Eben Moglen — GPLv3 Not About MS and Novell

Linux.com's Joe Barr was recently able to sit down with Professor Eben Moglen at the San Diego Red Hat Summit and discuss the GPLv3 and what it means beyond the Microsoft/Novell deal on video. "Professor Moglen explains briefly about GPLv3's work on globalization of the software license, preventing harm to others by members of the community, and the most contentious in earlier drafts, DRM."

Comments

GPLv3 Not About MS and Novell

[HappySmileMan]

I should hope not... I expected it to be about open-source software and Linux...

It was also being drafted long before the MS/Novell agreement IIRC

Re:GPLv3 Not About MS and Novell

[Tovok7]

I should hope not... I expected it to be about open-source software and Linux... The GPL isn't about "Open Source" and Linux either. It is about securing people's freedom. Unfortunately, most people are not aware of this important issue.

Re:GPLv3 Not About MS and Novell

[HappySmileMan]

"Open Source" is about securing people's freedom...

And pretty much the only difference between GPL and proprietary licenses is that it's open source...

You can still charge for the use or purchase of a program made with it, however the source must be available at the same price as the binary.

Re:GPLv3 Not About MS and Novell

[HappySmileMan]

Ok by "pretty much the only difference" I meant "the most relevant difference to this topic", Slashdot needs and "Edit" button

Re:GPLv3 Not About MS and Novell

[Tovok7]

I said that the GPL is not about Open Source, because most people I know (also many non-computer guys) think of Open Source as having the source code available somewhere. They mostly don't care whether that's the case or not. They do not know that the trademark "Open Source" meant originally Free/Libre Software. They do not know that it is their freedom which is at stake here. Even Bruce Perens one of the founders of the Open Source movement said that It's Time to Talk About Free Software Again. We should listen to him!

Re:GPLv3 Not About MS and Novell

[jbn-o]

"Open Source" is about securing people's freedom...

No, "open source" is not about software freedom and it never was. The open source development methodology has to do with writing more reliable software, more quickly, and at lower cost. To understand why this misses the point the free software movement raises, consider this excerpt from "Why "Open Source" misses the point of Free Software":

"The idea of open source is that allowing users to change and redistribute the software will make it more powerful and reliable. But this is not guaranteed. Developers of proprietary software are not necessarily incompetent. Sometimes they produce a program which is powerful and reliable, even though it does not respect the users' freedom. How will free software activists and open source enthusiasts react to that?

A pure open source enthusiast, one that is not at all influenced by the ideals of free software, will say, "I am surprised you were able to make the program work so well without using our development model, but you did. How can I get a copy?" This attitude will reward schemes that take away our freedom, leading to its loss.

The free software activist will say, "Your program is very attractive, but not at the price of my freedom. So I have to do without it. Instead I will support a project to develop a free replacement." If we value our freedom, we can act to maintain and defend it."

I'm glad open source proponents use the GNU GPL and help secure software freedom for the users of those programs, I'm also glad open source proponents work together with free software activists on a variety of issues. I'm even glad that people go into depth on how to make money and license software under free software licenses (most notably: the GPL and LGPL). But these business-oriented discussions are not the most critical issues—human rights for software users and building community are more substantial issues. The open source movement was defined in part to get away from the "freedom talk" free software activists engage in, thus it's no surprise that when some people talk about "open source" they're not calling attention to freedom very much. Some open source proponents, such as Eric Raymond, want to talk about what the two groups have in common which means often talking about only the open source movement's values. The organization founded to champion open source's values, the Open Source Initiative, has considerable work to do to reframe the debate such that software freedom is an important part of that movement, assuming they want to make that a goal in the first place.

Re:GPLv3 Not About MS and Novell

[kinglink]

I gotta amend this too, it's about securing freedom according to one person or one group. Any law or license will restrict the freedoms of one person to hopefully give freedom to another. A lot of the stuff over the last year that Linux users have done has hurt Linux's reputation and Linux itself rather then help it.

Allow me to point out one issue, one of the biggest problem Linux has is it's not a true corporation or doesn't present itself like that, and it has no true corporation backing. GPLv3 is scaring off corporations interested in working with it, the response from the Novell deal has done the same.

Let me swap this up a little why is Windows so popular. Because IBM picked Dos, Dos lead to Windows, and everyone offers Window's options. Scaring off those who might offer Linux options (not Microsoft and Novell, but others) can only hurt linux as a whole.

It's great that some people are keeping "Linux as it was", an underground market, but then bitching about how Microsoft wins the market share has nothing to do with their tactics, it's more about the outreach of the group, or lack of it. Linux's growth was really strong at a point when it was really easy to get involved in it, With the new GPLs, the new distros, and the infighting it's never been harder, and that's what's currently choking Linux.

Re:GPLv3 Not About MS and Novell

[samkass]

Dangit, and my mod points just expired. One of the more "Insightful" posts. At this point the FSF seems to be intent on destroying FOSS quicker than Microsoft could possibly accomplish it.

Re:GPLv3 Not About MS and Novell

[goaty_the_flying_sho]

What fucking planet do you live on? This is slashdot and we know the difference between free and open source.

Re:GPLv3 Not About MS and Novell

[chromatic]

Similarly, PETA should hold real-meat barbecues to attract more potential members.

Re:GPLv3 Not About MS and Novell

[SpaceLifeForm]

You're correct. s/and/an/

Re:GPLv3 Not About MS and Novell

[kinglink]

See there's the exact problem. People think working with corporations are a bad thing and a contradiction. And that's why Linux will die. Because you can't see any benefits from working with corporations. Not every corporation is Microsoft. They want to do business and make money. That doesn't mean they don't want you to make money also, but their goals are their own company's growth. What Linux needs to do is work with companies that are willing to build up Linux as well. The doesn't mean open it up for someone to make a product for it, it means working with them.

If Linux users want Linux to be any more popular they have to open it up a little more and make the system work. OpenOffice is a great step, but let's be honest. It's still not acceptable for corporations because Microsoft is willing to cut deals to get THEIR OS, THEIR office suite, and THEIR mail program as well as IE, and all the other bells and whistles. It still costs them a bit but a license gives them instant technical support and it's friendly and welcoming in it's UI. That's what matters to business, not the fact it's open and expendable.

Linux as a whole will never win against the big M with out getting some help and that help will be in the form of corporations or Linux will continue to spin it's wheels, and the fact the market share's stagnation is what's slowing new development. But instead of trying to work with corporations GPL v3, as well as the general consensuse is "fuck corporations" and I still can't find a way to see that work when you're dealing with an OS that needs programs on it. Why are we pushing aways corporations who might be willing to support us with those programs?

Or are we just going to assume Windows emulation is going to get us through the day? Oh yeah because running Linux and emulating windows is really different than just running windows? That's what we do while gaining support to run all sorts of programs, that's not a viable end game.

Linux itself can continue to be free and open while programs are running on it that are closed. People CAN make money off programs for Linux. Linux doesn't have to be all about free to use, or else we're just going to keep running into the same hurdles we have been. These aren't contradictions, these are possible alliances and ways to open up Linux to a larger group.

Re:GPLv3 Not About MS and Novell

[JimDaGeek]

Huh? Even if MS gave away their code with a purchase of MS Windows, you couldn't change the code and distribute it. With GPL, I could download your code that you charge for, and then give it to everyone I want without fee. You cannot do that with proprietary code. Heck, end-users are not even allowed to OWN the code/software they buy from a proprietary vendor. They just get to use/license it.

Everyone keeps thinking the GPL is about developers. However it is not. The GPL is about users and their freedom with the software. Say it over and over in your heads people... The GPL is about users.

BSD-style licenses basically say I don't care about what you do and I don't care if you restrict users of derivatives works of this code.
GPL-style licenses basically say you can create derivative works, you can distribute those works. However, you cannot restrict the rights of the users of this work from doing the same. BSD does NOT provide for that when it comes to derivative works.

So, in a nut shell, if you don't care who does what with the code, BSD or (even better IMO) LGPL can help you there. However, if you care about the users of your work the GPL is a good bet.

Me personally, I write code for users not developers. I enjoy writing code and having someone say that it came in handy and helped them. Those are the people I want to see have rights that copyright just doesn't provide.

Re:GPLv3 Not About MS and Novell

[chromatic]

People think working with corporations are a bad thing and a contradiction. And that's why Linux will die. Because you can't see any benefits from working with corporations.

Strawman much?

I have no problem working with corporations. I don't care if they're one-person LLCs or multinational public behemoths.

I also don't lose sleep over corporations, or partnerships, or single-owner businesses, or non-profits who look at "share and share alike" copyleft licenses and say "We can't use that software because ______". Their goals are different from my goals.

My goal is to create and promote free software. I don't see how either promoting proprietary software or coddling proprietary software models helps that goal.

Re:GPLv3 Not About MS and Novell

[JimDaGeek]

See there's the exact problem. People think working with corporations are a bad thing and a contradiction. And that's why Linux will die.

This is just silly. Linux will never "die". It may never be mainstream, however it won't die. It is a robust OS with tons of devs interested in developing for it. Sure, it might not come in a pretty box like Vista; it might not have 7 different versions like vista and it probably won't be priced anything like vista, but it will never die.

Working with Corps. WRT Free software can be a little hard. At the end of the day, any for-profit corp. only cares about one thing. Profits. If making more profits means taking away users rights to the software, well so be it. Some exec will make that choice and sign the papers. That right there would kill the Free software to corp. relationship. So exactly how can Free software (not "open source") have a trusting relationship with a corp. (which is just a legal entity that is separate from its owners), if at every opportunity the corp. would drop the ideals of Free software for profit?

I see so many people stuck on this idea that Free software is about competition. No it is not. It is about giving end-users far more rights to the work than they get with copyright alone, and especially with proprietary license agreements.

I believe Free software and corps can exist just fine, as long as each entity knows the limit of the other. Corps. can put a bunch of cash into a project generally not available to most Free software projects. That cash can really help a project go from some "kiddy fun-toy" to something like tomcat or Apache or KDE or Gnome or ...

Free software can give the corps a very great swath of code to use to differentiate their products and not have to "reinvent the wheel". By using Free software, a corp can expand its products and lower dev costs by not having to rewrite libraries that have been done and debugged and proven to be stable. This is where the LGPL is really great IMO. If a company wants to write a closed source proprietary app that handles CD/DVD burners, they can. They can get a head start by using Free software libs. Heck, even Microsoft uses GPL covered software in its Windows Services for UNIX product.

There is a lot of potential for both sides to co-exist. However, most people on either side seems to want it to be one or the other to "win". To me, that is not a real-world-solution. I think the best solution is to meet in the middle and for each "side" to see the limitations of the other.

Re:GPLv3 Not About MS and Novell

[djmurdoch]

Heck, end-users are not even allowed to OWN the code/software they buy from a proprietary vendor.

End-users don't own my GPL'd code. I do.

If the end-user owned it, they wouldn't be required to distribute their source with their modifications. They could do whatever they liked with it.

Re:GPLv3 Not About MS and Novell

[Kjella]

You know, that really never quite came together for me. As a proponent of open source code, you must think that having open source code is important. However, open source code doesn't promote open source software which would lead to more open source code. Except for what companies decide to give out of charity, every closed source branch is a dead end. Not only that, but every user those closed derivates take means less people have the ability to modify the code and less people to improve on it. Even if I know there's some open source code in a product, I can't do anything to develop it. How can open source be a development methodology when it contributes absolutely nothing to development?

Unless of course, you have people that see that open source code, improves upon it then contributes it back as open source. In fact, why should you care at all about anyone else, since they're not contributing to your "development methodology" anyway? If that's your interest, why not pick a license that requires changes to be contributed back? That would make it equal or superior to all those that actually contribute to development, and inferior only to those who don't. Unless closed source companies love to contribute to open source that is, but I don't think so.

What I hear the most is that open source benefits all the users, so if you write a BSD code that Windows picked up, you'd have helped millions. What really happens is that if your functionality was worth 1$, Microsoft would add 1$ to their margin, people get no more utility (since they were indifferent about $1 or your code) while the shareholders make a cool few hundred millions. I like dual licensing - either you contribute in code, or you pay in cash. But if you want to give companies a free lunch, I'm not going to stop you. Just don't complain about not getting anything in return. Don't complain when others won't release their code so companies can have their way with it. With open source you're on your own. No matter how much you give, no matter how much others use it, you're entitled to nothing.

Re:GPLv3 Not About MS and Novell

[75th Trombone]

Just don't complain about not getting anything in return.

They don't. They don't think they should. That's their whole point.

disclaimer: I'm a proponent of GPL and BSD licenses.

Re:GPLv3 Not About MS and Novell

[75th Trombone]

Linux ... might not have 7 different versions like vista

GUFFAW!

(ahem.) No, no sir, it does not have seven different versions. It has over three hundred.

I'm just sayin' is all.

Re:GPLv3 Not About MS and Novell

[Kjella]

They don't. They don't think they should. That's their whole point.

Except they do, at least some of them some of the time. Here's for example a blurb from an interview with Theo:
"NF: Lots of hardware vendors use OpenSSH. Have you got anything back from them?
TdR: If I add up everything we have ever gotten in exchange for our efforts with OpenSSH, it might amount to $1,000. This all came from individuals. For our work on OpenSSH, companies using OpenSSH have never given us a cent. What about companies that incorporate OpenSSH directly into their products, saving themselves millions of dollars? Companies such as Cisco, Sun, SGI, HP, IBM, Siemens, a raft of medium-sized firewall companies -- we have not received a cent. Or from Linux vendors? Not a cent. Of course we did not set out to create OpenSSH for the money -- we purposely made it completely free so that the "telnet infrastructure" of the 1980s would die. But it sure is sad that none of these companies return even a fraction of value in kind. If you want to judge any entity particularly harshly, judge Sun. Yearly they hold interoperability events, for NFS and other protocols, and they include SSH implementation tests as well. Twice we asked them to cover the travel and accommodation costs for a developer to come to their event, and they refused. Considering that their SunSSH is directly based on our code, that is just flat out insulting. Shame on you Sun, shame, shame, shame. I will say it here -- if an OpenSSH hole is found that applies to SunSSH, Sun will not be informed. Or maybe that has happened already."

Ok, this was hardly the worst rant I've heard from Theo - but he certainly seems a little bitter that he hasn't seen a cent of those millions. I think quite a few open source people dream of a "fair" distribution - that you'll somehow get a kickback based on how much they used your code. Well, there you have the reality of it. Some say open source is like a gift, with no strings attached. Well, I prefer to give gifts to those who appriciate them...

Re:GPLv3 Not About MS and Novell

[kestasjk]

I would consider BSD to be more open and better for encouraging competition. With BSD code you're saying "If anyone can take this code and make it so much better that people will pay for it, good for you!"

Mac OS X, for all I hate it, is a good demonstration of this. Instead of having to write a piece of crap from scratch Apple can take a solid base and develop on it. If they can develop enough that people pay for it good for them.
Windows should use BSD code too; stop worrying about the base and spend all that money developing on top of an already excellent core. If they build on top of an already excellent system they can reach greater heights, and as a user I want that regardless of whether it impinges on my freedoms.

BSD is a license that says "If you can do better than this don't let anything hold you back." And if there's a solid base product that anyone can build off the code will be used by more people, and if the code is of good quality that benefits everyone.

Another example is SQLite. This is in the public domain, but for practical purposes public domain and BSD are the same.
The reason it has had such high uptake is that anyone can use it any way they want. It's a high quality piece of code that should be used everywhere from Windows to Tivo to Linux; because as a user I realize that it's more stable the the alternative of writing something from scratch.
The reason no-one has forked it and started charging for it is because the base product is already so good at what it does that no-one thinks they could improve it enough to sell.

I'm not saying BSD is the answer and GPL isn't, but I do think that each one has its role.

Re:GPLv3 Not About MS and Novell

[JimDaGeek]

Huh? Dude do you have like 3 brain cells?

End-users don't own my GPL'd code. I do.

No, you don't. If you release any code under the GPL, any user is granted rights to that code. Regardless of what crap you think. If you release "your" code under the GPL, I have full rights to modify, distribute or sell the code I got from you.

Re:GPLv3 Not About MS and Novell

[superm401]

Windows does use BSD code (for the networking stack and some other things), and I (as a Windows user) have no chance of seeing their version of it. That's why I prefer copyleft.

Re:GPLv3 Not About MS and Novell

[rtb61]

You really seem to have a dysfunctional under standing of open source software. Not all open source software is 'Linux', in fact there are many open source products that run on windows and other operating systems. Open source and using GPL is suitable for some products because companies want to create their own code free of proprietary hooks that always seem to cause a lot of problems down the track.

Many corporations not associated with producing software can contribute a portion of what they spend on licence fees, working together and creating software products that do the job required of them and be stable and secure.

Some open source products generate much greater interest because of their universal application and the benefits to end user, companies and governments of having a 'shared' platform upon which they can communicate and openly exchange information, those ones of course are the Linux kernel, Mozilla Firefox, Mozilla Thunderbird and OpenOffice.org, beyond that of course are a range of other products but the don't really have the same scope of universal application eg. media players, cad software, databases etc.

As for running closed source proprietary software on Linux most people don't have a problem with it (as long as it is not embedding itself in the kernel eg. hardware drivers, and creating a profit driven security and stability risk). So proprietary software is fine, the preference is that it installs in the users home directory and does not touch the root system and politely asks permission to access the network via existing open source network secure software.

The big thing to bear in mind with open source software is that once mind share is gained it has a life far beyond any proprietary code, possibly centuries of adjustment and modification, now compare that to the idea of having to pay licence fees for the next hundred years and putting up with bogus upgrades as so called 'new' versions and paying for the privilege beta testing and pointless user interface changes to sell new resource kits.

Re:GPLv3 Not About MS and Novell

[JackieBrown]

Most of those are no more "separate" distributions than the Debian that I have installed.

The are mostly the same (Debian/SuSe/Fedora/Slack/Gentoo) as their base, just with a different choice of default packages.

Re:GPLv3 Not About MS and Novell

[edwdig]

They do not know that the trademark "Open Source" meant originally Free/Libre Software. They do not know that it is their freedom which is at stake here.

Or, just maybe, most people don't see it that way.

People generally don't consider it a blow against their freedom that their car doesn't come with the required information to make an exact replica of the engine, or when their microwave doesn't come with a circuit diagram, or their music CDs don't come with sheet music.

Why would they see it any differently with software?

Re:GPLv3 Not About MS and Novell

[edwdig]

No, you don't. If you release any code under the GPL, any user is granted rights to that code. Regardless of what crap you think. If you release "your" code under the GPL, I have full rights to modify, distribute or sell the code I got from you.

Not quite right. You have rights to distribute, but not full rights. The author can distribute however he wants, however, receipts have some strings attached, so it's not full rights.

Re:GPLv3 Not About MS and Novell

[tkinnun0]

I prefer to give gifts to beautiful women who are willing to show their appreciation. I also oppose prostitution.

Re:GPLv3 Not About MS and Novell

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows has not used the BSD networking stack in ages. As for "some other things", do you really want to source for ftp.exe ?

Re:GPLv3 Not About MS and Novell

[init100]

People generally don't consider it a blow against their freedom that their car doesn't come with the required information to make an exact replica of the engine, or when their microwave doesn't come with a circuit diagram, or their music CDs don't come with sheet music.

Why would they see it any differently with software?

But then, the microwave doesn't make the food recipe secret just but heating your food in it. Those items that you mention cannot be compared with software. What analogies would you use for your work products stored in secret-format files that you cannot use with competitors' products without them doing a lot of reverse engineering?

Re:GPLv3 Not About MS and Novell

[init100]

No, you don't. If you release any code under the GPL, any user is granted rights to that code. Regardless of what crap you think. If you release "your" code under the GPL, I have full rights to modify, distribute or sell the code I got from you.

The difference is that the copyright holder has the right to distribute his code under any license, not just the GPL. If he owns the copyright for the entire package, he can relicense the package at will. This is the basis for multi-licensing, and this is the reason why e.g. MySQL requires you to grant them an unlimited license to be able to contribute, so that they can sell their code to such companies that cannot use the GPL version.

As a recipient of GPL-covered code, you cannot do that.

Re:GPLv3 Not About MS and Novell

[djmurdoch]

End-users don't own my GPL'd code. I do.

No, you don't. If you release any code under the GPL, any user is granted rights to that code.

That's right, but not very precise. If I release my code under the GPL, *I* grant any user certain limited rights to that code. I'm the owner of the code, so I can do that.

The recipient of the code doesn't become the owner. If they did, they wouldn't be bound by the GPL. They are using my code with my permission, only in the way that I've allowed them to use it.

Regardless of what crap you think. If you release "your" code under the GPL, I have full rights to modify, distribute or sell the code I got from you.

If I release it under the GPL, *I* am granting you rights to modify, distribute or sell the code, *under certain conditions*, namely the ones spelled out in the GPL. You don't have full rights. In particular, if you choose to modify and distribute it, you have to make your modifications available to everyone.

Re:GPLv3 Not About MS and Novell

[edwdig]

But then, the microwave doesn't make the food recipe secret just but heating your food in it. Those items that you mention cannot be compared with software. What analogies would you use for your work products stored in secret-format files that you cannot use with competitors' products without them doing a lot of reverse engineering?

Your argument is about data formats, not software. Very, very, different things.

Re:GPLv3 Not About MS and Novell

[init100]

Yes, but software uses these formats to store and communicate information, making it relevant.

Re:GPLv3 Not About MS and Novell

[edwdig]

Information is also stored and communicated using hard disks. Do you expect the manufacturer to therefore give you the information necessary to build your own replica of their hard disks?

Re:GPLv3 Not About MS and Novell

[Azul]

That's a very interesting perspective. Thanks for posting it. :-)

Re:GPLv3 Not About MS and Novell

[Anonymous Coward]

The GPL is about users.

I simply don't believe this statement. How many users care about the GPL, know what it means or select their software based on it? Is it less than 1% or less than 0.1%, I would say it doesn't play a significant role. You also said that you "write code for users". I beg to disagree, you write applications for users. The source code is frankly only interesting for developers, so by selecting the GPL initially for a project:

  - someone cares about developers
  - shares a project with others in order to work in a team
  - sometimes makes a political statement that he/she actively supports open source and its ideas

From my experience selecting a open-source license vs a non-open-source license has no big impact on the choice of users at all. How much a product costs and how good a product is has an impact, but don't expect that users see a difference between a free-of-charge proprietary license and a GPL-style license. Yes, humans are a flawed design.

Opensource software sucks.

[Anonymous Coward]

Go to hell, communists. You democrats are trying to destroy the United States' only hold over China: They need Microsoft software. When they can get crappy free solutions to do the same, the United States will just continue to become indebted to China and other countries. And it will be all your fault, you Hillary fanboys. For the sake of national security, free software efforts must become against the law. Besides, free software destroys our free market, creating monopolies, by selling at excessively low prices. Would Microsoft get away with giving away free products to take competitors' market share away? No. Neither should these ****ing tree-hugging, Prius-driving free software zealots. The captcha is appropriately "planking."

Re:Opensource software sucks.

[HappySmileMan]

Is it just me or is "Anonymous Coward" a very hateful person?

He/she seems to be the only user here to ever go on a freedom-bashing/flaming/hate-filled rant.

Re:Opensource software sucks.

[iminplaya]

I see it as sarcasm, and that's the way I'm going to take it. I certainly cannot take it seriously. That's for sure.

Re:Opensource software sucks.

[Valtor]

...Neither should these ****ing tree-hugging, Prius-driving free software zealots... Wow. I wonder what OSS has done to you, for you to hate it so much? I hope you are not loosing sleep over this...

Re:Opensource software sucks.

[unlametheweak]

I suppose that's why it's rated as flamebait. He's more than likely just trying to get a reaction (no matter what his/her actual beliefs are). It's a lame form of sarcasm if that's what it was intended to be. BTW I HAVE read about US politicians saying they wanted laws against FOSS because it supposedly hearts the US capitalist economy.

Re:Opensource software sucks.

[jeevesbond]

This is such a hilarious troll, normally I wouldn't feed but the parent post is so ridiculous that it's gone beyond trolling into some random fantasy land.

Go to hell, communists.

The GPL is not Communist in nature, in fact when I distribute software under the GPL it's all about me and my choice to share work with others. In a Communist scenario all the sofware would belong to the state, the choice of sharing would not be mine. Secondly, nowhere in the GPL does it say you cannot charge for your work, Studio to Go is a good example of this.

You democrats are trying to destroy the United States' only hold over China: They need Microsoft software. When they can get crappy free solutions to do the same, the United States will just continue to become indebted to China and other countries. And it will be all your fault, you Hillary fanboys.

Right, because Free software is all a conspiracy to ruin the US. Of course most of the people who answered the survey in this MIT study, when asked what their motivation is, said: 'I'm a Hillary fanboy and want to ruin the US!' Or could it be that FLOSS developers enjoy coding and want to share stuff they like? Which do you think is more likely?

I like FLOSS but am not a Hillary fanboy. In fact am not really interested in your elections, suprise: there are people who live outside the US!

For the sake of national security, free software efforts must become against the law.

This is the funniest thing I've read for a long time. It would be interesting to see this happen, my hypothesis is that this would ruin software development in the US. Am pretty certain your country would suffer rather badly if it outlawed FLOSS but the rest of the world continued developing it. Think of all those savings your corporations would be missing out on! What about the US corporations who're distributing FLOSS, e.g. IBM, Sun, HP, Dell, RedHat et al?

Besides, free software destroys our free market, creating monopolies, by selling at excessively low prices. Would Microsoft get away with giving away free products to take competitors' market share away? No. Neither should these ****ing tree-hugging, Prius-driving free software zealots. The captcha is appropriately "planking."

Oh dear, that's funny. Free software does not destroy the free market, but encourages it. With FLOSS there's much less possibility for vendor lock-in (since everything is out in the open and I can't imagine the many volunteers working on FLOSS projects being happy with creating proprietary file formats etc.). Theoretically Microsoft would not get away with giving away software for free, yet that's exactly how they gained their monopoly: by turning a blind eye to piracy. Your point is invalid in another respect: Microsoft is a company whereas Free software is an ecosystem/licensing model. If all proprietary software disappeared tomorrow there would still be plenty of competition, this is one of the things people complain about with GNU/Linux: there's too much choice!

I'd almost like to see your post modded up as 'Funny', just because it's so stupid and full of hilarious vitriol. Also I feel it's important to debunk rubbish like this sometimes, just in case someone else read your post and thinks that you've got a point (a scary prospect).

Re:Opensource software sucks.

[unlametheweak]

On second thought. I do see the humour and irony in that piece. I can only presume this person has probably read some of the same anti-FOSS BS that I remember reading. Otherwise, I wander what US politician could have posted under "Anonymous Coward" :)

Re:Opensource software sucks.

[FudRucker]

sure, and when is microsoft actually going to build a secure and stable operating system that is opensource so i can rebuild the kernel and any other part of the OS by editing the sourcecode & rebuilding, i want an OS that is literally bulletproof against viruses because i dont want to spend money on crappy third party anti-virus software, i want a firewall built in to the kernel, i want to choose how i want my kernel rebuilt leaving out completely what is unwanted and unneeded, i want an OS that does not call home to the mother ship giving them personal information, i want an OS that does not keep a registry i prefer to keep individual config files within the application's directory as this is much more safer against system wide failure in the event of file corruption...

since microsoft is not going to produce what i want i refuse to buy or use their products, Linux gives me what i want and just because it is free does not mean it is of less value = to me Linux has more value than ms-windows...

Linux communist? dont make me laugh, Linux is more democratic in nature than anything else, microsoft is run by a corporate entity that is run more like a totalitarian dictatorship than anything else = users have no say in what can be done to the OS they have to accept what microsoft dictates if they want to use microsoft's kludgeware...

Re:Opensource software sucks.

[lixee]

In a Communist scenario all the sofware would belong to the state, the choice of sharing would not be mine.

Communism, as preached by Mark, has never been implemented. What you're thinking of, is some kind of Bolshevism.

Re:Opensource software sucks.

[jeevesbond]

Communism, as preached by Mark, has never been implemented. What you're thinking of, is some kind of Bolshevism.

You're absolutely right of course, I was 'dumbing down' the issues somewhat. The average westerner's definition of 'Communism' is that totalitarian state I was referring to: Soviet Russia under Stalin typifies Communism for most people.

My apologies for continuing to perpetuate mis-information.

Re:Opensource software sucks.

[Cius]

"You may continue to demand our silence, but you will not obtain it." Where did jeevesbond demand silence?

Re:Opensource software sucks.

[Freed]

Right now it's still voluntary, yes...but if you know anything about Stallman and/or Bradley Kuhn, then you also know that they are very adamant in their belief that the GPL is the only license with the right to exist. You can be very sure that if Stallman had any ability whatsoever to dictate that the GPL were the only scenario under which software could be distributed or used at all, he would exercise it with great enthusiasm.

Where did Stallman or Kuhn ever say that the GPL is the only license with a right to exist?

Is there ever a moment when you are _not_ talking out of your ass?

Re:Opensource software sucks.

[frogstar_robot]

Right now it's still voluntary, yes...but if you know anything about Stallman and/or Bradley Kuhn, then you also know that they are very adamant in their belief that the GPL is the only license with the right to exist. You can be very sure that if Stallman had any ability whatsoever to dictate that the GPL were the only scenario under which software could be distributed or used at all, he would exercise it with great enthusiasm.

What's so great about a world where Bill Gates and Co. are basically entitled to my money because that is the only legal way to use a computer? FOSS doesn't put them out of business but it sure forces a degree of honesty out of them. Bottom line is that he who writes the code chooses the license. That is TRUE freedom whether apparent fascists such as yourself like it or not.

Re:Opensource software sucks.

[jeevesbond]

However, a GPL monoculture has been seen time and again to be the end goal. Stallman's ideal scenario would be every bit as much a monoculture as Microsoft's

A license monoculture is not the same as a software monoculture under the control of one company. As for the rest of your post: weird and reality-twisting. Richard Stallman would like everyone to use the GPL? That's hardly a suprise. Yet you make it appear that promoting the GPL is the same as threatening to shoot anyone who doesn't. Only Microsoft would go that far! :)

Methinks you are a BSD user with a chip on their shoulder. That you actually agree with what is probably a joke is particularly astounding.

Re:Opensource software sucks.

[bagofbeans]

There are a plurality of licenses, and GPL is simply one of them. No-one is forced to use GPL. If you like a program released under GPL and want to include its functionality in your own program (for sale of not), you can always re-write it.

Until GPL, re-write was the only option, and if every program in teh world was GPL, that still remains an option.

Re:Opensource software sucks.

[multisync]

Go to hell, communists

I love how whenever you start talking about "freedom" with certain types of people you get called a "communist."

I know the AC is just trolling (or he's a total ass-hat), but I've actually encountered this in real life with otherwise intelligent people. You start talking about openness and choice and they feel threatened by that for some reason. I guess the only freedom they care about is their freedom to amass wealth.

Re:Opensource software sucks.

[Anonymous Coward]

>> You democrats are trying to destroy the United
>> States' only hold over China: They need Microsoft
>> software. When they can get crappy free solutions
>> to do the same, the United States will just continue
>> to become indebted to China and other countries. And
>> it will be all your fault, you Hillary fanboys.

> I like FLOSS but am not a Hillary
> fanboy. In fact am not really
> interested in your elections,
> suprise: there are people who live
> outside the US!

Oh, I get it now -- you're Chinese, aren't you?

Re:Opensource software sucks.

[Ant P.]

If freedom is a communist idea, what does that make the United States, in your opinion?

A fascist dictatorship?

Re:Opensource software sucks.

[Dionysus]

Where did Stallman or Kuhn ever say that the GPL is the only license with a right to exist? Guess you haven't read Why Software Should Be Free or Kuhn's response to the Slashdot interview. Both men believes the choice of license is not something the developer should be allowed to decide.

To quote Kuhn:

Today, some argue that the "right to choose your own software license" is the greatest software freedom. By contrast, I think that, like slavery, it is an inappropriate power, not a freedom. The two situations both cause harm, and they differ only in the degree of harm that each causes.

Re:Opensource software sucks.

[Dionysus]

FOSS doesn't put them out of business but it sure forces a degree of honesty out of them. Bottom line is that he who writes the code chooses the license. You do realize that's a choice FSF doesn't believe you as a developer, have a right to make? Just read what Freed wrote in reply to your message, or some of the quotes from Kuhn or Stallman.

Re:Opensource software sucks.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been here since the very beginning, unlike you. I'm one of the most prolific posters here. I speak my mind, which you refer to as "ranting".

You got a problem with that?

Re:Opensource software sucks.

[frogstar_robot]

The FSF isn't ever going to be in a position to dictate over code they didn't write unless it links to their code. Even if the words of FSF proponents can be twisted into some sort of impending dystopia, it ain't gonna happen. The words of the FSF in no way detract from the validity of mine (Torvalds' actually): He who writes the code chooses the license.

Re:Opensource software sucks.

[JimDaGeek]

You know the post you are replying to is meant as sarcasm. :-)

Re:Opensource software sucks.

[mudshark]

This is such a hilarious troll, normally I wouldn't feed but the parent post is so ridiculous that it's gone beyond trolling into some random fantasy land.

Indeed.

YHBT. HAND.

Re:Opensource software sucks.

[Freed]

>Guess you haven't read Why Software Should Be Free or Kuhn's response to the Slashdot interview. Both men believes the choice of license is not something the developer should be allowed to decide.

Thanks for the links. However, calling the power to choose one's license inappropriate does not imply that no license but the GPL should exist. Instead, in Freedom or Power? Kuhn and Stallman argue that, given today's laws, the _ethical_ choice is a free software license:

We believe you should decide what to do with the software you use; however, that is not what today's law says. Current copyright law places us in the position of power over users of our code, whether we like it or not. The ethical response to this situation is to proclaim freedom for each user, just as the Bill of Rights was supposed to exercise government power by guaranteeing each citizen's freedoms. That is what the GNU GPL is for: it puts you in control of your usage of the software, while protecting you from others who would like to take control of your decisions.

Unsurprisingly they _suggest_ the GPL.

Re:Opensource software sucks.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is such a hilarious troll, normally I wouldn't feed but the parent post is so ridiculous that it's gone beyond trolling into some random fantasy land. We have a word for it. It's called "satire".

Re:Opensource software sucks.

[clang_jangle]

Warning: this post may contain British humour.

Oh yeah, where? I don't see any men in drag or naked women in it...

Re:Opensource software sucks.

[Freed]

>You do realize that's a choice FSF doesn't believe you as a developer, have a right to make? Just read what Freed wrote in reply to your message, or some of the quotes from Kuhn or Stallman.

Of course, by "have a right" you mean "should have a right". In Freedom or Power? they write:

However, one so-called freedom that we do not advocate is the "freedom to choose any license you want for software you write". We reject this because it is really a form of power, not a freedom.

It seems they merely reject advocating the power, especially as a freedom, the same way I might reject advocating the power to punch a stranger in the nose (excepting self-defense, etc.). If, in the above phrase, "license" were modified to "license that respects the four freedoms", then I would bet that Stallman and Kuhn would see it as a legitimate choice.

Stallman himself is also on record as saying that he does not care whether proprietary software is ever made illegal. Thus, he does not particularly care about constraining developers _through the law_. The GPL, of course, is no such constraint because no one is forced by law to either use it or use GPL software(*). In any case, regardless of Kuhn's and Stallman's beliefs about a developer's right to choose their software license, such a right has been and will remain outside the scope of the work of the FSF, including the licenses of the FSF.

(*): Various national or local governments around the world have mandated use of free software within that governmental body. Whether or not this is decided through a democratic process has nothing to do with the FSF. Indeed, given FSF's meager finances, such mandates in the typical climate of monied lobbying are remarkable.

Re:Opensource software sucks.

[Freed]

Sorry to belabor this point, but there are other indications that, regardless of what the FSF may believe, it intends that developers should be able to choose a number of licenses. One such indication is simply having _provided_ any number of licenses to choose from, including any of version of the GPL as well as the LGPL. Another is advocating exception clauses when appropriate, such as the linking exception in the GNU C Library and GNU Guile and having a system of permissions and restrictions in the GPL3 drafts.

Again, the FSF in effect advocates a right to choose licenses, as long as they conform to the four freedoms.

Re:Opensource software sucks.

[rxmd]

WHOOOSH!

(Still made a couple of good points though.)

Re:Opensource software sucks.

[boteeka]

Communism, as preached by Mark, has never been implemented

It's Marx, not Mark, you Bolshevist skunk! :-)

Re:Opensource software sucks.

[init100]

It would be interesting to see this happen, my hypothesis is that this would ruin software development in the US. Am pretty certain your country would suffer rather badly if it outlawed FLOSS but the rest of the world continued developing it.

I'm pretty sure that if the US would outlaw free software, the state department would begin a strong lobbying campaign around the world to make sure that every other country also enact such laws. I mean, they already did it with software patents in the EU, to secure the profits of the mostly american corporations that hold (currently invalid) european software patents.

Re:Opensource software sucks.

[init100]

Stallman's ideal scenario would be every bit as much a monoculture as Microsoft's

No, it wouldn't, since all software wouldn't be owned by a single entity. It would be a license monoculture rather than a software monoculture.

Re:Opensource software sucks.

[lilomar]

Freedom is a communist idea, or at least a communist ideal. From wikipedia:

According to the Marxist argument for communism, the main characteristic of human life in class society is alienation; and communism is desirable because it entails the full realization of human freedom. Marx here follows Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel in conceiving freedom not merely as an absence of restraints but as action with content. (McLean and McMillan, 2003) They believed that communism allowed people to do what they want, but also put humans in such conditions and such relations with one another that they would not wish to exploit, or have any need to.

(Emphasis mine)

Nice but

[Mateo_LeFou]

I'd like someone at linux.com to explain the rationale behind publishing one brief clip per day over the course of the week, instead of just publishing the interview. I'm not saying its a horrible thing to do.. just can't figure out why.

Re:Nice but

[otomo_1001]

I am guessing the theory was that if they broke it up that more people would come back to read it. More pageviews = more ad revenue?

God I hope not, the "news" with 5 pages of 2 paragraphs each is bad enough as it is. Now if the news sources think that spacing the article out over time will help, we can pretty much kiss the usefulness of the web goodbye.

This pretty much guarantees I will not be reading anything from linux.com now.

Re:Nice but

[qortra]

I'm not at linux.com, but I'll give it a go. You're right that this seems a little short, but the Serial has a long and venerable tradition in western literature and journalism. Especially in this case, most people are not inclined to sit down with a tub of popcorn and watch an ogg of Eben Moglen for 10 minutes. On the other hand, 1.5 minute segments are much more digestible. And, if it's good, it's something to look forward to for a few days.

Re:Nice but

[alexgieg]

I think it's about time for someone to develop a "MergeNews" Firefox addon. You load an article in a known news source that suffers from multiple-page syndrome, it loads all the pages in the background, constructs a single, merged one, without the useless things of the original, presenting you the result.

Who's up to the task? ;)

Re:Nice but

[Mateo_LeFou]

I don't have much spare time to offer, but I'll give you a cooler name:

Call it "Y'know, Web 1.0 was, overall, working pretty well for me, thanks."

Or YW1.0WOWPWFMT, for short

Re:Nice but

[flyingfsck]

The main problem with internet news, is that you cannot wrap fish in old news, so stuff tends to hang around until someone eventually forgets to renew his domain name.

Re:Nice but

[dosius]

We could always start a "Web 1.x Movement" ... No flash, no javascript, bring the Web back to its original purpose...

-uso.

Re:Nice but

[hendersj]

It's already been done:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/209 9

Re:Nice but

[Anonymous Coward]

Firefox Repagination

Not very elegant(it simply mashes pages together, so you don't get a one page layout, but you do get only one page), but it works pretty well.

Re:Nice but

[Roblimo]

The real reason for publishing these five videos separately is so that they are searchable separately by topic.

This makes them more useful, long-run, for people who are just learning about free software -- or about Eben Moglen, for that matter.

- Robin

Re:they're right

[iago-vL]

That's fine and dandy until somebody takes your markets your application and sells it for millions, while you're slaving away. Perhaps you could argue that selling it is "messing with it" -- but that's not necessarily true. And then comes the legal-speak...

Re:they're right

[iminplaya]

That's far too complicated. My "license" simply says, "Go nuts." I won't let anybody prohibit me from using and copying and distributing anything that contains any code that I wrote. You can't steal the sun from me...or something like that.

Flamebait!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent +5 funny. That's the funniest thing I've read all week. Learn to detect sarcasm, mods.

Re:Flamebait!?

[Anonymous Coward]

What you commie? I was not being sarcastic! Really!

Re:Flamebait!?

[Anonymous Coward]

What you commie? I was not being sarcastic! Really!

Hey, just because you've got the same name as me doesn't mean you can speak for me! I'm anonymous coward and I was being sarcastic damnit!

Novell may have big problems

[PoliTech]

Novell views GPLv3 as a danger to its agreement with MS to resell SUSE Linux certificates. Novell comments that if "the Free Software Foundation releases a new version of the GNU General Public License with certain currently proposed terms, our business may suffer harm." That verbiage is from the annual report's risk factors section.

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/758004/0000 95013407012375/0000950134-07-012375.txt

The FSF has as much as said that they will target the Microsoft-Novell deal. http://gplv3.fsf.org/rationale, and since it's not a matter of "if" GPLv3 becomes more than a draft, as much as it is "when"...

The current draft of GPLv3 can affect Novell's biggest source of cash - Microsoft. (and may also affect SUSE gaining more market share in the enterprise) If the final GPLv3 impacts the patent agreement between Microsoft and Novell, Novell has big problems. And (IMHO) increasing SUSE acceptance among enterprise customers suffers a setback.

Re:Novell may have big problems

[sharperguy]

The entire aim of the GPLv3 is to baisically fix "bugs" and loopholes present in the GPLv2 in order to make sure that the four software freedoms are always present in GPL-licenced software.

Any company that claims their business may suffer harm should either point out why certain points in the licence are unfair, or accept that the reason they will "suffer harm" is because they were exploiting the errors within the GPL for their own means and therefor going against the spirit of Free Software.

The FSF may be specifically targeting the M$-Novell deal in some areas, but it is not the only rational, because the creation was already underway before it was apparent the deal had even been agreed apon. Also if they target this deal then it is because of areas of the agreement which are not in the spirit of Free Software, and should only affect these areas.

Re:Novell may have big problems

[apokryphos]

On the other hand, the third and latest draft does not prohibit Novell of any of its Linux offerings.

Re:Novell may have big problems

[Kjella]

Any company that claims their business may suffer harm should either point out why certain points in the licence are unfair, or accept that the reason they will "suffer harm" is because they were exploiting the errors within the GPL for their own means and therefor going against the spirit of Free Software.

Yes, because RMS is such a compromising, cautious and pragmatic man that he'd never accept any colleteral damage in the name of Free Software.

Re:they're right

[iago-vL]

The value might not be immediately recognized. Plus, by not giving away something like MySQL or Apache, you're hurting the community. All to avoid some extra text at the top of a file? Totally not worth it.

Re:they're right

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, you still have the source, so what's to stop you making millions out of it yourself? You seem more bitter that someone else makes the money, than that you don't.
No-one can hurt your community by inaction. And avoiding extra text at the top of a file? Is that what you think it's all about?

Re:they're right

[jez9999]

So, you're using the BSD licence.

GPLv3 vs. the DRM lockdown

[Freed]

As long as...great great tinkerers need to worry about the freedom to tinker, http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/;
...the powerful such as Bill Gates keep investing in long-term research on how to lock people down;
...we leave it to the U.S. government to following the Constitution, including recovering the real purpose of copyright and patents by, e.g., repealing the DMCA;
We will need the likes of the GPL3 to give an option to reduce the inevitable temptation of vested interests to use DRM to subjugate people.

Re:they're right

[tepples]

Well, you still have the source, so what's to stop you making millions out of it yourself? You seem more bitter that someone else makes the money, than that you don't. Producers of proprietary works worry that other entities will reduce the producer's potential market share by taking too much of the market to themselves.

LOL

[petrus4]

Novell comments that if "the Free Software Foundation releases a new version of the GNU General Public License with certain currently proposed terms, our business may suffer harm."

Someone needs to sit a few people from Novell down at some point and explain to them that a desire to ensure that businesses suffer harm was arguably one of the main motivations behind the GPL having been written at all.

For once, I wish someone could actually give me a reasoned rebuttal on why they believe that I'm wrong in believing that (at least the intention behind) the GPL is largely anticapitalist, instead of simply calling me names (an idiot, a troll, "disingenous" etc) for making the statement. Continuing to only do that strongly implies that you don't actually have a rebuttal for that assertion, and so simply attempting to bury me in ad hominem is the best way to divert attention from that.

It's a shame I also can't run a betting pool about how likely I am to be told verbatim to again "shut the fuck up," in response to this as well. I suspect I'd end up making rather a large sum of money. ;-)

Maybe Stallman's drones here genuinely are beginning to get desperate, if simply attempting to demand my silence is becoming the preferred way of answering rather than even regurgitating the usual rhetoric in response to me.

Re:LOL

[PoliTech]

I was only trying to discuss the GPLv3 and what it means beyond the Microsoft/Novell deal, and the effect it may have on wider usage of SUSE in particular.

I'll stay out of the capitalist vs. anti capitalist argument if you please. (because not all "Capitalists" are "free marketers" and not all "Anti Capitalists" are "anti market", and generally discussions of which is which and when can get heated and quickly go off topic)

No Flame here...

Re:LOL

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe someone should sit _you_ down and explain to you why you are an idiot. Novell and all the other companies use Free software to make a profit. In exchange, they are asked only to maintain the Freedoms granted by the GPL. That is the _cost_ of using Free software. As long as they maintain the Freedom, no one is after their business. Could you explain to me why commercial entities think you can take GPLed software and use it as you please without obeying the license, or trying to find loopholes?

Re:LOL

[PoliTech]

LAMO ... you said, "It's a shame I also can't run a betting pool about how likely I am to be told verbatim to again "shut the fuck up," in response to this as well."

Then I respond to you reasonably...and yet you think it's good to reply thusly;

"Maybe someone should sit _you_ down and explain to you why you are an idiot."

Ok, that's a reasonable way to continue a discussion...in opposite world.

Re:LOL

[petrus4]

That wasn't my response...that was an AC. ;)

Re:LOL

[marcosdumay]

The GPL is not anti-bussiness nor anti-capitalist. It is just against one kind of business, that is selling the same software again and again for huge profits at each copy. A business plan that can not be sucessfull on a free society.

Re:LOL

[beyondkaoru]

you bring up a decent view. you shouldn't be modded down or given stupid answers so i'll try to give a good one. i can definitely understand the feeling of wanting money for selling one's work.

i can try to give a rebuttal, but to do so requires primarily me giving an anti-intellectual-property speech. well, here it is. the argument here is that having a world of all free software is _more_ according to capitalist ideals than having a world that is all or mostly proprietary software. the capitalist ideal involves a lot of different things, but a large part of it is that the government should stay out of the workings of things and keep order. second, a big part of capitalism is having people invest in something then get a benefit later because they invested wisely in some corporation.

if we get rid of software (or other stuff) patents or copyrights or whatever, there will be fewer laws. this means that people are, literally, freer to do stuff. since copyright and patent involve governments stepping in and telling people not to do stuff (much like with real property), a person who desires smaller government would prefer property laws be there only for situations that disrupt the system (in other words, it primarily depends on whether you think an idea can be property).

a big thing about capitalism that separates it from the simple ideals anarchy or libertarianism is the concept of capital-- that is, one invests in a way that he wishes to see returns. this spirit would live on in a world without sofware patents and software copyright, and we already see the beginnings of it. many corporations hire people to work on open source stuff (probably the biggest example is ibm, though they're not the best example since they have a huge stake in keeping z/os and aix proprietary). basically, if someone wants some software, he and others who want software to do something would invest in some group of coders who would then produce the software. the benefit to the investors is not as obvious as investing in stocks and bonds, but it would produce the same net effect; if the investors were wise in their choice and thus the software is useful to them, they benefit.

at the same time, software or information freedom has all the benefits of communism without the downsides. if i and some friends want a program, we can code it or hire people to code it. then, if we give it away, we are not made worse off, while the world can benefit from it. communism didn't work because the efforts of a person weren't seen by that person.

basically, it's got the best elements of laissez-faire and communism. it's pretty compelling if you look at it that way. businesses that have built up on intellectual property would be harmed, and significantly so. but the practice of coding would definitely not die, or even diminish (most coding and/or computer science is done for in-house stuff, not for sale of a software product).

ok, that got kind of disorganized, but anyway, my 2 cents.

Re:LOL

[sharperguy]

No, no it is not It is against people putting restrictions on the use of software once it has been obtained. These rescrictions can include restriction to modify, redistribute, or even just use in a way other than originally intended. They are against this because they feel it directly affects the freedoms of you and me. Most people in the modern world use computers, many on a daily basis. They say that if restrictions are placed on how the computers are used, then restrictions are placed on how people live their lives.

Re:LOL

[bnenning]

Someone needs to sit a few people from Novell down at some point and explain to them that a desire to ensure that businesses suffer harm was arguably one of the main motivations behind the GPL having been written at all.

Tell that to the thousands of companies saving billions of dollars by using GPL software.

For once, I wish someone could actually give me a reasoned rebuttal on why they believe that I'm wrong in believing that (at least the intention behind) the GPL is largely anticapitalist

The GPL is neither capitalist nor socialist. Capitalism and socialism are systems for allocating scarce resources. Free software attempts to bypass that issue by removing scarcity altogether, specifically the artificial scarcity imposed by copyright.

Re:LOL

[multisync]

Someone needs to sit a few people from Novell down at some point and explain to them that a desire to ensure that businesses suffer harm was arguably one of the main motivations behind the GPL having been written at all. For once, I wish someone could actually give me a reasoned rebuttal on why they believe that I'm wrong in believing that (at least the intention behind) the GPL is largely anticapitalist

Please explain to me how a developer choosing to license software with the GPL is "anti-capitalist?" All the GPL does is grant additional rights to the user, provided they abide by the terms of the license. If they don't abide by those terms, they are not entitled to those additional rights.

How is this different from commercial software? It comes with a license as well, outlining the terms under which you may use it. If you do not wish to abide by the terms of the license, you are free to try another product with a different license (BSD, for example). Nobody is forcing you to use this particular software. And nobody is preventing another business from releasing software under the license of their choice.

What is "anti-capitalist" about users and developers having choice?

Re:LOL

[maxume]

I think there is a good argument to be made that software is generally so cheap(one guy can write an app in a month or two that doubles the productivity of thousands of people for years, that's cheap), that the market for software is mediated by factors other than price. For commodity software(Operating systems, web servers, most other servers), the cheapest way to obtain value may well be to share code with other consumers. In that situation, the GPL is equivalent to a fairly simple contract - "I'll help you, but you have to help me too".

Re:LOL

[honkycat]

Others have said it, probably better, but the GPL is not really aligned with either socialism or capitalism, merely with the idea that software (and perhaps more generally information, but it only deals with software) should not have artificial restrictions placed on its duplication. This embraces aspects of socialism ("share the wealth") and capitalism (only scarce commodities have value, and information by its nature is not scarce). You can argue about whether it's beneficial to an economy to enforce artificial scarcity through patents and copyrights, but that's really not a question of capitalism vs socialism.

Now, many people argue that the FSF is hypocritical because in a very real sense, GPLed software is less free than, say, Berkeley or MIT Licensed software. However, IMO this is consistent with their aim not merely to create free software, but to rid the world of non-free software. Basically, you can embrace their view that software should be free (as in freedom) and reap the benefits of their efforts. If they did not choose a license that required you to join the movement by making your derived software free, then they'd merely be aiding those who use their software and give nothing back to the community.

This is not necessarily a bad thing. As a proprietary developer, you lose nothing due to the existence of GPLed software. You're not free to use that code in your product, but in your view you had no right to expect anyone to license you software that would do what you needed anyway. I frankly don't understand the argument that the GPL somehow takes something away from would-be proprietary developers. Sure, it's harder to sell your program when someone can download a GPL competitor for free (neglecting support costs), but hey... that's capitalism at its finest. If someone is willing to sell for $0, only a broken market would allow you to sell at >$0.

Re:LOL

[PoliTech]

petrus4, Whoops!, I should have read your thirteen rules! (or at least the comment header)

;-)

SRY

Re:LOL

[mstefan]

However, you need to keep in mind that those "huge profits" are paying off the costs of development. There's an old joke that in the software business, the first copy costs $1 million, and every copy after that costs $1.50. When you consider profits, you have to factor in cost. Of course, that's obstensibly why the GPL exists: without it, you'd have companies "borrowing" code, significantly reducing the cost of development but contributing nothing back.

I agree that the ultimate goal of groups like the FSF in eliminating commercial software is targetted against one particular business model. However, I personally think that it's wrong-headed. There is a place for both commerically developed and supported software, and a place for open-source, free (as in beer, and freedom) software. If you remove the "profit motive" from software development entirely, the overall quality of software will eventually go down, and there will be less innovation. Certainly people will continue write software because they enjoy it, but one has to prioritize one's ability to eat. If writing software doesn't allow you to meet your financial needs, then it's effectively downgraded from being a profession to being a hobby. I don't think that's a good road to travel down, for programmers or for end users.

Re:LOL

[75th Trombone]

their aim ... to rid the world of non-free software.

And THAT right there is why it's not completely crazy to suggest that the (intention behind the) GPL is anti-capitalist. It's not crazy to suggest that if Stallman could, he would prohibit all licenses but the GPL. (There are quotes from the FSF website and from FSF people earlier in the topic that explicitly say as much.)

Yes, plenty of companies save/make tons of money via Free software. Stallman does not care. Stallman has shown in many ways that he cares not about people, and especially not about companies, but about only his own ideas. One of his ideas is "All software everywhere has to be Free." There is no room in his worldview for "Free software over here, proprietary software over there." Not even as a temporary situation until the Free products are better than the proprietary products. He has to live with it for now, but if he had the power he wouldn't. He would make it GPL or nothing; and that's what makes Stallman's ultimate idea of Free software communistic: its lack of voluntariness.

I'm not saying, however, that he's completely anti-capitalist. As I said above, he could not care less how money is made or saved with Free software; he does, however, see it as an evil that companies can make selling proprietary software a primary source of income, because he is not just for Free software, but vehemently AGAINST proprietary software.

So far as I can see, the OSI is an attempt to keep all/most of the benefits of the FSF's position while moderating their worldview and not coming across as wacko as Stallman does. I think this is fine, and I think most "open-source"y people are fine living alongside Stallman AND alongside proprietary software. They just want to make the best software they can and help the most people they can. Free software just happens to be their best way of doing that. They DO care about people, not just their own ideas.

Re:LOL

[weicco]

Just a thought. Something to discuss about...

FSF writes GPL and FSF holds copyrights to GNU software? This means that FSF has very large influence on GPL licensed software. Not directly of course but when they choose to move GNU stuff from v2 to v3 others are most likely to follow, some maybe even forced to. Could one even say FSF has monopoly on GPL? Just kidding :)

So FSF isn't actually forcing developers to move to v3 but they sure has a strong influnce on this matter. Maybe that's what's bugging some people?

Re:LOL

[Yukse]

He would make it GPL or nothing; and that's what makes Stallman's ultimate idea of Free software communistic: its lack of voluntariness. No, thats what makes it totalitarian.

Re:LOL

[marcosdumay]

"However, you need to keep in mind that those "huge profits" are paying off the costs of development."

But don't forget that the only reason FOSS is sucessfull is because it have much lower development costs than proprietary software. Otherwise, you wouldn't even listen about it.

Anyway, if there is a place for proprietary software (I think there is, but it is so small that we won't miss it if copyrights go away), that development model will continue to be sucessfull, GPL existing or not.

Re:LOL

[sharperguy]

The goal is NOT to eliminate commercial software!

If it's trying to eliminate anything its proprietary software.

You might say, 'Well what's the difference?' The difference is that Free Software can still be commercial software. It would just be commercial software which does not restrict the user. Sure, it requres a different business model, but it can still be done.

Re:LOL

[multisync]

You raise an interesting point. The FSF does swing a big hammer, but ultimately the developer and user still have the choice to move on to something else, just like with commercial software. The advantage free software has over its commercial counterpart (and the reason I believe it does not conflict with capitalism) is that it provides opportunities for small businesses to fill a niche by adding something of value (training, support, implementation etc) to an existing project to differentiate themselves from the competition, or to use an existing tool to create something new. People can do this with commercial software too, but the price of admission is often too high, and there is less flexibility (freedom?) with regard to how the tools are used.

If you think about it, copyright itself is actually "anti-capitalist." It is an artificial restriction placed on the market to give an advantage to a particular entity (the copyright holder). But you won't hear proponents of commercial software arguing against copyright. And all software licenses are really just extensions of copyright (if you do this, you will get these additional benefits).

It's funny, the people who always talk about Capitalism and free markets seem to be more interested in maintaining the status quo, rather than creating conditions where entrepreneurs can actually thrive.

Re:LOL

[skynexus]

Indeed, since copyright is a violation of Laissez-faire economics by being a coercive monopoly (specifically a government-granted monopoly), it is obviously anti-capitalist. It may be fruitful to contrast your opinion of copyright as "anti-capitalist" with the Copyright Act of 1790, which begins with the introductory words "An Act for the Encouragement of Learning". Its motivation was stated in the Copyright Clause of the US Constitution, but looking at the rationale (see Senate Report No. 104-315) for its extension (see Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act) from the original total of 28 years to today's 95 years (corporate ownership), "the continued economic benefits of a healthy surplus balance of trade", there is an obvious shift towards a economic mindset. Actually, there is a complete shift I would rather say. When devised, copyright was never intended as a direct instrument of economics, so its effect as "anti-capitalist" would have been subordinate to its original goal of being an instrument "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts". Instead, what we see today is rather bizarre. For a truly eerie prospect of what to expect, consider this statement by Mary Bono (see Congressional Record No 139, pages H9951 and H9952):

Actually, Sonny wanted the term of copyright protection to last forever. I am informed of by staff that such a change would violate the Constitution. I invite all of you to work with me to strengthen our copyright laws in all of the ways available to us. As you know, there is also Jack Valenti's proposal for term to last forever less one day. Perhaps the Committee may look at that next Congress.

(Yes, the evidence is there, despite denials). In plain english, and for all practical purposes, there is no limit to copyright protection anymore - by 2018, both houses of the United States Congress will pass a new act to further extend copyright, as a formality. How one concludes that "securing for limited Times" should mean "forever less one day" rather than a reasonable amount of time, as in reasonably within ones life-time, or more meaningfully as in reasonably useful within ones life-time (such as, say, 6 years for software), is beyond me. The economic reasoning behind perpetual copyright is explained by professor Neil W. Netanel (see Copyright and a Democratic Civil Society):

This "neoclassicist" approach posits that, far from simply inducing the creation and dissemination of new expression, copyright serves as a vehicle for directing investment in existing works. Neoclassicists would accordingly treat literary and artistic works as "vendible commodities," best made subject to broad proprietary rights that extend to every conceivable valued use. In this manner, neoclassicists contend, market pricing can direct resource allocation for the marketing and development of existing creative expression in an optimally efficient manner.

I would be inclined to conclude that, in a world of conglomarates, market forces replace Learning as the "optimally efficient manner" by which creative expression can be developed. Obviously, this is utter nonsense, but I would say it captures the essence of what proponents of perpetual copyright would have us believe. The true and unstated objective is, of course, to preserve existing monopolies. As pointed out by Timothy R. Phillips, "The framers assumed, as did Adam Smith, th

Re:LOL

[weicco]

If you think about it, copyright itself is actually "anti-capitalist." It is an artificial restriction placed on the market to give an advantage to a particular entity (the copyright holder).

This goes little offtopic and I'm sure this has been discussed here earlier but...

You're propably right. This is one reason why if I ever release any code into the "wild" I use BSD license. But without copyright laws I don't think I could add any restrictions to my code and how it is distributed among people and I would have to take extra measures to prevent my code from leaking outside my domain. I'm not a lawyer, but I've taken couple of lessons on business law, and my understanding is that if there is no law preventing copying (copyright law) then it's OK to copy whatever you like and this prevents GPL or any other license from working since there is no-one holding rights to that copy. At least here in Finland where anything that is not explicitly forbidden is implicitly permitted :)

Re:LOL

[mstefan]

The difference is that Free Software can still be commercial software.

Not really in any kind of a practical sense for small ISVs. When people are given the option of paying (obstensibly for support), the vast majority of them choose not to. They'll happily use whatever you've written and pay you not a nickle for it. If the last 10+ years have shown anything, it's that people really don't make the distinction between "free, as in freedom" and "free, as in beer". To the vast majority, free is free. And depending on the charity of strangers to eat and pay your bills is not a business model.

What it would do is shift everything to a service model, moving software off the desktop. Some aspects of the business are already going that way of course, but I'm just not sure it's a good thing for independent developers.

Re:they're right

[iminplaya]

I suppose so, but I grant no exclusivity.. Whatever has a piece of me is mine also.

Re:they're right

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are you worrying about producers of proprietary works? They're happy to just not give their stuff away for free . But you're clearly not interested in your market share, because you gave your stuff away for free. You thought your stuff was worthless, someone else disagreed. They made money from it and now you're bitter because you didn't. Well, them's the breaks. People don't get rich by making dumb business decisions.

Maybe not profit

[ushering05401]

Maybe they want the story present for multiple days without appearing to have stale news so that more people will become aware of the information.

Maybe they want search engines to return more hits for solid GPL3 related info, so they will pepper the sight with multi-part articles for a while... if a casual browser hits one they will see links to the others w/out having to use more searching.

Maybe they are more concerned about casual users educating themselves on this issue as the hardcore ones are already involved... and they fear a casual user's buffer will fill up half way through the full interview.

Just saying maybe it isn't about profit, which is what a lot of other posters seem to attribute this behavior.

Regards.

Re:Maybe not profit

[maxume]

Increasing search engine exposure, increasing page views, and increasing profits are indistinguishable when there are ads on the page.

To explain

[Anonymous Coward]

First, I am NOT the hate-filled idiotic Annomynous Coward. While I am from the good ol' US of A, (Still the most free country in the world despite what Bush Jr has done to try not to make it so) I believe that Open Source through the GPL is the only way to get a REAL competitor to Windows. Despite how important Microsoft was to the OS Revolution (I won't deny MS's contributions to getting a 'computer in every home'), Microsoft will easily help a competitor to make a standard (i.e. Embrace), adding new stuff that the competitor doesn't have (i.e. Extend), and then preventing said competitor from using their stuff when it becomes a defacto standard (i.e. Extinguish). Of course, the GPL prevents this because if you modify the code and publish the product, you accept the conditions of the GPL, which includes having to share the source code with the user, including the modified parts. However companies like Tivo and Novell have created ways to short-circuit GPL v2, by using DRM and Patents... thus GPL v3 closes these two loopholes. Novell and Tivo can gladly stick with GPL v2, but they will have to fork to avoid GPL v3. Meanwhile, most end-users would not care about GPL v2 or v3, just that it is free as in beer, rather as in freedom.

Re:To explain

[jez9999]

(Still the most free country in the world despite what Bush Jr has done to try not to make it so)

Most free in what way? Freedom to own guns? Perhaps (Iraqis might be freer there, though). Freedom of anything else? Nope.

Re:To explain

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, let me take a topic valid to the GPL v3 and compare the US to the rest of the world...

DRM... It exists and is to be enforced under the WIPO Copyright Treaty to most UN nations. The US's implementation of this is the Digital Milliennium Copyright Act, of which every one here has derided at one time or another. Section 103 is the most controversial of the DMCA, and it directly invokes the WIPO Copyright Treaty. The Controversial EU Copyright Directive also is made to invoke the WIPO Copyright Treaty and many European nations have accepted it including a ban on circumventing DRM. It is THIS treaty that nearly every UN Nation has said that they will try to implement in the near future. The US merely got it out of the way first, but sooner or later every nation will implement this. What we should work for is getting rid of DRM altogether to make these laws toothless.

Re:they're right

[Tickletaint]

Presumably, you'd be OK with that, since you deliberately chose a license knowing that could happen. GPL fanatics always came across as spiteful and greedy to me; BSD licensors, on the other hand, have achieved a state of Zen where they're happy to know others are benefiting from their code. And really, isn't that the real spirit of sharing?

Isnt it unfair

[Sammy Loo]

that Novell would have to suffer though? Sure they earned money from m$ but is that so bad? they shouldnt have gpl3 hurt novell imho.

Re:Isnt it unfair

[Freed]

>that Novell would have to suffer though? Sure they earned money from m$ but is that so bad? they shouldnt have gpl3 hurt novell imho.

Money from MS in itself has nothing to do with it. Indeed, of the three parts of the deal--business, technical, and patent, it is just the patent agreement that is the problem. Fixing the loophole that it exploited is far more important than the fates of corporations, particularly ones that have shown willingness to exploit find and exploit such loopholes.

If you are unconvinced about the badness of the patent agreement, just do a search--microsoft novell patent agreement--to find links of outrage about it.

Re:Novell Should Inform Shareholders Then?

[PeterBrett]

i hope any SEC filing/statement mentions potential harm due to changes in software licensing...

I'm sure that you're pleased to hear that they do.

Re:they're right

[crAckZ]

what usually stops someone is money. it takes money to advertise and push a marketing plan. yes there are free ads and internet space but to push something it usually takes money. where as if you give it away and the community adopts it everything is great, but if someone makes millions you feel like crap and pissed off. just my 2 cents

Freedom vs. Power

[Freed]

Bottom line is that he who writes the code chooses the license. That is TRUE freedom whether apparent fascists such as yourself like it or not.

If we take freedom to be the ability to make decisions that mainly affect you, and power to be the ability to make decisions that mainly affect others, then we could say that the choice of license is an exercise of power. For more on this opinion, see
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/freedom-or-power.htm l

Re:Freedom vs. Power

[frogstar_robot]

I'm still free to choose or create code not covered by abusive licenses. I mostly avoid MS' products because of the onerous and abusive terms under which I'm permitted to use them (no negative reviews of MS products for instance). If the terms of abusive licenses are enforced by various forms of Fritz chips then I'll allow that the FSF comes off as being more sane on the issue than a freeper like petrus4. As things stand, licenses are tools and the FSF has created useful ones which I am grateful for. If you think some of the things in EULAs are completely over the top, I'd agree with you but I don't think any developer is obligated to buy into the FSF take on things lock, stock, and barrel. Openness is a feature that matters to me quite a lot but if I have a problem that has to be solved right now and something proprietary is the best solution then guess what? I'm professionally answerable to others and can't be a Stallman-bot all the time. (And yes, I use quite bit of FOSS code as well. My employers don't care about movement ideology; all they care about is whether or not what I deploy works. Where FOSS code works acceptably, I happily deploy it.)

Re:Freedom vs. Power

[Freed]

I see where you are coming from. There are professional constraints, yes, but we often have discretion to solve these in a number of ways using free software. Moreover, outside a restrictive job, I choose for myself only free software with one exception. If there is nonfree software that I need to study in order to help develop a free workalike, then I will obtain a license for it and study it. It is funny to go on about how we might be a Stallman-bot, but, of course it is plainly a matter of ethics.

Re:Freedom vs. Power

[petrus4]

FSF comes off as being more sane on the issue than a freeper like petrus4.

What's a freeper? ;)

Re:Freedom vs. Power

[petrus4]

It is funny to go on about how we might be a Stallman-bot

You are a Stallmanite drone, although the one thing I give you some credit for is your ability to take in absolutely any argument that you are faced with and somehow re-interpret it (at least in your own head) so that it still comes out conforming with your programming and paints Stallman as a saviour. For most people afflicted with the degree of brainwashing that you display, cognitive dissonance is usually a problem. Your capacity for bogus rationalisation is impressive.

Re:Freedom vs. Power

[frogstar_robot]

www.freerepublic.com

It's your new online home. You'll fit right in.....

Re:Freedom vs. Power

[Freed]

>You are a Stallmanite drone...

You are implying that I agree with whatever Stallman says, which is just false. You seem to depend on ad hominem in place of a legitimate argument against free software. It's like a Democrat without any arguments calling a Republican a Bush drone. To the extent that the world will depend on fairly evaluating arguments, your position will dwindle. Good day.

Re:Freedom vs. Power

[petrus4]

Interesting. So because I don't advocate a form of leftist extremism, it's automatically assumed that I must be a fascist instead?

Re:Freedom vs. Power

[frogstar_robot]

You advocate only commercial software companies being allowed to write software and Open Source (a form of free speech) be outlawed. The state only allowing corporates to create things is one definition of fascism. So yes, you advocate a form a fascism.

Re:Freedom vs. Power

[petrus4]

I don't advocate open source being outlawed at all. What I advocate is the erradication of what I percieve as an authoritarian, Marxist cult. (the FSF)

The single main reason why I advocate that is because I believe that open source under other licenses actually stands to experience much greater levels of adoption than if the FSF continues to exist, primarily because the FSF advocates (and is itself the source of) an ideology which causes alienation, conflict, and division.

Re:Freedom vs. Power

[frogstar_robot]

The FSF only has authority over their own software. Sure they offend you but there is no reason for a reasonably free society to 'outlaw' or 'eradicate' them. We already tolerate actual communists, nazis, a rogues gallery of actual cults, and a number of other groups with the audacity to have a different point of view. All the FSF really does is publish software under some licenses and allow others to use those licenses. Well, they also have the unmitigated gall to exercise their free speech rights too. Yeah, we have a real hotbed of terrorist subversives there. Many not affiliated with them like to use their licenses but then reasonably free societies allow free association too.

The key word you used here is "perceive". No one is entitled to freedom from being offended regardless of what the Politically Correct crowd says. Don't like the FSF? Don't use their software or software covered by their licenses. This is only entitlement you have in regards to them. The FSF is only (properly) exercising their rights in a free society. I don't agree with everything they say and do either but like others have said: I'll defend to the death their right to do it.

Yes.

[Anonymous Coward]

Fascist America, in 10 easy steps

Written by an American, published in a UK newspaper (good luck finding one to print it over here).

Re:Yes.

[Zebidiah]

Someone mod the parent up. Scary read.

Re:they're right

[Teun]

People don't get rich by making dumb business decisions. What makes you think Getting Rich is the (ultimate) goal in life?
Most that I know who write their code under the GPL just want to have a good life and share with like minded.
Sharing != giving away.

Re:they're right

[cibyr]

I won't let anybody prohibit me from using and copying and distributing anything that contains any code that I wrote. Sounds more like the GPL actually...

not about M$/Novell @ Red Hat Summit?

[XLR8DST8]

when reading about the Red Hat Summit, did anyone else wonder if he was going to be sitting around with a bunch of elderly women wearing red hats and purple boas?

It's called "printable view" nt

[mackyrae]

nt

Re:they're right

[MightyMartian]

If it was that valuable then you're an idiot for giving it away.

Perhaps one sees more money in support than in enforcing various kinds of licensing schemes which often piss off customers rather than aid them in the work they need to do with the software. I'd gladly give software away if I could instead get lots and lots of support contracts.

Dumb and/or Insecure

[bill_mcgonigle]

You start talking about openness and choice and they feel threatened by that for some reason.

They're too dumb to figure out how to make money without keeping secrets, and perhaps they don't think they could convince somebody their ideas are correct without the coercive use of force.

Re:they're right

[Anonymous Coward]

What makes you think Getting Rich is the (ultimate) goal in life?

Straw man. Never said I thought that. I was addressing this jealousy people have for others making 'millions' from your code, while you 'slave away'.
Giving things away with strings attached != sharing.

Why should he compromise?

[Anonymous Coward]

The four freedoms are needed and he will not compromise them. How he enshrines their utility in the GPL HAS been discussed and compromised (though not in a way that leaves everyone unhappy, which is the more normal compromise). Are MS willing to compromise on cutting back their monopoly of copyright and release the code of all their works that are now unssupported? Or will they ask for 150 years' copyright and compromise on 120?

gplv3 anti-patent provisions backfire.

[anwyn]

I believe I have found another way for the gplv3 anti-patent provisions to backfire.

"You are not required to accept this License in order to receive or run a copy of the Program."

Large corporate "end users" of gplv3 software will use this provision to contract directly a seperate patent peace with large non-distributors with possibly bogus patent claims. (This time they will not go through a conveyor intermediary like Novell).

The "end user" will not be subject to the anti-patent provisions because they only "receive" and "run" the program. The non-distributor will not be subject to the anti-patent provisions, because as a non-distributor, non-copyer, non-everything elser, they do not require a license under copyright law.

In order to protect its patent peace, and in order not to run afoul of the gplv3 anti-patent provisions, the corporate "end user" must insure that it remains a pure "end user", that is, a person that "receives" and "runs" the program only. It will prevent its employees from making any contribution to any gplv3 project, even bug reports, so that it does not become a "modifier". The corporate "end user" must become a pure "free rider" in order to protect its patent peace.

This can not be what the authors of draft gplv3 intended.

The existence of this scenario, actually makes the Novell-MS deal a "good thing". Apologies to Martha Stewart.

Consider a situation that Eben Moglen has recently discussed.

Suppose there is a corporate "end user" so politicly dangerous to MS, that MS must make a peace with it before proceeding with the FUD war. Like say, the NY stock exchange.

Which method is preferable, from the point of view of the Free software community, for the NY exchange to receive it's patent peace? Remember these are corporate suits we are talking about; They care nothing about principles for freedom or the free software movement, They WILL make a separate peace if it seems advantageous from a financial prospective and not too risky.

Under my scenario, direct agreement with MS, the section 11 anti patent provisions would apply to the NY exchange, if it lost its "pure end user" status. Therefore the NY exchange will zealously guard this status, preventing its employees from making any contribution to a gplv3 project.

If the NY exchange, gets its patent peace through the Novell-MS deal, then the NY exchange has not made any agreement with MS, and its agreement with Novell probably does not even mention the Novell-MS deal. So the section 11 provisions would not apply to the NY exchange, so the exchange could go ahead and agree to the gplv3 and allow its programmers to make contributions to gplv3 projects.

Clearly the second scenario, is preferable from the point of view of the free software community.

There are reference books at the library that list the contact information for every fortune 500 company. MS has the money on hand to pay someone to look up this info and try to make agreements with them all.

Let's stop being so mean to Novell. Novell has only done what corporations can be expected to do: Exploit every loophole and ambiguity, just like water flows into every crack, crevice and fissure, as it moves down hill.

Do we really want there to be only one corporate free software distributor?

Re:Opensource software sucks -- Hello Bill!

[Anonymous Coward]

Slow day at the office? Or didn't you get some last night?