Slashdot Mirror
GPL Lawsuit May Not Settle
A number of readers wrote in to inform us that contrary to earlier indications, it's no sure thing that the lawsuit alleging GPL violation by Monsoon Multimedia will get settled out of court. Linux.com now reports that the SFLC's legal director Daniel Ravicher has stressed that no agreement has been reached: "Simply coming into compliance now is not sufficient to settle the matter, because that would mean anyone can violate the license until caught, because the only punishment would be to come into compliance." (Linux.com and Slashdot are both part of Sourceforge, Inc.)
My knowledge of copyright judgments in the US is lacking, but doesn't the plaintiff usually need to register the work with the copyright office in order to get punitive damages? The problem with most projects like this is that 1) they don't register with the copyright office and 2) they have no case for ''compensatory'' damages.
i think the microsoft advertisement linked to this article is inaccurate as well. CHECK YOUR SOURCES!!!
today is my birthday also.
I believe that this statement is inaccurate, and that expenses have been demanded and paid.
Do you want to give us some reasons for your belief, or should we take your word on faith?
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
Looks like things are starting to get interesting. There goes my conspirecy theory about it being a publicity stund, then again it still could be and backfired.
Have Monsoon tried saying "pretty please" yet?
This is something to keep an eye on.
Make SELinux enforcing again!
I really do think that it's about time for the GPL to be given an actual trial. I realize that it's probably in Monsoon's best interests to settle out of court, but I don't think that the SFLC should do that.
Some things in life are worth more than money: court victories for free software licenses are one of those things, I believe.
Stick it to 'em. Make them pay for copyright violations and "loss of revenue".
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
As an contributor to OSS and about to release a project, the GPL is there to be used how it states - any OSS license states what can and can't be done.
All profits from this product could be re-invested to projects or project maintainers to create better OSS products and services in a closely related area.
They pay a penalty now, but can redeem themselves by building a partner network.
Someone needs to write up a website with what you can and can't do (in plain english - with case studies) with various free software:
Mozilla Public License - commercial open source
Common Public License - commercial open source
FreeBSD - academic roots
Apache License - academic roots
(L)GPL - freedom roots
(1)From what I understand, GPLv3 is compatible with Apache for the first time. Does this mean if you license your project v3, you can use apache code within your license and relicense it?
(2)If you contribute to mozilla licensed code or freebsd licensed code, do you understand that your code can be used in a proprietary commercial product?
(3)Can you distribute a proprietary java app with mysql connector jar (open source) connecting to mysql, and charge money for the java app and maintenance on the jar and mysql as a service?
These are all gray-ish areas that I think I know the answer to, but IANAL.
I would answer
(1) - Yes
(2) - Yes
(3) - Yes
Regards
It is NO damned different if you use a Proprietary Licensed product within your embedded device-
if you fail to abide by the terms of the license grant for the protected Work(s) you are using, you
can expect to get your ass sued at some point if it is found out that you're doing it.
It doesn't matter if it's GPLed.
It doesn't matter if it's MIT/X11 licensed.
It doesn't matter if from Microsoft under an EULA or one of the Shared Source licenses.
If you breach the terms of the licensing, you're guilty of breaking at least a civil contract if not
outright Patent or Copyright infringement- PERIOD.
There's no 'intricacies' involved with OSS in the first place- they're simpler licenses to follow.
I'd be leery of dealing with anyone selling proprietary anything these days because of those 'intricacies'
that are ALWAYS present with most proprietary products.
Name of the game: Don't Cheat. Don't Get Greedy. Abide by the license terms, whatever they might be.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
In what way could the GPL possibly be considered non-commercial?
I don't doubt that you're right: PHBs may indeed get scared by "if you use GPL code you could end up in court" worries (or FUD, as the case may be).
But I find that rather amusing. I mean, it's not like the liability or damages would be less if you somehow ('accidentally' ?) shipped proprietary software (binary or source) with your product. In fact, I imagine a proprietary software vendor would be even less forgiving than the FOSS community. It's not like FOSS is demanding greater vigilance than proprietary equivalents: just read the license before you distribute it!
I guess it's hard for some people to understand the concept of free software licensing. They think that if they can see the code (and download it gratis from a web server), then they can do whatever they want with it. Really, it shows that many people who are in the business of making money off of copyright law (and copyright law applied to software in particular) don't pay much attention to how it works.
It isn't that- people keep coming up with that because you don't precisely have to pay anything for it.
What they don't further understand is that it's not covered BY the UCC at all, even if it was for pay.
It's covered under Copyright law- it's a reproduction and derivative works license grant, which confuses
the HELL out of anyone unfamiliar with producing Protected Work(s) or protecting them. They're used to
EULAs and the lot. They're not used to the types of license grants that authors give publishers, etc.
because they're not normally exposed to anything of the sort unless they're in that space, either as
an artist, OSS developer, inventor, or a Copyright/Patent/Trademark attorney.
Being that it's solidly established as part of Copyright (even GPL v. 3) Law, there's NOTHING unconstitutional
about it- and if there is, all the RIAA and MPAA people, as well as all the magazine and book publishers
have got a LOT more problems on their horizon beyond "pirates" >;-)
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Will this scare pointy-haired-bosses away from OSS if they think touching the GPL may involve a law-suit?
That's exactly what they should be thinking: "I will get sued if I violate the GPL. So, I better dot my i's and cross my t's."
They should be as scared of that as getting sued about violating any commercial license.
...aren't going to find anything here to change their minds.When you hear people like Linus talk about the license (the good ol' GPL v2, that is), it sounds very reasonable - I gave you code, so you have to give back what you went on to accomplish with it. Except that it's not enough to post Linus (or whoever the original programmer was) a CD with your latest and greatest; you have to provide convenient source code access to anyone who ever received your software, for every version that you ever distributed, for years. If you have a serious customer base, even if those "customers" are getting your stuff for free, this requirement is neither easy nor cheap. Better take it seriously though, because the FSF has shown it intends to come down hard on those who fall short.
And we're not even talking about GPL v3 here.
If you read the gpl (v2) you would realize its not that hard:
Also, just make the source available via a html page with google ads. If enough people download it, you'll make money.
--- Justin Dearing http://www.justaprogrammer.net/ We're just programmers.
Using GPL software without complying with the GPL is a liability for any business. As is using any proprietary software without complying with the license that comes with the software.
But what would compel a company to support FreeBSD when they could just take the code, use it for their own needs, and never make upstream contributions?Does an admittedly left leaning GPL
Jeepers! I feel much stupider having read that. The GPL is a software license. It can't hold an opinion on the old order following the French Revolution.
and they could declare the GPL to be in violation of anti-trust, unconstitutional because it is non-commercial
Anti-trust? WTF? Non commercial? You can use the GPL license to cover commercial software all you like. Do you have any understanding of the issues here?
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
In reality, it's due to a disconnect from the business people and the people doing the work.
All it takes is one unscrupulous developer- or a batch of abjectly clueless business people to cause one of these messes.
To them it's all by magic and they "own" everything they do. I see it all the time.
If you want, blame the business schools and all for graduating people that haven't been taught a lot of these things
and are taught silly, useless "business optimization" things like Six Sigma that're only really useful for the
largest companies- and that probably only really work because doing some process is better than none at all and
obtains SOME useful results.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
No fees are required for any of the rights it grants, yet it puts restrictions on the exercise of those rights (or, if you prefer, the grants are not unlimited). This makes issues that are normally simple to figure out much more difficult.
For example, if two people negotiate a license agreement that says A can distribute B's book so long as B pays A 15% of the gross receipts, it's clear that the license makes the grant and that the payment is a secondary obligation. If there was non-payment, B would sue A for breach of contract but would have waived the right to sue for copyright infringement.
The GPL is much more complex because it is non-commercial. The "payment" in the form of reciprocation, yet it's written such that the "payment" is a condition precedent to the grant of rights rather than a secondary obligation. Also, there is no agreement between the two particular parties to the GPL.
There haven't been enough cases close to the GPL to figure out exactly what the rule is. The general rule is that things outside of copyright (such as payments) are secondary obligations, not conditions precedent but things inside of copyright (such as selling just film rights) are conditions precedent.
So if I license you to make a movie out my book and you have to pay me $1 million, if you don't pay me, that's a breach of contract. If you sell copies of my book, that's copyright infringement.
If the GPL is read as a license that waives the right to sue for copyright infringement, that would leave only the ability to sue for breach of contract. If the only penalty the contract allows is loss of license, it's not clear what happens. Do you get back the right you waived? The whole GPL then becomes self-referential. "I waive the right to sue you for copyright infringement so long as you give me the right to sue you for copyright infringement."
Even a shared server would be fine forserving single files - a $20/month hosting agreement could serve the tarballs for all but the biggest files. There are other options for GPL projects like sourceforge
Maybe you mean it's not cheap or easy to keep track of the licence that covers individual parts of your program. In that case you had better make sure your staff are coding every single line of code your app uses, because if yo ucan't keep track of the licenses covering your files, you are just asking to be sued. The GPL offers software that if Free as in Freedom, not Free as in beer. One of the very small costs the GPL imposes on anyone that uses software licensed under it is to contribute back to the community. Don;t like it, then don't use it - write your own code instead.
The sooner we find out the better, and I don't see any serious consequences.
I mean, what can happen?
SCOTUS can invalidate the GPL. So, nobody has a license, and the authors will just release a new license.
Or SCOTUS can declare that all GPL'ed code is public domain now. So, the BSD guys are really happy, and the GPL projects will simply put all new code under a new license.
What's the big deal?
OTOH, the sooner we know, we can act.
This is /.
/., go over to Groklaw.
If you want people citing legal precedent plus discussions of interesting, possibly viable legal theories- interspersed with at
at least a little of the same poo flinging you find around here on
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
If you think distributing GPL software is bad for your business, try distributing pirate copies of Microsoft Windows with your product. You'll get to see just how "dangerous" a license can be.
The fact is that infringing other people's copyrights is a bad business move. It does not matter at all what mechanism the rightsholders are using to protect their copyrights.
How could one read that one?
You don't waive the right to sue for Copyright infringement with the acceptance of the terms.
You get the right to distribute the Protected Work(s) and make Derivative Protected Work(s) (Also covered by the same license)
as long as you abide by the terms- which is you give access to the source code to the original and any derivative work to any
recipient of the code in source or binary form that you give it to. The bulk of the GPL license is the boilerplate for establishing
the aforementioned grant of rights and establishing what is considered to be a breach of the agreement and what happens if that
breach occurs. Given that there is no waiving of ANYTHING stated or implied in the verbiage, there is none. Just because
there is no remuneration present in the form of monetary exchange does NOT make it a waiving of rights or anything else.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
one man
one vote
one time
There's a reason why gpl stuff is like 100 times as popular, it is precisely because of the give back provisions carved in stone. BSD license says, "you are free to be a completely selfish jerkoff with this stuff, and we just don't care".
Fair enough, no problems! It is remarkably clear and to the point.
OK, swell, people can choose to work and contribute towards that, but I think the proof is in the pudding, just a ton more work gets contributed back under the gpl. The gpl takes into consideration "humanity" and as such is closer to the real world of humans in the "good" sense. BSD supports "inhumanity" and the closed source me-me-me of dog eat dog corporate culture, the artificial golem that stalks our societies now, it panders to the more negative side of human-ness, you are always just one single step away from ultimate avarice and greed. that's close enough for cooties to catch.
Understand I am not putting it down per se, I really am not, there's some fine work going on over that side of the code fence, but it is minscule compared to the gpl side, for the obvious reasons. I am just noting the real world results we can all see, and then projecting into the future which license or mindset as it is will result in more code to more people all over the planet. Both licenses have been around a long time now, so there's your proof. It can change, but I don't think it is going to change a whole lot, not anytime soon, and not because of what is in essence a single simple copyright abuse case. If you want to be completely commercial crass about it, to make your corporations happy, either license it is perfectly acceptable to charge money, for both the binaries and the source code. So there's really not much difference there at all, not really. GPL just acts as a code force multiplier better. That's the only real difference.
and talk about risky, how about totally closed source? suppose your company invests heavy in software prodict A, only to find out later on they "infringed patents" from software company B and "stole code" and so on? You could be ordered to cease and desist using that software with not much notice, then what ya gonna do? It got *this II close* with them stupid crack berries, dint it? And lookee down the page, look at vonage, more than one company out there went heavy with them.
So what is "risky" again? All of it is risky, but it is the shit you can't see that is riskier, bar none. Stick to pure open source and gpl and you can use it forever and ever, not much worries at all compared to the other stuff, and a hella lot more folks will be working on improving the code and looking for bad news stuff all the time that you are then free to use again and again.
You either get it, or ya don't, it really is that easy.
one man, one vote, one time, or one man, one vote, every time, which is better?
and case law to be made, as well. Settling this out of court will imply that such violations of the spirit of the GPL are not 'costly' - the FSF would like to create the exact opposite impression, with respect to the unholy MS-Novell agreement.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
I'm calling you out.
You say "Does an admittedly left leaning GPL..." I want to know who "admit[ted]" that the GPL is "left leaning," and when. Don't cite me RMS's opinions on other matters, or the lifestyle of FLOSS users, or any other ad hominem red herrings. Tell me, specifically, whose admission you are referring to.
Otherwise, I will file you (and any further arguments you may wish to make) next to people who misuse the word "literally," cannot distinguish between "to" and "too," and believe that quotation marks are used to add emphasis.
The rest of you: forgive my grammar Nazi-esque rant, but I'm doing my best to forestall the day on which, as Hobbes the tiger said, language becomes a complete impediment to understanding.
What if I do the same thing, and I do get different results?
In what way could the GPL possibly be considered non-commercial?
The point is, a Supreme Court Judge can make up whatever law they want to, if they want to.
This is my sig.
None of the various Creative Commons licenses are listed on OpenSource Initiative's (OSI's) approved license page, so raising it in the context of OSS licenses is a bit of a stretch.
The very points you raise may be why it has not met with OSI approval, but there I'm speculating.
-- Alastair
More correctly, distributing GPL software without complying with the GPL is a liability for any business. The GPL only covers distribution, not use. Everyone is perfectly free to use GPL'ed software without any restrictions whatsoever.
Why don't they try to test the phrase "No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without written permission from the publisher"?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Using any licensed intellectual property without complying with the appropriate license is a liability for any business, and they know it. The difference here is that there is a perception in business that Open Source projects are operated by dirty hippies that don't have it "together" enough to do anything about it (nor the money, even if they did have it "together").
This is why it's important for this suit to move forward with an objective of some type of damages and at least attorney fees. This will send the message to business that there are repercussions to ignoring or trying to circumvent Open Source licenses like the GPL.
The only businesses that will be scared off from using Open Source because of this are dishonest businesses that shouldn't be allowed to use Open Source anyway
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
You're right about the main thrust, however two details. First, there are statutory damages for both knowing and unknowing infringment. However the knowing infringment damages are much (3x?) higher. These high statutory damages are the reason that the RIAA lawsuits have such teeth. Second, the requirement to register your work was removed almost thirty years ago. Registering is an easy way to have the governemnt verify when you claimed ownership however, and thus can be worth it.
Oh, and IANAL either.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
Who was harmed? That's a question a judge/jury would consider. If they were infringing on a patent or commercially licensed software, it would be easier to find a monetary value (and there is plenty of precedent)
While there's a good chance they'd get punitive damages for intentionally disregarding the GPL provisions, there's also a very real chance the court would decide that specific performance (ie, releasing the code) was the only necessary remedy... which would encourage (more) GPL violations.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
how the fuck can they make this claim, yet when SCO filed it's complaint, the open source community's response was "all we have to do is fix the infringment" - the very same claim now being denied.
you can't have it all your own way.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Slashdot Soap Opera.
[quote] But what would compel a company to support FreeBSD when they could just take the code, use it for their own needs, and never make upstream contributions? [/quote]
Nothing. IANAL, but I can take any gpl'd program, modify it, and use it for my own needs. Only when I re-distribute the software, do I need to release the code.
Go ahead. Flame me if I'm wrong. I'm a CP/M uzer.
It is a general principle of law that if one offers a license, one waives the right to sue for copyright infringement in exchange for the right to sue for breach of contract. See, for example, Sun v. Microsoft, Jacobsen v. Katzer, and Tansini v. New York Times.
"Generally, a 'copyright owner who grants a nonexclusive license to use his copyrighted material waives his right to sue the licensee for copyright infringement and can sue only for breach of contract. If, however, a license is limited in scope and the licensee acts outside the scope, the licensor can bring an action for copyright infringement."
The scope of the license is a matter of copyright law and is only informed by the terms of the license, not determined by them.
"You get the right to distribute the Protected Work(s) and make Derivative Protected Work(s) (Also covered by the same license) as long as you abide by the terms- which is you give access to the source code to the original and any derivative work to any recipient of the code in source or binary form that you give it to. The bulk of the GPL license is the boilerplate for establishing the forementioned grant of rights and establishing what is considered to be a breach of the agreement and what happens if that breach occurs. Given that there is no waiving of ANYTHING stated or implied in the verbiage, there is none. Just because there is no remuneration present in the form of monetary exchange does NOT make it a waiving of rights or anything else."
This may seem right, but from a legal standpoint, it makes no sense. If there's no waiver of the right to sue for copyright infringement there is no license. Ask yourself this, "if the GPL is not a promise not to sue someone who complies with the license for copyright infringement, what is it?"
If I say "you may make and distribute copies of my book so long as you pay me $10 each", I definitely cannot sue you for copyright infringement if you don't pay me. The right to a $10 payment does not appear in copyright law. The distribution is authorized by the license, only the license is breached, not copyright.
On the other hand, if you make a movie out of my book, I can sue you for copyright infringement. Creation of derivative works is outside the scope of the license, not just a breach of it.
I know, it's complicated and it should be simple. But that's just the way the law is.
Are you posting anonymous because you're the only /. reader who doesn't have adblock?
you get the horns.
You say "Does an admittedly left leaning GPL..." I want to know who "admit[ted]" that the GPL is "left leaning," and when. Don't cite me RMS's opinions on other matters, or the lifestyle of FLOSS users, or any other ad hominem red herrings. Tell me, specifically, whose admission you are referring to.
You know, that is some heap of non-logic you are throwing out there buddy. You would seriously believe that a person's body of thought is somehow isolated from a major portion of his work. That's absurd.
RMS's political philosophy is socialist, in that, he argues that the needs of the consumers so completely outweigh the rights of the producers that the producers of goods have no rights at all. The central thrust of his philosophy is that ownership is bad. That's socialism, and that, by definition, is leftist.
Being a software man, and, by all accounts, a rather intelligent and well thought one, he seeks to stamp his political philosophy into the technology world, before it is too late. To that end, RMS invents the GPL. The GPL is a license based on copyright. But note that he does not believe, per se, in copyright law. He argues, ultimtely, that http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/, that, software should not be "owned" at all, but recognizes that under most western law, that copyright is the means with which to best achieve his end, effectively.
Stallman notes the stock socialist criticism of the soviet union - the communists were bad, and they just wanted it all for themselves. The thing is, a more detailed look at the history of soviet communism would show that many of the communist leaders were really actually rather smart, and genuinely tried to do the right thing, but power corrupts, over time. To some degree, stalin's paranoid period aside, many of the communist constraints on freedom were really, like the GPL gone mad - to protect the workers, we have to have rule, after rule, after rule, to keep it just so. It just doesn't work, and a worse tyranny results. The downfall of any socialist system is that to get the social arrangement you want in even one aspect of it, sooner or later, you have to try to control all of it. It's just the nature of things.
Otherwise, I will file you (and any further arguments you may wish to make) next to people who misuse the word "literally," cannot distinguish between "to" and "too," and believe that quotation marks are used to add emphasis.
Your threat is silly. It's silly that you are offended that I've called the GPL for what it is, an attempt to put a socialist system into software. Note that, I didn't make any moral judgements about it. In all other fields, the "real fields", I think socialism is evil, not because the idea is bad, because, on paper, if it could work, it would have been alright. It's just, its failed everywhere it has been applied. But in software, who knows, maybe it might work. That software can be copied without cost changes things, and its worth it to let things play out, as the experiment of GPL, and following its consequences with non-free software, is really the social experiment of our time, and it should be viewed as a non-catastrophic and above all, peaceful way to study the interactions of radically different ideologies as they compete and coexist. Who knows, maybe from all of this, some new thoughts about a radically new economic system might arise from this interaction, that gives us the benefits of capitalism but that addresses the social concerns that socialism wants to, but can't.
If you claim to have an open mind, the first thing to do is call things what they are, not call them what you want people to believe them to be.
This is my sig.
Who was hurt? Perhaps the authors because the thieves were making a lot of money with the stolen code? There's got to be a ton of precedent for awarding damages to the owner of a copyright when someone else is illegally profiting from the sale of that copyrighted work.
The Farewell Tour II
If that quote is correct then I suggest Daniel Ravicher is better off acting like a responsable adult instead of giving way to the childish urge of having a head on a stake to scare his enemies. The people he wants to scare with the precident of punishment are unlikely to notice that it has happened.
Less work and a better product if nothing else.
(Easier to sync with the open version and get new features and if you can just use the open one and support it yourself and others use and develop for it aswell it will become better.)
But if they don't like it they are free to not submit any changes back aswell of course, and there are no troubles with that either.
However your running under the assumption that GPL is very close to Public Domain. It's pretty restrictive.
-The world would be a better place if everyone had a hoverboard
I like the idea of some of the settlements by http://gpl-violations.org/ where the offending party makes a donation to the Open Source cause, e.g. the project violated, the FSF or EFF.
Please learn what the GPL is before saying anything else about it, ever. I don't think you got anything right in your entire post except that you are not a lawyer.
The Farewell Tour II
You know, that is some heap of non-logic you are throwing out there buddy. You would seriously believe that a person's body of thought is somehow isolated from a major portion of his work. That's absurd.
I asked for a specific admission. You have not cited one. If you want to say there are overtones, leanings, implications, that's fine. "Admitedly," as used, is a pejorative, and as such, is open to challenge.
But note that he does not believe, per se, in copyright law.
On the contrary, the GPL is specifically and explicitly couched in the contemporary understanding of copyright. It expressly allows for a carefully-defined set of exemptions thereto. Or have you not noticed that Slashdotters are salivating for someone to challenge the GPL in court?
Stallman notes the stock socialist criticism of the soviet union
See aforementioned mention of red herrings. This one goes by the name of "guilt by association." Perhaps there are others who would be interested in pursuing you down this rabbit hole.
I've called the GPL for what it is, an attempt to put a socialist system into software.
If by "socialist," you mean prioritizing consumer needs over provider needs, you could make a case for this, but you haven't convinced me of this. Given your follow-up, I perceive that you have neglected to reflect on the way market forces have responded positively to GPL'd software. You do allow that software could be an isolated exception, but this contradicts your citing the Soviet Union, etc. In other words, you're muddling state socialism with RMS's philosophy, which I would describe as libertarian socialism, or market socialism. In still other words, the standard vision of socialism as a governmental project should not, and cannot, be conflated free software, which has made inroads into the market without, or even in spite of, the government.
What if I do the same thing, and I do get different results?
they're having the same thought that I had yesterday? http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=307011&cid=20735703
Peace sells, but who's buying?
There, fixed that for you. If you agree that parties like the RIAA and MPAA are wrong, deceitful, and unfair when they mislabel copyright infringement as "theft" or "stealing" -- and you should agree -- then you shouldn't mislabel the offense either. Hypocrisy* is bad, mmkay?
(*Obviously, if you agree with the RIAA's diction then you're not hypocritical, but that's unlikely because you would be in the minority of Slashdot readers. If that's the case, I apologize.)
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I agree, there's a huge lack of basic legal knowledge among non-lawyer workers. For example, just the other day I had to warn my girlfriend, who is an artist working at a computer game company, that the fonts available at all those "free font" websites might not actually be free to use when embedding the code of the font in the game itself (as opposed to using the vector or raster data output from the font "program").
Of course, fonts are an exceptionally complex and screwed-up case -- even more so than "normal" software -- but it's not hard to imagine that most developers and artists would be just as clueless about that kind of thing as she was.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
So if I license you to make a movie out my book and you have to pay me $1 million, if you don't pay me, that's a breach of contract. If you sell copies of my book, that's copyright infringement.
The film is also a breach of my copyright, as a film is a derivative work.
Sean
I live in a giant bucket.
No, it isn't the same. When you take GPL code and violate the license you are making the assertion that the code is yours. This is theft. I have yet to hear of someone making a claim of ownership of a work when "pirating" movies or music.
Perhaps I am mistaken and this company admitted that they were using GPL software and not releasing the code. But that is rarely, if ever, the case and it is pretty safe to assume that they were just hoping that no one would notice what they were doing as that is usually (again, if not ALWAYS) the case in these situations.
That comments such as yours, which are all noise and no content, get modded insightful speaks quite poorly for the moderators of this site.
The Farewell Tour II
Penalty for your distribution of misinformation about this on Slashdot: To compensate, you have to post the correct information - BSDs get contributions back from their derivates - at least 10 times. This will, hopefully, dispel the damage you ahve done by publicly supporting the incorrect meme.
Eivind.
Doubting the existence of evolution is like doubting the existence of China: It just shows that you're uninformed.
They admitted they are using GPL code (they mentioned the original FOSS code they lifted).
They simply didn't make the modified sources available.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
Copyright infringement is theft.
The problem with RIAA is that they try to sue people who didn't infringe their copyright.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
No, it's not. The contract granted the right to make the movie. Copyright law does not include any right to $1 million, that's coming from contract law.
If the gist of your copyright claim is that the person violated the terms of the license, rather than that he did something reserved under copyright law, then you cannot sue for copyright infringement but you must sue for breach of the license.
From Jacobsen v. Katzer:
In other words, failure to comply with the terms of a license cannot turn something that would not otherwise by a copyright violation (due to the grant of a license) into a copyright violation. Only if there was no license grant at all for the rights involved.
> But what would compel a company to support FreeBSD when they could just take the code, use
> it for their own needs, and never make upstream contributions?
When the Netscape codes was released (as Mozilla), they claimed that "the stupidity tax" would prevent this. The stupidity tax is the extra effort you have to take to re-port your proprietary additions to each new release of the base code.
Isolated, I believe the stupidity tax is enough to make it worthwhile to contribute your additions back, at least if the base project has a strong following.
However, the reason a copyleft license like nonetheless GPL is generally preferred by businesses is friendly than a "almost-pd" license like BSDL, is concern about what the competitors do. Will they take your additions in their product, but never release their own additions?
With BSDL (or similar) companies will pay the stupidity tax in fear of giving the competition an unfair advantage. Which will hurt all the users of the base code. With the GPL, that unfair advantage is not an option, so business will be far more willing to share their improvements for the benefit of both themselves and other users.
This is why BSD is dying.
Interesting tacit assumption that following the GPL is punishment. :-)
- Injunction to stop infringing copyright
- actual damages
- profits from the infringement
- attorney fees
- anything else the court might want to do
As soon as the defendant complies with GPL, they aren't infringing, so #1 isn't a big deal.Actual damages? That's a big fat zero.
Profits? At this stage in the product's life-cycle, defendant probably isn't profitable yet, so that's likely to be another big fat zero.
Attorney fees. Finally something that might actually be non-zero!
I don't see much punishment happening here. They'll settle for attorney fees and some nice (to the developers) but insignificant (to the company) payment.
"If that quote is correct then I suggest Daniel Ravicher is better off acting like a responsable adult"
.. :)
I see, acting to assure compliance with the GPL is acting 'childish'. As to your erroneous claim that no-one would notice - I don't think so.
' Simply coming into compliance now is not sufficient to settle the matter, because that would mean anyone can violate the license until caught, because the only punishment would be to come into compliance '
--
morning shift
was: Re:If that quote is correct
davecb5620@gmail.com
Lame, and a good reason to include an invalidation clause in future contracts I sign :(.
Sean
I live in a giant bucket.
Yes.
Scary, isn't it?
c++;
The problem with RIAA is that they try to sue people who didn't infringe their copyright.
At least, this usage of the world "steal" is pretty old. Tom Lehrer (if you know who that is) said in the 60s "I thought I'd steal.. I mean adapt... this idea" or something close. It is just a word that has gotten additional meanings. If I "steal your heart" I hardly deny the usage of your heart, either :)
Personally, I don't mind copyright, but the length is suboptimal. (15, 20 years from publishing would be enough, I think). Also, copyright should not be used to force people to watch certain stuff, such as copyright notices or other things.
As long as reasonable care is taken to make sure you got the right person, and as long as the punishment fits the crime, I have no problem going after the file sharers. On the other hand, DRM is one of those things I would forbid. It's counterproductive for innovation in the surrounding fields.
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.
Imagine Microsoft wanted to use some code that is published under the GPL. It doesn't really make a difference, but we can imagine that Microsoft has money in the bank, and wouldn't do something obviously illegal.
Microsoft has two choices: Use the code and follow the rules of the GPL license, or find the copyright holders and offer them money for a proprietary license. If they go the second route, unless the copyright holders for some reason refuse any business with Microsoft, there will be an agreement in the end where Microsoft will pay a certain amount to the copyright holders.
If someone else just copies the code and then doesn't follow the rules of the GPL license, the fair market value determined by our Microsoft thought experiment would be the damages. That would likely be tripled for punitive reasons (otherwise a company could just steal anything, if they didn't get caught they'd be fine and if they got caught, they would only pay what they owed anyway).
And there is real precedence, like Apple first paying for a proprietary license to CUPS and then buying the copyrights to CUPS.
While both are possible, they are equally unlikely.
"There's zero precedent for awarding profits to an author who made a willing and intentional donation to the public domain"
Your post should have stopped there, because this has nothing to do with public domain.
"if the GPL is not a promise not to sue someone who complies with the license for copyright infringement, what is it?"
Yes, it is an implied promise not sue for copyright infringement but only under certain conditions (set forth in the license). If the conditions are not met, the promise does not exist and you have no rights under the license (yes, the GPL states that your rights under the license are terminated if you use the work outside the scope of the license). As you have no rights under the license, you can infringe copyright in the covered work.
If I say "you may make and distribute copies of my book so long as you pay me $10 each", I definitely cannot sue you for copyright infringement if you don't pay me. The right to a $10 payment does not appear in copyright law. The distribution is authorized by the license, only the license is breached, not copyright.
That's true, but isn't there a difference between an agreement (contract) and a license? The license is invalid if its conditions are not met. Hence, without a license it is copyright infringement.
PS - By the way, your posts are close to legal advice. You should disclose whether you are a lawyer. (I am not one.)
One of those HAVA gizmos are selling for $129.95 and up so with a penalty of $750 to as much as $30,0000.00 the damages could be rather devestating for Monsoon Multimedia, Inc' business plan, each one sold could cost them $621.00; the law is pretty specific about telling the court what the monitary damages are.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name!
Just the mention of Tom Lehrer put a smile on this otherwise miserable Wednesday - thanks :-)
One swallow does not a fellatrix make
From Jacobsen v. Katzer:
You're using that as a precedent, but that does not come from an appelate court. The district judge can be wrong.
Anyhow, unlike the GPL, the license in question did not include a provision stating that your rights are terminated if you use the covered work in any way not expressly provided in the license. So, it should not apply to the GPL even if an appelate court confirms the conclusions of the district court.
GPL == Public Domain? ROFL. Get a clue please.
Distributing any copyrighted software without complying with the license is a liability for anyone.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Its not a liability if you play by the rules.
If you want to violate someone's copyright, you've got to deal with the consequences.
He has a 3 character nickname and a 6 digit ID. Maybe if he had a 3 digit ID as well we could, like, take it as divine revelation. But today doubt will triumph.
This is Slashdot. You can't expect not to be called stupid when uttering such stupidity. Wish I had modpoints left.
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
Like Apple, for example?
molmod.com - computing tips from a molecular modeling
On /. I fall politically on the "right-wing nutjob" side of the isle, but the only problem I have with the "pinko commie" stuff is that it is usually forced on you. The GPL is voluntary, I know when it kicks in, I know what it's costs are and I can easily figure out what it's expenses are, there are no surprises. What the people here are usually confusd about, is thinking the "Corporate Fuedalists" (yeah I made that up pretty cool term) are capitalists or conservative.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
The central thrust of the Free Software philosophy in general is that the inability to modify and share software and hardware is bad. To avoid this, instead of exchanging money for software, we exchange the promise of continued ability to modify for software. While it may seem like socialism to someone not familiar to zero-cost goods because of the lack of money exchanged per-copy, the renumeration that classical capitalists would recognize is still there, though in a different form.
Furthermore, there appears to be a misconception that producers somehow lose their rights when they license their works under FOSS terms. The rights of producers and their maintenance is the very thing that enables FOSS to work, and the very thing that the GNU GPL and the SFLC seeks to protect. Without those rights the GNU GPL would be little more than the MIT license, and copyleft would not exist.
http://www.donarmstrong.com
Except they weren't "giving it away". They were making it available subject to conditions, and Monsoon Multimedia defaulted on those conditions. Therefore, permission to copy the code was not granted and Monsoon Multimedia infringed copyright.
Just because you pay the bill for your land line in arrears, doesn't mean the telephone company can't take action if you go ringing people in India, Botswana and Malaysia and then decide not to pay for the calls! And taking a paper from the railway station newsagents and not using the honesty box is still shoplifting. The fact of the goods being offered before any obligation is fulfilled, in no way diminishes the obligation.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
(1)From what I understand, GPLv3 is compatible with Apache for the first time. Does this mean if you license your project v3, you can use apache code within your license and relicense it?
That is 2 questions. (counting is hard?)
1. If it is compatible (Source please), You can use apache code,
2 But you cannot re licence it.
You might have to add some lines in your license/readme that the code contains parts that are under a apache license, and who is the original creator of that work. (attribution).
The difference here is that there is a perception in business that Open Source projects are operated by dirty hippies that don't have it "together" enough to do anything about it (nor the money, even if they did have it "together").
I definitely think that's part of it. It's the old school playground taunt of "Oh yeah? You and who's army?"
If it's MS, IBM, Apple, Oracle, etc, then it's obviously their army of highly-paid lawyers.
If it's some hobbiest open source project, then what army indeed?
The only businesses that will be scared off from using Open Source because of this are dishonest businesses that shouldn't be allowed to use Open Source anyway
I'm not entirely sure that I agree there, to be honest. Some businesses may be scared away simply because they don't feel that they understand the legal ramifications fully enough to trust that they will even know what their obligations are. Not every firm has access to a legal department (mine, for instance).
It's official. Most of you are morons.
"Using GPL software without complying with the GPL is a liability for any business. "
It's not even that - the Gnu GPL doesn't cover usage, only copying/distribution.
Your PP was of course just an inane fudster, probably a troll.
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
What if the authors say they are willing to sell allow it to be non-GPL licensed for a million dollars each.
Wouldn't that give the code value then?
What if they said a million a copy?
By your logic I can just use QT without releasing code or paying Trolltech because the code is GPL.
Perhaps if any of the authors says that no amount of money would lead them to allow non-GPL release it would have no value, but I don't think that has been stated.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Remind me what the G in GPL stands for, please?
El Tonerino
Doesn't matter for the discussion at hand. Commercial EULAs attempt to add restrictions above and beyond what copyright law provides. If the EULA is found unenforceable, then you're still left with the restrictions defined by copyright law, and distributing copies without permission is exactly what copyright law says you can't do.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
I chose my words poorly. Using GPL software internally is not covered by the GPL, so is in my mind "compliant" with the GPL. Using GPL software in a way that is non-compliant with the GPL implies distribution (at least in my mind).
The differences between this and what the RIAA does are:
It's the lack of evidence that really makes the RIAA suits slimy. The RIAA and its attorneys know perfectly well that they have little chance of succeeding on the merits, and that all they're really doing is using threats to extract settlement money (aka extortion).
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
No, the GPL places no restrictions on using GPLd code. Anyone can do that. If you modify GPL code and use it, but don't distribute the software, you can also do that with no restrictions at all.
It just says that if you modify GPL code and distribute (i.e. copy) the resulting software, you have to make the source code available.
If I were developing a product (with the intent of profit), I would certainly jump at the chance to have pre-developed software I could incorporate into my product. Now, presumably I would need to make some changes and improvements to make this software fit my needs. Under BSD style licenses, if I release my code back to the community, a competitor could scoop it up, spend a little bit more money improving from my code base, and never contribute anything back - leaving me at a competitive disadvantage.
Under the GPL, when I release my code back to the community, a competitor could still scoop it up, spend some money improving my code base, but any changes they made would also have to come back to me (among others), so they're not at any significant advantage.
On /. I fall politically on the "right-wing nutjob" side of the isle,
That's where I'm at, and I feel the same way about the GPL as you do. I like GPL stuff, and, heck, I like open software and the open software culture. Saying that the GPL has some pinko commie aspect of it isn't condemning it, its just calling it what it is, and, the thing is, and, unlike pinko commmie stuff in the real world, it actually does seem to work on a real level.
One wonders though, if the GPL Sputnik will ultimately be answered by some closed source Apollo, somewhere down the road, but, that they got X-Windows working with 3d graphics card and pretty well seems to say, hmmm, maybe not.
This is my sig.
I don't think you can get statutory damages unless you previously registered the copyright; if you didn't. you can only get proven damages. In this case, $0.00.
And what's so wrong about bringing someone into compliance publicly? It helps deter others.
you have to provide convenient source code access to anyone who ever received your software
Nope. You only have to provide source to those to whom you have distributed software. If someone else gets your software, the distributor they got it from is responsible for providing source. If you only give binaries to one person, and they distribute them to the world, you are only required to give source to that one person.
You don't have to make it particularly easy either. You can always provide source through the mail, and charge a reasonable handling charge.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
The Free Software Foundation considers a GPL violation cured when the offending entity comes into compliance. Given that the software was free to begin with, I am not sure that its a good idea to pursue additional penalties (especially monetarily). Use of GPLed projects (like Linux) is popular in many corporations and is frequently allowed to fly below the radar by most management and legal departments. If the penalty for a violations stops being compliance and starts being gold digging, management, legal departments, and people in general will shy away from the GPL like a plague.
So.. they have a full set of redundant bosses in a rather expensive part of the world to live. As well as a full set of bosses where they actually make their product?
That's gonna last...
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
I would say that it's pretty clear that the market value for that code is whatever this company who violated the GPL was able to make off it. Worst case scenario, what would a license for the 'comparable' Windows OS cost? That might also be a reasonable consideration.
Check out my lame java blog at www.javachopshop.com
How do you work out how much a violation of something like the GPL is worth? For something like QT it is easy trolltech will just quote thier normal sale price for propietry licenses and they will have evidence that they really have customers who think it is worth that. On the other hand if the author has never sold a propietry license before it is going to be much harder for them to show that the damages figure they give is reasonable.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
well there is the fact that the cost of maintining a large custom patchset against an ever changing codebase developed by people with no consideration of your code can be quite high.
and the fact that favor with the devs is valuable, they can provide you with far better support than those who are just support drones and favor with them can also give you influence over the general direction of the project.
I am sure that the GPL gets some people to contribute that wouldn't otherwise but I am also sure it stops some people using the code completely (whether due to fear of the GPL, unwillingness to release other source that will be used in the same app or license compatibility issues). Which is more significant is pretty much impossible to determine.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
So if I offer a book for sale, and no one ever buys it, but you start start selling bootlegs does that mean there is no damages?
Of course the court may determine it as such, but I doubt it.
I would calculate the damages for illegal use of my code in a commercial product as being a percentage of the retail dollars brought in. I would hire an expert to say (independently decide) that 20% (or whatever) of the value of the product comes from the code, and it is reasonable to assume that 50% of retail price is the cost. So damages would be 10% of the total money spent on the product by consumers (since it would be reasonable to expect that's what would be spent on buying the software).
Another solution would be to say we are 20% responsiblke for the product, and therefore want 20% of the profit, but that sounds like a bad idea for some company that is probably losing money.
But there are ways to assess damages that could probably hold up, even if something has never been sold (see patent trolls)
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
It should be common sense that if you take anything that you haven't created yourself, and add it to a commercial product, you ask a lawyer. Or you ask your manager, who will take responsibility (and ask a lawyer).
It is not only various problems specifically with fonts, it is just the problem that you don't know where these "free" fonts come from. If you don't have a piece of paper from the author that declares the font is in the public domain or gives you a license, you can't use them. If some kiddie has a collection of stolen commercial fonts and puts them on his "free fonts" webpage, you are fully responsible if you use them.
Welcome to
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#DistributeWithSourceOnInternet
The price Monsoon asked for their version of the software is a good base for the damages estimation.
It needs to be determined, how much percentage they lifted from the GPL code and how much is their genuine code.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Recovering the cost of attorneys fees alone would be no small thing. And technically damages can be considered any revenue made, had the copyright holder(s) chose to, say, dual license the product and legally bring it to market. Should people be allowed to keep profits made by stealing your intellectual property?
Quack, quack.
Most businesses can divide software into parts that are, and aren't connected to their core competency. If you are making a system for a specific purpose, then you might start using FreeBSD as a base. Any code you write that is directly connected to this specific purpose gives you a competitive advantage. Any other code you write (including modifications to FreeBSD) does not. The more your code diverges from the main FreeBSD tree, the more expensive it is to maintain. If the divergence is connected to your core competency, then this cost allows greater profits, and so is worth maintaining. If it isn't, then sending the changes back reduces your overheads.
With a GPL'd project, it's an all-or-nothing question. You either pass on all of your code to your customers, or you pass on none of it. If giving away the code would cost you a competitive advantage, then it might be in your best interests to license a proprietary base like QNX and use this to build your product than go with a GPL'd base; the cost of the proprietary license would be less than the cost of losing your differentiator. In these cases, a BSDL base gives the best of both worlds; you benefit from keeping your own code closed, and the community benefits from you releasing improvements that do not cost you a competitive lead. A few companies build BSD-based systems and release their code upstream a few months or years after it was written. They keep their commercial advantage because their customers get the code first. They keep their costs low, because their code donations stop their tree diverging too much from the upstream tree. The community wins, because there is commercially funded development.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
The basis of the legal action is not an 'injury' to these third parties, but to the copyright holders. If I write software, a song, or play, I can license it under the provision that everyone who wants to copy the software, sing the song, or perform the play, must send a postcard to KUON-TV (PBS affiliate in Lincoln, NE, an example pulled straight out of my ass.) A person who fails to comply has not "injured" the station. They've violated my copyright.
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
If you try to assassinate the president of the US or some such person, the authorities will put you in prison, even if you fail to kill! They say, "We can't let the would-be assassin walk free just because the president is still alive."
The authorities must be living on a different planet from me. Here I was thinking that "alive" meant that the president was healthy and able to continue setting his policies as usual. In the warped mindset of an assassin, that means suffering through the continued political maneuvering of someone he had wanted dead. (In the case of assassins for hire, the assassin would have to live without his assassin's fee.) How is this not a deterrent for assassins?
404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
[GPG key in journal]
Claiming the code is theirs is technically slander of title, but it's getting a lot closer to theft (appropriation) than people who make a Genesis song available on the net but make no bones about where it came from. (( the original point about theft vs infringment is still arguable, but I'd say that it's not the slam-dunk that was originally implied))
Once people brought up the point about the code being GPL, the support geek fell back to the EULA and claimed out that the people who found BusyBox had violated the EULA to determine that.
This is entirely repugnant to the letter, the spirit and even the raison d'etre of the GPL. It's not just a case of forgetting to put the source code up.
If these guys were to write busybox (and the rest of the Linux core, which was also appropriated) themselves, it would cost them somewhere between hundreds of thousands of dollars and millions of dollars. If they were to use Windows, they'd be paying through the nose to Microsoft and limited rights to customize it.
The value of the derivative code that comes from being required to make changes available is priceless. Linux is, at this time, probably 99% derivative code, and 1% original Linus code THAT is the kind synergistic value that the GPL can generate. These guys were freeloading off of the synergistic work of thousands of GPL/Linux programmers (not just busybox), while refusing to pay back the community who gave them this incredibely powerfull tool.
Probably 95%-99% of the code in that box was purloined GPL code. Between the SFLC, FSF and the Linux foundation (whatever name it now has), I think that these guys could legitimately be dinged for 90% of the price of what they were selling -- and that's before you take into account punitive damages.
The Copyright act explicitly allows for the making available of your works in return for access to mine. The fact that this doesn't entail any direct money exchange is probably part of the reason why statutory damages were included in the copyright act -- specifically to preclude this kind of logical flag-waving.
OS Software is like love: The best way to make it grow is to give it away.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=307011&cid=20745097
It's like if I said "If you pay me $1200/month, I'll let you live in my house". Then, once you move in you claim "I have possession of the house. Possession is 9/10ths of the law, piss off and go away" -- Besides, you gave me permission.
Although you may have possession, the underlying title still lies with me and, unless you abide by the rules that I set out as a prerequisite of allowing you access (or, in the case of GPL, use), you will ultimately get your head handed to me on a platter (as long my resources don't run out before the court case does). You can, like SCO, delay the final result, but you can't stop it unless, like SCO, you just die first.
OS Software is like love: The best way to make it grow is to give it away.
"So if I take your book, add a chapter and sell it for $50, you can't sue me for copyright infringement because all I have to do is pay you the $10 for your book?"
No. In that case, I could sue you for copyright infringement. The right to create a derivative work is a right recognized under copyright law and one not licensed. So your use would exceed the scope of the license under copyright law.
The license doesn't have to say you can't add a chapter because the right to create derivative works is already reserved to me under copyright law. But it does have to say that you must pay me, because there is no right to get paid under copyright law. So adding a chapter is a breach of copyright, not paying me is a breach of contract.
It may, however, be possible to write the contract such that payment is a condition precedent to a grant of license. If that is possible, that would make your distribution with failure to pay a breach of copyright. There are a few cases that say you can't do this, but none of them were well argued or taken to the Federal Appellate level.
The cases I cite, however, stand for the position that you simply cannot create a new right under copyright by adding conditions to a license grant. You cannot 'manufacture' a right to attribution such that distribution with failure to attribute is a breach of copyright simply because these are not rights that exist under copyright law. Breach of the conditions of a license cannot turn something into a breach of copyright law.
The RIAA comes to their claims of millions of dollars because it's
(each song title is a work, unless you consider all works available on the 'net to be one, big,compilation).Where some schmuck makes 3 songs available that are downloaded by 1000 people, each and the RIAA claims
, I'd say that they're just blowing hot air.OS Software is like love: The best way to make it grow is to give it away.
I would read the GPL as a promise not to sue for Copyright violation as long as you (agree to and really do) follow certain rules (make the source available) (this is the essence of a license). If you don't follow those rules, then you're limited to what copyright allows you (I.e. very little). If, in the absence of you following GPL rules, you do stuff that violates copyright (I.E. distribute my code), then I get to come down on you like a tun of bricks, and charge you with copyright violation.
OS Software is like love: The best way to make it grow is to give it away.
IANAL but the law talks about actual and statutory damages being at the copyright owner's choise and statutory damages are 750 - 30,000 and if the infringement is willful the damages go to 200 - 150,000.00, I've heard that registration in regards to willful before, but with a copyright notice in every file of source it would be difficult to say sorry I didn't see it.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
I'll tell you what, why wouldn't each box that contains the infringing code be an infringement, to so me it is.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
The GPL software Microsoft releases has its source code happily supplied on ftp.microsoft.com
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
I asked for a specific admission. You have not cited one. If you want to say there are overtones, leanings, implications, that's fine. "Admitedly," as used, is a pejorative, and as such, is open to challenge.
I gave you a specific admission. It's all there when you read RMS's writings. You choose to ignore. In any case, your entire argument is a red herring anyway. You are likely a GPL zealot trying to avoid it being called socialist, because, you are afraid that this will somehow hurt the GPL.
In other words, the central thrust of my arguments are correct, Stallman is a leftist, and frankly, so are many supporters of Linux. What's the big crime in coming out? Why do you have to be so afraid of your ideas that you want to lie about them by throwing up insignificant details designed to distort reality?
See aforementioned mention of red herrings. This one goes by the name of "guilt by association." Perhaps there are others who would be interested in pursuing you down this rabbit hole.
Nope. This would be more called proof of motive. You know, OJ didn't like Nicole's new boyfriend, so it is reasonable to think that he stabbed him and her to death.
Given your follow-up, I perceive that you have neglected to reflect on the way market forces have responded positively to GPL'd software. You do allow that software could be an isolated exception, but this contradicts your citing the Soviet Union, etc. In other words, you're muddling state socialism with RMS's philosophy, which I would describe as libertarian socialism, or market socialism. In still other words, the standard vision of socialism as a governmental project should not, and cannot, be conflated free software, which has made inroads into the market without, or even in spite of, the government
Well now, that's just filled with factual distortions. The government is very responsible for free software, in case you haven't noticed. You couldn't have the GPL without copyright law, clearly, otherwise, everything would just be public domain. But more directly, have you noticed just how much the German government supports KDE, and, all of those students that work on Linux in some way, jeez, do you think they get their tuition by baking cookies? In one way or another, they are getting either student loans or scholarships or some form of state subsidy. Indeed, Stallman's MIT gets a giant amount of its money as basically the -uber- think tank for the Department of Defense.
This is my sig.
I guess it's time to feed the troll.
While I really do not want to reply to author of parent post, there is a misconception in that post that needs to be corrected for the benefit of 3rd party readers.
So, Troll, please don't bother to read any further: you have staked out a position that I respect as historically sound. I'm not going to attack it, and so long as you stay in that place where reality maybe used to be, we can go our separate ways.
For everyone else, reality has shifted in the last decade or two...
...I've called the GPL for what it is, an attempt to put a socialist system into software.Actually, no, that isn't even close. The GPL in particular, and the FOSS movement in general, are ways to frame a gift economy in terms of current law. A gift economy is no more socialist than it is capitalist: it is a distinct method building and distributing wealth that is unlike either of those European Age of Industry conceptualizations.
Capitalism and socialism both focus on dividing up the pie of existing wealth. A gift economy focuses on making the pie bigger. It is "I freely give my labor to dig this much more of the village's irrigation ditch", "we recognize and celebrate your contribution", and everyone benefits from the new wealth of corn, beans, and squash that the fields then produce.
Except that with software, the incremental increases in wealth of a traditional gift economy takes a strange turning and becomes a geometric or exponential function. There is no marginal cost associated with duplicating software. It is as if I could dig ten feet of new irrigation ditch to better my own garden plot, and I could then magically duplicate that new ditch for all my other villagers, just by uttering the right magic words. If those magic words were like the GPL, so long as they agreed to work the same magic if and when they added a bit more ditching for their gardens, any of them could take advantage of my work, and my magic. When they, too, do a little digging, it directly benefits me through the same magic-- and I don't have to lift a finger to get that bonus. We all eat better, and have more celebrational feasts.
Software is direct wealth, independent of money. The success of FOSS demonstrates that. It demonstrates that in the current post industrial age, lots of people who may not have a great deal of money are now able to live a life that is wealthier than that of the rich men and women of their grandparents' age.
Capitalism and socialism are both relics of the industrial age that are being outmoded by societies that are increasingly relying on information for their wealth. A gift economy is a natural way of maximizing the benefits when there is no cost associated with giving away copies of something that you were going to make anyway.
The pie gets bigger. That is neither capitalist nor socialist: it is something else again. A gift economy can handle it. The concepts of a gift economy are not something we needed to study since we started to use printing presses to make textbooks, but those concepts are things our ancestors were quite familiar with. The gift economy is not a new idea. It is a recycling of a very old way of making life better.
I checked, and my memory is correct - there is NO award of statutory damages if copyright isn't registered.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/usc_sec_17_00000412----000-.html
So, unless it was first published less than 3 months ago and they now go running to the copyright office to register, or they originally registered it within 3 months of publishing, they can forget statutory damages ...
My bet is they never registered the copyright within the deadlines.
I never knew Sourceforge owned websites like this one.
Fortunately, most development that is of interest to the free operating systems is tactical; the value for the company is primarily in having the functionality available, not in getting strategic advantage from having the functionality and denying it to competitors. The net result, as far as I have been able to observe (though I've been on the BSD side of the fence with only interested-bystander observation of Linux) is that we get more contributions back from the commercial side - and WAY more contributions back compared to developer mind/market share.
Eivind.
Doubting the existence of evolution is like doubting the existence of China: It just shows that you're uninformed.
Not quite.
Each downstream release of a GPL product is itself a derived work.
Even if Microsoft were to get proprietary license for one release, any copies that had already been released by said author to others up to that point are still GPL, because of the "automatic downstream license" clause.
Besides, nothing microsoft does can affect any "upstream" GPL stuff, owing to a lack of privity of contract. For that to work, microsoft would need to get an exclusive license from EVERY author who worked on it upstream, including the original author, who could, quite reasonably, be a thousand steps up.
Not to mention that the "third party licensing" of sources would practically cause a quantum explosion of preexisting licensees each with GPL rights to what they received...who would later be copyright holders themselves if they modified and distributed GPL style.