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Stallman Absolves Novell
A few days ago we linked the transcript of Richard Stallman's talk at the Tokyo GPLv3 meeting . Now bubulubugoth writes to point us to an analysis of what Stallman said in Tokyo. In particular, these quotes: "Microsoft has not given Novell a patent license, and thus, section 7 of the GPL version 2 does not come into play. Instead, Microsoft offered a patent license that is rather limited to Novell's customers alone." And, apparently resolving the conundrum of whether GPLv2 and GPLv3 licenses can be commingled: "There's no difficulty in having some programs in the system under GPL2 and other programs under GPL3."
Comment removed based on user account deletion
How we know is more important than what we know.
The subject line in the news implies that RMS absolved the deal between MS and Novell as a whole. Reading the text, I get the impression that he only talks about GPL-related issues and does not touch the related IP issue that Ballmer brought up. Correct me if I am wrong, but IMHO the latter seems to be a bigger problem but is not addressed by RMS at all.
Sorry, man. Your last sentence makes no sense. Maybe your whole post doesn't make sense. Please say more, as I can't interpret your words to meaningful text. That is, explicate your position. Your minimal treatment doesn't help me.
It means that slashdot's editors are as stupid as they always were, and still don't bother to do the most basic editorial checking on submissions. Hooray.
Two seconds reading this article would show that the headline attached is complete bullshit and the article is poorly written flamebait.
Maybe if you RTFA, you'd understand. Or even the summary.
Stallman didn't actually give us ANY new information about GPL v2/3 compatibility. He only said that some programs could be v2, and some v3, and exist on the same system. He didn't say they could work together (they can), and he CERTAINLY didn't say their code could be compiled together (this is the issue, and I say they can't).
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
>>Doesn't seem logical but Novell won't discuss it preferring, it says, to wait and see what happens in the GPL3 negotiations, clinging to the notion that Stallman and company - anarchist fanatics said to be cut from the same all-or-nothing cloth as suicide bombers - won't do anything to derail Linux. I can kinda see where they're coming from (being an anarchist-type myself) but I do sometimes think Stallman takes it a bit too far sometimes - he's eccentric, but still in the business world you've gotta hold it down a bit to be able to make people take you seriously & not think that you're some kinda freak!
http://nathanlindsell.blogspot.com/
Reading the headline I almost instinctivly looked out of the window to see if there were any pigs or penguins flying by... but then I remembered that I was reading /.
Stallman is some kind of a pope, and M$ are buying indulgence from him?
sex is better than war!
As in, really did find a loophole that let's them legally stab everyone in the back? One that we will be sure to fix in v3 and then they can't play such games anymore.
That kind of absolves, or did he say they what they did was perfectly fine and such practices will be ok going forward?
Just asking.
all the best,
drew
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free
Doesn't seem logical but Novell won't discuss it preferring, it says, to wait and see what happens in the GPL3 negotiations, clinging to the notion that Stallman and company - anarchist fanatics said to be cut from the same all-or-nothing cloth as suicide bombers - won't do anything to derail Linux.
... suicide bombers".
This statement is ambiguous; is it saying that Novell made these statements about Stallman, or is it the journalist's own statement?
Either way, likening someone who takes a principled stand on intellectual property to "suicide bombers" is highly irresponsible. By the same reasoning, you might liken the Founding Fathers, Microsoft Management, or the US Supreme Court to "anarchist fanatics
This sort of shitty journalism shouldn't be rewarded with ad impressions.
This is about as far as you can get from addressing the problem while still saying "GPLv2" and "GPLv3".
English isn't my native language, but I'll try to explain that sentence to you as I understand it: "This" refers to "some code can be GPLv2 and some seperate code can be GPLv3" from the sentence before it. It's the statement that Stallman was willing to make. "This is about as far as you can get from addressing the problem" means "This does not address the problem at all". Stallman's statement deals with aggregation of separate programs. It does not address code with different licenses that forms one program, which is generally regarded as the problematic case. "while still saying GPLv2 and GPLv3" means: "in a discussion about these two licenses". In other words: Stallman was semi off topic. He got sidetracked.
Of course they can be compiled together.
Distributing that executable to the public is where the problems start...
liqbase
We now need a new tag, shittyjournalism.
Failed.
I never really found a use for SUSE before, still haven't now. I use Gentoo. About as far off that I'll go is Fedora, and even then it's only for work. That RMS approves of it, or that it fits with GPLv3 doesn't really matter. RMS doesn't use SUSE. Why does he care?
While I'm all for the FSF and what not, the GPL is just one of many licenses you can choose while supporting the notion of "free software." The BSD license also grants you the same four freedoms that is
0 right to use as you see fit
1 right to share
2 right to modify
3 right to share modifications
OMG, wow, and the BSD license is less anal than the GPL (because frankly, there are commercial interests out there, and the purpose of writing free software is to make free software available, at least that's my goal).
Of course I use the public domain as my release vehicle. Frankly, I couldn't care less if people proprietarize my code. I wrote it so people could use it.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
It's almost funny that the author knows nothing about the GPL or free software in general, but it's actually far more sad, because other people who don't know anything about the GPL read this shit, and then they think that they do...
DELETE FROM articles WHERE date = 06/12/02 AND id = 2259227;
You'd think they'd finally learn from their mistakes...
FTFA: ".. will create a schism in the open source community and fork Linux."
What's the big problem with a fork? So you have Microvell Linux and the real Linux.
Microvell Lizard Linux is going to be a pregnant toad injected full of politics, DRM and Microsoft IP. Microsoft will have the option that way of killing it then with litigation, or letting it stick around to sell to Windows people that think they are smart switching to (MLL) Linux.
The real Linux will still be around, minus whatever Microsoft pays the courts to tell everyone they can't use anymore. The inevitability of all this is approaching like a garbage truck, so what is the problem with forking? M$ has been preparing for this for a long time buying up patents and everything else. Beginning over with a forked code base may be the only alternative. Either that, or put all your computer gear in front of the garbage truck and let it have it's way.
Novell, we smell poniez: http://techp.org/
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
We don't need idiots here. Go play elsewhere.
Ad hits 4 Slashdot
(Warning : do not use the above slogan if you attend public school.)
Sys_con gets it wrong again.. Not surprising given the failure in 2005 to apologize to Groklaw's PJ.. The whole reason why running GPLv2 programs along side GPLv3 programs will be hard in a system like Linux is that the tool chains to build programs are moving towards GPLv3. And GPLv3 will have a provision that if building under GPL licenses must give all rights to everyone..
Fred Grott(aka shareme) http://mobilebytes.wordpress.com
Don't feed the trolls. As we found out last year, there is little point in complaining to the management of Sys-con: Another LinuxWorld Resignation
Stallman Absolves Novell
Inigo Montoya: "I do not think it means what you think it means."
'nuff said.
To be, or not to be: isn't that quite logical, Slashdot Beta?
It should be noted, since Sys-Con is hiding it as "by Linux News Desk", all articles with that by-line are written by none other than PJ-stalker Maureen O'Gara.
The proof? It's currently the free article on Maureen's poorly-named LinuxGram website: http://www.linuxgram.com/
That's all her.
(For those who live in a cave, only surf for porn, etc., Maureen O'Gara wrote a slanderous piece about Groklaw's PJ, wherein she literally tried to stalk PJ, peeking in windows, generally making an ass of herself.)
Sys-Con swore they'd never publish an O'Gara piece again. Good thing noone believed them, since they just hid her behind a "Linux News Desk".
Stallman didn't actually give us ANY new information about GPL v2/3 compatibility. He only said that some programs could be v2, and some v3, and exist on the same system. He didn't say they could work together (they can), and he CERTAINLY didn't say their code could be compiled together (this is the issue, and I say they can't).
Well, we can just read the GPL3 draft ourselves. Assuming no big changes in that area (and I doubt there will be any), it will not be possible to link GPL2 and GPL3 code together (except for cases of LGPL2 code or GPL3+a suitable exception).
What Stallman was quoted as saying is the simple fact that a system can have various licenses on it, GPL2, GPL3, Apache, BSD, Python, etc. etc. Which is of course true. What we will see, in all likelihood, is a GPL2 kernel and GPL3 GNU tools (compiler, etc.), which virtually every Linux distro will use happily. Novell, on the other hand, will have some problems with the GNU tools.
BSD gives you the rights..just you, just one time. Downstream one step there is no longer a duty to adhere to the four rights though, it fails the duty part and as such clearly seems to violate the spirit of the whole deal, because you can see the results, it goes from free to closed, it slams shut (or can). Just one step, that is all it takes.
And it magically disappeared.
First the "Feedback" page disappeared, interestingly less than 15 minutes after I posted there that the true author of the drivel was Maureen O'Gara.
Now the entire story is gone.
The power of proving hypocrisy strikes again!
haha - what's that i smell? it's Richard Stallman's shit all over your nose.
Seriously what's with you linux turds; the guy is a fucking idiot.
v2 might allow what Novell is doing.
v3 will not allow what Novell is doing.
After v3 is finalised and a lot of software, including all GNU software, is shifted to "v3 or any later version", Novell will either have to comply with GPLv3 (as well as whatever other licences they distribute software under) or fork gcc, glibc, gdb, binutils, coreutils, emacs, etc. etc. etc.
Launching a big legal project to determine whether v2 is violated is pointless because v3 will be violated, so whether or not there is also a violation in non-v3 code is a non-issue.
(Actually, when I tried to RTFA, I got a "page could not be displayed", but I've a good guess that it confused and the above explanation explains why)
Please help publicise swpat.org - the software patents wiki
We're talking about contract law here. What's important is what is written on the paper and how it stands up in court, what judges and civil juries think it means, not what the author thinks. Unless there's some sort of clause in the GPL requiring arbitration by Stallman for all disagreements (and there isn't), his opinion and statements aren't worth more than anybody who posts on Slashdot.
Oh yeah, he just absolved Microsoft (hee hee). I think what the world needs is a free bullshit filter to overlay on all feeds from Slashdot. It might not let much through these days, though.
So when will Slashdot start to use the openSUSE icon?
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
look, novell isn't anti-linux fud so long as the fud leads to their bottom line.
novell complained about msft getting contracts from novell and they will continue to do so under this contract.
however, now novell can go out and fudd redhat and, in their view, hopefully turn the fud used against red hat into cash.
this is the big white elephan tin the middle of the room that novell doesn't want to talk about.
"look, you don't want to use that stinky red hat stuff - msft might sue you! come on and use our cool green novell suse and msft won't you."
this will be repeated at sales presentations, ad nauseum.
novell did this to directly attack redhat - make NO MISTAKE about that.
The Gospel according to lolcat
Slashdot is much too old and tired. All we're seeing now are the propagandist articles that slashdot used to thrive on, but apparently the public has outgrown. Every post on the front page was chosen by either kdawson or cmdrtaco. Where did the other editors go?
I don't think GPL3 toold like a compiler would work with a GPL2 kernel. One of the things the GPLv3 was trying to address was the shirking around obligations imposed by the GPLv2. A compiler will depend heavily on the kernel and all it's libaries to work making the operations of a GPLv3 compiler contrary to it's own license when using a GPLv2 kernel.
In my opinion, this is nothing different from TIVOs attempt to lock people out. If the GPLv3 can taint the hardware to the points it forces signed keys to become GPLed it will definatly tain a kernel running under a former GPL. I don't see why these requirments should be "waived" just because it is OSS people doing it and not TIVO.
GPLv3 is bad news at it currently exists. It doesn't follow the spirit of the former GPL versions. It introduces too many unneeded problems and is more or less going to make the GPL weaker in the end. Some people are ok with that, some aren't. It isn't to hard to guess were i'm at on it.
If the GPL 3.0 does get released, enjoy the flood of people dumping stuff that uses the darned license and avoiding it like the plague.
Considering how vague it can be and how selective the Free Software Foundation is in their GPL interpretation, I wouldn't want to touch or use any of it. Heck, I can see places going back to Microsoft or some other vender then to put up with the GPL 3.0.
...blame the sites who spread it.
/. buried in the less frequently visited sites). It's the only voice of protest that counts anyways. An editor or two should be dropped over this. It wasn't stupidity, or lack of diligence.
---> i.e. Slashdot
I guess I'll have to reshuffle my bookmarks today(with
"If you don't have eyes you shouldn't have wings" -- Carl Pilkington
Of course, you could argue that distributing such a download-compile-and-link program would be an attempt to violate the intent of the new licence, but I still think that's unlikely. The main point of GPLv3 seems to be aimed at hardware locked down against modification. If the user can compile the two lots of source together, I don't think GPLv3 has a problem. It's when you want to mod a GPLv3 program distributed with hardware, and the hardware won't let you run the result that you hit problems. Think "Tivo".
Ones with the "...or later" boilerplate at the top won't need to, although I think some will explicitly re-licence as GPLv2 only. Not so many as I would have expected before recent shady dealings between MS and Novel, but some will. If nothing else, there are a lot of prominent FOSS devs being paid by large corporations. It's got to be difficult not to let something like that influence your thinking.
The interesting question is which projects will prosper and which not, post GPLv3. Which will attract developers, which will be bundled, and which wil fal by the wayside. Interesting days ahead, I feel
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
GPL license is more attractive to a for profit open source business, because it is essentially a form of barter. "Yes, you can use/distribute/sell our code with no license fee, BUT, we get to use/distribute/sell any enhancements you distribute." Endusers buy service and packaging. (I miss the RedHat CD retail packages.) BSD license is more of an out and out donation.
I wonder if there's a way to twist this scenario again, by Novel setting up a mechanism whereby everyone, everywhere can be legally considered their customer without restriction.
You BSD guys are really intellectualy lazy, so I will put a little allegory that hopefully clarifies this for you.
Lets say there is a river and that it passes through your land. Lets also say that you can do whatever you want with your land, including the river bit that crosses it.
The BSD guy will not block the river's flow, but will not care if somebody else's down stream does. He has done his bit to save the world and that gives him a warm and fuzzy feeling.
The GPL guy will also allow the stream to flow, but since he could potentially stop the flow (hint: copyright) and he is a fair chap, he writes a rule that mandates that nobody downstream can stop the river flowing, and whoever tries will be taken to court and if possible blocked to have access to the water.
The GPL guy understands that his actions take place in a societal context, the BSD guy is affiriming, in the best of Thatcherite traditions, if there is such a thing as society.
(as an aside, the MS guy will try to damn the river, make you go thirsty, and then charge you every couple of years for a bit of coloured water).
By releasing software with a BSD licence the flow of information stops with a commercial vendor, the users of products created by that vendor are exactly in the same situation as if a closed source advocate was providing the software. TO the user there is a point where BSD and closed sour code are completely undistinguishable from a practical point of view.
So tell us again, how BSD released code is more free? It is looking pretty locked down to me.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
You write software completely oblivious to the social consequences of what you do.
There are plenty of well intentioned people that do little good for not checking what consequences their actions may have in a wider context, either in the IT world or in many other areas.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
You can use GCC to compile proprietary apps. I think that even Apple uses it to compile OS X, and it is the default compiler for Xcode. All the BSDs use it as well. Heck, you can even compile Windows apps using MinGW. I don't expect that GPLv3 will change this situation at all.
When you lose something irreplaceable, you don't mourn for the thing you lost, you mourn for yourself. - Harpo Marx
.. if they read such hogwash and believe it, kinda like the FOX "News" fanboys deserve to be misinformed. Anyone who would believe they have developed a well informed opinion about something as complex as the GPL and the surrounding legal issues from such a small data set deserves to be misinformed regardless of the bias in the information. However bias is the reason that such people go through life with a warped view of the world. This is somewhat analogous to the idea of a self full filling prophecy. Their less than nimble minds already had the kernel of misinformed or warped view and thus seek only sources that reinforce such fantasy. A spiritually and mentally slothful and thus dangerous way to live, this is. Ahh Karma!
/.
"because other people who don't know anything about the GPL read this shit, and then they think that they do"
Your observation reminds me of one of my favorite quotes...
"It ain't what folks don't know thats gets them in the most trouble, it's the things they think they know that ain't so"
Will Rodgers (or a close paraphrase of something he said anyway)
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew
How about a fork - FreeSuSe the Karma Khameleon , as an icon I kinda like the twisted little lizard-like navigator/engineer character off of "Trippin The Rift", I know he was a bit of a perv, but none the less a kool one, don't ya think! It seems to me he would fit in well on