Slashdot Mirror
DrDOS Inc Breaking GPL
Bob Dobbs writes "DR-DOS 8.1 (DrDOS Inc) came out at the begining of this month, however instead of an upgrade to DR-DOS 8.0 the new product is based on work available on the internet.
The work includes shareware utilities, a badly patched version of the kernel work by Udo Kuhnt, drivers (Samsung, ESS) and utilities from FreeDOS and others (e.g. pkzip). Full information on the FreeDOS site. (Cheers FreeDOS!)"
You cannot "break" the gpl. It is a license, not a contract. If you do not agree to it or violate it's terms, you have no license to use the software or make derivative works. If that occurs it is simple copyright infringement.
I use it regularly for turning old PC's into Citrix clients. When a donated 486 can be turned into a functioning PC for free there's a lot of value in that. I would love a version of DOS with a built in TCP/IP stack and a LANMAN client, it would save me a lot of work having to do all the voodoo magic that it takes to get that stuff working under plain old MSDOS or its clones.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
> And wasn't DR DOS originally owned by Caldera...?
> Which turned into...SCO!
No, DR DOS was originally owned by Digital Research. These were the guys that IBM originally was going to buy their dos from, but their CEO at the time blew off IBM and went sailing instead(!). He was fired soon thereafter.
Anyhow, DR DOS 5 was a fine product - *far* better than MS or PC DOS. It was a completely compatible replacement to DR DOS that worked great with windows. If I remember correctly, it also included a very cool disk cache and set of memory management utilities. Anyhow, in reaction to its reviews & success, Microsoft:
- upgraded its MS DOS from 4.1 (a horrible product) to 5 (a reasonable one)
- dropped price for MS DOS from over $100 to something like $19
- generated fake compatibility error messages that DR DOS users would get when using Microsoft applications
- etc, etc, etc
Microsoft never did release a dos as good as DR DOS - with its conditional config.sys lines, online command help, etc, etc. But it did kill the product through illegal competition. Eventually, Caldera bought it out - just for the opportunity to sue microsoft over it. And won.
Award Bios has a windows-based fully-graphical utility to upgrade its BIOS. you don't boot into it or anything, it just runs in Windows. Not sure how they do it, but there is no DOS involved. The new BIOS is just there after you reboot.
It's used for embedded applications. Yes, I know linux is also. For some applications, however, all you need or want is a dos compatible file system and an easy way to input and output text information or simple vga graphics. With an embeddable DOS, and an old copy of TurboC (or Quickbasic, believe it or not), a few hours spent rewriting the startup code, just about any old-school engineer can be up and running. The code is understandable by one person AND you can buy licenses for cheap. Yes there's no charge for GPL'd code, but, it comes with strings attached which often seem like a poor risk compared to the oem cost of something like DRDos.
Wanted: Clever sig, top $ paid, all offers considered.
EULAs restrict USE, and therefore violate the Doctrine of First Sale. The GPL only applies to DISTRIBUTION, and only removes some of the restrictions of copyright law.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Because the GPL isn't an EULA, troll-boy.
You can download and use GPL software without agreeing to any part of the GPL whatsoever.
The only time the GPL applies is if you wish to negotiate extra rights beyond those to download and use the software--specifically, the right to copy and re-distribute it yourself. In which case, the GPL is merely one possible set of terms for such redistribution; often the copyright owner has other terms available too.
The GPL is basically a convenience document saying "Hey, by the way, if you want to copy and distribute this, I'll tell you in advance that you're allowed to do so under these terms. No need to contact me and ask. If you want other terms, go ahead and ask. If you don't want to copy and distribute, ignore all this."
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Let me try to answer this. Other people may do a better job. The GPL and most commercial EULAs are not the same type of animal. EULAs seek to restrict the user's freedoms. "Open source fan boys" tend to object to the EULAs because of this, and even more so because many EULAs attempt to impose restrictions outside the immediate scope of the software to which they are attached (e.g., mandating spyware, no benchmarking, etc., there was a story here earlier). The GPL, on the other hand, places no restrictions on use: you can do whatever you damn well like to the software so long as you keep it free. This, I believe, is the crux. "Open source fan boys" don't like people taking GPL'd code, locking it up where others can't get to it, and worse still (in some cases) claiming ownership of it.
There is no hypocrisy in asking that the GPL (which in my opinion is very reasonable, and anyone who thinks otherwise is probably trying to build a baby mulching machine) be respected whilst denouncing these jackbooted EULAs.
He's asking them to distribute a copy of the GNU General Public License with the software
This is one of three things that they can do to be compliant. There are two others, which given their commercial nature they may decide to undertake:
1 - stop distribution, remove all GPL code from their application immediately and rewrite those parts before distributing again
2 - negotiate an alternative (commercial?) license with the copyright holders of the GPL portions of code. This can be problematic when there's a lot of authors, but it can be done.
Generally if a company effed up in (mis)using GPL code they should be given the opportunity to fix their mistakes. If this is an intentional misuse and they do not intend to correct things they may open themselves up to a lawsuit.
Any way you slice it, of course, the GPL software is still copyrighted. Without the GPL it doesn't become public domain. Eliminating the GPL means that you don't have *any* permission to use the code.
You can accomplish anything you set your mind to. The impossible just takes a little longer.
No, DR DOS was originally owned by Digital Research. These were the guys that IBM originally was going to buy their dos from, but their CEO at the time blew off IBM and went sailing instead(!). He was fired soon thereafter.
That was Gary Kildall.
If you are going to repeat a computer industry myth at least get it right.
He was out flying his aeroplane not sailing and he wasn't fired, he later sold the company to Novell for 120 million.
I mean, by looking at the addresses DrDSO is at least two doors down from SCO...
DRDOS
379 South 520 West
Lindon, UT 84042
The SCO Group Corporate Headquarters
355 South 520 West
Suite 100
Lindon, UT 84042-1911
Lasers Controlled Games!
Two things... first of all, it's perfectly legal to sell the source code to GPL'ed software, just like it's legal to sell the software itself (which actually may be distributed in source code form). What you can't do is charge someone *extra* for the source code who *already* got the software from you.
In particular, this also means that you (or me, or anyone) is not automatically entitled to receiving the source code; if the source code or a written offer to send it, as well as the text of the GPL license, accompanies the product, that's enough to be in compliance with the GPL. You do not have to make the source code available to random third parties who did not receive the product from you.
Of course, once someone has the source code, they are free to put it up on their own web page for all the world to download, for example. But if noone does that, then you cannot go to the company who sells the product and demand the source code unless you have bought the product yourself.
HTH. And JBTW, IANAL, of course.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
Wrong. They distributed a binary, so they have to make source code available to any third party that asks for it. This is covered under 3.b:
If they're selling binaries but attempting to charge specifically for provision of the source, it's one of those edge cases not specifically covered in the GPL's terms.
Actually, it is dealt with. If they're not bundling the source code with the binaries they distribute, they must:
"Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than [their] cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange" -- GPL 2.0, Section 3.
So they're perfectly allowed to charge separately for the source code, but only if they offer it to anyone interested at cost.
Actually, it means you don't have any permission to distribute the code. You don't have to agree to the GPL in order to use GPL code, only if you intend to distribute it (or modifications to it) to others.
I wrote and maintain a DOS application for a publishing company. A few years back they asked me to write a small database that would work on their Windows machine. Since I had (and have) no Windows development tools, I decided to install DOSEMU on one of my Linux computers and use a DOS-based compiler that I still had laying around in my computer junk pile to write their little program.
That publishing company has grown and now has a multi-user LTSP system running, and my little DOS program has grown bit by bit and become a multi-thousand line thing that does everything from classified ads to preparation of plates for their offset presses.
It runs fine under DOSEMU and (currently) Fedora Core 4, on their machines and on mine.
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!