Slashdot Mirror
GPL vs. Skype Back In Court
mollyhackit writes "Hackaday reports that the GPL vs Skype case is going back to court today. This as an appeal to the court's decision Slashdot reported last July. The original case was brought against Skype for the Linux based SMC Skype WiFi phone. The court upheld the GPLv2 and decided that Skype had not gone far enough in meeting section 3 which details how to provide the original source. This time around Skype is apparently trying to argue that the GPL violates anti-trust regulations."
Perhaps if they code something off their own back then rather than leech off the work of others, there would be no problem. Honestly, the nerve!
...and the license won!
If you haven't been down-modded lately, you aren't trying.
Sacred cows make the best hamburger.
If you don't like GPL terms, don't use GPL software. How much simpler can it be?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Didn't Microsoft try this tactic some time back?? I'm almost sure of it but can't remember what and when. Seem to me they were trying to get the whole premise of "free software" banned on a legal level. Anyone??
All content in this message is copyright (c) 2008. All rights reserved. RIAA is prohibited here.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
IANAL, but it seems like their's only two coices 1) The GPL is valid and they need to comply 2) The GPL is invalid and they arein violation of copyright. Aren't they shooting themselves in the foot arguing that it's invalid?
"Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much." - Oscar Wilde
I was about to say the same thing. The license is the only thing that keeps the people who wrote the source code from suing them. They would have to invalidate the license, and somehow get the judge to declare the source code to be in the public domain, or some such nonsense. Even if the judge grants their motion, I don't see how this is going to fly.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Anti-trust regulations govern companies. The GPL is not a company. I have no idea how skype thinks this will fly.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
I've got a Belkin Skype phone, which judging by pictures and reviews is nigh-on identical to the SMC model - and while looking for updated, marginally less buggy firmware a while ago, I noticed that Belkin had 'GPL Downloads' available for their own product.
.tgz), but there's definitely something.
No idea what's included (there are two versions of a ~100MB
Now to get the bloody thing to talk WPA to my (also Linux-based) router thingy...
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
Maybe it's time I shitcanned my Skype account.
If the GPL is invalid, what license they used when they took the original source?
Fighting the only license that makes your code usage legal equals suicide.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
Disclaimer: I use Linux (Debian) and FreeBSD. And never used or installed NetBSD (yet).
But if I had to pick an OS that worked on commercial devices such as phones, I would see if NetBSD met my needs before choosing Linux (assuming I didn't want to comply with GPL):
a. because it is an OS designed to work on numerous hardware platforms
b. because it uses a BSD license which does not require the resulting works to be published as open source
Why do companies continue to screw up by overlooking alternative OS that don't require them to challenge GPL in court?
But from the perspective of a consumer, I'm really enjoying Linux-based firmware like Tomato 1.19 (think of it as DDWRT minus less-frequently used features, plus AJAX interface)
Well, if they tried to do it in a smart way. This is about the most stooooopid way possible. First, they use a legal theory that only a fool would pursue and that is, indeed, known for having been pursued foolishly only to be dismissed with a very clear finding by the judge in a U.S. court. Then, they pursue this case when complying with the terms of the GPL would cost them nothing, which is the mark of a lawyer who isn't considering his client's best interest. There is nothing special about Skype that belongs in the Linux kernel. Their proprietary software is safe in user-mode, where this case won't touch it. The only things that would need releasing is the customization for that particular embedded phone device, which is not terribly different from the wealth of customization for similar devices already in the public.
In other words, complying with the terms of the GPL would cost Skype less than pursuing this case.
They're stupid, or crazy. If eBay can't rein them in, what about eBay stockholders?
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
I'm interested to hear how they argue that GPL violates anti-trust regulations.
I can only find the argument by Wallace that essentially said it was a collusion to lock him out of the OS market by providing an 'unbeatable price'.
I'm assuming Skype must have some other angle. Otherwise I suspect folks will want to have a word about their 'unbeatable prices'!
OK, forgive me if I'm wrong here, but I thought the whole purpose of antitrust legislation was to crack down on things that discourage competition.
What in the GPL discourages competition? Nothing. You can make your own competing programs all you want. You may not be able to use GPL'd code without also releasing your source, but this is irrelevant: no one complains when Coke doesn't let Pepsi use the Coke recipes.
Even if that were a legitimate complaint, however, it would still be irrelevant. There is plenty of competition, even among GPL'd software. Consider the myriad Linux distributions, to give an example of entire businesses that compete with one another despite using GPL'd products. If Skype wants to compete with Linux using some kind of "Skynux," they too are free to do so. All they have to do is comply with the license.
As you pointed out, it's Skype's software that is in question here. Skype is the one who isn't releasing the source, which they were supposed to give to SMC when they gave the binaries.
However, just to be on the safe side, I'd name SMC as a codefendent and ask them if they received their copy - and if not, to stop distributing the software/hardware bundle.
Kevin Smith on Prince
"Sitting on my encounter-suited butt."
Do Vorlons have butts?? They are energy beings!
Wearing a tie is a *sin* against man and God!
Never trust a man wearing a coat and tie!
IMO, this case from the Skype point of view, is more about protecting the hardware from what one might call "rogue" firmware developers. Compared to SIP based hardware, Skype-only equipment is very cheap. If a new firmware image could be built for the phone, it would be incredibly easy to use the phones with Asterisk rather than the intended Skype, simply by replacing the phone application with something that speaks SIP, since the hardware access pieces of the software would fall under the GPL, being part of the OS.
You don't know the alternative and call yourself a geek? Or, maybe an AC is no a geek!
The alternative is to use SIP phones. And then if you don't like one provider, you get another. For example,
http://les.net/
is one provider I've had experience with. But you can get lots more if you want,
http://www.sipcenter.com/sip.nsf/html/Service+Providers
With SIP you can use ANY provider and not waste money on substandard service. Heck, with SIP *you* can be your own provider with Asterisk PBX software.
There is probably more real phones available for SIP than the proprietary protocols like Skype,
http://www.grandstream.com/products.html
Very good phones from my own experience. Skype has been an obsolete VoIP solution for years now. Anyone seriously looking for a flexible VoIP solution, will only look at SIP.
"After the initial GPL violation, a flier with the URL for the source was added to the package. The GPL wasn't provided and the court found this insufficient for fulfilling the requirements of the GPL"
I went to the SMC site and it includes the GPL in the firmware section. What exactly is the violation?
davecb5620@gmail.com
9. Acceptance Not Required for Having Copies.
You are not required to accept this License in order to receive or run a copy of the Program. Ancillary propagation of a covered work occurring solely as a consequence of using peer-to-peer transmission to receive a copy likewise does not require acceptance. However, nothing other than this License grants you permission to propagate or modify any covered work. These actions infringe copyright if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or propagating a covered work, you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so.
In the GPLv2, the language was simpler: "You are not required to accept this license, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission..." It's completely clear. You accept the terms of the GPL as written, or you don't use the code. Period.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
You write a big app, release it GPL and sell products using it. OK, what happens next? You make changes, release under a diff license. Still OK, it's all your code.
You get the community's version of your app, with community updates. You release under diff license without source - hold on there, buddy. You're in violation of the GPL of the community's updates to your code.
You don't own that other code. If you want to duplicate their efforts with your own code that parallels community features, fine, burn yer money. You wanna benefit from other's GPL code added to yours - then comply with the license they used to release their code.
Pavlov wouldn't be so famous if he'd used a can opener instead of a bell.
Is Skype trying to pull an SCO, in other words trying to commit economic suicide. Assuming their argument is upheld (which is very unlikly) what would be the effects on the rest of the Open Source universe. Someone already tried to play the anti-trust card and failed, way back in Nov 2006.
Pulling an SCO: proverb
Definition: sueing the people you rely to do business with.
davecb5620@gmail.com
Comment removed based on user account deletion
(In the US at least) If the GPL is invalidated, the copyright of the source remains with the creator of the code. Copyrighted works do not "automatically revert" to the public domain. It requires a specific decision by a judge to do so.
At any rate, it won't be invalidated in the US or any other even slightly reasonable jurisdiction.
The "default" access one has to source code is zero, so any license you grant is giving to others, not taking away. Since the GPL gives so much more than proprietary licenses, invalidating it would potentially invalidate every proprietary license that gives less or demands more actions from the licensees.
Pavlov wouldn't be so famous if he'd used a can opener instead of a bell.
GPL'ed code is protected by copyright, but makes an exception to standard copyright protections by allowing distribution if you comply with certain conditions.
If the GPL is invalidated, then the exception is invalidated, and you're left with... standard copyright protections. Which includes a prohibition on unauthorized distribution.
(Reverting to public domain would mean that the court is voiding a legitimate copyright, which is majorly bad juju.)
Which makes you wonder exactly what Skype is trying to accomplish with this appeal....
iSKUNK!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
according to this site (in German) the appeal has been withdrawn and skype has retreated with its tail between its legs.
...
until they take a few minutes to understand
it.
http://www.linux-magazin.de/news/
It seems - as usual - lawyers think they can beat down the "amateur made" gpl
Where does this nonsense come from, I wonder? If you put something under the GPL you still retain your ownership of it. All you do is you grant others certain rights on this something. If the GPL is ruled invalid, the somthing's legal situation is just as if the GPL had never existed: It is covered by conventional copyright law. Which means Skype were f*cked.
Rudolf Hess edited Mein Kampf. He was the very first grammar nazi.
The GPL doesn't violate anything, but even if they did manage to get the License declared illegal in some way... They would still be using someone else's copyrighted code without a license. GPL is the only thing that grants you the right to distribute copies, if you throw it out then you've got nothing to stand on. After all the other cases, I still find it amazing that people don't understand this.
Well you could always require anyone submitting patches to your product to assign their copyright to you. There are projects that do that. It would cut down on how many people donate their code to your project however.
There's a whole raft of problems with this argument. Here's my short list. Feel free to add your own.
- * The GPL isn't a monopoly. There's plenty of competition for software out there, including a convicted monopolist.
- * GPL code cannot be priced up if a monopoly is ever achieved. The terms of the GPL prohibit charging for GPL code ever, so real predatory pricing is precluded.
- * The antitrust laws have been gutted by a series of court cases. One of the "new" standards is harm to the consumer, an almost impossible to prove issue. (So, how do you know Netscape wouldn't have gone bankrupt anyway?) While Microsoft has benefited from this standard, it also will require Skype to prove that giving away software for free harms the consumer.
That's my short list. Like I said, please feel free to add your own.===== Murphy's Law is recursive. =====
As reported (in german) by Linux-Magazin Online Skype has withdrawn its appeal during todays court hearing. After Skype presented its arguments, the presiding judge indicated the arguments Skype presented had severe weaknesses and Skypes chances were small. At that point Skype decided to withdraw its appeal.
GPL is a license to use the software. It has nothing to do with copyright validity. When you create something and copyright it, then you are granted certain rights to that work, and you can use a license to relax some of those rights or to restrict certain rights (within the confines of allowable restrictions). If the license is found invalid then your rights revert to the stock copyright rights, which means if Skype wins they can no longer distribute the code and can no longer use the then illegal derivative works and the copyright holder might have the ability to ownership of the derivative work. So either way Skype loses and their lawyer is stupid for trying such, but sometimes stupid wins in court. Although I smell malpractice suit down the road for this lawyer.
It has nothing to do with shrink wrapped EULA that you are forced to accept in order to use the said software.
In fact, you are not even forced to accept the GPL to use a GPLed software. The GPL only comes into play when distributing the software (basically the GPL only says if you want to give this soft to someone you must give him too the freedoms you received with your copy - only by the time of GPLv3, the FSF needed to explain it in more details because there are always companies such as TiVo trying to find a loophole).
Scype doesn't like the GPL ? They don't even need to go in court, to stop applying it. They are free to ignore it.
THE BIG problem, is that :
If they ignore the GPL, they're back to standard official copyright laws.
They could use copies of legally obtained GPL software themselves as it please them (say, run Linux distros on their desktops at work), *BUT* they simply are *NOT allowed* under copyright laws to make copy to anyone else. (They can't install Linux Skype-Phone and distribute them).
If you want to make copies, the laws says you need to get a special authorisation from the authors.
GPL gives some additional rights ("license"), as long as you follow some rules. And those aren't very restrictive, they only require you to pass along the freedom you recieved with your copy.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
By 'code' here, I assume that you mean 'source'. You can charge what you like for the runtime code, provided that you also ship the source.
If you do not provide another way of providing the source code, they you can charge no more than the reasonable cost of physically making a copy. Also, once three years are up from their last shipping of runtime code, the GPL licencees can charge what they like for the source.
The point isn't that the software is free-as-in-beer, but rather that any shipped software comes with the source, or else the source is easily acquired for the next three years, together with liberal hacking rights. Unshipped runtime code doesn't matter, whether for reasons of price or else any other reason, any more than undistributed code matters.
Wikileaks, no DNS
How can the GPLv2 which essentially is a public domain license with a few twists of ownership thrown in, violate Anti Trust laws?
Freaks!
I say they can run, but they cannot hide.
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
According to this item at the German Linux Magazine, Skype has withdrawn its appeal.
I know their service appears to be superior to traditional POTS and mainstream VoIP offerings, but they still suck. You're locked into a proprietary protocol that doesn't interact with anyone else's apps, and the crypto is "fake" (in the sense that Skype is always the trusted introducer for key exchange, and is therefore subject to coercion by, say, governments).
Kill this app. The "free" calling seems neat, but this isn't what we really need. Like the iPhone, it's a good demo of the future, but everyone loses if the actual product is the future.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
"The terms of the GPL prohibit charging for GPL code ever"
This is a horrible misconception.
You can charge whatever people will pay for GPL code.
You just can't sell it to them without also granting them the code and the right to redistribute. That's it. Nothing says no money may change hands.
This is the difference between "free as in freedom" and "free as in beer". GPL code is free as in freedom, not beer.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
is competition good, or is duplication of effort bad?
But wouldn't the first buyer be able to distribute all the code and source as much as he likes as soon as he gets his han on it?
Has there ever actually been an instance where somebody made use of the three-year limit?
I wonder what they're going to do about Wallace v. FSF which already decided that the GPL does not violate any anti-trust laws?
IANAL, but it would seem that a court having already decided this exact issue would pretty much kill their case. Wallace lost on summary judgment, which means that the court in that case found that, even if everything he said was true (and that was doubtful), he could not prevail.
In other words, that claim is very likely to go nowhere, fast. The judge in the Wallace case was a well-respected anti-trust expert, too.
I was able to underbid competing developers because I got to reuse various libraries and code that competitors couldn't use. I also can release the finished product on the web for free. Everyone is happy. The original company wanted the application and they got it (with source code as a bonus). Sure they paid while everyone else now gets it free, but they were the ones who wanted it the most. The fee (lower because I was able to reuse code as mentioned) was worth it to them just to get the program they wanted. I got money for my time invested. The community gets a shiny new app that does SomethingReallyCool.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Only if you distribute the binary via download can you use a download url as the same distribution medium.
From the GPL:
Otherwise no, the internet is not a valid means of distributing the source code.
In other words, if the person received the binary by physical transfer (in this case, a phone), the medium for transferring the source code must also be physical:
It's pretty straight-forward.
Kevin Smith on Prince
I realize that Skype is a despicable company, but :
- I must use VoIP under adverse network conditions. I've often found SIP blocked while Skype was not.
- I've had marginally more trouble with the quality of SIP connections.
- I've had trouble finding a good *free* SIP client. I'd need video & voice in said client. I'd also prefer IM presence indicators and IM capacity.
- SIP solutions are rarely as easy for less knowledgeable people to set up.
Suggestion? I'd love to switch to SIP, but it's just not been realistic thus far.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
I bought this phone at the "skype boutique" in the French version of the site several months ago. It did came with a paper leaflet saying that the phone contains GPL covered software and a CD-ROM with the sources of the linux kernel and many other packages (like wpa-supplicant). It is weird that they were still trying to fight this in court in Germany.
One correction...
The GPL does not "prohibit charging for GPL code".
The GPL requires that the distributor of a binary provide the source with that binary, if the receiver of the binary wants it.
That is if Abe sells (third-party GPLed) programX to Barry, Abe is required to make the source available to Barry as well, for no more than incidental extra cost (media/copying costs).
Note that Abe has no duty to give Craig a copy of the source if he only distributed programX to Barry.
So if Abe charges Barry $300 for programX, then the source cost Barry money. If Craig demands the source from Abe, Abe can charge Craig any amount he wants for that source.
Of course, if Craig goes to Barry and asks for the source, Barry can give it to Craig at whatever price he chooses, including for free.
The only real moderation in this is that Abe cannot "add additional terms" in his deal with Barry that bars Barry from selling on to Craig.
The "free" in the GPL has _nothing_ to do with price. The propagation of the work (programX) creates a "surface" (or network) that could be bound by a potentially very steep real cost. That is, to get from "outside" to "inside" the surface could have a _very_ high cost.
Now Craig could go to whoever Abe got programX from in the first case, but that code would _not_ contain any of Abe's presumed additions.
===
So in this case particularly, Skype has provided the binary at a given price (0$) and in so doing have a burden to give the complete source any of the people who downloaded the program from them "for the cost already paid" "plus, optionally, a reasonable copying fee". Skype doesn't want to comply.
If today, Skype decided to start charging $110 per download of their binary, then a person who had not previously downloaded the current version of sfotware would still be entitled to the source for no additional cost, but a newcommer should expect to pay the $110 for the binary and then be able to get the source for "the price just paid plus a reasonable reproduction fee etc"
====
Skype doesn't want to "give away" "their work" but what _they_ dont understand is that part of the cost _they_ paid to receive the software was "fee" that they are required to pass on their modifications in source that they passed on as binary under this "must be available" "reasonable reproduction fee only" model.
That is, they could have gone to microsoft and paid _cash_ up front and maybe more cash on the back end per unit (at whatever pricing they could manage) for windows (etc), but they chose up front to to "only" "pay" _disclosure_ on the back end "per unit".
Now they want to say that they don't have to pay what they _agreed_ to pay for their back end per unit rights.
It is like someone licencing to pay you $1 per unit moved based on their use of your (patent, software, drill press, company name, whatever). Then that person sells a bunch of units and gives away a whole bunch more, and when they do the math they discover that they owe you 1$ * 1,000,000 units moved and they didn't make a million dollars because they gave away fully 900,000 of the units moved. So they go back and say 1$ per unit wasn't fair.
Nobody forced them to make the deal, they just didn't think ahead or do the math.
But in Skype's case they gave away the 1,000,000 units and charged for the 10,000 full service contracts. Then they realized that the leverage to charge for the 10,000 "full service" contracts is that they "added a secret" to all those giveaways.
Then they realize that the 990,000 "freeloaders" are entitled to "the secret" as are the 10,000 paying customers. Once the secret is out, they cannot expect to charge the paying customers.
They didn't do the math.
If today, they canceled the free downloads and made everybody pay up, all the existing and future people would be entitled to "the secret" because that is the deal they made when they decided to go GPL.
They should have don
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
And they got to write the specifications.
Now would somebody PLEASE code a simple and effective cross platform video chat program using open codecs? I recommend speex, and in particular stealing the code from pidgin and mumble.
.... Now fast forward to today and think about skype and how crappy every FOSS alternative currently is.
Thanks in advance, and my children and grand children will thank you also.
It seems Ludicrous to me that the next big thing (video chat) is so horrifically behind in the FOSS world. I mean, breaking the skype hegemony is going to be MUCH easier now than it will be later, when everyone already has skype (which we are very near NOW, by the way, in some places). Imagine if Firefox had been out BEFORE IE conquered 90% of the market.....
FOSS junkies really need to prioritize! Let's win the battles that are being fought now (Metaverse, VOIP, Video Chat), AND continue to fight the battles we already lost (Ubuntu vs MS, Firefox vs IE, GIMP vs Photoshop, Pidgin vs AIM, Wikispaces vs MySpace, etc....)
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
Just a nit to pick...
At one company I worked with/for we included the source code (ready to use) with the product, whether you asked for it or not. Loose the disk and you were SOL.
Read the license carefully, or give it to a lawyer to read it for you. There is a very important "or" in that clause.
You are required to make the source available for three years IFF you don't provide it at the time of distribution. It's an _or_ not an _and_.
This also means that if _I_ didn't give a binary to _you_ then I have no duty to provide _you_ with any access to the source. Additionally, if I _already_ gave you the source when I gave you the binary, I am under no further duty to give you the source again.
Similarly, If I give you version 1.01 of the binary _or_ the source, I have no duty to give you source versions other than versions that constitute 1.01.
Furthermore, if I give you version 1.01 and you give version 1.01 on to "that guy", I bear no burden to provide any source to "that guy" as I didn't distribute to him.
My requirements as a distributor go exactly as far as I distribute, and no further.
In this case, however, Skype _did_ give version(s) to many people and _didn't_ give the source at that time, so they have a 3 year burden to provide _every_ _version_ they every provided to each person they provided any particular version to.
Thy are also enjoined from "adding" any additional requirement on those persons that would bar them from handing those versions of source or binary on at whatever price they chose.
So they could make those versions available, but restrict that availability to persons who could prove they got the software directly from skype.
All without the burden to publicly post a single word.
At least that's the way it _could_ have worked.
BUT since they are already in violation, when they lose this case, they may be required to publicly post by the settlement (which is what usually happens).
If they'd been "smart" they could have included the source in the download and had a checkbox for "unpack the source at this time?" and all the people who didn't so check that box, would have lost their opportunity to get the source (if they threw away the archive/installer after install).
Course that wouldn't have protected their "business interests" since their security is largely by obscurity.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
RMS decided to re-implement the Symbolics features and make the changes available to LMI. He had access to the source, but he just took the high-level specifications and interfaces and implemented against those. In 1978 or whenever, which was a kinder and gentler age, this was controversial enough. Today, if you took someone's copyright and GPL licensed material, read it, and then released a `re-implementation' against the same codebase, you'd need to have good lawyers.
ian
"the medium for transferring the source code must also be physical:" Huh, call me silly but isnt internet an entirely physical construct ? Nothing metaphysical or paranormal about it, no ?
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.slashdot.org Errors found while checking this document as HTML5!
Drat. I was recommending Skype, due to their excellent echo cancellation and support for PostgreSQL. I somehow missed their actions against the GPL.
OK, that's over with. I hope they find this kind of business practice rewarding.
(does anybody know if OSLEC can run on ztdummy?)
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
"The terms of the GPL prohibit charging for GPL code ever, so real predatory pricing is precluded."
No, it does not. You can charge a million dollars per character of GPL code if you can find someone stupid enough to pay it. The GPL says that you may not charge more than distribution costs for redistributing the source code, but it doesn't say that you can't negotiate a support agreement on a per-[whatever] basis.
This time around Skype is apparently trying to argue that the GPL violates anti-trust regulations.
it's not like I really needed another reason not to use Skype.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Well; I don't think you really think this.
Surely you don't think I can make a GPL program, and charge $10M for the code?
I think you mean you can charge for the transfer of GPL programs. Yes, that's
true, but you cannot set any price you wish for
C//
Here's the scoop from the man who made it happen, Harald Welte.
What do you mean by "the code"? Source code is "code", so is object code. It's ambiguous.
You may make a GPL program, and sell it to me for any amount you like; but you must include source code (or an offer to provide source at no more than a copying fee). Heck, you don't even have to include binaries. So yes, you can charge me $10 million for the source code, provided it's all part of one transaction - you can't charge me $5 for the executable, and then $10 million for the source.
And you can't keep me from giving away copies after I get them.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
None of which applies in the instant case, which is being tried in Germany.
Groklaw has the scoop: after their experience at oral argument, Skype decided to drop their appeal. Notch another win to Harald Welte!
But if he must give you the source code, and must allow you to redistribute it, then surely there won't be a market willing to pay $10M for a copy when the first person who bought it can simply give it away for free if they like. Ergo, you can't, in a practical sense, sell GPLed code. If you charged $19.95 for it, 5 hippies would club together to buy one copy and then fork it.
There is a substantial difference between "the market won't support your price or business model" and "the license doesn't allow it". People can, and do, sell GPL'd software.
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html
Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for them if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it if you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it in new free programs, and that you know you can do these things.
Why do people insist on commenting about what is and isn't allowed by the GPL without even taking the trouble to read it? It is hardly ambiguous.
http://marriedmansexlife.com/
That depends on if you own all the source code. If someone else owns it, then you can't charge any more than reasonable costs for the media and postage. If you own all the code, then obviously the GPL can't stop you from doing whatever you want, although it would be very strange of you to charge thousands of dollars for the source code and then let people give it away.
Look out!
Put identity in the browser.
Skype is dying. Their reluctance to play nicely with everyone else in the VoIP market (i.e., Asterisk) is their undoing, and their arrogance (disguising the code against standard debugging tools!) is breathtaking. You can't be in the communications business and refuse to communicate.
The moment someone releases a suitably blingy IAX software phone client that Windows-using chavs can download to say "am I bovvered, though, she was dissin' me bigtime, innit" to their mates across the street is the moment Skype lose the reset of whatever little relevance they ever had.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Perfect is the enemy of done.
Most software is bespoke. It's entirely possible for you to hire me - maybe not for $10 million, but for say $10,000 - to craft you up some custom code, and for me to sell you GPL'd code.
Blender was sold to the community for 100,000 EUR.
People can and do sell GPL'd code. The market might not support the business models some people would like; that's a failure of their business skills, not of the GPL.
(Here's something to contemplate that may be related: people give sex away for free. And yet prostitution is still a profitable business. Why?)
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
You can't make a GPL program and charge $10M for the source code, but you totally can make a GPL program and charge your customer $10M for the binary, accompanied by it's source code.
Your customer would then be free to redistribute both binary and source -- verbatim or altered (with a notice stating changes) -- under the terms of the GPL.
If you include an NDA-style clause in your sale contract, you may even be able to force your customer to treat source and binary as a trade secret and not redistribute them. IANAL, but given mutual agreeman that ought to work.
But if he must give you the source code, and must allow you to redistribute it, then surely there won't be a market willing to pay $10M for a copy when the first person who bought it can simply give it away for free if they like.
It depends if the person paying $10M (or whatever) intends distributing the software in the first place...
if you took someone's copyright and GPL licensed material, read it, and then released a `re-implementation' against the same codebase, you'd need to have good lawyers. ;)
Hence the comment "fine, burn yer money".
Pavlov wouldn't be so famous if he'd used a can opener instead of a bell.
So if I rent you a DVD with a movie on it, am I not "distributing" the movie
Correct. You are transferring possession, not distributing. This is called the 'doctrine of first sale': You can rent, lend, give, sell the copy YOU bought.
"Distribute" means making one or more copies and renting, lending, giving or selling them.
PS: I assume you're hypothetically renting a DVD you bought, not a duplicate you burned.
Pavlov wouldn't be so famous if he'd used a can opener instead of a bell.
You're wrong. You cannot encumber GPL'd code like that.
As for the computer fields, there are alternatives to almost everything MS sells; at prices starting at free and selling for more than their products.
As a consumer; I like the harm standard because it lowers my cost; I really don't want the government deciding what prices should be - I really don't want to go back to paying $2000 or more for an airline ticket I can get today for $900 or less, for example.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
So you'll be able to store the source code on your copy of "the internet"?
Turn the power off, and the internet disappears, along with access to the code. The GPL is clear that when a physical medium is used to transfer the binary, a copy of the source, stored on a physical medium, must also be conveyed on demand. The day you can physically convey a "copy of the internet" to someone, you'll have a point.
Kevin Smith on Prince
The point being that Skype is "renting" the device according to the hypothetical situation by GP, where they are producing the devices.
The "I" who is renting out the DVD is then Warner Bros. or something.
hackerkey://v4sw5/7BCHJMPRUY$hw3ln3pr6/7FOP$ck6ma8+9u6L$w4/7CGUXm0l6DLRi82NCe3+9t5Sb7HMOPRen5a17s0DSr1/2p-3.62/-5.23g3/5
The section I qouted specifically states that you canonly use the internet to distribute source if you distributed the binary over the internet.
That excludes the internet as an "interchange medium" for any other method of distribution under the terms of the gpl. In other words, to offer to distribute the source via the internet when the binary was distributed by any other means is quite simply prohibited on a plain reading of the GPL.
The reason to target skype instead of smc is obvious from your comment - since there ARE many different skype-enabled devices, it's quicker and more efficient to go after skype than to target each individual device manufacturer.
Kevin Smith on Prince
See this post http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=547036&cid=23341900
Remember, this is a license - something that erxtends a permission where none otherwise exists. That which is not specifically allowed is forbidden. That's copyright law for you. If someone allows you to make a copy under certain specific conditions, that doesn't mean that you can also make copies under other conditions because they didn't expressly forbid them.
Again, from the GPL:
As the gpl states, there's nothing forcing you to accept these conditions. There is nothing in the gpl that gives you or skype permission to ship a binary with a physical product, then claim that "making the source available for download over the internet" being sufficient to fulfill your gpl "distribution of source" obligations.
The gpl uses the legal principle of "same means". For example, if you send someone a notice by unregistered mail, they're not obliged to use registered mail to reply, absent an agreement to the contrary.
Kevin Smith on Prince
Just goes to show you don't have as much experience interpreting legal documents as the judges who tried the case, and sided with the GPL.
The distribution on "a medium customarily used for software interchange" applies to the physical media used to store the progarm, not the method. The media can include floppies, cd and dvd roms, usb keys, etc. "The Internet" is not one of those media - you can't physically transfer a copy of the internet, unlike a cd or dvd.
Guess that's why you have to keep posting AC -
Kevin Smith on Prince
My original post was AC due to the inconvenience of logging in mid-post (with the new forms for Slashdot). I continued AC afterwards for the sake of consistency. That is neither here nor there, however.
From what I've seen and experienced, legal documents need to be explicit in their verbiage with nothing implied or assumed (otherwise lawyers would spend all of their time in court saying "My client meant to say that", and that would pass court muster). With the license not explicitly stating that the medium must be physical, the license should apply to all medium customarily used for software interchange. I have not purchased software on a physical medium in many years. Although the license may have been written before the ubiquity of the internet, that does not mean that what was held as customary at the time is the only valid custom for the purposes of the license. Additionally, if the license can implicitly require the medium to be physical, why shouldn't it be argued that it is implicitly agreed that a request for physical media will be granted? I have seen in other posts, however, that there have been some that bought the device, and besides the flier, there was, in fact, a physical CD in the box with the source, but we have moved on from that specific case, and are arguing on the more general level.
Furthermore, you CAN transfer a copy of a web site (which would be partial copy of the internet), and given enough bandwidth and storage space, it is technically possible to transfer a copy of the entire internet, albeit practically infeasible, just as doing a backup of a modern enterprise server cluster would be practically infeasible using 5.25" floppies.
The judges who tried the case are just as human as we are, and thus prone to making mistakes.
By your logic of "same means" the only valid distribution of source would be via skype-phone.
Perhaps the correct course of action would be for the FSF to file an amicus curiae to legally elaborate on the verbiage in the license. Then, and only then, could it be argued that a non-physical medium is not valid.
But still, the question could be asked, where do you draw the line? It is entirely feasible that a personal computer has no removable media options (We actually have some of these where I work, using PXE to reimage the machines as necessary). If someone (a representative of the company that needs to fulfill the requirements of the GPL) were to bring a computer with them to your physical location and transfer the source to your machine via a crossover ethernet cable, would that satisfy the requirements? In this case, non-physical media is the only method of transferring the source to a particular computer. If it does satisfy, at what point does the transfer become unacceptable? Connection via a hub or switch? Perhaps on the other side of a dial-up connection? Where do you draw the line?
Thanks for logging in :-)
Notice something in your own reply:
You would STILL have to store that copy on some media - a disk, a USB stick, whatever - the internet is only a transfer medium, not a storage medium. Again, you're making the same mistake that the lawyers for Skype made - confusing the transfer of information with its' storage in machine-readable form. The bitstream sent over the internet is not source code in machine-readable form. For example, you have 56 bits of header in each TCP/IP packet. It's only after your computer does the converting that IT can save a copy to your hard drive. The GPL is quite specific - a copy of the source code affixed to some media, not transferred via some media.
As to the "pc with no removable media" - that is irrelevant to the GPL. The GPL deals with licensing; once you have a physical copy, it's up to you to decide if and how to transfer it to a computer, or whether you'll just stick it on the shelf for future reference.
There's no real ambiguity here. Code developers understand what "source code in machine-readable format" on a "physical medium" is. Like SCO, Skype tried to "get cute" wrt the GPL; like SCO, they should have just asked slashdot ;-) In a community this large, it is inevitable that some of us *do* have extensive legal experience.
Kevin Smith on Prince
Ah, but even with the physical media, a transfer protocol must be used, be it ATA, SATA, SCSI, or whatever floppies use, even then a filesystem protocol must be used to translate the raw data, such as FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, ISO9660, ext2, et cetera. No computer can directly read physical media. It has to be converted into machine-readable form first. Even with regards to the 56 bit header in each TCP/IP packet, there is a table on every piece of physical media that maps where the data is located just as the header in the TCP/IP packet identifies what order the packet belongs in the sequence. I would even go so far as to argue that the only real difference in the bitstreams of a physical media reader and a network interface adapter is the interrupt request level that they use.
By restricting it to specifically physical media that is machine-readable, you could even argue that the media could be formatted in such a way that would require special software to decode (much in the same way that a Mac formatted floppy could not be read in a Windows based machine). The media is completely unusable by you, but you have it in your hands, physically. Would you consider this scenario to be compliant with the GPL, as it is up to you to figure out how to use it?
But then again, source code is NOT machine-readable, it is human-readable. Depending on what type of system you are using, the source code could be encoded in ANSI, UTF-8 (or any other Unicode scheme), or even EBCDIC.
Still, though, you acknowledge that the internet is a transfer medium, and the GPL does not specify what type of medium can be used other than a medium customarily used for software interchange. If you make the assumption that the GPL is implying only storage media (or physical media), you are restricting the license beyond what is actually printed, and the argument in court is "Well they meant to say this". If this actually did work, all legal documents would be intentionally vague so that in a court of law you could bend the verbiage however you like. If the verbiage specifies something with subsets, if you do not specify which subsets it applies to, it applies to all subsets. For instance, if I said that only red shirts could be worn on Mondays (and did not specify which types of red shirts), and you wore a red tank top, I could not then say, well I MEANT to say only red "sleeved" shirts.
Disclaimer: This debate is for the sake of arguing the opposing viewpoints. I am not necessarily disagreeing that the GPL means physical media only, but only that perhaps the GPL has flaws in its implementation.
My old 286 was able to read, write, and format Mac floppies, as well as amiga, etc. (transcopy hardware controller for copy-protected floppies, transcopy software for all formats that weren't copy-protected).
Machine-readable just means that the machine can read the bytes recorded on the media, as opposed to, say, delivering a phonebook-sized printout (that would not only discourage compiling, but it would also be expensive, since you're allowed to charge the cost of distribution on physical media). Source code in machine-readable form means source that you can edit in a plain-text editor, then recompile. Note that the GPL states clearly that everything needed for recompiling (including the compiler) must be readily available, or, if not readily available, it must be included with any source distribution.
A dead-tree delivery of source code doesn't fulfill the GPL requirements for those 2 reasons: you can't compile dead tree source code directly, and the machine can't directly read it (you have to enter it into the computer manually or via ocr, and convert it from the dead trees to bytes that the compiler can work with as source code, rather than have the machine read it).
The courts usually take the "plain reading" of the text - the idea being that, where people are arguing for 2 different interpretations of a clause, the one that has a plain meaning must be used over the one that requires contortions. Since the GPL makes a distinction between delivery of binaries over the internet and delivery with a physical product, and specifies that full compliance wrt source code delivery is only accomplished via internet distribution in cases where the binary was likewise distributed, then the delivery of source by other means has to mean something different than via the internet.
The GPL isn't all that complicated. Skype tried to "read in" something that wasn't there, and failed.
Disclaimer: It's all good in any friendly debate ;-)
Kevin Smith on Prince
Out of curiosity, do you have a link to how the GPL 2.0 is interpreted for the Internet Age? GPL 2.0 predates the ubiquity of the internet, and I'm just wondering what the general consensus is with regards to applying the provisions to today's technologies and customs.
Sure you can. The GPL is not a sales contract, and so it does not set the terms of initial sale. It is a license. If you make a program and choose to license it under the GPL, you can still charge anything you want for it (though, after the first copy, you may be competing with the people you gave it to, who can distribute it, but only for free.) The GPL doesn't bind the creator at all; it is a gratuitous license.
Now, if you create a derived work from someone else's GPL-licensed program, and only have the right to distribute that at all because of the GPL, then you do face some restrictions. But even then you can charge anything you want for the software in whatever form you distribute it, you just can't charge anything extra (beyond, in certain cases, your own reasonable reproduction costs) for the source code beyond what you charged for the binary/object form.
You're right about that. I was really speaking of GPL derivatives. The original author can license, cross license, dually license, or whatever he wishes (including creating a GPL mutation).
C//
I ought to refine on my prior remark. As one other poster pointed out, you can CREATE a GPL work and do whatever you wish with it. However if you are creating a GPL derivative, you cannot encumber the derivative the way you are thinking.
Seems fair to me, I somehow managed to not think of the obvious there. Thanks for the info :]
Obvious as in "respect the [GP]L" of other people's code you use, that is. Anyways, it's almost 03:30, gotta catch the remaining three hours of potential slee..z.zZzzz
[No carrier]
I can see your point. 1989 *is* a bit long in the tooth if you're on internet time. Heck, that was back in my BBS days (grapevine bbs w. a pair of modems so people could get their "joke of the day", file downloads, etc ...)
As for interpretation in this day and age, I think the courts just supplied the answer :-)
Kevin Smith on Prince
Has the FSF issued a statement indicating how the GPL 2.0 should be interpreted? If not, perhaps they should. The computer world has come a long way since "a designated place" was connecting to a BBS via some obscure phone number or FTP/Gopher if you were one of the lucky few with access to the internet.
:)
Why should the courts be the one to decide how the license should be interpreted? The FSF made the license. The onus should fall on them to decide how the spirit of the license should adapt to the changing world. I realize that they've moved on to version 3 where they address some of these issues, but version 2 is still the most commonly used version.
* Yes, I actually did mention Gopher.
Why bother with me though, when you can discuss this with Bruce Perens Quote: "I have a start-up company making Open Source software. GPL3, and Affero GPL3, are my money-making tools."
I'll check replies to his comment tomorrow. I look forward to seeing you explain to Bruce that GPLed software can't be sold.
http://marriedmansexlife.com/
um, this is an old post, but .. turn the power off, and access to your hard disc is gone as well. what difference does it make whether you get your data over an IDE cable or CAT5 ?
Linus would tell you that kernel.org is safer storage than a random CD
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.slashdot.org Errors found while checking this document as HTML5!