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Suit Claims Diebold Voting Machines Violate GPL
An anonymous reader writes "Diebold Inc. and its subsidiary, Premier Election Solutions, is using Ghostscript in its electronic election systems even though Diebold and PES 'have not been granted a license to modify, copy, or distribute any of Artifex's copyrighted works,' Artifex claims in court papers filed late last month in US District Court for Northern California. The gs-devel list first brought up the possible GPL violation a year ago."
When they sell the machine to the buyer it is distributing the software that the machine runs.
The GPL only applies when you distribute software. They are probably not distributing the software outside their own company.
For one of the people who will be running the election hall on election day, when they get delivery of the election machine, is that counted as receiving a copy of the software?
The machine itself is closed and locked down, and most likely cannot be opened without a special key from Diebold.
If that is not the case, hit me with a cluebat.
The software is distributed with the voting machines.
IANAL, but that should mean that Diebold are required to supply the source to people/organizations that buy their machines.
I think they sell the electronic ballots. This _is_ distributing the software and, as far as I understand the GPL, it's also a copyright violation.
It would be sweet if by some courtroom magic we could use Diebold to fund lots of open source development.
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
The GPL is pretty strict about any distribution requiring source being made available. Embedded devices are no exception.
Diebold and PES 'have not been granted a license to modify, copy, or distribute any of Artifex's copyrighted works
In a later statement, Artifex said that they would overlook this violation if all the machines were reconfigured to auto-vote for Obama.
Summation 2
In this case that means every voter can demand diebold's source, which in a Free Society can only be considered a Good Thing.
Changa hates change.
You do know that there are is a filter in your preferences that let you filter by "author".
Learn your preferences. Use them.
Then complain if you can't filter shit out.
Would not want anyone of questionable ethics that would steal or worse help by counting votes. /sarcasm
Actually, maybe if it was Microsoft Suit Claims Diebold Voting Machines Violate GPL.
There's been a revision: http://www.theonion.com/content/video/voting_machines_elect_one_of
But not half as cheap and simple as using paper and pencil, and having thousands of volunteers counting in parallel. Oh I know, sometimes the electoral ballots are huge in the US, but really, why does it have to be such bloody rigmarole every time there's an election there?
Moron. The machines in question are running win2k. The software they are distributing with their close systems is ghostscript, which is dual licensed. They either have to have the AFPL commercial license for closed distribution, which they do not, or they have to adhere to the GPL, which they are not.
According to the MPAA and RIAA, Diabold are stealing software. The fact their systems are flawed and they fight tooth and nail to avoid any inspection of their voting machines, also adds insult. Now we know why, they are thieving pirates.
When they sell the machine to the buyer it is distributing the software that the machine runs.
Google Linksys, they were in a similar situation a few years ago. I'd love to see the same outcome this time!
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
The software is distributed with the voting machines.
IANAL, but that should mean that Diebold are required to supply the source to people/organizations that buy their machines.
More likely, they will buy the alternative license for GhostScript: GS's own "AFPL" license.
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
Look, the GPL gives Diebold the explicit right to use that software, so long as they distribute it themselves.
What? The GPL gives them the right to use and modify the software, as long as they don't distribute it. If they distribute it (say, by selling a voting machine that runs a copy of the software) they have to provide the source. They have not provided any source.
all they've done is establish that the free software movement is really free subject to arbitrary whims and conditions.
The conditions are not arbitrary. They are clearly spelled out in the GPL, which is much easier to read and obey than any proprietary license.
At least if they had used Microsoft Windows internally, they would have been free of any political considerations for license compliance.
Read the second link in the blurb. The voting machines in question run Windows 2000. Guess what, GhostScript runs on Windows too.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
It would be sweet if by some courtroom magic we could use Diebold to fund lots of open source development.
More likely, this will turn into MS FUD about how the GPL is cancer.
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
Seriously, why do people still publish under the GPL?
These ridiculous lawsuits scare the crap out of anyone who would want to legitimately use open source software, and they completely go against the idea of freedom.
Every time a lawsuit like this happens, it is a huge setback to the open source community. If someone wants to use your software, you have succeeded. Isn't that enough? Software will never be free until this damned license warfare comes to an end.
As trolls go, this one is far too unsubtle. You need to try harder.
Dear Diebold,
Due to security problems, many states are no longer going to use voting machines sold by by your company. From a warranty standpoint, your product never lived up to our expectation, there for we want our money returned.
American Tax Payer
PS: Don't you also provide Bank ATM's? Should we be concerned about security of these devices too?
It's my understanding that anyone who has "object code" is also entitled to "source code."
This means the owners of the voting machines have standing to sue. If the machines are leased, depending on how the courts determine what distribution means when a lease is involved, the local governments may or may not have standing.
The copyright owner might only have a claim of "license violation" if an owner asked for and was denied the source code.
There's also the whole issue of "how viral is viral." If the printing code is done as an independent program, then Diebold might only be obliged to release it. After all, if I publish a BSD LiveCD that contains some GPL programs, I'm obligated to publish the GPL source but not the source to BSD-licensed code. The same would apply if the PDF-generating code were in a self-contained application in the "rom filesystem" in the firmware.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Thanks! I had a brain fart there.
They have not provided any source.
Are they withholding the source to the GPL code?
Read the second link in the blurb. The voting machines in question run Windows 2000. Guess what, GhostScript runs on Windows too.
Well, in that case then, Diebold is even extra stupid and probably should just get sued for that. There's absolute no reason you need ghostscript on a Windows box when GDI is perfectly capable of producing device independent output natively.
This is my sig.
"The routers are mean to be as locked up as a voting machine, but because of the GPL they are forced to distribute the source"
..
No one is forcing Diebold Inc. to use Ghostscript in its electronic election systems
davecb5620@gmail.com
Based on the totally inadequate summary it seems like there is no violation, except perhaps the minor one of Diebold not having their own ftp site with the normal GPLed gs code available (which they could fix in an hour).
I mean if Diebold didn't modify gs but merely used it on their machines they are only required to distributed the standard gs code. The mere fact that gs runs on the same machine doesn't make the rest of the diebold code a derived work. It's all about what is a derived work of the gs code.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
Real question here - I am not a lawyer, so I'm curious. Say for the purpose of argument, the Diebold machine runs Win2k, and happens to have a stock, unmodified copy of Ghostscript which it uses on that system for creating and printing a "receipt" of some sort.
Given that scenario, under the GPL, is Diebold still required to make a copy of the ghostscript code available, if they've made no modifications to it? Or could they simply put on their web site, "Diebold uses the open-source tool Ghostscript, v8.2.1, which can be downloaded from "?
It doesn't make sense that running the ghostscript app on their system would force them to provide "all the source code for their entire system," and it also doesn't make sense that if they're using the app unmodified, they should have to provide for some sort of hosting mechanism when there's already a definitive hosting platform for it and they're "just using" the app as distributed by that company.
So I'm curious - anybody have any insight?
After RTFA (which does not even mention GPL) and the gs-devel post, it would seem that the lawsuit most likely centers around their in-house "AFPL" which apparently forbids commercial usage (regardless of source availability). One would have to find the actual filing to know for sure.
If you distribute you must give source, does not matter if you change it or not.
Actually, if you look at the mail thread linked in the summary, they *ARE* doing this on Windows.
Someone looking at the setup noticed some Ghostscript files being changed so he mailed the gs-devel list asking for ideas.
Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe under the GPL they only need to show the GhostScript source to the people who bought the machines (that is, whoever takes care of elections in the US, assuming someone does). Unless Diebold really used a non-GPL version of Ghostscript, I don't think the lawsuit is reasonable. And if it is about a the AFPL version of Ghostscript, it's not a GPL issue, obviously.
It sounds to me like they are distributing a GPL program without distributing the source code, which I believe is required regardless of whether the source is modified or not.
Apparently elections aren't the only thing they steal.
You're right. 1) At most they only have to provide this to the people that they've sold machines to. Anyone else can go roger a knothole. 2) Aggregation, as you note, doesn't lead to licensing infection.
Sigh. The GPLv2 makes it perfectly clear that the "offer to provide source code" method of binary distribution can only be passed on from a third party for non-commercial distribution.
3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:
a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)
The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it. For an executable work, complete source code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the executable. However, as a special exception, the source code distributed need not include anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component itself accompanies the executable.
If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering access to copy from a designated place, then offering equivalent access to copy the source code from the same place counts as distribution of the source code, even though third parties are not compelled to copy the source along with the object code.
It's pretty straightforward english.
How we know is more important than what we know.
I hope that your Linux doesn't have a shell.
They would have to give source for the version they used. Putting a gostscript.tar.gz in the c:/ would have been good enough.
Linking to a license text or source code on servers other than yours. This amounts to GPL Section "3c" (passing on a written offer), which is only valid for non-commercial distribution. They committed commercial distribution. So they should have just dropped a src tar on the machine or on a cd that came with it.
That is a requirement of the GPL.
Your little guess is called paragraph 3c and only applies to non-commercial distribution. This was clearly commercial distribution.
If you distribute a GPL program, you are required to specify that you are using GPL software, and you must let your users know their rights to view, modify and distribute the source code. Additionally, you are required to give them the source, or offer to do so.
The GPL is more or less straightforward and easy to understand. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.txt
Write your own Choose Your Own Adventure. http://www.freegameengines.org/gamebook-engine/
If you distribute binaries you have to distribute the source or provide some mechanism for getting the source for 3 years. It doesn't matter what makes sense or not: these are the rules the GPL makes up.
There was recently a court case that said since that the GPL and other such licenses could make up any sort of rules they want essentially.
Oh so THAT's why only blue districts need anti-virus applied just before election day
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Diebold probably didn't offer the source code or include it, but since they only need to make the offer to the recipients (i.e. the various states that bought the machines), there's really no way of knowing whether they did or didn't make this offer.
Even if Diebold completely and deliberately violated the GPL, without at least some sort of prima facie evidence that Diebold distributed the code without making this offer, a GPL violation would surely be hard to prove, or even provide sufficient evidence for the case not to be dismissed outright.
They don't even need a public FTP site unless they have a public FTP site for the binaries. Unless the software that uses ghostscript is a derived work, supplying the ghostscript source on the hard disk or on any reasonable medium with the machines would be enough to satisfy the terms of the GPL.
"'He Is Going To Pay For My Gas And Mortgage'"
Every vote needs to count, even people too stupid to know better get to vote.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
What? The GPL gives them the right to use and modify the software, as long as they don't distribute it.
Wrong, the GPL does NOT give them the right to use and modify it. They already have the right to use and modify it under normal copyright law, as long as they don't distribute it. I know it sounds like nitpicking, but it's actually a pretty important distinction, because it's important to understand that you have these rights with non-GPL'd software too.
The GPL only gives them additional rights concerning redistribution (including distributing modified versions), subject to certain conditions which they apparently have not met.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
GPL authors generally do not want to put code out there to be used as a no-cost alternative to commercial development libraries and programs, while getting nothing in return.
Basically, the "license fee" for GPL code is that the person/company reselling it must give back changes and/or distribute source. And they must abide by any attribution demands as well.
Or negotiate a commercial use license. MySQL does that.
It doesn't matter what makes sense or not: these are the rules the GPL makes up.
Hrmph. That accurately sums up my take on the GPL/FSF, too!
The outcome of the Linksys situation was that code was released giving people enough information to run Linux on consumer hardware. I can't imagine they have changed Ghostscript in any way that would be useful or interesting to consumers.
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
The GPL does specifically state that you need to host the source for at least 3 years, if its modified or not.
Its so you will always be able to find a copy.
Older versions seem to be more difficult to find.
And no they only need to provide source to their customers for the GPLed parts.
Are they withholding the source to the GPL code?
Would they be sued if they were?
There's absolute no reason you need ghostscript on a Windows box when GDI is perfectly capable of producing device independent output natively. .mdi is propietary. .ps is open and understood by just about every printer in existance. That's plenty of reason to use ghostscript.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
While I appreciate the information you provided & thank you for it, please bear in mind that not all of us have read the GPL from start to finish, or have a copy on hand to cut and paste from. The condescension is not strictly necessary.
I asked that question seriously, because I don't understand the legal nuances of the GPL and hoped someone could answer the question - I've received several informative answers, yours included. When you answer questions in this fashion, you only serve to alienate people who are just looking for information or clarification.
The stakes are very low, and powerful interests really don't care who wins.
Relax!
you had me at #!
Would be cool if you could fill out a form online, and print out a barcode to be scanned at the polling place. Have it so that anyone can check the code online, for the results. not tying a person to the code in question, but allowing for that person to validate themselves.
For those without a computer web accessible computers with printers could be used by people at the polling place. Would be pretty reasonable, and probably cost less than the specialized eVoting hardware.
Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info
Yeah, sorry. We've been discussing the GPL on Slashdot for a good decade now. It's required reading material. You wouldn't go to a bible meeting and ask "Who's this Jesus guy you keep talking about?" Ok, bad example, their eyes would light up like Christmas trees. :)
How we know is more important than what we know.
well hey, if you want to agree to the contract, then you are bound by it. I dunno what you're on about.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
I should add to this that I suspect something more is going on otherwise no suit would be being filled. I was just saying that from just the info in the summary it didn't seem like a violation.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
Ok, bad example, their eyes would light up like Christmas trees. :)
One gets the impression reading Slashdot that a geek questioned about the GPL would have a similar response.
Understood. But to refine your example of a bible meeting further, I didn't ask "What is this GPL thing you're talking about?" I asked about how the "distribution" clause of the GPL would impact this particular scenario, because it isn't immediately obvious to me how it would work. Think of it more like going to the bible meeting and asking, "What's all this I hear about turning water into wine?"
It may be obvious and well-known information to people who are familiar with the bible, but to someone who has only passing knowledge of the bible, it's not a question that's so basic that the ramifications of the answer are immediately obvious.
That said, I do appreciate the information contained in your initial response. I understand the "RTFGPL, we've been talking about it for 10 years" frustration, just felt it was worth pointing out that my question was an honest attempt to increase my own understanding of how the GPL works in a practical situation such as this. I don't write code for a living, so software licensing is not a domain I'm familiar with.
If it is a good question. But if you ask a question about the GPL without first reading the GPL, then you're not asking a good question.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Likely Diebold is going to make the case that it's a matter of national security, which any god-fearing judge is going to accept.
Of course we realize it's a stupid argument and shouldn't be accepted but it doesn't change the fact that they can easily use a lot of scary words like "source code" or "open" or "free."
If you can read this, I forgot to post anonymously.
The code was Linux.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
Well, now that I've been informed what constitutes a good question, I'll make sure that next time I have a question for my doctor, I read a relevant Anatomy & Physiology book first. And god forbid I ask any lawyer for advice without having first gotten a year or two of law school out of the way.
If you found my question to be lacking, you could have simply ignored the question and carried on with your business on Slashdot. However, by behaving as if the mere fact of a question about the application of the GPL is some sort of personal affront to you, what you've managed to do is make yourself look like a pedantic douchebag.
And then open source advocates will wonder why they have a problem getting the general public to understand what all the fuss is about... I wonder why.
The outcome of this may be that we get the source to the voting machines, so we can analyse it for election rigging. Far more useful than running custom Linux builds on Linksys hardware in my opinion.
You pay your doctor and your lawyer right?
There's a difference.
How we know is more important than what we know.
But... but... but...
how does one install yum?
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
And as an unpaid contributor to Slashdot, you are more than welcome to pass on by my question without a second thought, and let some other person take a stab at it if they wish. Instead, you seem to have concluded that my question was some sort of a personal affront that you couldn't let go unanswered.
If you're inclined to pontificate about the terms of a "good" question, then I'll exercise my freedom to state the terms of what I consider an acceptable answer. Your condescension only serves to alienate people who might otherwise be interested in learning more about the GPL & its implications.
The code was already found on a public FTP site by the founder of blackboxvoting.org
The code is totally insecure, and has many vulnerabilities.
Rest assured, there are multiple ways to rig the voting machines.
The outcome may be that you get the source to the ghostscript library that runs on the machine, which probably looks like the source to every other ghostscript library in the world.
Or rather, you probably won't get it. The election officials who ordered the machine will get it.
Distribution the output of the software ie the ballots, is outside the scope of the GPL.
Letting people use your computer which contains free software is also outside the scope of the GPL.
I'm trying to give you some advice here.
But hey, don't listen to me, go ahead and continue asking geeks questions that are answered already.. see how far you get.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Well your opinion is yours and mine is mine.
DD-wrt and Tomato firmware versions are very useful, giving far greater control over internet access from my IP even traffic shaping certain troublesome Lan IP's. Is there better default router firmware for the home market (or even small business LAN).
There are two cases with the voting machines fraud or no fraud.
If the machines can be shown to be rigged, it will not be shown. It will be top secret.
Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
I have to admit that I had to look nearly every part of it, but "Go roger a knothole" is probably my new favorite expression.
See Artifex Software Inc. v. Diebold Inc. et al for details on the suit which has the number 3:2008cv04837.
Today I used a step above and beyond: I used paper and felt-tipped PEN, and filled in the dots next to the people I wanted to vote for. Then I put my vote into a bin, to be optically scanned for an automagical count at 8pm tonight, and then hand-counted at leisure over the next day or so. The optical-scan is the one immediately reported, and the hand-count is the official one.
I really don't understand the problems with voting. How is it that my small town can figure it out, yet it seems that nobody else can?
Limit your voters to a couple of thousand per voting site, give each site a stack of ballots and a box of pens, and an optical scanner. Scan for immediate results, hand-count to double-check the accuracy. This isn't rocket science.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
I suspect most of the frustration comes from the fact that complete ignorance of the GPL doesn't seem to stop people commenting on it (or on using it to license their code, sadly).
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
While I appreciate the information you provided & thank you for it, please bear in mind that not all of us have read the GPL from start to finish, or have a copy on hand to cut and paste from. The condescension is not strictly necessary.
http://www.google.com.au/search?q=GPL
First result: http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
The condescension was not strictly necessary, but not completely unwarranted either. This is not the Ubuntu mailing list, there to gently guide to towards understanding. There would be many here who think that if you're going to discuss the GPL, it isn't too much to expect you to read it first. If you don't, it is not up to us to make sure you feel good about that.
http://marriedmansexlife.com/
I'm trying to give you some advice here.
Once he pulled you up on your attitude instead of being embarrassed at not having just looked it up himself, you should have realised the futility of this.
http://marriedmansexlife.com/
I was about to say the same. :-P
No existe.
It could be GPL. Is Diebold making the source to Ghostscript, as used in their product, available?
They would have to do that if it's GPL. This would not require them to release source to other software on the disk. There is a difference between aggregation and the creation of a derivative work. A program that just calls Ghostscript to run isn't a derivative work of Ghostscript.
There is a contrary point of view, which is that Diebold is releasing not an aggregation (like a book of short stories) but a complete product. That product is composed of many parts, none of which can be removed without making it incapable of performing its essential functions. The product is therefore "derived from" (in the sense of copyright law) all of its essential parts. If one of those parts is licensed to Diebold under the GPL, then they must license their product to others under the GPL.
That contrary view is not the view that most people take, but I believe it is a reasonable argument under the law.
At least if they had used Microsoft Windows internally, they would have been free of any political considerations for license compliance.
Yeah - go ahead and try to distribute thousands of voting machines containing Windows without a license and see what happens.
If you want to distribute software, you need a license. You might pay money for it, or you might barter in some other way (such as providing source for all modifications to the software).
If anything the GPL grants far more freedom to distribute software than the Windows license does. Under the windows license you can't distribute the software at all without making all kinds of deals with Microsoft (for a pretty penny I'm sure) - the best you could do without cutting a deal is to buy a ton of retail licenses and install them on each machine. You can't even mass-duplicate paid-for windows installs without going through some hoops (OEM agreement, volume license, etc).
Yeah, good point. But hey, posting on Slashdot is like running in the special olympics......
How we know is more important than what we know.
Does this mean we can retroactively negate all the votes made on them because they were made illegally???
They could fix it in an hour. But they have already violated Artifex's copyright by their previous distribution, and if Artifex wants financial compensation for this, they are, I assume (IANAL), within their legal rights.
Moreover, if the license is GPLv2, then clause 4 kicks in: "You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License." This may mean that Diebold has permanently lost their license to use gs. This clause, I think, is rarely enforced. Most of us who write GPLv2-licensed software would be happy to let an infringing party become compliant and continue distributing the software. Also, some folks think that if one just re-downloads a new copy of the GPLv2-licensed software from a legal distributor, one gets a fresh license. I have no idea if that's true.
Let's reiterate this one more time, and again and again until everyone gets it right:
copyright infringement != theft
copyright infringement != piracy
This is true even if the infringers are assholes like Diebold.
If opportunity came disguised as temptation, one knock would be enough.
3^2 * 67^1 * 977^1
McCain had the honor and integrity and dropped out of the race.
The only gripe left is software patents, which may be null and void soon enough since slashdot doesn't seem to care reporting about it (with my list completely open to every topic.)
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
would 5 1/4" floppy be a reasonable medium?
So, you have an internet connection that lets you get to slashdot, but not (among other places) http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html?
That is still vulnerable to permitting people to sell their votes.
Here's what the electronic voting machine at my polling place (Cook County, IL) did:
You walked up, punched in all of your various choices. At the end of the process you had a few screens of bulk confirmations digitally. When you confirmed, it went to a second set of confirmations. In an enclosed case next to the screen was a receipt roll and printer. Page by page, it printed out your votes in plain text for you to review. For example:
CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION
NO
US PRESIDENT
BARAK OBAMA & JOE BIDEN
These receipts were never provided to you, meaning there was no way for you to verify to an outside party that you voted in any specific ways. However they were presented for your review, and presumably they would be used in any recount.
I've been thinking about this system since then, and it seems pretty solid from a paper trail/verifiability standpoint. Obviously with any digital system there is the issue of the code in the machines itself, machine tampering, etc.
So what you're saying is that we should tolerate fuckwits like you who comment on stuff they know nothing about?
I think not.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
without any mention of the fact that they just could have bought a GS lisence :|
If you obey the GPL by not distributing the licensed code, that means the public can't oversee the vote counting process because it isn't being told how it's done or where.
That's kinda' bad. It's bad almost to the point of letting Diebold appoint which ever president they want, meaning you're not a democracy any longer.
Okay, so you might want to do the same procedure for three independent vendors and use the average. That's like letting Hitler, Mussolini and Franco appoint a president of the USA as long as they agree on who to appoint.
The public MUST have oversight. The public MUST have access to descriptions of how the voting process works, end to end. Reasonable governmental effort SHOULD be put into making the process easy to understand and well-known to most people. The process MUST be simple enough that most people can understand it.
Otherwise, the public as a whole can in no way know that the vote counts bears resemblance to the votes cast.
That is, whoever gets to count the votes is the dictator for life. You have lost democracy. Do you want your civil liberties identified? [yn] _
I don't think this threat is real, right now. But the need to defend against it is still there. You don't put a bullet-proof vest on after the bullet has been fired.
No, you're wrong. The offer only has to be passed on with the distribution. The offer itself has to be redistributable (so the recipient can redistribute what they recieved), but nothing in the GPL obliges the distributor to distribute the offer to "everyone".
without any mention of the fact that they just could have bought a GS lisence :|
That's the whole point: it appears that they did not. I know, one has to open TFA to get that far, though, sorry...
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
This is the machine based on Windows and Access, right? Did they outsource the main code to a high school class?
I can believe it though. I worked for a place that bought a specialized Oracle system. You could print your uber-complex reports to dead tree but there was no way to save or share them. Set the place up with "print-to-postscript" and a ghostscript reader.
Well you've gotten flamed. /. . Then you really should read it and think about it. Spend an hour doing so. Think back to school and how many hours you had to spend to appreciate some subtly of your course work.
But, if you have any real interest, it is not a long document. If you write software or consume software and are self selected by being on
One ting to keep in mind, the GPL does not require publishing the source on a website. It requires to offer it to the recipient of the distribution, attached with the right to redistribute under the same terms.
So Diebold's obligation is not to put it on a website for all public. They can deliver it on a CD or similar. But any of the counties and states that receive it, can re-publish it in any way they want.
Busy helping non technical users of OpenOffice.org - http://plan-b-for-openoffice.org/
I use OpenWRT. It is great. You missed the point. With Linksys, the code in question was a modified version of Linux. That is what got released.
In this case, the code is a probably not modified version of Ghostscript. If it gets released, it won't help anybody.
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
When they sell the machine to the buyer it is distributing the software that the machine runs.
And if the SCO group was somehow involved, it's interesting to note they would be 'claiming' you could be sued by them for using these machines to vote on.
Since they violate the IP that is :-)
Has Comcast disconnected your Internet account? Same here. You can read about it at http://comcastissue.blogspot.com
Thirded. Best expression ever.
If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)
The license for Ghostscript is ONLY GPL if the rest of the stuff it is being shipped with is GPL, otherwise you need a commercial license. So if they want to ship Ghostscript using the GPL license then that means the whole voting machine software has to be GPL. http://www.artifex.com/indexlicense.htm
They don't need an ftp site. They just need to ship the source on the machines somewhere. You, the end user, don't need access to it - only whoever owns the voting machine does.
is competition good, or is duplication of effort bad?
If the code is under the GPL, and they distribute the code, then they are required to provide the source either at the time of distribution, or on request for the next 3? 7? (I should look this up, but I'm lazy) years.
If they provide the source at the time of distribution, then they have no further obligations, and only the purchasers are entitled to the source. If they don't, then I believe that anyone is entitled to request the source. (I'd have to check the license again to be certain of that part.)
Anyway, the easy way to handle it is to distribute the source with the application, and that's what I do. If, however, you sell lots, then it becomes cheaper to set up an ftp site...but you can also insist that anyone who wants to get the code from you mail in a request, and you can bill for "reasonable shipping and handling". (I read that as "you aren't supposed to make money on the shipping and handling, but it shouldn't cost you either".)
(I'm pretty clear about what applies if you ship the code with the application...but I'm less clear about the options I don't use.)
N.B.: This only applies to the GPL licensed code. Ghostscript is a separate chunk of code, so if they didn't embed it into their program, all they would need to do is ship the Ghostscript code as they had shipped it with the binary. This is likely to be a nothing suit. (OTOH, anything that gets in the way of the corrupt Diebold voting machines is good, and if it *should* result in their sale being prevented, even better. And they MAY have altered the code to print results other than what were calculated, who knows.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
There's no obligation to put it on a web site, but I believe that unless they distribute the source code at the same time that they distribute the application, they need to make the source code available to anyone who asks.
OTOH, that's just the source code to the GPL code. There's nothing that says their Visual Basic code has to be made available for all to ruin their eyes on. (Well, they were reported many years ago as using MSAccess as their database.)
Anyway, snideness aside, their code is their code, and licensed however they choose. Other people's code, however, is licensed as the other people choose. The part that's under GPL has a requirement that you make the source code available...either at the time of distribution to the recipient or on request by anyone, your choice. But after you've distributed it, you've already chosen. (But, of course, this requirement only applies to the GPL code. I once called an Eiffel program that I write from MSAccess. The Eiffel program was GPL [not that it mattered, I was just being purist], but that certainly didn't mean that I had to distribute MSAccess.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
I rather like the Scantron(tm?)(sp?) system we used this time. You black out a section (i.e., fill in an arrow) on a piece of paper for each vote. You can see what you've done. The votes are fed into an optical scanner, which immediately counts them. Then the paper copies are saved as an audit trail. Simple, fast, elegant, cheap, and easy. And verifiable.
And it was debugged by IBM on high school exams, SATs, PSATs, etc. Years ago.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
You are wrong here on both counts.
The GPL does state that you can
b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
to fulfill your source code obligation. "Accompany", I think, indicates you only have to make that offer to the person you distribute the code to. No mention needing to make it publicly available.
However, you can not restrict the right of the party you give it too to distribute/publish it as they see fit (with in the license of the GPL).
You are also (potentially) wrong regarding only offering the code that is already under the GPL. As often mentioned the GPL is viral in nature. If you mix your code with GPL code that fulfills in its entirety the function of the program than you have to deliver all source code, the one that you licensed under the GPL and the code you wrote yourself.
That does not mean you need to license under GPL any application that interoperates with GPL code, such as an OS. But if you link your code with a GPL library, then you have to license your code under the GPL. Remember, GPL does not equal LGPL.
Don't know what you mean with "called an Eiffel" program. So hard to say what your obligations are.
Busy helping non technical users of OpenOffice.org - http://plan-b-for-openoffice.org/
It's a program that I wrote in SmallEiffel for MSWind. I forget exactly what the re-packager called it, but it didn't need to be recompiled to work on MSWind as a compiler. Unfortunately that was discontinued. Even more unfortunately, SmallEiffel acquired new maintainers who aren't particularly interested in backwards compatibility. As a result even if I still had the code and an MSWind system I could no longer compile it.
I'm counting "Accompany with a written offer" as making the choice at the time of distribution...but I you appear to be right that one doesn't need to actually do the distribution at that time.
Also the Eiffel program was a stand alone program (rather like GhostScript in that regard) that I wrote which was called from MSAccess which passed it a few file names and said "process this!". It could have been run from the command line, but it was more convenient to do it this way.
Similarly Ghostscript is a stand alone program. Unless you modify the code drastically you can't say that it's a part of some other program. (Of course, they may have done just that. I don't know.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
They are selling the ballots to local governments, aren't they?
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
It wouldn't matter what their site claims are. Who is to say they received their copy VIA the site and saw the extra restrictions to the GPL that the GPL itself doesn't allow. If I received a copy that was GPLed, from a a product which was GPLed, then I could do anything the GPL allows with it regardless of commercial status or not.
As long as the implementation of the code meets the GPL guidelines which don't bar commercial use or distribution, there is little they can do about commercial use because the GPL already gives permission. You can't say you can only use this with this license if you don't follow the license.
That's my personal preference as well... I just mean if they were going to change it anyway, I think that being able to bring in a barcode, or set of barcodes would be nice... I think the optical scanners are the best option for at the poles voting myself.
Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info