Slashdot Mirror
GPL Causing Problems for Derivative Linux Distros
NewsForge (Also owned by VA) is reporting on a recent discovery by Warren Woodford about how the GPL could affect derivative Linux distributions. This could make life difficult for those small distros that are being maintained by one or two people in their spare time due to the high amount of work it creates. From the article: "Woodford does supply the source code for MEPIS' reconfigured kernel in a Debian source-package. His mistake seems to have been the assumption that, so long as the source code was available somewhere, he did not have to provide it himself if he hadn't modified it. While he has not contacted any other distributions, he suspects that he is far from the only one to make this assumption. 'We, like 10,000 other people, probably, believed we were covered by the safe harbor of having an upstream distribution available online,' Woodford says. 'I think, of the 500 distributions tracked by DistroWatch, probably 450 of them are in trouble right now per this position.'"
His mistake seems to have been the assumption that, so long as the source code was available somewhere, he did not have to provide it himself if he hadn't modified it.
It's called passing on an offer to supply source code.. it's a part of the GPL. What a load of shit.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Why should the "upstream" or "bigger" distro supplier be obligated to distribute source code for YOUR particular distribution? Of course _somebody_ needs to be responsible for making the source available, otherwise the entire spirit of the GPL is unenforceable...
It makes sense to me that the person distributing the binaries should be responsible for making source code available for said binaries. That is how the license is written, and it is very straight forward. No surprise here - so what is the complaint?
Do we really want everyone and their brother shipping their own MyFirstDistro as binary only, just because the sources are individually (hopefully, for the time being) available elsewhere? Is it fair to put that burden on someone else?
I seem to recall various incidents in the past few years (a DVR maker comes to mind, though I can't remember which) where commercial products used GPL software unchanged, failed to distribute source (pointing people to the maintainer of the software), and the FSF and community raised a fuss. So I don't understand why this is suddenly such a light-bulb moment.
-- Old Man Kensey
...surprised when their guess as to what is required is not correct. Film at 11.
Wikipedia has a pretty good plain English translation of the requirements to distribute GPL software.
Think of the Children; Sleep with your Sister
The GPL only requires that one provide the source code if asked, and it is perfectly legal to send it via postal mail for a nominal fee.
I can't imagine that anyone is actually asking these small Linux distributions to provide the source code for the Linux kernel when it is available for a free download.
I think the primary concern is, what happens to a distro like MEPIS? Do they need to retain a full and publically available source repository for every package in Ubuntu? That could be an administrative and financial drain.
If an upstream distro has to keep their sources available for all revisions of all packages for three years, surely all a downstream distro has to do is refer to those sources for untainted packages? Is this good enough for the FSF, or are they just going to turn into the bully of the FOSS community?
neuro at well dot com (when I post, it's my opinions, no-one elses)
OK, these "distro makers" are downloading vast amounts of material covered by the GPL for free and then redistributing it for money or advertising. (MEPIS sticks in an Earthlink signup icon, for example.) And then they whine that they have to provide the source for the free stuff they're reselling.
Even worse, some of these distro makers want you to sign up for a "support contract". If they don't have a repository of the source, their support probably isn't worth much.
And who would be affected if these distros stopped being maintained? Nobody in their right mind is going to rely on a software project that is somebody's hobby.
This doesn't really kill one-man distros, it just means that the one man can't go through the pointless ritual of creating an ISO that nobody actually uses. So big deal. If you want to have fun by creating your very own Linux distro, nobody's stopping you. But if you want to create a distro (or any other open source project) that people will actually use, you have to learn to work with others.
Is this good enough for the FSF, or are they just going to turn into the bully of the FOSS community?
It appears to be the latter.
/* oops I accidentally made a comment, sorry */
No, just the ones they distribute. Honestly, I don't understand why this is such a big deal. I mean, you had the source when you compiled the system, right? Once you get your release squared away, you do the release build, then zip up a copy of the sources and tuck it away somewhere. If someone wants the source, then you drag it out and make it available. Note that the GPL permits you to charge reasonable fees for making the source available, so go ahead and copy the source CD and ship it off. As long as it's not in some odd-wad format, you should be fine (legally speaking).
Just junk food for thought...
What about public FTP mirrors (such as run by many universities) that distribute binary packages/CD images/...? Do they have special agreements with the projects they mirror? Otherwise I guess they have to provide the source for any version they ever distributed for a period of three years too.
I'm not an expert on this ... but
... but enforcing this is actually counter to the intent of the GPL as far as I can see.
I thought the point of the GPL was to encourage people to share and reuse code. Enforcing that EACH person who reuses code also shares it themselves is counter to this intention. The effect will be less reuse and less sharing overall. Obviously someone has to make it available, and when and upstream provider stops doing so, everyone else would have to pick up the slack.
If someone comes up to you and demands the source code rudely, you can politely tell them to fetch the code from the same place you got it from. You can send source files for anything you have changed or added.
The angry user cannot legally sue you since they do not own the rights to the source code. The chances are the original programmer won't try to sue you either. They would have nothing to gain by doing so, unless you are making tons of money from your distribution (and if so, you can afford to mirror the entire source code). As long as you are reasonable you should be fine.
Just relax, and get on with making the next version.
I'll probably be modded down for this...
Warren has made his own problems. I tried Mepis in 2004 and quite liked it. I used it for more than a year and installed it on several people's machines. However, I will not use it any more.
My reasons are several, but one of the top ones is murky licensing.
No doubt somebody from the MEPIS community will loudly declare that licensing is not a problem. If this is the case, exactly how can I get the source to build myself a MEPIS distro?
There has been considerable bad blood in the MEPIS community and former community. I am not a member of any faction. I have done my share to contribute. I simply tried to get my questions answered and MEPIS and Warren came up short. His many rants -- the one cited in the story is one of many over the last three years -- further convince me that I was right to walk away.
MEPIS is because is non-standard. Warren repeatedly warns against upgrading packages from the standard Debian repositories. There is no upgrade path from one version of MEPIS to the next. There appears to be a very weak mechanism for collecting community know-how as to how to configure the system to "just work" on a particular platform.
There is no safe harbour....
If you are re-distributiong non-commercially, without modification, upstream source is fine (which makes sense)
If you are modifying anything, including doing your own custom kernel, then you must provide source. Providing the source alongside the downloads, granting equivalent access to it, satisifes your obligation under the GPL to provide source. The day you stop offering downloads, you can stop offering the source as well.
That's a very good thing - there needs to be a lot less "small distros maintained by one or two people in their spare time". These SDMBORTPITSTs aren't helping anyone: if you want to roll your own linux for some itch you want to scratch - more power to you; but there's no need to call it a distro and pretend that you are going to maintain it for more than 2 months.
sic transit gloria mundi
And these snobbish attitudes are exactly the reason why linux has difficulty in desktop penetration and overall mindshare.
Wouldn't any license be a headache for a small distro provider?
To be fair, I think a BSD license is not a very big burden to anyone, small or big.
Write boring code, not shiny code!
Not a troll, nor flamebait - just "hacking" the 'reasonable' clause and cost in the GPL.
Hypothetical:
Say I make (ast an hourly rate of my annual salary) $50 an hour. Not unresaonable for a consultant.
I am distributing a baby distro and I do the source via DVD and postal request since I cannot afford a lot of bandwidth.
Figure it takes me 20 minutes to process the request, type up the label, grab the latest from my repository and DL the rest fromthe upstream, burn a DVD, and put it in a protective mailer package. And other 20 to go to the post office and 20 to come back (assume I'm in a rural area outside the suburbs). So thats and our of my time. Add in that this is essentially overtime in addition to my real job, so I bill it at time and a half. Thats $75 baseline in cost.
Add in the postage ($8 or whatever the USPS "Priority Mail" rate is), the mileage and gas on the car to go to the post office, the CD cost (including mileage on the car and gas and time to go buy them, plus wear and tear amortization on my CD burner), cost of the bandwidth, etc.
So all in all:
"Yes, you can have the whole source tree from my upstream and the 2K of diffs I have added - the reasonable cost for this source is $94.37 per CD"
Is that the right answer?
Every penny of it is documented and accounted for. Every bit of it is involved with the cost in materiels and time that it takes to prepare and ship the source. My software is free, my time is not. If you think otherwise, go ahead and put yourself down as a slave who will work for free at the demands of people that use the software you donated - is that the intend of the GPL, to enslave authors to the whims of the recipients of their gifts?
Again: Not a troll, nor flamebait - just "hacking" the 'reasonable cost' clause in the GPL.
Who decides what is reasonable?
Does the GPL give someone the right to dictate to the person releasing the software what they can and cannot do with their time? Think about it.
If not, then how do you overcome the situation above, where the GPL seems to imply that you have to release the whole of the code, including upstreams, not just your diffs, especially where releasing the whole of the upstream is cumbersome or onerous - and the response ($94.37 per DVD) is likewise.
Personally, I never looked at it this way before - the only thing I've released as open source (long ago) has been under the BSD license just to avoid the entanglements the GPL requires. And that only to be able to avoid warranty that Public Domain doenst expressly mention.
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo! http://goo.gl/J9bkO
google is not a replacement for communication, and it is pathetic to tell people to google instaed of at least offering a link.
Oh, and typicall reason why people shy away from Linux:
"Should you read the appropriate documentation, "
maybe the poster didn't know where the docs are? perhaps they where new and just need some friendly advice?
Man, you are a dick.
I imagine if some asks you for directions to the corner store you just tell them to fuck off and by a map.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Or that it didn't occur on the forum. Why should I prove it? This argument isn't important anyway. Assume I'm lying, that's what you want to do anyway. Wasn't trying to light a wild-fire here.
I hate grammar Nazi's.
Quoth the OP:
> "I said Ubuntu wasn't being compliant"
He seemed to know enough to sling around baseless accusations. He deserves a good "fuck off" response.
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
I said Ubuntu wasn't being compliant
This is probably why you were answered so rudely. Your demand wasn't exactly polite either.
sw5YRhw4ln3pr7$Ock1/4ma0u8Lw2Tm5l6/7DOiC5e6t4NSb6
Billable hourly rate *is* a physical cost of distribution.
My time is not free. If I had to retrieve the source to 1000 packages and burn 20 DVDs full of it, then post it to another country it's going to take me a couple of days *and* the postage is a bitch.
$100 an hour is not an unreasonable price for that. 2 days.. 16 hours, $1600, plus another $200 postage and packaging.
Don't people read and make sure they understand a license before they start distributing software under it? Just copy the source file from the original distro and post them on your FTP site. You could set up a script to do this while you sleep at night. The distro I use, BLAG, which is only a couple people seems to have no problem with being a derivative of fedora and offering the source in both individual SRPMs and ISOs.
The GPL was meant to ensure availability of source code. It was meant to empower the individual developer.
Now that GPL software has become big business, that same license is being used to chase the new, smalltime players out, by insisting that they provide expensive but meaningless mirrors of a bunch of unmodified software that's available a zillion other places.
Naw
I'm extremely mellow about people who insist on abdicating freedom through their licensing choices, but I find that the number of people willing to go through the learning curve of FOSS is sadly small.
People want arithmetic, and FOSS presents them with calculus.
Less metaphorically, they care not fig #1 about ext2 vs. Reiser4 vs. ext3 vs. LILO vs. grub...
People just want C:\ (see? colon slashed!)
People dig that stuff. And no amount of technical merit or ethical license purity will sway them.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Oh, bullshit. If you go around and act nasty and accuse people blindly of "not being compliant" because your head is too far up your ass to see what's going on around you, you should expect to be told to fuck off, and deservedly so.
There is a prominent link on their download page. So you can obtain the source code from the same place they distribute the binaries. This seems to be perfectly compliant with the GPL. Or go type "Ubuntu source code" into Google - it took me 10 seconds to find archive.ubuntu.com.
Nothing mandates coddling of morons. There will always be some self-righteous asshole who thinks the world owes him a hand-holding. To him and those like him, a resounding "fuck you". Learn to treat people with respect and basic decency, and you'll get much farther in life.
Releasing the game content under GPL isn't my concern. I'm giving that away nearly public domain anyway.
My problem is with having to host the source code for a project that I'm only really a user of. I make content for use in this program, content without which the program is useless (and a program without which my content is useless), and which, if everything were unencumbered by licences, would rightly be bundled together with a copy of the program. How many commercial or even freeware games do you find that require you to first get a separate game engine from somewhere else? Not many; since game and content are useless without each other, they're pretty much always bundled. But the GPL puts an annoying burden on people who aren't developing software at all but want to include the needed software with their projects.
For a hobbyist like me, that could be quite annoying. I suppose I could host a copy of the source on my site, but then, I want to put the file up on the common Marathon-mod sites or other such sites too. Do I have to put copies of the application source on those sites as well? What if they don't have a category for "game engine source"? Then it's back to bundling the source files with the game, which is (as per my analogy) like handing instructions on the chemical composition of the plastic bottles I'm using to everyone I serve my fruit punch too. It's a hassle to me and the people I want to give things to. I'm not making any modifications to the code at all, I haven't even downloaded it, I just downloaded binaries so I could run the content I made. The original project is still there, with the code and the binaries where I got them from. It seems like in a case like this there should be some leeway for these such uses, and it's a problem with the GPL that there isn't.
And further, even if I were just to include a note with the project saying "I will post you a copy of the source on CD if you want it", how stringent must I be over here about making absolutely sure that I've got the source still backed up somewhere? If my HD dies and I don't have backups (which it almost did just recently... starting to keep some backups now), must I then stop all distribution of the project everywhere that it's online? Or since I've already put it up on a bunch of other people's websites (with this note), is that then in their hands? What if I could access the site through some web interface and remove the files, must I then do that? And if not, must I contact the site owners and tell THEM to stop distribution? Could they even have distributed it in the first place without first taking me up on my offer to send them a copy of the source? So I couldn't even upload it to such sites unless it was included in the same package, or the site agreed to host a copy of it themselves?
Wasn't the whole point of the GPL supposed to be freedom? This seems awfully restrictive to me.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
It's a bit odd to tell someone to google something that's available via apt-get. The Ubuntu kernel source package comes up clearly using synaptic and searching for "kernel" - and I should know, as it was the first package I installed when I put Ubuntu on my laptop (my laptop's ACPI needs a kernel patch for things to work correctly). The only thing remotely confusing was that the Ubuntu kernel
Anyway, if the OP was really treated as he says, then yes, the attitude is a problem - but considering the default reponse on any Debian-related forum is "apt-get", I suspect that that he either asked in completely the wrong place, or is mis-recalling the instructions given.
Obviously you play it by ear.
Theres no point in wasting your upstream bandwidth uploading the entire source tree to every release of your software to the FTP when noone is requesting it.
Its much more sensible to upload your modifications and inform people where the corporate supported base code resides.
If needs change and people start having trouble obtaining the base code or begin requesting the merged source of every release then you change tact, get some more webspace/bandwidth and start uploading everything (by this time, the number of visitors and users will be so much higher that you should have a business model in place to absorb hosting costs, even if it is donation driven)
liqbase
It's especially galling to be told to read the documentation when, in a lot of cases, the documentation sucks. I've been looking for documentation for cpufreq/cpufreqd for ages in hopes of extending my battery life under Linux, and I can't find jack shit. But I ask anywhere, and it's always "read the docs!" What docs?