of that software would be bound by the new licensing fees, but all copies in existance that were licensed under the GPL, are still covered by the GPL, and can be redistributed under the clause of that license.

Just correcting your minor inaccuracy...

Re:GPL

[Aaron_bootiemd]

Tweak your scenario a little and it becomes a little more realistic (or at least a little more interesting in court) -- a developer working for a company releases source for a product s/he develops under the GPL. The company finds out and decides that it owns the code, revokes the license and challenges the GPL in court. It's a little less self-conflicting than the developer her/himself revoking the license.

Re:GPL

[sconeu]

Yet I've yet to see any arguments given to the court about any aspects of the GPL

Please see IBM's 8th Counterclaim.

Re:GPL

[M1FCJ]

IANAL, but if the code was written during company time and company resources, the code belongs to the company as almost all employment contracts bind you to hand anything you've done with given resources over. That's all clear. The developer has stepped over his contractual obligations with his/her employee and surely in fault. The GPL on that software should be revoked. OTOH, the company can play dirty and might try to claim something that was developed outside company resources (time, equipment, money). In this case it is not the GPL that's challenged in court, it is the contract between the employee and employer.

Re:GPL

[M1FCJ]

The parent clearly said he thought IBM did not test the GPL - even though he is wrong.

Maybe it was just a try-catch snipplet instead of a full test?

Re:GPL

[squiggleslash]

I don't think you understand the scenario I'm proposing. Indeed, in your comment, the developer is actually accepting the GPL is a valid license.

The topic here is the GPL being a valid or invalid license. The situation I propose is that the original developer announces that anyone using the software now needs to pay a licensing fee, claiming that the GPL is not a valid license to begin with (ie, for anything. ie the GPL does not give people the right to redistribute with source for free.) It's not a matter of them revoking it, it's a matter of them claiming that the GPL was never a valid, legal, license to begin with, and as such, can impose any conditions on users they want.

So, no, there's no inaccuracy in my comment.

Re:GPL

[hacker]

"The situation I propose is that the original developer announces that anyone using the software now needs to pay a licensing fee, claiming that the GPL is not a valid license to begin with..."

Also not possible, since the GPL is simply a license to copy and redistribute copyrighted software, if the GPL is revoked, I still have been granted rights to the version I was given, via the U.S. Copyright system. I am free to do whatever I wish with it, including rebrand it as my own and sell it as a competing product.

When the GPL is stripped away, what is left is a stronger legal standing, not a weaker one. Trust me on this, We've been fighting 3 cases of GPL violation with our FSF-appointed attorney in towe, for the last 4-5 years now. Commercial companies seem to think because we're "spare time hackers", we can't afford attorneys, and that they can pick and claw at whatever pieces of our code they wish. They are sorely mistaken.

In the case of a GPL investigation, if the violation of that license is proven to be accurate, all rights to continue to use that GPL'd code are revoked, making EVERY SINGLE SALE OR DOWNLOAD of that GPL code from that point, a United States Copyright Violation, subject to fines of $20,000/USD to $200,000/USD per-incident. Its VERY expensive to violate the GPL.

In one case, the vendor took our project, every single piece of it, slapped their own names on it, removed ours, stripped out the licensing, put their icons on it, and began selling it to "partners", without letting them know that it was based on GPL code (and without transferring that GPL license to those "partners"). Since they were openly advertising that it was "their" product, written by them (they gave copies away by the thousands at "beaming" kiosks at tradeshows), this was now what is called a "Lanham Act Violation", otherwise known as "...false designation of origin". When we approached their "partners" and asked for source, we were directly threatened by the CEO of the original violating company with bankruptcy and other things. I quote: "If we end up in court, I will bankrupt these guys! I have millions of dollars of investor money to play with..."

It never ceases to amaze me how stupid and ignorant companies like this continue to be, but the number of GPL violations continues in the industry every single day, there are thousands of known violators out there right now, just waiting for someone to slap them with an injunction and a subponea to audit their source code.

Once someone grants you rights to a piece of software, it cannot be revoked after the fact.

Re:GPL

[The Cisco Kid]

My further opinion is that rather than embracing GPL/Linux, most companies look for unencumbered code such as BSDL.

You miss the point. People who choose to license code that they wrote dont *WANT* companies to be able to steal their code to incorporate into their non-GPL programs. Free software (RMS' definition of free) is *NOT* about giving software companies more ability to profit by coping bits - its about there being more software, more people working on it, and more people contributing, to software that does what people want, and that cant be taken away by anyone.

As far as *BSD itself, I like that platform, and the license doesnt contain anything objectionable to me, as a user of FreeBSD. But if I was ever in the position of releasing code for an app that *I* wrote, then I would stick with the GPL.

Re:GPL

[The Cisco Kid]

You *probably) know this, but your wording seems unclear, so for the benefit of other readers, I shall clarify.

Actually the GPL has nothing to do with 'using' software (eg running an application, loading and booting an OS, etc). Default copyright doesnt place any restrictions on someone merely 'using' a program - only proprietary EULA's go there (and it is controversial as to wether those are/should be binding at all).

The GPL merely covers copying all or part of the source code of a GPL'ed program into another program, or modifying it and releasing compiled versions of the modified code. By default, copyright grants you no rights to do either of these. The GPL says 'ok, normally you can't do this, but as long as you comply with these terms, then you can'.

Re:GPL

[The Cisco Kid]

"People who choose to GPL license code", that is..

Re:GPL

[aug24]

You're right, I read that a dozen times to make sure it was accurate, but still used the code-writer's sense of 'use'. Damn, and thanks.

J.

Re:GPL

[aug24]

Another poster has also commented, and you're right, I meant 'use' from the coder's perspective. I wish I had been more clear, but until /. allows one to edit, I'm fucked. So I'm fucked for ever ;-)

J.

Re:GPL

[squiggleslash]

IANAL, but I'd assume there are two reasons why it wouldn't be.

The first is I don't know what happens if the User is notified that the license is invalid before they attempt to exercise their rights under it.

The other would be if some external legal issue is what's causing the problem. For example, it might be found (hypothetically) that the license in some way violates some anti-trust law, and therefore the Developer actually has a legal duty to exercise their rights under copyright law to prevent people from exercising what would otherwise be their rights.

Re:GPL

[squiggleslash]

Also not possible, since the GPL is simply a license to copy and redistribute copyrighted software, if the GPL is revoked, I still have been granted rights to the version I was given, via the U.S. Copyright system

We're not talking about the license being revoked, so for the second time, your response is irrelevent.

We're talking about a situation in which the Developer proves the license wasn't valid to begin with, that the GPL itself is illegal.

Re:GPL

[m50d]

Also not possible, since the GPL is simply a license to copy and redistribute copyrighted software, if the GPL is revoked, I still have been granted rights to the version I was given, via the U.S. Copyright system. I am free to do whatever I wish with it, including rebrand it as my own and sell it as a competing product.

Whilst I agree with much of your post, this is wrong. If the GPL is found to be invalid, then you cannot rebrand or distribute the version you have. You can carry on using it (you don't need a license for that) but if you don't own the copyright, you can't distribute copies. So there is a threat there from someone whose program is gpl, who owns all the copyright themselves, and wants to make it propriety. They start selling the propriety version, and claim no-one with a gpl copy can redistribute it because the gpl is invalid.

Re:GPL

[fishbowl]

>The GPL was not "tested in court"

What is the specific argument that could be brought before a court?

The license must be presumed to be valid, unless it has some specific flaw that cannot be settled between the licensor and the licensee, but nobody seems to be able to point to this flaw, much less make a case that there is a conflict that would be properly presented in court.

Do people believe that every document must be "tested in court" before it becomes valid?

Re:GPL

[fishbowl]

"I cannot parse your sentence. I think you are saying that SCO v. IBM does not test the GPL. It certainly does."

It tests the licensing relationship between IBM and SCO, but the result will have no bearing on, say, the author of proftpd and myself for my derivative work. That would require a separate "test".

What's being "tested in court" here, is not the license itself, but rather a certain party's performance to the terms of the license and a possible question of whether other considerations are in force that would releived the party of the obligation to abide by those terms.

But there is no question on the table as to the validity of the license itself. What clause in the very simple license do you imagine could be called into question? Go throught the GPL clause by clause, and point out the one clause that is either (1) illegal for the copyright holder to ask, or (2) illegal for the licensee to agree to, and THEN you have your case where the license can be "tested in court."

But I warn you, if you find this, your findings will be applicable through the entire industry. Because the whole software industry is based on licenses like the GPL: Licenses based on copyright that grant certain privilieges while making certain restrictions.

It would be quite surprising to find a clause that voids the GPL, but somehow manages to spare the Microsoft EULA. These licenses have the same basis in law. To declare them void would necessarily abridge the rights of a copyright holder.

Re:GPL

[AJWM]

The original developer can't do that (retroactively decide that the GPL is invalid and demand license fees from everyone he distributed software to), for several reasons.

First is "promissory estoppel". The initial distribution and license grant is an implicit promise not to sue the recipient; even if the developer secretly didn't think the GPL valid, he acted as though he did, and the recipient has to assume that the developer/distributor was acting in good faith. The law provides that the recipient is still entitled to that even if the original developer changes his mind about the license. The developer is "estopped" (prevented) from a successful suit because of the implicit promise he made in the first place. The courts won't help you unfairly renege on a promise.

Secondly, if the original developer argues that he interpreted or intended the GPL to mean something other than what it plainly says on its face, he is still out of luck. The courts generally hold that in cases where the parties legitimately disagree over the meaning of a contract or license clause (ie, where the clause is genuinely ambiguous, not merely that one party is trying to argue that "black" really meant "white"), that the interpretation will favor the party other than the one which drew up the contract. In this case again, it would be the recipient of the software.

I think you're going to great pains to come up with a scenario that, in fact, would actually get thrown out of court for reasons entirely unrelated to the GPL itself.

Re:GPL

[fishbowl]

> If they try to argue that the GPL doesn't apply...

You can't even get into the court room without having spelled out your argument in advance.

What clause in the GPL is either:

1. Illegal for a copyright holder to ask

or

2. Illegal for the licensee to agree to?

You can't just go into court with the vague idea that maybe you'll be able to persuade a judge to find a license generally unlawful or void just because it suits you. You must make an argument based on applicable laws. The overriding applicable law at work here is *copyright* law, which grants everything needed for a copyright holder to attach a license like the GPL, or one even more restrictive, or even, NONE AT ALL.

There's no case to be made, and that's why there's no reason to expect "a test in court."

Re:GPL

[AJWM]

[1] AFAIK there is nothing to stop the owner of some code both relieasing under the GPL and simultaneously licensing it for commercial use for money.

You are quite correct. See MySQL, Qt (TrollTech), and others for concrete examples.

Re:GPL

[fishbowl]

"In October, Developer sues User for Copyright Infringment, claiming GPL is illegal"

Which clause is illegal, and on what legal basis is it illegal?

Was it illegal for the copyright holder to ask, or was it illegal for the licensee to agree to?

How does the validity of this clause affect the relationship of the licensor to the licensee?

You can't just walk into a court room with your hair on fire and spout off that the license is illegal, just because it suits you. You must make an argument based on laws.

There is nothing in the GPL that the copyright holder is not empowered to demand. The legal ramifications of copyright are well-defined, so there isn't much to call into question, and therefore, no basis to carry the GPL into a court room and ask it to be found illegal.

If Developer wants to persuade User to renegotiate the license of Software 1.0, he is free to do that, but after he has made the earlier agreement he can't simply make a unilateral takeback.

If he could do as you describe, imagine that doctrine applied equally everywhere. You no longer have to default on loans, since the lender can reposess your car or home anyway, just by changing their mind about the earlier agreement.

Re:GPL

[fishbowl]

"Also not possible, since the GPL is simply a license to copy and redistribute copyrighted software, if the GPL is revoked, I still have been granted rights to the version I was given, via the U.S. Copyright system. I am free to do whatever I wish with it, including rebrand it as my own and sell it as a competing product."

Would you mind explaining how the revocation of the license would also strip the copyright holder of his rights with respect to you, as a consequence of the license being found invalid?

Revocation of the GPL would result in a stronger (absolute!) postion for the copyright holder, but it should put the licensee in a position of status quo (the license was valid when you agreed to it, and remains in force). The other possibility is that the licensee would be compelled to negotiate some license with the copyright holder.

On re-reading your message, I think that's what you were saying, from the copyright holder's perspective.

"Revocation of the GPL" (assuming such an argument is possible, though nobody has raised one yet), would leave the licensees either with no license whatsoever, but more likely, would leave the license in effect, but no new licesing possible.

What's more significant to me, is that there is little or nothing in the GPL that, upon being held to be invalid, would not also have the collateral damage of destroying the whole licensing structure of the software industry, and probably would have an impact on the entertainment industry and possibly even publishing.

Whatever doctrine finds the *very* straightforward declarations of the GPL to be invalid, would be applicable to every other license based on copyright.

That's why I want to hear the specific argument against the GPL, the one that would be stated in court while seeking the "test". Then apply that test to every other software license on the shelf. I'm certain they would all fail, if the GPL fails.

Which clause was illegal for the copyright holder to ask? Which clause was illegal for the licensee to agree to?

Let's hear the parameters of "The Test" before we are told that "The Test" hasn't been passed!

Re:GPL

[Red Alastor]

Nope, it doesn't apply to you at all if you merely use the code. Only when you start distributing the result of your modifications.

Re:GPL

[gvc]

It tests the licensing relationship between IBM and SCO, but the result will have no bearing on, say, the author of proftpd and myself for my derivative work. That would require a separate "test".

Any court proceeding in which the GPL is enforced is a test, and establishes precedent. Perhaps not an exhaustive test, but a test nevertheless. Any future litigant would have to explain why this decision was inapplicable to the new situation.

But there is no question on the table as to the validity of the license itself. What clause in the very simple license do you imagine could be called into question?

Do you mean you in the generic sense, or me?. I think the GPL is very clear-cut insofar as it binds those who reproduce GPL-ed code. I think that IBM's counterclaim eight a slam-dunk. Others disagree, or at least purport to disagree.

Some of those who disagree point to the definition of derivative works (e.g. the "linking" provision). Here there may be a grey area, but the boundary is exactly "what is copyrightable?" and the answer is that GPL applies to derivative works insofar as they include copyrightable elements of the GPL-ed work.

Other "licenses" are contracts that impose restrictions beyond those enforceable by copyright. GPL does not.

Re:GPL

[toriver]

We're talking about a situation in which the Developer proves the license wasn't valid to begin with, that the GPL itself is illegal.

And the question returns to: Then why did the Developer use that license in the first place? Is the Developer in violation of the law since he used an - according to him - illegal license? Or did you want to use the word "invalid" instead of the far stronger "illegal"?

Re:GPL

[stam66]

Command of english and typo's aren't really the same thing :)
Allow me to rephrase in a manner that will not confuse you further, particularly in the context of my command of the English language:

"And no one cares to 'parse' your pseudo-programmer-elititist style."

But yes, that kinda did take the oomph out of my post :-D
And one day I will also command the use of the "Preview" button.

Re:GPL

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm getting increasingly pissed off with PJs "analysis" of how the GPL has stood up in court in this case and been shown to be robust.

... BTW, if you want a hint, stay away from her Groklaw site. It's full of IANALs looking through the tea-leaves of the GPL and giving their worthless opinions.

Well what else did you expect? She is not a lawyer either. She's a paralegal. Apparently some of her fanboys think that "paralegal" is some mighty achievement. It's a 12 month course that you can do via postal correspondence. The most significant task assigned to paralegals is reading the other legal team's documents and highlighting the important sections. The majority of a paralegal's training is in typing, filing and telephone etiquette. In other words, it's a fancy name for a secretary, much like "sanitation engineer" is a fancy name for a janitor.

Re:GPL

[jbolden]

You are right this would be a good test case.

However courts have already upheld that people can split rights. In other words I can sell you the unlimited right to publish something while still retaining the right myself. Proquest is a company that often enters into these types of arrangements.

The problem would be for version 1.0 where does Developer have any standing that User doesn't? In other words the courts might just simple say that Developer "sold" a copy of his rights for $0 to "User" and thus User and Developer have equal rights to distribute.

Re:GPL

[jbolden]

They don't do that. What they argue is that the employee didn't have copyright in the first place. In which case the GPL is not invalid but rather this piece of software is not validly under the GPL. That works the same for any license.

To really test the GPL you'd have to have a scenerio more like the original poster's.

Re:GPL

[TekPolitik]

A license binds the the licensor as long as the licensee is in compliance.

That is not quite true. It is possible to revoke a license given in the past (even if done in breach of contract* - although this will have the consequence of liability for damages in contract), however as you point out there may be an estoppel. But to get an estoppel you have to show that you have relied on the license in a way that makes it unconscionable for the licensor to retract the license.

If you have only used the software, you will not normally be able to show this. But if you have created derivative works (provided the derivative is non-trivially different), you most likely will be able to show this and then get the benefit of the estoppel.

* Not all licenses are (or even need to be) contracts.

Re:GPL

[Vengie]

Are you in law school or AYAAL? You actually made sense..... [you might want to explain what estoppel is next time though, since all of five people understood it, present company included.]

Re:GPL

[squiggleslash]

And the question returns to: Then why did the Developer use that license in the first place? Is the Developer in violation of the law since he used an - according to him - illegal license? Or did you want to use the word "invalid" instead of the far stronger "illegal"?

Who knows. You're now assuming I know under what hypothetical circumstance the GPL would be invalid or illegal and I have no idea, because I sincerely believe it is legal and is valid.

The point was that people were saying that the only set of circumstances where someone would protest the GPL is invalid was where they were distributing code in violation of it. I'm saying that this isn't the real test of its legality: it's real test is of a copyright holder suing someone for doing something that the GPL, in theory, allows, claiming that the GPL is not a valid or legal license.

SCO came close to that, btw, but I think even if their case had been upheld, the circumstances wouldn't have invalidated the GPL. SCO distributed GNU/Linux under the GPL under their previous guise of Caldera. They, of course, claim they did so unwittingly (ie they didn't know the "real Unix IP" they allege was/is in Linux was in it) and so wouldn't have had to claim the GPL itself was at fault. But they did, at one point, start going down a train of argument (one of Boise's collegues, IIRC, expressed this absurd point of view) that the GPL itself was illegal because it gave rights to people that weren't enshrined in copyright law.

They didn't take this argument to court (because, presumably, they'd have been laughed at), so we never got to see this happen.

Re:GPL

[RobertLTux]

Umm any idea why groklaw.net seems to be offline??

Re:GPL

[Anonymous Coward]

Rather than criticising me for making an argument I haven't done, why not read the last paragraph of my comment.

Re:GPL

[Anonymous Coward]

using software requries a copy to be made, into memory. this is the whole reason an EULA is used, to give you permission to make that copy, without one you are breaching copyright law in even running your paid for software.

Re:GPL

[falconwolf]

AFAIK there is nothing to stop the owner of some code both relieasing under the GPL and simultaneously licensing it for commercial use for money. After all, why should the owner of some code not do as he/she wishes with it?

Which is what MySQL AB does, besides FOSS they also have a commercial license, which includes tech support. From much of what I've read recently in business that's the trend in software today, to sale commercial licenses to those who want support.

Falcon

Re:GPL

[fishbowl]

"Rather than criticising me for making an argument I haven't done, why not read the last paragraph of my comment."

I apologize - I'm really addressing the widespread misconception that's constantly repeated, not your comments.

I get real tired of hearing about how some legal milestone hasn't been passed by the GPL, when the same standard isn't held against other licenses.

Bonded more tightly than ever, huh?

[aendeuryu]

the community bonded more tightly than ever

*cough cough BITKEEPER cough*

Re:Bonded more tightly than ever, huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bitkeeper along with Apple's lack of contributions back to the BSD community (yeah yeah "darwin, darwin", I mean compared to IBM's and other ppl's contributions linux) has to be the best example of why the GPL kicks the ass of these other licenses and off proprietary.

Mention anything in favour of the GPL and some BSD troll will try and make out that you are some group-thinking slashbot who hasn't considered the issues. But no, I have considered the issues, and the GPL works out damn fine.

And on another BSD troll issue, they always look down on linux because it's a "toy". Yeah well let's just have a look at the troubles in FreeBSD 5 then hey? Linux, although certainly not perfect (take note of what I just said please), is nothing to sniff at technically.

Now I don't mind the BSD licence, it's cool. Most BSD guys are cool (again take note). I just hate that part of the BSD culture which looks down it's nose at the GPL like anyone who supports it is some script kiddiot. There are reasons for it, damn good reasons.

And yes there are linux ppl trolling BSD also, but they are normally full-on joking rather than being serious like the BSD elitist trolls. "BSD is dying" isn't half as bad or serious as some poncy "you are an inferior being because your linux "distro" is a toy next to the awesome power of my SMP implimentation on my *BSD box"

fuck em if they can't take a joke.

Re:Bonded more tightly than ever, huh?

[gclef]

Honestly, I think the Bitkeeper thing is about a legitimate concern. I understand the fight there. I think part of what SCO did was make the community focus on those sorts of fights rather than the more petty ones (*cough cough KDE vs Gnome cough*). There's no way a group this size will never have fights, but a common enemy makes you prioritize your fights a bit better.

Re:Bonded more tightly than ever, huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

The bitkeeper debacle is not an issue. The community will heal itself even if it means dethroning Linus.

I'm sure we'll give him the benefit of a doubt this time, but if he keeps on making bad decisions like the BK thing, it's time to change the leader.

Re:Bonded more tightly than ever, huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bitkeeper?

Who cares. That's just kernel politics bullshit. It's happenned before (smp support disputs for instance), they'll end up creating something better then bitkeeper anyways.

Seriously. It realy doesn't matter very much anyways. The free version of bitkeeper is still aviable, and now people have a good reason to build a free replacement/improvement.

You mistake Linus's personality flaws with something that actually matters. It doesn't.

If you look back into history a similar thing with SCO.

If SCO didn't price their Unix so expensive that no normal person could ever hope to afford it, there would of been no reason to start Linux in the first place... There would of already been a Unix for Linus's i386 machine. But SCO priced themselves out of the future.

Now Linux, with 2.6, is superior to SCO's stuff in almost every way. So they try to sue to save their asses and it failed. Go figure.

Re:Bonded more tightly than ever, huh?

[B'Trey]

The real issue isn't his decision to use BK. That's was a mistake, but no one is perfect. Mistakes can be rectified. The real issue is that, now that it's become apparent and undeniable that it was a mistake, Linus isn't saying "Ooops. Sorry about that guys." Instead, he's continuting to insist that it wasn't a mistake and that the blame lies on other people for daring to refuse to play by the royal decree that McVoy laid down for the use of his software. There is absolutely no difference in what BK is doing with their protocols and what MS does with their protocols. Reverse engineering MS networking to create Samba, so Linux machines can work with Windows machines, is a good thing. But doing the exact same thing to allow people without a commercial BK license to get to all of their data is somehow immoral and unethical. That's the rankest sort of hypocrisy from Linus, and it greatly damages my trust in his leadership. I don't take anything away from him, or deny him any of the props he deserves for his work on Linux. But he needs to step up to the plate, admit he screwed up, and apologize to Trigdell.

Re:Bonded more tightly than ever, huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

I still don't get it.

From my point of view, it's Trigdell who caused this clusterfuck. McVoy kindly asked him to cease reverse engineering his product, but Trigdell refused thus setting off this debacle.

BK was working, Trigdell's version was not working and, in fact, there was no adequate replacement for BK in sight.

Re:Bonded more tightly than ever, huh?

[argent]

If SCO didn't price their Unix so expensive that no normal person could ever hope to afford it, there would of been no reason to start Linux in the first place...

Um, maybe, maybe not. Linus was using MINIX, which was pretty much free. One reason he developed Linux was because the license for MINIX didn't let him update and improve it except through patches... conceptually, though not genetically, Linux was started as "MINIX Improved".

Now he has said that if BSD had been ready a year earlier there woudln't have been a Linux, but I haven't run into this meme that he would have found SCO an acceptable alternate before.

Re:Bonded more tightly than ever, huh?

[JohnFluxx]

I'm not convinced it was a mistake. It was a good stop gap solution for the 3 years (or was it 2? I lose track of time).

I know it's a pain to switch to something else now, but it's been good while it lasted, and part (most?) of the increase in productivity has been from Linus being forced to learn to delegate better. Just this alone is worth it.

Also what hypocrisy is there from Linus? Has he said somewhere that reverse engineering the BK protocol is immoral and unethical? Has he said the opposite for the samba team? Where exactly is the hypocrisy?

Also remember that there really wasn't much alternative 3 years ago. What solution would you have chosen 3 years ago?

Re:Bonded more tightly than ever, huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Free software fanatics don't care if there was a working solution 3 years ago. All that matters to them is that it is free. Whether it's functional is secondary.

Re:Bonded more tightly than ever, huh?

[B'Trey]

And if Microsoft had politely asked Trigdell to cease reverse engineering the network protocols, should he have done that too? At the time he started working on them, there was no replacement for a Windows server either. Trigdell reverse engineered the protocols, created Samba, and now we can have Windows and Linux servers running on the same network, working (almost) seamlessly together. Clean room reverse engineering is not only common, it's a key part of the methodology that allows Open Source software to work. Variations on that is how we get Linux to work with Windows, it's how we get Open Office to read Word documents, its how we make Open Source work with any closed software where the protocols are not open. McVoy has every right to kindly ask Trigdell to stop. So does Microsoft and any other company. But Trigdell has every right to ignore the request.

BK is sitting at a table and it threw the Open Source community a bone. Trigdell refused to gnaw on the leavings and decided to go to the kitchen and cook his own dinner instead. McVoy got all in a huff and took his bone back. And it's all Trigdell's fault for not being grateful for the scraps and having the gall to want a full meal instead.

Re:Bonded more tightly than ever, huh?

[B'Trey]

Also what hypocrisy is there from Linus? Has he said somewhere that reverse engineering the BK protocol is immoral and unethical? Has he said the opposite for the samba team? Where exactly is the hypocrisy?

Trigdell is the lead programmer for Samba. It's his baby. It started out as a hobby for him, something to play with, exactly the same way that he was playing with Bitkeeper. I don't know that this hobby would ever produce a replacement for Bitkeeper, but I don't know that it wouldn't either. But, to steal a line from MS, the freedom to innovate is vital. It's the very essence of Open Source.

And yes, Linus has slammed Trigdell directly for it. See here and here.

Re:Bonded more tightly than ever, huh?

[B'Trey]

Also remember that there really wasn't much alternative 3 years ago. What solution would you have chosen 3 years ago?

What solution is there now? Evidently, the solution now is going to be to write a new product (or perhaps enhance an existing product) that accomplishes what the kernel hackers are looking for. So what's going to happen to kernel productivity while this is going on? If the work on an open source applicaton had started three years ago, we'd almost certainly have a usable, though perhaps not complete, product in place by now. So now we're right where we were three years ago. If Bitkeeper had been implemented as a stop gap measure, used while the work proceeded on an open source replacement, it might have been different. It wasn't implemented as a stop gap measure. It was implemented as a solution with no thought as to what would replace it. (Well, there was lots of thought by lots of people but evidently not much by Linus.)

Re:Bonded more tightly than ever, huh?

[JohnFluxx]

.... Wow.

What can I say? You are totally right. I've just pasted those links to irc, and been discussing this. He was a total idiot that time.

Re:Bonded more tightly than ever, huh?

[codepunk]

Hey yes it may have not been a smart thing to do for Tridge to rock the boat like that but I fully defend his right to do so. Nobody has the right to tell Tridge that he could not do it, was it smart probably not but I am fully behind him. We must have the right to reverse engineer, Larry tried to take this right away but it did not work. Not a big deal Larry now get's coded out of existence like all those before him.

Re:Bonded more tightly than ever, huh?

[bluGill]

At one time a writer got mad at all the publishing software that existed, so he took 20 years off to write his own. Perhaps you have used the result, we call it TeX, and it is very popular in the math world.

Sure there might be a 20 year set back in Linux, but linux is in pretty good shape. In return we get a version control system that works. I'd call that a worthwhile trade, but then I use FreeBSD on my computers so I don't get any benefit from Linux myself.

Re:Bonded more tightly than ever, huh?

[B'Trey]

I'm not sure if you're intent was to agree or disagree with me. My point was that using Bitkeeper for three years didn't buy anything. The correct solution was to write an open source program that would do what was needed, and all using BK did was delay the start of working on it for three years. As you say, it may have slowed development by a bit but it needs to be done sooner or later. Putting it off doesn't buy you anything.

Re:Bonded more tightly than ever, huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

While I agree with many of your other points, Apple's "lack of contributions" to the BSD community seems like a strange accusation, especially as a pro-GPL argument.

The things Apple is keeping closed are things they could keep closed in any case, since they are separate components from those that were based on Free/NetBSD. Actually they were updated based on those BSDs, as what Apple had to start with (NeXTSTEP) was already based on an older release of BSD.

Apple's goals are different enough that the BSDs don't really want to import their changes.

The projects that are accepting more of Apple's contributions back (KHTML, GCC) are doing so more because of their similar goals than because of their license. Even there, especially with GCC, the maintainers have not accepted all Apple changes, because Apple's goals are different.

Re:Bonded more tightly than ever, huh?

[Trix]

Yeah, yeah, I'm feeding a troll. Feel free to moderate apropriately.

To me, the GPL is based on the idea; "I shared with you and you made it better, now you have to share with me."

To me, the BSD license is based on; "I shared with you and you made it better, now I'm going back to work and outdo you."

Do you, the reader, think that's an accurate summary?

Re:Bonded more tightly than ever, huh?

[vsprintf]

To me, the BSD license is based on; "I shared with you and you made it better, now I'm going back to work and outdo you."

To me, the BSD license says, "The community invested a huge amount of work in this code. Feel free to incorporate into your private product and charge users through the nose for it while pretending it's yours. Don't feel obligated to give back anything in return, and feel free to bash FOSS as insecure, and inferior while you use and profit from it."

Re:Bonded more tightly than ever, huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

>fuck em if they can't take a joke ah really that should be joke em if they can't take a fuck

Re:Bonded more tightly than ever, huh?

[bluGill]

Agree or disagree involved. I wanted to make a point or slight correction.

If using BitKeeper was a gain or not depends on your goal. If your goal was a working kernel of the quality that 2.6 is, then BK was worth it. If the goal is perfect open source, than BK was a loss (CVS could have been kluged to work). If the goal is open source, but have no particular political goals involved, then BK is a wash.

Re:Bonded more tightly than ever, huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

And on another BSD troll issue, they always look down on linux because it's a "toy". Yeah well let's just have a look at the troubles in FreeBSD 5 then hey? Linux, although certainly not perfect (take note of what I just said please), is nothing to sniff at technically.

To be honest, most of the BSD people I know (myself included) really don't give a rat's ass what goes on in the linux community. I've run a few linux servers before, and they're not bad.. but I prefer BSD. And if BSD weren't around it would likely be Solaris 10 x86 or.. gag.. Win 2k3. I'm tire of the piss poor amateur attitude of the linux camp in general. Get some real man pages and lose the fanboy attitude and you might get somewhere. To cop out, I really don't have the time to skewer the OS properly as dinner approaches.

Oh yeah, and my SO works at a Fortune 500 company who fields a shitload of data centers. All of the Redhat fanboys were running around about two years ago screaming: they're replacing Microsoft and Sun with Redhat in a chorus. And they did. Guess what? The company in question has had enough and just purchased over 30 mil in RISC UNIX hardware from the big three.

Re:Bonded more tightly than ever, huh?

[jbolden]

Do you, the reader, think that's an accurate summary?

No I don't. I'd say:

GPL -- Change society
BSD -- Get a piece of software used heavily

Or:

GPL - Protect long term freedoms
BSD - Maxamize short term freedoms

Or:

GPL - Protect users
BSD - Protect developers

Re:Bonded more tightly than ever, huh?

[jbolden]

Also remember that there really wasn't much alternative 3 years ago. What solution would you have chosen 3 years ago?

This is part of the BitKeeper myth. BitKeeper has two features:

1) It is distributed
2) Large patch sets merge very fast

There is no good reason Linus needs #1. AFAICT the Linux development model is really based on hierarchical branching which most CM systems handle fine. Frankly a 1/4 time CM guy would have solved this issue no problem and they could have used any number of solutions. Heck IBM is part of the team now and they do own all rights to the most complete CM system on the market.

Re:Bonded more tightly than ever, huh?

[drinkypoo]

Most importantly, neither SCO Xenix (formerly Microsoft Xenix, formerly... ?) nor SCO UNIX have ever been open source. It's got the same problem. BSD, on the other hand, fulfills all of Linus' requirements [now] which is to say that it works and you can extend and redistribute it.

Annoying and Compulsory RMS Troll

[repruhsent]

OMG it's GNU/Linux! Linux is teh kernel! 99.999% of teh software on these lunixes was written by me since I don't have any use for time that I could be taking a shower! ...seriously folks, why can't Stallman just die? I think we'd all be happier.

Re:Annoying and Compulsory RMS Troll

[GNUALMAFUERTE]

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.

Re:Annoying and Compulsory RMS Troll

[Anonymous Coward]

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

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.

Re:Annoying and Compulsory RMS Troll

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Annoying and Compulsory RMS Troll

[GNUALMAFUERTE]

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.

Re:Annoying and Compulsory RMS Troll

[GNUALMAFUERTE]

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.

Re:Annoying and Compulsory RMS Troll

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Annoying and Compulsory RMS Troll

[Anonymous Coward]

RMS and his cult is holding back the commercialization of free software

How so, just out of interest? I know that RMS has absolutely no problem with people selling GPL'd works. Do you mean that people are put off by the personalities involved with the Free Software movement (like loony gun-nut ESR, for example - did you see that guy erupt in RevolutionOS? A terrifying spectacle!)?

Re:Annoying and Compulsory RMS Troll

[Anonymous Coward]

"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.

Re:Annoying and Compulsory RMS Troll

[Anonymous Coward]

I decided to follow RMS closely (not too closely since I didn't want to die from his stench) to update my description of one of his typical days.

8am - Wakes up outside the Center for Marxist Education in Cambridge as another bum shits on him. Thinks this sucks and that he would like an apartment, but can't find a landlord with an apartment that is free as in speech and beer. Falls back asleep.

9am - Wakes up again.

9:15am - Goes to men's room at MIT to wash shit off. Gives himself sponge bath. Shit comes off (somewhat), but he really isn't clean since he refuses to take a shower.

9:45am - Decides to shave 2 inches off beard after someone in MIT restroom mistakes him for Osama Bin Laden.

10am - Goes to McDonalds for breakfast. Gets into arguement with workers behind counter after they refuse to give him a free as in speech and beer breakfast. Also gets into arguement with the manager about why McDonalds should be called GNU/McDonalds due to the fact that he eats there.

11:30am - After being thrown out of McDonalds since the staff doesn't want a DGH deterring lunch rush, RMS goes to the McDonalds' dumpster to find food. Eats a "GNU/Quarter Pounder" and "GNU/fries" covered with "GNU/mold". He consideres the food better since it is free as in speech and beer.

12:30am - Goes back to MIT to recruit MIT students into writing free software. RMS is unable to enter anyone's office since everyone has placed spider plants in their offices. (He has a phobia a spider plants.)

1pm - RMS protests GWB (George W. Bush) for not being GNU/GWB and believing in copyrights. Wanders out of Cambridge and into Waltham. Police find RMS and arrest him for violating the ordinance that says he is not allowed to enter Waltham. (All towns surrounding Cambridge have this ordinace.) Police beat him and deport him back to Cambridge.

3pm - Goes back to MIT and creates a plan for dealing with overpopulation by killing everyone who uses non-free software. Writes code into next version of emacs to implement that feature

5pm - Tries to read email. RMS finds out he is dangerously over quota due to an email from Doctress Neutopia. This email is 65 megabytes of nothing but ASCII text. It is similar to an email he gets everyday since 1995 when he and Docress Neutopia had a brief fling. The email says that she would like to have a relationship with him, but he needs to accept her lovoution, stop his polygamous goat fucking and clean off the hair, dirt, food, and feces off his keyboard. RMS responds with a 9 megabyte email (of nothing but text) explaining that he could only consider getting into a relationship with her if she changed her name to GNU/Doctress Neutopia.

5:30pm - Reads rest of his email. His email is bombarded with trolls and goatse. RMS is turned on by the goatse and beats off to it.

6pm - Still beating off to goatse

7pm - Still beating off to goatse

8pm - Still beating off to goatse

9pm - Breaks into MIT vending machine to have a free as in speech and beer snack.

10pm - Breaks into a liquor store for free as in speech and free as in beer beer. Gets drunk.

10:15pm - Walks around drunk yelling, "Use free software!!!!", "It's GNU/Linux you capitalist pigs!!!!" and "I am a goat fucker!!!!".

11:45pm - Collapses in front of the Center for Marxist Education. Goes to sleep.

Re:Annoying and Compulsory RMS Troll

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think anyone would pay for AutoCad, for instance, if it were available as a source code. Someone would buy it and after that the community would simply produce a free copy. Bad for business.

did you see that guy erupt in RevolutionOS?

Nope. Got a link?

Re:Annoying and Compulsory RMS Troll

[Anonymous Coward]

Hahahah! Thanks for the laugh.

Is it OK if I save it and GNU/troll /. with it?

Re:Annoying and Compulsory RMS Troll

[Anonymous Coward]

of course. A troll is a thing of wonder.

Re:Annoying and Compulsory RMS Troll

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's an Amazon link to the DVD version:

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

Re:Annoying and Compulsory RMS Troll

[flacco]

I don't have any use for time that I could be taking a shower!

it's perplexing to me, this "stallman doesn't bathe" meme. does having long hair automatically make you filthy?

Re:Annoying and Compulsory RMS Troll

[at_slashdot]

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...

Re:Annoying and Compulsory RMS Troll

[MoralHazard]

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.

Re:Annoying and Compulsory RMS Troll

[Anonymous Coward]

does having long hair automatically make you filthy?

In a word: yes. Picture all those filthy woodstock hippies. Bloody hippies. Damn bloody hippies...

I have to go take my meds now.

Re:Annoying and Compulsory RMS Troll

[fishbowl]

"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.

Re:Annoying and Compulsory RMS Troll

[js7a]

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.

Re:Annoying and Compulsory RMS Troll

[toriver]

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.

Re:Annoying and Compulsory RMS Troll

[pete-classic]

Yeah. Them and the abolitionists. Always trying to cram their ideals down our throats and wrecking people's ways of life.

Bastards.

-Peter

Gamer's Advisory: Cursed Boomerang of SCO

[rewinn]

... is not effective against charging penguins!

True. But...

[OldGuyNew]

Will it save us money on our car insurance?

Re:True. But...

[Anonymous Coward]

not until the Gecko does the robot.

There's a reason it wasn't tested in court

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:There's a reason it wasn't tested in court

[astrojetsonjr]

But the test is coming up very soon, it looks like Judge Kimball is ready to rock the SCO world on the 21st of April.

Re:There's a reason it wasn't tested in court

[Anonymous Coward]

The license itself may be a work of sheer genius, but the idiotic, uncompromising fanaticism and elitism of the GPL crowd drives people away.

Free software is not always the solution. Proprietary software does not need liberation. You can't make as much money with open source software as you can with closed source software. Making profit is a good thing.

Re:There's a reason it wasn't tested in court

[Corpus_Callosum]

The license itself may be a work of sheer genius, but the idiotic, uncompromising fanaticism and elitism of the GPL crowd drives people away.

They generally are uncompromising, elite fanatics. But I would hardly call their behavior idiotic. What drives every GPL swinging fanatic is the lucid realization that if the source is closed, the software will eventually rot and die. Why would anyone in their right mind want to depend on anything that is guaranteed to rot and die? If we take software to be the bricks and mortar of the world's communications and data infrastructure, then we also have the additional variable of control. Do you want private companies controlling world infrastructure? These are the central themes of the open-source religion and for people that give a damn, they are strong themes.

Free software is not always the solution. Proprietary software does not need liberation. You can't make as much money with open source software as you can with closed source software. Making profit is a good thing.

If the proprietary software is something that is expected to exist for a long time, participate in public data infrastructure and/or is of very high importance, then there are some very compelling arguments that it should indeed be liberated.

It is not even completely clear that you can make more money with proprietary software. The largest and most profitable computer company in the world is open-sourcing practically everything these days, they believe it is good for business. You know the one, with three blue letters?

Re:There's a reason it wasn't tested in court

[vadim_t]

I don't see the point.

The GPL crowd drives some people away. Some Microsoft fans draw me away. Apple fans drive other people away. So what? Everybody is attracted and repelled by one thing or another.

IMHO, proprietary software is not a solution, it's sometimes a necessary compromise when there's no other alternative. In that sense it works well for vertical applications. For nearly everything else, I'd say it's a big disadvantage since usually you get stuck with a single vendor and lock-in.

Re:There's a reason it wasn't tested in court

[nickco3]

You can't make as much money with open source software as you can with closed source software.

That all depends on whether you sell software or buy it. If you are not a software salesman, your bottom line will be better with open source.

Making profit is a good thing.

Let's all nail shutters over our windows to make the power company more profitable.

Re:There's a reason it wasn't tested in court

[Anonymous Coward]

Look, one bad thing about the SCOXE suits is that we are talking about GPL fanatics whereas I used to hear more about UNIX fanatics -- something I consider funnier. Isn't the GPL being tested in German courts right now though? --jplatt39

Re:There's a reason it wasn't tested in court

[DashEvil]

Uh, IBM makes most of its money off hardware. The fact that it uses Open Source software to leverage that hardware is quite irrelevant. Your point is misleading.

How about we compare corporations like Red Hat to Microsoft. I think that argument is much more compelling.

Re:There's a reason it wasn't tested in court

[Mateo_LeFou]

Whether X, Y, or Z has made more money with open- or closed-source software is irrelevant. If you're considering making & selling software for a living, the thing to figure out is whether it's easier to make money with proprietary or open-source software. This is one of Bob Young's best points in Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution.

In my opinion, closed-source software was more profitable before the Internet, and this is no longer true. I think it might be easier to make some money by selling some little easy-to-use closed source app, but making Large Scale dollars with a Large Scale closed app is very tricky.

Re:There's a reason it wasn't tested in court

[Anonymous Coward]

Making profit is a good thing.

So why the hell can't my family trade slaves anymore? Seriously, get a clue. Proprietary software doesn't need liberation. It needs to have its artificial supports (copyright and patent law) pulled out from under it, so that binary only and source available are competing in a REAL free market. I'd give it, oh, a couple of years. Without copyright the GPL would be unenforceable. It would also be unnecessary.

Re:There's a reason it wasn't tested in court

[mrhartwig]

Actually, no. IBM makes more money off services than either HW or SW. I didn't find their 2005 annual report quickly, but the trend toward services (vs. HW) has been going for several years now; here are the 2004 revenue numbers:

• Services: $42.6 B
  
• HW: $28.2 B
  
• SW: $14.3 B
  
• Financing: $ 2.8 B
  
• Other: $ 1.1 B
  

Adding that up, it looks like services top HW & SW combined.

I believe IBM's use of OSS to leverage their services business is quite relevant. I do suspect that the majority of their services don't have anything to do with OSS, but my (uninformed) opinion says the % is growing, and will continue to grow for a while.

Re:There's a reason it wasn't tested in court

[merlyn]

Everybody is attracted and repelled by one thing or another.

Sometimes, even the same thing! Or else there'd be about 1/10th as many love songs on the planet.

Re:There's a reason it wasn't tested in court

[stankulp]

"The license itself may be a work of sheer genius, but the idiotic, uncompromising fanaticism and elitism of the GPL crowd drives people away."

You can say the same thing about Microsoft's "Business Software Alliance."

Re:There's a reason it wasn't tested in court

[sl4shd0rk]

>The GPL is a work of sheer genius.

And we can thank Eben Moglen (as well as others) for that.

Re:There's a reason it wasn't tested in court

[belroth]

You can't make as much money with open source software as you can with closed source software. Making profit is a good thing.

This is true if you are talking about companies that sell software. Companies that 'merely' use software while carrying out their real business to make money will have reduced overheads. In this case it's quite possible to make more money with FOSS than proprietary software, making money is indeed a good thing.

For example I've been writing software for over twenty years and none of it has ever been sold, it's all been in-house to support the business functions of the various companies for which I've worked. FOSS is very useful as it means I don't have to squeeze any more budget to pay for proprietary software which may be 'end of lifed'.

Re:There's a reason it wasn't tested in court

[Sj0]

If you expect fanatics to stop being fanatical on EITHER side, you're nuts.

The major difference here is that the fanatics on the proprietary side of things tend to spend millions on flawed studies and buying news reporters to spread untruths, whereas the fanatics on OSS generally rant about it on forums.

Which is more dangerous? I guess that's a matter of opinion.

Re:There's a reason it wasn't tested in court

[Sj0]

Only if you choose a company which isn't Microsoft.

For the one Microsoft, there's literally one-hundered thousand broken companies whose product now lies abandoned.

For the one Microsoft, there are one-hundred companies which are doing worse than RH.

For the one Microsoft, there are one-hundred companies doing marginally better than RH.

For the one Microsoft, there are even half a dozen companies or so which can be compared to Microsoft.

So it may be a compelling comparison, but it too will be misleading.

Re:There's a reason it wasn't tested in court

[Sj0]

Patent law in Software is only a tool for abuse, but both Free Software and non-Free Software relies on copyright for it's protection.

There's a line in the sand, and no copyright is far past that line.

Re:There's a reason it wasn't tested in court

[Anonymous Coward]

"Let's all nail shutters over our windows to make the power company more profitable."

You don't need to do that. You're already helping them out by running all those electronic devices all day. Don't worry, with the way consummer electronic goods are going your making them more profitiable with every new device you buy. So keep up the good work. Rather then spending your free time to improve the environment or volunteer at the hospital you keep sitting in that basment typing code. If only everyone was part of the open source community making the power companies rich. There are things in this world which are far more important then free software to bad you just can't see the light. You might wanna try opening your door and walking outside. I would love keep typing but I gotta go out because I'm volunteering at a hockey club for children who are to poor to pay for one of the other clubs. We are having our play offs but hey you keep coding and improving the world. I rather get paid to program and spend my time helping other people who neeed it rather then get paid to sit at a desk doing nothing and then helping a bunch of people who are already rich and don't really need my help. Have fun.

Re:There's a reason it wasn't tested in court

[Anonymous Coward]

They use software to sell Hardware.

They use Hardware to push services.

In the end, their services are just an extention of their having moved hardware, which was helped by using open software.

The GP's point stands, but you've gotta abstract it.

Re:There's a reason it wasn't tested in court

[swillden]

They use software to sell Hardware. They use Hardware to push services.

Nope. Most of IBM's services business has nothing to do with IBM hardware. I work for IBM Global Services and most of what we do is create or integrate applications that run on a hodgepodge of hardware from various vendors and use a hodgepodge of software components from various vendors. It's very common that a large services contract may not have a single IBM hardware or software component to be found, other than the laptops used by the services teams (and those will soon be coming from Lenovo!).

In practice, it tends to go the other way. When IBM services are getting the job done for clients, they tend to also begin buying more IBM hardware and software, because it's what we recommend. Not that we mind working with stuff from other vendors but the IBM stuff is what we (usually) know best, and we recommend what we know will work.

More and more, it's services that drives IBM. Not only in terms of revenues, but also in terms of marketing strategy.

Re:There's a reason it wasn't tested in court

[mcrbids]

You can't make as much money with open source software as you can with closed source software.

Just how much of the software written, do you think gets SOLD, in boxes? 90%? 75? 50%?

Try around 10%. Most software is written by programmers in corporations for internal needs, or written for specific, custom contracts, not intended to be sold again.

But, don't believe ME. Go and ask everybody you know that writes software, and add it up yourself. Get a decent sampling size, and you'll see what I mean.

Microsoft, Oracle, and a few others get lots of press, because they make easy stories for journalists to write. The real world is quite a bit more difficult to understand.

If OSS was an inherently flawed market architecture, why has it grown so rapidly and so well? In just 5 years, it's vaulted from relative obscurity to a central theme for servers and the data centers!

Making profit is a good thing.

I agree. That's why I'd rather base a solution on FREE Linux and FREE Postgres and FREE Apache than on PRICEY Windows Server 2003 and PRICEY SQL-Server and PRICEY IIS. I write lots of software for a living, and I'd just as soon pocket the money.

Oh, and I do give back - lots - whenever it's convenient and doesn't compromise my core "mojo" - the benefits of doing so generally outweigh the costs, and I've even, quite a number of times, found my own solution to a problem I was trying to solve, and solved earlier!

Re:There's a reason it wasn't tested in court

[Corpus_Callosum]

How about we compare corporations like Red Hat to Microsoft. I think that argument is much more compelling.

Before we run off comparing anyone to anyone (and anyone to Microsoft is silly and irrelevant for obvious reasons), let's take a moment to question the motivation for making assertions that OSS is stupid because proprietary software is more profitable.

First, whether a company is pushing proprietary or open source, using standards (e.g. open systems) or not (closed systems) essentially amounts to a marketing decision. The average buyer just wants his problem solved.

Second, competition is interesting. Open source can slither into an enterprise with zero resistance, but it generally cannot achieve system-wide acceptance without maintenance and service contracts. Proprietary systems must pass through the bean-counter hoops before being brought in and so has a more difficult first step, but once achieved does not have the general problems of the second step. Either way, the products are competing and there will be profits for someone. In one case, the profits are derived from sales of licenses, in the other it is often service contracts or somesuch, but it generally amounts to the same thing.

My belief is that companies that get terrified of Open Source are really just terrified of the competition. Generally, it is only the monopolies that have to fear. Non monopolies are used to competition and see OSS as simply another competitor and/or another opportunity. Monopolies are not used to competition and have no instict on how to kill the OSS competitor to return the market to it's comfortable non-competitive environment.

So when you state that OSS is bad because proprietary systems are more profitable, are you speaking from the point of view of a monopolist or a vendor/potential vendor of proprietary software that doesn't understand the competitive pressures and opportunities of doing business in an environment where OSS exists?

The arguments against OSS tend to be quite transparent, this is another reason that the monopolies have such a problem with it... You just can't lie well about your competitor when your competitor is legion...

Re:There's a reason it wasn't tested in court

[DashEvil]

Actually, I'm not anti-OSS at all. I believe there is a lot of Value in Open Source software, and I use it almost exclusively.

You are (and I don't believe this to be deliberate at all) dragging the argument outside of its bounds. This is purely about whether or not OSS is more profitable than Propritary software.

What makes Microsoft so profitable? That they jumped the industry and then locked everyone into their garbage? Quite possible, and that is a trait of proprietary software. It may not be respectable, it may not be honest, but it is more profitable (in my opinion).

In fact, the only segment of Open Source Software that I have a problem with is the zealots who run around nay-saying everything that isn't GPLed (and it can be anything, Microsoft, BSD, Sun). I say, if Open Source software is truly better than Propritary software (and in most cases I believe that to be true) then prove it. Stop the bickering, start coding.

Re:There's a reason it wasn't tested in court

[DashEvil]

I disagree that it is as misleading as you think, but you do bring up a good argument, the only problem is, how many OSS software companies can be compared to Microsoft? IBM is a stretch, but I'd accept it, (The don't really do a whole lot of developing these days, from what I understand) but who else?

Re:There's a reason it wasn't tested in court

[Corpus_Callosum]

You are (and I don't believe this to be deliberate at all) dragging the argument outside of its bounds. This is purely about whether or not OSS is more profitable than Propritary software.

Profitable to whom?

This topic can get deeper than you may imagine very fast.

Re:There's a reason it wasn't tested in court

[Profane MuthaFucka]

IBM sold off their Thinkpad business, so even more of their income will be because of services, not hardware.

To some extent you are right about using hardware to push services, but going forward this doesn't look like it's going to be the case as a rule. IBM is a services company that happens to sell hardware.

Re:There's a reason it wasn't tested in court

[DashEvil]

The argument was clearly about it being profitable to the developer.

And more concern

[nurb432]

"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.

Re:And more concern

[zogger]

would you have any reference URLs to look at for one of those ads? I think it would be interesting to analyse the actual words used, to look at the legal angle.

Re:And more concern

[Corpus_Callosum]

I read that as "will i be sued by Microsoft if i use this free software"

Am I the only one? Is Microsoft announcing it's intentions to throw rocks at the gears? I can see some Microsoft black-project to get some independant [ehum..] developers to sue big companies for some triviality related to an open-source license to try to drive the point home.

Never mind me, I'm just paranoid..

Re:And more concern

[16K Ram Pack]

A lot of large businesses will fall for this. Ones staffed with middle managers more concerned for their pension than anything else.

I remember in the early 90s that companies were still buying PCs from their mainframe manufacturer at ludicrous prices compared to what Gateway and others were selling for. Basically, the middle manager had the budget to buy them, no benefit for buying cheaper (to him) and buying the alternative could put him at risk.

Where life is different is in small businesses/startups. I do work for some small companies, and a lot of the time, they want real cheap quotes for things. So, I've started to say "have you tried Open Office?". When you point out to someone in a small company that he can save about 30% on the laptop price by not having MS Office, but something that is very compatible (no problems here), they get pretty interested.

Re:And more concern

[nurb432]

After reading the 'ad' I sort of had that same feeling: 'we might sue you, best be careful what OS you choose'.

Once they hold all the key patents they can. Will they? Who knows, but they could. A percieved threat looming overhead will influence a lot of smaller companies decision. They cant afford to be 'right', and have to fight it legally.

Re:And more concern

[fermion]

I think the big issue is the continuing availability of technology. Will the tools one uses to build a firm be available next year. Will there be predictability in costs and upgrades. With MS products, this predictability generally exists, and if it changes, there is often a long enough window so that firms can change tools. This predictability is what forces MS to keep older OS alive, and nuetered the MS attempted to force firms into yearly upgrade cycles.

So, the issue is not so much who will pay for lawsuits. Most end users, of course, realize that they will not be liable. What of concern is if the GPLed tool will be availabe. If SCO or MS wins a suit, there might be immidiate injunctions against the use of those tools. MS has enough money to make the problem go away, and has done so. The OS vendors. typically, do not.

So in this enviroment where eveyone is suing everyone over patents, and even MS has made payments, there is great uncertainty in the market over who own what. Like so many things, the situation works in favor of the monopolist, and against the free market.

Re:And more concern

[ssj_195]

Reminds me of Ballmer's thinly-veiled (if not flat-out blatant) threat made to China recently, except in that particular instance, it probably did more to put China off Microsoft and onto Linux :) God bless your ham-fisted lack of tact, Mr Ballmer! :)

Re:And more concern

[Vengeance]

Paranoid? No. In fact, you're behind the times! You've just described the past couple of years in SCO vs. The Civilized World.

Re:And more concern

[fishbowl]

"Where life is different is in small businesses/startups."

Which is to say, MOST businesses, the ones that employ the largest number people, overall?

Re:And more concern

[16K Ram Pack]

They are the ones that employ the most people overall.

I might like to qualify what I said - that if someone is young and starting up a business, they may be more likely to opt for OpenOffice. An established small business may stick with MS Office.

Small businesses take much more interest in costs, because the people running them have put their own money in. A middle manager in a corporation will rarely take risks in the same way.

And the cost of MS Office may start to become more significant. Buy a bottom of the range Dell PC and add MS Office SBE, and you nearly double the price. You can get a PC in the UK for £240 and MS Office SBE will add £235.

Re:And more concern

[fishbowl]

Large businesses get vendors like Microsoft tripping over their own feet to negotiate a site license.

One joint-marketing venture agreement later, and you get the situation we once had:

Each of our Sun servers and Mac workstations had a Windows license. I am deadly serious. It sort-of made sense that the folks with Linux desktops had Windows licenses, since they all started life as mass-deployed Dell Optiplexes. But the terms of the license apparently covered every computer system in the shop, even those that were not Intel-based, which meant lots of Macs, and a whole data center full of UltraSparcs.

What's your problem with subscription?

[Anonymous Coward]

No more subscriptions: Everyone from now on will be treated equal and enjoy the same features without having to pay.

And why would that be a good thing?

Subscription is a good way for Slashdot to cover the bandwidth and other costs and I am happy to dole out $5-$10 every few months.

If you can't/won't pay, you can still enjoy the contents and participate in the discussion just like subscribers.

I don't understand what your beef is with subscription.

End of story?

[MikeCapone]

And they married and had many children.

Insightful?

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Re:Insightful?

[Anonymous Coward]

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

I doubt the German cases will have any weight in the USA. In fact, it's more likely that the American companies & foreign office will lobby/threaten WTO and world governments into marginalizing open source. If it's bad for big business, it will get crushed.

Re:Insightful?

[nickco3]

If it's bad for big business, it will get crushed.

From TFA:

54% of the finanicial industry has or is planning to use Linux in 2005.

More than 50% of blades are running Linux.

IBM alone made a billion out of Linux last year.

The Linux industry is currently worth $15 billion, and will be worth $35 billion by 2008.

Only Microsoft thinks the GPL is bad for business.

Re:Insightful?

[Anonymous Coward]

If it's bad for big business, it will get crushed.

The other reply points out how many billions GNU/Linux is currently worth and is projected to be worth in the next few years. That's how much it is worth to the tech companies that sell computers.

Why is GNU/Linux the juggernaut that it is today? Why has it been growing at 50% compound annual growth rate for more than a few years and projections put it at the same compound growth rate for the next 3-5 years depending on who you ask? At that continued growth rate, if it can be sustained and the analysts project it out at that rate for 3-5 years so they believe it can be sustained, it will eclipse Microsoft to become the #1 operating system on servers. It already is #1 on blades. Why all this? Because companies and industry see the value in GNU/Linux powered systems. The real value is competition, no lock-in from Microsoft, no lock-in for ridiculous priced Sun hardware. GNU/Linux, x86, and AMD/64 have made servers commodities, broken the OS and cpu monopolies.

The value that isn't stated in the numbers of the other post is the hundreds of billions of dollars in value in the US (and worldwide, but we're addressing your regulatory comment) that companies outside of tech, but who are dependant on computers for their revenue and earnings, the value that they place on GNU/Linux.

Does Daimler Chrysler sell blades? Servers? Embedded devices? Desktops? They are an automotive company, not a computer hardware company. But they saw the value in GNU/Linux, and they became "well known to be a Linux shop". So a multi-billion dollar, Fortune 500, non-tech company sees tremendous value in GNU/Linux. Any guess whether the rest of the companies in the Fortune 500 see value in GNU/Linux?

Any guess in which lobbying direction the other 450+ (excluding Microsoft and some of the tech companies that are dependent on Microsoft dominance) companies of the Fortune 500 will send their lobbyists when it comes to lobbying legislators to flex WTO muscle?

As for Microsoft, they can't do anything at all. Other posts are mentioning that Microsoft will start enforcing patents or funding other companies to do this. As soon as they do this, anti-trust rears its head. Perhaps the only thing Microsoft fears more than GNU/Linux is the threat of being broken up into pieces like Ma Bell. This already has been suggested (by a judge iirc), where Microsoft would be broken up into Operating System and Office, or it can be taken far further, breaking up additional units (like the Great Plains Software and other divisions).

Microsoft got a pass with the current anti-trust situation in the US. They are well aware this can change overnight based on their anti-competitive actions, or based on a change in government administration in the US. That's why Intel is treading carefully with AMD and allowing them to exist. They can shut down AMD overnight by simply cutting prices and riding it out cushioned by their cash reserves for a few or more years. Japan brings up interesting questions on anti-trust with Intel. Does Intel have any of the anti-competitive contract/compensation requirements with US hardware manufacturers like it has with the manufacturer that complained in Japan? Tech journalists should start asking these questions, hopefully others will pick up the questions and keep asking Intel. If they do and it is found out, AMD will pick up major market share (and possibly Dell as a customer) once those illegal contracts are banned and action is taken against Intel, if the contracts exist.

GNU/Linux may be worth 15 billion now and 50 or a 100 billion in the next few years, but it is worth far more to non-tech companies who will prevent going back to the Unix & Microsoft lock-ins of the past with every fiber of their being.

Re:Insightful?

[Artifakt]

Microsoft got a pass with the current anti-trust situation in the US. They are well aware this can change overnight based on their anti-competitive actions, or based on a change in government administration in the US.

Precisely what the people who think Microsoft can even possibly retain their current marketshare overlook. Some people seem to think MS has deep enough pockets to influence a whole string of elections, AND go up against half the NYSE or more, AND keep the OEMs supporting them, all at the same time. Sorry, but that's just nowhere close to reality.
Electioneering is a real bitch. Whatever you spend on helping a given senator or president get elected has to come back to you in a single term, with interest, or you just lost money. Microsoft is now fighting a war on at least three fronts, against foes with total resources a hundred times theirs or more. Those foes don't all particularly want to totally crush Microsoft, or it would have already happened. Many of them just want to curb Microsoft's expansion in one area or another, or win a little victory her or there and stay out of other parts of Microsoft's business entirely. By and large, they are succeeding at their goals and MS is taking the hits.

Re:Insightful?

[falconwolf]

I doubt the German cases will have any weight in the USA. In fact, it's more likely that the American companies & foreign office will lobby/threaten WTO and world governments into marginalizing open source. If it's bad for big business, it will get crushed.

Many of those "American companies" depend on GNU/Linux, most days at least one company at least partially switchs to GNU/Linux software. Companies on the Fortune 500 make up some of these companies. Number 1 for the third tyme in a row Walmart not only sales pcs with Linux but uses linux in some of it's operations, as does Citibank. Other companies not already named using Linux are Amazon, eBay, and Google. Overall businesses believe Linux is good for business.

Falcon

As everybody knows

[sad_]

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.

Microsoft AD reference

[nurb432]

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.

Re:Microsoft AD reference

[zogger]

thanks for the reference. sounds similar to the online things I have read with their "get the facts" campaign.

PJ needs to get laid.

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously. "Insightful"? Try "Fucking obvious".

Re:PJ needs to get laid.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll volunteer!

I give good head too.

Re:PJ needs to get laid.

[Anonymous Coward]

Try FUD. What bothers me is that every opinionated article from the Microsoft camp is instantly branded as FUD by the Linux zealotry - including Slashdot. Yet, at the same time, an opinionated article from the *Linux* camp is heralded as "insightful", while all it does is claiming the obvious, while adding a few lies and completely unfounded alligations, which makes her even WORSE than Ballmer and co.

Groklaw started off good and independant. It stopped being independant right away.

Re:PJ needs to get laid.

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone have a pic, just out of interest? =)

Re:PJ needs to get laid.

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously. "Insightful"? Try "Fucking obvious".

You got that right. But what else would you expect from an unemployed paralegal? She's obviously not that good; she hasn't had a permanent job in over a year. Now she's a "journalist" but what that really means is "unemployed but writing a blog".

Everything that does not kill me -

[Anna Merikin]

makes me stronger.

--Nietsche

Re:Everything that does not kill me -

[rbarreira]

A friend of me prefers to say:

"That which does not kill me... Gets fucked later in the day"

Re:Everything that does not kill me -

[rbarreira]

Damn typo... s/me/mine

Re:Everything that does not kill me -

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you mean: Nietzsche

Re:Everything that does not kill me -

[vsprintf]

Does that apply in a country where you can buy legislation? SCO is Microsoft's paid stooge in this fray, and it's just the opening round to allow MS to range the target. As an entity, MS may be evil, but it's not stupid. Witness the terrible punishment from the DOJ. Hmm . . . MS is the tail that wags the DOJ?

Everything that does not kill me -

[Anonymous Coward]

hurts like hell.

Way off!

[Mr. Underbridge]

No, it actually means:

"will i be sued by Some near-bankrupt COmpany shilling for Microsoft if i use this free software"

Annoying and Compulsory parent post

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

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 .doc format, and about a few thousand other FOSS (and proprietary including Microsoft and Sun) apps.

Re:Annoying and Compulsory parent post

[Anonymous Coward]

has more than just altruistic motives

Nothing wrong with that imho. There are no selfless motives. None.

Fundamentally we do things we do because either the decision or the act makes us feel good. That applies from a mother taking care of her infant to McVoy.

SCO is not the problem

[EduardoFonseca]

Everyone thought that SCO would make Linux look bad and childish to companies all around.
Who thought that BitKeeper would be the culprit, eh? ;)

HA ha

[Anonymous Coward]

"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.

Where did PJ say that?

[Anonymous Coward]

"PJ in the article says everybody knows that GPL software has no risks (or no more risks then other software)."

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"?

Re:Where did PJ say that?

[sad_]

here:
Most people realize, as PubPat.org's Dan Ravicher has pointed out, that proprietary software is every bit as likely to have contaminated code, if not more so.

Re:Where did PJ say that?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but that's a big difference from you claimed she said.

Name one lie

[Anonymous Coward]

Go ahead, I'll call your bluff. Name one lie in that article. Didn't think so.

OT: rights of owners

[mi]

After all, why should the owner of some code not do as he/she wishes with it?

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:

After all, why should the owner of some apartment not do as he/she wishes with it?

is quite different from yours.

Back to your original question, users are "people too", aren't they?

Re:OT: rights of owners

[Anonymous Coward]

i think you mean resulting /from/ tenent-landlord animosity.

If there wasn't a problem, why was there a law?

Re:OT: rights of owners

[mi]

I think you mean resulting /from/ tenant-landlord animosity.

There are always bad tenants and there are always bad landlords. You can not legislate bad people out. Unfortunately, in this case lawmakers try -- they have a huge incentive.

If there wasn't a problem, why was there a law?

What naivette! Why is there a Patriot Act? Or anti-sodomy laws?

There are more tenants, than there are landlords, so the laws (and especially their enforcement) are tremendously skewed against landlords.

Not only OSS users can get sued

[floorten]

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.

Re:Not only OSS users can get sued

[nurb432]

Oh, i agree its not just an OSS problem and effects any software ( or hardware ) that you buy.

Im just restating the push of the Ad campaign and the angle they are using.

Even if Microsoft did promise to come to you rescue and pay your legal bills, it still doesnt help you when you cant use said software any longer and business suffers..

Re:OT: rights of owners - red herring

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Who owns the code?

[baomike]

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?

The reasons for the GPL's strength is obvious

[mark-t]

Ignoring the GPL for a moment...

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.

Re:The reasons for the GPL's strength is obvious

[fishbowl]

I'm so sick of hearing "GPL stands up in court" or "GPL not tested in court."

There's no way for the GPL to *fail* this test, without the failure being a sufficient condition to cause all other licenses based on copyright to also become invalid.

In fact, the very provisions of copyright that allow the holder to license his work would be called into question, because any language precise enough to "overturn the GPL" in a legal sense would be applicable to all licesnses based on copyright, many of which have themselves "never been tested in court."

My mortgage agreement hasn't been specifically tested in court either; does that mean I should
ignore it and not make payments?

Re:The reasons for the GPL's strength is obvious

[jbolden]

There's no way for the GPL to *fail* this test, without the failure being a sufficient condition to cause all other licenses based on copyright to also become invalid.

That's not true at all. There are lots of ways GPL programs could have problems in courts that don't effect all other licenses.

For example most GPL projects (FSF and GNOME being exceptions) are not careful about establishing standing. So you might have a situation where someone copies GPL code and distributes a modified version yet wins the case by challenging the author's standing to sue. Commercial copyrights are very clear about standing.

The courts could hold (and many lawyers who have looked at the GPL and commented btw think this is likely) that derived works extend further than most programers think they do and thus you will have lawsuits won by people claiming GPL violations which the programming community consider "mere aggregation".

I can think other examples but those two will work for discussion.

Re:The reasons for the GPL's strength is obvious

[twistedcubic]

You didn't contradict the grandparent. Your first example doesn't have the effect you expect, because it's rather trivial to show that you created a certain work, in whole or in part, and no judge is going to let someone copy it for free because of a technicality you imagined. In your second example, you claim the GPL might apply too much (which is far from being invalid). Could you give some better examples?

Re:The reasons for the GPL's strength is obvious

[jbolden]

Sure its very easy to prove standing for a single program work. On apps like KDE or the Linux kernel its going to be a whole different ball of wax to prove standing.

A modifies B's code which is composed of code from C and D
including in a section written by E and F primarily. Nobody has signed over any rights to anyone. X takes the code modifies and redistributes it. C sues X. It wouldn't be hard at all to argue that C doesn't have standing, especially since the burden of proof will be on C (the plaintiff) to prove he has standing. Lets say that E disagrees that C has standing and testifies to that effect. Lets say B agrees that C has partial standing almong with himself but disagrees that X is in violation.

Creating a work in part does not get you standing. The fact that you contributed code to something else and this something else didn't take from a freestanding work could imply that the standing is with the work you contributed to where these things are vague. People lose copyright cases all the time over standing issues, in fact that's probably the most common reason they do lose copyright cases.

As for your comment about "rule you can use for free" he judge doesn't decide you have the right to copy something for free. All the judge rules is that Plaintiff C by himself does not have the right to sue X for this particular act.

_______________

As for your comments regarding the second example being far from being invalid; the grandparent post never mentioned invalid, your post is the first that mentions it. The question was being tested in court, i.e. that the courts rule regarding the GPL in a way that was not expected. What I've heard from lawyers discussing the GPL is this is the one area they really do think the FSF will have trouble limiting the scope.

When somebody says "the GPL tested in court" what they mean is that the court's ruling on the law agrees with the FSF's theory of the law. So yeah I count this example. If you don't want to that's fine.

Re:The reasons for the GPL's strength is obvious

[twistedcubic]

"People lose copyright cases all the time over standing issues."

Please. This is true for almost all lawsuits, regardless of their nature, whether in small claims court or federal court. It's a truism. You guys keep saying it over and over like it's a big deal. It's not. It happens everyday. It doesn't help your argument either. If you can prove that someone copied a work, that you created the work, and that the work is copyrightable, and that their copying goes beyond fair use, then most judges won't dismiss your case (there are always exceptions, of course). If this is not true, then please cite an example. I'm sure there is one example, but I'm certain you can't even cite one because it's rare that valid copyright infringement claims get thrown out. And "I hear about this all the time" is not an example.

Re:The reasons for the GPL's strength is obvious

[jbolden]

This was a total non response to my post. I gave you a great amount of detail on the issue of standing in GPL software which you ignored.

If its "your work" in a legal sense then you have standing. That's a tautology. You are basically arguing you won't lose a case due to standing if you can prove you have standing. Well of course not, the issue for GPLed software is that for great deal of it proving standing might prove difficult and I explained why in the parent.

Microsoft research showed its own FUD backfiring.

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember Microsoft's own research showing that its own FUD was backfiring on Microsoft.
http://www.opensource.org/halloween/ha lloween7.php

Microsoft got charged twice for misleading ads

[Anonymous Coward]

Case 1) Microsoft ad pulled by [South African] ASA.
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/busi ness/2003/0303 201315.asp?S=Software&A=SFT&O=FRGN

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=1806 7

reverse engineering

[zotz]

"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/

IBM bans OSS

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Benefits

[Anonymous Coward]

the community bonded more tightly than ever
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

More Details

[Anonymous Coward]

More information is available at: http://www.abend.org/article.php/20050415020842653 as well as at: http://www.abend.org/article.php/20050417132713784

Read the article

[jbolden]

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.

Re:GPL and use

[jbolden]

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.

Annoying anti-RMS trolls

[Generalisimo Zang]

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.

Re:Annoying anti-RMS trolls

[Anonymous Coward]

It is common courtesy to give credit where credit is due.

Like the GNU website referring to GTK as the GNU Tool Kit?

For the non-law geeks

[abulafia]

promisory estoppel: A doctrine in which a non contractual promise may be made enforceable to avoid an injustice.

I bet anyone who paid the SCO license fee...

[Anonymous Coward]

is feeling like a french fry right now... pretty darn salty.

Thanks Pamela

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Drug prohibition laws help fund terrorism.

[falconwolf]

Agreed 1000%!!! ALL victimless "crimes" should be stricken from the books. Unfortuantely too many people don't learn from history.

Falcon

until /. allows one to edit

[falconwolf]

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.

Falcon

Richard Stallman lives in Cambridge, MA...

[falconwolf]

Ah, the home of MIT and the Model Railroad club where many hackers got started in the 1960s.

Falcon

Umm any idea why groklaw.net seems to be offline?

[falconwolf]

It was up when I visited less than an hour ago.

Falcon

Re:GPL and use

[The Cisco Kid]

No.

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 /. may say by posting I give unrestricted rights to them, but thats not related to the GPL or my browser).

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.

Re:GPL and use

[jbolden]

You perhaps should try to be less condescending until you are sure that you really are the one explaining obvious things to me. I was addressing an issue that comes within the GPL:

This License applies to any program or other work which contains
a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed
under the terms of this General Public License. The "Program", below,
refers to any such program or work, and a "work based on the Program"
means either the Program or any derivative work under copyright law:

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:

Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not
covered by this License; they are outside its scope. The act of
running the Program is not restricted, and the output from the Program
is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the
Program (independent of having been made by running the Program).

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.

Re:GPL and use

[The Cisco Kid]

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.

Brian - is that you?

[Anonymous Coward]

Med time!

Re:GPL and use

[jbolden]

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.

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 .pdfs this is mandatory for uncommon fonts.

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.