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Tech Writers Spreading FUD About GPLv3
Tookis writes "Tech writers are spreading FUD about GPLv3 because they fear its take up will slow the adoption of Linux, according to this open source writer. "A large number of tech writers — I wouldn't call them journalists and sully my own profession — are fearful that the license will slow adoption of Linux in the workplace. And that would lead to a lessening of their own importance and influence."" So by posting this, am I spreading fud about spreading fud? I think I broke my brain.
Journalism is well beyond being unsullied these days.
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein
Remember, if you are not for GPLv3 then you are for the terrorists, or something...
Uuuuh? Tech writers? That's the worst pseudonym for blogger I've ever heard ;-)
(and sorry, Sam - I like you, but that's one one of the worst written articles linked off the slashdot frontpage [and you have some of competition {I love nested parenthesis}]).
Sometimes, I wonder if people even know what GPLv3 is. How is it possible for this license to slow adoption of GNU/Linux in any way possible?
InformationWeek published an old mail claiming that it was "latest" post-GPLv3 news.
Please help publicise swpat.org - the software patents wiki
True.
That doesn't mean that his arguments don't have merit. It certainly doesn't, but just because these 'tech bloggers' are the other side of the equation and they have a pay check at stake doesn't mean that their argument isn't equally as valid--does it?
I've never even heard the arguments and underpinnings against the GPLv3 concerning the adoption of Linux! Perhaps you should include both sides of the discussion in your article if you wish for me to consider you a journalist.
If I ever saw FUD of FUD, this is it.
My work here is dung.
This is a rumor, not a story. Who are these journalists, and why is it FUD if they opine that GPLv3 is a bad idea?
Hostes alienigieni me abduxerunt. Qui annus est?
I'd like to complain about the implied slur on our profession. Heck, I'd far prefer writing man pages for APIs to the sort of "this is the mouse/hello computer" writing that is usually associated with "tech writers." Bleh.
Of course, with many of my fellow writers bearing a closer resemblance to "Tina" from Dilbert than technophiles, maybe I'm speaking for the small minority.
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
Well, only if you're afraid that the news might slow down the take up of Tech Writers. But frankly, I think that by this time the brand is well enough established as to be pretty much bullet proof.
Of course, that may not apply to the forthcoming release of Tech Writers 2.0, but as far as I remember, that's still in the discussion phase, so it's too early to say anything for definite.
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
A large number of tech writers -- I wouldn't call them journalists and sully my own profession
But sullying mine isn't a problem, huh? Technical writer == someone who writes technical documentation, e.g. product manuals. Technical writer != FUD-spreading blogger.
--
hcdejong
(technical writer)
http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/ 2007/07/open_source_is_1.html
1 92403106
;-)
In support of TFA: the above Iweek story really takes the cake for "most clueless" author on the subject of the GPL. One can take it as evidence that the GPL3 has become such a buzzword in the community that tech writers feel forced to comment even before they have even the slightest clue what the fuss is all about.
PJ over at groklaw politely stomped the author into the ground as one can see here:
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20070713
Whle always a fan, I admire her tact here: she did it a lot less painfully than some in comments section of the original article
You, sir, submitter of this "story" are an idiot.
You should have said "tech pundits", not "tech writers". There is an entire profession known as "Technical Writing", sometimes referred to as "tech writing", which has NOTHING to do with self-proclaimed journalists who write about the technical industry.
Get it straight, please. The title of your story shows that you are almost as ignorant as they are.
...I don't agree with the new clauses in GPLv3 as opposed to GPLv2 and although my current licenses contain the "or higher" clause, I am going to be removing that in the coming weeks and leaving the code at GPLv2 only.
I'm paricularly against the "Tivoization" clause and cannot for the life of me see what benefits it gives to the copyright holder or user of the code. All it seems to do as far as I can see is take away the freedom to use my code in the way I originally granted.
Bob
Listen to my latest album here
Anyone who's installed Feisty Fawn side by side with Vista will tell you quickly, that if FOSS is going anywhere, and Ubuntu and Linux in particular, it's on MORE hard drives than less. I've had less problems finding drivers and getting things up and running in Ubuntu on several machines now, and I've been a die hard Windows user for the last decade.
FUD isn't going to do anything when FOSS is rapidly becoming the easier, cheaper, faster, and better choice for John Q. Public.
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
What a useless article, he dismisses people who criticize GPLv3 as people spreading FUD, but offers no rebuttal to their claims. I really have no strong feelings one way or the other about GPLv3, but if you want to convince your readers that the anti-GPLv3 people are wrong, you have to explain why you think that.
How does the reasoning work? GPL3 may be adopted by Linux. This may slow adoption of Linux in the workplace (although I have no idea why - very few people will be affected by the licence, except perhaps a few hardware developers). Somehow this lessens their importance.
These people are tech writers. They write about all sorts of technology. The GPL is just one of many subjects of interest.
Mr. Varghese,
You spend some time in your article attacking various unnamed tech writers for their work on GPLv3, and hold up Brian Profitt of Linux Magazine, and Eben Moglen, as examples of good writing on the topic.
Can you identify a specific column that you disagree with? Or a specific author? Or at least something more specific than the general doom-and-gloom nonspecific "end of FOSS" warning that you quote?
I am far from expert on GPLv3 (haven't even read it), but it strikes me that a large number of the people concerned about version 3 aren't exactly slouches, unless you're prepared to call Torvalds a hack. I'd like a concrete example of a claim you're trying to debunk.
Oh, and while we're at it: when you're looking down your nose at other tech writers that you deem unworthy of the title "journalist," you should probably start trying to observe some fairly basic journalistic principles yourself. For example: Eben Moglen, whom you correctly identify as having worked for the Free Software Foundation, is a co-author of the GPLv3 draft , which doesn't exactly position him as an unbiased observer.
Another '2-page' article (you're welcome for the ad revenue, mate)
n tent&task=view&id=13525&pop=1&page=0&Itemid=1090
So here's the print version
http://www.itwire.com.au/index2.php?option=com_co
I'm not sure what "you'll won't" is supposed to mean.. in "You'll won't have much success in convincing them - play has to go in one direction for them to move forward". Must be Aussie. Then again, the article is incoherent overall.
I'm not entirely sure what the article is about;
is it about the misunderstandings of the GPLv3?
If so - then why doesn't it list and address these misunderstandings? He links to a talk by Moglen in the end and recommends listening to it - but doesn't say why beyond saying that Moglen is a demi-god and by jove you should listen to him.
is it about the purported FUD being spread by other 'tech authors'?
If so - then why doesn't it give examples of this FUD?
is it about the reasonings behind this purported FUD-spreading - namely that the tech authors feel that they would become less relevant if GPLv3 were to become a 'success' in that it would slow adoption of the GPLv3 (huh?) ?
if so - then maybe he could explain -why- he thinks those 'tech authors' are using these reasonings, and how they are flawed in them?
The whole article reads like a bad blog posting.
But goob job on Slashdot for making it front-page material.. must be that 'GPLv3' keyword.
Examples
Meteor to destroy all human life in one weeks time, Put your kids in schools in another country because the exchange rate is good - followed up two years later - country economy is in trouble, too expensive.
Trusting a journalist is foolhardy.
Could someone explain the key differences between GPLv2 and GLPv3? I'd appreciate it and I'm sure many other non-lawyer types would as well. Thanks in advance scholarly slashdotter...
What a load of bullshit. It smells exactly the same as the bullshit about BSD.
It's a license. There are a lot of them. Now you have the choice if you want it that allows you to prevent people from locking your code into proprietary hardware, or prevent people from taking over your project with patents. What's the big fucking deal? Is a legal license written in plain English rather than lawyerese really that difficult to understand? Are people really that pissed off that some aging hippie's flowery software philosophy has a new incarnation? I never knew that the idea of "once you buy it, you own it, and may do whatever you want to it" was so controversial. Last time I checked it was the law.
Hell is being intelligent in a world full of idiots.
I listened to a talk RMS gave about the GPLv3. It was long and painful. Basically he added clause after clause to take care of cases that he had not thought of before (eg Tivo). But to me it makes it far less elegant and basically impossible to understand by the masses. I think it would be better to keep GPLv2 which can be understood. Sure some Tivo-ish companies may abuse the spirit of it be its better to keep it simple. In RMS's talk he said they changed some wording to make it more international and defined all the terms better. I am OK with that. So lets move to a GPLv2.1 instead of 3.
Let's take Linus Torvald's opinions for one. He, with Stallman, are the two principal (and principle) authors of software covered by the GPL. They could have chosen BSD licensing, and so on if they'd wanted to. The GPL made sense for both. Stallman's leadership and a sense of danger on his part helped evolve the very strict (yet very free) GPLv3 to where it is today. Linus doesn't believe it's necessary at all, and is more purist hubris than actual protection.
I can see both views, and both views make sense given the freedom of the author's to do whatever they please with their code. The GPLv3 makes more sense for me personally, yet others I know think it's potentially highly confining, if 'purist'.
That tech writers think it'll slow down adoption is more of a Microsoft fantasy than reality. That the GPLv3 closes odd loopholes is all the better. I hope that Linus figures out that he actually needs to consider that a GPLv4 needs his input might get him the goals he's seeking. He's going to have to lift his head out of the sand one of these days and help form what he's inadvertenly made (along with Stallman and thousands of others), the most highly viable OS. What was once a ego fantasy is now a reality far beyond anyone's wildest imaginations. There's a maturation point where you're a leader, or a follower of what you've inspired. I hope he picks "leader" and gets off the kernel kick long enough to make corrections suggestions that he can 'lead' with. Simply bashing something (pardon the pun) isn't constructive. It might work in coding, but not when you have to gain consensus.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
FUD isn't slang for something you don't agree with. The article in question might be awful but the story on /. is even worse. It sounds like it was written by a 12 year old involved in a schoolyard scuffle. Any coherent counter argument would have been better than sounding like a goddamned whiny child. If you fight legitimately bad arguments so stupidly it makes your point of view, no matter how valid, sound childish. The person who submitted this story has done GPLv3 no favours.
For goodness sake people. Troll does not mean "I don't agree with him". "Flamebait" is only flamebait if it's written for no other reason than to upset people. FUD is only FUD if it was intended to spread unfounded Fear Uncertainty and Doubt.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Are the journalists creating fear, uncertainty and doubt out of whole cloth? Or are they merely describing the fear, uncertainty and doubt surrounding a new, untried license which hopes to replace an older version of itself. The GPLv3 is the modern Oedipus.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Tech writers too? Does this mean that, the next time I read a software manual, I'll have to endure an anti-GPLv3 diatribe in between descriptions of items in the Edit>Preferences menu?
Yeah, what is it with you folks? It's been weeks and you still haven't fully read, comprehended, gotten your law department's approval and applied the new license. Sheesh! After all those years it took until the GPLv2 was accepted you'd think it would all still be in fresh memory and thus a quick job, but you lazy fucks haven't even started yet. Weeks!
This article decries critics of GPLv3, dismissing their rants as FUD. The author, however, gives no examples of these critics and offers no evidence for why he considers them to be wrong, nor any ideas of why they would choose to spread their FUD. Besides the terrible writing, formatting and grammar of this article it is needlessly split into two pages, annoyingly prompting you to log in if you want to read the second page. Oddly enough though they will provide you with the full text of the article if you click on the links to print it or view it as a PDF (which, by the way, has even worse formatting than the web formatting).
The Firefox article, while an interesting topic, was really just a regurgitation of a study done by another site rewritten so that it was less informative and more difficult to read. Besides that, it included several obvious typos such as the following:Really, there are countries where IE has not yet reached 20% market share? Are you sure you don't mean Firefox?Ah yes, the beautiful country of Australasia, I hope I can visit it someday!
but I don't see that one going out of fashion.
Linus may have the goal to see his baby widespread, RMS, the FSF and the license they use don't need to win a popularity contest. As long as there is "free code" (in the Nelson Mandela sense) the license is doing its job. If people don't want to agree to the ideals, then write your own license. RMS won't say you can't, although it looks like the people against the GPL3 want to control what license you're allowed to write or use.
hypocrites
Technical writers, sometimes called "tech writers," write manuals and help systems and procedures to help make sense of technology. We are unrelated to "technology writers," who depending on which one you encounter, may be people who failed to fill out admission papers correctly at the asylum or intelligent commentators.
technical writing / development
GPLv3 has a significantly more nasty viral nature than GPLv2, as the Anti-TiVo clause and the Anti-Patent clause, as well as the significant expansion of the term "conveying", makes the GPLv3 much more dangerous for a business to deal with/use.
Thus I would be concerned myself that GPLv3 will reduce the adoption of the open-source code, as it get farther and farther away from the BSD model of "do whatever you want".
Test your net with Netalyzr
The slow adoption is caused by incompatibility(anything GPL ver. 2 only is incompatible with GPL ver. 3 and can not be linked together). This means, for instance, that any program using the Qt libraries(all kde based apps) HAVE to be Gpl 2, unless trolltech changes the license. And I'm sure this is just one of many cases.
You haf meta-FUD! Hmm, sounds like a new window manager to me..
To quote Star Trek (TOS, "Patterns of Force"): His words make no logical sense... random phrases strung together.
"I've spent my whole life figuring out crazy ways to do things. It'll work." -- Montgomery Scott, "Relics"
Not trolling here, just being half serious/half funny--
"...they fear its take up will slow the adoption of Linux..."
I started going to LUG meetings over nine years ago. As much I love Linux, I don't think its rate of adoption could go much slower than it already is.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
The way to answer FUD is to provide specific information debunking the FUD's vague claims. This applies equally to those who want to answer FUD criticism of GPLv3 and to those who want to answer this article which in fact is FUD about criticism of GPLv3.
This does not change the fact that it is wrong to provide a forum to FUDsters.
"So by posting this, am I spreading fud about spreading fud? I think I broke my brain."
You've got a very fragile brain.
One is simply causing confusion. Previously, the GPL seemed to universally mean GPLv2. It was well understood what it meant for something to be GPL'd. People grasped the concept and what rights and restrictions were involved, and thus it was fairly easy to make a informed choice of if it was acceptable in a given situation or not. Now things are confusing. Is it old GPL or new GPL? How does this affect things? This confuses non tech savvy managers, make lawyers scared, and makes it harder for tech people to sell to their bosses.
Another is that the GPLv3 IS more restrictive. I appreciate that the reason for it is to try and give the public more freedom, however for companies making use of it, its more restrictive. It is possible that those companies will find it unacceptable and thus dump Linux. Don't think they can't do it either, Linksys dumped Linux for vxWorks on its routers (allegedly for memory reasons). There are other options out there, and those options will get used if companies decide, rightly or wrongly, that the license on Linux makes it unusable for them.
Yet another would be by creating a perceived problem with OSS. We've seen a real giant (Linus) come out and blast the GPLv3. While that doesn't mean anything ultimately, it can to companies. Now there's concern about a coming divide and what could happen. The "But you've got the code!" argument doesn't hold any water for places that don't have many/any programmers. They want a product that works and is supported. Now while this isn't actually likely to change that, it can create concern that it will.
Mostly it is just a perception thing. Confusion and disagreements are never good, especially if you are the little guy. It makes PHB types nervous and they are the ones who ultimately make the decisions. You can scream till you are blue in the face that it shouldn't be like that, but that is how it is and we have to deal with that reality.
Simply because you are being even worse than the government or media at overusing the word terrorist. For fuck sake people, everyone you dislike is NOT a terrorist. There's nothing wrong with being pissed at the government, especially our current one, but calling them terrorists is the height of stupidity and is to buy in to the very crap they are selling.
This where a strange world if one could coerce others to enter into an 'agreement'. On the face of it the Fear argument is warped. Perhaps it is more the Loathing for the restrictions of the new GPL and the implicit commercial motivation that keep some from adopting it.
Groklaw had a thing to say... and the author of the article then retracted some of his errors (but not all in the Corrections part of the thread).
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i d=20070713192403106&title=Dear+David+-+RE%3A+your+ comment+%26quot%3Bperipheral+to+my+opinion+that+th e+GPLv3+may+do+long-term+harm%26quot%3B...&type=ar ticle&order=&hideanonymous=0&pid=594620#c594677
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20070713
There was a comment following this that was interesting regarding the author still not liking GPLv3 - that concludes that all that GPLv3 does is make software pure as math (the same as the UK Court of Appeal, th UK high court, has done by outlawing software patents)!
see: http://www.groklaw.net/comment.php?mode=display&s
Why does Slashdot run FUD that is incorrect? It really should not see the light of day in the first place?
Nah, it's a different flavor. This one has peanuts in it!
(I should've resisted the urge to post this, but for some reason I find compelled to foist this unpleasant analogy onto Slashdot.)
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
That is the short of it.
Tivo got cute with the wording because although you can argue effectively that if THEY can install or remove programs from your Tivo, why can't you, you'd actually have to argue.
MS got cute with the wording by saying "we aren't licensing, we're just saying we won't sue if you pay us" (the NotADuck conundrum).
These both are there in the GPL2 (all information to create the binary: but you haven't the signature changes the binary, and look it looks like a license, you pay like a license and you have to agree to things like a license. It's a license) the GPL just spelled it out clearly.
The GPL3 also got rid of many parochialisms from the GPL2, where terms and references were US-centric. These give options to weasel out of the obligations for foreign countries.
Now, IANAL, and there's probably something really basic I'm missing that would prevent this hack from working, but I'll throw it out there as food for thought:
Some universities have a lot of patents and some of them offer free mirrors for things like kernel.org and sourceforge.net projects. It may be that the act of offering a mirror is protected under the DMCA safe harbor, but if copyright license law is as powerful as some GPLv3 proponents claim, it's not even clear that the DMCA safe harbor would override section 10 of the GPL. In any case, some mirrors work by pulling code rather than letting code be pushed, so that seems like an affirmative act of copying the software and then creating and giving copies to the general public, so an entity operating a mirror might be "conveying" under the GPL.
So, for example, if MIT has a patent I want to use, maybe all I have to do is get committer rights to some relevant project, code up something which infringes the patent, get the patch accepted (never mentioning the patent, of course), and it gets distributed to all the mirrors, including MIT's.
I download it from MIT, and voila! I have a license to use that patent inside that program (and apparently inside any GPLed derivatives I make of that program. Being the proprietary sort of guy I am, I wrap the GPL project's code with another completely proprietary program which controls it and lets the GPLed code do the patented dirty work.
I don't know whether this would work or not, but I'm starting to understand why companies are now marketing "open source" license scrubbers.
The FSF is certainly free to do this with the GPL. But while the consequences of just distributing source under v2 might have been intended to convey patents in this same way, a lot of people didn't realize that because the wording there is not as clear, and the remedies don't appear to be as onerous. V3 section 10 seems to make it very clear that if you convey code which implements a patented invention, you cannot sue anybody over using that invention in that code, and that "convey" would cover the act of proactively operating a mirror site.
This should give pause to a lot of people, not just Microsoft. Right now, "everybody knows" that GPL2 is a safe license, in the same category as BSD, well away from the category of any proprietary license, for being able to freely redistribute source code.
Those who assume the same about GPLv3 do so at their own peril, perhaps to their own detriment. It appears that, for an entity with a valuable patent, inadvertently distributing one copy of GPLv3 software could easily be much more costly than inadvertently distributing a few hundred copies of a Microsoft product.
The way universities work, it is unlikely that the legal counsel stays on top of things like kernel.org mirrors, but it seems that anybody with a patent portfolio who is running a free software mirror of any type ought to take a serious look at their policies and at the terms of GPLv3.
Perhaps one valid component of licensing strategy would be to repudiate GPL v3 (and any similar licenses which purport to appropriate your own patents), just like Microsoft has done. That would basically be a public announcement that, if anybody catches you distributing GPL v3 code, please let you know right away because it is not your intention to ever do so and you will stop distributing immediately, and if anybody thinks they're getting one of your patents out of the deal, you plan on fighting it every inch of the way.
When Richard told me I was keeping the free people down with my Tivo, he lost me forever.
"He's using a quantum encryption scheme! That'll take hours to break!"
Stallman's ranting and MS's FUD have already made Open Source persona non grata in a big part of the business community.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Well, of course it will. Duh. Proof? Will entity X be *more* likely do adopt Linux because of GPL v3? I think the answer to that it clearly 'no'. Are there entities that will shy away from Linux if GPL v3 gains a foothold? I think the answer is clearly 'yes'. Therefore, GPL v3 will slow Linux adoption. QED.
The question is whether the *rate* of slowing really matters that much.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
And now InformationWeek have replied with a badly executed straw man:
Please help publicise swpat.org - the software patents wiki
tech writers are idiots... truly idiots... tweeking fools... self-righteous, pedantic, ponderous technical 'tards...
i should know because i was one!
now i follow the Cult of Linus... and in self-sacrifice, have shorn both hands of my thumbs, forcing me to type only in hexadecimal...
Name or it doesn't exist.
Should Stephen King be branded a terrorist?
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Why did you choose to call them Tech Writers? They are not Technical Writers. By trying not to sully your own already sullied profession, you have insulted another respectable profession that is widely misunderstood and lacks its due respect. I am a Technical writer (or Tech Writer for short) and when I saw this headline, I thought that STC (Society for Technical Communications) had come out against the GPL3. Instead, it is just some bozo. Call them Writers about Tech if you must, but please don't call them Tech Writers.
Please change the title of this article.
Why is it that the patent doesn't describe the patented method specifically enough to implement it?
Well, that's actually only the start.
Why is it that the boom of computers came when hardware was commoditised yet the boom now won't happen unless software can be de-commoditised?
When you have a patent on a new mouse trap you must give schematics on how to build it and these schematics are not copyrighted and not a trade sevret. You don't give the code in a SW patent so it remains a trade secret and also enjoys copyright. How's that happen?
In section 11, the patent section, what you say seems to be true. It talks about patents of "contributors".
But section 10 talks about the responsibilities of people who "convey" the software, who are not necessarily contributors, and states "For example, you may not impose a license fee, royalty, or other charge for exercise of rights granted under this License, and you may not initiate litigation (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that any patent claim is infringed by making, using, selling, offering for sale, or importing the Program or any portion of it."
Now, maybe that really only affects contributors, but then it would seem to be both in the wrong place (not under section 11) and slightly redundant to the statements in section 11.
I don't understand why this wasn't published as a new story! That other /. story lead me to believe one of the most important people in the Linux world hated GPL v3... why is this not corrected? That's a pretty major issue, IMHO.
The universe have more than just one clan of BORG. We use to have just Microsoft Borg. Now I believe we also have FSF Borg, and the Standard Linux BORG.... Or I may just be completely BORGED this monday morning....
So in your example where you sneak in the patented code, you're just not "the contributor" in the sense of the license, AFAIK, so your sneakily adding the patented code into the repository and subsequently downloading it doesn't imply that you can practice the patent license granted by the "contributor" because you're not the "contributor" of the patent.
Disclaimer: IANAL itsmonday iamverytired
To be, or not to be: isn't that quite logical, Slashdot Beta?
All one could do is tell that the amount is clearly reasonable in some instances and clearly not reasonable in some other. IMHO the amount of GNU components in any GNU/Linux distribution out there is high enough to make the naming reasonable. Your mileage may ofcourse vary.
Section 11 says if you contribute code with your own patent, somebody cannot add code which implements another of your patents, redistribute it, and automatically grant someone else rights to your patent that you didn't. That's fair, but if you'll read my original quote carefully, that's not what I'm addressing.
Section 10 refers to people who "convey" the software, not "contributors", and seems to say that people who "convey" cannot sue downstream users for infringement of any patent implemented by the software. The definition of "convey" is quite broad, and it seems to me that it could cover the scenario I discussed.
IANAL either, and there could be some reason why this isn't an issue, but the issue in question has to do with section 10, not section 11.
Hm. I'm not sure my karma is good enough to risk posting a comment in a GPLv3 thread.
Oh shit.
If you can't find a real troll, just mod down whoever you don't agree with!
"[W]hat you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul."
When I first read the /. headline, I thought it was about Technical Writers. I couldn't understand why tech writers would have objections to the GPLv3. Yes, I admit to being a tech-knuckle writer, and with few exceptions we are among the most vile and contemptible occupants on the planet, and are rightly regarded as such.
But confusing us with freelance writers of technology articles, well that's just cruel.
Research shows that 67% of those who use the term "research shows", are just making shit up.
Under GPL2, you've got the source code available, like tivo or the gp's soduko game. What more do you want? You can't seriously want to be able to reprogram it on your tivo or phone. I don't see the issue, you buy a tivo, it works, the source is available, how is it violating the spirit of the GPL?
And everybody says I'm talking about section 11.
And I've made it clear multiple times that I'm talking about section 10.
Now, maybe there is some reason why the last paragraph of section 10 doesn't apply to this scenario. If so, I'd love to hear it, and then I can go back to sleep.
But, absent somebody actually addressing my question about section 10, the fact that everybody keeps dancing around it and claiming that I'm talking about section 11 instead of 10 just makes it look like FUD from a different direction.
God forbid someone have a different opinion of the GPLv3 than you do! Why, they should be tarred and feathered out of the fine profession of "journalism"!
One could perfectly well have a Linux system without Gnu tools, and no, it wouldn't be useless. Embedded systems often run a single application and this could be done with tools other than Gnu's. Now try to run Gnu without an operating system.
I believe this obsession about this "just a kernel" idea comes from envy. The Gnu project could never get a practical kernel to work. Their own kernel, the hurd, is still very far from becoming used in practical applications, not to mention from being as popular as Linux. Linux uses Gnu for the simple reason that Gnu existed, if it didn't exist it wouldn't be very hard to write. A lot of work, yes, but not as difficult as writing an OS kernel, the hurd is there to prove that. Therefore, I think the whole thing should be turned around. It's not Linux that's "just" a kernel, it's Gnu that's "just" a set of utilities and libraries. Linux is the *main* part of the system. Linux supplies the element that was lacking in the Gnu project to make it widely used.
I used Gnu before Linux was created, using on a DOS extender named DJGPP. It sucked badly, to the point of being useless. You can also use the Gnu tools in other operating systems, of course, but it has never become popular in any of those. The Gnu project needs Linux more than Linux needs Gnu.
Believe none of what you hear and half of what you read.
Ask yourself who's interests are in not seeing the GPLv3 widely adopted, and has lots of money. I suspect that a lot of astroturfing and behind-the-scenes negotiations about advertizing revenue are going on here. I suspect that most of these articles have been bought and paid for.
So let's modify the scenario a bit and see how it fits:
Assume that party A (MIT in the original discussion) has a really valuable patent, and as a service to the community, performs automatic copying of open source projects (mirroring).
Renegade party B slips some infringing code into one of the projects, and party A automatically picks it up and distributes it. Party B gets it on the redistribution and starts disseminating it widely, claiming they have a license for the patent from party A.
So far, this is the original scenario. Now, according to your addition, party A sues party B for damages, for putting the infringing invention in the code in the first place. And I agree that there may be a good chance that party A could win a suit against party B for this.
But, according to a literal reading of the GPL, parties C, D, E, F... who also downloaded the code (written by party B) from party A, directly or indirectly, have now been granted licenses from party A for use of that patent in that code, and they don't suffer from the "unclean hands" of party B.
If party B does not have enough resources to make party A whole for the infringement (basically for letting the entire world use the patent), party A still loses, unless you can show that the last paragraph of section 10 is somehow undone by the suit filed by party A against party B.
So upon reflection, I agree that the unattractive prospect of being sued for the initial infringement makes the deliberate hack I described legally very risky, but if party C is profiting handsomely off the patented code, and party A cannot show any connection between party B and party C, it seems like this clause in the license might be able to provide income for trial lawyers for years.
Ignoring for a moment whether software patents are valuable (and, of course, most of them are crap):
1) If I have a patent, and don't do any GPLv3 contribution or distribution, and some GPLv3 code infringes my patent, in your opinion, would I be able to successfully sue people (or at least, large companies) who infringe my patent via use of the GPLv3 software? If not, please state why not and skip question 2. If so, go to question 2.
2) You imply that slipping this infringing code into a GPLv3 package and then tricking the patent holder into automatically distributing it "does not reduce their rights to sue, because they don't have them in the first place." I'm not sure what you mean. They would have had rights if they weren't helping out the community with a mirror. Do you believe distributing ANY GPLv3 code automatically removes your right to sue over infringement of ANY patent, or what?
Thanks,
pem
So "technical writers", often called "tech writers", are unrelated to "technology writers", often called "tech writers".
But the point is that then you should call the system GNU since that is what it is. You don't call your laptop OS "ntoskrnl.exe", do you?
You know, Microsoft's street address also says a lot about their mentality.
Hitler wasn't elected. Hitler was appointed chancellor by president Hindenburg (who in fact was elected by the people).
Also Hitler's party, the NSDAP, didn't win a parlamentary majority. They had to enter into a coalition. Only after they essentially outlawed the opposition did the NSDAP on their own hold the majority.
Just clearing up the facts.
If MIT mirrors a lot of software (which they do automatically) and has a patent which some of that software infringes, then there is not an svn repository at MIT for that software. That's the whole point -- they aren't providing oversight; they are just mirroring. If they need to provide oversight of what they mirror, that would be too costly and they would probably shut down the mirror.
While it may be that MIT could declare the distribution to be in error, that could add uncertain complications to what would have been a more straightforward patent infringement suit.
You're right -- most software patents are completely bogus. But that's an unnecessary qualification -- most patents are bogus.
i'm a tech writer and don't know the difference!
...from the intro of Command and Conquer: Red Alert sums up my attitude towards what the GPL v3 will potentially do to Linux.
"Time will tell. Sooner or later, time will tell."
I have a different suggestion: these guys try to make big news and scare innocent people. Even some "big guy" at megaflop used similar language some time ago - "Linux is finished, Linus has got a job" etc etc .. even the whole post) if you think it could be dangerous - these guys actually can stoop to copying from here and making a headline out of it.
So, I want to take the steam out of their shit-crap by making a bigger and better list of bullshit and calling it as such. So, here is my "professional opinion" as a "technology writer of repute"
The grand FUD Website bullshit generator v2.0 licensed under.....guess......
All are harmless senseless headlines BUT please feel free to moderate ( = edit/delete
I've got more of it, but people should point to this discussion - or a blog that says this - from everywhere
FEEL FREE TO COPY SUBJECT TO THE CONDITION THAT YOU DONT TOUCH A SINGLE INSTANCE OF THE WORD "BULLSHIT"
bullshit No 1: open source is finished
bullshit No 2: redhat has never beat megaflop in any quarter so far -
(for the record: redhat can never reach megaflop sales *because* megaflop is a monopolist - redhat has also never paid criminal fines in billions of dollars which megaflop does every year)
bullshit No 3: [removed on request]
bullshit No 4: slashdot is a mob site - just see the uncouth comments! - they even have someone mentioning a website / opensource bullshit generator v2.0 !!
bullshit No 5: linus had to come over from transmeta to help a sagging, dying operating system
bullshit No 6: linux always copies everything from proprietary software
bullshit No 7: unix was made by people for companies and linus illegally robbed it from them, in the guise of a student.
(hell, i cant think of many more...help...)
bullshit No 8: samba is a broken server and needs windows to function properly
bullshit No 9: linux handling of ntfs has been poor
(how about searching for "closed formats" and "lock in" and "embrace extend extinguish")
btw, i use knoppix to recover my data from crashed windows xp
bullshit No 10: no web server runs linux or apache these days - people running lamp stacks are feeling stuck with an old technology
THIS IS FUN. MIGHTY PLEASURE GUARANTEED:
Let's make a wiki page list of all the websites that run news services that print such headlines and see what servers they are running and make a public documented list on a wiki. Let these evil people get the correct disrespect they deserve!
bullshit No 11: the allegedly "most popular" PHP 4 language has been declared dead and obsolete by the makers of the language themselves. Experts say that the security issues forced the PHP group to withdraw the version after nearly three years of troubles, ending countless heartaches to hobby and experienced programmers worldwide (php group, you should have a good laugh as well. btw, for the record, i've made a decent living out of PHP, but that's not part of this )
bullshit No 12: Oh come on! Friends, the FSF has only a few lawyers and that RMS idiot, he's not even a lawyer. As for Eben Moglen, he's a nicety nicety chap - harmless at best
bullshit No 13: Did you know that the FSF and GNU do not even pay a pittance to their volunteer coders? isnt that exploitation at its worst? (Well, they do, and what does volunteer mean? )
bullshit No 14: if you use opensource code, your business secrets are open for anybody to see! (ROFL LMAO)
bullshit No 15: have you ever seen what goes on, on IRC, where these guys claim there is instant support for any of those opensource projects? There are so many trolls and malicious users. Would you not prefer talking to a decent support person at our highly well facilitated support centers? (and foot our bills?)
Plus, why would you ever want to talk to, on occasion the very leader of the opensource project directly, one-to-one? Also shows how these guys loot our wealth and sit chatting on IRC!
Phew! What a load of bullshit!
NOTE:
PEOPLE USING EMAIL FROM CORPORATE ACCOUNTS SHOULD NO
Linus could dictate a PL of his own liking. The hardware strictures are dubious in GPLv3 in a number of ways, but let's nod our heads and run along those lines for a moment. Imagine that projects fork, based on GPL version. There are herds like that.
There's the LGPL. CC. Various odd Sun licenses. Three versions of the GPL.
All that versus: some god-forsaken EULA of a closed-source project..... with the law firm of Dewey Cheatem and Howe standing behind them.
This new superfluity of licensing is freedom of expression and intent. Yet Torvalds could come to bear strongly.... except that Stallman and Co have gone down a righteous path. There is religion there. Will Torvalds become the Martin Luther of free licenses? Stay tuned. Has he the power? I think so-- he's a practical guy in the face of the FSF who has idealism, a dogma, and a zealot (RMS, one of the premier programmers of the 1990's).
How does it play out??? As I'm a betting man, I'm betting on Linus. He won't want this role, but he'll take it anyway because soon it will get in his way. He's much better at overcoming obstacles pragmatically and with creativity than RMS. Just my 2c worth.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
In the case of universities, it gets worse. A lot of universities both in North America and in Europe have policies that all code developed by faculty or students belongs to the university (as an employer), but may be released as open source if the author desires.
So say I (as a university employee) am working on a small part of a large open source project. Unknown to me, some other person adds code to another part of the project, which violates one of my universities' patents or copyrights. Since I I am not aware of this, I redistribute that code along with my own changes. The university is now a contributor (it owns the code I write) to the project, and has redistributed (through university servers) code that contains code voids one of its patents.
How long do you think it will take universities to implement policies that are more restrictive in terms of contributions to open source projects? What do you think the impact will be on the progress of open source projects if university contributions slow down?
You should have said, "I don't call my Windows 3.11 system my DOS/Windows system!". But of course, if you know anything about it, half the system or more was still DOS, just with a mac like interface.
rhY
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
...and that seems the reason for bashing poor stallman who want to save the FOSS from M$ and other proprietory companies.GPL3 is the way.other wise u'll see Linux ending with zillions of IP/patent infringements.It seems M$ is paying ppl to prevent Linux/oss going gplv3.hrmmm...
The article is unsubstantiated opinion.
The article is FUD.
The only thing new in this world is the history that you don't know.[Harry Truman]
Flaming occurs when somebody says something to personally attack somebody else (ad homimem)
My statement about Microsoft was a general one concerning the fact that I don't hear the same people complaining about far more restrictive licenses. I put it on a separate line for that purpose.
You'll note that my response did'nt address your point's directly. This is because I was not responding directly to your post but to the overall posture of the thread.
If the patent owner puts the code in either themselves or through the actions of an agent allowed to create the code and releases it in a combined GPL3 work then the patented code is distributed to all GPL3 (and later?) code recipients for GPL3 (or later) use.
If the code is stolen from the patent holder and put in a GPL3 work then the distributor can be sued for infringing the patents. If the person who put the code in can be tracked down (and they can now because the contributions are controlled because of SCO's FUDbuster attack) then either they can be offered up as a replacement (the code still needs to be removed or the patent invalidated). The person who stole the code is done for copyright infringement/industrial espionage/spitting on the sitewalk.
You are attempting to show the patent clause untenable by stating on the one hand the patent owner puts code in under GPL3 and then stating that they didn't release the code under GPL3 on the other hand.
Tease out the two possibilities and you see the answer simply:
If patent holder relases the code, it is patent licensed to GPL use
If patent holder doesn't release the code, how did it get in?
(a) someone independently put it in: sue for patent infringement (you'll need to say what though)
(b) someone with authorisation to produce works (an agent) put the code in. This is either a breech by the authorised party or the same as the patent owner putting the code in themselves.
In fact, RMS intended to avoid the significant overhead and delays of making his own kernel by getting one of two or more candidates "freed" so he could distribute them under the terms of the GPL. (This was circa 1989.)
RMS always wanted to provide a truly free (and useful) OS. He wasn't thrilled about cloning a sorta-Unix, but decided, for various reasons, that that would be a better approach than cloning something else that would have much worse portability problems (as would Multics, ITS, TOPS-20, etc.), among other reasons, or designing a new OS (like a Lisp machine OS) from scratch.
Linux didn't start out to become the GNU kernel. It started out as an x86-based kernel, built with and to run the GNU toolchain. But it grew, organically and quickly, in no small part due to Linus Torvalds' leadership style, which was more freewheeling and accommodating than RMS's more-ivory-tower approach. (Plus, Linus himself simply had more time to focus on Linux; RMS had a plethora of things to focus on, including being the Leader Of A Great Movement, President of the FSF, and so on.)
Not long after it became clear Linux had enough support across the board to be widely ported and in fact serve as a de facto kernel for GNU, the FSF made a decision (IIRC) to adjust its priorities for the Hurd accordingly — no need to rush it out the door so GNU had a free kernel at that point.
To create a viable kernel, perhaps; but an operating system is far more than a kernel, and in fact an OS like GNU can (and does) run on top of a wide variety of kernels.
"Linux" has been a good name for the OS (and surrounding community) that consists of the Linux kernel and GNU toolchain, not because it is the name of the kernel, but because the name "Linux" became shorthand for the most visibly successful, well-run, free-software OS development project in history. It's as much, or more, of a bow to Linus Torvalds than to the Unix kernel he and many others helped create, kind of like how many people use "democracy" and "America" (or "the USA") nearly interchangeably, even though, strictly speaking, the US is not democratic (it's a republic) and democracy was not "invented" there — many historical confluences, including commitment to and sacrifice for certain principles, that intertwined democracy and the USA resulted in the terms being widely thought of as nearly interchangeable, even though they aren't.
So, it's no wonder RMS (and GNU) wanted to have more visibility in the historical effort that was Linux; that visibility may have been technically deserved, but the community (which has hashed this issue out for many years now) decided it wasn't sufficiently deserved to make usage of the term "GNU/Linux" widespread (although it's still quite useful to properly denote that OS, so I have often used it myself).
Practice random senselessness and act kind of beautiful.
(Presumably you meant "Ling Is Not GNU"?)
The original name RMS/GNU used, IIRC, was "lignux", and wasn't so much announced as started appearing in new versions of GNU software (such as GCC or GNU Emacs, I forget which offhand) in the system-configuration-name strings produced during the ./configure steps. (Wow, this goes back many years now,
apologies if I've got details wrong.)
Seeing "lignux" appear where "linux" or similar previously appeared touched off some amount of protest and discussion.
I believe "GNU/Linux" was only subsequently proposed, and pushed, by RMS and the FSF.
So the problem was never really the lack of, or need for, a cool name to indicate that Linux was actually a GNU OS with a particular kernel.
Instead, the problem seemed to be more that people working on Linux, with Linus Torvalds as project leader, were more focused on creating something that was actually useful and worked, in contrast to those who worked on GNU under RMS, a "camp" that seemed prone to making a few too many decisions and pronouncements from on high, with little or no regard for how they might be viewed by the hoi polloi, and seemingly too much willingness to intrude on other peoples' projects (such as by trying to rename them without permission).
Practice random senselessness and act kind of beautiful.