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Palm Sued Over Palm Pre GPL Violation
zaxl writes "Palm is being sued by Artifex Software over the PDF viewer in Palm's Pre smartphone, which may violate the GNU GPL. Artifex alleges that Palm has copied Artifex's PDF rendering engine, called muPDF, and integrated it into the Palm Pre's PDF viewer application without the proper licensing conditions. The entire application must be licensed under the GPL if muPDF is part of the application. It seems more and more cell phones are shipping with open source code, but in a closed manner."
Well, if the GPL wasn't a bullshit license which states that you're subject to the GPL if you even use GPL software in your project, this wouldn't be a problem.
Honestly, I have some issues with the LGPL, but they're a hell of a lot less because that aspect is gone. The "linking to my code counts as directly using my code" clause in the GPL is complete and utter bullshit.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
Those patent trolls...
Since it doesn't say that, I'm sure you'll agree that this is a problem.
Like all licences, GPL constrains how you may used the licensed thing. All you have to do is satisfy those terms and conditions and you're fine.
No, actually it only tells you what you are required to do if you distribute projects that contain it. You can use with out distribution however you want, no restrictions.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Hello,
As a consultant for several large companies, I'd always done my work on
Windows. Recently however, a top online investment firm asked us to do
some work using Linux. The concept of having access to source code was
very appealing to us, as we'd be able to modify the kernel to meet our
exacting standards which we're unable to do with Microsoft's products.
Although we met several technical challenges along the way
(specifically, Linux's lack of Token Ring support and the fact that we
were unable to defrag its ext2 file system), all in all the process
went smoothly. Everyone was very pleased with Linux, and we were
considering using it for a great deal of future internal projects.
So you can imagine our surprise when we were informed by a lawyer that
we would be required to publish our source code for others to use. It
was brought to our attention that Linux is copyrighted under something
called the GPL, or the Gnu Protective License. Part of this license
states that any changes to the kernel are to be made freely available.
Unfortunately for us, this meant that the great deal of time and money
we spent "touching up" Linux to work for this investment firm would
now be available at no cost to our competitors.
Furthermore, after reviewing this GPL our lawyers advised us that any
products compiled with GPL'ed tools - such as gcc - would also have to
its source code released. This was simply unacceptable.
Although we had planned for no one outside of this company to ever
use, let alone see the source code, we were now put in a difficult
position. We could either give away our hard work, or come up with
another solution. Although it was tough to do, there really was no
option: We had to rewrite the code, from scratch, for Windows 2000.
I think the biggest thing keeping Linux from being truly competitive
with Microsoft is this GPL. Its draconian requirements virtually
guarantee that no business will ever be able to use it. After my
experience with Linux, I won't be recommending it to any of my
associates. I may reconsider if Linux switches its license to
something a little more fair, such as Microsoft's "Shared Source".
Until then its attempts to socialize the software market will insure
it remains only a bit player.
Thank you for your time.
What the hell is that thing supposed to be? I've seen it for years and want to know, since I can't find info on it anywhere and no-one seems to know.
Why the hell does it look like a dick with two red balls being stroked by a hand with a blue napkin?
...since Palm mentions muPDF in their documentation, and they don't have a commercial license for it. Anyone in the software industry, anyone using libraries they didn't write, should understand that there's a difference between "open source" and "public domain."
--I'm so big, my sig has its own sig.
-- See?
Just another example of why the industry is moving to BSD-style licenses. Face it, the GPL is dead and Stallman's socialist dream along with it.
There's no such thing as "Free - with conditions"
How hard is it to just release a totally OSS version of your OS with all applications and stuff there and let people modify it and put it on your phone? I really don't see the point of trying to complicate things by closing the OSS. Release everything for free and you can take a lot more free code and not having to worry about paying lots of money when you are caught.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
I don't suppose someone here with a Pre would mind checking out that folder and seeing if the source for the PDF viewer is there?
Is Slashdot for or against copyrights this week? You know, since the GPL is a copyright license and relies on copyright law to have any power.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10410074-1.html
Hell, some snot-nosed terror banging away on a picture of his absentee mother is probably 10x smarter than most Twitterers. "Look at me! Look at me! I'm special! I feel so empty inside if I'm not prattling on about my inane life to other depressed losers!"
+5 Insightful? FFS, can we please get something better than "randomly assign mod points to people who never contribute to the site" please? please?
How we know is more important than what we know.
Totally not seeing any way in which what you said could be read as disagreeing with what I wrote. Distribution is only one way to use software. It happens to be the one that Palm chose for this, so no other terms could apply.
wow ... I'm flabergasted.
"So you can imagine our surprise when we were informed by a lawyer that we would be required to publish our source code for others to use. It was brought to our attention that Linux is copyrighted under something called the GPL, or the Gnu Protective License. Part of this license states that any changes to the kernel are to be made freely available. Unfortunately for us, this meant that the great deal of time and money we spent "touching up" Linux to work for this investment firm would now be available at no cost to our competitors."
Get a new lawyer, the GPL only requires you to release your source code when you distribute a modified copy of a covered work, and it only requires that the code be distributed to those who receive a copy of the modified work. So, unless you are in the habit of giving your touched up versions of the Linux kernel to competitors, you need not worry about your competitors seeing your changes.
"Furthermore, after reviewing this GPL our lawyers advised us that any products compiled with GPL'ed tools - such as gcc - would also have to its source code released. This was simply unacceptable."
Maybe it is time to find yourself a competent set of lawyers, who actually know what they are talking about. The output of gcc is not covered by the GPL, you can distribute it under any license you see fit. Case-in-point: FreeBSD is compiled using gcc, and distributed under the BSD license.
"Although we had planned for no one outside of this company to ever use, let alone see the source code, we were now put in a difficult position."
Yes, you are in the difficult position of paying incompetent lawyers to give you bad legal advice that costs you money. I have seen that scenario play out in the past, and the companies did not fair very well in the long run.
"We could either give away our hard work, or come up with another solution. Although it was tough to do, there really was no option: We had to rewrite the code, from scratch, for Windows 2000."
Your lawyers never even bothered to call up the Linux foundation and ask about the licensing "dilemma" you were in? When you were given the flatly wrong advice from your lawyers, did you ever think to call up the people you received Linux from and ask them about it? Did you even think to ask them if they were willing to license it in such a way that you would not have to release those changes (that they already did notwithstanding)?
What company do you work for? I see a great opportunity to make some money short selling.
"I think the biggest thing keeping Linux from being truly competitive with Microsoft is this GPL. Its draconian requirements virtually guarantee that no business will ever be able to use it."
This explains, of course, why Red Hat, Novell, Oracle, and IBM have made such enormous businesses out of GPL covered software. Which large companies do you consult for that are not already using Linux in some way?
I think you might be lying or trolling, though I am not really sure what the difference is.
Palm trees and 8
http://opensource.palm.com/1.3.1/index.html seems to have the source and patches. Is this the end of it or is something missing?
Use is normally associated with consumption, primary function, or leverage. In that sentence, it would be referring to usage in regard to primary function of the software.
You said "used" which I assumed was supposed to be "use". Use and distribution are two different things. Distribution is not a way to use software. Even if it was, the gpl is very explicit in its goal to only cover only distribution. Many people get confused over this point and think that they are not free to use GPL in a personal project that will never be distributed.That's why I responded: to clarify your statement in the general sense. Yes, in the case of palm they did distribute. But, I think its more important that people understand what the GPL says, then the specifics of any one case. This is why you will notice any actual reference to this case in my first post.
A great example of this is something like MySql. I can change the software to do what ever I want, and use it on my server to build a facebook killer, without being required to distribute the source code for it, even though its licensed under the GPL. Because, again the GPL only covers distribution, not use( or other uses if you insist on your ridiculous definition of use that includes distribution).
Also, you misspelled licenses. I'm usually the guy that people point out grammatical errors to, rather than visa versa. But, still, if you are going to offer advice about a subject, it helps your creditability to actually spell it correctly. Or at least use a web browser with integrated spell checking. Again, the point of posting was not nitpicking, but clarifying as posts similar to your last one have led to quite a bit of misinformation about the GPL license.
Once again:GPL covers distribution only, not use.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
You are both idiots; shut the hell up
http://opensource.palm.com/1.3.1/index.html
http://palm.cdnetworks.net/opensource/1.3.1/mupdf-1.0.tar
http://palm.cdnetworks.net/opensource/1.3.1/mupdf-1.0.tar-patches.tgz
(info from post #30349382)
On the phone is a PDF called "Open Source Information.pdf". In this document they list the projects they used for the phone:
libgpg-error (only certain files are licensed under GPL), linux-hotplug, libsamplerate0, fuse, freefont, vpnc, sysfsutils, iptables, dosfstools, alsa-plugins, busybox, ipkg, netbase, oprofile, pmeloop, alsa-utils, PPP (only certain files are licensed under GPL), readline, setserial, upstart-initscripts, e2fsprogs (only certain files are licensed under GPL), module-init-tools-cross, module-init-tool, base-passwd, iproute2, usbmon, mupdf, libpurple, makedevs, update- modules, netcat, gdbm, cifs, rsync, update-rc.d, upstart, wireless-tools, udev, bootchart, fbset, dnsmasq, binutils, libgcrypt (only certain files are licensed under GPL), libfuse, Sysvinit, Linux Kernel, pulseaudio, procps, psmisc, mtools, UN Batang Korean True Type Font, faad2, e2fsprogs-libs (portions are licensed under GPL, other portions are licensed under LGPL), sysstat, screen
I don't know why there's a suit unless someone requested the code and was denied, but Palm clearly advertise the fact that they use the app. The document is 37 pages long, but it's not hard to find references to the software they use.
I like music
isn't Artifix based on Ghostscript which is GPL, Artifix packages a version of ghoscript with support? Can anyone in the know clarify the situation with regards to ghostscript?
How is the G)NAA = 36440 FreeBSD
Clearly you're not a typical grammar Nazi or you'd know that the phrase is "vice-versa" and that you used creditability when you mean credibility.
Now cue the next grammar asshole to pick my post apart...
You did fine. Some people might complain about your contraction, but I say fuck 'em.
Anyone else notice this? -> Mikael Ricknäs (IDG News Service) 07/12/2009 07:53:00
I don't know why, but I read the story title as "Palin Sued Over Palm Pre GPL Violation".
Like Microsoft and other for-profit software companies, the GPL gang uses government-based aggression in order to enforce its so-called "intellectual property rights", but what makes it worse is that using the latest crack from The Pirate Bay nor any amount of money would fix your GPL-related legal problem. Microsoft is able to invest billions into R&D to protect its market share by actually delivering value and innovation to its customers (not all of whom are software geeks), which is why it has been able to retain its market position for all this time. Restrictive licenses like GPL discourage free market competition! The software authors, acting in the context of the competitive environment, should get to decide what they can do with their source code, like include it in a proprietary project some time in the future.
Just look at how much good the small amount of permissively licensed software (ex. BSD, X, Apache, Xiph codecs, SQLite, PostgreSQL, Lua, etc) have done - pieces of that code are included in feature-competitive commercial products used by millions (or maybe already billions) of people all over the world! GPL, on the other hand, continues to be a black hole that companies like IBM and Oracle (both, interestingly enough, a part of the Military-Industrial Complex) continue to pour billions into, presumably in an ill-devised effort to hurt Microsoft, but in reality having a crummy-but-free desktop competitor only solidifies Microsoft's market dominance by crippling any serious proprietary competitors before they get a chance to get off the ground.
BSD is free software, GPL isn't!
(I know saying this will further push my karma toward negative infinity, but it is nonetheless true.)
Falling prices and eventual open-sourcing of software should come as the result of free market competition, not government force!
My ZVUE player crashed once, and I swear I saw a Linux console before the screen went blank. I want the firmware code!
There's certainly a lot of good reasons for businesses to prefer BSD licensed code. There are just as many good reasons for developers (or businesses actually writing said code) to prefer the GPL.
If you release code under the BSD license, you'll never see a dime for it that isn't charity. If you release code under the GPL, you get all the warm fuzzies of giving it to everyone and the ability to tell corporate users to pay up for closed source use.
I don't know if there's a decent BSD licensed PDF library. I don't think so.
"I see your post attempting to be succinct and insightful, and I raise you an unqualified insult"
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
Good point.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
If your phone can screw up the towers, then there's something wrong with the towers.
Yes. Now, why are you assuming nothing is wrong with the towers?
Remember, the phone infrastructure is designed by people who think designing their own crypto (without review from crypto experts) is a good idea.
Be aware that if you're roaming, the phone company you're guesting can pretend to your phone service provider to be your phone (i.e. they can place calls in your name, intercept your calls, etc.).
(At least that's how I remember that lecture.)
I wouldn't trust these people to not trust the client. I wouldn't trust these people to not trust in law-based security (i.e. deterring people by threatening to find and punish them after the fact).
Why do you trust these people to make good security decisions?
Shouldn't that be
Some people might complain about your contraction, but I say "fuck 'em."
Or
Some people might complain about your contraction, but I say that they should be fucked.
then write it yourself. I realize that implementing anything significant hurts a product's tight schedule, but if you can't open source most of your product then you'll just have to suffer and do it the hard way like everyone else in the business.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Perhaps he lives in a country where they spell 'licence' correctly instead of the US?
> Also, you misspelled licenses.
The people who invented English would probably disagree with you there.
http://opensource.palm.com/1.3.1/index.html
http://palm.cdnetworks.net/opensource/1.3.1/mupdf-1.0.tar
http://palm.cdnetworks.net/opensource/1.3.1/mupdf-1.0.tar-patches.tgz
While yes, including distribution as a 'use' of software is quite a stretch...
The parent was spot-on in his use of licences, I am assuming you were educated in the states, most likely in public school. In US, people (aka teachers) have a terrible time with English homophones. They can keep track of the difference between advice[N] and advise[V], yet not for example practice[N] and practise[V]. Look again at the line of his you quoted, he is using *both* the noun and the verb form, absolutely correctly. Whilst attempting an arrogant ad hominem on his use of language, ultimately you only made yourself look the fool.
I hope this can be a learning experience for you.
A great example of this is something like MySql. I can change the software to do what ever I want,
Since you opened the door to being technical, that isn't "use", either. That's modification.
"Use" is reading the code or running the program/calling the library. If you are going to call modification a "use", then you must concede a broader definition including all six of the exclusive rights inherent in copyright. But I suspect you won't do that, because it means that the other poster's sentence you took exception to would become correct.
Regardless, the GPL is an instrument of use, because before you can use a copyrighted work, you must come into lawful possession of it. Therein lies the basis for all licensing, software and otherwise. A wants to do X with something owned by B. B says, "I promise not to sue you for doing X if you promise to Y." That's a license. Y can be "pay $50", "show me all your code changes", "use it only from 4pm to 6pm", or just about anything.
The GPL imposes no limitations on use per se, but that is not the same thing as not "covering" it as you suggest. It is covered, and it begins in the preamble: "To protect your rights, we need to prevent others from denying you these rights or asking you to surrender the rights." (GPLv3) If the GPL did not address use, it would have no way of protecting your rights in that regard. The GPL gives you lawful possession; lawful possession is required before you can use something without being sued. The GPL also protects you from individuals limiting your rights to use the software by way of a secondary license.
Once again:GPL covers distribution only, not use.
No. I see this repeated all over the place. It is not true. The GPL restricts distribution only, not reproduction, modification, or other forms of usage.
In order to receive a copy to use, you must take part in a distribution of the software. There are restrictions in place on that software from the very beginning--there must be. A license must have a scope; if there were no restrictions at all on your use of the software, that would be called "public domain". Whether those restrictions affect you or your intended use is a separate question, but they're undeniably there and in effect.
That initial distribution unto you gives you all of the privileges and responsibilities incumbent in the license: full, unhindered personal use; full, unhindered rights to prepare a derivative work; and explicit permission to redistribute in accordance with particular limitations, namely, making source code available.
What you mean to say is that the GPL does not impose conditions on simple use or modification as a prerequisite to acquiring a copy. But the provisions of the GPL are binding in their entirety immediately upon receipt of the copy--it's what you agreed to in order to be given the copy.
You're implying a gap where none exists. The GPL always applies in its entirety when you use GPL software. What it does not do is impose restrictions on your non-distributing use. It is not the case that you receive the software with no license and then magically one day a license comes into existence. It is there from the beginning, as all of your rights and responsibilities must engage with the conveyance itself. It says in the preamble (v3), "By contrast, the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change all versions of a program--to make sure it remains free software for all its users." If the GPL did not "cover" use of the copyrighted work, it would not be able to achieve this goal.
I agree with your argument on the GPL, but:
1. Spelling is not grammar.
2. We English spell "licence" like that. I suspect that your forefathers did too. We can't help it if you colonials go and mess up our language, but please don't then try and retro-correct us.
3. Correcting a one letter difference in spelling adds nothing to your argument but, rather, distracts from it.
No?
Who is going to troubleshoot your software?
Who is going to fix it?
How are you going to gain technical credibility if nobody know it is your company who is doing that great software?
That is why companies are using GPL. At the very least bugs are easier to find and if your product is any good your own users become your best QA team.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Whining about how other people decide to license their own hard work.
You have no shame.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Which is the frigging point.
You don't like it? Fine.
But there is no reason why other people should submit to your wishes.
If replication of effort is needed it is because you are not willing to share all your code, that being the case I don't see why people that actually want to make sure all code remains open to all is to blame.
Your choice, their choice, you should respect the freedom of others about how their work is used, in accordance to their wishes.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Really, how many times are you going to use that word and its derivatives?
Nobody is forcing you to do anything.
Your arguments are baseless, the work of others is not for you to take as you please, it is so tremendously simple that I just don't understand why somebody just can't get it.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Licence is the more common spelling in the UK. License is the spelling used in the US, and is an alternative spelling in the UK.
Note I haven't spelled grey wrong.
Define "distribute". Does it have to be on removable media, or disseminated on a network? Does putting software on a piece of hardware (e.g. phone) that is, um, distributed widely to hundreds of thousands of people qualify?
I don't get it. The guys peddling GPL software are doing voluntary co-operation to provide goods free of charge for anyone to use. Why is there such a hate campaign going on against them? What's it to you what other people are doing with their time and money?
You say, "there should not be a law...". Well, if there were no law, then the copyright holder would have no protections whatsoever. Absent a law, you have no ability or right to stop me from doing anything I want with respect to copying of a copyable work. Only the law grants you a limited monopoly. In exchange for that limited monopoly (benefitting, you, the copyright holder) there is supposed to be a benefit to society as a whole. Lose site of that, and there is no reason to have copyright. So, now that we agree that there should be a law, let's debate the nature of the law. So, explain to me why there *should not* be a law to force certain exemptions. What is a logical reason that such a prohibition should exist. I'm sorry, but, there isn't one.
Over-the-top Response Guy! Giving "Over-the-Top Responses" since 1970.
Nice clarification. There is one exception to the use/distribution dichotomy you talk about though - the GNU Affero GPL. Most versions of the GPL, as you say, concern themselves primarily with distribution. You can use GPL'd software however you like, as long as you respect the distribution terms. The Affero GPL also limits use: if the software is a network application, you must provide users of that application access to the underlying source code.
The old style free software licenses don't really address the case of people hoarding knowledge behind software-as-a-service business models; they were predicated on the notion that programs were distributed in binary form to end users. I'm more than a little worried that if current trends continue, we'll end up in the same bad place we were before the GPL/BSD/etc licenses really gained traction; a place where details about the way things work is held and controlled by a very few.
Broad exposure to the working details of our technological infrastructure has fueled an enormously productive and creative period of technological growth. If we lose broad access to knowledge, we are denying ourselves the opportunity to continue building on this edifice. That would be a sad debacle indeed.
> U.S. copyright law, 17 USC 117(a)(1), specifically states that the owner of a program has the right to copy it, as an essential step in utilizing it:
Yeah, but courts have already ruled that you're still bound by EULAs and they've done some crazy work-around to make sure that this law doesn't mean what it says any more. In particular, they've ruled that any copy made from an unauthorized copy is illegal. So even if you would fall under the 17 USC 117(a) protections, if you don't accept the EULA for the copy on the CD, it "contaminates" all copies made from it, even if they would otherwise be lawful.
Now, I think that's absurd, and the GPL guys seem to agree (because they've made sure to clarify that you do *not* have to accept; something the EULA people never will), but I just wanted to point that out, because the fact that 17 USC 117 has been neutered like that really confuses a lot of people.
The idea that external function calls need to be license-compatible has always struck me as a bit obscene. There's a clear delineation between your work and theirs, so the suggestion that the combination is a derivative work is questionable in my mind (but settled as far as the law is concerned, if I understand correctly). Especially when so many *other* mechanisms for using someone else's work *don't* result in a derivative work: communication via dbus, pipes, files, and sockets. Libraries should be LGPLed, the case for GPL libraries is almost entirely political, has almost nothing to do with wanting to keep their own code open (LGPL does that fine).
But if what you're talking about is lifting innards from someone else's complex project, using their actual code in your code, I think it's fair to accept their licensing restrictions, I don't think the GPL is necessarily BS there. You have an opportunity here to provide a service, to realize that this functionality is something many people may find useful, and to write it yourself in a clean, simple library rather than as part of an end-project, and release it with a liberal license.
'Like Microsoft and other for-profit software companies, the GPL gang uses government-based aggression in order to enforce its so-called "intellectual property rights"'
What is the name(s) of this government-based, agreesive GPL gang, and did you type this BS yourself ?
This code is under the same licensing scheme as Ghostscript. AFPL and one year or major release later GPL. Because there have been no major releases yet; AFPL it is.
If there were copyright notices in the source files, they've been stripped off.
Given Palm's recent thumbing their nose at Apple and iTunes, all I can say is, "ha ha".
(Man, I wish /. had an edit button. . .)
legislature -> legislator
Does anybody have a link to the complaint? I didn't see it on pacer, which is odd for a suit filed over a week ago. Thanks.
Someone please correct me if I am wrong. If I completely write an OS, and for the release of that OS I use an open source pdf viewer. That does not mean the OS has to be open source also. It seems to me that the pdf viewer would remain open source, and I would have to contribute any code changes I made to the pdf viewer to the project. But my OS can remain private. Also, does open source say anything about having the ability to update or install under a private OS. I would image just because the code is open source, the OS provider doesn't have to provide a way for the community to change or update the code under the OS. Just provide the source to the code.
So why doesn't one of those companies make a BSD version? Make one, release it as BSD and then let someone look after it.
Or are they waiting for someone *else* to do that?
Yes, the latest version of the GPL (GPLv3) is compatible. You can now easily GPL your programs and then rock out, or whatever you want to do.
coding is life
The BSD license encourages the development of software derived from the code. The GPL disallows the development of less restrictive open source software and the development of closed source software derived from the code.
It's as clear as copyright law: if copyright law calls it a derived work, then it's unlicensed. If that isn't clear, then fix your laws.
But even if you're LGPL'd, if you statically link, you're making a derived work, just as if I copied three chapters from Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets into the middle of my 12 chapter opus. I can *refer* to HPaTCoS, but I can't include large sections.
And that's what static linking does.
Saying "we have sooper sekret technology" to investors can often be worth more than the costs of constantly backporting things. Even if it's really nothing. That's just the way the world works.
As for the case in TFA, is there a decent PDF library released under the BSD license? I don't think there is, and that will often be the case because the GPL is just better for the developer, if not always the user. (Though it is for the end user.)
Because, just like Microsoft, they rely on government force and the unnatural legal construct called "intellectual property" to get their way. Stallman (RMS) speaking out against the Pirate Party was the last straw. Like socialism / communism, GPL relies on an irrational philosophy of trying to force others to "do the right thing", and the license is getting ever-more restrictive with each version. The road to tyranny is always paved with benevolent rationalizations to use force for good!
RMS clearly believes either that all programmers should work for free (which isn't an option for anyone who isn't independently wealthy and/or wants to have a family, etc) or, more likely, that all software development should be subsidized by the governments, as is already the case in many publicly-funded universities. From my radical Anarcho-Capitalist point of view virtually all taxation constitutes theft, but this is an issue on which the more mainstream libertarians / fiscal conservatives would agree with me.
I don't have a problem with people releasing and using restrictively-licensed software, but I do have a problem with them calling it "free". That term should only apply to public domain software, as well as permissive "just cover our legal butts" licenses like BSD.
Also, you misspelled licenses. I'm usually the guy that people point out grammatical errors to, rather than visa versa. But, still, if you are going to offer advice about a subject, it helps your creditability to actually spell it correctly. Or at least use a web browser with integrated spell checking. Again, the point of posting was not nitpicking, but clarifying as posts similar to your last one have led to quite a bit of misinformation about the GPL license.
Since we've already gone off the topic anyway and getting modded up for it, I might as well point out a couple of things in your post.
Licence can be spelt with a c. In fact it is spelt with a c in British English where I believe the language originated from.
But well done for being a bitch about it.
By the way, were you meant to say too instead of to in that sentence? Saying to doesn't make much sense to me
For being a guy that usually point out peoples grammatical errors and spelling mistakes, you really aren't that good writing yourself.
I don't usually do it. I meant "to". If I had used "too" i would still have needed "to" and it should have gone before the adjective. " but clarifying as posts too similar to your last one". I guess with the spelling of license, I'm getting full payback for my bellyaching in highschool Only had access to a spellchecker set to Brittish English, so I still type colour,tyre, metre, centre and favourite sometimes. But still the case of the verb was wrong, and the guy was generally just wrong. I think this may have been the first time I've actually tried to point out someones spelling mistake. So, no I don't do it often.
I firmly believe that I am a crumulant writter. My hugo award that I refused due to a three way scheduling error with the academy awards banquet, and the nobel prize for literature ceremony, can attest to that.
...Along with my overly honest, nonchalant way of humbly attesting to my greatness.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
'Licences' is the correct spelling in British English and most Commonwealth English variants.
I have witnessed many times providers telling clients they could not be bothered to fix things, in spite of recognizing a problem actually exists.
Closed source shops of course.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.