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GPLv3 - A Primer on Open Warfare in Open Source
savio13 writes "A BusinessWeek article about the GPLv3 starts to shed some light on where things are, and what the hold up is in getting the newest version out. They discuss the Stallman vs. Torvalds conflict, issues with DRM, the goal of 'one-stop licensing', and the ever-more-likely possibility that the newest version of the GPL just isn't relevant." From the article: "The impetus to make a profit (and its associated compromises) isn't sitting well with true believers in free software. And the resulting rifts were apparent at last week's LinuxWorld conference in San Francisco. On one side is Richard Stallman and his Free Software Foundation. When Stallman says "free" he doesn't mean price, he means freedom. He believes all software should be freely available to be modified by the public. And for him, this is nothing short of a moral fight. On the other is Linus Torvalds, the father of Linux. He and others in his open-source camp believe that freely sharing code simply produces the best software, but if other people want to hide their code, that's fine, too. Companies will just vote with their feet."
While it's pretty early in the process still, it seems a bit unfair to characterise it as "Stallman vs. Torvalds". IIRC, Newsforge tried to contact others who were unhappy with the licence and couldn't find any - the only criticism has been offered by HP saying that the changes on patents still weren't enough for them or something, but that they were happy with the process.
It sounds like a mountain of a story being made out of a molehill of comments.
"Elmo knows where you live!" - The Simpsons
After Slashdot and the Washington Post did an article on our 911 running Linux. I got an email from Richard. correcting me by telling me I should have called it GNU Linux. I emailed him back and said If Linus wrote it and he calls it Linux, thats good enough for me.
Sherm
The only people really bickering over the GPLv3 are people like RMS or Eric Raymond, and various journalists. They are people who may have done some development in the past, but today do little but advocate and talk.
Most of the developers, the people who actually develop the open source software we use on a daily basis, have considered the situation and made a decision. Instead of dealing with the GPLv3, they realize that they can get just as much freedom and benefit by switching to another license. Some will just stick with the GPLv2. Many have wisely chosen to go the BSD or MIT license route. Many have actually gone the BSD or MIT route after seeing how it opens up their project for commercial development, which is often hampered by the GPL.
After all, it doesn't matter what some open source pundits have to say. For the vast majority of the software out there, they don't hold the copyright on it. And thus they have litle to no say in how it is licensed. The developers, who do get to make such decisions, have already chosen. And at this point, their choice generally hasn't been the GPLv3.
GPL 3 stories keep getting posted on /. so at least someone finds it relevant.
If Torvalds chooses not to go with version 3 for Linux, the Free Software Foundation will become even more irrelevant to the business world of open source.
So does that mean we call it Linux/GNU then?
You really can't/shouldn't make software/licenes a moral warfare or a means for social reform. When you start using it for such a purpose it will only hurt yourself. People want the freedom to decide how their long and hard hours of work should be distributed. In some cases GPL v2 works fine, other cases the BSD license work. For other cases a closed source license works. They all have their advantages vs. disatavantages that work for and against their needs. GPL 3 is basicly a way to make the midless Stallman followers to be more zealot about the things Stallman disaproves of. People who actually can think for themselves will/should read the licenes and choose the ones they like the best or write their own if there is to manything they really don't want to use. The reasons for GPL is a fairly standard open source license that programmers can use and not have to worry about writting up. But if they make it so Stallman then they just can't use it. There is users freedomes and developers freedom, as a developer I want the freedome to do what I want with my code and decide who should do what with it. If I choose that GNU is good then I will use it, if not then I want an other choice. Stallman is moving CopyLeft to CopyFarLeft.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I think that the reason the GPL has been so popular is because it served the needs of the developers that used it. I think that everyone involved in the GPLv3 process is going to recognize that they need to put the needs of the community first, and in the end -- everyone is going to be mostly happy.
:)
Or nobody will use it.
Obliterate advertising!
While there is nothing wrong with being idealic and passionate about the things you believe in it is very important to keep an open mind and make sure you're not driving things into extreme world of total unrealism. And that is exactly what is happening here in my opinion.
While the ideal to have a "free" world filled with people who share their work no matter the cost may sound very appealing, so does the world of Utopia or paradise. In the real world this isn't going to happen, not in the amounts these people are talking about. And why should we try to force this freedom onto people and as such deny them their right to do what they want to do? What is this all about anyway, the good of the IT world or the fame and glory of the people trying to push this shiney freedom onto us, no matter how we may feel about it?
Fact remains that there are still people making money from selling software. Just like there are now also many people and companies who see the advantages of giving their software away and by doing so seeing their userbase expand ten/hundred/thousand -fold. Who are we to tell them what to do when they wish to use our software? Isn't that exactly what started all this; the imense EULA's and the likes where you basicly hand over everything and right but the kitchen sink to the publisher? Now I sorta see the same thing happening, but in the other sense of the word.
If it wasn't for fanatism like this then several "non-free" programs would have made it into the several Linux distributions by long now, thus increasing the functionality of the whole product tenfold. And even now, when many people download these programs first thing after installing a Linux distribution do we still have people around who whine "No, we can't distribute that with the distribution because it would be tainted". As asked before; what is this about anyway? To share the enjoyment and pleasure one could have with running and using a Linux distribution or to promote / enforce ones own personal idealism onto other people no matter what?
Issues like these really show IMO that while Linux is a very nice environment the whole steering and administration around it is still very fragile.
Here's the newsforge story ("Torvalds' comments on GPLv3 committees refuted").
I blogged about this and added more info about the committees.
One last think I want to point at is a side-by-side diff with the changes highlighted from draft 1 to draft 2 so everyone can see the responses to the public process that the committees talk about in the Newsforge article.
Please help publicise swpat.org - the software patents wiki
You know, every kind of failing media format (like the restricitve-un-web-2.0-ish slashdot moderation system) use FUD to desperately force peoples attention on them these days.
The GPL3 is great for all people who want to use it. The rest is free to remove the "following versions" passus from the GPL2 License in their project.
There, that was easy. Next.
Good point here - What people outside the open source community seem to have failed to grasp is that Linux won't be GPL3 ever, no matter what Linus Torvalds thinks about it. The project has never asked any contributor to sign over their contributions to the project as a whole, and most of that code is specifically GPL2, not "GPL2 or later." So to change the license, the project would need to contact each and every contributor and get individual approval for the license change or cut out all code from people unwilling to change it, or that just couldn't be found to be contacted again. This is a Herculean task and something as trivial as this license development is just not important enough. GPL2 already works well, and absent a legal disaster (highly unlikely), there's just no incentive strong enough to change it. So in a very real sense, Linus Torvalds is probably the one major project leader in the community who's views have the least impact on the further development of GPL.
See my last JE.
Wikileaks, no DNS
I don't really understand what is the exact problem with GPL 3. If free software means one must be free to alter the software he runs, it was implied that one must be able to alter the software he runs and be able to test it. Unfortunately it was not directly said in GPL 2 and companies were using this fact as a tool to deny others to modify the code and use it. Now it will said in GPL 3.
I mean, it is like, you are free to say whatever you want but no voice should come out. Of course it should! That is what is meant with freedom!
And those who say it just brings out good code, well, for me, freedom is not about being good or bad, but being free. The whole GPL was based on the free-software philosophy. If you didn't like the philosophy, you didn't need to adhere to GPL in the first place. If you did, nothing is being changed!
Btw, nowadays(tm) even Linus is not adding much to the kernel but is more into maintaining it. And the real concern of Linus is that companies contributing to Kernel may panic and stop doing so. What is this RMS vs. Linus?
I hate to do it, but I have to agree with Stallman on the one actual point of disagreement mentioned in TFA. That is, if a hardware manufacturer releases source for a software product which drives their hardware but the hardware won't actually run modified versions, that's not really "open source" (and certainly not "free software"). That's "look but don't touch".
I have always thought that the prinicpal practical reason for the GPL (aside from the philosophical reasons of freedom) is that without the safeguards of having to release modified code, a company can use the vast library of GPL software to short-cut their development process and then make profits without having to financially recognise the contribution from the legions of people who have contributed. Like patents and copyright, the GPL is a bargain between contributors in addition to those provided by usual copyright protection - sure you can use this code, but contribute the results back into the pool, if you don't like it fine but develop your own.
This is why the Tivoisation problem is so difficult, in principal you have the software but you would also require to build new hardware for it run on - the new GPL is an attempt to deal with this but is in my opinion slightly misguided as GPL deals with software abstractions and it would be very difficult to make restrictions restriction on the hardware that abstraction executes on. Hardware is covered by different legislation anyway and no software developer can insist that the designs for the hardware are also released. However, the flipside is that Tivo other projects have gained enormously from the use of GNU/Linux code and should have an obligation back to the contibutors for that commercial advantage.
And here is way - if it was true than Microsft and Apple should be calling their software "BSD/Windows" and "BSD/OSX", since they both have lots of BSD software in them.
The userland != the OS. The OS *is the kernel*. The rest is just tools on top. I could install the BSD userland on the Linux kernel, and it would still be Linux. "GNU/Linux" is just RMS ego-stoking - you don't *have* to use the GNU utilities with the Linux kernel.
The article argues that copyleft (not free software) is anti-business. This is clearly not true because the copylefted free Unix-like operating system (GNU/Linux) has far more business contributions and business models base on it than the non-copylefted free Unix-like operating systems (the free BSDs).
So companies have voted with their feet and have sent a clear message that they will work with copylefted free software.
The GNU GPL requires that everyone play fair. Many companies will look for ways to be the only person who is exempt from the rules, but free software will not gain acceptance by ditching copyleft and pandering to a few new best friends.
Please help publicise swpat.org - the software patents wiki
...why rms thinks it's okay for him to dictate to me, one of the users he so fervently believes needs to be "free," what I can and cannot do--with software I have written and worked on. I could insert a comment here about academia being entirely out of touch with reality, but that'd just be poor sporting.
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
The impetus to make a profit (and its associated compromises) isn't sitting well with true believers in free software.
I think most free software advocates take great pains to state they aren't anti-profit. They're against profit gained from activities they see as immoral.
It sometimes seems like this is the same position, but it's not. Any position of morality has this effect whether it is being against slavery or child exploitation. Accepting any moral rule is bound to render some profitable activities immoral. What muddies the water is when you have a lot at stake. It's hard to reason objectively if you see great harm or great benefits from one course of action vs. another.
You end up weighing one set of envisioned benefits and harms vs. another. This is where moral reasoning gets tricky becuase you are no longer in the world of pure ideas, but dealing with predictions and probabilities.
DRM is a perfect example. Much depends on what you project the impact of widely adopted DRM to be. Human reasoning being what it is, when we are for something we see the benefits clearly and have trouble perceiving the downsides; when we are against it the opposite holds. DRM advocates believe that artists can only surivive economically with DRM; opponents think artists will find a way to survive. Opponents think DRM will be the end of intellectual freedom; proponents think that people will find a way to express themselves.
There is a third philosophical position, which is agnostic but somewhat libertarian:whether or not you are for DRM, if people want to link DRM modules into your code it's none of your business. Yet, I think, that people in this position might have trouble defending it if they truly believed the end of intellectual freedom would result.
Finally there are the radical positions: DRM is wrong whether it is good for society or not. OR: protection of indvidual intellectual property is paramount no matter what the cost to society. By in large people who take the radical positions will also claim that pragmatism backs them up. However, I think this actually makes them less convincing. The only reason to trot out practical consequences is if your hearer doesn't agree with your fundamental position.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
at least an unpassionate yet accurate comment on the issue. cheers. you framed the problem in 12 sentences, that should desserve an award.
Please read...
http://gplv3.fsf.org/gpl-draft-2006-07-27.html
Deleted
The article implies that Linus could kill the GPL3 by not using it for Linux. But most of the software in a (GNU/)Linux distro isn't part of the kernel and thusly will be GPL2 or 3 no matter what Linus says. And let's remember that Linus doesn't have copyright on the whole kernel, far from it in fact.
So GNU/Linux will be GPL for ever, with the only debate being over the timing of the gradual change from v2 to v3.
If Linus did try to start a new project from scratch with another license, then it'd make sense to (I never thought I'd say this!) start using the HURD.
*ducks*
It's not like the spirit of the license is changing, the wording is just being articulated better to avoid DRM checksum type loopholes. Yes, there are various licenses, and you should carefully decide which one you want to use, be it BSD, GPL or just plain old public domain. However, if you disagree so strongly with GPL on principle of it being too far to the left politically, you have to realise that open source software such as the Linux kernal wouldn't even have the rest of an operating system to interface with were it not for free software such as GNU.
From the summary...
What Stallman says is that free access to information is a fundamental value that is more important than business models that may be standing in its way. Thus, in order to achieve free access to information, new business models may need to be developed. And this is exactly what's happening. There are many successful companies that don't hide their source, take Novell for an example. Take IBM's growing engagement with open source, their gradual transformation into a service-oriented company. And it's much more widespread among small businesses than among the big players who take long to adapt to a paradigm shift.
This is of course rubbish. To use the GPL version 3 is simply a statement that you do not wish your work to be close-sourced by stealth. To insist that everyone use GPL v3 may be zealotry, but to use it yourself is not. To suggest that only mindless zombies would use the GPL version 3 is zealotry on your own behalf.
As for GPL version 2 being popular, well, why not let the market sort it out? The GPL version 3 may well prove itself in due course.
How is wanting people to respect the terms of your licence 'far left' in any case?
Wikileaks, no DNS
The GPL means that the "collective" end user will get the most freedom. Yes, the "first" end user is limited that if he resells it, he needs to give his end user the same rights, and the same limitations. Compare that to the BSD license, the "first" end user gets it, resells it and his first end user has nothing? Yea, that's what viral means. But, I think its something more important. The GPL gives more rights to the users. BSD license gives more rights to developers. That's just the first iteration, GPL stays "free", longer. taking the GPL, give the user's rights philosopy, it's easy to tell why DRM CANNOT be allowed.
What does it say about a society whose journalists shamelessly portray civil discourse about software licensing as "open war?" I find that headline insulting and disgusting - insulting because it assumes readers are stupid enough to be excited by such excessive hyperbole, and disgusted that in a great age of communication, people still pay attention to "journalists" who would stoop so low.
...eliminates much of your freedom.
Stallman "should" realize this.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
and let users decide what one they want, sounds like the most democratic way of dealing with this...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Open Warfare in Open Source, oh yeah? And every time Apple sues Microsoft, or like it, there is open warfare in the proprietary software world?
Don't think this affects most free software users. We are used to Linus and Richard having different opinions.
I see they still haven't removed the onerous "give up your private key" section. Until Linus's concerns about being forced to give up private keys are addressed, the GPLv3 is a non-starter.
In any case, I'm beginning to greatly prefer the Apache 2.0 License to the GPL. Much simpler and, ironically, providers more freedom than the GPL.
While free software purists debate things like binary-only drivers, the rest of the world moves on with more important issues. Do you want hardware support, huh? Do you want companies to actually build products on open source software stacks? Then stop begrudging them the right to choose what works for them, so long as it is in compliance with the basic requirements. Stop doing this little totalitarian inquisition of whether a company is a "good corporate citizen" based on whether or not they "do enough." I almost can't believe that people actually debate whether or not Google should have to open up its code because of the "spirit of the GPL."
This sort of moral grandstanding pisses me off. It accomplishes nothing other than to serve as a sort of self-esteem booster for rigid ideologues for when they inevitably fail to adapt to reality. It's mental masturbation that has all of the pleasantries of a clusterbomb going off on a playground because of how many people it denies a future to. You want freedom? Learn to live in *gasp* a pluralistic society. That means that some people might not like Open Source Uber Alles.
If you can read this, thank a teacher
If you are reading it in English, thank a soldier
If you use GNU/Linux, thank RMS
If you can run your OSS program sans a compiler, then you could thank Linus.
The point is that like the soldier, RMS made it possible for Linus to excel with his Kernel.
It could also be argued that Hurd wasn't getting the job done and Linus did.
But in the final analysis you need to consider which came first - no GNU tools, no nice OS to use - the kernel is just a file system, a very useful one, true, but only when combined with the free things RMS had spent years fighting for..
One should never forget, or undervalue the soldier - even when it 'seems' his time has passed... because it never really does.
And yes you can just put me down as a FSF fanboy... I'm rather proud of it.
If Linus wrote it and he calls it Linux, thats good enough for me.
Um, are you joking? Yes, Richard Stallman can go on a bit about calling it GNU/Linux, but it's precisely to get people to realise that the operating system as a whole wasn't just written by one person.
GPL 3 is basicly a way to make the midless Stallman followers to be more zealot about the things Stallman disaproves of.
but fails to tell us any of the "minless" "zealot" goals. Seeing as you can think for yourself, jello man, why don't you tell us why you object to GPL 3.0, besides it's association with RMS. I suggest you start with tivo and GPL 2 intentions. When you get around to explaining how Tivo eliminates the freedom indended by the GPL and all of the authors who contributed code, you might then tell us how "people who can think for themselves" and chose GPL should prevent DRM abuse of their work.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
My objections about DRM are fairly mild. I understand the concern from companies like Tivo (but this is irrelevant-- nothing stops anyone from making a Tivo clone and not including the DRM. You just can't use their hardware). In the end, I think the GPL v2 actually encouraged freedom on a structural level in a way that the GPL v3 does not. The real concern is not about Tivo. It is about large media companies requiring DRM in such a way that free software as we know it ceases to exist. So on the whole, while I think the cause could be better managed, I am for it.
But the idea that software which interacts with a user over a network might need to allow the user the right to download that source code in the same session seems to me to be seriously problematic and brittle. There are no clear definitions of "modified version of the program" or "interact with a user." And even if there were, this is stretching the definition of freedom to the point where I think it breaks. There is no existential threat (as from DRM) which justifies this sort of response. Instead this clause *is* itself an existential threat.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
That's a mis-characterization of Richard Stallman's viewpoint. He doesn't believe that all software source code should be available to the public. Rather, he believes that all source code should be available to the end user. There is an important difference.
'Free' software is not about creating a gigantic repository of source code. It's about each user having the freedom to modify the computer software they are using. A group of users can keep a piece of software (and associated source code) hidden from the public quite easily. The point RMS is trying to make is that it is inneficient, artificial and even immoral to restrict the user of software from viewing/modifying the internals of said software.
Of course when software is intended for public consumption, then under the FSF ideal the source code will be available to the public (and indeed we end up with repositories like sourceforge). But to comply with the GPL you don't need to post your code on a public server: you need only make it available to the users.
He believes all software should be freely available to be modified by the public. And for him, this is nothing short of a moral fight.
Producing a license that requires this will not make people use it. In fact, it will just make those who disagree with you avoid it, and make/use stuff under the old licenses.
Allowing people to make their own choices ensures that both varieties of software will exist, and the market is then free to decide its degree of preference for each.
Don't try to save the world, just give it the tools it needs to save itself.
I remember when SFU shipped with the option of installing a large number of GNU tools (thus setting up a GNU environment on Windows). Does this mean that when SFU is installed in such a configuration we ought to call it GNU/Windows?
I don't mind Stallman simply siggesting that some credit is due to th GNU project. But the idea that the GNU project can adopt the Linux kernel and then try to require that everyone refers to the agregate as GNU/Linux when other GNU environments exist without such requests (GNU on Solaris, GNU on BSD, GNU on Windows, GNU on OSX). RMS wants to say this with Linux because the GNU project decided to use the Linux kernel as the official GNU kernel (until at least HURD is released at which point, I suppose, pigs will fly).
So I think that RMS can say what we wants but that doesn't make his viewpoint entirely fair.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Like with MIT or BSD licenses?
I don't get Linus. I don't like GPL, but as many people do like it and use it, I think there's a use for it and it's ok (that's freedom too). But Linus stated repeatedly to have picked GPL not because for "free" software, but for business reasons, so other businesses would contribute without worrying of competitors running away with the work and closing it. It is called as one of the reaons Linux is so succesful. For many, this is the sole purpose of picking GPL, not because they are hippies, but a practical choise not to be boycotted by potentially contributing companies (quite anti-hippy). So what made him change his mind and why didn't he choose MIT or BSD to begin with? These are -the- licenses if you don't mind others hiding code, exporting it to Mars, or yell it verse-like from towerlike structures towards the east, even for profit.
What you describe is merely the decades-old "what is software freedom?" question.
Many of us have come to the conclusion that what is needed is freedom for everyone: you can modify and redistributed the sources at will, but you can also close the source to your fork. This is the stance taken by the BSD and MIT licences, for instance. Supporters of the GPL will often suggest that this limits freedom, and further suggest that it should never be possible to close the source code to a piece of software.
Actually, the supporters of the GPL are wrong, and are the ones limiting freedom. One still has the ability to modify and redistribute the code from before the closed-source fork when it comes to BSD- or MIT-licenced software.
Let's do a tally:
BSD or MIT/X11 license:
freedom to modify: +1
freedom to distribute: +1
freedom to close source: +1
freedom to modify pre-fork code after source closing: +1
freedom to distribute pre-fork code after source closing: +1
freedom to commercialize with opened source: +1
freedom to commercialize with closed source: +1
Total: 7 freedom points
GPL:
freedom to modify: +1
freedom to distribute: +1
freedom to close source: 0
freedom to modify pre-fork code after source closing: 0
freedom to distribute pre-fork code after source closing: 0
freedom to commercialize with opened source: +1
freedom to commercialize with closed source: 0
Total: 3 freedom points
If maximizing freedom of everyone is the goal, then the GPL clearly is inferior to the BSD or MIT/X11 licences.
When it comes the GPL3, it appears that we are witnessing further restrictions being put in place. Frankly, there are enough questions and uncertainties when it comes to applying the GPL and LGPL, and they have been out for a decade (if not more). People will start moving towards the BSD licence, for instance, when they want simplicity and the ability just to focus on getting their work out there. They just won't want to deal with the hassle of the GPL3.
What you describe is my understanding of what Microsoft's 'shared source'
licenses allowed. You could look at the code, but you could already do
anything with it all. Just about everybody in the 'open source' community
saw that type of license as a non-starter. With DRM in the hardware, we would
be in exactly the same situation; but for some reason this time it's okay...
Apple refers to the Mac OS X kernel as XNU. "Mac OS X" is generic enough that it encompasses the userland and kernel all at the same time.
All editorial writers ever do is come down from the hill after the battle is over and shoot the wounded.
On the other is Linus Torvalds, the father of Linux. He and others in his open-source camp believe that freely sharing code simply produces the best software, but if other people want to hide their code, that's fine, too."
If that's truly Linus's opinion, then Linus should have picked the BSD license for his kernel, not GPLv2.
In any case, look at the relative success of the BSD and Linux kernels. The BSD kernel was much further advanced when Linux first came out, yet the Linux kernel is much more popular. At the very least, its GPLv2 license doesn't seem to have been in the way.
And, frankly, personally I really don't care about Linus's opinion anyway; the only part Linus provides for the "Linux" operating system is the kernel. If the Linux kernel project fell apart for whatever reason, the impact on Ubuntu, RedHat, Fedora, SuSE, etc. would be small since the Linux kernel would be replaced fairly quickly.
Doesn't the GPL then also say that the end-user can freely redistribute the source and binaries? Doesn't that in effect make the source available to the public?
There are licenses which give the source code to the end-user, but don't allow for redistribution. Are these acceptable as "free" by Stallman?
> You really can't/shouldn't make software/licenes a moral warfare or a means for social reform.
So what do you think the proprietary vendors, RIAA, MPAA and their ilk are doing? Remember what the point of copyright was and what these organisations are attempting to do with it now.
The two biggest sticking points are patents and digital rights management. HP's objection is a part of the license that says anything touched by GPL code becomes open source. In other words, if a company bundles its hardware with open-source software and ships it to customers, it surrenders rights to enforce patents.
The author of the article has confused a lot of old FUD with the issues dug up by Tivo. Patens and DRM are the focus of GPL 3 because they undermine the intentions of the GPL. The enemies of free software have bought a lot of bad legislation and piles of bogus patents. That's why a change in the GPL is happening. Let's keep looking.
When Stallman says "free" he doesn't mean price, he means freedom. He believes all software should be freely available to be modified by the public. And for him, this is nothing short of a moral fight. On the other is Linus Torvalds, the father of Linux. He and others in his open-source camp believe that freely sharing code simply produces the best software
It's amazing how the copyright warriors can be so heavy about author intentions and control of work on one hand and then so completely misrepresent this issue on the other. The issue that GPL 3 is trying to fix is best represented by Tivo. Tivo runs GPL'd software and the makers have enjoyed great quality and savings by doing that. The problem is that they have managed to completely thwart all of the GPL's and the software author's intentions with DRM. Tivo will give you a copy of the source code for their device. You can compile it but you can't run it because Tivo locked the hardware with software keys. It won't run your changes. This might not seem like a big deal to people who are used to non free video boxes, until they realize that the Tivo is not very different from any other computer. Without GPL 3, non free software companies can freely use the entire GPL codebase but lock out their users worse than Bill Gates ever imagined. This is an issue that the copyright warriors can't win if they pretend any respect for the author.
I suppose that's why the specter of "big business" is brought up. IBM, Chrysler and others can tell you there's nothing anti-business about the present GPL. They are making and saving tons of money without stepping on their users or the authors of the software they use. When you drop user rights and author rights all you are left with to argue is "non free is better for business" which is something few people will believe.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I love how you spin that, "they cannot force me to give up my *private keys*!!"
Let's look at it the other way. Should people be able to put restrictions on the users of free software, which effectively prevents them from taking advantage of the rights that the license gives them?
If you like the Apache 2.0, that's cool. If you like the GPL 2.0, that's also cool. What's uncool is taking software someone else wrote under something like the GPL v3, and removing the rights that the author has provided to end-users. That's like someone taking software under Apache 2.0, but not giving the end-users the patent grant, so that they are unable to defend themselves to patent claims.
"Elmo knows where you live!" - The Simpsons
I think BW underestimates the relevance of the FSF. Yes, Linux uses GPLv2 only. Yes Mozilla uses their own license. But if you look at the basic toolchain that Linux, Mozilla and the like use, the majority of that infrastructure's copyright rests with... the Free Software Foundation. Use GCC to compile? Depend on Bash, flex, bison? They'll be moving to GPLv3. Even something as basic as grep, chances are if you're on a Linux system you use the FSF's version of it.
It's also going to depend on developers, not companies (unless those companies are also the developers and copyright holders on the programs). I'd note that one of the tipping points for the GPL was when people started to find GPL'd software in commercial products which the code owners themselves were locked out of by lack of source code. I think the same pattern will repeat, with the GPLv3 being RMS-only for a bit and then it'll pick up steam when a few high-profile developers want to modify a neat device and find they're locked out of modifying their own code by DRM.
That said, it's unlikely the Linux kernel will ever move to GPLv3 regardless of what Linus thinks simply because of the infeasability of contacting every copyright holder. It's been mentioned as a protection: there's so many copyright holders no company (say, Microsoft) could get authorization from all of them to put their release of the Linux kernel under a more restrictive license. The same thing applies to any contemplated change to GPLv3.
No, sir. I am from the present-day, where serious developers need to take into account licensing. If we don't consider our options now, we will run into problems tomorrow.
All developers and project leaders/maintainers have, I would hope, read the GPLv3 drafts. We should have a pretty good idea about what it will contain, and how it will affect us. The final product does not matter much at this point. What does matter, however, is the direction in which the license is going. And it is a direction that many of us dislike.
We have real-world concerns. We are trying to use open source software in production environments. Put simply, we can't deal with ambiguous, overly-complex licenses for our open source projects. We're much more inclined to release our code under the BSD or MIT licenses just because we can understand them without having to get a complete legal background. And it gives us (and others) the additional freedom to profit from our work, should we choose to do so.
Of course the GPLv3 isn't finalized yet. But we can't sit back and do nothing at the point. We need to analyze what they have presented so far, and see if it fits in with what we need. If it does not, we may need to discard it. If it does, we can go ahead and use it once it's done. But from everything we have seen so far, the GPLv3 will be a massive disaster. Those of us who see it coming have decided to move to alternative licenses.
One of the problems that we are having with creating GPL3 is that a license is not a very effective way to solve the DRM and software patent problems. DRM and software patents are embedded in the law. When there is a conflict between the law and a license then the law takes precedence. So GPL3 does not have much maneuvering room to solve the problems that DRM and software patents cause Open Source.
I agree with Richard Stallman's efforts to put clauses in GPL3 to alleviate the DRM and software patent problems. However, I don't have much hope that these clauses will be very effective.
I think that a much more effective course of action is to try to change the laws on DRM and software patents. I think that we should lobby governments all over the world to abolish software patents. In the case of DRM I think that the DRM copyright protection should be legal but that the DRM laws should not contain clauses making it illegal to create software or hardware which can copy DRM protected material. The act of copying copyrighted material should be illegal but the act of creating a copying machine should be legal.
-----------------------
Steve Stites
The only thing I can find about keys simply states that you have to give up whatever keys are needed to install modified versions of the software.
Torvalds may feel it's a terrible infringement of TiVo's freedom not to be able to lock their hardware to specific, TiVo signed, versions of the kernel he co-develops with thousands of free software developers, but personally I remain puzzled. Arguments like "But someone might make something that only runs copies of software signed by Linus" do not make a lot of sense. If Torvalds is doing it, he needs to knock it off. If someone else does it, then they're going to have problems distributing Linux to end users anyway, as they - not Torvalds - will be in breach of the license by not making the key available. The easiest way to stay compliant is make hardware where the requirement for a key is easily enabled and disabled by the end user. Which is how it should work anyway, whether it's free software or anything else.
These changes strike me as well within the spirit of what the GPL is trying to achieve. They ensure maximum freedom for the receiver of the software. They do not grant "freedom" to restrict the freedom of others. If you object to it, the chances are you disagree with the principles that the GPL stands for anyway, and there are certainly alternative licenses, the BSD and X11 licenses being the most obvious, that will get you where you want to be.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
There is nothing more liberating than being able to tell someone else No.
ARRRGHGHGHGHGHH!! If I read this once more I'll puke. Why doesn't the FSF rename itself to the Freedom Software Foundation and stop explaining it over and over and over and over and over and over...
I can explanate how to administrate your network. You must configurate and segmentate it, so it can computate.
The OS *is the kernel*.
If you look at the documentation of the UNIX operating system and the POSIX standard, the kernel interface is only a small part of it.
"GNU/Linux" is just RMS ego-stoking - you don't *have* to use the GNU utilities with the Linux kernel.
What matters in practice is why people use "Linux", and I can tell you: it's not for the kernel. If, for some reason, the Linux kernel stopped being available tomorrow, all the "Linux" distributions would switch to the BSD, Darwin, or Solaris kernel and the impact would be negligible.
And, if my experience is any indication, the reason people picked Linux over BSD is the userland (and maybe the license): until a few years ago, the BSD kernel was better than the Linux kernel, but the BSD userland has always sucked compared to the GNU userland.
...that yes, some businesses can make a profit via a service based business model. But they are generally LARGE businesses, where the infrastructure can support it load.
...they often don't have the training; the time; or the inclination, all they want is for what they have to work, and to do what they need it to do.
...rather than a 'code grab' of base code. And often the future enhancements are the more valuable. That's what is so inexplicable to most of us... ...why it's 'bad' for follow ons to 'grab code'; but good to do so 'upfront'; so to speak. The 'rights' to determine code usage should belong to the writer of each code segment; not just the original contributor. I see no particular problem in being able to have the end user obtain, for example, the base Linux from some source as GPL; and yet be able to 'sell' - with or without support, source, further distribution rights, or whatever - at my choice and that of the end user (by buying or not) enhancements that can be added (via modules, source updates, or whatever) after that base is installed.
A small business (think one or two software developers with a good idea who write a great product) may not be able to do this. They could make money SELLING the product (with limited or no support - which is where open source helps) but don't have the wherewithal to actually concentrate on SUPPORT as their money maker. The GPL discriminates against such a scenario.
And MOST users could, as many folks have noted over and over, care less about modifying the software they've obtained...
The GPL just isn't useful in that scenario.
But I don't see that as a 'problem'; per se. All one needs is a license that allows the user, or someone hired to do so, modify the code *IF THEY WANT TO*.
The objectionable part of the GPL isn't the specification of freedom to modify, or even the requirement to distribute source if you distribute changes, it's the requirement that *IF* you modify and then distribute (sell) a product, then YOUR CHANGES (not just the code that they were based on) are automatically included as GPL as well. THAT's why some folks call it 'viral'. Most OTHER licenses only address the original starting code; and, while they apply to whatever remains of that code in the resultant 'work'; they don't apply to the modifications - the developer/programmer of that modification can decide on their own (in perfect freedom) how they want to license the modifications...
So in essence, the GPL is a 'code grab' in reverse of all future enhancements...
THAT's why some of us disapprove of the GPL - it actually removes some freedoms, while appropriating others to itself that really should belong to individual contributors.
I'm definitely no lawyer, and I sometimes have a hard time following all of the crazy language used in licenses, so please bear with me. I'm looking for correction here.. :)
As I understand it, the GPL in it's current form (v2) allows for modifications to the existing code if, and only if, that code is then posted with the same license. Correct? However, if you're using it for yourself, then there's no need to post the source unless you want to. You are limited, however, in that you cannot re-distribute it without the source.
Oh, that's all well and good. I have no major problems with that. Let's move ahead a little. Can I use a GPLed library as a dependency for my closed-source program? For instance, let's say that I write a new compression program. Instead of re-inventing the wheel, I use a gpl gui toolkit to create the front end. I have not modified the source of the toolkit at all, just used it to create my front end. Do I need to distribute the source code for everything then? I don't think this is a derivative work of the toolkit as I'm not modifying the toolkit in any way. And the compression code was created from scratch by me. So am I free to sell binaries?
How about another example. If MS actually ports Office over to Linux, do they need to open source it? Don't they need to depend on certain libraries to make everything work, or re-invent the wheel just to avoid OSS licensing?
How does v3 deal with this? Are any of these "liberties" changed? I'd love to see a concise list of things you can and cannot do using the GPLv2 and GPLv3 licenses...
XenoPhage
Technological Musings
When a any group tries to build a big and professional project for thier first release, it almost always fails. The thing to do is build a minimal functional version and then go from there. The name HURD says it all. (A Hurd of UNIX Replacement Daemons)
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
The issue in my view is different. This is not about Tivo-- they just happen to be in the crossfire.
The GPL v2 ensures that anyone else can build a more Free version of the Tivo-- one that would still appeal to the Tivo user base and still provide those who like to hack the box an ability to do so. Thus the GPL v2 makes Tivo's choice simply bad for business.
Quite frankly I don't think anyone cares what Tivo does on this matter. That is right-- nobody really cares because anyone can go out and install Tivo's kernel on other hardware platforms even if you can't use their hardware.
The real problem though is in the fear that large media companies will force users to stick with approved version on approved hardware. This is, I believe, an existential threat to open source.
I still don't like the GPL v3 for other reasons (the ability to add certain other restrictions such as source distribution to a user over a network connection by the software itself).
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
It's nice for RMS to quantify his position by saying "By Free I mean Freedom" but the end result is the same. Perhaps someone can post a time when Richard said, "Yeah, the price on this software is just right" and there is actually a dollar amount specified. The truth is, there's a need for paid software. Paid for software produces some good stuff. It's not the endall but it has a right to exist. It feeds a fundemental human need, to be compensated. Glory alone is not a system of compensation and never will be.
After all, there's nothing stopping you from taking their software and modifying it then using it on your own, different, hardware. They never ever claimed that their hardware would be able to run arbitrary software, after all. And if you wanted to create a whateverWidget you'd be way ahead in that the software, at least, would already exist and be open, and you'd just have to reverse-engineer (or fresh design) some hardware to run it on.
Admittedly you could make the point that vendors of embedded hardware should allow you to run whatever you want on it, but that has nothing whatsoever to do with the license that the software uses. After all, an open piece of hardware should run my app whether its closed-source, BSDd, GPLd, et cetera.
Bottom line: the hardware's failure to run any software other than the factory software doesn't in any way limit my use of the software. In fact, if the software is that great, I could purchase some other company's open hardware solution, get a copy of the great software (since its GPLd) from somewhere else, modify the great software to run on the open hardware, and be very happy. How is this not the true spirit of the GPL?
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
Just to clarify, Linus's viewpoint is largely irrelevant to this discussion. It is extremely unlikely that Linux will *ever* move to a later version of the license because every contributor would have to approve this. So the GPL v2 will stay for the Linux kernel for the forseable future.
This is abut control and access to media player source code, not to Tivo anyway. I personally am willing to stand aside my objections ot the DRM clause. The ASP clause however is the showstopper for me.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Let me be the first to welcome you to slashdot... err
Isn't calling it the GNU GPL kind of like calling it an ATM Machine?
The GNU's already extant. We don't need to keep concatenating it onto the beginning of everything.
Shinma
At GPLv2 there weren't clear definitions of "modified version", "interaction", or "source code", for that matter.
And I can't see why the technical detail of using the software through a network, instead that in the same machine, should vary the intent of the GPL - which is to allow the users of a program, in any form, the freedom to tailor it to their needs and execute it in their own.
Encapsulating the program in a remote server in effectively a way to circunvect the freedom protected by GPL. Why should it be allowed by the license? How does preventing this loophole become a "stretching" of the original intent?
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
GPL = "General Public License"
Please help publicise swpat.org - the software patents wiki
A linux operating system cannot work without a CPU.
Therefore the CPU is part of the linux operating system.
Therefore the operating systems which I use are AMD/linux and Intel/linux.
(from here)
Linus has said before that he could have used any compiler, and any userland, its just that GNU was there at the right time. A distro could be built on BSD, or an environment based on icc (yes, it compiles the kernel)
Every time.
Allright,
But can anybody highlight me if the v3 is bringing any fixed toward compliance with real world right ?
For instance, GPL is not "strictly legal" in most european countries, that is the reason for instance a French open source consurtium has created their own license CeCILL ( see http://www.cecill.info/index.en.html ) that is basically GPL but fixing the non-legal items of GPL toward the european union & french republic right.
I would be very happy to see FSF consider european right and fixe the points that are causing issues so that any european union person can use this license "eyes-shut".
Anybody on this ?
The original intent for the GPLv2, was that if someone provided you with software that was based on the GPL, you would be able to make changes to that code and actually use it. Certain companies such as Tivo and Netgear skirted the original intent by refusing to allow any modified programs work on their hardware. I personally ran into this issue with Netgear, I purchased their WGT634U router specifically because it ran Linux and I was able to get the source code. Communication with Netgear was going fine until I asked about making a firmware image so that I could run any changes that I made on that hardware. The response was basically along the lines of: Our firmware format is proprietary, the HTML pages on the router are not part of the code and thus are copyrighted. So I had the code that they used to make the router, I was able to make changes to that code, but I was not allowed to put the code back onto the hardware that I own. From my understanding of the changes in the new GPLv3, this is exactly the issue they are trying to solve. The FREEDOM to actually run the program that you have modified on the hardware that ran the original program.
Looking for any old 8-bit Heathkit/Zenith software/hardware - http://heathkit.garlanger.com
That's a very good point, although the types of businesses must be differentiated. For businesses that do not produce free software, BSD is very much what they prefer. They can get the code without any obligations and include it in their proprietary product. On the other hand, if your business intends on making contributions to free software, you obviously prefer the GPL because you don't want your competitors making use of your work, improving it, and then selling a better product than you, that is based on your work. If it's GPL'ed, if they improve the code, you get the improvements as well.
What I never really understood is why hardware manufacturers fear the GPL. What do they have to lose? At worst, people still need to buy the hardware from them if they want to run their software. At best, they get tons of free contributions that will make their hardware more desirable (like with the whole linksys router thing). Even more puzzling are companies like tivo. "We'll give you the GPL source code, but you can't run it on our hardware, because we check for private keys. Off course, there's nothing stopping a competitor from building similar hardware and plopping our modified GPL'd code in there, which is far more damaging to us than user modifications." I wonder why no one has done that...
Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.
Now, that's a lot of freedom for the author.
I agree the GPL v3 seems to want to ensure you can run modified GPL code on the same hardware and has clauses to ensure this.
The GPL v2 doesn't have such clauses.
The problem is probaly best explained with an example.
I build a non GPL licensed computer, I want it to only run software written by Bob, so I make it check to ensure that only Bobs software runs on it.
The GPL requires one of two things.
I not make my hardware like this, which is clearly outside the scope of the GPL.
Or force Bob to allow ANYONE to identify their sofware as Bobs.
There are valid reasons for signed binaries, think trusted Java applets to avoid trojans. The GPL v3 may effectively prevent one from releasing such software.
Stallman begat Emacs :-)
Emacs begat elisp
elisp begat gcc
gcc begat gnu
gnu begat hurd
hurd has a growth-inhibiting condition, so
gcc begat linux, and qt
qt begat kdelibs
kdelibs begat kde
kde begat kubuntu
and there was light
Any similarity with the truth is mere coincidence.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
But they do. If you're not going to use the original authors' code (or anyone else's without permission) then you can do what you like. But that original author does get to restrict distribution of their code, just as you say they should be able to, so if you want to use their code then you're going to have to play by their terms.
To summarise the summary of the summary: people are a problem. ~ h2g2
You're missing the problem.
Say I run a net café and I want to lock down my computers to only run software I've signed to prevent malware and untrustworthy patrons more messing up the computers. According to the GPLv3, I can't do that. I'd have to give up my private key to anyone using the computers.
The GPLv3 prevents computers from being secured in that way.
There's also the question of what will happen if a third party requires binaries to be signed by someone else. Let's say that I set up my net café computers to require that a theoretically GPLv3 Linux kernel be signed by Linus Torvald's private key. Is Linus now required to give up his key because of my security system?
Don't forget, Richard Stallman was against account passwords because they "restricted freedom". The GPLv3 is heading into dangerous territory where it disallows system security in the name of "freedom".
It's rather ironic that of the various "open source" licenses, the Free Software Foundation's license has the most restrictions on freedoms.
"And the creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from man to pig again: but already it was impossible to say which was which".
We've fought so hard for the revolution, to spread our idealogy, to make software brighter for everyone. If we sell-out now, exchanging our values for perceived "success" as defined by only one index, profit, the "open-source" buzzword will come back and bite us in the teeth. Code we can look at but are legally prevented from adapting or redistributing is worth nothing to society. If businesses adopt "open-source" licenses that leave code only as open as a jail is for visitors, it shall be a bitter end. The movement will lose trust from the verge of true success. Remember: Freedom is fundamental.
If you're going to measure freedom by enumerating tokens, you should take into account that BSD license provides for Negative freedom, so it should be:
BSD=-7 freedom points,
GPL=-3 freedom points.
(Also your 4th and 5th points aren't appliable to GPL software, since the "after source closing" bit is undefined, so both scales are not comparable).
Taking into account that GPL provides for the Positive freedom ot the user to have access to the source code of every distributed version of the software, that gives a new scale of:
BSD=0 positive freedoms,
GPL=1 positive freedom.
Yes I know IHBT, but that was fun!
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
Just look at why jellomizer is so upset: he says he wants the freedome to decide who should do what with his code. GPL has absolutely no affect on this unless his code is relying on GPLed code. Thus jellomizer is exactly the kind of person the GPL protects the rest of us from, the would-be code exploiter. Know your enemy.
No it hurts you, jellomizer, and that's actually the purpose of GPL. To take away some of your freedome. It prevents you from taking our code that we contribute to the commons and co-opting it.
So unless you want to build your own tools, libraries and OS or pay for them then all you are doing is throwing yourself on the floor and having a 4-year-old's hissy fit; you have no right to be angry. That's why criticism of the GPL fails -- it's very hard to convince other people that you should have right to be selfish.
But calling it the GPL License is.
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
I'm getting tired of reading about how RMS is using GPLv3 to impose his ideals on everyone. He may well believe that all software should be free, but that is most definitely not what he's trying to accomplish with the GPL. If his main goal was to make all software Free Software he'd have to do it with legal challenges on the concept of intellectual property etc.
While he may be involved in that, GPL is different. GPL doesn't attempt to overturn the status quo, it provides an alternative to it. While RMS and Lessig et al. work on the long fight to get rational patent and copyright reforms enacted, GPL provides an immediate option for people that want to develop an alternative model. It gives you the opportunity to share your code without fear that someone else will benefit from it without sharing their improvements. If you prefer to write closed code, you can still do that; nothing in the GPL prevents you from writing your own code and releasing it under any other license.
The latest additions just address a few new issues. If you think DRM is fine, and you don't care if someone modifies your code to make it effectively unmodifiable via DRM hardware, then you can continue to use GPL2 or any other license. If, however, you think that's a bad thing, you'll be able to use GPL3 and protect your code. Currently, no other license addresses this issue. But still, there's nothing in the GPL, 2 or 3, that imposes itself upon anyone. You aren't forced to use the GPL, nor are you forced to use GPL programs.
The point of the public consultation is to bring as many people on-board as possible, so that those of us who agree with the system enforced by the GPL will have the widest possible selection of projects to use/contribute to. If people would stop arguing about how irrelevant the GPL is becoming and choose to either 1)participate to make it better or 2)bugger off and use another license, maybe this would all go a little smoother.
yp.
Okay, I have to say that personally I think you're completely wrong. The GPL3 only requires that you provide the keys to anyone you distribute the software to. If you sold them the computers, or gave them away or possibly even if you rented them out for people to take away then sure that would be distribution. But that isn't the case for a net café.
However, if you really feel that the GPL3 terms could have the effect you describe then contact the FSF about it, because that's certainly not the effect they're aiming for.
To summarise the summary of the summary: people are a problem. ~ h2g2
So do you work for Microsoft or SCO?
Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
Pretty much! As far as I'm concerned, an OS is all the basic stuff that you need in order to operate the system - this includes little things like libc, for instance. If the OS is just the kernel, and not any of the tools on top, then what kind of system are you talking about? Something that, when booted, can run a static-linked program? From a program-writer's perspective that's a fine OS (that is, much better than having to write one's own kernel in addition to the program - but not a terribly comfortable system). From a user's perspective it's pretty useless. I am both a coder and a user - but I do much more of the second job (even when writing code - need to run an editor and GUI and such, after all) than the first.
I think it's a matter of credit being given where it's due. Maybe GNU doesn't deserve first billing necessarily, but if I were to say that Debian, for instance, is simply a "Linux" system does a bit of disservice to the contributions of the GNU project - a horde of programs and libraries that form the backbone of the system, the compiler that compiles all my code and compiled most or all of the packages I install, etc. It's a "GNU" system, too, because of little essential bits like bash and libc and gcc, without which I would have a significantly less useful system. Someone else could provide that functionality, but in fact, they didn't, GNU did. Of course, it's also an X.Org system, and a KDE system, and a little bit of a Gnome system, and a Debian system. (what with the package system and all...) I think crediting becomes complicated when the system as a whole is essentially a big collaboration.
/etc/issue file contains the text "GNU/Linux". My system is a GNU/Linux system because I feel that's an acknowledgement worth making. I believe in RMS's ideals (though not unconditionally or absolutely) and I am glad that he has taken it upon himself to promote those ideals. I appreciate that there is a GCC and there is a GPL. These things wouldn't exist without some great idealistic hippie windbag preaching from the mountaintops - without some uncompromising S.O.B. who wants it all to be perfect, then the compromises we make would set the bar a lot lower. That's how I feel about it. But I won't tell you what to call your system. :)
So what about RMS's saber-rattling over this issue? He's a bit of a windbag, isn't he? I have to admit, too, that I didn't like the whole "GNU/Linux" thing when I first heard of it. I feel a little conflict over the whole issue of whether it's right (or at least, whether it's cool) for him to insist on this recognition, regardless of whether I feel he's earned it. I do feel he's earned the recognition, which is why I license most of my projects under GPL and why my
If you, in fact, run no GNU code on your system, then that system cannot rightly be called "GNU/Linux". If in fact you run a Linux kernel with BSD utilities, then you can call the system "BSD/Linux" if you feel so inclined... But mind you, this is the system we're talking about. There's no reason to ever call the kernel "GNU/Linux", as Linux isn't part of the GNU project. But I would hazard a guess that your Linux
---GEC
I'm but the humble pupil, seeking to snatch the scratchbuilt pebble from the master's fully articulated hand
Encapsulating the program in a remote server in effectively a way to circunvect the freedom protected by GPL. Why should it be allowed by the license? How does preventing this loophole become a "stretching" of the original intent?
It's stretching it away from the copyleft principle of a license covering distribution, and into territory which smells distinctly EULA-like.
While that may be true in the very short-term, it is not true over more than one cycle of the development loop.
If the allegedly "greater" freedoms under *BSD and MIT/X11 licenses allow others to modify and then close their versions of the source, then in practice you have less freedom overall than is provided by a viral GPL that seems at first glance to restrict your freedoms a little.
A worm's eye view doesn't always give a true picture. It's sometimes necessary to look slightly beyond the immediate horizon.
The only freedom that the GPL is *really* restricting (compared to *BSD) is the freedom to be selfish. That's not a freedom that I pin very highly on the ethics wall.
If you want to label the *BSD license as being more "free", then you must also accept that the GPL license is more "fair", for reasons that should be pretty obvious.
... genuinely free when it is easy enough to create that anyone can and will create it as they need.
1 05.html
By its very goal, that of making complexity easier to use and reuse, software will get this easy to produce.
http://wiki.ffii.org/IstTamaiEn
thru the application of abstraction physics we can create, in analogy, a calculator capable of outputing an application as its result. Capable of prompting the user for refined information it needs to do so.
autocoding project:
http://lists.debian.org/lsb-discuss/2002/01/msg00
http://freshmeat.net/projects/victor1/
If you check your facts, you will find that the vast majority of developers have in fact chosen the GPL. Your fantasy future is the quickest way to kill off Linux there could ever be. End users care about the freedoms that the GPL offers, including the requirement to give back. If you switch to another license, we won't want your software. I am an end user, and I feel that way. That's how I know.
Proprietary software vendors screw end users all the time. That's why we left. If you start doing it too, so you can pursue "commercial development", as you put it, then there will be no difference between you and Microsoft or Apple, and at that point, end users will just pick what works best. Um. That would be Apple. Just so you know.
The DRM hardware is out, the new BIOS/boot replacements are on their way, and it won't be all that long until most of the new mobos out there use those technologies.
Stallman's approach of "no DRM anywhere, anyhow, anytime" is OSS suicide. All the GPL3 will do by taking up the banner of media piracy is guarantee that GPL software won't be allowed to run on any commercial hardware used by secure sites. As 99% of businesses are concerned about security and intrusion, you can bet all their servers will be DRM-locked in some form or fashion. As media companies (including games) are one of the big DRM proponents, it won't be long before home users need DRM-enabled hardware to play games, so the new home PCs will also be DRM boxen.
So precisely what hardware will GPLv3 software be able to run on in the future? Old junk. Hardware that's been decommissioned by users and businesses with a budget.
There are a lot of good clauses to GPLv3, especially the attempt to clarify that external users of software subject a company to the same kind of change publication requirements as external distribution of *GPL software.
As long as the anti-DRM, anti-encryption, anti-media-lock viewpoint is lockstepped to GPLv3, I see it as nothing more than OSS suicide. Stick to the concerns of software licensing, and let the media pirates fight their own battles.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Will someone (preferrably Linus) please tell me why the GPLv2 is any kind of rational choice. From what I keep hearing over and over again, it really seems like Linux could have done just fine under a BSD license.
Of what use is it to have the source code if you can't change a line and recompile, and have it run just the same?
If Linus is really ok with Tivo as it currently is, would he be equally happy with a Tivo with no source code at all, just a penguin sticker on it? Or not even that?
Again: Why isn't Linux under a BSD license if Linus doesn't care about this RMS philosophy?
It really seems to me like his opposition to the GPLv3, however irrelevant (Linux can't reasonably move to GPLv3, as you'd have to contact all copyright holders), seems to stem more from a misunderstanding of GPLv3, rather than actual disagreement. But that was only last I checked, thinks may have changed.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
"Name three major open source projects that have moved to BSD or MIT this year. Personally, I think you are an MSFT astroturfer. MSFT loves open source -- as long as it's BSD, they can throw it into Windows."
So you're basically telling the public that since Microsoft LOVES BSD licensed material. The majority of their products are constructed around that code-base? You're going to have a hell of a time proving that. Let alone the not so obvious to you possability that a lot of GPL code could be used, and you'd be non the wiser.
Oh God, not another round of this GPL blabber. About a third of the posts on here seem to be about what Richard Stallman may or may not have meant by what he may or may not have said. Yeah, right.
Stand back and look at the view. Unless Linux continues to provide what its users want, it will wither and die. Hordes of folks will simply drift away to other platforms leaving only a few diehards, probably not enough to continue to attract the talent Linux needs to stay sharp. Will the GPL v3 help or hinder the continued prosperity and increased adoption of Linux? That's really the only question that matters unless you live in an ivory tower.
Yes, this may mean dealing with, shock horror, capitalist roaders who'll deliver binary-only drivers and other unholy objects. Better they do that than have them abandon the platform and stuff everyone, though, which would start to become tempting if enough insults get hurled their way. No 3D drivers from Nvidia or ATI, for example, would kill desktop Linux stone dead on the spot. I'm beginning to wonder if that isn't what some of these here puritans would like.
Las qué passoun
tournoun pas maï
The project [the Linux kernel] has never asked any contributor to sign over their contributions to the project as a whole, and most of that code is specifically GPL2, not "GPL2 or later."
Perhaps someone can clarify what seems to be an important issue to me. Currently we have GPL2 and "GPL2 or above" (which I'll call GPL2+ from now on) code in the Linux kernel. They are legally able to be formed into a single work (the kernel) only because the GPL2+ are "2 or above", right?
What I mean is this: what would happen if a small part of the kernel were licensed under GPL3 only (say, one developer decided to adopt the GPL3)? Would it be legal to link it with GPL2 code? Of course it would be legal with GPL2+, but the GPL2 seems to be a problem. By my understanding (IANAL), this is illegal.
If this is true, then the kernel couldn't even 'gradually' migrate to GPL3, with each developer deciding when/if to do so.
The act of illegally distributing copyrighted material is already illegal, however we must never be prevented from creating copying machines.
"The FREEDOM to actually run the program that you have modified on the hardware that ran the original program."
So basically the GPL is now covering (dictating to?) patented hardware instead of copy(left/)righted firmware.* So were's the patent right to run whatever software you want?
Plus the GPL is getting into web services. Another thorny area that's going to get the FSF into trouble.
*Good thing content providers aren't doing anything like that.
Your analysis is quick, and dirtier than dirty. What's worse, it doesn't support your point. It actually proves you wrong.
Of course a GNU/Debian system will use a lot of GNU software. Is that any surprise? It's a system specifically built around GNU software. Would you be as awestruck if somebody were to determine that most of the system software on a Windows machine was written by Microsoft?
If you run that test on a FreeBSD system, you'll find a lot of the software contains copyright strings mentioning the "University of California". Why is that? Because a lot of the software that makes up the core of a FreeBSD installation was written there! No surprise!
Of course, your test doesn't distinguish between links and actual binaries. So there could very well be a lot of repetition. On Debian, for instance, sh and ksh are actually softlinks to a single bash binary. vi is a softlink to vim. cc, c89, and c99 are softlinks to a single gcc binary. In effect, you're counting many of the strings multiple times, once for the actual binary, and then numerous times again for the links to that binary.
Your pathetic test also doesn't take into account the fact that many of the GNU applications consist of numerous files. A single binary may contain that copyright string 5 to 20 times, one instance from each of the object files that was linked together to form the final binary.
When you combine all of the aforementioned errors in judgement you made, it's likely that your numbers are hyperinflated by a factor of 10 to 20.
In the future, please make sure you think before you post such a cockeyed test. Your analysis was flawed in so many obvious ways, it basically renders your argument moot. And frankly, it makes us question your intellectual capabilities. I do hope, for your sake, that your future employers do not find your posting. It clearly highlights your complete lack of understanding when it comes to UNIX systems.
The problem that you are complaining about is going to get worse. Virtually everything today has a processor chip in it and some folks - mostly the very intense geeky sort - want to have the ability to reprogram their refrigerator, their car, their cell phone and anything else that has a processor chip in it.
Unfortunately that just isn't going to happen. For two reasons the general public isn't going to get to modify their devices. The first reason is licensing and other legal agreements. If you have a DirecTivo (the box that combines both a satellite receiver and Tivo) and were able to reprogram it at will, there would be nothing to keep you from bypassing the access card. This might be pretty popular, but it wouldn't go over very well with either DirectTV or anyone else involved.
That is exactly the problem with all of these computer-based appliances. We are looking at a crossroads between one-time programmed parts, masked ROMS and other such non-upgradable techniques vs. flash upgradable devices. Sure, the manufacturer would like to be able to fix problems and add new support to things as time goes on. But this has to be tempered with licensing restrictions and other sorts of issues. For example, if by reprogramming your remote you could control your neighbor's TV across the street (lousy battery life, but really really long range) would this be something that is in anyone's interest? Are there any laws, regulations or anything else that would prevent someone from doing this or punish them if they did? Think about the same kind of thing across all sorts of appliances and devices.
The other reason this isn't going to happen has to do with devices being resold. Assume you reprogram your toaster to catch fire and sell it in a yard sale to someone. Who gets blamed for the fire? The manufacturer, of course. How about reprogramming a cell phone to produce 20x the output power - when the person gets their brain fried because of this who is liable? This sort of question should have an obvious answer, but it does not in today's legal environment.
Linus should have thrown down the gauntlet with Stallman a long time ago, IMHO. As I've been saying for a couple of years now, Stallman is an albatross around Linux's neck that is in urgent need of removal.
Both Stallman and his cult need to be rendered entirely irrelevant. There was a time when he actually *did* contribute...but that time has long passed. These days all he does is cause division and start needless arguments...and said arguments are usually about how much of the spotlight he should be able to hog. As anyone who has been paying attention knows, adulation and control are all Stallman really cares about. That more than perhaps anything else is what bothers me about him...he tries to make out that he is motivated by elevated ideals, when it's been obvious all along that he's simply a megalomaniacal, base narcissist.
There's nothing elevated or noble about that at all...it's deeply ugly.
How does preventing this loophole become a "stretching" of the original intent?
I have a diffrent consept of the Intent of GPLv2.
I thought it was to allow you to know what was being executed on your machine (hardware or virtual).
so if I own and run a machine I should have a right to know what is happening to that machine. and I should be able to change it to make it do what I want, on my machine.
but if I comunicate with somebody elses machine (via network) I don't need to know what will be executed on there machine. I only would like to know the protocall being used. and what response should be expected for a given input.
now as for the "loophole" that GPLv3 covers. which is interaction of GPL code running on a DRM machine. which allows you to change the GPL but not to execute it on the machine after. I remain firmly undecided.
I see the potetial afront to my freedom
however
I also see how this is maybe more of an issue of the hardware/machine licence.
I need to meditate on my belief structure much longer before I decide if I am for or against v3
--meh--
The world still desperately needs you.
Adapt or die.
Big conglomerates used licensing in a punitive fashion in accordance to a set of values and morals (dubious ones I think).
The original poster can;t berate the GNU camp fro using licenses in that way while blissfully ignoring what other people, with far more power and money, are doing.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
In other words, if a company bundles its hardware with open-source software and ships it to customers, it surrenders rights to enforce patents.
No, it doesn't. The mere bundling of software is not sufficient to create a derivative work. Only if the company modifies the open-source software by adding patented algorithms to the open-source software would it lose the right of enforcement. Bundling is allowed by the GPL.
A short reading of the GPL v3 reveals this:
To the extent that identifiable sections of the modified work, added by you, are not derived from the Program, and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those sections when you convey them as separate works, not specifically for use in combination with the Program. [emphasis added]
I really hate to beat a dead horse, but the media gets it wrong time and again. This make as much sense as saying, "If you write code with a Microsoft product, you can't give it away - because the operating system is proprietary!" I find it odd that a writer astute enough to get hired by Business Week doesn't understand the intricacies of copyright law.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
.... of some people.
Can you please tell us when the poor devlopers, may the little bunny have pity of their fearful soul, were forced to GPL their source code?
Oh! I see what you are saying. Those horrible developers that use the GPL are forcing those poor developers, may the little bunny protect them, to release changes for a product the did not develop.
Sorry but I think the little bunny is cleverer than you.
Developers starting a new piece of software are in complete freedom of not using the GPL.
Developers wanting to take advantage of a work licensed under the GPL have full freedom not to use a software with licensing conditions that will make them miserable.
You are simply pandering to the individuals that want to exploit the work of others.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Not to mention the environmental issues when corporations release cheap products with tight DRM that could be put to better use than the limitations they built-in.
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
Good news, the ASP clause is optional and will probably see little use.
The impetus to make a profit (and its associated compromises) isn't sitting well with true believers in free software
What a crock of shit. It is possible to believe in the rule of law without supporting the divine right of kings. There are plenty of free software based businesses making money, and plenty of non-software based businesses making money using free software. Probably none of them are more powerful than some small countries. What's the f'ng problem? Goddamn B-school flunkies and hobby investors thinking they should be able to clean up doing nothing but pick stocks, that's what.
I have no problem with the GPL. GPL can be as craptastic as RMS wants it to be and it won't effect me in the least. What I do have a problem with are people who attempt to cram GPLv3 down every one's throat. People who claim closed source software is inherently "evil" and any open source software that isn't under their license of choice is a lost sheep.
The freedom that I will defend is the freedom to chose which ever damn license and model I want to use, be it GPLv2, GPLv3, Closed Source, or any other.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Your solutions both require the HARDWARE perform a certain way.
Restrictions on the hardware or host OS are outside the scope of the GPL affecting software.
The GPL can not force hardware or other software to a certain behaviour. This is the loophole TIVO exploits, and also why many think the GPL v3 is over reaching it's rightful place and becoming more of a EULA than a copyright license.
Being a software person, I don't see Open Source being about machine control as much as it is about the logic behind controlling my information. If I use a system, I want to be able to audit everything done to my data.
That's why I don't feel that GPL should depend on "technical details" like the software architecture being centraliced in a machine or distributed over a network. Sure, the typical example was of Stallman being unable to modify the drivers of his printer - but since then software has evolved into a product on its own.
(And of course if a software system is built with the collaborate effort and knowledge of hundreds of people under GPL, I prefer the system sources to be available when the system is open for public use, so that the cummulative knowledge remains available to the public). Which kind of freedom do you usually support, BTW? Negative (no interference) or positive (protection to pursue your life goals)?
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
If a company uses GPLed software for internal purposes, and does not redistribute the binaries (i.e. only for internal consumption) an employee can't take that code out since he is not the owner of those changes.
It is up to the entity making the modifications to decide if they redistribute the binaries (and thus force themselve to make the source available), but that does not give carte blanche ao somebody working on behalf of that entity to decide for himslef what to do with code that is not his to distribute.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
.... when provides a good or service with his software.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Linus is arguing against GPL version 3, essentially because it is less like the BSD licences.
I disagree with the rest of your reasoning, BTW, but I do not believe it to be worth a flamebait mod: it's a reasonable opinion.
If you are in fact an anarchist, your reasoning is sound, but most people recognise the purpose of (justifiable) law: you restrict freedom selectively, so so to maximise overall freedom, thus legislation is a utilitarian enterprise. If you believe that law always diminishes total freedom, then it is reasonable to argue the same of the GPL, either version two, or version three. Otherwise, you should find it a much harder case to argue. A lot of software out there that I can hack is GPLed, so it's certainly enhanced my freedom.
Generally, I would say that proprietry licences maximise first-person freedom; practically speaking, you still have the choice of what you are going to do with the software later. Although open sourcing leaves you with the physical freedom, you may well lose the opportunity.
BSD-style licences maximise second-person freedom. A great act of generousity to be sure.
GPL-type licences maximise total freedom, according to my analysis at least. More derived works will be available to the world, and many coders would want to contribute without feeling that their code would be close-sourced, adding still further. The various GPLs add to first-person freedom too, in that you can still licence your software privately; the opportunities to do so may be fewer than with proprietry licences, but they are more likely to be present than would be the case with BSDed code.
There is one piece of flamebait: the charge of Communism. To charge that a utilitarian licence that seeks to maximise freedom, volentarily chosen by the coder and accepted implicitally by subsequent uses of the code, is somehow Communist, is a slur.
Wikileaks, no DNS
To some extent, as far as the kernel is concerned it makes no difference what the new version of the GPL says. Neither Linus, nor anyone else, can change the license it is released under, even to a later verion of the GPL, without getting permission from EVERY SINGLE CONTRIBUTOR (with the small exception of the few who did not follow Linus' example in leaving out the optional "or later version" clause in the boilerplate). And I doubt that will ever happen, or even that anyone will ever try.
(This issue, by the way, is exactly what makes what the maintainer of XChat a copyright infringer - there were patches added by others whose permission was not asked when he started releasing his proprietary, closed shareware versions.)
> My objections about DRM are fairly mild. I understand the concern from companies like Tivo (but this is irrelevant-- nothing stops anyone from making a Tivo clone and not including the DRM. You just can't use their hardware).
...
Clearly, you've forgotten about patents. Not to mention the infeasibility of building a Tivo clone for most of us. Besides, if I buy a Tivo, it's none of their damn business what software I run on the device. It's *MY* Tivo at that point, and the bastards have NO right to tell me what to do with it.
So tell me again, after I buy it, why is it still "their hardware"!? That's exactly why I HATE DRM--they're trying to take control of my stuff after they sold it to me! *I* intend to control my own life, not let them do it for me!
This captcha code freaks me out sometimes. The captcha for this post is "predicts"
I don't know if anybody's ever asked Tivo that. Maybe someone should?
Because it's exactly the problem that the GPL was created to solve! Go back and check your history: RMS wanted to maintain a printer driver. He couldn't. He was pissed.
All you're saying is that RMS should have bought another printer. Well, he didn't. He created the GPL instead. That should pretty much tell you what "the true spirit of the GPL" is. You can be damned sure that anything that is compatible with the true spirit of the GPL, will allow software maintenance by end users, without having to buy new hardware.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
The next version of Digital Restriction Management - DRMS
DRMS not Richard Matthew Stallman
GNU/Linux is a pain in the ass name.
Most people have at least heard of Linux at some point or other, and usually understand that it is a free operating system that is designed to compete with proprietary systems.
Explaining that GNU is all those useful tools like ls, gcc, make, cp, rm, mv, etc. is pretty much pointless. How many people do you know outside of computing that have ever used a command line? You get about exactly as far with this line of reasoning as you do explaining the ins and outs of web standards when offering Firefox. Explaining that Firefox is easier to use, is capable of prettier web pages, and is more secure does the job nicely.
If RMS wants people to use the GNU tools, and any other sort of free software for that matter, he'd be much better off making the next Photoshop/Office/Windoze killer than sending pointless emails to people who already know what the hell the difference is anyway.
Most people that I come across don't find the recursive acronym particularly amusing either. "must be a geek thing"
Last time I checked, KDE, X, GNOME, etc aren't part of GNU either. Should we call it GNU/Linux/X/KDE or GNU/Linux/X/Fluxbox? When you say Windows and MacOSX, people think of a computer that crunches numbers, plays music, sends email, and has a pretty point and clicky GUI over the whole thing. The english language (and it seems many other languages, but correct me if I'm wrong) has settled on Linux. Let's just go with it. Don't underestimate the importance of simplicity.
We're much more inclined to release our code under the BSD or MIT licenses just because we can understand them without having to get a complete legal background. And it gives us (and others) the additional freedom to profit from our work, should we choose to do so.
If you write your own code, you can do anything you want with it, including putting it in a 100% proprietary app. If you release you own code as GPL, then your competitors have to pay you for a non-GPL-licensed version or develop their own. In general, if profit is your prime concern, then your best license choices are close-source or GPL.
I am very pleased that you admit that your test was flawed, and did in fact prove you completely wrong on this matter. Your example was a horrible one, and you have publically humiliated yourself.
However, I do accept your apology, and I accept your admission of defeat. In the future, try to avoid ad hominem attacks. They're very poor discussion style.
My child, I have some words of wisdom for you: when you try to debate with the best of the best, you should be prepared for your defeat. Your defeat will be inevitable, perhaps until you graduate from high school, attend college, and obtain at least one job within the computing industry. But by that time, you'll realize how wrong you were when you were younger. When that time comes, if you feel like apologizing again, I'll be ready to listen.
using the software through a network
Ensuring the source of such applications is availible to the users is certainly an interesting idea. Lets even assume for the sake of argument that it is an indisputedly great idea and powerfully desirable thing to do.
The fundamental point is that is doesn't matter how good and desireable a goal is, if there is no reasonable valid mechanism available to reach that goal. Just because you can imagine something doesn't mean the GPL has an actual mechanism-in-law available to enforce that thing.
The GPL is founded upon the copyright control of reproduction and distribution. If someone engages in reproduction and distribution, then the GPL can lawfully impose pretty much any terms it likes as conditions to authorize that reproduction and distribution.
US copyright law explicitly says, and EU compright law explicitly says, and virtually all copyright law on earth explicitly says, and the GPL explicitly and redundantly reaffirms thatsomeone who receives software need no licence to install and run that software. If someone gives you GPL software, you can simply dismiss anything and everything the GPL says. If you reject the GPL then you cannot reproduce and distribute the software - but fine - you don't reproduce and distribute. You simply install it as the law explicitly authorizes, and you simply run it as the law explicitly authorizes. And you can do so free of any GPL terms at all.
The GPL has no reasonable valid mechanism avilable to it to impose obligations upon someone running software as a network service, if he's not redistributing it.
Well, that's only partially true. To somewhat simplify the law, there are exactly three catagories of things restricted by copyright. Reproduction and distribution, as listed above, and public performance. One could attempt to argue and attempt to apply that public performance angle to impose GPL obligations upon anyone running a "performance" that was "accessible to the general public". It *might* be workable, but it is in my oppinion an extremely ugly legal avenue to take, not a precedent we would want to set, and it would not apply when and where a software service could dodge the "accessible to the general public" issue.
I think the only other way to impose that sort of clause - a route that we REALLY don't want to take - would be for the GPL to attempt to bind receivers of software prior to receipt. To mandate that *I* must get *you* to agree to be bound by a GPL contract before I am allowed to give you a copy of the software. No distribution without an individual contract formation prior to that individual distribution. That no one could put GPL software up for free access downloads.
So having the GPL address network execution is interesting and maybe conceptually desirable, but actually trying to implement would be very very bad. IMO.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
"The article argues that copyleft (not free software) is anti-business. This is clearly not true because the copylefted free Unix-like operating system (GNU/Linux) has far more business contributions and business models base on it than the non-copylefted free Unix-like operating systems (the free BSDs)."'
Oh gee, another GPL troll. Tell you what. We take back Apache and all the other non-GPL software. And you try your "world domination" without us.
Many years ago I wrote an article (which I never got around to properly finishing) and RMS was kind enough to reply to my queries about this.
My Question
RMS's First Reply
RMS's Follow-up
I think that was pretty clear back in early 2001
Author, Shell Scripting : Expert Re
Close, but you still overstate when the GPL3 requires you to give people your keys. For example you can keep a private key and sign software enabling people to authenticate that it came from you or that you certify it, and you can give them the GPL software without turning over your key.
The way I'd put it is that the GPL has always required you to supply the COMPLETE source code that is needed to sucessfully compile the intended WORKING executable. Look at the Tivo case for example. What happens if Tivo themselves attempt to compile their software for its intened use, and they do not use their private key during the compilation process, and they do not embed that crypto signature in that executable? Then they themselves would be incapable of making the intended working executable. That signature is in fact a functional element of the executable, and the key is in fact a required portion of the source code for compilation.
The GPL3 simply clarifies that that key is indeed a part of the source. This is simply clarifying the origingal intent and fuction of the GPL. That either the original GPL already covers this sort of case (and simply no one has tested this issue legally), or this sort of case is an abusable loophole in the original GPL and the GPL3 simply closes that loophole.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
To paint Richard Stallman as a radical is simply incorrect. He is not trying to change reality, he sees it as it is: Compiling a higher level language to machine code or intermediate language was never designed to be a good way of protecting intellectual property, and, not surprisingly, it isn't.
Stallman sees the consequence: attempting to obscure what your computer is doing is futile and/or harmful. Everything else follows from that. You need different licenses, different business models, etc.
I have also never known Richard Stallman to be against making a buck.
I wrote parts of this stuff
The GPL is about freedom of code. The BSD is about freedom of ideas.
the new GPL will probably change this.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
I wish I could believe that. I am waiting to see what happens.
It is a shame because the rest of the license is pretty good.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
You are putting the cart before the horse. IIRC the issue is that the GNU project decided to adopt the Linux kernel and hence they now request the name. I know many Solaris administrators who, the instant they finish installing a Solaris system go and install the GNU tools. Yet the *only* reason that RMS doesn't want credit for these systems is that they are not exactly Free Software (at least with the exception of OpenSolaris which is GPL-incompatible).
From my vantage point, it looks like RMS trying to co-opt the Linux kernel rather than the other way around.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
"Distributing software as a service to the public is just like distributing software. You just do not give them a floppy anymore. It is 2006, not 1991... People are distributing software as a service more and more.
???
Frankly, the more I read this thread, the more I wonder how much the initial idea is both flawed and not enforceable in the real world:
1. People are NOT distributing software "as a service" (unless it's javascript applets, of course): honestly, I am amazed that this is being said with a straight face: people are running software on their own hw to offer a public service, just like they are using paper. Running a modified copy of, say, Drupal on your server is NOT distributing that sw as a service. It may be anti-FOSS, but certainly is not being distributed. And SW is just a tool.
2. I also agree with the idea that what I do only on/with my own computer, without telling others what to do on theirs, should be nobody else's business, even if it's a (legal, of course) public service: among other things, being able to do this is exactly what enables good programmers to get recognition (monetary or otherwise) above the others and make a living without forcing proprietary licenses: like good, honest sysadmins who get more customers because they can run an ISP better than others.
3. What does "offer a service to the public" mean? What If I hack OpenOffice to run much faster, and only run that copy on the NON NETWORKED computers of my Internet Cafè or public library, which are there just as a service to the public? What about terminals inside banks? When do you stop defining public?
4. Besides looking intrinsically wrong, this clause seems to me very, very, very easy to fool legally. RPC, anyone? Instead of hacking, again, Drupal, to perform function X I can simply hack it to only call an external program to do the same function for it. A separate program which I write and run on the same server, but never (have to) release. You'd only force me to release that Drupal change which remains useless to everybody else. Basically, you piss developers off by making them work one hour more and live with some often negligible performance hit... to have nothing back. Or are you saying that anything that can be piped to grep must be gpl because grep itself is gpl?
I am confused, really.
Marco F."
http://trends.newsforge.com/comments.pl?sid=58221& cid=130033
"This reply is meant for all you people defending your current right to leech off GPLv2 code as an ASP
I'm not an ASP, nor I plan to become one right now.
As far as I'm concerned, if you're using my GPL(v3)/HPL code (hypothetically), and you're so much as using it to send a single packet to anyone who asks, you better expect to lose your license
So if I hack your GPLvX email autoresponder for my own personal use and run it ONLY on my PC to answer email from others, I MUST release the patch?
The code is meant to use as its license SPECIFICALLY and EXPLICITLY says. Any speculation or assumption are worthless.
It doesn't appear to me that those doing that really actually grasp what the GPL is and what it's meant to be.
See above.
Do you think that library is not public somehow
Of course I think it is public. Byt I used that as an example of why the proposed license seems to me incomplete and counterproductive. Ditto for the "sweet OpenOffice hack"
About your sweet OpenOffice hack, as long as it's not being used as part of a service you offer to the public (like allowing a member of the general public to come in and write documents), there's no problem. Hack away. Happens all the time. Otherwise, the terms are not being followed.
N
There's really only three solutions available. One is basically making Tivo's "unhackable" (read ROM). Everyone loses. The other is a dual flash. The original in one side, and the "let me play with it" on the other. Everyone pays more for a minorities "freedom". The last of course is going with a license that doesn't have these issues.* Which one do you think businesses will adopt?
*Funny how on one hand, some say "if you don't like it, don't use it", but on the other hand practically beg that others use their software (usually so they'll get something out of it).
I'm starting to agree with this too, but it's taken a while of thinking to get to this stage. The main issue I've been trying to work out, which is one that's come up in previous GPL3 discussions, is with open source voting machines, and the legality of using GPL3'd code to write software for open source voting machines that might need to be restricted to running a specific revision of specific software to be trustworthy. In that case it's really in everybody's interests that the code can't simply be changed by someone at the end of the line who controls a voting booth, and I'd like to think that secure-from-tampering hardware is still possible with GPL3.
I think the best answer to this, if it holds up legally, is that the central voting authority which owns the machines (state authority, national authority, whatever), is the authority that should be adjusting the hardware to restrict it to running a particular set of code. That said, I'm still not sure exactly how the legal side of it works out, which would probably depend on a lot of details about who owns what, who's employing who, who's giving what to who, and what counts as "distribution".
The NT kernel is called ntoskrnl.exe, or ntkrnlmp.exe on multiprocessor/multicore systems. Both get named ntoskrnl.exe upon installation.
Melissa
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
During my now longish carrer as an IT professional, I have been in so many ocassions under a situation I was hostage to a provider, and no matter what, I had to stick with some individual or coampny that have probed unreliable or incapable.
You are free to charge for your software, I don't know why some thick skulls can't grasp that opening the source code does not preclude you to do that. But nowadays, if you are going to charge me, you better are prepared to make sure the code is easily maintainable by me, your client, in case a bus hits you or that you decide to abuse your position as a provider.
IMHO any software development contracted out should be GPLed or at the very least BSD licensed. Otherwise you'll have no deal with me.
And this applies as much to you as to big conglomerates as Sun, IBM or MS.
One company that shall remain nameless has not provided us with a solution to a bug that has been affecting us for the best part of 3 years now. We have enough inhouse expertise that if we could see the source code we could fix the problem ourselves. But alas, we can't.
Unsuprisingly open solutions are becoming very popular in my company. Let me put it this way, when people say that Linux is not ready for the desktop I just smile knowingly.
And unsurprisignly this company is now opening their source code, the same one we could not see just a few months ago.
Yoou go ahead and live in the past, the rest of us are busy finding ways to deal with the future.
... but strangely fail to understand than to do so a solid legal framework is needed. You may call it "GPL blabber", but I am not going to discuss a matter of semantics. The fact is that if people do not discuss this issues we are going to be had, and ejoy it, by the copyright and patent lawyes of those acpitalists you seem to be so fond of.
Linux was not created to provide what the users want. Linux was created to fulfill a need: the right to tinker. Linus was not envisioning pleasing the users, he was trying to get a tool that would work for him.
As far as I am concerned the users will come because there are companies prepared to make this possible, but the only saving grace that differentiates Linux from other OSes is freedom, not features.
People have been adopting Linux because they are free to thinker with it. Not because the features (there are better desktops out there, some applications you simply can't get for Linux, even an equivalent). People are prepared to put up with lack of features because they can suit the system to thei own needs in a way not possible with other systems, even if hand holding comes in the form of USENET instead of expensive, ungainly, paid for phone support.
If people do not keep their eyes on the ball, the freedom will go away, and then Linux would be doomed: its only distinctive advantage (freedom) would be lost, and thus it would not make sense to use it.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
2 years of not getting it. Truly sad.
In an era when companies are patenting "one click" buttons, to say that the people that provide a legal framework for FOSS are doing nothing, is most disingenious, uninformed and frankly idiotic.
Some people in the IT world need to broaden the view of the issues at hand, hacking (in the good sense of the word) is not what software is all about, your right to tinker, protected by people like this "albatross" you deride so cheaply, is essential if you have any hope of challenging big companies at their own game, os simply if you want to preserve the pleasure of thinkering and sharing without receiving an stupid lawsuit.
The problem with people with vision and understanding of a situation is that they are not unifiers, they are dividers because they say the truth as they see it, but the truth always hurts, and the people harmed will obvioulsy answer back.
To say that Stallman cause contoversy is an unintended plaudit, sheppesh compliance is what kills progress. Agitators as what fuells it.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Talking about what the system should be rightly called seems a pointless waste. In reality, the system is named what people call it. If everyone calls it "Linux" then the system is called Linux. It's not about who is right or wrong and of course Stallman can call it GNU/Linux if he so wishes, and all the best to him. But the correct name is Linux by the simple fact that most people call it Linux. And I will continue to call it Linux not because I disagree with what Stallman is saying (I don't) but because a) it's the common name and b) GNU/Linux is too cumbersome to say.
People don't get words from dictionaries, it goes the other way round.
being vague is almost as cool as doing that other thing...
You get to choose your licence: that's fundemental.
Okay, Communism isn't a slur, but I don't think that it's quite right. Certainly it's in the direction of Communism, in that it diminshes private intellectual 'property', but the nature of the GPL is closest to (say) antitrust law. Certainly the licence is viral, but its potency is limited to volentary interations, and doesn't appeal to anyone's sense of a superior society, except insofar as people generally follow the law. Certainly that appeal is an attraction, but it isn't necessary. The licence does not require ideology to work.
I lean towards anarchism myself, so I understand what you're saying; I think that acting for "the greatest freedom of the greatest number" is in fact a very balanced way to act, and only appears extreme when issues have been politicised with ulterior agendas (not necessarily of the part of the speaker; it's the frame of reference that has been shifted). In the limit, it may tend towards anarchism, but given our society, it implies law, IMO.
The GPL enhances third-person freedom: this was the point that I intended to mention, but got swallowed when I wrote "total freedom". If one acts in a social context, and wishes to give something to the world, it's a good licence for doing just that. I'm doing a spot of game level design at the moment, which I will be releasing under a creative commons licence, and when I get back into coding (I've been recovering from a breakdown), I intend to release code under the GPL version 3, unless I can enhance freedom more in some other way (example: I2P).
The first person freedom of the GPL is simply that you have held onto some leverage. This is power more than freedom, but the effect is that there is more choice in what you do with your code in future. One way of looking at this is that you were less generous in the first place, but I would argue that you were differently generous; rather than giving to the next coder, you gave to the user. Indeed since the code's value derives from its ultimate utility, I would rather give to the user, but I also understand your way of thinking.
Wikileaks, no DNS
No Interference is not Negative Freedom.
its simply Supporting the right of people not to be MADE to bother about such nonsence they dont wish
I personaly dont like how the fsf and rms are causing the same kind of stuffed up licence uncertainty and legal issues with this whole rewrite that sunk the bsds when linux was starting out. buisnesses were scared this stuff would make them a target of a big lawsuit by the old guard unix corps. Now its being forced to hand over your entire code base by this gpl3 thing...
I blame the bearded man !
SANTA!
XML - A clever joke would be here if
Stallman/GPLv3 want to ensure that companies can't release hardware with GPLv3 software unless you allow customers to replace the software on that hardware. How you do that is effectively up to you.
This is about making sure everyone can access your hardware. The DRM implications are a side effect. (Yes, FSF happens to be strongly opposed to DRM, so its a bonus in their view point.) This makes, e.g. signed firmware (or rather a process by which signed firmware can do things that unsigned can't) irrelevant.
This is a serious problem for certain kinds of applications that have nothing to do with DRM, and everything to do with security. Under these rules, for example, it would be impossible to use GPLv3 software in functions conformant with FIPS-140-2 (the federal standard for cryptographic devices/software).
Now, I happen to agree with Torvald's supposed view, which is that the GPL is useful in that it ensures that the innovation that exists in GPL software is not lost, and that if commercial entities are going to stand on your shoulders (as a GPL author) then it is fair to ask them to accord the community the benefit of their improvements. This is entirely useful, and doesn't prevent companies from building closed-hardware with GPL sources.
The problem is that some GPL zealots believe that if they purchase a piece of hardware, they should have the right to replace the software on it. I don't think that is a natural right (or rather, I don't think it is an obligation that the manufacturer should have to help you). Remember the event that has been attributed to the birth of the GPL was the fact that Stallman couldn't replace some software for a printer. I think RMS is concerned that GPLv2 combined with cryptographic signing doesn't address his original concern in this regard -- hence GPLv3.
By enforcing this view, I think the GPLv3 does the OSS community a grave disservice, by fragmenting views and creating situations where license incompatibility gets even worse. Commercial entities that heretofore have embraced GPLv2 will shun GPLv3.
This is also true of the provsion that requires companies which provide network services to release their enhancements. How much GPL software do you think Google uses? How much of it will Google continue to use in the face of GPLv3? Or will they just abandon GPLv3 software in favor of commercial or alternate open source solutions? It could be a great thing for my two favorite OSS communities -- NetBSD and Solaris -- if Linux ever adopts the GPLv3. :-)
As I said, GPLv3 is a grave disservice to the OSS community, and even without the implications for DRM'd media content.
Probably not. Case in point: Name a set-top machine designed for playing games with four players on one screen that isn't proprietary. Name a handheld video game system sold in North American brick-and-mortar gaming stores whose manufacturer supports homebrew development.
Stallman created the GPL because the radical idea of making software proprietary was beginning to become the norm, replacing the original way of doing things openly. When AT&T started licensing UNIX, a things were starting to change. Before that, the UNIX and other project source code was shared openly, but there was no formal license. So AT&T simply changed the rules. RMS realized that there needed to be a formal way to ensure that software could be explicitly declared free and the GPL became the way to do that.
So, the idea was not radical, but rather an attempt to go back to the way everything used to be done, but in a formal declared way.
Signatures are a waste of bandwi (buffering...)
"GNU/Linux" is cumbersome to say, for sure. I think it's a little ridiculous, and I'd hate to have to acknowledge all major contributors of software every time I describe my system. ("It's a GNU/Linux/Debian/X.Org/KDE/Gnome/Mozilla/BSD...") I agree from that perspective that it's pretty dumb to try and tell people what to call it, especially when the new name is more awkward.
:) But I just say "Linux" or maybe "Debian" and people know what I mean. At the same time, though, I feel it's just as much a GNU system as it is a Linux system - running one without the other would be a giant pain, either way, as far as I'm concerned.
But, as I said, I think it's good to acknowledge the GNU project. Doesn't necessarily mean subscribing to the "GNU/Linux" thing, but the GNU project deserves a lot of credit for making Linux something people can actually use. If RMS wants to rattle sabers about how people should include the acknowledgement in the name - well, I don't necessarily agree with that on a practical level, but at the same time I think the credit he's asking for is just credit we owe the project. I don't say "GNU/Linux" much, basically for the reasons you described: habit, brevity, simplicity, clarity - and the "windbag" issue I described earlier. Sometimes you're still a whiny bitch even if you're right about what you're whining about.
Trying to change an established name is a bit silly. ("Cracker" anyone?) But the name people use has an impact on how people think of the system. Do people recognize how much GNU software goes into making a typical Linux system work, or do they tend to think that most of that software comes from the Linux project? Even if you can't change the name, if by suggesting that the name should be changed you have some impact, then it raises awareness of the issue.
---GEC
I'm but the humble pupil, seeking to snatch the scratchbuilt pebble from the master's fully articulated hand
It's an irony that democratisation of values and the decline of (real) authority has had this effect, inducing a movement towards the 'right', to put a label on it, but I would have predicted it. The potency of 'memes' wins out over earnt expertese, and we can no longer make social gains as a culture.
I've been marked as a snob by the left a few times, but truely, I don't think that they know their fellow man.
Wikileaks, no DNS
Indeed. Have you ever seen a Linux binary that was signed by Linus?
http://outcampaign.org/
Perhaps Linus' tree will stay GPL2, but if you do some research, you'll find that:
With that in mind, I wouldn't be surprised if a GPLv3 fork of Linux emerged.
http://outcampaign.org/
You are wrong about the intent of GPL. It was always to allow the user to fix the problems with his device. If you read some history, then you will find that it was born out of the desire to fix a Xerox Printer. This is exactly the same problem as in Tivo. And to add insult to injury, they are using GPL software. So obviously GPLv2 is flawed and that flaw must be fixed, hence the DRM fix. Stallman is for nothing the uber Hacker, he fixes licenses as well ;-).
Actually the intent of GPL was simple to allow any user to fix the software or hardware. If that cannot be done then the intent of the GPL is lost. So GPLv2 has developed a bug and Tivo is exploiting this bug. So GPLv3 is an attempt to fix the bug. Currently the fix (GPLv3) is undergoing peer-review. I believe it will be fixed in about 10 years when most of the people will understand why they need this bug-fix. Till then we have a lot of software under a buggy license.
you make a strong argument.
Which kind of freedom do you usually support, BTW? Negative (no interference) or positive (protection to pursue your life goals)?
you know I have never seen freedom described in this way.
but I suppose politically I would support "positive freedom".
I believe in a strong central government, with universal charter of rights and freedoms.
I also believe in the GPL is more usefull then BSD.
--meh--