Bruce Perens On Combining GPL and Proprietary Software

jammag writes "Combining GPL and proprietary software is ever more common, especially in the world of embedded devices like cell phones. But the question is: how to combine them legally. As sticky as the issue is, there is an answer, as self titled "open source strategic consultant" Bruce Perens explains. The proper procedure entails fully understanding what type of open source software you're using, and knowing why you need to combine these disparate licenses. The problem, he notes, is that many companies don't know or care about doing this legally. 'They're used to just "clicking yes" with no regard to what they're committing themselves and their company to.' Hopefully Perens' guide can be read by more company execs — resulting in fewer lawsuits going forward (but we're not holding our breath)." update 21:31 GMT by SM: Bruce wrote in to make sure we knew he was not a lawyer, even though he is weighing in on a legal issue; updated to reflect.

Comments

when nuns attack

[Anonymous Coward]

Little is known that the new president of the united states of america, Barak Hussein Abdalla Adama, is in fact a muslim.

Re:when nuns attack

[Hordeking]

Little is known that the new president of the united states of america, Barak Hussein Abdalla Adama, is in fact a muslim.

Our president was the leader of the refugees from Battlestar Galactica? Who knew!

Re:when nuns attack

[moniker127]

Adama would be an awesome president!

Re:when nuns attack

[Anonymous Coward]

Only if someone ressurects Lorne Green from the dead.

Re:when nuns attack

[CarpetShark]

Adama, is in fact a muslim.

You must have meant cylon.

Re:when nuns attack

[CarpetShark]

That would be a zombie president. I thought we just tried that.

Re:when nuns attack

[Tetsujin]

Adama, is in fact a muslim.

You must have meant cylon.

No, Adama's a Mormon. Tigh is a Cylon.

Re:when nuns attack

[Anonymous Coward]

Spoiler warning!

Re:when nuns attack

[Hordeking]

Something doesn't make much sense here...

Our president was the leader of the refugees from Battlestar Galactica? Who knew!

Adama would be an awesome president!

These are modded off-topic, though they attempt to be humorous, turn around a troll post, and not attempting to be inflamatory...

That would be a zombie president. I thought we just tried that.

While this is very potentially a flame bait post, even as it is an attempt at humor...

I'm calling for meta-moderation on this one

Re:when nuns attack

[CarpetShark]

Every joke offends someone, sadly.

Re:when nuns attack

[Hurricane78]

No, luckily.

Offending: The fun for the whole family! :D

Hi

[Bruce Perens]

I'm here at my desk, if anyone has questions :-)

Bruce

Re:Hi

[starling]

Any comments about the applicability of the LGPL? It used to be very popular in embedded systems.

Re:Hi

[Anonymous Coward]

are you really that desperate and lonely that you'll actually sit at your desk and wait for questions from the slashtards?

Re:Hi

[CRCulver]

Impostor. A true Bruce Perens would not have a Slashdot user ID as absurdly high as 3872.

Re:Hi

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux just isn't ready for the desktop yet. It may be ready for the web servers that you nerds use to distribute your TRON fanzines and personal Dungeons and Dragons web-sights across the world wide web, but the average computer user isn't going to spend months learning how to use a CLI and then hours compiling packages so that they can get a workable graphic interface to check their mail with, especially not when they already have a Windows machine that does its job perfectly well and is backed by a major corporation, as opposed to Linux which is only supported by a few unemployed nerds living in their mother's basement somewhere. The last thing I want is a level 5 dwarf (haha) providing me my OS.

Re:Hi

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm here at my desk, if anyone has questions :-)

Bruce

How would you respond to this: I'll cut you!

Re:Hi

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a question - why hasn't Roland Piquepaille posted anything on his blog lately? I'm starting to get worried.

Re:Hi

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you saying that this linux can run on a computer without windows underneath it, at all ? As in, without a boot disk, without any drivers, and without any services ?

That sounds preposterous to me.

If it were true (and I doubt it), then companies would be selling computers without a windows. This clearly is not happening, so there must be some error in your calculations. I hope you realise that windows is more than just Office ? Its a whole system that runs the computer from start to finish, and that is a very difficult thing to acheive. A lot of people dont realise this.

Microsoft just spent $9 billion and many years to create Vista, so it does not sound reasonable that some new alternative could just snap into existence overnight like that. It would take billions of dollars and a massive effort to achieve. IBM tried, and spent a huge amount of money developing OS/2 but could never keep up with Windows. Apple tried to create their own system for years, but finally gave up recently and moved to Intel and Microsoft.

Its just not possible that a freeware like the Linux could be extended to the point where it runs the entire computer fron start to finish, without using some of the more critical parts of windows. Not possible.

I think you need to re-examine your assumptions.

Re:Hi

[von_rick]

This isn't about Linux on desktop. Its about combining Linux and proprietary 3rd party apps that include a clause about owning your left ventricle and such. These days you are more likely to find Linux on embedded devices than on desktops. When you are searching for a media player for your internet tablet, should you go for a 3rd party app like Canola or should you stick with Mplayer, those are the choices one faces when running Linux based devices.

Re:Hi

[Bruce Perens]

Any comments about the applicability of the LGPL? It used to be very popular in embedded systems.

LGPL, especially the current LGPL3, is a good license to use when you want people to combine your work with proprietary software, and software with incompatible licenses in general. Sometimes you don't want this. My latest (unannounced) product is dual-licensed, so I need a "modifications must be free software" license like GPL or GPL3, so that the proprietary folks have an incentive to buy a commercial license. That way, I get to provide Free Software to folks who want to make Free Software with it, and commercial license fees from the folks who don't want to make Free Software pay for me to do it.

Bruce

Re:Hi

[dkleinsc]

Here's my question: how the heck do you get modded Informative +2 for just posting that you're here?

(Just kidding, Bruce. I'm glad you show up here)

Re:Hi

[starling]

Fair enough, that's the way I understand the trade-offs too. I was just a little surprised to see no mention of the LGPL in your article and wondered if it was part of a sinister plot to deprecate the licence.

Re:Hi

[tchuladdiass]

What about when you want your software to be combined with other Free / Open Source software (even code that may be incompatible with the GPL), but don't want to leave the door wide open to non-Free software? Would the GPL-with-exceptions license work?

Re:Hi

[morgan_greywolf]

Bruce was actually one of the most vocal advocates of the LGPL license back when he initiated the UserLinux project. The main reason UserLinux had picked GNOME and GTK as the primary desktop and GUI toolkit for UserLinux revolved around GTK's LGPL license (Qt was not available under this license at the time)

Re:Hi

[morgan_greywolf]

Uh, no, that really is Bruce Perens.

Re:Hi

[starling]

I remember the Qt fun and games, yes. The LGPL will always be the *Library* GPL to me.

Re:Hi

[Ukab the Great]

Given that software may be linked an infinite number of ways from an infinite number of sources, and given that software may be marketed an infinite number of ways depending on how it's linked, would you like a piece of toast?

Re:Hi

[Who Is The Drizzle]

I'm pretty sure GP was being sarcastic...

Re:Hi

[mangu]

I'm here at my desk, if anyone has questions :-)

Do you get paid just to sit at your desk and post to Slashdot?

Or have you already worked your two hours today?

Re:Hi

[Peaker]

What constitutes derivative works of GPL'd code?

Why is it that using a code's API makes something derivative work, but using a program's CLI is non-derivative work, and even allowed to be non-GPL?

Re:Hi

[Joe Snipe]

Why do bad things happen to good people?

Re:Hi

[droopycom]

BPINAL: Bruce Perens Is Not A Lawyer...

Thats funny you have to remind Slashdot of that. Actually its funny that everybody is always covering their ass by saying IANAL when talking about this issue.

I'm not even sure what makes anybody think that a Lawyer would have better or definitive answers than the guys who actually wrote the licenses and the software...

I'm sure the lawyers have their own language that says that whatever they are telling you might not be the truth.

Its very... frustrating... If only laws and software licenses were as simple as code...

Maybe somebody should write the licenses as a program that output 0 (cant use) or 1 (can use).

Re:Hi

[osu-neko]

A lot of us read /. for quite a while before deciding to actually sign up...

Re:Hi

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it true that you have signed a contract to play the hero in "Goatse - The Movie"?

Re:Hi

[RoccamOccam]

On you latest product, how will the modifications that are provided back to you by the GPL folk handled? Are they then made available to the commercial users for a fee? Or would you expect them to be made available with the same type of dual-license and they would get some of the revenue? That doesn't seem feasible, but the alternative doesn't seem fair, either.

Re:Hi

[.Bruce Perens]

Thank you for your support. In answer to your question, though it was undoubtedly facetious, let's just say that I have a special working relationship with several of the moderators. You could, too, if you meet certain criteria. Please email me some code samples and a few pictures of yourself, preferably pictures of you at your computer. Don't be embarrassed if the only pictures you have of yourself are without any clothing, that's fine by me. I'll consider your potential and email you or IM you back. No creeps or minorities, please.

Re:Hi

[alexborges]

... and regret it every minute of our lives...

There, fixed it for ya.

Re:Hi

[DragonWriter]

Why is it that using a code's API makes something derivative work, but using a program's CLI is non-derivative work, and even allowed to be non-GPL?

There's a pretty good argument to be made that using a code's API or dynamically linking to a library is not generally a "derivative work", although this is pretty clearly not the FSF's view.

Re:Hi

[Greyfox]

Early on a lot of us were quite happy posting as Anonymous Cowards and only made user IDs so we could filter Jon "Columbine" Katz out. If Bruce's snapping point was after the second or third story and mine was only after that fucker managed to draw a parallel between a video game and the tragedy at Columbine, it would explain both why his user ID is so high and why mine is that much higher.

Eventually Jon Katz stories were found to be against the Geneva Convention, which is why there is no longer an option to filter him out. It's actually illegal to post a Jon Katz story now. They were going to use them at Gitmo for a while, but Dick decided that was a little too evil. They went with shocking guys' junk with jumper cables instead.

Re:Hi

[Anonymous Coward]

*whoosh*

Re:Hi

[Anonymous Coward]

you're not answering my question you lying fuck. why don't you just get the fuck out of computing and go back to being a hippy bitch? motherfuck you, you fucking lying sack of shit.

Re:Hi

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, no, that really is Bruce Perens.

It's comments such as this that are the reason I pray every night for a mod choice of "Idiot". God never follows through, though :(

Re:Hi

[dgatwood]

Darl, is that you?

Re:Hi

[rigolo]

I'm here at my desk, if anyone has questions :-)

Bruce

Why are you at your desk at 2AM in the morning :-)

(or maybe I should get a live too ;-0 )

Re:Hi

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the FSF is not ruled by logic or argument, but philosophy and believe.

Re:Hi

[hobbit]

Impostor. The true morgan_greywolf would not have said something as inanely stupid as that.

Re:Hi

[Bruce Perens]

I'm sure the lawyers have their own language that says that whatever they are telling you might not be the truth.

Their lips are moving :-) Actually, I have noticed that attorneys, since their job is to win for their customer, are in the habit of saying what will win, not what is right. I pinned one down publicly, once, online. He had just said what would win the argument rather than what he knew to be true, and had assumed I would not realize. And he'd been admitted to practice before the Supreme Court.

Bruce

Re:Hi

[hobbit]

You were a bit keen!

Re:Hi

[eosp]

If I recall, there was some IM client that used Purple (the Pidgin backend) and hosted a local server. This was GPL'd. Then their proprietary client would talk with this server, theoretically allowing them to use the Purple library without being under the GPL.

What is your take on this?

Re:Hi

[Creepy]

That is essentially what Linux and gcc are - if you make changes to them, you need to abide by the GPL for those changes, but they have an exception so that if you, say, build software with gcc and run it on Linux, you can do so commercially if you want to. For example, if you modify the Embedded Linux kernel to add a GSM stack, you need to release the source, but if you create the GSM stack as part of a standalone library or kernel plugin (like a modprobe driver), you don't.

In general, if you use any GPL license, you need to provide ALL source for your application unless it has an exception. GPL can be applied to libraries applications and plugins (but only as long as the parent application has the same license - in this case GPL)

LGPL allows a library to be linked dynamically with an application without requiring the application to provide source code. It applies ONLY to libraries and plugins to that library if the library itself is also LGPL (and you can't legally create an LGPL plugin for a proprietary app, which was brought up during vetting of the latest LGPL). LGPL explicitly forbids creating and using static libraries and the older LGPL 2 almost certainly forbids NeXT/Mac embedded frameworks (they are dynamically linked, but they would likely violate the license because they are technically part of the application bundle and not a separate library) - this was disambiguated in LGPL 3.0.

BSD is sorta free - if you use older code or license (pre-1999) as a basis, you will still be restricted by the BSD-old license requiring you to acknowledge the product contains software developed at UC Berkeley in all advertising materials.

zlib/libpng is another nearly restriction-less license - as long as you don't say you wrote it when you did not, don't remove the notification from the source, and add a notification that you've changed the source if you did, you can use it any way you want to.

Re:Hi

[Anonymous Coward]

>a level 5 dwarf

You don't play many games, do you? Dwarves are breeds, not character classes.

You may have a level 5 dwarf, but typically, it is a level 5 fighter who happens to be a dwarf.

Re:Hi

[Bruce Perens]

If I recall, there was some IM client that used Purple (the Pidgin backend) and hosted a local server. This was GPL'd. Then their proprietary client would talk with this server, theoretically allowing them to use the Purple library without being under the GPL.

I call this daemonization, the practice of putting software in a server (or daemon, in the old Unix parlance) for the purpose of avoiding the license.

If it is just for avoiding the license, and has no other technical purpose, I think there's a chance that someone could convince a judge to consider it infringement. But I have no case to point to.

Bruce

Re:Hi

[RobBebop]

As far as I can tell, this is the source of that rant. Dated March 14, 2007.

http://talkback.zdnet.com/5208-12355-0.html?forumID=1&threadID=31199&messageID=579806

Re:Hi

[Bruce Perens]

It's a nice sunny day in Berkeley.

Re:Hi

[Bruce Perens]

What constitutes derivative works of GPL'd code?

Copyright law does not say. Indeed, most of copyright law was written before software and it doesn't necessarily make sense in the context of software.

So, you can not rely on an API being a reliable boundary between one piece of software and another, except if you use GPL3. FSF has actually provided you a way to reliably use an API as a boundary. This is contrary to those bad things other posters were saying about FSF. The API has to be a full open standard.

Bruce

Re:Hi

[Anonymous Coward]

Because not all good people pay tribute to the magic bunny. Have you given a holy chocolate bar to the magic bunny lately?

Re:Hi

[Anonymous Coward]

Good job proving my point, dipshit!

Re:Hi

[Bruce Perens]

The funny thing about this is that I had heard of Slashdot for some months and didn't participate. Otherwise, I would probably have an even lower number.

Re:Hi

[Bruce Perens]

On you latest product, how will the modifications that are provided back to you by the GPL folk handled?

OK, you've hit on the important part. I call this "Why more people don't contribute modifications to OpenOffice".

It does make little sense to dual license and expect the community to sign all of their work over to you without even a coffee and a jelly donut in return for their trouble. Especially if you are Sun Microsystems, a company known to still have some significant cash and assets on hand.

So, I, not being as rich as Sun Microsystems, promise this: if you sign over the copyright to your modification I will covenant to: 1) provide you an unlimited license to your own work, including the right to relicense. and 2) keep my work incorporating your work under an Open Source license for two further years of development, or remove your contribution.

And if you want the coffee, come over sometime.

How does that sound?

Bruce

Re:Hi

[Bruce Perens]

What about when you want your software to be combined with other Free / Open Source software (even code that may be incompatible with the GPL), but don't want to leave the door wide open to non-Free software? Would the GPL-with-exceptions license work?

I don't think so. The reason is that there isn't good legal language to separate the licenses you like from ones you don't like. About the best you can say is "any license accepted by the Open Source Initiative", but then you have to add in language to make that apply to the entire program, so that people won't think they can use a BSD piece as glue between your licensed piece and a proprietary piece.

The way that Linux and GCC do it is that they talk to separate programs (or separate source files in GCC's case). Which doesn't apply to every program.

Bruce

Re:Hi

[Anonymous Coward]

A slashdotter murdered him

Re:Hi

[Tubal-Cain]

You wouldn't happen to be able to find it again, would you?

Re:Hi

[Bruce Perens]

It's a silicon.com forum featuring myself and some other folks. I quick look on google did not turn it up.

Re:Hi

[dirvine]

Hi Bruce - Interesting. I have often thought about time limited licensing strategies and note the time limited GPL stuff about. I see GPL as 'potentially' one extreme and closed proprietary as the 'potentially' other extreme and all others in between like muddy water (sorry). I would love to have a license that allows freedom from commercial vulture types but at the same time allow openness and sharing whilst maintaining a developers right to compensation (selling licenses), particularly for very large projects (not support related pay - pay for work done) but be able to somehow limit this with a limited to X years/revenue etc. clause. It is a quagmire so I am interested in your comment "including the right to relicense" what do you mean by this ? Is it simply the developer can license their part with any license in the future but you maintain rights in perpetuity (which seems to make sense).

Re:Hi

[LingNoi]

Sorry fag, but Perens UID is (3872).

You've made me post this because there are people who are dumb as shit out there, so this is for them.

Re:Hi

[lgw]

The Boost licence is by far my favorite - it's a BSD-style license, but is very short and has been carefully worded to avoid alarming corporate lawyers. If you just want others to be able to use your code, it's a great option.

Re:Hi

[lgw]

Since no one else explained the joke: Bruce used to have a signature saying something like "the real Bruce Perens has Slashdot ID ...". This became sort of a running joke (since it actually did nothing to prove anyones identity), and probably inspired dozens of copycat names just from people who wanted to make a joke on the sig.

Re:Hi

[lgw]

Wow, I haven't seen this account for *years*. Bwuce Perens still posts regularly, but I thought the other name-alikes had faded away.

What's next, a post by OOG THE OPEN SOURCE CAVEMAN?

Re:Hi

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm here at my desk, if anyone has questions :-)

Bruce

Will you lick my pussy?

Re:Hi

[Who Is The Drizzle]

Hans Reiser struck again?

Re:Hi

[shaitand]

'In general, if you use any GPL license, you need to provide ALL source for your application unless it has an exception. GPL can be applied to libraries applications and plugins (but only as long as the parent application has the same license - in this case GPL)'

Whether the GPL extends to the main application when a library is used is a debate never settled. The LGPL exists because of the question and the debate, not because the 'gpl is a virus' crowd were correct. AFAIK nobody ever made a legitimate claim that binary plugins ever needed to be under the same license.

A EULA can impact what is done at runtime but the license can not. It doesn't matter what licenses your code mixes with at runtime, that is use and outside the rights reserved for the copyright holder by copyright law (in the US).

Re:Hi

[shaitand]

I used to be a big fan of the dual license approach, on the surface it seems like a great idea. But the cracks have begun to reveal themselves in the projects I would have once pointed to as fine examples of dual license in action.

Dual license projects have typically required contributors to assign the company running the project copyright. Most coders don't want to do this, especially since they could allow for the business model by contributing to the project under a more permissive license that falls far short of signing away their rights.

This model is typically used by companies that don't merely offer commercial licenses but make features available only in the commercial version. This alienates contributors who are only entitled to use the crippleware version. It also hinders development and splits the community because the company doesn't want to merge features that would make their commercial features less useful. Finally, efforts are made to deter derivatives (an essential right and power of the community required for a healthy open project) that might incorporate the features the company wants to reserve to commercial licensees.

Last but not least, the project or the company can be sold outright to parties that haven't made commitments to the community.

Dual license is a great way for someone to contribute software they are writing to the community without soliciting contributions but the moment the software stops belonging to you and people from the community are contributing, the dual license approach seems less attractive.

Just my 2 cents.

Re:Hi

[shaitand]

'So, I, not being as rich as Sun Microsystems, promise this: if you sign over the copyright to your modification I will covenant to: 1) provide you an unlimited license to your own work, including the right to relicense. and 2) keep my work incorporating your work under an Open Source license for two further years of development, or remove your contribution. '

Almost as good as me providing you with an unlimited license to my work, including the right to re-license under a commercial license that you've published for my review and under the condition that said license is conditional upon an identical version of your work being licensed under an OSI approved license. ;)

That allows you to sell commercial licenses but blocks you and anyone you sell out to from closing up the work. It also allows me to keep my copyright.

Re:Hi

[hairyfeet]

Okay I have a question that nobody has been able to answer. It may be a stupid question so I am warning you now, but how would we know if a question was stupid or not if we never ask it?

My question is this: Why do so many companies risk getting sued over improper use of GPL code, or just snatch GPL code and hope they don't get caught, when there is BSD that allows them to do whatever they want with it? Is there something wrong with BSD that makes it unsuitable for the embedded market? I mean Apple and MSFT haven't seemed to have had any troubles when using BSD code, and with BSD code you don't need to worry about lawyers or navigating a maze trying to figure out what you are allowed to do or not do with it, so it always seemed to me to be a no-brainer when it comes to companies who wish to market a product with proprietary code involved.

So is there a problem with BSD? I haven't ever used it and am not an embedded developer so I honestly don't know. But it always seemed to me that if a company wanted to make a product with free code it would be the easier route to go BSD.Is it a popularity thing? Are the tools better with Linux? It has just always seemed kinda crazy to me to risk a lawsuit when there is an alternative that removes those risks and is likewise free. And I apologize if it turns out to be a stupid question, but how would we ever learn new things if we never asked questions?

Re:Hi

[Bruce Perens]

I think this is some of what the MySQL folks are complaining about. Monty wants to fork it!!!!

I have some ideas about how to make dual licensing work better for the community. The basic problem is that they don't reliably get any commitment back from the company to whom they are turning over their work. So, I would give them an unlimited license to their own contribution, including the right to relicense, and make a covenant to continue development in Open Source for two years or remove their contribution. That would apply to my assigns as well, meaning anyone who bought the company would still have that commitment. Two years gives the community time to watch how things are working and decide to fork if necessary.

Bruce

Re:Hi

[dbIII]

My snapping point was when AC posts vanished by default into unreadability. The Columbine stuff didn't bother me since I only know about US high school from bad movies. I lost the earlier account by changing email and forgetfulness but it's not much lower in number than this one.

There were a lot of people about even on day 1.

Re:Hi

[Anonymous Coward]

Will the real Bruce Perens please stand up?

Re:Hi

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously you are not a programmer. Vista does not boot up a system. A hardware bios written by the hardware manufacturer boots up the machine and it is rarely written by Microsoft. There are guys like me, who have never worked for Microsoft that write these drivers and the drivers in Linux are often better than the ones written for Windows, because they are reviewed by more people. And you can buy Linux preinstalled. Often it is not advertised, the GPL requires that you share the code, but it doesn't specify that you spend money advertising Linux.

Re:Hi

[geminidomino]

Pfft. Get lost with your newfangled "Advanced" D&D rules.

(There was a point when Dwarf and Elf were classes AND races. Now roll 3d6 to get off my lawn)

Re:Hi

[TheRaven64]

LGPL2 is a problem for embedded systems too. It contains a requirement that the end user must be able to replace the version you distribute. I would be very surprised if there isn't some LGPL'd code in the AppleTV violating this license.

Re:Hi

[torstenvl]

The problem with licenses like that is that they don't do what you say they do. It's simply not the case that you "get to provide Free Software to folks who want to make Free Software with it" -- you only get to provide it to folks who want to make GPL software with it. Free programs under other Free licenses get shut out.

It's my opinion that the GPL should require true modifications to be GPL, and allow linking programs to be licensed under substantially similar conditions as any OSI-approved license.

Re:Hi

[Bruce Perens]

The BSD license is GPL compliant, and you can link BSD and GPL code together. It's only licenses that make restrictions that the GPL does not make which are incompatible. The problem with allowing restrictions that the GPL doesn't make is that at some point you get enough restrictions it's not Open Source / Free Software any longer. While you can trust a license to always say the same thing, OSI has not always said the same thing and doesn't promise to do so in the future. So, "any OSI approved license" could be anything at all, at some time in the future.

Bruce

Re:Hi

[Anonymous Coward]

Would it be possible for apple to create a new file system using Ext3 as the base, extend it to iExt3 (OSX Ext3) and not violate copyright issue?

Re:Hi

[WozNZ]

Are you for real? Linux is a COMPLETE OS, You do not need windows at all on your machine. You think that because it costs MS millions that nobody else can write an OS. *nix (the term for Unix like systems) have been around LONGER than windows. Microsoft even sold a *nix system called xenix many years ago. I used one for years. Most deskop Linux distributions ship with a FULL set of office type apps that can read and write MS files called open office. I am writing this post using Ubuntu Linux running Firefox, no sign of Windows anywhere! If you are stupid enough to pay $100s for Windows + Office then fine. Just realise there are other options that cost NOTHING. WAKE UP :)

Re:Hi

[Anonymous Coward]

For the love of $DEITY, would the moderators please check out http://www.google.com/search?q=Are+you+saying+that+this+linux+can+run+on+a+computer+without+windows+underneath+it%2C+at+all+%3F+As+in%2C+without+a+boot+disk%2C+without+any+drivers%2C+and+without+any+services+%3F
before modding him funny instead of flamebait?

To the OP: How often do you want to post this again? It wasn't even funny the first time around...

Re:Hi

[torstenvl]

Bruce, I'm sorry but your comment doesn't respond to my point. It would be impossible to legally distribute a BSD-licensed command shell which uses the readline library, for example (unless you got specific permission from the authors of the readline library). People who say that BSD and GPL are "compatible" only mean that GPL'd projects can incorporate BSD code; they don't consider code moving in the other direction. Saying that they're "compatible" glosses over the one-way nature of the relationship.

Re:Hi

[Bruce Perens]

I am indeed responding to you. It's just that I don't believe the bullshit BSD propoganda that you are trying to push on me. It is entirely possible to distribute a command shell composed of BSD-licensed code and libreadline.

Re:Hi

[torstenvl]

Hi Bruce. A point of clarification: by "BSD-licensed command shell" I mean one that is only BSD-licensed. Rereading my earlier post, I see that I didn't convey this clearly, and for my miscommunication I apologize.

The GPL provides that a person "may convey a work based on the Program ... provided that you ... license the entire work, as a whole, under this [GPL] License to anyone who comes into possession of a copy. This [GPL] License will therefore apply ... to the whole of the work, and all its parts, regardless of how they are packaged." GPL v. 3 Sec. 5.

It seems therefore impossible for the author of a command shell using the readline library to license the work exclusively under a BSD-type license. They are, according to the GPL, required to distribute the entire command shell under the GPL. It is true that if the author of the command shell is the sole author, he or she may dual-license the work under both a BSD-style license and the GPL. However, the GPL does impose some additional requirements on authors that cannot be ignored. Particularly, I'm thinking of the costs in media distribution or bandwidth or hosting to make source available under GPL v. 3 Sec. 6. The total effect is to make it harder than necessary for people to write Free software that uses GPL code.

And please don't swear. It lowers the level of discourse. Thank you.

Re:Hi

[Bruce Perens]

No problem. But let me explain what I think the real situation is when you link BSD and GPL stuff together. Say you do so. You then continue to accept BSD-licensed modifications to your program, and operate in general as a BSD-licensed project. So that you can grant to others all of the rights that they expect from BSD-licensed software, including the right to link in software under GPL-incompatible licenses, you put a note somewhere that developers will notice. The note says "IF YOU ADD SOFTWARE UNDER A LICENSE THAT IS NOT GPL-COMPATIBLE, YOU MUST REMOVE LIBREADLINE."

This, IMO, is not a big deal for a BSD project. You can't combine GPL software with just anything, and this has not changed because the GPL software was linked with some BSD software.

The situation is different if the GPL software is a critical part of the program that can't be removed easily. But that is not libreadline. And I would not expect a BSD project to put GPL software in that role.

If you want to talk about one-sided situations, I'd point first at the situation in which proprietary software developers use BSD code without giving anything back. The GPL is intended to prevent just this sort of situation.

Thanks

Bruce

Re:Hi

[shaitand]

'I think this is some of what the MySQL folks are complaining about. Monty wants to fork it!!!!'

Yup and forks are a good thing. Alarmists talk about forks as a bad thing splintering the community but although there may be millions of forks only a deserved fork will be adopted by the community.

'I have some ideas about how to make dual licensing work better for the community. The basic problem is that they don't reliably get any commitment back from the company to whom they are turning over their work.'

I agree that would be better. But as I've said elsewhere, I would want additional assurance. First, I would grant the unlimited license to the company rather than the other way around. The only thing the company gains by having my copyright rather than that license is the ability to do something unexpected or unintended with my code. I actually wouldn't want to require DEVELOPMENT from the company for two years. Simply a legal commitment (as condition of the license) that they nor their affiliates, nor any organization that purchases the company or its trademarks may release a derivative of the software without making an identical version of the software available (with source) under an OSI approved license or whatever terms they are using when I contribute.

This isn't a dual license issue but goes hand in hand, I prefer (but do not require) the project to actually be a controlled and maintained by a community run non-profit and the for profit to be a service/support/license fee collection contractor for the non-profit. This would need to supercede any previously purchased commercial licenses by affiliates/purchasers/etc. There are probably more loopholes that need to be blocked as well.

This allows all the legitimate activities of a for profit organization using this model but bars the abuse.

It's also self policing. It is fairly simple for a commercial entity to remove all user contributions (and the obligations that come with them) until the project becomes so intertwined with community code that it doesn't really belong to the parent organization anymore.

Re:Hi

[Bruce Perens]

Yes, forks are good. It's just funny that it's Monty behind it.

I am trying to arrive at a balance between community and company. Company in this case is me, and almost my sole occupation for half a year so far is building this software. I'm still doing some consulting to pay for it. But the bottom line is that you can always repair an error in not giving enough away, but you can't repair giving too much away, and if I blow this I could be financially ruined. The question really comes down to: is it sufficient for the community to have GPL rights forever, which they do in most dual-licensing systems, or do they need more.

Bruce

Re:Hi

[shaitand]

'Company in this case is me, and almost my sole occupation for half a year so far is building this software. I'm still doing some consulting to pay for it. But the bottom line is that you can always repair an error in not giving enough away, but you can't repair giving too much away, and if I blow this I could be financially ruined.'

Its so much easier to be idealistic with someone elses money. ;P There is probably a compromise to be found. Maybe the answer isn't to give more but to ask less. Generally speaking I'd say Bruce Perens is probably a more generally accepted voice of the community than Shaitand but since you're playing the role of 'the man' in this conversation... lol

I suppose it largely depends on the reasons behind this. If you are going the open route for ideological reasons then give what you are comfortable with and promise more if things do well. Be as transparent about what well is and how far along you are toward that goal as you can be along the way. This leaves you some security but once you are on solid ground lets you kick in ideal mode for the project itself.

If you are going the open route for business reasons then your business model is going to depend on free labor from contributors. You can leverage your well earned reputation to bring interest to begin with. Everything I said before is fine but the one big holdup I would have is signing over my copyright. Everything else I (and you) mentioned is really just gravy.

The copyright assignment can be fixed with a contribution license that gives you the right to distribute under other terms. You could leave it open to let you update licenses or make it a blanket irrevocable license to distribute under any terms you like. Do that and I don't even think you'd need to commit to the two years additional development or keeping the project open down the line.

Also, its really a management issue but I'd recommend any added value for the commercial package be tools that surround it rather than features of the project itself.

That leaves you open to create added incentive and value for those who pay in cash without alienating those who pay in code by giving them a reduced feature version of the project itself. It will also head off forks since major contributions won't be declined because they won't conflict with the way you are giving paying clients value.

Whatever you do I hope it works out for you.

perens sucks esr's dick

[Adolf Hitroll]

nt

Re:perens sucks esr's dick

[Anonymous Coward]

Adolf Hitroll! It's been too long! How goes the perfume venture?

Commitments?

[paulhar]

> no regard to what they're committing themselves and their company

Most employees aren't legally empowered to commit their company / organisation to anything. They don't have the authority to sign contracts on behalf of the company / organisation.

Re:Commitments?

[Bruce Perens]

Most employees aren't legally empowered to commit their company / organisation to anything. They don't have the authority to sign contracts on behalf of the company / organisation.

Yes. But "my employee did this, and he didn't have authority to do so" hasn't worked very effectively as a defense regarding software license violation and copyright infringement - or anything else. Or those BSA audits would have turned out differently, etc. Ultimately, the stockholders and management are responsible for what the company does even if they are so out of control that their employees do stuff without being instructed to :-)

Bruce

Re:Commitments?

[Anonymous Coward]

> no regard to what they're committing themselves and their company

Most employees aren't legally empowered to commit their company / organisation to anything. They don't have the authority to sign contracts on behalf of the company / organisation.

See: Vicarious liability

Re:Commitments?

[Anonymous Coward]

I suspect that if the company fired all the folks found to have bootleg copies in the BSA audit, that BSA would back down pretty fast. The real thing is that a) the company cannot afford to term their entire workforce, paying a fine is cheaper; and b) that a lot of the bootlegging is actually company sanctioned (with a wink and a nod, perhaps), so if they did fire the staff, they'd have another set of lawsuits to deal with.

Big companies (with more to lose) also tend to have employee training and indoctrination as well as business processes to make it very clear who can and cannot obligate the company. (e.g. who is an "officer" at a bank).

I don't know if there has been a "high value" case where employees executed a "click through" agreement about which there was subsequently a dispute. Seems that what you hear about is always small firms and individuals in those cases. The IBMs and Citibanks and GMs of the world probably just "click on through and ignore", because they're big enough to squash any software firm.

Combing GPL and proprietary software...

[quonsar]

Is Donald Trump's comb-over open source?

Bruce Perens? Why Would Anyone Care About Him?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there anyone more irrelevant and completely void of anything valuable to contribute to Slashdot who manages to get his articles posted to this site?

An "Ask Slashdot" with the goatse guy would be more enlightening to read.

Re:Bruce Perens? Why Would Anyone Care About Him?

[MediaStreams]

"An "Ask Slashdot" with the goatse guy would be more enlightening to read."

LOL, he certainly has had a tremendous and lasting impact on Slashdot. I would love a interview with the guy. Does he use Linux or Windows? BSD or GPL for his open source projects? We've all gotten insight into one side of him. It's long over do to learn about the other.

Re:Bruce Perens? Why Would Anyone Care About Him?

[gEvil (beta)]

Ahhh, what a refreshing change it would be to see the "open sores" comments get marked as 'insightful' and 'informative'.

Re:Bruce Perens? Why Would Anyone Care About Him?

[mcgrew]

It's long over do to learn about the other.

Why are you and this guy so obsessed with Donald Trump's hair?

Re:Bruce Perens? Why Would Anyone Care About Him?

[jellomizer]

He would probably just be an ass.

Re:Bruce Perens? Why Would Anyone Care About Him?

[Anonymous Coward]

Must be Windows juging by the size of that backdoor

Re:Bruce Perens? Why Would Anyone Care About Him?

[DoofusOfDeath]

LOL, he certainly has had a tremendous and lasting impact on Slashdot. I would love a interview with the guy.

If even he says that Linux is a pain in the ass to use, my advocacy days are over.

Re:Bruce Perens? Why Would Anyone Care About Him?

[Anonymous Coward]

BME: When did you first realize that your ass could be the source of pleasure?
While watching porno films I saw women getting dick in their ass all the time and they seemed to like it a lot, so I thought I'd give it a try.

BME: What was it like the first time you stuck anything in your ass?

I was about twenty at the time the first time I tried it. The first time -- actually most of the first year -- I took no pleasure from it. But, I knew that the porn stars seemed to enjoy it, so I stuck at it and grew to love it as well.

BME: Why did you start putting larger objects in?

I saw gay films where men who were taking whole arms up their ass were getting pleasure from it. I learned to take pleasure from stretching my ass, and the wider I opened it, the more pleasure I took.

BME: How quickly were you able to move up to bigger items? Do you have a training regime?

It took me about two years to be able to take a wine bottle, and four years to take a 32cm ball. Recently I've been able to take a big ball, much bigger than the bottle. To pass that level I had to first train my ass with bigger bottles, like 1.5L pop bottles. There were a number of painful sessions with a lot of blood and ass-hurt for about four days after each session.

Because I am not comfortable writing in English, I will tell you my personal method in French.

BME: Thanks, I'll do my best to translate it for the readers. (Note: The following answer was translated by BME -- I apologize for errors in the translation.)

When I first started, I was using small bottles of shampoo. After that, I tried small apples, and then bigger ones. At this point I'd put a year of stretching in, and bought myself a large dildo.

My method was to dilate my ass as often as I could -- every day, even if just for a short while. Before starting it's important to use a large dildo; use it to both warm up and clean your ass, so make sure you stick it up all the way. When you find that you can take this large dildo without any work-up or preparation, then you know that you're ready to take it to the next step.

Then, in each session, to get your bottom prepared, put in a big cucumber. Soon you'll arrive at a point where even the biggest cucumbers you can buy at the grocery fit easily in your ass. Now you're ready to get serious. Buy a small Coke bottle, and use that in your ass. When that passes in and out easily, move on to bottles of wine. Once you can take wine bottles easily, you can move on to even bigger things.

If at this point you're having trouble with the 1.5L Coke bottle (just try not to force it out because the bottle is very hard), you can also have slower stretching fun with candles. Try putting them in one by one and seeing how many you can fit in -- at this time I was putting in about fifteen at the same time. The candles are great because they allow your anus to stretch very slowly.

Once the 1.5L Coke bottle can enter your ass, train every day or two (use a large dildo first, then the bottle every session). Most of the time I use Vaseline, but don't do what I do in this case. I think that the best lubricants are the ones you can buy for this in a sex shop.

When the 1.5L bottle is passing easily, go out and buy plastic balls that start at a diameter a little bigger than the bottle. Play with those, and with time, and a little luck, you'll arrive at my level too. (Don't feel bad if you're just beginning -- when I first started, I could barely shove a finger in my ass).

What I'm going to tell you now is very important if you plan on doing extreme sessions and taking large gauge. Do not bandage your ass. Do not tighten your buttocks. Try not to get an erecection -- you want the blood to be in your ass lips, not in your cock. It's not easy, but it's important that you think of nothing and empty your mind. It's absolutely necessary that you concentrate on your breathing. Don't think of the pain; know that it will pass. The real secret though is to breath -- and remember, without the pain,

Re:Bruce Perens? Why Would Anyone Care About Him?

[Bruce Perens]

My web presence is driven mostly by an account at Dreamhost, a nice net hosting company that runs Debian and charges very little. I also have a cheap ($30/month) dedicated server at corenetworks.net also running Debian, which currently runs the one application that wouldn't work at Dreamhost because I need to run my own server on a low-numbered IP port.

There are 3 workstations in the house, and one server. The upstairs workstation that Valerie and I use, and my office workstation downstairs and the server are running Debian. There is an HP Ethernet connected scanner/printer that connects to Samba on the server for storing scans and prints using IPP from CUPS. There is an old machine running XP that is only for Quicken, and TurboTax once a year, and for the situations once in a while where I have to see how web sites look in IE or programs run on Windows. I could probably host Quicken on Linux with Wine or Codeweavers, which would leave only Turbotax (which doesn't run for long enough each year for Codeweavers to support it).

My main laptop is an Acer Aspire One running Debian, with two 8-hour batteries and its original 3-hour battery. I fly a lot. I have a PowerMac laptop that someone gave me, for testing how things look or work on Macintosh, but it's not seen any work yet. There is an older laptop hanging around, and I just gave 5 or 6 laptops to the Alameda Computer Recycling Center. There is also a Nokia 770 running Linux, and I've an old Motorola A780 cellphone running Linux. I have a number of embedded systems boards that run Linux, sitting in my workshop. I have a little music player that plays Ogg. My 2007 Prius has had the video input hack, and displays the video output of my ham radio on the console screen. I could connect Linux to it, if I had more time to play.

I really like Debian. I try to practice what I preach, things pretty much are run entirely on Free Software here, except for the personal finances. The company finances do run on GnuCash, and I have GnuCash doing e-banking, so perhaps someday we'll ditch Quicken. Turbotax is pretty much the perfect proprietary program - not written for love, not written by programmers at all, deep and current information, high liability. It would be hard to make a good Free substitute for it without a sugar daddy of major proportions, like the government.

But this didn't give you much more insight into me, did it :-) I'll get a real interview sometime.

Bruce

Re:Bruce Perens? Why Would Anyone Care About Him?

[MaxVT]

Thanks for the description of your computing environment. I have a question about usability of netbooks as everyday working machines: what are the tasks that you use the desktop workstation for, as opposed to your Acer? Are there any tasks in your general, everyday use that are unacceptably slow on a netbook?

Re:Bruce Perens? Why Would Anyone Care About Him?

[Bruce Perens]

Previous to this netbook, I had a Sony Vaio with a Celeron 1GHz from about 2004. The netbook might be a little slower, I'm not sure. It came with 160M disk - bigger than the Sony, and 1G ram, same as the Sony. Using Debian the netbook does everything I want. I doubt this would be the case with XP or Limpus. The keyboard is big enough for my big fingers to touch-type upon, and the display is sufficient. I tend to use big fonts on it.

It didn't play HDTV video well at the full screen resolution in the one test I've done so far - I don't know if this is strictly a hardware limitation or if the Intel 945G graphics driver could be improved. Maybe DVD video, with its lower resolution, would work. Video in the smaller box generally offered by youtube and its ilk is fine.

It is, however, rather slow at building the Linux kernel, which I was only doing to optimize the netbook itself. For building my own, smaller, software, it works fine. So, using it for development is fine, using it to write documents or presentation with OpenOffice.org3 is fine, email and web are fine. I had to build a wifi driver that is out of tree, and I compiled a few drivers into the kernel that were usually modules so that the "expansion" flash card slot worked correctly. I think the other, non-expansion (because the card sticks out) flash card slot might not be working correctly yet. I just plug in a USB card reader in its place. I am running 2.6.28, which has the MTRR fix (see perens.com/blog for the MTRR discussion) and the best power management. I did some tuning with powertune.

easy answer

[gEvil (beta)]

The easy answer to the problem: don't redistribute whatever it is you make. By not redistributing, you should be free from any GPL (or other license) obligations. Now, in real life, that may not be an applicable answer. But it is the easy one.

Re:easy answer

[Bruce Perens]

The easy answer to the problem: don't redistribute whatever it is you make.

It sounds easy, but it is actually very difficult to keep from distributing. You see, a distribution is a transfer between any two legal entities. So, for example, you hire a consultant and give him a copy of the software. Then you decide not to use the consultant any longer. He's annoyed, and he asserts his GPL rights on your entire product, and distributes it. You go to sue, and the copyright holder of the GPL piece gets involved and makes a case that you don't have the rights you think you did. Your NDA does not apply to GPL software because GPL prohibits you from adding incompatible terms.

In some cases, transfer between divisions, especially partnerships with one or more additional firms, are distribution. So, in practice, I think that purposefully not distributing is too difficult to do reliably. It also does not work against Affero GPL3. If you perform that as a service, you have to give up the source code.

So, it is much easier to keep your software separate as I advise.

Thanks

Bruce

Re:easy answer

[gEvil (beta)]

Well, I was mostly posting that as a joke. But your explanations for why non-redistribution shouldn't really even be an option are quite enlightening. Thanks!

Re:easy answer

[Bruce Perens]

You thought it was a joke. But I hear it sincerely from people in big companies. Thus, I had the explanation ready.

Thanks

Bruce

Re:easy answer

[Cyberax]

I wonder, how Google manages to do this?

AFAIR, they have their own proprietary filesystem for Linux, yet they do not open its source.

Re:easy answer

[Anonymous Coward]

"he asserts his GPL rights on your entire product" That sounds kind of fishy. The proprietary part is not GPL, and any reasonably organized company is going to require that he destroy all trade secrets and proprietary material in his possession (and get that in writing up front). So your scenario doesn't sound very realistic to me, but then IANAL either, and there are lots of disorganized businessmen out there. I guess.

Re:easy answer

[Kjella]

It sounds easy, but it is actually very difficult to keep from distributing. You see, a distribution is a transfer between any two legal entities. So, for example, you hire a consultant and give him a copy of the software. Then you decide not to use the consultant any longer. He's annoyed, and he asserts his GPL rights on your entire product, and distributes it. You go to sue, and the copyright holder of the GPL piece gets involved and makes a case that you don't have the rights you think you did. Your NDA does not apply to GPL software because GPL prohibits you from adding incompatible terms.

Any source of this really happening? I just find it highly unlikely since at no client that I've ever worked for have any licenses been transferred to my company even though I work on their computers. To the degree that they make anything available to me I'm considered a user that they must have a valid license for, like if they loan me a Windows PC they must have a legal Windows license just like a regular employee. For an individual license it could be possible to transfer licenses, but for anything like a site license it'd be impossible to legally transfer any license from them to me. Plus there'd have to be a large blurb about it in the contract about transfer and retransfer of these licenses that I haven't seen. If the company has a valuable internal GPL application I would think it was a standard legal blurb to say "we make 5 [GPL application] copies available for you to use while working here" like you say "we make 5 Windows laptops available for you to use while working here" that does not in any way indicate that you gave them the licenses, legally.

Re:easy answer

[Bruce Perens]

It does not matter what your contract is with the company is. This is because the company's own license for any GPL software explicitly says that they can't add terms to the GPL. So, they can give you an NDA, and they can require you to destroy software after the contract, but that can not apply to anything under the GPL. Only the copyright holder of the GPL software could give the company the right to apply an NDA or other agreement to his license.

If they give you GPL software, they have all of the license obligations that the GPL has in place for the act of "distribution". It does not matter if they write down something formally that they do it, or not.

Here is the applicable text in the GPL3 license regarding these issues:

10. Automatic Licensing of Downstream Recipients. Each time you convey a covered work, the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensors, to run, modify and propagate that work, subject to this License. You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties with this License.
An "entity transaction" is a transaction transferring control of an organization, or substantially all assets of one, or subdividing an organization, or merging organizations. If propagation of a covered work results from an entity transaction, each party to that transaction who receives a copy of the work also receives whatever licenses to the work the party's predecessor in interest had or could give under the previous paragraph, plus a right to possession of the Corresponding Source of the work from the predecessor in interest, if the predecessor has it or can get it with reasonable efforts.
You may not impose any further restrictions on the exercise of the rights granted or affirmed under this License. For example, you may not impose a license fee, royalty, or other charge for exercise of rights granted under this License, and you may not initiate litigation (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that any patent claim is infringed by making, using, selling, offering for sale, or importing the Program or any portion of it.

Bruce

Re:easy answer

[rtechie]

So, for example, you hire a consultant and give him a copy of the software. Then you decide not to use the consultant any longer. He's annoyed, and he asserts his GPL rights on your entire product, and distributes it. You go to sue, and the copyright holder of the GPL piece gets involved and makes a case that you don't have the rights you think you did. Your NDA does not apply to GPL software because GPL prohibits you from adding incompatible terms.

What are the realistic odds of this actually happening?

Let's get real here for a minute. Virtually every legal case is decided by who has the most money to hire the most lawyers. So most legal "battles" are only between evenly-matched opponents, which is not the case you describe above. In reality, the company would threaten the consultant and because they have more resources the consultant would quickly back down.

No, the only credible legal case we're likely to see (and have seen, I've followed this) is a company that uses combined proprietary/GPL code and then a rival copies their product whole cloth (maybe changing a few logos here and there) and then starts selling it claiming that "GPL infection" means the original company can't assert copyright. THIS is the scenario most companies are concerned about.

Re:easy answer

[DerangedAlchemist]

The easy answer to the problem: don't redistribute whatever it is you make.

It sounds easy, but it is actually very difficult to keep from distributing. You see, a distribution is a transfer between any two legal entities. So, for example, you hire a consultant and give him a copy of the software. Then you decide not to use the consultant any longer. He's annoyed, and he asserts his GPL rights on your entire product, and distributes it. You go to sue, and the copyright holder of the GPL piece gets involved and makes a case that you don't have the rights you think you did. Your NDA does not apply to GPL software because GPL prohibits you from adding incompatible terms.

In some cases, transfer between divisions, especially partnerships with one or more additional firms, are distribution. So, in practice, I think that purposefully not distributing is too difficult to do reliably. It also does not work against Affero GPL3. If you perform that as a service, you have to give up the source code.

So, it is much easier to keep your software separate as I advise.

Thanks

Bruce

That was the reasoning used in my current company to never, ever risk integrating GPL software into our code, despite the fact that we never sell or release software. (We use the custom software internally to help build a physical product.)

This seems at odds with the GPL FAQ:

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#DevelopChangesUnderNDA

Does the GPL allow me to develop a modified version under a nondisclosure agreement?

Yes. For instance, you can accept a contract to develop changes and agree not to release your changes until the client says ok. This is permitted because in this case no GPL-covered code is being distributed under an NDA.

You can also release your changes to the client under the GPL, but agree not to release them to anyone else unless the client says ok. In this case, too, no GPL-covered code is being distributed under an NDA, or under any additional restrictions.

The GPL would give the client the right to redistribute your version. In this scenario, the client will probably choose not to exercise that right, but does have the right.

Is there something I'm missing? Are there specific provisions that should be included in NDAs and employee contracts to do this safely?

Re:easy answer

[Anonymous Coward]

And how does this situation work on a dual-licensed GPL and proprietary product?

a) Will the consultant's GPL version pretty much eventually fork and not have the commercial viability?

Re:easy answer

[gnasher719]

It sounds easy, but it is actually very difficult to keep from distributing. You see, a distribution is a transfer between any two legal entities. So, for example, you hire a consultant and give him a copy of the software. Then you decide not to use the consultant any longer. He's annoyed, and he asserts his GPL rights on your entire product, and distributes it. You go to sue, and the copyright holder of the GPL piece gets involved and makes a case that you don't have the rights you think you did. Your NDA does not apply to GPL software because GPL prohibits you from adding incompatible terms.

Two questions:

1. Is it correct that a company _can_ give software licensed under the GPL to its _employees_ and tell them not to distribute it any further? And if an employee _does_ distribute it without permission, then it is not the company's problem, but the problem of the employee who can't fulfil the terms of the GPL?

2. In your example of giving a copy to an independent consultant, if this constitutes distribution, then it is distribution whether the consultant asserts their rights or not. So if you don't give him or her the software together with source code, I think anybody in the world would already be entitled to demand the source code from you. Now of course the world doesn't know that... But from a legal point of view, would it be the safest to give that consultant software + source code and hope that he or she doesn't redistribute it?

Re:easy answer

[gnasher719]

Does the GPL allow me to develop a modified version under a nondisclosure agreement?

Yes, because it is a different situation. Let's say big company X finds out about some open source software. They would like to use that software with some modifications. They want to hire you to make those changes, not tell anybody about them, and give the software only to X and nobody else. So _you_ sign the contract, take your money, download the software from Redhat, and modify it. Company X hasn't done any distributing at this point, so they can ask you to sign any contract you both agree to. You are free to accept any restrictions. You cannot restrict others, but you can accept restrictions yourself. What you can't do after you pass the modified software on to X is try to make them accept the software under any restrictions. So a contract where you give the software only to X and X is not allowed to pass it on would be a GPL violation as soon as you give the software to X.

Re:easy answer

[LiENUS]

Let's get real here for a minute. Virtually every legal case is decided by who has the most money to hire the most lawyers. So most legal "battles" are only between evenly-matched opponents, which is not the case you describe above. In reality, the company would threaten the consultant and because they have more resources the consultant would quickly back down. No, the only credible legal case we're likely to see (and have seen, I've followed this) is a company that uses combined proprietary/GPL code and then a rival copies their product whole cloth (maybe changing a few logos here and there) and then starts selling it claiming that "GPL infection" means the original company can't assert copyright. THIS is the scenario most companies are concerned about.

This is exactly the situation he describes. The consultant would presumably distribute it to someone whom he has the most to gain from distributing it to. Humans are inherently selfish. The consultant isn't likely to use his own resources to provide said product to the public. He's likely to simply provide it to a competitor which costs him significantly less and possibly gives him a net gain if the company decides to pay him for it. Now you have a legal "battle" between two evenly-matched opponents.

Re:easy answer

[Bruce Perens]

You can develop a modified version for your consulting customer under an NDA in which you agree not to distribute your then-proprietary modification, because (in theory) you are not giving the customer any GPL software, only stuff that is proprietary at that time. But if either party gives the other BOTH the GPL software and the modification, together, then the NDA doesn't apply to that transfer and the whole thing is under the GPL.

In FSF's place I would not have given such a pat answer. I think this is harder to comply with in practice than they make it appear.

Bruce

Re:easy answer

[Bruce Perens]

Third parties (like your customer's competitor, to whom you distribute) make this more complicated. Also, maybe SFLC wants to make a point about the GPL vs. NDAs and will help the consultant for free. They've beat big companies before.

Re:easy answer

[Peeteriz]

Companies are not 'giving' their employees anything. Employees use the premises, computers and software as agents of the company, nowhere there happens the transfer/giving of the computer or software to the employee.

Re:easy answer

[Anonymous Coward]

What are the realistic odds of this actually happening?

Doesn't matter. It would be Really Bad if it did happen, so it is sensible to take steps to avoid it being possible.

In reality, the company would threaten the consultant and because they have more resources the consultant would quickly back down.

It depends. What if the consultant gets your competitor to back him up, just to make trouble for you? What if the consultant posts about his bad experience with you, right here on Slashdot, and now millions of geeks hate your guts? Depending on your line of business, that could be Really Bad right there.

Sensible people and companies avoid law suits where possible. It's a very bad idea to say "we almost certainly won't get sued so we don't need to take basic precautions".

Execs aren't going to read this

[syousef]

Hopefully Perens' guide can be read by more company execs -- resulting in fewer lawsuits going forward (but we're not holding our breath)

Until the risk of being sued for a significant amount of money is more statistically likely than being struck by lightning and a meteorite at the same moment, no exec is going to waste their time. In fact unless you start personally suing CEOs I bet they have more important things to spend their time on.

It is not the exec that should be reading this in any case. It's the project manager or section/department head that takes care of this detail. A CEO and/or legal department and/or risk management group (depending on the size of the company) should enforce that this aspect of the project be considered.

Re:Execs aren't going to read this

[Bruce Perens]

When I visit a company to help them develop their Open Source strategy, I schedule a 50-minute talk for the top execs and the head of legal. This talk tells them what I am doing with the middle management, gives them some anti-propaganda to reset their opinions and expectations about Open Source, and establishes who I am working with in the company so that when they have issues about Open Source they know where to go.

That's about all I can get out of the top execs. But I get a lot of attention from the middle management folks who actually do the work.

Some of the recent lawsuits have got their attention. But what it often does is cause them to put a "no open source" clause in their default supplier contract. I signed a contract with a big phone company that promised I would not give them any Open Source! Of course, I was giving them advice.

Bruce

Re:Execs aren't going to read this

[wiresquire]

Oh, there's a plenty good enough financial reason that all execs understand that has nothing to do with penalties as a result of being sued.

In software, non-compliance with legal licenses (open source or other) is one of the very few things that can result in you stop shipping your product.

And if you have to stop-ship an embedded software system, then it means that there's no point shipping just the hardware. Bye-bye to all revenue from the product. What can be worse than something which will instantly take your revenue to $0?

ws

Re:Execs aren't going to read this

[cfulmer]

So, I write those contracts. That's often a default provision because if you don't know what open source software you're getting, you might accidentally run afoul of the requirement to make the Source Code available. If there is open source software in a product to be delivered, I would expect the supplier to look at the contract and then tell my client "we can't sign this because we DO have open source software in our code." Then, that starts a discussion about what open source software is involved, the redistribution requirements, etc.... In effect, it's a way of (1) eliciting information and (2) getting somebody to sue if they didn't disclose something that gets my client in trouble.

(That said, there are lawyers who don't understand it at all, and just put that in contracts out of paranoia.)

Re:Execs aren't going to read this

[Bruce Perens]

If there is open source software in a product to be delivered, I would expect the supplier to look at the contract and then tell my client "we can't sign this because we DO have open source software in our code."

Yes. But this can turn on you, too. I end up explaining to customers at big companies where I do public speaking why they don't want to own all the rights to my performance. It's not as if they want to be responsible for what I say, as if it were a work for hire.

And of course I need to be able to perform it elsewhere.

Bruce

goatse.cx guy bruce perens

[Anonymous Coward]

I still can't figure out how bruce perens manages to get himself onto the front page of slashdot. I can't think of a single thing he's ever had to say of any relevance or interest.

Header files

[hobbit]

Can you #include header files from GPLed code in proprietary code?

Re:Header files

[Entrope]

Can you #include header files from GPLed code in proprietary code?

Of course you can. The question is: What happens next? If you want to distribute the proprietary code (in either source or binary format), you have to evaluate whether the use of the header file -- and in particular the contents of the header file -- makes the proprietary code subject to the GPL. If you want to rely on the answer in court, you had better have a qualified lawyer make that evaluation, and such a lawyer is likely to tell you that it's simpler and easier to just assume the GPL covers your wanted-to-be-proprietary code.

Re:Header files

[Anonymous Coward]

If they're just header files (function prototypes, #defines, structs, etc) then yes you can (It's not code). If it also includes inline code, stl, or #define macros) which are compiled, then no you can't.

Disclaimer: GPL only covers (re)distribution, so it doesn't matter if it's strictly for personal/company use.

Re:Header files

[hobbit]

Of course you can. The question is: What happens next?

Indeed. Some might even say that question was implied from the context. To apply the same level of pedantry to your response: you don't have to evaluate anything if you want to distribute the code. Which is to say: the laws of physics do not compel you to.

Re:Header files

[Bruce Perens]

Can you #include header files from GPLed code in proprietary code?

I would never recommend doing so. And I'll tell you why anyone who answers otherwise is wrong.

You might, sometimes, be able to include something in a program and win a case about it. But your goal is not to win the case. Your goal, to operate your employer without losing money unnecessarily, is to not get sued in the first place. And although you can never prevent an idiot from suing you, you can make it clear to anyone else that your execution has been so proper that there's nothing to sue you for because they could not win. That is the kind of execution I try to create for my customers.

Bruce

Re:Header files

[hobbit]

In which case, how can you ever mix GPL and non-GPL code? I mean, even if your GPL GSM stack is running on a different chip, you've got to interface with it somehow, right?

Re:Header files

[TheRaven64]

And, considering how difficult it is to actually comply with the GPL, it's probably better to avoid it altogether then. Consider the following scenario:

1. I send a file to a friend.
2. Friend says 'I can't open this'.
3. I send a copy of the app I used to create it.

Ooops. I only sent a binary and didn't include a written offer of the source code. I actually don't have a copy of the source code for that version (I deleted it from my download) and the project doesn't maintain a public version control system so I can only get the latest snapshot from them.

Now, no reasonable Free Software developer would sue me for that. I've complied with the spirit of the GPL - I would have directed my friend to the official download site if they wanted to hack on the project - but I've violated the letter. If this friend was a colleague instead, and I did it on work time, I've just opened my company up to litigation for copyright infringement.

Probably better to stick with BSDL software if you want to avoid potential liability.

Re:Header files

[Bruce Perens]

Not all interfaces have to use header files from the GPL code.

Malice or stupidity?

[JustinOpinion]

They're used to just "clicking yes" with no regard to what they're committing themselves and their company to.

This is a very subjective question for you to answer (so feel free to say "I'd rather not speculate"), but my question is: When these companies disregard the license, is their primary reason for doing so stupidity or malice? Is it usually because someone mistakenly thinks "hey, this is available online so I can do whatever I want with it" or is it more along the lines of "no one will ever catch me, so I'm just going to grab this code."

In any case, thanks for all your hard work for the community!

Re:Malice or stupidity?

[Anonymous Coward]

When these companies disregard the license, is their primary reason for doing so stupidity or malice? Is it usually because someone mistakenly thinks "hey, this is available online so I can do whatever I want with it" or is it more along the lines of "no one will ever catch me, so I'm just going to grab this code."

Yes.

Re:Malice or stupidity?

[Bruce Perens]

Always stupidity. Never malice. Malice may happen when they try to deal with the problem after it's brought to them. But there isn't really a smart reason to violate a Free Software license, because you can do anything you want without doing so. You just have to know how.

Thanks

Bruce

Tried and failed

[Anonymous Coward]

A while ago my company contacted the FSF with regards to some questions about correctly integrating some GPL and LGPL software with our own software. We got the runaround over a few e-mails with the FSF, and nobody ever got back to us. It would help if they would be more responsive when companies are *trying* to do the right thing. In the end we just gave up and wrote all the code ourselves, which was less full-featured than using the GPL software, but kept us on the right side of things. Very frustrating experience overall.

Re:Tried and failed

[Bruce Perens]

The FSF were the wrong folks to do this with, because they do not want to help you make proprietary software. I will help you make both Free and Proprietary if you wish, and I'll make sure they don't get mixed in a harmful way. I charge for the service - I've got to make a living. You also need an attorney, if you don't yet have one. Part of the time I'd be working with your attorney, and part with you.

Bruce

Re:Tried and failed

[lucas_picador]

It would help if they would be more responsive when companies are *trying* to do the right thing.

So... the FSF wouldn't give your privately owned company free legal advice? I don't think that's something to get huffy about, AC. Most people pay their lawyers when they want a license or contract interpreted; why should you guys get that service for nothing?

This seems to be a common misunderstanding among companies making their first baby-steps toward using FOSS: they somehow think that FOSS developers and advocates owe them some kind of duty of free labor for being so kind and enlightened as to, you know, actually comply with their legal obligations.

Re:Tried and failed

[boredhacker]

The FSF is not your free legal counsel.

Instead of begging for a free lunch from the FSF, your organization *should* have contacted their own legal advisors or hired some. Presumably, this is the kind of work Bruce does.

The reason your experience was frustrating is because you guys went about things in a completely inappropriate manner... so, you won't find any sympathy here.

Re:Tried and failed

[tkinnun0]

The FSF makes available Free and Open software. They have a website promoting Free and Open software. It is a reasonable expectation that the FSF has figured out the legalities of Free and Open software and is willing to communicate them in a Free and Open manner. Seeing how it's all Free and Open[1].



[1] some disclaimers may apply.

Screw GPL just go with Ninnle!

[Who Is The Drizzle]

This is more reasons why people should use Ninnle Linux. It is licensed under the superior NPL or Ninnle Public License. Just another innovation from Ninnle Labs.

Re:Screw GPL just go with Ninnle!

[Anonymous Coward]

This idea invented by Shampoo?

Re:Screw GPL just go with Ninnle!

[Fanboy Fantasies]

You've been posting about Ninnle Linux for what, 5 years? 10? I seem to remember a ninnle.org at some point.

Can you please tell me why you are doing this? It's driving me crazy.

Re:Screw GPL just go with Ninnle!

[Anonymous Coward]

Because Ninnle is TEH distro, don'tcha know?

IANAL

[DoofusOfDeath]

Bruce wrote in to make sure we knew he was not a lawyer, even though he is weighing in on a legal issue, updated to reflect.

Does anyone know why we always give those "IANAL" disclaimers? Do we just say "IANAL" so that the reader doesn't take our opinion too seriously, or is there some kind of liability associated with not being a lawyer but sounding like you're giving legal advice?

Re:IANAL

[Bruce Perens]

Does anyone know why we always give those "IANAL" disclaimers?

In the United States, it is not legal for anyone but an attorney whom you have retained, and who is admitted to the applicable Bar Association, to give you legal advice. Thus, people like me make clear that they are not attorneys, and that our advice, although it concerns the law, is something less than legal advice. It's your responsibility to check it out with your lawyer. I would be happy to talk with your lawyer, too.

Bruce

Re:IANAL

[DoofusOfDeath]

Does anyone know why we always give those "IANAL" disclaimers?

In the United States, it is not legal for anyone but an attorney whom you have retained, and who is admitted to the applicable Bar Association, to give you legal advice.

How far does that go? I mean, in the extreme, wouldn't that mean it's illegal for a cop to tell kids that they need to obey the speed limit?

I guess what I'm asking is what rules, if any, prevent that (absurd) example from being actually illegal?

Re:IANAL

[Bruce Perens]

How far does that go? I mean, in the extreme, wouldn't that mean it's illegal for a cop to tell kids that they need to obey the speed limit?

There's a good explanation in Wikipedia:

In the common law, legal advice is the giving of a formal opinion regarding the substance or procedure of the law by an officer of the court (such as solicitor or barrister), ordinarily in exchange for financial or other tangible compensation. Advice given without remuneration is normally referred to as being pro bono publico (in the public good), or colloquially, pro bono. Legal advice is distinguished from legal information which is the reiteration of legal fact. Legal information can be conveyed by a parking meter, sign or by other forms of notice such as a warning by a law enforcement officer. Printed legal materials, such as directions and how-to manuals, are generally not considered legal advice. Accordingly, directions on how to fill in a motion form and other court documents do not constitute legal advice.

Re:IANAL

[Greyfox]

Aren't you giving us legal advice about who can legally give us legal advice?

Re:IANAL

[Anonymous Coward]

IANAL means "I engage in anal sex". It's about gay hookups, not legal shit.

Re:IANAL

[RobRyland]

I guess what I'm asking is what rules, if any, prevent that (absurd) example from being actually illegal?

I'm sorry, but answering that question would constitue legal advice, and IANAL. -Rob

Re:IANAL

[LiENUS]

Did he not in that same post inform you that he was not an attorney and as such any advice he was giving you is not legal advice?

Re:IANAL

[Bruce Perens]

Sorry, I have to get legal advice about whether I can give you legal advice about who can legally give you legal advice.

Re:IANAL

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone know why we always give those "IANAL" disclaimers? Do we just say "IANAL" so that the reader doesn't take our opinion too seriously, or is there some kind of liability associated with not being a lawyer but sounding like you're giving legal advice?

Insert a space and it's self-explanatory: they're saying they're a bit anal about these things!

Combining GPL and....

[Hatta]

Now that we know how to combine GPL with proprietary software, how do we combine GPL with BSD software, without getting yelled at by Theo?

Re:Combining GPL and....

[Anonymous Coward]

You ask that as if there's some way to deal with BSD software without getting yelled at by Theo anyway.

Thank you! Thank you! I'm here all week! Try the veal!

Re:Combining GPL and....

[Anonymous Coward]

Now that we know how to combine GPL with proprietary software, how do we combine GPL with BSD software, without getting yelled at by Theo?

Well, if I read Bruce's article correctly, that's, urm, rather hard...

Re:Combining GPL and....

[Anonymous Coward]

The GPL and (original) BSD license aren't compatible because of the GPL, not the BSD license. I know you're probably trying to be funny, but the answer to your question is the same as for combining GPL and proprietary: dual-license.

Re:Combining GPL and....

[Bruce Perens]

No, AC. GPL and the modern BSD license (not the one with the advertising clause) are compatible. The poster was making a joke about Theo, and about the cult of BSD not being entirely self-consistent on what they want you to be able to do, and not do.

Re:Combining GPL and....

[Creepy]

not entirely the only solution - as I've mentioned above, GPL with exceptions is used with BSD already. For instance, MacOS X is built on top of BSD, but uses a modified GPL gcc to compile software. Apple provides the source for the modified gcc on their web site for free as per the requirements of the GPL (though you need to agree to the terms of the Apple Public Source License to get to it, I believe), but the exception allows for it to be used with/on proprietary software.

Re:Combining GPL and....

[TheRaven64]

That's easy. Don't try to put the result in the OpenBSD base system (although it can live in ports) and don't remove the BSD license text from the BSDL portion.

Re:Combining GPL and....

[Anonymous Coward]

The poster was making a joke about Theo, and about the cult of BSD not being entirely self-consistent on what they want you to be able to do, and not do.

Aww, Bruce, why'd you have to go and say something like that? First you misread the GP post (he did specify original BSD license, with advertising clause) then comment about the "cult of BSD" based on a comment about Theo (who is just as much of a joke in the BSD \cap c(OpenBSD) community)? Seriously?

The silly multi-processor workaround

[Anonymous Coward]

(AC because I work on what I'm talking about, and this problem hampers me continuously, at my current job and all previous).

I am dismayed that this is a possible loop-hole to the GPL. There is a very real examples of this today: the T-Mobile G1, and its slightly-unlocked Developer handset counterpart.

The trouble is, these devices are completely unusable without the binary blob loaded into the other processor. A lot of the functionality is still inaccessible, and worse still the manufacturers can get away without even providing a data sheet. Even worse still - these devices can be totally locked down, signed, and remove the ability to replace the GPL parts.

It's self-reinforcing, too. The ARM9/ARM11 split (in this specific case) is an increasingly inefficient thing to do, as ARMs are very good at low latency response (FIQs), and the partition is NOT as simple as multiple processors. In the Qualcomm MSM7200 part used in the vast majority of handsets (including the G1), it's another core and they share RAM and all peripherals. There's an awkward memory partition that has to happen, and that's inefficient use of memory. There's a duplication of ARM pipelines and caches. It's not as efficient as people would have you believe.

In short, it's a bad use of hardware resources just to work-around licensing.

I hold out little hope that manufacturers will provide access to radio layers, unlock devices, and generally provide data sheets so long as the "it's on another processor" work-around is an acceptable solution. Perhaps market forces will change their mind as soon as one big player decides that the hardware cost is no longer worth it. Perhaps not.

To be honest, though, I'm slightly happier that there is the workaround and we can see GPL software in handsets, rather than nothing at all.

Are you actually happy with this solution (or only somewhat happy, like me!), or is it just a recommendation?

Re:The silly multi-processor workaround

[afidel]

Actually that split has to do with licensing, they are legally required in most jurisdictions to ship ONLY the tested and certified configuration with no (reasonable) possibility of end user reconfiguration. This is true in the US even for the unlicensed ISM bands, I imagine the licensed bands have even more strict confines if not from the licensing authorities then from the telco's who have to maintain their network.

Re:The silly multi-processor workaround

[Bruce Perens]

GPL3 fixes this for the GPL part. Which is one reason I take GPL3 seriously for my own work.

Re:The silly multi-processor workaround

[Tweenk]

Standard telco / WiFi manufacturer FUD... The responsibility to obey FCC regulations rests on the user of hardware, not on its manufacturer. There is no FCC-mandated obligation to lock down hardware. This is pure blithering bullshit from hardware companies that use this lie as an excuse not to publish datahseets, lock up functionality in binary blobs, lock down devices, break GPL (if not legally then at least in spirit), and generally be total assholes.

Re:The silly multi-processor workaround

[david.given]

Please provide references. I work with this stuff, and I would love for what you've said to be true, but so far I've found no evidence of this. There are a lot of people who claim it's true, but nobody I've talked to is willing to actually back their statements up! Have you found any official statement from a regulatory board saying that the hardware and software manufacturers are not responsible if a user causes their device to behave contrary to the license?

Re:The silly multi-processor workaround

[Bruce Perens]

In general, FCC does not license manufacturers to sell transmitters until FCC issues a type approval. The purpose of the type approval is to assure that the device would not radiate unlawfully. There are a few exceptions: you can build your own equipment in the Amateur (ham radio) service, and I think some Part 15 (low power unlicensed) equipment.

Bruce

Re:The silly multi-processor workaround

[david.given]

My understanding is that the software part of a software radio is considered part of 'the device', and therefore must be controlled by the manufacturer in order to get the type approval. Is this actually true, though, or is it just too risky to take the risk that it might not be?

For example, take modified devices: I know and you know that there's no real difference between me taking a GSM phone and soldering on a badly made high-power output stage, or me taking the same phone and modifying the radio stack firmware to increase the gain beyond the hardware's ability to produce a clean signal; either way I'm going to do horrible things to the GSM spectrum (with obvious public safety issues). It's intuitively obvious that the manufacturer can't be liable in the first case. It's not intuitively obvious about the second case. Have they actually made any statements on this kind of issue yet, or is it just another thing that it's to dangerous to risk?

Re:The silly multi-processor workaround

[afidel]

15.204(b) - A transmission system consisting of an intentional radiator, an external radio frequency power amplifier, and an antenna, may be authorized, marketed and used under this part. However, when a transmission system is authorized as a system, it must always be marketed as a complete system and must always be used in the configuration in which it was authorized. An external radio frequency power amplifier shall be marketed only in the system configuration with which the amplifier is authorized and shall not be marketed as a separate product.

This part has been interpreted by the lawyers as including the software of the system since it includes things like the ability to boost the power on the internal amp beyond the tested and certified configuration in most cases. I believe ETSI has similar language.

Re:The silly multi-processor workaround

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck the FCC.

Re:The silly multi-processor workaround

[Nursie]

Openmoko

Not the world's greatest phone by any means, but open hardware (as near as they could get, one or two parts are not) and open software plus all the tools to build your own firmware and flash the device.

I run android on mine now.

GPL is fucking DRM in disquise

[Anonymous Coward]

Run, run for your life you fucking nuns. Oh, wait.

Re:GPL is fucking DRM in disquise

[fyngyrz]

Software licensing (GPL or any other) is DRM; it is attempting to manage the rights of the software creator(s) by threat of legal action.

Having said that, speaking as a developer, if you put too many landmines in the road, then I simply decline to take the road.

Maybe it is

[Toe, The]

That may be more feasible than it seems at first. Web applications usually want licensing for terms of use, but the actual source code is not redistributed.

Re:Maybe it is

[Bruce Perens]

This is why we have Affero GPL3, the special version for software as a service.

GPLSoftware in Consumer Products

[rwwyatt]

In order to get my employer to move in the direction of Open Source, I provided research to show that closed source isn't free of litigation either.

In fact, our chipset supplier ran into trouble with closed source software which still lead to a cease and desist order requiring a class A Change

I do believe the GPL does need to be re-written in a far less verbose manner as many executives still do not understand it.

Two processors

[Hatta]

I don't understand why you need 2 processors to combine proprietary and GPL code. Anything that can be done on two processors can be done on one processor at half the speed. So obviously, you don't need 2 processors.

So maybe using 2 processors makes it easier to combine proprietary and GPL code. Why and how? Are you arguing that code that runs on processor A can not possibly be a derivative work of code that runs on processor B?

Re:Two processors

[starling]

Two processors are used regardless of the licence. It just makes things easier from a hardware perspective to have one processor dedicated to the phone network functions and another to the UI and assorted programs.

Re:Two processors

[Bruce Perens]

If you have to do kernel-level work, and some is proprietary and some is GPL, put the proprietary part in one processor and the GPL part in another processor, and don't share anything but a narrow and well-defined communication path between them. Then, they are separate programs.

If it doesn't have to be kernel-level, or doesn't have to be locked down really tightly, just put your separate programs in separate executable files, and run them as separate processes.

Bruce

Re:GPLSoftware in Consumer Products

[Bruce Perens]

I do believe the GPL does need to be re-written in a far less verbose manner as many executives still do not understand it.

Some folks have written GPL equivalents without the preamble. They've not become popular. The problem these days is not really the GPL. It is that there have been thousands of meaningful court cases about software creating precedents helpful or harmful, and there is a lot of rather pernicious legislation like DMCA. So, we have to craft a license that will protect us from a tower of existing legal paper higher than I can figure. The fact that you can still read it in one sitting is pretty impressive. If you read the findings in recent court cases, especially the appeal in the JMRI case, it's pretty clear that judges like the GPL. And that's what we really need. If it doesn't protect you in court, why is it there at all?

Bruce

Google's filesystem

[Bruce Perens]

AFAIR, [Google has] their own proprietary filesystem for Linux, yet they do not open its source.

See Google File System in wikipedia. It says that the filesystem isn't in the kernel, it's in user mode. So, it's not really part of Linux. I'm not sure it's so relevant any longer, anyway. There's been a lot of Linux cluster filesystem development by Oracle and others since then.

Bruce

Re:Google's filesystem

[zerkon]

As I understand it, as long as they are only using it internally (IE not distributing it) they have no legal requirement to release the source.

Re:Google's filesystem

[Bruce Perens]

Yeah, but as I've explained here, this is more complicated and liable to go wrong than people realize.

Re:GPLSoftware in Consumer Products

[rwwyatt]

There is never any foolproof protection in any court.

While the judiciary has drastically improved in the United States, there are still far too many cases with basic failures of interpretation

The only success that I have had legally is when I am blunt in documents to the point of being extreme. I have met some people who simply do not understand "As-is" in product documentation.

Dual licensing is good

[EmbeddedJanitor]

We use dual licensing too: GPL2 or get a commercial license if you want to use it in non-GPL environments.

While the GPL purists might balk at this, it does make the product usable elsewhere (more usage == more testing == good for everyone) and also provides a revenue stream to help further development (good for everyone).

Being practical is far more important than being purist.

Hello, here I am!

[Anonymous Coward]

HI, I'm the Goatse guy, posting AC because I'm too busy to create an account. Anyway, this is my personal website, I hope you enjoy it. I'll be glad to answer any questions you slashdotters may have about me.

Now, did anybody see my traffic cones? I can't remember where I put them!

Does GPL confer responsibility on the Licensor?

[RulerOf]

This might seem like an odd question, but if I were to write an application and license it under GPL2 or 3, I recognize that my licensing of that work under GPL holds anyone who makes derivative works to contribute back and open source as well. However, who becomes responsible for the perpetuation of child source code? And, can any third parties take my code and maintain it for me without needing my consent?

Basically, is it possible to create something and license it under GPL to preserve the spirit of free software, but not be responsible for that software's freedom? I suppose that's what forking is all about... but it wasn't until recently that I considered other people might want to use my scripts too.

Re:Does GPL confer responsibility on the Licensor?

[Bruce Perens]

who becomes responsible for the perpetuation of child source code?

The party that distributed the binary. They can't just say "get the source from Bruce" if Bruce didn't distribute the binary.

This is a problem now that GPL code is in cars. Car dealers don't know about source code. So, the auto maker who doesn't want to cause problems for people who sell their cars can contract to provide the GPL obligation fulfillment for all of the dealers and third-parties in the world who would transfer some car part containing GPL code. Then, those third parties can point at the manufacturer, and the manufacturer is obligated to do it.

can any third parties take my code and maintain it for me without needing my consent?

Yes. If you really care about this, you can trademark the name of your program and require that other folks call it something else. That way, your reputation won't suffer.

Thanks

Bruce

Slashvert!

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashvert! Of course this whole "story" is a Slashvert for Bruce.

Re:Slashvert!

[LaminatorX]

"Slashvert! Of course this whole "story" is a Slashvert for Bruce." True, but we like Bruce.

Also, he may have sufficient cred that his projects rise to the level of "news for nerds."

Re:GPLSoftware in Consumer Products

[windsurfer619]

Where can I read some of these findings? Are they available on the internet for free?

Re:GPLSoftware in Consumer Products

[Bruce Perens]

JMRI's web site has the findings in the JMRI case. Very educational reading. Groklaw has a lot of this stuff for relevant cases.

Bruce

gpl + clouds

[mevets]

If I distribute a program with GPL code, I have to provide the source.

If I sit a modded GPL program behind a cgi script, do I have to provide the source?

mu?

Re:gpl + clouds

[lgw]

The only safe bet: if any computer with 100 yards of your software is running so much as a line of GPLd code, Richard Stalman now owns your software. If you can't afford legal advice on how to interoperate, it's best to find an alternative with a BSD-style license, and stay far away from anything with the GPL.

For the record

[tepples]

To make sure nobody gets any misconceptions from this alleged comedian:

Are you saying that this linux can run on a computer without windows underneath it, at all ? As in, without a boot disk, without any drivers, and without any services ?

Provided that your motherboard and peripheral makers aren't bought-and-paid-for by Microsoft, yes. It's possible to use some drivers from the Windows XP world on Linux/x86, such as ndiswrapper drivers, but it's also possible to replace your peripherals with ones that have native Linux drivers.

If it were true (and I doubt it), then companies would be selling computers without a windows.

I've owned two Macs; neither ran Windows. I currently own an ASUS Eee PC; it came with Linux, and it still runs Linux. And Dell is selling PCs with Ubuntu Desktop on them.

it does not sound reasonable that some new alternative could just snap into existence overnight like that. It would take billions of dollars and a massive effort to achieve.

Hundreds of thousands of people have developed and tested free software for the various GNU/Linux distributions, from college students in their spare time to full-time professionals. If, on average, they put in the purchasing-power-parity equivalent of $10,000 of their time, there are your billions right there. Linux alone is worth $1.4 billion, and that's just the kernel. The same article values the whole Fedora distro at over $10 billion.

Apple tried to create their own system for years, but finally gave up recently and moved to Intel and Microsoft.

Intel yes; Microsoft no. It's possible to install Windows alongside Mac OS X on a Mac with an Intel CPU, but Mac OS X out of the box draws far more from NeXTstep and FreeBSD than from Windows.

Re: In my case

[tchuladdiass]

In my case, I have an interpreter for a small language I wrote, which is currently released it under the GPL. Now part of it's design is that it can be used as an embedded language attached to other programs (in this case, one would link to a library implementing my language). So in this instance I would like for any Free/Open Source app (as defined by the OSI or FSF) to be able to link against my code. But for the time being I want to reserve rights when it comes to non-Free software.

little sense

[Gary W. Longsine]

There exist open source projects with thriving communities of contributors which include individuals and companies. Those tend to be BSD or MIT licensed, however, so perhaps they are not relevant to this current discussion. *ducks*

Re:little sense

[mcvos]

There exist open source projects with thriving communities of contributors which include individuals and companies. Those tend to be BSD or MIT licensed, however, so perhaps they are not relevant to this current discussion.

Or Apache. Most Apache top-level projects have a mix of companies and individuals involved in them, and they all contribute freely. I don't know the legal details of the license, but it works very well in practice. And considering Apache projects are mostly frameworks and libraries, it wouldn't surprise me if it was one of the best open source licenses for those kind of things.

shouldn't that be slashdottir?

[Tristfardd]

What was her name?

Off topic, but still on subtopic

[KlaymenDK]

Yeah, this reminds me of "the other Bruce", .Bruce Perens (150539) (note the dot prefix).

What's up with that? A poor pseudo identity for spewing garbage (which would be a strange thing to do), or an impostor who can't or hasn't been banned?

Re:goatse.cx guy bruce perens

[mcvos]

I still can't figure out how bruce perens manages to get himself onto the front page of slashdot. I can't think of a single thing he's ever had to say of any relevance or interest.

Wasn't he the rational voice in that BitKeeper debacle that led to the creation of git?

Just *perfect* !

[Anonymous Coward]

awesome! just too good!

Re:GPLSoftware in Consumer Products

[Peeteriz]

WTF is an executive doing reading some licencing agreements?
He should have the legal department or outside lawyer review it, and they would state their opinion and answer any questions about what the agreement would mean. It does not matter if the agreement is 3 lines or 300 pages, in any case - and especially the 3-line agreements must be very carefully reviewed by lawyers, since much more of the agreement's real meaning is 'implied' by relevant legislation instead of the agreement itself.

Re:GPLSoftware in Consumer Products

[TheRaven64]

The GPL is as short as it can be without adding ambiguity (actually, a few clauses are borderline ambiguous - it could really do with being around 20% longer to clarify them). I'd prefer to stick with the OpenBSD license philosophy: if the software comes with a long legal document telling you what you can do with it, it probably isn't free.

WOOOOOOSH

[wastedlife]

That noise you hear is a joke going way above your head. Unless you knew it was a joke and decided you had to explain why it was wrong? I think the latter might be the more depressing option.

Re:WOOOOOOSH

[tepples]

To make sure nobody gets any misconceptions from this alleged comedian:

Unless you knew it was a joke and decided you had to explain why it was wrong?

I thought I made that clear.

I think the latter might be the more depressing option.

Sorry about that. Ask your doctor if an antidepressant is right for you.