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GPLv3's Implications Hitting Home For Lawyers
Specter writes "The GPL version 3 is getting some attention in legal circles, especially as it relates to its interaction with proprietary software and patents. Edmund J. Walsh penned an article for Law.com discussing the GPLv3 and the risks it poses for hardware and software companies."
But he is also clueless when it comes to the GPL. What a maroon.
I didn't make it past the first three or four paragraphs, but no PHB is going to read further either. Court cases over GPL violation show that you can't use open source software the way you please? If he thought that before he's a moron and probably a sociopath. And the article seems to go on in that vein.
I read the article. In the first paragraph, the author acknowledges that the scope of the article does not include the changes between GPLv2 and v3.
Reading the rest of the article, the author does not seem to understand the basis of the GPL, and he engages in needless scaremongering.
It's a clueless work.
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
That right there should tell you what you need to know about the guy's understanding of 1) the technical issues related to GPL software, and 2) the actual legal requirements of the GPL.
What a load of fear mongering bull. News flash: if you don't obey a software license you could get sued. How does that make GPL software any more or less risky than the proprietary alternative?
Look at it this way, if you violate a proprietary license, you get sued and lose a bunch of money. If you violate the GPL, you get sued, and you have the option to settle and open the code, or lose a lot of money. Seems to me the GPL is the less risky option.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
society Foo is NOT free. it significantly restricts the actions of MURDERERS, RAPISTS and CHILD MOLESTERS. thus it is clearly not free. laws are not nothing more than anti freedom licensing, and has significantly diminished all our freedoms. society Bar is a truly free place. it allows anyone to beat anyone else over the head with a cast iron pipe for no reason other than they enjoy doing it. laws that stop people doing what they enjoy is a huge step backwards, IMHO.
Google: Bugs Bunny maroon
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
The GPL definitely has no problem with people using software to generate wealth.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
Are you really that fucked up to compare commercial activity with child molestation ?
...
GPL is NOT a fucking free license, you know and I know it and most of all, RMS knows it .
BSD is the license if someone is looking for true freedom.
Stop corrupting the true meaning of freedom with your activist orwelian definition of such
While many posters might quibble about the technicalities of the article, does anyone really quibble about the spirit?
Open source software is at adds with making a profit off of software. It just is. If the spirit of the Open source license is to make sure that the software and the derived works are free, then, it has to be free.
Even if the GPLv3 does nothing to compel web sites who hide their sources behind their pages, to open up, it was considered and it is ultimately coming down the pike from the FOSS community. Even if the GPLV3 does nothing to prevent someone from making a closed application on Linux, such activities are at odds with the spirit of the FOSS community and again, such restrictions are coming.
So the author's central warning is entirely accurate, even if his anecdotal evidence fails to match on some autistic level of detail.
There IS a business risk in investing in open source systems. Businesses invest in property, and if software is not property, or, what you invest in is made to be not property, then, in the sense that a business can earn an advantage and a return off of it, then, why should they invest in it?
This is my sig.
The article provides a nice explanation. Free is Freedom , but not for users (or second party developers), but for Software. The software is free to be developed without restrictions.
The article also explains the so called anti-corporate stance. The article says that it restricts the ability of companies to provide differentiated solutions, which is correct. As long as the differentiation exists only in software and the hardware is non-unique (even if DRM locked down), GPL will level the playing field. The differentiation has to be in the product, which I think is acceptable and promotes innovation.
BSD is a free license in the sense that its users are free to do what they want, but restricts the freedom of the software to be developed without restrictions.
http://slashdot.org/submission/1062723/Cheap-mobile-data-plan?art_pos=2
Version 3 of the GPL merely adds a few requirements to those of previous versions in order for someone to *distribute* the licensed work. There's no change at all for users. It continues to protect the 4 freedoms, so is clearly a free software license.
It's another greedy lawyer. His real interest is in covering big business and ways to make sure this "OSS"is made incompatible with current patent law. Ultimately I'm sure he's got lobbyists in Washington pushing to get legislators to want to regulate open source anything and maybe even make it illegal.
Just another damned greedy lawyer voicing is woes at OSS.
All content in this message is copyright (c) 2008. All rights reserved. RIAA is prohibited here.
This is obviously written from the perspective of "anti-free software."
"The new lesson is that the freedom belongs to the software, not to users." This is SO bogus and mis characterizes the whole point of the new GPL. The "freedom" is absolutely for the users, especially the end users. The restrictions quoted in the article have nothing to do with users, but everything to do with ISVs taking GPL software and screwing the users.
"Changes in the GPL impose other limits on the ability to leverage a proprietary position when open source is involved."
This is true, so, write it for yourselves then. Don't think you can capitalize on someone else's work and deny then the ability to capitalize on your modifications to their software, that isn't very fair.
I don't get what the issue is. If you want to develop closed source software, then so be it, however, don't take other's GPL code and try to close that off, that's theft. How hard is it for the reptilian lawyer brain to understand this very simple concept.
We even say what is needed to comply. But NOOO, they have to keep up with the FUD.
Last little bit:
"Edmund J. Walsh is a shareholder and a member of the electrical and computer technologies and the IP transactions groups at Wolf Greenfield."
Ahh, now I understand!
Sometimes to protect the freedom of something, you must restrict the freedom of something else. At least that's the argument I've heard.
~ I am logged on, therefore I am.
Would it have helped if he had instead compared it to fudging on your taxes?
Whether you think the analogy is over the top or not has no bearing on its validity.
That and you're being a dick.
Your definition of freedom is curious. By that definition, you value the particular freedom "to take away people's freedom" the most. Sure, you're less free in some twisted sense without that, but I think freedom is only freedom if it is inalienable, thus if you have the right to take away other's freedom, then you're not free anyway, even though more is allowed.
A free software environment that significantly restricts other people from making it less free, that's all is what GPLv2 or v3 is all about. You've missed the point.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
The lawyer making the post is 100% hype and false information. The only reason they're interviewing a lawyer is thats the only kind of person who can make a false statement and still defend themselves legally. Thus it's called "bending the truth", especially with phrases such as (from the article) "Open source software had its origins in the free software movement. By now, most open source users understand that free refers to freedom, not to price. The new lesson is that the freedom belongs to the software, not to users. You are not free to do whatever you want with the open source software and may find yourself in a legal fight if what you do restricts the freedom of the software."
What part of having the open source software and doing whatever you can with it to benefit your own company is denied? Nothing. It's a matter of distribution. Nothing at all is stopping you from making changes for your own companies use and not giving it to anyone else. If you sell it to someone (thus commercial), then it is an entirely different ballgame.
From the GPLv3 faq: "Do I have "fair use" rights in using the source code of a GPL-covered program?
Yes, you do. âoeFair useâ is use that is allowed without any special permission. Since you don't need the developers' permission for such use, you can do it regardless of what the developers said about itâ"in the license or elsewhere, whether that license be the GNU GPL or any other free software license."
This article is confused and makes all sorts of horrible assumptions. In short, the author seems to believe that the only way people make money off free software by adding "differentiating" proprietary software to it. Since the whole point of the GPL is to prevent people from making the software under its purview non-free, it shouldn't really be surprising, then, that the author finds it a huge pain in the neck. Personally, I'd say the license is a success, and I suspect a lot of the companies making money from GPLed software would agree with me.
-- Brett Smith, License Compliance Engineer, Free Software Foundation
What a lousy, misleading article. He makes it clear upfront that he's talking about two separate things, but then he goes on to mix them together indiscriminately throughout the rest of the article. (1) If you build your business on GPL 2 software, you'd better read the GPL 2. People who don't are getting sued. (2) GPL 3 is different from GPL 2, and may be incompatible with some business models that GPL 2 is compatible with.
Re #1: Duh. Don't agree to a license without making sure you can abide by the license. Re #2: Similar duh, and it's relatively inconsequential because very little software is under GPL 3 so far. (The typical PHB reading this is probably not going to understand that GPL 2 doesn't automatically update GPL 3, but the article could easily leave you with the impression that it does.)
With the filing of court documents, a philosophical debate about the proper place for software in society has become a business dispute with the risk of substantial consequences.
Well, no, it's not a risk. A risk refers to something you can't predict. If you agree to a license and then violate the license, that's not a risk, that's intentionally shooting yourself in the foot.
For-profit companies using open source software should take notice
He talks about "for-profit" like this all through the article. That's stupid. The GPL doesn't discriminate between for-profit and not-for-profit use. Of course the people getting sued are all for-profit companies. Is this a surprise? A nonprofit probably wouldn't have any motivation to violate the GPL, and anyhow you don't usually pick people to sue who don't have money.
The new lesson is that the freedom belongs to the software, not to users. You are not free to do whatever you want with the open source software and may find yourself in a legal fight if what you do restricts the freedom of the software.
Huh? This is idiotic. Software doesn't have human rights. The GPL also doesn't place any restrictions on how software is used. In fact, you can use GPL'd sofwtware without even agreeing to the license. You only have to agree to the GPL if you want to modify the software and then redistribute it.
Any activity that leverages software for business advantage is likely to restrict the software's freedom
Hmm...say Joe's Garage uses Firefox and OpenOffice. Can anyone explain why that's likely to "restrict the software's freedom?" Or say Barnes and Noble runs Linux on their servers. Does that mean they're "likely to restrict the software's freedom?" What he really means is that if you try to violate the GPL by making OSS into proprietary software, you've got a problem. That's a lot narrower than "leveraging software for business advantage."
and the growing use of open source software by for-profit companies has been a growing irritant for free software advocates.
Oh, God, it just gets dumber and dumber. The OSS community wants users. Everyone I know in the OSS community is typically overjoyed that IBM got on the Linux bandwagon. They're happy that Google is generally OSS-friendly. They love it that more and more OEMs are offering machines with Linux preinstalled.
Find free books.
If I release code under BSD, that code is always under BSD. If someone else releases a new product based on my code, they have to admit it -- but they can keep their code to themselves if they so wish.
... not that I'm biased or anything (checks name again)... nope, not biased at all...
I haven't lost anything, because no one took MY code and told me I couldn't use it anymore. Likewise, I didn't *TAKE AWAY* their ability to do what they wanted with THEIR WORK.
No freedom is lost under BSD.
Under GPL, if someone uses my code to do something else, then their code effectively becomes my code as well, and they have to play by my rules. Therefore, I am restricting their ability to access control over their own time and creative works. I have effectively limited the other developer.
"End users" by the definition probably don't give a crap if they can see the code. If they did anything with it, they'd be developers. I don't see how end users lose out either way -- license arguments really only affect other developers.
I stopped reading at "... new risks in the irreconcilable conflict between open source software and its widespread use by for-profit companies."
There are people out there who know law *and* understand reality. I can't say much about the author's relation to the former, but on the latter count... Waste of my time.
----
Not to be confused with Col.
Yep, GPL3 is the kiss of the death for business. Its 100% political, anti-corporate, and reactionary. I have less sway at my job to promote OSS now.
Richard Stallman is correct though, he doesnt write licenses for business he writes them for ideology. So the big "year of the linux desktop" to compete with MS or Apple will never come because ideology trumps practicality. RMS doesnt mind OSS being shelved to the hobbyist arena. Some people do, but the "mob" has spoken. Such is ideology.
A corporate attorney states that businesses which could do certain things under GPL2 cannot do these same things under GPL3 and look at the venom spew. Why all the fuss? He is entirely correct from a legal standpoint to warn business of litigation risk under a clearly more restrictive license.
Business adoption of OS has in the past been facilitated by working around the GPL2 restrictions. How the hell do you build a business advantage over a competitor when you are forced to divulge your developments to everybody?
A previous poster correctly noted that business will be forced to develop everything themselves - or use alternatives which make business sense. How amazing it is when what was a hobby for people becomes mired in profit. This begs a question: will GPL3 ruin open source development in the business world? If they cannot use or protect innovation why would business work in this space?
Is GPL3 a dead end scenario where only the only development is done by hobbyists and business never develop in it? Linux would not be where it is today without business support - IBM for example - so you pay a price for guaranteeing the software itself over all else.
I am sure it is worth it to some.
From the article:
By now, most open source users understand that free refers to freedom, not to price. The new lesson is that the freedom belongs to the software, not to users. You are not free to do whatever you want with the open source software and may find yourself in a legal fight if what you do restricts the freedom of the software.
I disagree with several statements that the author doesn't understand the GPL. While the article does tend toward "scaremongering" I think the author has a pretty fair understanding and is looking forward from a legal point of view and he's a tad nervous about what he sees as potential areas of conflict.
Shop smart, Shop S-Mart.
Tell that to frustrated Tivo users. Don't like GPL3 software? Use software with a BSD license. But getting the code and locking it in so that users can't modify THEIR software inside your box, isn't what we could consider "freedom".
You're still thinking commercially. ALL software should be free. The only reason why companies use "secret" software is so that they can implement their proprietary extensions and charge for them.
You know, like the iPhone.
If what you say is true: "then their code effectively becomes my code as well" then how do code forks occur?
Seriously, I am confused about this.
It seems the lawyer gets some of it, GPLed software truly is free software.
As far as BSD vs GPL, they are both open source licenses for free software but they both have their restrictions. If you don't consider GPLed software to be free software then BSD licensed software is not free either as there are still restrictions, i.e. you cannot remove copyrights from the code and claim it to be your own.
The BSD license is more acceptable to businesses who see open source as a resource to be harvested but never invested in. The GPL is not and is designed to keep the software free. Does this mean the GPL in any of its forms is "anti corporate licensing"? Absolutely not, it simply enforces the give and take nature of open source, it in no way stops corporations from using the software to enhance their business as long as they are not in the business of leeching free software and attempting to create false monopolies and false supply limitations with the same software.
Really I find the entire anti-GPL fray to be an outlandish waste of time and effort, the GPL is not forced on anyone, if you don't like the license then stop coveting the code, pay the cost and develop your own stinking code.
Oh bollocks. If you're going to put software under the BSD license, you might as well throw it into the public domain. At least you'll be more realistic about your chances of getting anything back from people who use your code for their own purposes without contributing anything toward its development.
It always amuses me how advocates of the BSD license always reserve their strongest vitriol for anyone who dares to use BSD-licensed code in a GPL app, thereby preventing changes being rolled back into the original - even though this is exactly what they profess the superiority of the BSD license to be!
Anyone else feel like the pooooor proprietary software companies are the equivalent of someone complaining about his birthday presents?
Hey, nobody forces you to use it, you know? You can write your own if you don't like the GPL. Different from patents, the GPL doesn't prevent you from coming up with the exact same thing, on your own time and expense.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
the GPL 3 license is NOT free software. It significantly restricts CERTAIN people from using it, thus is clearly NOT FREE.
It doesn't restrict anyone from USING it.
It prevents 'other people' from RESTRICTING you from using it. If YOU are those 'other people', it prevents you from preventing other people from using it.
BSD is truly free license
Yeah it is, if you are lucky enough to get something BSD licensed. No guarantee that's going to happen even if all the projects it was based on were BSD, it might be all locked up proprietary when you obtain a derivative software.
People who write GPL software want the end users to be able to modify and redistribute the software. That's freedom. And the GPL ensures that goal is met.
What freedom do you get with the 'truly free' BSD? You get the 'freedom' to restrict people further down the line so that they can't modify or redistribute the software. Ever wonder what people 'down the line' think of this truly free BSD software? Oh wait... they didn't get any. By the time the software got to them it wasn't BSD anymore, it wasn't free anymore.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"Under GPL, if someone uses my code to do something else, then their code effectively becomes my code as well"
No, it doesn't. It's still their code, and they can do what they wish with it. It's just that if they want to do things the GPL doesn't allow, then they have to stop using your code to help them.
Risk to the vendor is defined as the amount of power their customers are going to have over them.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I don't think your rant really applies; companies aren't all murders, rapists and child molesters. I would go so far as to say most haven't done any of those things. The GPL isn't functioning as a punishment for violating some law.
As a developer, if I want to use GPLv3 code, I'm restricted, right off the bat, whehter or not I have actually done any "harm" to GPL'ed software. Also, you can look at the GPLv3 as a tool to restrict those that did adhere to the terms of v2, but in ways the writers of v2 hadn't considered or made clear in v2. Essentially, it looks like they threw a hissy fit, even though v2 was being followed to the letter, because someone else didn't do exactly what the FSF wanted (but didn't encode into the license).
Sometimes to make something seem like something it isn't, you have to make an illogical argument and hope the emotions of the listeners can be preyed upon so they will agree with you.
There appears to be a goodly bit of confusion in this discussion about how the word "users" is employed. Some posts include the word to indicate end users, generally the consumers that purchase the end products and use the software included. Other posts seem to include the word to indicate anyone making use of the software, mostly intimating the developers who would leverage the software as part of producing the end product.
The lack of proper distinction here is causing a real absence of clarity in what people mean. AFAICT, there is as-yet little legal precedent in the US backing up any sort of EULA-type "agreement" that restricts how end users can actually use the end products. Corporations are increasingly trying to dictate various limits, but so far I'm not sure that case law really backs this up. As such, *all* end users are essentially free to do what they want with software under *any* license, within the (admittedly obfuscated, and currently imperiled) bounds of copyright.
Meanwhile, for intermediate users such as developers, there are much more cut-and-dried legal definitions for how and what folks can do. I think TFA is dealing mostly with this aspect (though I haven't completely RTFA). Just in terms of basic ethics, which might well be very foreign territory both for the author of TFA and the PHB target audience, most folks can agree that, if you're essentially selling something that belongs to someone else, that someone else has a say in how you go about doing so.
-----
The assumption that anyone can own what are essentially ideas (i.e. book plots, computer code, artistic designs, etc.) is the foundation of the whole concept of intellectual property. If we accept that such ideas can be owned, then we must accept all the rest of the baggage of ownership that goes with this position -- including the stipulation that selling someone else's things as your own, without proper permission, is in violation of property rights.
The GPL in all its various forms simply attempts to define that proper permission. If folks don't like what such permission entails, fine -- bloody well don't use GPL-covered code. They're still completely free to develop their own code that does what they need it to (note that I'm totally ignoring the whole issue of patents, which is plenty of grist for another mill or twenty). Whining about not getting a free ride just makes people look like wankers. Whine, whine, whinge. Meh.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
You must be using a different Internet, because I've never seen this argument at all. No one who uses BSD, or Apache, or any of the other truly free licenses cares about getting contributions back. We just think it would be nice, we don't require it. We allow you to use our code as you wish, not as we wish. That's the point.
Using BSD code isn't ANYTHING like killing me and stealing my wallet. It's like me leaving stuff out on my lawn with a sign saying, "Take what you want -- just tell people where you got it."
BSD license is an invitation to take and use. No, this is not a holy war, but the GPL -- especially v3, is by its very nature political to a level of religious zeal equaled only by supporters of Ron Paul or Barak Obama.
Users want to develop on the code aswell. Users can be companies, experienced software developers and even regular old Joe, who just wants to have an annoying bug fixed in his favorite software package. The nonexistent distinction between users and developers is exactly the reason why BSD is less free than GPL.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
This article is FUD, but it is actually well founded FUD.
EG, the GPLv3 is specifically designed to limit the "set top box" model, as the provider can no longer treat it as a sealed appliance if GPLv3 code is involved (the anti-TiVo clause).
The GPLv3's patent liscence clause is deliberately broad:
A contributor's essential patent claims are all patent claims owned or controlled by the contributor, whether already acquired or hereafter acquired, that would be infringed by some manner, permitted by this License, of making, using, or selling its contributor version, but do not include claims that would be infringed only as a consequence of further modification of the contributor version. For purposes of this definition, control includes the right to grant patent sublicenses in a manner consistent with the requirements of this License.
Each contributor grants you a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free patent license under the contributor's essential patent claims, to make, use, sell, offer for sale, import and otherwise run, modify and propagate the contents of its contributor version.
Likewise, the recent lawsuits have made it clear that the FSF crowd has grown more willing to carry the GPL into court, and as another poster mentioned, there is the ExtJS's use of the GPL: Since the Javascript gets into the final product (the page), you can argue that by using ExtJS, your web site page, as rendered, is now GLPv3, the same problem Bison used to have before they changed it from being pure GPL, not to mention the attempt to "atheroize" the GPL because of the "googleization" problem.
Test your net with Netalyzr
You're missing the overall point - your ideology requires that everyone agree with you, or be compelled to do so. The opposing ideology says "Do as you will, it's your choice."
I don't see how restricting choice (as the GPL attempts to do) is promoting general freedom. It certainly increases the freedom of a certain class of people, namely those knowledgeable enough to make modifications on their own, however it does so at the expense of nearly everyone else on the planet to choose something else.
I'm certainly not going to throw my support behind a group of elitists like that.
Reading the rest of the article, the author does not seem to understand the basis of the GPL, and he engages in needless scaremongering.
Typical GPL zealot reaction "Oh noes! you don't understand GPL! you are teh suckzorz!!!"
The fact is that the GPL v3 does have its implications and that such implications become treats to any company willing to use software under such license.
The solution to that is just to stop using such programs, or LEARN about the risks that using them exposes. And that is what the paper is about.
Of course, I did not expect such objective reactions from slashdot...
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
Hmm.. so you can violate my right to privacy or speech or religon, if you say you're doing so to protect my right to live? I think I'd rather do without your "help," thanks.
It was - and is - a marketing tool by a privately held company.
Here's the history for those who don't want to follow the link. ExtJS has developed a JavaScript framework. They originally licensed as "LGPL", but with the added proviso that it was only for non-commercial use. Since the whole point of the LGPL is to allow commercial apps to link with it, this made little sense. Now they've gone to GPL3.0, only for non-commercial use, which is a little more honest about their intent.
Apparently some have tried to fork the original "LGPL" code, but since it never has been released without the "no non-commercial apps" restriction, using any forked code in a commercial product is copyright infringement.
This has nothing to do with the GPL3.0 or the LGPL. It has to do with one company, and the restrictions they've put on their licenses.
And so what? They wrote the code. They get to license it.
The part where the company wants to develop a proprietary system, hardware or software, and sell it. You know, the part that bit TIVO in the ass.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
As I see it the creators of some software relesase this software under the GPL, which grants you certain liberties you would not have if the software were released under a more classic closed source commercial licence (think Microsoft/Adobe/Apple...). I think that if you are to use the work of the original creators you should abide by their wishes/terms. If you won't/can't then dont use their work and create your own software doing the same function.
As far as I am concerned, this is a non-issue: it doesn't matter what licence software is released with, you need to understand that licence before using the software in you own products, if at all! The difference between commercial licence and GPL is that the GPL gives you more freedom from the start, while placing certain limits on how much secrecy you can 'afford your products.
1: not likely to ever happen, but play with the thought.
I'd rephrase that as ".. the irreconcilable conflict between users and those who wish to limit the maintenance options available to those users."
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
If all software is free, who will pay the programmers' salaries? How will programmers make a living?
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
Sometimes is the operative word. I think you would rather society protect your freedom to live, versus you know someone else's right to kill you. These things must be weighed by society.
~ I am logged on, therefore I am.
and just before the gp discredits my whole post because I put a ' in your's, let me correct
yours yours yours yours
There.
p.d. Inglés no es mi lengua materna.
ÂGracias!
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
Read all about it.
violating a copyright is not murder, rape, or child molestation.
learn to think.
How the hell did you get modded insightful? Laws are not the exclusive province of those that would restrict freedom. The jailing of a murderer GRANTS freedom to the entire non-murdering portion of the population by GRANTING them the freedom to walk in public without fear of getting killed.
Women are free to walk at night because the jailing of the rapist GRANTS that freedom. Society BAR is the society only a maroon (nods to previous genius) would support.
load "$",8,1
Yes, the GPL is more restrictive than the BSD. But many free software advocates see that as a good thing.
The ideas behind the GPL, I think, are 1) stop msft from using their embrace-extend-extinguish strategy. 2) stop proprietary developers from using the code without giving anything back.
You can use GPL code however you want, it explicitly states it is not a usage license. What you can't do is distribute GPL code in a manner that gives those who receive it less freedom that it gave you.
BSD gives you the right to give, GPL gives you the right to receiving.
http://www.mhall119.com
They don't care until $APPLICATION_THEY_DEPEND_ON stops being maintained or the manufacturer of $EXPENSIVE_HARDWARE_THEY_BOUGHT decides it needs more money so the people that bought its hardware should better move on and buy a new $EXPENSIVE_HARDWARE_THEY_BOUGHT and, to `motivate' them, stops releasing drivers...
End users do not care about licenses in the same way as people being subjected to experimental drugs unwillingly do not care: they do not know they care.
I've read the GPL as well as several articles about it, and I still don't know the answer to my simple question:
If my PHP application is using the open source database layer ADODB, can I close-source my entire application (except the ADODB directory) ?
If anyone could answer that for me, they'd be this girl's hero.
The GPL wording needs some serious work IMHO.
It doesn't matter if you say "sometimes," it's still arbitary. No one has the right to kill another person either, since no one has a right to arbitrary violate the rights of another.
Society is a myth, and I'd rather continue protecting myself (the notion that police "protect" anyone is also a myth.. ask anyone murdered, raped, or mugged in NYC) and be free.
If there is no law to protect your rights, then you only have whatever rights you can guarantee for yourself. Some people would rather not go back to the stone age.
~ I am logged on, therefore I am.
I thought the aspect relating GPL_3 and web page design bares some attention so. I can see scenarios where use of software using the GPL_3 becomes actually impossible; if I have implemented closed source software for part of my site it might become impossible for me to use open source on others because I either don't have source code to give or am contractually obligated to keep it secret.
As far as "we have to wait and see what the courts will say" the article is actually informative.
I'm aging rapidly, I bought a new game and had no idea if my machine was good for it.
The only "truly free place" is a place where one is alone. There you are free to bash over anybody's head (too bad that there won't actually be anybody to be able to do it).
laws that stop people doing what they enjoy is a huge step backwards, IMHO. True only if all involved parties agree on the "doing", i.e. the person being beat over the head agrees to it.
However, that becomes quite hairy when considering indirect involvement (second-hand smoking for instance)
Who cares what this dude, esq., writes?
The GPL is now a known, accepted threat. It is a force to be reckoned with, an enemy to plan carefully against.
Good work, Stallman.
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Wrong w.r.t. GPL
GPL doesn't oblige the party that modified the source and and made a modified binary from releasing ANYTHING. But if they do release the binary, they must allow the *recipients* of that binary access to the modified source code under GPL or a license that is compatible with GPL.
GPL v3 adds additional reasurances that the modified GPL code can be modified by the end user and replace their binary with their own! That's THE major difference.
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#TwoPartyTivoization
The intention of GPLv3 vs. v2 is to prevent people from
* signed binaries/DRM, so source code access is worthless, or
* devices that can't be patched with modified software
* patents prohibiting you to use modified version of software
Finally, copyright is retained by the creator. GPL does not affect that. So,
1. Bob release software A under GPL
2. someone else adds stuff and releases A' under GPL
3. Bob takes changes from A' and incorporates into A
At #1, Bob may dual license or even close source for new versions of software completely as they own all of copyright. At #3, Bob loses ability to close source future versions of A or even prevents him from releasing under BSD or Apache or whatever.
You DO NOT own the project if you incorporate other's modifications into it. Parts of it cease to be yours and so license modifications are not permitted, unless they are stated in the license text.
For software released under GPLv2 only, you CANNOT release that under GPLv3 without contacting ALL people that contributed and them agreeing to it. That is why GPLv3 is preferred as current project maintainers can change the license to GPLv3 and later, or GPLv4 or later, etc..
No but he can restrict your freedom of expression if you express yourself by swinging a battle-axe in a crowded mall. But if you want to go do it in a safer environment you can.
GPL3 (and 2 to a lesser extent because it has loopholes) allows you to use and modify code, it protects your freedom. But it forces you to do so in the same altruistic manner that the person who gave you the code you are building on restricting another freedom. You are free to do with the code as you please, so long as if you distribute the code you grant others the same freedom. Hence you are free to distribute modified code, but the GPL prevents you from using that freedom to stop other people doing the same. The freedom to modify code overrides the freedom to distribute. It really isn't that complicated, I don't see why people keep getting confused by this.
Since I've been modded "troll" already, and since you've taken at least a civil enough tone, I'll try to clarify what I mean.
Free is Freedom, except for people with whom the FSF and RMS disagree with on whatever principle they're trying to stand on. Much of the additions to the GPL from v2 to v3 have to do with issues arising from how certain people USED GPLv2 software. The likes of RMS have political ax to grind, and it shows up in the GPL3.
If I recall correctly certain parts of the GPL were written expressly to privide a certain "lockout" (ie prevent hacking) of a particular device. While the code was provide under GPL v2 for all the GPL2 software, someone didn't like that they couldn't hack it up like they wanted.
This isn't about "free" code (it was available) it was more about how someone figured out a way to keep control over the free code in the device they were selling.
If you want code open, then let it be open. If you want to control how or who uses your code, then don't make it free. At least be intellectually honest about it. The result of GPL3 is exactly the same as a EULA that restricts who and how software is run.
In this case, RMS is wrong. If RMS was truly about "Free" as in "freedom" he would have chosen BSD style license, which has even less restrictions. I even go further and will predict to you that GPL4 will be even more restrictive as people figure out ways around the restrictions of GPL3 that RMS doesn't like. Care to make a wager?
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
The choice of words like "irreconcilable conflict" make clear the authors' stance, and his lack of understanding of the nuances of the issue. Even Stallman has never been against "for profit companies" and many selfsame companies can and do make money from free software. Similarly the cases he cited lower down (e.g. the modified software) are not a case of free software advocates challenging a company's right to use the system more a company's attempts to violate the contract under which they got the software. That is no different than a company taking software they purchased and making modifications against the purchase agreement. In either case they get sued.
While I do not always ascribe to the libertarian tautology that all laws are contracts in this case the two are the same. Free software is no different than other software. Both come with licencing agreements and both come with a price. In the free-software case it is a price of $0 and a more permissive contract but a contract just the same, and it carries the same penalties (vis a vis lawsuits).
This guy hasn't really dealt with it like that and seems to be of the Gates mindset of free software as something to be freely taken.
> No freedom is lost under BSD.
BSD enables Microsoft.
Microsoft being given a gift that allows them to continue
their abusive ways does infact cause a loss of freedom. It
becomes easier for them to abuse their partners, their end
users and people who would prefer to avoid them entirely.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
The problem is that even after the average end user KNOWS they care, they don't have the ability to do anything about it GPL3 or no. I'm mean be real here if TiVo, for example, was fully compliant with GPL3 and decided to stop updating the Series 2 software. Some intrepid programmer out there figures out how to add a new feature that only TiVo Series 10 boxes have and updates the software. Do you really think that the user will be able to update their TiVo with that version?
/. reader, they just aren't. Yes you or I would love to be able to tinker and modify things. We also know enough that when we do that we might break things. The end user just wants things to work.
I'm not even sure they will know they care since most people use the same software/hardware box/piece of equipment until it dies a gruesome death. Then they complain about getting something else since it doesn't work the same way. Hell people already complain about updating to new versions of software.
End users are not the average
A good analogy is with auto enthusiasts who install custom chips and software in their cars to get more power/fuel efficiency/whatever. Yes they get some cool features, they also know they take the risk of damaging their expensive car. Joe Average just wants his car to start when he turns the key.
"BSD is the license if someone is looking for true freedom."
No, it forces me to attribute the work to original author, thus not free - and you know it.
The BSDL is an invitation for evil men to take and use the code in order to abuse you.
Anarchy vs. democracy or communism.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
From reading the article, it seems like this guy is one of the old guard, trying to convince everyone that FOSS is dangerous to their business models and to act accordingly. The problem is that he is right--the people, not companies, that create Free Software have a different business model in mind than a corporate-dominated one based upon lock-in.
Verizon Wireless is a great example of corporate lock-in: the entire system on every phone is written to corporate spec, and if it had any free software as a part of the operating system, they would have to open-source a lot of it because they were not following the rules of the GPL (assuming they were using, say, a network stack culled from Linux). So either they play the game by the rules of the copyright holders, or they write their own software at their own expense.
But a clueful open-source company will be careful not to let their proprietary software get get too close to the FOSS they use, or better yet, make it company policy to GPL every last piece of code they write. This is where the article begins to expound FUD, because anything you write with the aid of a FOSS program (EMACS, Eclipse, I'm writing this in Firefox) does not have to be under a free license. And even more, any open-source company will be careful not to base their business model on being proprietors of software but as something else, such as selling another service like support.
I immediately thought of Hostess Cupcakes. Don't ask me why. I'm taking a copy of the GPL and heading to the store to see if they'll give me some, Or Else.
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
BSD isn't truly free either...
If you want to free your software from any and all legal encumbrance, place it in the public domain.
Anything else is a license with restrictions of some sort. If you can live with those restrictions, use it. If you can't, well, too bad. Write your own.
Given that this is /. and the number of GPL zealots that there are here, it is no surprise that there are so many responses that tell of, pretty much, functional illiteracy when it comes to reading this article. As has been mentioned above, this is NOT about a misunderstanding about the details of the [L]GPL, but rather a "heads up" about the ramifications of using someone else's work. As in, you better read the fine print on that license. This guy even said exactly that in the article.
The only thing that this guy consistently did wrong was confuse open-source with "free" software (as in RMS's definition, not dictionary). Quite frankly, as an advocate of the BSD license (_not_ a zealot mind you) I'm rather irritated that this guy is lumping me in with the GPL people. No, I'm not like that, I don't want to shove my opinions down "your" throat.
But, welcome to the "us v.s. them" BS that RMS wants.
The thing that I find sad is that when a lot of companies get together to release code under an open-source license, much of the time, it's actually free-er than the GPL. Newlib and Insomniac Games Nocturnal project are two good examples. Not to mention the closed source, non-restrictive libs offered by commercial entities such as Apple and M$. It's kinda sad that I get more freedom as a developer when using closed source libs rather than much of the "open-source" libs out there.
I didn't say we should have no law, I simply said you can't pick and choose which rights to respect and which one's not to respect. Laws codify that we have rights, but when you start restricting rights arbitrarly to to supposedly protect other rights, you're not doing anyone a favor.
The GPLv3 doesn't require you to make source code available for web services. The related Affero GPL versions 2 and 3 do, however, since some web developers thought this was a loophole in the GPL. RMS didn't seem to think it was, but instead the FSF reviewed the Affero license and authorized its use of the name GPL as well.
The Affero GPL is fairly uncommon as far as I know, but as long as you keep to the GPL and away from the Affero GPL, you should be fine.
In this case the GPL is restricting the "right" of commerical vendors to restrict the "rights" of the downstream recipient. It's not arbitrary at all.
~ I am logged on, therefore I am.
If I've taken the time and effort to make a nice product using a bunch of pieces of software, and include some of my own, and package it up, sealed and ready for the end user, including code to prevent modification, exactly how am I restricting your use of that same GPL2 code, if I give you the source for all the GPL2 code?
The only think I'm restricting is you modifying the code, and running in on the device I created. You can use the same code, make a similar device and use the code all you want. The code is free, your use is not restricted except for the product I created (and you bought).
If you don't like the terms, don't buy a Tivo, take the Tivo software and make your own and hack that. After all, you have all the GPL2 code in your hands, you should be able to DIY, should you not?
This is nothing more than whiney cry babies wanting to run home with the ball because the game isn't going their way.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
No but he can restrict your freedom of expression if you express yourself by swinging a battle-axe in a crowded mall. But if you want to go do it in a safer environment you can.
I would say there's nothing wrong with swinging a battle axe in a mall, so long as you aren't trying to hit anyone else with it.
GPL3 (and 2 to a lesser extent because it has loopholes) allows you to use and modify code, it protects your freedom. But it forces you to do so in the same altruistic manner that the person who gave you the code you are building on restricting another freedom. You are free to do with the code as you please, so long as if you distribute the code you grant others the same freedom. Hence you are free to distribute modified code, but the GPL prevents you from using that freedom to stop other people doing the same. The freedom to modify code overrides the freedom to distribute. It really isn't that complicated, I don't see why people keep getting confused by this.
There's no confusion on my part. People have all of their rights, all of the time (so long as they do not violate another's rights).
The very notion that one right "overrides" another is absurd. All rights are equally important, an none can be arbitrarly violated.
My reasoning is that, well, everybody has the right to choose the license for their own work-- even if it means restricting it. I am not one of those people that believes that everybody should be forced to release their code as Open Source. I would never require that, because some people don't want to do that. I've seen the moral objectivist (which I am not, but bear with me) argument of 'power' versus 'right', and I think forcing people to release their work is a power. It is not a power, in my eyes, to do whatever you want with your own work, that's your right. I've seen it argued the other way, and the other way simply baffles me.
So then, why would I let somebody close up my work? Well, the answer is that anybody who uses my work in the creation of a new work, and licenses that work differently, isn't really affecting my work at all. My work is still open source, still available. What that means is that the only thing which they are really restricting, or changing the restrictions of, is their own work-- the changes to my work-- which can't be gotten by alternative means. So, in my eyes, me letting them close the source up if they wish is exactly the same as me letting them close the source of their own original work. Anybody who thinks that they don't have the latter right, wouldn't believe they have the former, and as far as I can see, anybody who thought they didn't have the former right would think they didn't have the latter.
-Devin Jeanpierre
"PJ: This article is either slightly offensive due to the fear mongering, or funny, depending on your mood, but the bottom line is, at least they begin to comprehend that the GPL does have to be respected. You can't just grab the code and do whatever you want with it. So that's progress.
But imagine an article that noticed the Microsoft EULA and decided that the risk of using the software was too high because you can't do whatever you want with the software, due to the EULA. You can't do whatever you want with most software, proprietary or open source/free software. Anyway, be aware of a couple of things.
One, Linux comes to you under GPLv2, not v3. Second, under either license, there are no restrictions on internal use, only for distribution. Three, the rules for certain embedded products are not the same as for software that is intended to continue to be developed and modified. Finally, the 'payment', so to speak, for mixing GPL'd software in your own code in your distribution or product isn't money. It's code. That's the deal. There are no hidden gotchas. Just read the license.]
davecb5620@gmail.com
Actually in your example, under BSD you DID loose a freedom. You lost the ability to use your possibly improved code in your next product/project because they wouldn't let you use those changed lines of code. Under the GPL, you as a developer, gain the ability to reuse your modified code.
Overall both licenses are about the same. Both are biased slightly to one of 2 sides. BSD leans towards the new developer's or the modder's rights, since any changes or additions to the original code can be withheld and kept secret. GPL on the other hand leans towards the original developer's rights since under it, any changes or additions made are freely available to the original developer as well as anybody else who wants it.
Just to clarify the statement. GPL in NO WAY makes someone else's code effectively become your code. The best analogy would be if I used your code in my project then the code becomes "our" code. Your code still is yours, my code is still mine, but both of us agreed that you can use my code just as freely as I can use your code, as can anyone else in the world use our code.
IMO GPL gives more freedom than BSD. Under GPL the rights of the one do not out weigh the rights of the rest of the people. While under BSD the rights of the modder clearly out weigh the rights of the rest of the people and also the rights of the original developer.
Frustrated TiVo users? Two thirds of everyone I know is a TiVo user and the only one that was ever frustrated is the one that modded the snot out of his box and then messed with something that nuked his drive. But he also knew what the hell he was getting into.
Everyone else who just uses the damn thing is perfectly happy and couldn't care less about fiddling with the innards. So exactly where are these legions of TiVo users that are frustrated?
Not true, but oft-cited on Slashdot. There are a number of cases at district court levels that have backed EULAs and a few appellate court cases too.
The ones that lose are typically those that impose huge burdens on the consumer: changes in law, venue, arbitration, etc. A recent case placed a limit on non-transfer clause, but the court hinted that the original purveyor was probably in breach, not the person that was actually sued.
There's a now out of date article from a couple years ago by Mark Lemley that discussed "terms of use": http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=917926
Furthermore, EULAs aren't just software oriented. There is a long history of cases that impose restrictions from contracts that consumers don't get until, arguably, it's too late.
Simply not true; see above.
And I'm not sure what is imperiled about the bounds of copyright. If anything, they're about to be extended: http://williampatry.blogspot.com/2008/06/acta-call-to-arms-no-more-secret.html
The funny thing is, many corporate entities would probably agree with you. A number of places I know have zero tolerance for OSS in their workplace, but those rebellious techies use it anyway.
Even those that are more accommodating are nevertheless hesitant because OSS comes in so many flavors, not just GPLv#. This makes managing obligations next to impossible.
While, I'm sure there are some that would like to commercially exploit the work of others, this is NOT the usual posture in which most companies encounter GPL/OSS. It's usually because some 3rd party contractor used it in a package the company intended to commercially sell or because an employee decided it would make their life easier. Then the problems become VERY acute.
If BSD hadn't "enabled" Microsoft, they'd have created their own, super-crappy TCP stack, made the vast hoards of their userbase think the 'net was crappy and would never catch on. Without them using it, no, it wouldn't.
Without that market, there would have been no reason for half the stuff out on the web today to be created. Without suckers who can't live without YouTube, the broadband market wouldn't really be there and we'd all have to be shelling out buku bucks for T1 or some lame-ass ISDN, or suffering on dialup.
I'd like to see how you like downloading Ubuntu ISOs over dialup. I seriously doubt that you'd enjoy it.
It was also fairly fashionable to hate on Mac before OS X. What is so great about OS X? BSD -- that's what. And they even let most of their changes to borrowed code back into the wild.
I don't love Mac and I don't hate Microsoft, and I'm perfectly fine with the BSDL. Then again, I also don't mind paying for things if they're "better."
Well, he either a.- does not understand the specific nature of the GPL or b.- is making a concerted and tricky attempt at discrediting the possibility of GPLed work use in commercial applications.
you post clarifies the point precisely, and it applies to TFA as well: the GPL does not contain any provision on USE of the software, only on derivative development and distribution, and that distinction is perfectly clear to anyone who even bothers to read the frickin' license. You are saying that the GPL has implications and that these implications become threats and that the only solution is to stop using gpled sotfware, or understand the restrictions that the GPL inmposes on the use, when there none. That is a lie, and you are either a lier, or an ignorant.
Por ultimo, y en una nota mas personal: no es culpa de nosotros los "zealots" que la gente no comprenda las sutilezas de la GPL, la diferencia que hay entre uso, distribucion y derivacion, y las necesidades que la GPL tiene de restringir ciertas derechos para la proteccion de la libertad. Que salgas con ese tipo de comentarios son el principal impedimento a una discusion razonable mediante la exposicion de argumentos, puesto que lo unico que se hace es recurrir a argumentos ad-hominem y otras falacias retoricas, de las que tu mensaje previo es una joya. y un excelente ejemplo de FUD y sus efectos en la opinion publica.
entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem
you're defining "end-users" incorrectly. there are data consumers who consume data that the software manipulates. but those aren't "end-users" in the context of software.
My main problem with the GPL and the 'slashdot zealots' that come out on both ends, is that it is difficult for the to maintain a rational view when looked at across IP in general.
GPL exaggeration: Don't ever use GPL to build upon without releasing the code, copyright is our friend and hammer.
Musician exaggeration: Dude, wtf, so you wrote a song 20 years ago..you think you deserve to live off of it forever? Copyrights last waaaay too long as is!
My main problem with the GPL is that I am not free to use it the way I want to. I understand the reasons why to some extent, but the reality is that as software becomes ever and ever more complex, you become reliant on other people's code to get to the 'good part' (ie. I don't need to write my own TCPIP stack to use the internet, my own display drivers to talk to draw on the screen, etc). I recently started working on an ebook reader for my PDA in C# (http://www.slainwilde.com ). One of the things I wanted to do was add in MS Reader LIT ebook decompession for non-DRM ebooks, and to do it on the PDA device itself. But some of the things I wanted to do (live streaming from the lit reader CAB rather than needing to unzip it completely to a full file), I couldn't really do it if I still wanted the possibility to use some off-the-shelf C# component to get the program out there faster. At least in my understanding of the license. And yet this library uses Public Domain code right and left without batting an eye. Again, not that it shouldn't. But it basically means that I will either have to not have those features I want, or I will have to go to a lot more trouble to avoid using some off the shelf component that could save me a week or two of effort.
Not everyone can be a 'subject expert' in everything they want to use to build a program. It made the whole project less appealing to me in a certain sense, every time I looked at some piece of code and saw how it would shape my ability to use it without jumping thru hoops. I'm not saying I have the answers, just that the problems are real for even the 'guy in a basement' trying to do something fun.
http://blog.slaingod.com
Thats free as in "free society". You're free to do as you wish, except to deny others the freedoms you yourself were granted.
That's pretty damn free. Only sociopaths think that's not free, because a sociopath only thinks about what they get. A sociopath feels like they are repressed by not being able to own slaves.
BSD is free as in anarchy. It's a great license, but like anarchy itself, it doesn't stop someone from setting up their own fiefdom.
The enemies of Democracy are
damn you are stupid, simple logics seems to fail on you, ah?
surely, freedom for you is some nice sounding word you like to rant about.
go read some hobbes or any other political theorist and you might learn something, asshole.
I admire anyone who uses a Heinlein quote properly in their sig. Kudos.
My Spanish is lots worse than your English. There is nothing of substance wrong with your post's grammar or spelling. So, just because the author views disagree with your's you claim that the raised points are FUD? Not precisely. The article throws a lot of cautionary alarms, and doesn't back them with any facts. That's what makes it FUD. Typical GPL zealot reaction "Oh noes! you don't understand GPL! you are teh suckzorz!!!" I used no such language or locution. Of course, I did not expect such objective reactions from slashdot... It's just my opinion. *looks around* It is a discussion board, right?
No, I'm not an attorney. I had a few contract law courses, and I have studied the GPL for my own interest. I am no zealot. I have released software and creative output under both commercial and free licenses.
I also try to remember, each day, that I might be wrong on any issue at any time, being human.
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
They mean free as in freedom, not price. Some of this software costs a lot of real money to develop.
If you think "free software" cannot pay salaries, look again: there are lots of programmers paid to work on free software full time right now.
They aren't the majority, but there are quite a few.
Something changed in GPL3, where code becomes almost secondary to how the code is used. It no longer cares about the code, or changes to it. It cares more about who, how, and what it is being used for.
No matter if you agree with the changes or not, you have to admit that the changes have nothing to do with improving the code, because GPL2 already handled this perfectly fine.
The changes have nothing to do with improving the code, which makes the changes philosophical, and restrictive.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
My impression was that the case law remains somewhat patchy, with still-substantial room for interpretation. Is this incorrect? And are you (or is anyone else) able to expand on EULA legality / enforceability in other places, such as Canada or the EU?
By "imperiled", I meant from the point of view of the end user, mostly regarding fair use. I should have made that explicit.
Interesting. Does this suggest then that the main threat to corporations is more from any management failure in due diligence in controlling a company's code assets?
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
damn, another complete moron. please stop with this stupidity. the analogy is perfect, even if you bsd-bitchin' assholes don't just get it.
please, if you are a complete idiot, at least have the decency of realizing that and let people of normal intelligence discuss productively.
that's what the affero license is for.
entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem
Although the lawsuits are not about changed provisions in the GPL, both events are muscle-flexing by the free software community and, taken together, may foreshadow new risks in the irreconcilable conflict between open source software and its widespread use by for-profit companies.
What "irreconcilable conflict"?
Imprimus, the GPL provides an amazing business opportunity for companies like Trolltech and Linden Labs to harness the efforts of the open source community for their products, without opening up the possibility of some company taking the open source product and competing with them on a level ground.
Secundus, Companies that don't pay attention to the license they're using can get into trouble, but that's true for all licensed software: even Microsoft's occasionally had to pay for drifting over the line with licensed software and patents now and then.
Tertius, GPL is not synonymous with open source software. There's open source software running right now in your desktop, Edmund, open source software distributed by Microsoft or Apple... most of it's not GPLed, it's distributed under the BSD license and the MIT license.
Therefore, there is no such irreconcilable conflict, and using language like that is enough for even someone like me who has been often enough critical of the GPL to consider this article nothing more than a troll.
Charge for support or for some other service.
There is no need to distinguish between users and developers, when it comes to the GPL or other free software licenses. The distinction is solely between users and distributors. If all you do is use the software -- whether that use involves clicking on buttons in the default GUI or breaking out gdb -- the GPL places no obligations on you. If, however, you distribute the software, then it does -- regardless of whether you've done any development at all.
And stopping a company from taking Open Source code, changing it and closing it's source grants freedom to users of that software, and more importantly, it's original authors, the people who put in their hard work and do not want to be ripped off by corporations.
If you don't like the GPL then don't use it's software, unfortunately for you, no-one will give a shit because generally you aren't paying for it, it's just one less user of something developed for free.
tl;dr: Let developers decide what is "free" enough for their own software
No one is pissed about any USE of GPL2 software. It's the distribution they care about. Freedom 0 is the right to use the software, and that applies no matter how you plan to use it. Distributing it in such a way that you remove Freedom 0 from other users is a different matter.
I didn't say anything about the GPL. I side with Linus on this issue - GPL2 is good. GPL3 not so much. No one is asking to be able to rip off devs.
load "$",8,1
The GPL is fundamentally no different from a proprietary software licensing agreement. Instead of paying in cash, developers who utilize GPL software pay by sharing their work. Instead of being limited by agreeing not to disclose the source they have licensed, they are limited by agreeing that they must disclose the source they have created.
If you don't like the licensing agreement, don't use the software in your project! It's really that simple. But a lot of companies don't seem to understand this; they think they can use the software and ignore the license. The author of the article doesn't understand it, either. The article perpetuates the FUD that the GPL is some weird new thing that's going to screw up IP law. It's not! It's just an ordinary software license that demands a different kind of payment.
Yeah it is, if you are lucky enough to get something BSD licensed. No guarantee that's going to happen even if all the projects it was based on were BSD, it might be all locked up proprietary when you obtain a derivative software. You're absolutely right. Just look at Mac OS X. I don't see any source code for that...
The GPLv3 is no more or less "intellectually honest" than the GPLv2 was, and the "political ax" is no different. The agenda of the GPL was, and is, to give end users the freedom to modify the software, redistribute their changed versions, and put those changed versions to effective use. The changes in the GPLv3 are there because some companies figured out a way to sneak around that last one. In this case, RMS is wrong. If RMS was truly about "Free" as in "freedom" he would have chosen BSD style license, which has even less restrictions. Maybe you should let him define what "free" means to him instead of substituting your own definition. Come on, you might as well be complaining that the BSD license takes away your "freedom" to distribute the software without a copyright notice or to use the authors' names in your advertising. I even go further and will predict to you that GPL4 will be even more restrictive as people figure out ways around the restrictions of GPL3 that RMS doesn't like. Care to make a wager? If by "RMS doesn't like" you mean "subvert the intended goals of the GPL", then I agree with your prediction. Is that supposed to be a surprise?
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
How long have you been using the Internet?
...you probably do not want to put a GPL at the top of a BSD or ISC file,
... If the Linux developers wrap GPL's around things we worked very hard
Quoting from Theo de Raadt:
because you would be telling the people who wrote the BSD or ISC file:
"Thanks for what you wrote, but this is a one-way street, you give
us code, and we take it, we give you you nothing back. screw off."
on, it will definately not be viewed as community development.
Yet he often states that he has no problem with companies using BSD code any way they like, without contributing anything back whatsoever, just as you do. Funny that...
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No? Then what is this? BSD fanboys all over the place threw a big hissy fit because someone dared to slap the GPL on a derivative of a previously BSD-licensed driver. "You canoot GPL a derivative of a BSD-licensed work", they claimed, while they didn't mind software companies including their code in their proprietary products without giving anything back at all.
If another developer uses your BSD-licensed code, you're "restricting their ability" to distribute that code without a copyright notice or disclaimer, just like if they use your GPL-licensed code, you're "restricting their ability" to distribute a compiled version without source. The only difference is the set of restrictions. And of course, in either case, the other developer willingly chooses to take on those restrictions in exchange for using your code.
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Set top boxes often have to provide anticircumvention as a legal requirement for the media they are using. For ANY GPLv3 device "No covered work shall be deemed part of an effective technological measure under any applicable law fulfilling obligations under article 11 of the WIPO copyright treaty adopted on 20 December 1996, or similar laws prohibiting or restricting circumvention of such measures.". That right there is a dealbreaker.
And what electronic devices support NO updates? Even my "car", as a sealed box, has some degree of upgradability on the electronics. If the choice is NEVER be able to update or provide open access, you can not build many viable businesses as a "sealed box".
The GPLv3 is deliberately anti-business. Why should people be shocked when business attorneys figure that out?
Test your net with Netalyzr
free as in freedom. gpl-licensed code is free to be used by anybody except those who seek to remove the freedoms of others. it really isn't a difficult concept. it forms the basis of all ethical systems in the world, so i really can't understand why you find it difficult to understand.
True, except for including the code in a GPL:ed project, making the derivative work licensed under the GPL.
It's easy to get bogged down in semantics because we talk about "freedoms" and "rights" as if they were metaphysical attitudes, but in fact they are both man-made derivations of the Golden Rule (the intuitively valid principle upon which all good-faith relationships are based). Metaphysically, anyone has the "freedom" to do anything at all within all given limitations, but that is not "freedom" in the sense we're discussing, so much as it forms the background of the idea.
The GPL is a set of agreed-upon conditions that may be waived at the copyright-holder's discretion. There is no preset "freedom" that is being restricted - rather, what "freedom" means at all is defined in the terms of the contract.
Our ideas and feelings about what is right and wrong to do - or to impose laws about - create the conditions within which cooperation and progress can thrive. As we tend agree on these ideas, cultures take form. The GPL is a set of ground rules that gives rise to a culture of developers, all operating on an agreed set of principles.
So when a commercial vendor decides to use GPL software they are not just picking fruit from the tree; they are agreeing to abide by the rules of the society they are entering. If a commercial vendor fails to abide by the rules, it should first expect to be alienated from the GPL society. In using GPL software a vendor agrees to an explicit contract which has been upheld in good faith by the original developer. "I give this tool to you, with the provision that you honor the principles of the culture that produced it."
(If only we could impose rules like that on weapons sold.)
-- thinkyhead software and media
As another comment further up the thread pointed out, the GPLv3 is not about how the code is used, per se -- it's about guaranteeing freedom of the code for modification, redistribution, *and use*. As put more succinctly by Mr2001:
You note:
As best as I understand it, you'd be perfectly correct here. The update to GPLv3 is *not* about improving the code, it is about ensuring that users can still use the code after it's been changed, i.e. guaranteeing freedom to use.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
You can say all day long what GPL is *supposed* to mean. But in the end, we've seen many stupid cases where what the lawyers and judges ignorant of technology redefined the entire document by putting a particular spin on a particular section. We see this with the constitution too. There is very little precedent for these documents yet so it is still flexible-- and even when there is precedent, occasionally a random lawyer will think of some new spin- get it to the supreme court in a state or country and have everything overturned.
I generally agree with everyone on our common understanding of GPL myself. But if it is in a lawyer's financial interest to understand it differently, then they will do so.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
That's why the GPLv3's changes do, in fact, have something to do with improving the code. They make it worthwhile to improve the code by ensuring that end users will actually be able to install and run it.
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If I've taken the time and effort to make a nice product using a bunch of pieces of software, and include some of my own, and package it up, sealed and ready for the end user, including code to prevent modification, exactly how am I restricting your use of that same GPL2 code, if I give you the source for all the GPL2 code?
... I'm updating the license to prevent it in
You are responding with a very specific GPLv3 criticism in a post that was really about the general differences between GPL and BSD.
The only think I'm restricting is you modifying the code, and running in on the device I created. You can use the same code, make a similar device and use the code all you want. The code is free, your use is not restricted except for the product I created (and you bought).
1) Without even getting to the GPL, why on earth do you think that you can dictate what I do with a product I *OWN*? I can pee on it. I can make it into a fish tank. I can use it to fry an egg. I can install and run any software I bloody feel like. I own it. Its mine.
2) The ENTIRE POINT of the GPL is to give end users the the right to use AND modify GPL software they receive without restriction. The intention was never to allow someone to sell gpl code on a platform that wouldn't run modified versions and then weasel around saying "You can modify the code, see, you just can't run it on this platform, its all good'.
3) The bottom of that slippery slope is a world where GPL code is meaningless legal fiction. All the major PC vendors from Microsoft to Dell to HP all load up computers stuffed with GPL code, all tightly locked up to their platform. Sure you can 'modify it and run it elsewhere'... but there's nowhere to run it. Each platform only runs its own signed and sealed software. My right to modify the code is still legally there, but useless in practice since I have no outlet on which to run modified code, including the device it came on. The GPL authors do not wish to enable this.
4) People who author GPL code do not want YOU to do exactly what you've described. Period. They want the final end users and everyone else down the line to be able to modify and use the software they've authored WITHOUT RESTRICTIONS. If YOU don't want that, don't base your entire product on code largely written by authors that DO, licensed accordingly.
Remember GPL doesn't stop Tivo from existing; it doesn't stop them from having a closed platform. It jsut stops them from doing an end-run around the rights and freedoms the authors of the GPL code intended the end users to receive in the first place. This includes not erecting barriers to modifying the software on the device it came on.
If you don't like the terms, don't buy a Tivo, take the Tivo software and make your own and hack that. After all, you have all the GPL2 code in your hands, you should be able to DIY, should you not?
Indeed I should. And what better platform to run my DIY Tivo than an actual Tivo device? Its the hardware the software came on so I know it works. I have a license to use AND modify that software. I own the hardware outright. And the software authors intended for me to be able to do this. So why is there a barrier?
Because the hardware vender usurped the software license intentions and are weaseling around it by claiming we can run modified source on other devices??
To put it simply: AS A GPL SOFTWARE DEVELOPER its annoying to ME that end users of MY software are being locked out of software I gave them explicit permission to modify without restriction. I intended for them to be able to freely modify and use the software. So it annoys me that a hardware vendor has seen fit to take MY software and bundle it with hardware that deliberately violates the intention of the license I gave it to them under, while they weasel around with bullshit about how my end users can still use the software on other devices. That's not acceptable to me, as the original developer of that software.
So
You know, like, copyright is "imaginary property" when it comes to ripping music and movies, but of course it is a valid concept when it comes to shoving the GPL down other people's throats.
Or: government regulation is bad. Unless of course, it prevents IT jobs (and only IT jobs!) from moving abroad.
I agree. Good job Stallman. Many people have an absolute and irrational hatred of giving people absolute control over their own software. You are one of the few people who not only understood the threat, but actually stood up and did something about it, to the point where even IBM backs you.
This is incorrect. The source code only has to be released to the recipient of the binary. If I provide you with a binary of a product licensed under the GPL, I have to provide you with the source code, not anybody else. Of course, you can release the code to anyone you want in turn if you wish, but I don't have to.
If you don't believe me, read the GPL.
If a company does not sell (or provide) any software, but rather some service that isn't easy to duplicate, programmers can get paid regardless of whether all software is free or not. Customization and integration, as well as development of internal specialty software are not likely to stop even if all software would be made free.
No freedom is lost under BSD. Oops.
The nonexistent distinction between users and developers is exactly the reason why BSD is less free than GPL. Considering that (in your own terms) you're not free to make non-free software with the GPL license, I'd say the GPL license is less free than the BSD license.
GPL is a guarantee that software released freely remains free. It is a method of control over the software's redistribution (right of copy) for the developer. It is an additional limitation (over the BSD notice limitation that BSD software requires).
Remember that strictly from a code perspective the initial developer has all the rights. It is the user who needs rights explicitly granted to him. And in this sense, GPL grants less rights to the user than BSD.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
The only restriction was you couldn't do it on a Tivo. Boo Hoo. Make your own Tivo-like device, using the same software. You have the code, it shouldn't be too hard.
But noooooo, that isn't good enough. RMS and people like him think they know better than everyone else, and want to dictate their terms. Well guess what, people are going to stop using stuff if they can't use it the way they want.
The end result is that people are going to stop using GPL3 software, because they aren't going to run to RMS to ask his permission. With GPL2, the conditions were simple, and nobody needed permission to use anything. Only thing that mattered was the code.
Don't like Tivo cause you can't "hack" it? Then don't buy one. Build your own instead, using the EXACT SAME GPL software Tivo uses. How come this isn't good enough for people like RMS is beyond me.
Don't tell me the code isn't free. It is.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
There are definitely aspects that are open to debate--there are few areas of law that are set in stone. But, I think that there is a self-perpetuating myth on Slashdot that EULAs remain largely untested. The fact of the matter, courts apply the same rules of contracts to EULAs as they do to anything else.
There are definitely some areas where courts more liberally seek to help consumers OUT of EULAs, but those tend to be the same places that courts do the same thing for regular contracts.
I can't expound on foreign law.
Maybe. I'm not sure it's the main threat. It is definitely a threat. It is also the threat that brings the legal issues associated with OSS/GPL to their attention.
The problem is that once it becomes an issue, it is difficult and expensive to rid yourself of problem given the very viral nature of the rights. Even if a company decided against using the code, but looked at it, there is arguably a potential copyright infringement problem if the company releases something similar.
OSS is a problem for many software business NOT in the business of "free."
Besides the other two replies, which are confusing claiming ownership vs getting something back, this DOES happen in BSD land. Specifically, OpenSSH and OpenBSD made quite a stink about lack of funding and freeloaders who used the products extensively and never gave anything back. They went as far as naming names like IBM, Sun, any commercial Linux distro, Oracle, etc.
Right around the time of "if we can't raise more cash, we're closing up shop" this happened. While I understand the need for money, the rancor in the surrounding discussion about "freeloaders" was pretty strong.
At that time I concluded the BSDers were idealists while GPL people were more pragmatic. In the ideal BSD world, enough people would contribute back to useful software without being asked/shamed/cajoled. Yes, this would be a good thing. In the real world, however, companies and people will suck you dry and freeload until you die. BSD is essentially "we'll share", while quietly hoping the other guys will share back.
In GPL land it is more "we'll share if, and only if, you'll share". No guilt, no cajoling, just share and share alike or write your own damn code.
Both have their place. BSD is wonderful for getting quality code spread around. Like the BSD TCP/IP stack that made it into Windows and several routers. It improved the networking world by providing a high quality TCP/IP stack for free. Ditto OpenSSH, which provides a fantastic secure shell for free.
The GPL is becoming useful for getting hardware vendors to open things up. It allays their fears that a competitor may gain a material advantage by seeing their software. With GPL code, the competitor may improve the code but must share back or face the lawyers.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Honestly, I can't see why people bitch so much about which license is superior.
At least in terms of what's best for the software, and therefore for the users of the software, they present different and mutually exclusive benefits. GPL forces anyone who makes improvements to the code (and releases them) to provide source, thereby giving back to the community. BSD allows those who can't (or won't, or think they can't) release their own work to use and modify the open code. These folks might give back in the form of binary-only programs based on the original (a mixed blessing, in my opinion), or by releasing select patches to the community, while retaining whatever secrets they wish.
As for which is better for a given piece of software, you'd probably have to take circumstances into account and apply a bit of game theory. I think how much freedom you end up giving, either to the users or to the software, is more a question of math than ethics.
The only ethical dilemma I see is whether ideas can be owned, and to what extent -- and if you're applying licenses, there's at least some implicit acceptance of the idea of IP. After that, it's just up to your personal preference what you'd like to see done with your code.
The discussion around licenses is not tied to those who actually want to have anything to do with the code that uses them - it is a matter of philosophical debate. I don't have to need the code in order to agree with its license.
And the world of software is young. Soon there will be licenses that are more creative and nuanced than either school of thought. How about differentiating between TYPES of users and actively discriminating against (or, alternately) helping certain classes of them? Surely a single for-profit developer is not the same as Microsoft. What about intent..etc.
There will be many flamewars to come.
"closed source, non-restrictive libs"
:)
.. :)
"Newlib and Insomniac Games Nocturnal project are two good examples"
Tell us about Newlib and Insomniac, compare and contrast with the GPL license
davecb5620@gmail.com
No freedom is lost under the GPL.
Let's say you have 7 oz of freedom. You can take my code and you are free to use it. Now you have 8.4 oz of freedom. If you don't like the terms, you don't have to use my code. In that case you are still at 7 oz of freedom. No freedom lost.
Which brings me to the point you made
GPL3 is no longer about code, and making it better; it is about who, what and where one can use the code. You've just proven it.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
"My main problem with the GPL and the 'slashdot zealots'"
.. :)
My main problem is with people who use the word zealots in the first sentence
davecb5620@gmail.com
GPL License restricts the freedom of those who restrict freedom: Thus would apply to itself, restricting itself, and nullifying itself in the process.
(There is geek humor in there somewhere)
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
"can I close-source my entire application (except the ADODB directory"
.. :)
What did the ADODB people tell you when you asked them?
ADOdb is dual licensed using BSD-Style and LGPL
"The GPL wording needs some serious work IMHO"
Which bits, specifically
davecb5620@gmail.com
BSD is truly free license
Yeah it is, if you are lucky enough to get something BSD licensed. No guarantee that's going to happen even if all the projects it was based on were BSD, it might be all locked up proprietary when you obtain a derivative software.
Theoretically, that holds water. Code A could be licensed under BSD, adopted by a company, and released as a binary blob as Code B.
After that, there is a range of possibilities. One is that B is basically a rebranded version of A, without much noticeable improvement. In this case, end users can just grab A instead. The other end of the spectrum is that A was a half-baked mess, and the company overhauled it to produce a great product. In this case, I'd be pleased if they released B under a similarly free license, but if they did 90% of the work on the project, then it's about 90% as fair for them to be able to keep it locked up as it is for a completely in-house proprietary project.
Basically, as the amount of "stealing" increases, the company's relevance in the market decreases.
That said, I could see an argument in the middle range, where A was pretty good, and B was just a lot better, that the company has let the community do the bulk of its work, but holds control over the best-in-class product. That strikes me as somewhat unfair. On the other hand, everyone who contributed to the BSD licensed code knew that could happen, which would seem to make it fair.
Back in reality, though: Can you site an example of BSD licensed software getting gobbled up by suits, and the end users left without free options?
I guess there's OS X -- then again, I'm using FreeBSD today, and enjoying it quite thoroughly.
No, the GPL acts to prevent you from restricting the freedoms of downstream developers, in that sense the BSD license is restrictive.
davecb5620@gmail.com
Yeah, right, good luck with that.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
...as another poster mentioned, there is the ExtJS's use of the GPL: Since the Javascript gets into the final product (the page), you can argue that by using ExtJS your web site page, as rendered, is now GLPv3... I don't think that could be argued, nor do I think Ext would want to. As evidence I first cite the fact that ExtJS has both open source and commercial licenses. I presume the OSS license is to allow modification of ExtJS itself, which some might find useful or necessary. In those cases, modifications to ExtJS must be similarly licensed. But in no instance would this imply that software built on top of ExtJS's interfaces has in-built OSS virulence.It is clear from their license FAQ that they intend ExtJS to be used to make applications without the applications themselves being bound to any kind of license. The previously-controversial "Assets clause" is intended to protect the brand identity of ExtJS, and as such only says the assets can't be used separately. (It doesn't say that applications having the "ExtJS look" are all GPLv3!)
It's good that the courts are being called in, because it's easy to get muddled about the concept of a "derivative work" if you don't understand both the technical and legal aspects of the software. The courts will continue to help clarify what distinguishes "use" from "derivation," and in the long run this should be beneficial to everyone.
-- thinkyhead software and media
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No, it doesn't, as you can still be beaten over the head if you want (ala, Scorpio, in Dirty Harry) if you can find someone willing to do it, at the risk of violating the law.
Bar (the Hobbesian State Of Nature) IS freer than Foo, but in a way that most find unacceptable, at least on first description. Now, if the method for Foo preventing a beating another over the head was to exterminate anyone angry enough to even contemplate doing that (ala Charmed, either in the too-good world, or after the Avatars take over), the average person might think that too severe, and prefer something closer to Bar (say, let them use the pipe, then punish the explicit act, rather than the implicit desire).
OTOH, anyone powerful enough to prevent themselves from being clubbed will tend to prefer something a tad closer to Bar. In our Foo, even shaking the pipe can be a crime; in a more viking-ish society, the pipe might have to actually hit the victim, possibly even hard enough to be dangerous, before the assailant can be assailed.
Yes, and their paychecks are not paid by the software they write but by the profits of the proprietary software written by others in the company.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
> "BSD is the license if someone is looking for true freedom."
>
> No, it forces me to attribute the work to original author, thus not free - and you know it.
What do you think of releasing the software into the public domain? Is that free?
I have seen lots of arguments, on Slashdot, claiming that PD reduces freedom, by letting MS use it without attribution or a requirement to contribute their changes back to the source (ignoring that everything is going into the public domain, eventually, unless Disney convinces the right people to extend copyright to eternity). I think that some people here are not so interested in freedom as in achieving their desired state, where they are free to do what they want, and restricted from doing what they did not want to do, in any case, and are not willing to accept that reasonable people can disagree where the divide should be.
A better example would be if you took the database system's source code and added a set of C++ interfaces to give it additional features, such as encryption or embedded scripting - things you might only be able to do by extending the source code. You'd be obligated to release your added source code.
Another example would be if you modified GIMP to make it respond to network messages. You'd be obligated to release the source code for those extensions. But if you then write a piece of software that sends messages to GIMP over the network to control it, you are fully within your rights to keep that software closed even though it interacts with GIMP - even relies on it. In that case it's not a "derivative work" but a "helper"
A good - though possibly not perfect - test of whether a work is a derivation is: Is your work of the same nature as the original product.
I like the "atoms, molecules, cells, organisms" analogy. A molecule is not a derivation of an atom, because it doesn't do what individual atoms do. A cell is not a molecule, and an organism is not a cell. All these inventions have their own emergent rules. No level is a derived work of the level below.
Take two molecules, however. If you and I independently invent a molecule that breaks down sugars, neither one is a derivative work of the other. Only when I modify your molecule do I create a derivative work. What if I invent a molecule that - when paired with yours - improves its efficiency? Is that a derivation? No. It interacts with your molecule's input and output, but it doesn't derive from it.
Follow this analogy as far as you want, keep the concepts simple and restrict your definitions to those that rely on the marriage of form and function, think in terms of heredity.... this should help clarify things.
-- thinkyhead software and media
RMS's defining moment was when his printer wouldn't work. The printer driver had a bug and he could not fix it because the driver's source code was not available.
This was his printer (well technically his department's) and yet he was dead in the water - there was nothing he could do to fix it. Buying another printer was not an option - the money had been spent. Sure he could try to reverse engineer and printer driver from scratch and write it correctly. But with no guarantee of success that sure sounds like a poor way to do things.
So he decided that such a situation sucks, sucks big time, and so he decided to make a difference and change the way the world works so that other people would not find themselves in such a situation.
THAT's why "build your own tivo" is not good enough for people like RMS.
That's rather irrelevant.
Without the GPL or equivalent approaches, it is impossible to do anything. With it, you have at least the possibilty of doing something. It is irrelevant whether `doing something' means `hiring the only person in the world capable of doing something' or something else.
No licencing scheme is going to magically turn everyone into people capable of doing what they want.
Hey, it works in practice. Just look at Sun, IBM, ...
Anyway, most programmers don't get paid for their software. They get paid for their time in developing programs for the company for which they work. Often, the software is used only within the company. Take, for example, Tradeweb. They have a bunch of trading systems all running on their own software within their system along with some software running on their customers' systems. They make no money off the software. All the money they make is off their trading services.
The article talks a lot about risk, but I don't think there is any risk.
The GPL is clear. It may be that the terms of the license are unacceptable, and that a business cannot use GPL, but that can be determined ahead of time by reading the license. While the terms of the license may seem onerous to a business, it is straight forward to comply with them. Since the requirements are straight forward, if a business attempts to comply with the terms of the license it will succeed in doing so. Thus using GPL software does not expose the business to litigation risk.
After that, there is a range of possibilities. One is that B is basically a rebranded version of A, without much noticeable improvement. In this case, end users can just grab A instead. The other end of the spectrum is that A was a half-baked mess, and the company overhauled it to produce a great product.
Some other middle ground cases... B is just A with a some annoying bugs fixed. Or that A doesn't support wifi, while B does. Or that A isa commandline app, and B adds a useful GUI...
In this case, I'd be pleased if they released B under a similarly free license, but if they did 90% of the work on the project, then it's about 90% as fair for them to be able to keep it locked up as it is for a completely in-house proprietary project.
If they are doing 90% of the work, why not just bite the bullet and do 100%.
That said, I could see an argument in the middle range, where A was pretty good, and B was just a lot better, that the company has let the community do the bulk of its work, but holds control over the best-in-class product. That strikes me as somewhat unfair. On the other hand, everyone who contributed to the BSD licensed code knew that could happen, which would seem to make it fair.
Absolutely. If you release under a BSD license, 'fair' doesn't really come into play. You knew and accepted this outcome when you released it. So I don't think its fair to complain if you release BSD code and then someone does this.
Back in reality, though: Can you site an example of BSD licensed software getting gobbled up by suits, and the end users left without free options?
How much BSD software was there ever really out there to begin with outside of the 'OS' stuff that came with BSD. PostgreSQL, Amanda backup... its not really a terribly big list? How much proprietary software is based on BSD code and we just don't know about it? After all if they AREN'T contributing to an active BSD community, why even mention that their roots are in some BSD code or that they incorporated BSD code?
Indeed. GPL software has had more higher profile gobble-ups than BSD... despite how much harder it is to gobble up GPL projects -- since you actually have to acquire the copyrights. That is probably part of the reason why they are actually high profile.
Apple's Darwin/NEXTSTEP/OS X is probably the closest thing to high profile BSD evolving away from its free alternatives in a big way. Of course the freebsd/openbsd/netbsd still exist... as you say...
I guess there's OS X -- then again, I'm using FreeBSD today, and enjoying it quite thoroughly.
But you can't run any OS X software on it should you want to. So its not exactly an 'alternative' in the sense of it being a a complete substitute.
And can you run BSD on Apple hardware with full driver support? They've been keeping their drivers largely to themselves from what I've understood.
Sooner or later all software goes into the public domain--even Microsoft software and GPL licensed software. All good software should be archived, so that future software vendors can be defeated when they assert that their functionally identical software deserves copyright protection. So, be mellow. Archive software. Wait. Time will cure your problem. No need to get agitated and unduly spastic. Listen to the lawyer-man. Be cool. Comply with the terms of the copyrighted software you incorporate into your program. All is good. Nobody is trying to hurt you . . ..
Compelled? There is no such thing. You most definitely are free to not distribute any software licensed under any of the various GPL licenses published by the FSF.
To reiterate, there is no compulsion here. If the lunch is not free enough for you, you can simply walk off. You are not being oppressed.
No. Licenses that restrict field-of-use (i.e. "no use in the arms industry", "no commercial use", "no use in baby mulching machines", "no use in companies where a CEO was named Bill") were considered and strongly rejected by the FSF. Such licenses are not considered Free software licenses as defined by the FSF.
As the Free Software Foundation is currently the most credible party offering a definition of what is and is not a Free Software license (and you can find the lists on the gnu.org website), it is very unlikely indeed that there would be any spate of licenses differentiated by restrictions on field-of-use.
(unless you subscribe to the BSD wanker version of "use", i.e. redistribution, which is basically one big fucking rhetorical crock of shit.)
Why GPL is bad?
Because, its creater want the world to be solely OSS, he force it inches by inches.
Why every software should be licensed in the same way? Is liberty not important in coder's world?
a) write your own damned software if you want to be a scrudge about it That's not always possible in Slashdot's home turf. The United States has software patents. b) don't violate the license in the first place. For computer programs, there's a well-known method of reverse engineering for interoperability. It separates "dirty" people with access to the original program from "clean" people who write all the code. This is possible because it's possible to view the output of a program without viewing the program itself. But this doesn't apply as easily to works other than computer programs, such as art and music assets that go into a video game: once you've seen a work, you have "access" to the work. That's how George Harrison got sued for accidentally copying part of Ronald Mack's "He's So Fine" into Harrison's "My Sweet Lord" and lost.
Not always. Sometimes, by the profits of other activities by the company - perhaps even activities free software advocates would regard as ethical.
If not directly, then indirectly, as a service company for another company.
This is the pay-to-create-software-to-get-something-done model, instead of make-first-license-later. Both are business models. The former works with software whose distribution is not restricted after it's created. A lot of software really is created that way.
"Under prior versions of the GPL, it was generally accepted that open source and proprietary software could peacefully coexist so long as the proprietary software interacted with open source only through defined interfaces."
This is bogus. This is true for the LGPL but not for the GPLv2. You cannot link a proprietary project with a GPLv2 lib. But you can link a proprietary project with a LGPL lib.
"By now, most open source users understand that free refers to freedom, not to price. The new lesson is that the freedom belongs to the software, not to users. You are not free to do whatever you want with the open source software and may find yourself in a legal fight if what you do restricts the freedom of the software."
This is bogus, too. Most issues are there with the GPLv2, too. "You are not free to do whatever you want with the open source software". That's the point of the GPL -- all versions. Besides that, the author does not understand what "free" means in the view of the GPL. The GPL's restrictions are there that the software remains free.
Trust a lawyer to spend three pages to only hint at, but never actually come out and say, "Don't steal shit."
It's a cornerstone of US ideology that the most important freedom a person can have is freedom to use his property to reduce freedom of others and control others to his advantage.
After all, this country was pretty big on slavery, and still supports aristocracy and big businesses' entitlement to profit, colonialism and other practices based on this idea.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
I thought you were referring to the whole stack - as in, you could write an app and build an innovative new hardware platform that uses it and sell as many as you can without paying any licensing per unit.
Now that I see you're saying that Microsoft's generosity extends only to the compiled libraries and runtimes required for your application to function in a separately licensed Microsoft operating environment.
I don't think you're in the odd category of programmers this article is discussing. I'm also surprised you think this is worth mentioning. I had thought by now software tools that did not offer this were a historical oddity long forgotten.
So... These free and paid for tools - how are their cross platform capabilities? Can you write once and compile for various platforms? Note - by "various platforms" I am not referring to "all the modern versions of Windows."
Help stamp out iliturcy.
I was merely trying to make I point. I'm all for GPL.
In some ways I can see a reciprocal argument. If you don't want someone running off with your code and using it in some proprietry software and make money of it, then don't put your code out there and tell everyone that its 'free'.
Seems like your sayin "here's the code, do whatever you want with it, but if you start making shitpiles of money, its mine and I want in fuckers..."
I have a question for you, With your Tivo argument, did they document the changes to the GPL code and make it readily available to the end user?? This is a valid question, I really don't know. But if they didn't then it violated the GPL license and your argument is now moot.
I'll see your computer nerd, and raise you two Chess Clubbers and a role player
exactly
maybe i should have been more clear and talked about stallman's four freedoms for a while. then it becomes clear that derivatives of a software inherit the same freedoms as the parent software.
this is actually the only license type which allows this. with any other license type, the users of software derivatives can have fewer freedoms than the users of the parent software.
The fact that TFA does not distinguish between these licenses upfront shows the hopelessly poor knowledge or questionable intent of the author. He's doing an "IP" on the term "opensource" - obfuscation, confusion, deliberately misleading propaganda term.
I'll state it nicely for newcomers to the opensource license issue:
All opensource licenses are not the same.
They are very different and cannot be dealt with in a small one-page treatment. a round of lawsuits filed by the Software Freedom Law Center against for-profit companies using the software for commercial gain. Four companies to date, the largest of which is Verizon Communications Inc., have been sued for violation of the GPL. Nobody forces you to copy or use GPLed software - please be technically competent to write your own - or take any source code released under other "permissive" licenses so that you are much "freer" - but be aware of the dangers of that "freer" license - lots of fragmentation, inability to borrow from GPLed projects, absence of widespread technical support if things go wrong for you technically, and so on.
Another thing is that the GPL does not prevent you from using the code in any way inside your organization - it only disallows arbitrary and source-less redistribution of modified code taken from a previously GPLed codebase.
In simpler words, you cant steal from the community's work, add or modify something (please check subtract), sell it using a new name, and also not offer the source.
If you offer the source, and attribute correctly, you can pretty much charge anything, a billion dollars as well, for even the binary only.
That's what RedHat and Novell do, for example.
You can make a lot of money on GPLed software, but you cannot steal, cheat or deprive the end user of modifications just because you made them.
Charge or no charge is not a topic here. Clear?
You are free to choose any opensource license.
In the case of ExtJS, the license at the time of downloading the source applies. Simple.
ExtJS or any contributor cannot change the license of terms going back in time.
He's already released it as GPLed, matter closed.
The new version, he may choose to do something else about, provided no other user has contributed - because he owns the new version.
Of course, as the new version is dual-licensed, you can always go download the old version and hack it the way you want.
If you want the new version's features, then he's the owner of the thing and you have to listen to his conditions.
Equally, he should (not "must") keep publicly available the old version of ExtJS that he had GPLed without "dual-licensing" concerns.
In any case, no one can prevent an earlier GPLed version to be distributed around freely under the GPL - let us call that "undying" software - software that cannot die or go away. Once GPLed, that piece of source code is a permanent member of this cosmos, available to anyone for redistribution freely - if one of those redistributors gives those copies for zero price, well, the software is also permanently zero-price.
IANAL, but programmers should obviously be able to understand this much - provided of course, that you read the license before you start coding using that as a codebase for your project.
Using a program or using source code without reading the license is like voting a dictator to power in the hope that his handsome looks will lead to good governance - dangerous, at the very least.
Hackers have long memories. It works both ways.
I have a question.
Pretend that you make some software that facilitates some service. The software can be distributed for free because the facilitated service makes money for you. If you release under the GPL, you basically shoot yourself in the foot because now anyone can set up a business just like yours by simply taking your code. What advantages does the GPL have for you?
I like the principles of the GPL, but I also understand why businesses stay away from it for the above mentioned reason. It can force you to give away your business model.
.there is enough of everything for everyone.
Ah!, but freedom isn't about the abolishment of all restrictions. There's also the other side of the coin, aka, "your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins." If freedom was only about the abolishment of all restrictions, then a statement such as: "We are the most free state in the world, for we permit slavery!" would make perfect sense. You would be hard pressed to find much agreement though; few if any people would agree to that definition of "freedom".
There are always two sides: "Freedom from" as well as "Freedom to".
Stefan Axelsson
They, IBM, RH, Autozone and Daimler amongst others have already paid millions in total to lawyers because according to SCO they didn't understand the license the propriatory code was licensed under.
Or they've paid millions because SCO has misunderstood the license they had for the code in their business.
But I suspect you won't see your argument applies to propriatory even more than to GPL3 because you're in a hate religion over the GPL3.
So that's where you get your problem with the GPL3 from. YOU have misunderstood the reason for the GPL.
Imagine if the printer that RMS wanted to fix had had driver code available but could not be used with the printer unless signed by the manufacturer. Would he have now been able to fix the bug that the mfg didn't want to fix?
No.
Since this scenario was the origin of the GPL, how does using DRM to stop the user installing a new GPL version on their device help?
See my journal, I write things there
We'd all much rather to live in a BSD society. Puffy for President!
In the context of BSD vs GPL posts:
BSD: BSD gives more freedom to users, because you (the user) can modify it a sell it as proprietary.
GPL: GPL gives more freedom to users, because you can't modify it and sell it (to users) as proprietary.
BSD and GPL advocates do seem to be usually referring to different groups of people. It isn't for licensing purposes that the clarification is needed, it's for discussion.
http://marriedmansexlife.com/
Well, it doesn't matter what "we the people" decide, because rights exist in an individual. Two or more people deciding that a third party's rights are not as important still are violating the rights of the few... which is exactly why our founders hated the idea of a direct democarcy, which is just a feel good version of mob rule.
As for your examples, those that do violence do need to be punished, since it's hard to imagine a crowd would only break things that belong to them, and not harm someone else. Incitement is not a valid law, in my mind.
If your speech causes someone harm (falsely yelling fire in the theater), it's not a right. Also, keep in mind that the ruling to which you refer was later limited more.
Fraud is also speech that causes harm (the harm usually deprevation of property) to another, and so you have no right to defraud anyone.
So I don't really see what your point with your examples were; I never said any one person had the right to harm another. Note that this is different from actions that MAY harm another, which "we the people" don't have any right to regulate.
society Bar is a truly free place. it allows anyone to beat anyone else Yes, exactly! Now imagine society Foo2 that restricts the actions of HAVING FRIENDS, TALKING, PLAYING MUSIC.
noone wants to live in society Bar, but who wants to live in Foo2?
A lot of posters are jumping to the conclusion that the article's FUD is because Mr Walsh is against the GPL.
I think it most likely that the purpose of instilling Fear Uncertainty and Doubt with the article is get more clients.
There is a lengthy article on GPLv3 vs Patents written by a law scholar in last years Open Source Jahrbuch 2007:
http://www.opensourcejahrbuch.de/download/jb2007
Article would be here:
http://www.opensourcejahrbuch.de/portal/article_show?article=osjb2007-07-05-boecker.pdf
They think "hey, this product is pretty good! I wonder why they can offer it so cheaply? They must have gotten some really good licenses for it!"
I run a game studio. I'm writing a game. Right now, the build process involves eleven different open-source libraries, with various LGPL, BSD, and zlib/libpng licenses.
I'm not taking the open-source libraries and closing them - I don't have modified versions of any of them. I'm building something separate, on top of those libraries. Yes, I'm "closing" the BSD libraries because I'm not distributing source, but why should anyone mind? I'm not modifying them - there's nothing of interest for me to distribute.
Now, if you think that I shouldn't be allowed to write a game that uses open-source libraries without open-sourcing my game, then I suppose that is your right - "if you're not contributing, we're not going to give us our toys". Fine, then. But sometimes, having a good shoulder to stand on can produce flat-out better software.
Breaking Into the Industry - A development log about starting a game studio.
No one is ripping anyone off here. Someone is simply taking advantage of someone else's work. That may be unfair, but it's not restricting anyone's freedom. If you don't like the GPL then don't use it's software, unfortunately for you, no-one will give a shit because generally you aren't paying for it, it's just one less user of something developed for free. Depending on the project, people may care a lot. Open source thrives on communities. Less users means smaller communities, less contributions, and lower quality software.
One of the reasons my employer embraces open source and tries to get as many employees active as committers and contributors of Apache projects (not GPL, admittedly), is because the more they contribute, the more those projects will support what we need. It's a mutually beneficial relationship.
Thanks, but no thanks. That kind of attitude is what kept OO.org on the back end for so long. That kind of attitude isn't needed in Open Source. That Kind of attitude slows down Open Source Development. Good! Let Tivo write their own OS if they want to dictate how it may be used. Thank you for proving that it isn't about "open and free", and that GPL3 is about controlling people's use. You just made my case for me, unwittingly or on purpose. The same is true of the GPLv3, of course. You don't have to ask anyone's "permission", you just have to abide by the terms of the license if you distribute the code - same as you did under GPLv2, except those terms are now slightly different. "slightly"? Hardly "slightly"! No longer is it about freeing the code so that it remains and all changes can be applied back to the original tree, now it is about dictating how, when and who can run the code. That is a substantial change.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Actually, you have it mostly right, but slightly off. RMS wanted the printer to do something it wasn't designed to do, print extra pages and send messages through the network to the users.
While RMS is fully capable of programming a printer to do this, and prove it could be useful, it also proved that the printer could be easily hacked for nefarious uses as well. If RMS could change the code on the printer, then anyone who had access to the printer could. If anyone could, someone would, and the result would be bricked printers, or printers spewing spam or whatever uncontrollably.
Would you like a printer that anyone on the network could change the code? And if not, how would you prevent nefarious hacking of the printer?
You see, if a hacker can hack it, so can a cracker. Thanks but no thanks.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
From the article: "... Any activity that leverages software for business advantage is likely to restrict the software's freedom ..."
So this is a piece written by a lawyer and this statement is an comp sci/business topic. Here is a good example to refute this statement:
GOOGLE - do they not leverage a lot of open source software and last time I checked they seem to be just a little profitable???
... if music be fruit of love, play on
The only frustrated ones are folks like me who get annoyed when the Tivo won't let us transfer the shows off the box. Tivo is nice, but occasionally they'll lock the owner out of things the owner really wants to do but that the content distributors aren't too keen on, and is pretty much the only reason why I'd want to run MythTV instead.
Now, if you think that I shouldn't be allowed to write a game that uses open-source libraries without open-sourcing my game, then I suppose that is your right -
I don't think anything of the sort.
I think there is tremendous value in there being software that people can build off of for commercial purposes... even the GPL crowd recognizes that with their own LGPL, which is BSD-like in that you can use it in commercial projects without open sourcing the result.
I just don't agree with people saying the BSD is 'inherently freer', because its not really. Even your own use of it resulted in proprietary software. So much for preserving 'freedom'. Don't get me wrong though, that's not a "bad" thing. Your software might not have been made otherwise. And you said yourself that by using it you made better software than otherwise. And above all the authors of the software you used gave you permission to do what you did. I don't have any criticism at all for what you did.
I just object to people up on a soap box telling me how GPL software is all restrictive while BSD is 'truly free', while using it to churn out non-free software.
do as i say, not as i do
Really, it all comes down to neither BSD nor GPL being strictly freer. They both prevent some freedoms in other to preserve others - they've simply chosen mutually exclusive freedoms. BSD prioritizes the freedom of the end user, GPL prioritizes the freedom of the source code.
It's just that they both have restrictions also, in one sense or another.
Breaking Into the Industry - A development log about starting a game studio.
Actually you have it mostly right, but slightly off. The GP had it right. Corroborating link
After all, crackers modify software all the time without access to the source code. You don't need source code to modify software: the source code just makes it easier. So you might as well say that everyone who's in favor of open source just needs to roll up their sleeves and put in a little reverse-engineering effort like a real man, right?
Well, no. It isn't merely a matter of degree. Modifying software without access to the source code isn't just a little harder, it's so much harder that it's impractical and, in most cases, simply wouldn't get done.
Similarly, building your own Tivo clone -- not a MythTV box but something that'll actually run the rest of the Tivo software -- isn't just bothersome, it's impractical. It wouldn't get done, and thus the software wouldn't get modified or put to effective use. It defeats the purpose of the GPL just like withholding the source code would, even though it doesn't violate the letter of the GPLv2. Thank you for proving that it isn't about "open and free", and that GPL3 is about controlling people's use. You just made my case for me, unwittingly or on purpose. Well, it was a poor choice of words for me to say "if they want to dictate how it may be used", because as you and I both know, the GPLv3 doesn't restrict use any more than the GPLv2 does. It restricts distribution. No longer is it about freeing the code so that it remains and all changes can be applied back to the original tree, now it is about dictating how, when and who can run the code. That's simply not true: it restricts distribution, not use. Are you just mistaken, or are you lying on purpose?
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Even if the GPLv3 does nothing to compel web sites who hide their sources behind their pages, to open up, it was considered and it is ultimately coming down the pike from the FOSS community. Even if the GPLV3 does nothing to prevent someone from making a closed application on Linux, such activities are at odds with the spirit of the FOSS community and again, such restrictions are coming.
Sources? This is a brand new claim I have yet to see in any other forum. Considering that GPLv3 is barely a year old, color me highly skeptical that anyone is actively planning this right now.We are the 198 proof..
Yes, I suppose it is in many cases just too tempting for some scum bags. You give a thief an easy opportunity and they'll take a chance of making off with the goods without being caught.
Your twisted reciprocal argument aside, and ignoring the fact your posting as an anonymous coward, you may want to set aside your ill conceived notions of what the GPL is and how it works and maybe try reading the license and examining how many companies are making shitpiles of money off GPLed software without having to steal it or give the shitpiles of money to the original developers of the code.
So, if I get on TV and say I'll give $10,000 to whoever brings me the severed head of plague3106, you'd say I haven't done anything wrong?
Nope. Those that actually attempt to harm me are the ones in the wrong. See, that's part of the problem today; more and more we're pushing responsiblity for one person's actions onto more and more people. But at the end of the day though, YOU are responsible for not harming someone else. I have to ask; if you saw an ad on TV that offered $10,000 for my head, would you go after it?
The point was to illustrate that most of us, even you, already accept that the right to free speech is sometimes overshadowed by other rights. Once we agree on that, we're just quibbling over which and when.
Not quite. Your rights don't extend to limiting or infringing on the rights of others. I don't know why you think I've accepted your beliefs, because I thought I made it pretty clear that I don't. If someone DID cause harm from yelling something, then it was never the person's right to yell. If no harm was done, then the person did have a right to say whatever they said. But we can't really know until after the fact.
A password. That's how I would prevent nefarious hacking of the printer. An administrator settable password. Just like the way the OpenWRT firmware on linksys routers can be updated but still prevent nefarious hacking. You see, if a hacker can hack it, so can a cracker. Thanks but no thanks. Its really the other way around, even if a hacker can't hack it, chances are a cracker can still crack it. See how every attempt by Tivo to keep their recordings encrypted has failed, despite all the effort they've put in to prevent regular programmers from running custom firmware. Crackers win anyways, but the regular user is crippled.
Yelling "fire" in a crowded theater doesn't harm anyone in itself: the harm comes later, when the panicked patrons trample each other as they try to escape from the phony fire. By your logic, shouldn't you prosecute the tramplers, not the guy who set off the panic in the first place? How can you be opposed to that indirect harm -- which may not have even been the yeller's intent -- while giving a free pass to the guy who hires a hit man?
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Me, personally? No. But I'm sure some people would. By saying it's all right to offer large cash rewards for murder, you're making it legal for wealthy people to have their enemies killed, because there will always be someone who's willing to take up the offer if the price is right.
What, this doesn't happen now? That's pretty naive.
I got the impression that you agreed with me when you said you agreed with my examples where the harm is indirect.
It's not whether or not it's indirect; it's whether or not any actual harm has occured.
By your logic, shouldn't you prosecute the tramplers, not the guy who set off the panic in the first place? How can you be opposed to that indirect harm -- which may not have even been the yeller's intent -- while giving a free pass to the guy who hires a hit man?
Prosecute both. Why is it acceptable to trample over someone when you're trying to save yourself? The person that yelled fire in your example caused an event that caused harm.. so prosecute. If on the other hand everyone ignored him, tell him to leave (since he's distrupting the movie).
As for hiring a hitman, that's a bit different than announcing something on TV. In the former, you HAVE located someone that will do the killing. In the latter, most will ignore, those that don't ignore will kill someone for money whether or not you make it illegal. Which is absurd, because people conspiring to kill someone aren't going to say it out in the open anyway. So what is the point of making the speech itself illegal? At least if the threat went out over the TV, the target has a chance to hear about it and respond.
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All I can say, is that the judge that handles any lawsuit on this had damn well better not screw it up.
It's not legal now, and I for one can't think of the last time I saw one citizen offering a cash bounty for another citizen's head.
Ahh, because you can't see it, it doesn't happen. I see.
The person who offers a big pile of money as an incentive to commit murder is causing an event that caused harm, too, but for some reason you don't want to prosecute him.
I thought you wouldn't commit murder for money though? Oh, I see, you're a special case, and the rest of the unwashed masses surely would. See, I can say something, and there's a good chance nothing will come from it. Remember, even people that WOULD kill for money wouldn't go out and kill without attempting to confirm, yes, there will be a paycheck. At that point though, the threat becomes very real. But there's also no guarantee that won't happen.
Still, it's just speech, right? You're contradicting yourself.
You may want to look at the legal definition of conspiracy. As a hint though, conspiracy requires you to actually take actions that would lead to harm, not just talk about it.
To discourage people from making the offer in the first place, obviously. No offer = no incentive for others to commit the murder.
The offer still gets made, only underground. Just as it would have been without the law on speech, by the way. One trying to hire another to kill a third person doesn't want that information out, because it at least gives the third party a chance to run. Again, you're being REALLY naive.
People that kill for money and those that hire them already are not listening to the law.. so what's the point of another law forbidding the speech? Do you think no one has an unregistered gun because possing unregistered guns is illegal?
Just like no one would get trampled in that theater if not for the false alarm. Would you trample someone if you were trying to escape from a burning theater? I hope not, but there's still a good chance that someone would. You may want to look at the legal definition of conspiracy. As a hint though, conspiracy requires you to actually take actions that would lead to harm, not just talk about it. So make up your mind: is it OK in your opinion to call up a hit man and say "I'll give you $10,000 to kill this dude", or isn't it? Remember, until the money changes hands, it's just speech. The offer still gets made, only underground. Sure - less often than if it were legal. One trying to hire another to kill a third person doesn't want that information out, because it at least gives the third party a chance to run. Again, you're being REALLY naive. Oh, I'm being naive? I guess you've never heard of the concept of bounties. I suggest you read some history or current events - they've been commonly used in the past, and even today in the "war on terror".
Often, the benefit of having hundreds or thousands of bounty hunters on your victim's trail outweighs the fact that the victim knows he's being hunted (particularly if the victim already knew someone was after him and was already taking precautions). Do you think no one has an unregistered gun because possing unregistered guns is illegal? What's this, the fallacy of the excluded middle? As a matter of fact, I do believe that fewer people have unregistered guns than would if it were legal. Not none, but fewer.
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It's nice to see a /.'er recognize just how powerful the court system, and its judges, really are.
I just hope that the court system doesn't screw it up the way it's been doing with the RIAA's subpoena requesting rampage.
It happens less than it would if it were legal. I can't believe you're claiming otherwise.
I assume you have some proof to back up your claim? Seems to me illegal drug use has been rising, dispite the fact that it's illegal. Speed limits are another good example. They really don't work because no one listens to them anyway. I also tend to think though that people would have a harder time wanting to actually kill someone than speed.
"The rest"? No. But it only takes one person - one person who wouldn't have acted at all if not for the offer of cash.
Ahh.. so we should have bad, ineffective laws because of one person. Maybe we should ban words with more than two syllables, so stupid people have an easier time in life. Or better, let's go back to using pictures!
Just like no one would get trampled in that theater if not for the false alarm. Would you trample someone if you were trying to escape from a burning theater? I hope not, but there's still a good chance that someone would.
You make some heavy assumptions. I assume you have a study that says in an overwhelming majority of cases when there's a false alarm people are trampled? I don't have a study, but I have been through my fair number of false alarms.. no one yelled fire, but the fire alarm was activated. No one was trampled. I don't even recall a news story in my lifetime where a false fire alarm caused someone to be trampled to death... can you find some with-in the last 10 years? And then lookup an estimate of the number of false alarms that occur?
So make up your mind: is it OK in your opinion to call up a hit man and say "I'll give you $10,000 to kill this dude", or isn't it? Remember, until the money changes hands, it's just speech.
Just the act of calling is fine. But as soon as some other action takes place to carry out the hit, it becomes illegal. So money changing hands, the hitman buying a map or getting my address. Which is really funny I think that way, because that's how consipricy laws are written. But you seem to think that's not enough.
Sure - less often than if it were legal.
Offer evidence, not your speculation.
Oh, I'm being naive? I guess you've never heard of the concept of bounties. I suggest you read some history or current events - they've been commonly used in the past, and even today in the "war on terror".
Yes you are being naive. I've heard of bounties, and my contention is that the law doesn't reduce the amount of murder conspiricies. But please, offer me something that backs up your point, other than your speculation.
What's this, the fallacy of the excluded middle? As a matter of fact, I do believe that fewer people have unregistered guns than would if it were legal. Not none, but fewer.
As I said, naive.