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Glibc Is Finally Free Software
WebMink writes "Despite the fervour of some, the dark secret of every GNU/Linux distribution is that, until August 18 this year, it depended on software that was under a non-Free license — incompatible with the Open Source Definition and non-Free according to Debian and the FSF. A long tale of tenacity and software archeology has finally led to that software appearing under the 3-clause BSD license — ironically, at the behest of an Oracle VP. The result is that glibc, portmap and NFS are no longer tainted."
I've got an idea! What we really need is some kind of license that's like BSD, but requires people distributing derived works to do so under the same license. I can't believe nobody's thought of this yet!
I read the article. And I can't find reference to what the original license text is, nor even what the new license text is. It mentions that the code could not be sold on it's own, but only as part of a larger work. Which, I assume, is what made the license incompatible with "freedom". But, I can't see the full license.
Can someone more smart (or more persistent) please post both licenses?
Lol. The twit who moded that "insightful" need to lookup irony.
I'm sorry, but the BSD license isn't free enough for me. The BSD license does nothing to let me write code that, for example, hacks into people's bank accounts and transfers all their money to mine. A truly FREE license would make that legal.
Or, should I say, typical lack of reading the friendly article.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
copyright laws are less of a liabilty than public domain becuase copyright laws are here to stay.
You're looking for the Sleepycat license used by Oracle's Berkeley DB. It's a new-style BSD license with one additional clause that implements a copyleft.
http://spot.livejournal.com/315383.html
This actually gives details.
Seriously, based on the article Oracle probably could have chosen to go all copyright infringement lawsuit-happy on every Linux vendor known to man. But instead they relicensed the old code under a free license...*checks the temperature in Hell*
After years of not using a signature, I am going to make one to say the following: Fuck Beta
I can't fucking upload shit to my NAS without my desktop freezing
A computer is not a toilet.
Try uploading files instead.
The original license text was:
/*
* Sun RPC is a product of Sun Microsystems, Inc. and is provided for
* unrestricted use provided that this legend is included on all tape
* media and as a part of the software program in whole or part. Users
* may copy or modify Sun RPC without charge, but are not authorized
* to license or distribute it to anyone else except as part of a product or
* program developed by the user.
*
* SUN RPC IS PROVIDED AS IS WITH NO WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND INCLUDING THE
* WARRANTIES OF DESIGN, MERCHANTIBILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
* PURPOSE, OR ARISING FROM A COURSE OF DEALING, USAGE OR TRADE PRACTICE.
*
* Sun RPC is provided with no support and without any obligation on the
* part of Sun Microsystems, Inc. to assist in its use, correction,
* modification or enhancement.
*
* SUN MICROSYSTEMS, INC. SHALL HAVE NO LIABILITY WITH RESPECT TO THE
* INFRINGEMENT OF COPYRIGHTS, TRADE SECRETS OR ANY PATENTS BY SUN RPC
* OR ANY PART THEREOF.
*
* In no event will Sun Microsystems, Inc. be liable for any lost revenue
* or profits or other special, indirect and consequential damages, even if
* Sun has been advised of the possibility of such damages.
*
* Sun Microsystems, Inc.
* 2550 Garcia Avenue
* Mountain View, California 94043
*/
The new one is:
/*
* Copyright (c) 2010, Oracle America, Inc.
*
* Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
* modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are
* met:
*
* * Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
* notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
* * Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above
* copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following
* disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials
* provided with the distribution.
* * Neither the name of the "Oracle America, Inc." nor the names of its
* contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived
* from this software without specific prior written permission.
*
* THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS
* LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS
* FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
* COPYRIGHT HOLDER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT,
* INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
* DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE
* GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS
* INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY,
* WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING
* NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE
* OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
*/
How exactly do you put something into public domain legally, such that you can legally protect them to be in public domain? Really, serious question.
Now that Glibc is free we can finally have the year of the Linux desktop we've been waiting for since 2001. I know tons of my friends who would always say "I wanted to use Linux but Glibc isn't free!"
Now with that glaring hole in Linux's offering solved we can move on continuing to ignore the terrible User Experience.
WTFPL will be perfect for you.
In soviet Russia, God creates you!
google "sun rpc license"
(Interesting that the parameters for firefox brought the one on Apple's site up before the one on Microsoft's.)
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
You could have clicked the link in the article to the actual diffs:
http://sources.redhat.com/git/?p=glibc.git;a=commit;h=a7ab6ec83e144dafdc7c46b8943288f450f8e320
The best way to put something as close to public domain as possible is the Creative Commons CC-Zero license. Anything less that that leaves too many legal uncertainties.
What do you mean by, "legally protect them to be in public domain?" When something is in the public domain, absolutely anyone can use it in any way they want. Including using it as part of a non-free, non-public domain product. They can do whatever they want with it, just as everyone else can.
Perhaps you're asking about copyfraud, where someone falsely claims to have exclusive rights to a work in the public domain? For example, publishing a copy of Shakespeare's plays and putting a notice on it that says, "No part of this may be reproduced without permission from the publisher." That's just lying. A license like GPL wouldn't prevent that either. Licenses only apply to people who are honest or who get caught. If someone intentionally lies about what rights they have, the only thing you can do is call them on it (and sue them if you're sufficiently motivated).
Or maybe you're just asking what the mechanism is? In most countries, all you need to do is stick a notice on it saying, "This work is in the public domain."
"I'm too busy to research this and form an educated opinion, but I do have time to tell everyone my uninformed opinion."
Interesting. But how is this "more free"? It's not quite a BSD license if they require the source and binaries contain that notice. Further, what I see is this re-branding of everything from Sun to Oracle all over the place. The latest updates for VirtualBox, OpenOffice and Java did little to patch or improve but most significantly changes everything to containing Oracle branding. I see this as no different.
Calling this more free while also including requirements such as the ones illustrated above it s bit of a mixed message.
It is a very good question, and the answer is to use the GPL. But more to the point, if you put something into the public domain, then you by definition should be expecting that other people will take your work and close it up inside their own products/works. If you don't want that, then you don't want the public domain.
If what you want is "public domain" in the sense that it's open for anyone to look at, use, and modify and you want to keep it that way when others use/modify it, then what you want is the GPL.
We always knew Comcast was corrupt, here's the proof: http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1909890&cid=34545432
Is there a mechanism that will ensure that a dedication to the public domain remains effective even if the entity that put something in the public domain is acquired, and the acquiring entity tries to revoke the dedication?
Free at last, free at last, thank... eh fuck it.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
This text links to a git commit. Click any of the diffs to read the old and new licenses, as long as you aren't red-green color-blind.
It's not quite a BSD license if they require the source and binaries contain that notice.
That's a pretty vanilla 3-clause BSD licence just like you'd see anywhere else, I don't see a problem with it.
some kind of license that's like BSD, but requires people distributing derived works to do so under the same license
it's called "putting it in the public domain"
Except that it's not. Public domain works come with no restrictions at all, so you can't "require" anything.
Enhancing and transforming public domain work, then putting it under your own copyright is not only perfectly legal - it's the entire fscking point of the public domain. (Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution.)
The original license said:
"Users may copy or modify Sun RPC without charge, but are not authorized to license or distribute it to anyone else except as part of a product or program developed by the user."
which breaks most definitions of "free software". You can't give it to someone else without having used it in something, or wrapped it up with something. The new license is a 3-part BSD standard.
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
I wonder why did it take so long after the acquisition for the relicensing to finally be done.
--yuhong
Just like you're never really free, unless you have the freedom to lock people up.
Amusingly, when people use that extra freedom the BSD-license provides, people like you complain.
Yeah, it's like goldy or bronzey, only it's made of iron.
yeah, it's like it says oracle now - so it must be a bad thing...
What.. how... huh?
All that shows is someone not understanding their chosen license and getting angry that they didn't get credit for their work.
Restrictions in the name of freedom is not freedom. Perhaps what you mean is that BSD doesn't work quite so well in a world where people hunger for fame and recognition. I'd bet Data would be BSD if Soong lived long enough to perfect things.
I've been living a lie all these years??? Fuk!
Don't, in this context, confuse "free" with "open", or, not in this context, underestimate the suffering caused by fallacious analogies.
The submitter seems to think it's "ironic" that the license was changed at the behest of an Oracle VP. But looking at the code above, it seems the non-free portion in question was owned by Sun Microsystems. Sun Microsystems is now Oracle America. When you see the phrase "Oracle America" (as opposed to just plain Oracle), you know they're talking about the former Sun Microsystems.
So this is not "ironic" at all. Oracle America had the power to adjust the license, and Oracle America chose to do so. It makes one wonder why it was so hard to do while the code was still under the independent Sun Microsystems. Patents, maybe?
Breakfast served all day!
What a hopelessly misleading title! RPC part of the code's license is what is different and the Author of the linked article conflates it to the level of freeing Glibc it self, for what reason, I wonder! RPC has fallen out of use for quite a while, making this change not that significant.
Look like that twit had mods points left....
Seriously, that's aggravating as hell. I just kind of assumed that GNU would have released all of their flagship software under the L?GPL and had no idea that they were distributing non-Free software. They were the one distributor I figured I'd never have to audit the licenses from. Are there any other hidden gems? Is there some shareware in Emacs? Maybe a bit of Shared Source in binutils?
People have laughed at the BSDs for replacing a lot of common software with locally-developed, BSD-licensed equivalents. That's starting to seem like a much saner alternative.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
LostLyrics, is that you?
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
First of all, that *is* the BSD license.
Second of all, the previous license was not even FOSS:
* Users
* may copy or modify Sun RPC without charge, but are not authorized
* to license or distribute it to anyone else except as part of a product or
* program developed by the user.
That could be interpreted to greatly limit the redistributability of the code.
So, this is great news.
I still don't understand why someone didn't just rewrite the code from scratch, using the original as a spec. The original code was released 25 years ago, and is not that huge an amount of code.
Public domain will depend on the country definition, CC zero might do best.
Yes, I mean something along the lines of copyfraud. More notably, how can I defend a work against copyfraud, what sort of evidence do I need?
'T aint neither one nor the other.
Have gnu, will travel.
It is a very good question, and the answer is to use the GPL.
Um, WTF? GPL is absolutely not similar to public domain; the gpl-violations people repeatedly make this very clear.
A better answer is, "that's not very clear, could you give an example of what you mean?". About the only thing I think it can sanely mean, is how to prevent other people from claiming it as their work (ie, plagiarism) and suing people (kinda like SCO suing people over Novell's copyrighted code). Maybe something like CC-zero is the answer (you keep a copyright, so you can sue them for... I think it was "slander of title" that Novell used), maybe just make sure your copy with the non-copyright notice gets well indexed by the search engines so any potential victims can find it when they need to defend themselves, maybe plagiarism can be a suable offence separately from copyright violation (I don't think that's the case here in the US, but I hear it might be in much of Europe).
Grats, but why did that hypocritical Stallman allow Glibc to keep the G in identical circumstances to the XEmacs situation and demonized us?
huhuhu.. it was a 'taint of greatness' huhuhuhuh..
The GPL has more restrictions than the old Sun RPC license. Glibc had already been free software, the only difference is that now satisfies some misguided notions some people have, that is all.
We really need to get away with this obsessive legality, and just start giving code away. Someone should be able to say "here, take my code and use it" without someone lecturing them on what they're doing wrong while the free software song is sung out of key in the background. Why don't people want to write or even use free software? Because of all the baggage that comes along with it.
I think that was exactly the GP's point. He took the OP seriously when he sarcastically wrote that BSD code isn't being contributed to, and replied with a comic that showed how silly that chosen mentality is.
Still, some might say the choice of reciprocation is the absolute greatest thing about the BSD. The world can't conform to a single viewpoint, and there are legitimate scenarios in which code cannot be released. It's still recommended however that a person contribute back, but that's totally left up to the licenser's discretion. In other words, the INTENT of the BSD license isn't to foster closed software. The intent is to provide code with the least amount of attached restrictions, and to encourage (not mandate) the custom of open software.
I'll sum up the last paragraph with an example. Is it acceptable for someone to keep their simple modifications to BSDed software, if those changes are considered useful? Yes. Is it morally right to do so? No, and at the same time, yes. There are other factors that can take precedence. But primarily, the interpretation of whether it is right or wrong depends upon the peer interaction ethic on which one was raised.
Is that you Steve Ballmer?
How exactly is this code "copyright 2010", if it was written in the 1980s?
You couldn't re-distribute under the original license, the particular code as is. You have to re-package it inside another program or product.
Is this just a troll or are there people who seriously get this upset over a software license?
If so can I get a link to a description of the controversy please?
Serious question.
You keep saying "public domain", but you are using it to define nearly the opposite concept.
I like to think of it this way. Least free to most free: GPL, BSD/MIT, Public Domain. GPL is very restrictive as to what the licensee can or cannot do with the work. BSD/MIT both allow nearly any use/modification/extension, but requires the licensee to retain copyright notices. Public Domain requires neither; anyone can use and abuse it without retaining copyright notices.
So is GPL more or less free than a commercial license? Usually less free, but it depends on what you want. The GPL is more restrictive in that source code must be provided, no charge, to anyone who gets a binary copy. Typical mega-corporation commercial licenses prevent modification or extension, and many times even use and reverse-engineering, but I'd say that smaller companies tend to be less restrictive in their licenses than the GPL (barring, of course, redistribution of the original source code).
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
This license doesn't work like a fishing license.
Sleepycat isn't NEARLY as comprehensive, but simplicity is usually well worth that loss.
When dealing with normal, reasonable people I agree because your audience is trying their best to understand the information you are trying to impart. When dealing with the law your audience is deliberately trying to misinterpret everything you have said to their advantage so you need everything specified absolutely precisely so that there is no possible way they can do that.
IANAL
but I interpreted it as them giving us the ability to modify the code and redistribute it, provided modified versions don't infringe on their trademarks.
simply, it needs to be distributed with something that isn't glibc/SUN-RPC; which to my understanding means a name change is enough to be allowed to distribute modifications (aka, a fork).
What? All this time and SCO never found this?
Have you really missed all the people that do just let people take their code and use it?
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
He was too busy fuming over (non-GPL) gnuplot.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
stallman's head is so far up his own ass...
Yes, I mean something along the lines of copyfraud. More notably, how can I defend a work against copyfraud, what sort of evidence do I need?
Does it ever occur to you fucks to contact an attorney when you have a legal question?
Good suggestion, but keep in mind that CC licenses are not designed to be used with software. As they say on their FAQ:
Can I use a Creative Commons license for software?
We do not recommend it. Creative Commons licenses should not be used for software. We strongly encourage you to use one of the very good software licenses which are already available. We recommend considering licenses made available by the Free Software Foundation or listed at the Open Source Initiative. Unlike our licenses, which do not make mention of source or object code, these existing licenses were designed specifically for use with software.
CC is a great set of licenses, but as they say, if you're dealing with software you're probably better off using one of the licenses designed with it in mind.
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
/)
Not to mention GPL incompatible.
o good i can finally upgrade my bsd libc to glibc. uh yeah.
Is this just a troll or are there people who seriously get this upset over a software license? If so can I get a link to a description of the controversy please?
Serious question.
That's probably a troll but yes there are people who seriously get this upset over a software license. Well, they don't precisely get upset over the license itself. They get upset that anyone else would use a license that they would not use. The fact that your choice to use whatever license you like for what you create does not prevent them from using any license they like for what they create won't give them a moment's pause.
It's like the people who will get upset that you might drink alcohol, because they don't drink. Prohibition never could have gotten off the ground without folks like them. Or the people who think it's a good idea to arrest you if you smoke marijuana, because they wouldn't smoke marijuana. Or the people who think you should go to hell, or at least that they certainly shouldn't associate with you and treat you with respect, because their religion is not your religion. Or the people who think that all adults should have porn banned/censored for them because they themselves do not wish to see pornography. Or the people who think that anything which offends them is inherently evil and must be stopped at all costs, rather than viewing that as the way they have chosen to react to something that is otherwise harmless.
I like the term Bill Hicks used, which was "fevered egos". Just be glad that when people like this make new laws, they have largely overlooked the realm of software development.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
You need the same thing as you need with any software: A copy of the original, with the terms, in this case a statement that the code is PD. The Internet, bless its digital little heart, probably remembers when it appeared, too. If terms are obeyed, no problem will arise. Its the liars and the cheats you have to watch out for, and that's true no matter what mode of release you choose from commercial to PD.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
That's a pretty vanilla 3-clause BSD licence just like you'd see anywhere else, I don't see a problem with it.
Yup. The only thing different about it is that somebody actually bothered to change "The Regents of the University of California" to something else, and put in a date and so on.
That's actually fairly rare to see. Most people who license code under BSD do so very poorly, just copying the boilerplate and never filling in the blanks.
Just like you're never really free, unless you have the freedom to lock people up.
You are thinking of the BDSM license...
"You want to know how to help your kids? Leave them the fuck alone." -George Carlin
Horseshit.
If your answer to "how do you put something into the public domain, and ensure that it stays in the public domain" boils down to "use the GPL" then one of the following is true:
The poster obviously knows what public domain means as he crafted a question specific to it.
A lot of open source licenses specifically allow reuse in a closed system. It doesn't guarantee that a company will show you how they did something. But, it means that as long as people have access to your code, it exists. If it ceases to exist, well, nobody else cared. If it's available for the rest of time, people must have found it useful.
The GPL is fundamentally not compatible with public domain in that someone else has to provide the source code once something is covered by the GPL. Public domain makes the knowledge public, and the application of it, is up to you.
While everything you say about the GPL is true, you've either intentionally chosen to disregard what the poster asked, or you simply don't know why someone would want to put code into the public domain and ensure it stayed there.
GPL software isn't evil, nor is public domain software, nor is BSD. All of the licenses have their own application. In this case, by putting glibc under a BSD license means that anybody is free to include that in their OS if they feel that will make it better. This includes FreeBSD, Linux, Oracle, and, yes, even Microsoft.
The whole point of public domain (or even BSD software) is that you feel the world is a better place with your software being free than without. If someone you don't like happens to write better software as a result (and not have to GPL their code), then that is life.
There's a whole range of licenses, and reasons why things are under those licenses. Sticking with only "use the GPL" limits you in that landscape.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
As for Shakespeare's plays -- even though they were used only as an example here -- be careful. Old texts often undergo serious editing before being published, and the edited version is quite definitely not in public domain. That's the reason why journal article preprints are usually freely distributed by the authors, while the final, edited and published version would be illegal to distribute. Same goes for translations: even though a translation is a work derived from another work in the public domain, it's still by itself subject to copyright law protection.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Best comment ever. +1
Is that you Steve Ballmer?
No, just a person who doesn't follow the FSF party line, Comrade.
The usual reason for this is that most software licenses are designed to distinguish between source code and binary/object code. However, if you intend to put both in the public domain, I see no reason why you couldn't use cc0, hypothetically.
IANAL.
$ make available
cc0 doesn't let you keep a copyright in countries in which the copyright can be dissolved, such as the US. Slander of title may apply even if the code has become PD, as long as the statement is false and harmful. In the case of Novell, it was false (the code was GPL, PD, or (c) Novell) and harmful (SCO was suing Novell's customers, or threatening to sue them). IANAL, this isn't legal advice, etc.
$ make available
How exactly do you put something into public domain legally, such that you can legally protect them to be in public domain?
Really, serious question.
You keep using that word; I do not think it means what you think it means.
$ make available
Usually less free than a commercial license? I'm curious about your definition of less.
You can copy GPL software to any and all machines you want without restrictions. (commercial software doesn't usually let you do that)
You can give or sell GPL software to anyone, as long as you provide them the source code. (commercial software doesn't usually allow that)
You can modify it and use it anywhere (commercial software doesn't usually allow that)
You can incorporate it into your own code, provided that you license your code as GPL (commercial software doesn't usually allow that)
You can pay for the rights to do all of these things with commercial software, subject to the copyright holders predilection for selling those rights.
The only thing you cannot do is incorporate GPL software into your own NON-GPL code without paying the copyright holder for those additional rights, subject to their willingness to license those rights, but you can't do that with commercial software either.
As I see it you are never more restricted by the GPL than a commercial license. There exist commercial licenses that allow unlimited use and distribution and modification and distribution of the modified code, but they are extremely rare big $$$$ licenses - Sun's license for Unix and Microsofts license for SQL Server are good examples.
If you are a developer and want to sell binary only copies of a modified version of something, then you may be better off starting from something that isn't GPL licensed. But that doesn't make it more free, just better suited to your particular purposes, and describing it as more free is inaccurate. It is simply more convenient to license the particular rights you are interested in. A software USER always has more freedom under the GPL than a commercial license because the only right constrained by the GPL is one that does not impact them, and commercial software nearly always constrains usage rights in some way. Users can even legally use GPL'd software without agreeing to the license!
Why the dig at Oracle? Are they the new target for the slashdot crowd?
(Interesting that the parameters for firefox brought the one on Apple's site up before the one on Microsoft's.)
What? Can you elaborate on that some? AFAIK your browser doesn't change Google's search results display order...
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
In theory, GPL is less free than PD. In practice though - standing matters in court. It's hard to get a court to hear a case over someone fraudulently claiming to own a Public Domain work. If they actually filed suit against you, you would have clear standing, since they were threatening to damage you by taking your money if they won the suit. But, what if they just sent you a cease and desist, falsely claiming to own the work, but not actually announcing they plan to file charges if you publish or distribute? You haven't been threatened with actual damages yet. So maybe the court won't hear the case yet either. Now suppose your business model was to get a loan to print copies of a public domain book, i.e. Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist or the Big Book of Celtic Knotwork patterns. You probably have to reveal the existence of the fraudulent claim to act in good faith with whomever is giving you a loan, and hope that they agree this doesn't affect your ability to make a profit and repay that loan. If they back out, you might be able to sue for damages over it, but it won't be as easy or straightforward as if the 'bad guys' filed first and you countersued. Public domain can be a pain in the ass if somebody with money is involved.
For one real example, take Edgar Rice Burroughs Tarzan. One of the claims over whether a work was derived from Book 4 and earlier of the Tarzan series, then already PD, or a latter book that wasn't PD yet, ended up hinging on whether a ring worn by Tarzan was first described by Burroughs or first illustrated by a cover artist, with Burroughs picking it up from the illustration for one edition of book 4, and adding it to his description of Tarzan in book 6 and on, and whether the cover artist's picture counted as work for hire for either Burroughs or a publisher, or neither. At some point the court was entertaining arguments that the cover artist had meant to depict a Lapis Lazuli and not a Sapphire, as "anyone could clearly see" from the incredibly faded 1922 illustration on cheap pulp paper more than 50 years later. It at least seems possible that if one of these less free liscences had been involved, that case would have ended up a lot simpler and more clear cut. If I was a small publisher, involved in a case where other parties included someone such as Universal Pictures or Disney, and I found that the case might hinge on a point as difficult as that, I'd probably wish someone had used a GPL, a Creative Commons liscence, or something that made a lot of these extranious issues not matter.
Of course, if I had thought a work was under the GPL and something like this case happened, I might equally be wishing someone had just declared their intent to put it in the public domain.
Who is John Cabal?
Call it the Zero-One Distribution License.
The license simply states "You may expand upon the works of these two programs as long as you distribute your derivative works freely, full source included, upon completion of a stable build of the program."
Then have the two programs simply be a binary 1 and binary 0.
Just get about ten million geeks to sign the thing to make it a solid license, and then start contacting lawyers.
Collectively sue the absolute shit out of everybody. Force change in software licensing/EULA law is guaranteed.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Heil Hitler! Oh wait, I got my nationality mixed up. For Mother Russia! Communist Comrades prefer Creative Commons!
I like how you use a whole paragraph explaining why commercial licenses are more free than the GPL and then gloss over the friggin huge reason for the GPL in the first place parenthetically as if it was an afterthought. The freedom of modification and redistribution is huge, and central to the GPL.
But maybe you're right, that software license I got from Microsoft for Windows was way more free than the one I got with Linux. There's nothing those Linux guys will let me do with their software, I can barely run it without giving up all my rights. Unlike Windows which has really set me free with what I can do with the software and source code.
We always knew Comcast was corrupt, here's the proof: http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1909890&cid=34545432
It all comes down to what one means by "stays in the public domain."
If they mean that mere duplication stays in the public domain, then the PD satisfies that already so there is no question apart from what is called "copyfraud" elsewhere in thread. I am not sure whether PD blocks copyfraud (claiming authorship of material verbatim); I suspect it depends on whether the country has a concept of moral rights apart from intellectual property rights.
So, the alternative is that if by "stays in the public domain," they mean that derived works stay in the domain declared for the original work. OK, now strictly speaking we've reached a contradiction since the public domain does not allow this. However, we may consider a quasi-public domain in which this property holds. It is obvious that there is no way whatsoever to do this for an open release, without something GPL-like (feel free to prove me wrong). Specifics may differ, but that part of GPL which is called "viral" by its detractors and called "spider plant-like" by rms exactly identifies what is necessary for derived works to stay in the original domain.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
Serious question: can I take a PD work verbatim and claim authorship? Or more precisely, in which countries can I do this?
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
Did you even read my post? That was my whole point, that you can't create a license to mandate that something stay in the public domain after someone else takes a hold of it because inherent in the definition of public domain is the ability for anyone to do whatever they want with it, including the ability to make their version not public domain. I was suggesting to the OP that if what he meant by "public domain" (notice the ironic quotes there and in my original post) was that the work would stay available for everyone even after someone else takes it and releases it as their own, then "public domain" is not the proper release strategy for him, and that he's probably looking for something like the GPL.
We always knew Comcast was corrupt, here's the proof: http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1909890&cid=34545432
Um, WTF? being able to prevent other people from claiming it as their work is absolutely not similar to public domain; copyright lawyers repeatedly make this very clear.
Seriously, how does my post warrant a "WTF" and not yours? The original question wasn't clear. I was stating that if what if what he meant was that he wanted to be able to keep other people from closing up the work, then "public domain" wasn't the right thing, something like the GPL would be. I don't see how your assumption that he was asking how to keep other people from claiming the work as theirs is any clearer. The whole point is that his question is internally inconsistent. I was giving an answer to one interpretation with lots of "ifs" to be sure that's what he meant, while explaining exactly what public domain meant and why it wouldn't be proper in any interpretation of the original question.
We always knew Comcast was corrupt, here's the proof: http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1909890&cid=34545432
Wow, I think I just bumped into the first person who actually read what I wrote. I don't think anyone else has any reading comprehension anymore.
We always knew Comcast was corrupt, here's the proof: http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1909890&cid=34545432
Seriously, that's aggravating as hell. I just kind of assumed that GNU would have released all of their flagship software under the L?GPL and had no idea that they were distributing non-Free software
Seriously. Same for the Debian folk. For years I had to compile netatalk by hand because the debian folk threw a shitstorm over compiling it against OpenSSL because of licensing problems, so it had no encrypted auth support.
People on debian-legal are famous for being the most righteous, die-hard, by-the-book types you can possible find. And now we find out glibc wasn't legal?
Please help metamoderate.
I don't think anybody releasing code under public domain is operating under the expectation that people who use it will necessarily share that source. You accept that it may be used in any and all circumstances, including evil closed source projects. That's kind of the idea.
shit hits the (cpu) fan ;-)
to code or not to code, that is the question.
If they send you a C&D, you should at least have standing to sue for harassment.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Horseshit... really? Try dedicating some more time to reading what I actually wrote and a little less being an ass.
I know exactly what public domain is, I know exactly what the GPL says, and my response was tailored specifically to the fact that the poster mentioned public domain. What I wrote was this:
Highlighting the "ifs" this time so you people can actually see them. His question didn't make any sense so I was clarifying and qualifying my response.
The poster obviously does not know what public domain means (no offense original poster, it actually is a good question and we all probably just need a little more clarification on what you meant exactly). Just because one uses a term doesn't mean they actually know what it means. And that's kind of the whole point, he's asking because he's not clear on the subject. If he were an expert, he wouldn't be asking.
Now it sounds like you're the one who has "intentionally chosen to disregard what the poster asked". He specifically asked, "How exactly do you put something into public domain legally, such that you can legally protect them to be in public domain?" He wasn't asking how you create software that has staying power. Or how do you ensure lots of people have access to your code. Or how do you make people care about your software. He's asking how can you release something in the public domain while retaining the ability to sue people (legally protect) to make sure the thing stays in the public domain. The only way I can see to interpret that question is "I want to publish a piece of work and let other people use it freely, how can I release it such that no one else can legally close it up."
I at least understand that because the original question is unclear as to what is meant by "public domain" (because its use seems inconsistent with the poster's desires) that there very well could have been a different meaning intended. If you actually read my original response without your hate glasses on, I think you'll see that.
We always knew Comcast was corrupt, here's the proof: http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1909890&cid=34545432
I'd say that smaller companies tend to be less restrictive in their licenses than the GPL.
Small companies don't need to forbid modification or extension explicitly. Either it is forbidden by law (circumvention of copyright mechanisms) or it is forbidden by law to forbid it (reverse engineering for compatibility purposes), which would make the entire contract between the user and the distributor null and void were it not for the phrase "except where void or prohibited."
So, really, the only difference between small companies and big companies that distribute restricted software is in that small companies don't pay a small army of lawyers to intimidate their customers with legally meaningless texts.
And the GPL is still less restrictive than standard copyright (which applies in any case, no matter the length of the EULA.) Most people don't care about the source code anyway, and if they do, it is usually because the company they bought the software from can no longer provide support due to its no longer existing.
The official FSF position was that they could take the code and release it under the LGPL. They thought that the license was structured in such a way that it basically lost its force once the covered software was built into another piece of software. I'm not sure if they have ever stated that analysis publicly.
Sometimes, I wish they would take this pragmatic approach towards the 4-clause BSD license.
But they didn't sue Sun, now did they? What was sun doing during the SCO craziness that might have caused SCO to overlook this? Well the massive payment to SCO to allow Sun to release and distribute Open Solaris couldn't have hurt.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Oh, I don't get upset with people using any license they want.
What I do get upset with is people who call GPL a free software license. This has very little to do with the actual license and more to do with the definition of free.
I'd rather keep my freedom intact and retaining the meaning of the word is a very important part of that.
I don't want my government to say "You are free to go wherever you want as long as you always report where you are to us." or use some other new meaning of the word free.
You are expecting him to waste his precious time on small details!!!!
or distribute it to anyone else except as part of a product or program developed by the user.
That could be interpreted to greatly limit the redistributability of the code.
Really? Who might that affect? All those people redistributing bare Sun RPC code?
Are you the guy driving around L.A. with the XEMACS license plate?
Yes, the first round of people in the BSD software pyramid scheme can benefit fiscally by merely collecting other's work and refusing to publish or release their own for similar open source use. Look very carefully at what is happening with MySQL right now, and look very carefully at what Microsoft did with Kerberos (to make Active Directory incompatible with standard Kerberos), and at what Apple does with its now-closed-source BSD.
If you're lucky enough to be the company that can market the source you close, well, you're in good siscal shape. If you're a developer who wants to debug it for your personal or professional use, too bad. We're seeing this right now with commercial MySQL vendors: the results are fascinating, but one can hardly call them the results of "free" or "open" software: they're the result of taking open software closed.
> As for Shakespeare's plays ... Old texts often undergo serious ... and the edited version is
> editing before being published,
> quite definitely not in public domain.
And this idiocy, AFAICS, is why you can't download from Google Books the 1911 edition of Bloxam's Chemistry, a text which was mainly written by a someone who died in 1887.
Copyright law is definitely messed up. I can understand that added commentary which has definitive authorship deserves copyright, but editing, which essentially is trying to change the work into the form that the editor believes that original author wanted it in? That's more like touching up the colors of a photo of a painting --- something which isn't covered by copyright.
And if the added stuff is an insignificant portion of the whole (say, 10%?), it shouldn't matter how creative the added stuff was. Otherwise it just becomes too easy to game away the public domain, without even paying lobbyists!
You've just inspired me to read up again on the Lucid Emacs schism. To me, that looks very different than what I see here.
Going over some stuff on jwz.org, that debate seems to have been about bickering over implementation of features. For example, JWZ seems to have ironed out something around how to restructure the main loop to allow for GUI toolkits, and RMS shook his fist in the air about how GUI toolkits confuse him and disturb his sense of purity. Or, they argued about a particular feature being implemented with binary trees or as a linear search. In any case it was all GPL code, and the issue is probably about petty personality conflicts and working effectively with people rather than a legal problem.
Here, we just have a case of two fairly permissive software licenses which are incompatible. The spirit of the licenses say they ought to get along. And I guess nobody was really prepared to sue over these issues. So, in my mind, not so serious.
seems the time taken was mostly because laywers had to dig into corporate history to reassure shareholders or similar that there would be no corporate liability of they said "sure, go ahead" only to have someone show up and said "stop everything. that is my code. i sue you all!".
copyright lawyers, the nuclear submarine of the information age.
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
lots of them around . They typically aim for positions of power .
Deleted
Hello fellow Digg refugee
Nevermind, I caught up in my reading from the early 90s into the late 90s, and yes, now I remember -- RMS *did* bitch about the copyright assignment thing. Much of my comment is invalid, move along. :-)
One problem with all freedom-vs-authoritarianism arguments is that each side takes such a long time to acknowledge that the other has a different view of the notion of "harmless".
One of the consequential mistakes made by those campaigning for the freedom[tm] side is the assumption that the authoritarians just have a huge ego: "How dare you impose your opinion on me!!!"
But the authoritarian is sometimes (N.B.) the one with the lesser ego. He doesn't want alcohol or drugs or gambling or driving or whatever regulated for his own sake, but because he wants to create a more cohesive / safe society - one where prevention is chosen over cure as a solution to problems developed by individuals which others must then solve.
The entirely freedom-oriented argument might sound enticing at first: "He's harmless - leave him be!" But a junkie, for example, tends not to be harmless, as he's got to get his fix somewhere. Even if he is a junkie with a small retirement account, however, he may get to the point where he needs medical attention. Then who is supposed to pick up the cost? "Leave him to die! He abused his freedom!" some cry. Suddenly, the freedom guy seems less cuddly and kind.
The offer of security can be abused by tyrants, just as the offer of a cheap meal to any prepared to sit quietly at a table can be abused with a vial of poison. The freedom guy argues from the view that man is so egotistic that an offer for comfort will inevitably be accompanied by an abuse. In the extreme, he is taking the hilariously two-faced Thatcher's rhetoric seriously: "there is no such thing as society" except as an oppressive system which must be crushed.
To return to alcohol: we have seen that an outright ban does no good, whatever your aim. But its manufacture and sale is still heavily regulated. Is this an imposition of ego? Should it be treated as cocaine at the end of C19? Should cocaine be so treated? What about all other prescription drugs? If I can make them and sell them, why should anyone stop me?
Well, a lot of people that causality Inc. sell these batches of unregulated drugs to are going to get addicted or overdose. A brain is just another part of the body - to say that it is perfectly rational or perfectly informed is a philosophical fantasy. It will be tempted. It will be weak. It will be ill. And society judges that it's immoral to take (too much) advantage of that - especially when society will have to pick up the pieces.
Where we have deregulated the extent to which advantage can be taken of the weak, we end up harming everyone: the subprime mortgage hiccough is an obvious contemporary example. Particular individuals got very rich from associated dealings, at the cost of everyone else involved.
But the authoritarian would stop the salesman selling the mortgage to the unemployed black in in Alabama.
In his defense, NAS might seem to mean 'Network-Attached Shit' to the uninitiated...
So theres is nothing wrong in calling Linux as Linux instead of GNU/Linux
Why not just link to debian
Um, (L)GPL allows for any use/modification/extension. Those are freedoms 0 and 1.
The only restrictions the (L)GPL places on works licensed under it are when it comes to redistribution of the code - you have to give the person you redistribute someone else's GPL'd code to the same freedoms that you got when you received it.
Really? Last I checked, the licences for commercial software usually do not allow you to redistribute copies of the code at all, in any form (binary or source, oh, and good luck with getting the source), under any circumstances.
Yes, but you're allowed to include, in the amount you charge people for the binary version, costs to cover providing them with the source in the future, which you'll then have whether or not they ever ask for the source. Or you could always ship the source alongside the binaries.
Can you give an example?
Why doesn't the gene pool have a life guard?
samba != nfs
But linux-nfs could use some changes so it is full compatible with the non-linux world.
There is no GNU/Linux distributions. There is Linux operating system and GNU development tools and libraries (and other software as well like GNOME) what builds a Linux/GNU development platform (you can switch it as GNU/Linux if you are so big GNU fan!). All Linux distributions use Linux OS. There are few HURD distributions what use HURD OS.
I don't get it, are you using NFS or Samba? Which one are you complaining about?
Of course given that both are being used extensively by millions of systems, I would guess you are really complaining about your NAS or your desktop?
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
I might be missing something here, but isn't this code always distributed as part of something (seems like glibc in particular)? What's the big deal?
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
It's like the people who will get upset that you might drink alcohol, because they don't drink.
If we exclude your GP, can we try and give "them" a little more credit? Sure, some people think "everybody must think like me just because!". But I think some other people were pro-prohibition because they saw alcohol as causing a lot of societal problems. And it does---alcoholism can tear relationships and families apart, and drunk driving can be even worse. Not to mention, drunk people can be really annoying when you're sober. Similarly for drugs. As for the rest, I'm starting to stretch. And there's a lot of merit to the "personal freedom" counterargument.
I don't think he said commercial licenses are more free, he said they can be more free. Look into his statements about typically small companies and see if you can see it too.
WTF? BSD is 100% GPL compatible. Thats why lots of BSD (under a BSD license) stuff gets taken over to the Linux kernel but not the other way round.
Its trivial to see how its GPL compatible. GPL add *restrictions* to BSD for redistribution. More rules if you like.
The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
Sam Hocevar's DO WHAT THE FUCK YOU WANT TO PUBLIC LICENSE (Vesrion 2): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WTFPL
Well, there are more restrictions then that. There are restrictions to what code you can link to or use with the programs/*pl'd code, how it can be used and so on. It's not like Lgpl code can link to GPL code and Mycode licenses software at the same time.
Im think he is talking about the license to distribute the software and not the EULA you click through without reading just to use the program. It would most likely need to be this way because the GPL or LGPL doesn't even apply to use, only distribution of the covered works. So perhaps this is a contextual thing revolving around semantics or something.
Well, this is sort of a stickler here as most Linux distributions don't even fully comply with the source code clauses in the GPL. You see, if you offer the binary for download, you need to offer the source on the same server in just as conspicuous of a way. Try finding an ISO with all the source on it on some Distro's download page. Hell, just try to find the source code to the updates the package manager automagically installs when you set it to update. And if you do find them, then find the updates to the 4 year old OS version that they discontinued 2 years ago. The GPL says 3 years after the last offering, most distros move them aside or remove them from public access altogether to make room for the new projects.
Of course that last pet peeve has nothing to do with closed (non-free) verses open (free) licenses, It's just a burden that the GPL's place on the source code distribution that seems like not even some of the major distributions comply with the letter of the GPL.
Freedom isn't supposed to be cuddly or kind.
Regulation is reasonable to the extent that free markets depend on everyone being well-informed. For example, it's reasonable to require brewers to (accurately) disclose the proof of their product. In contrast, it's not reasonable to restrict sales of it on a particular day of the week because some religion objects to it.
Some people argue that the subprime mortgage fiasco was caused by overregulation, not deregulation: government programs forced lenders to approve mortgages for people they would have considered too risky otherwise.
The libertarian wouldn't have bailed the salesman out when he went broke due to stupidity.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
It looks like they're trying to pull a Lucas and reset the copyright clock.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
This is a completley new, updated version of the code. The copyright is obviously for the freshly minted disclaimer itself.
I'm sure they would argue that since they have edited the code file (to replace the license, but edited regardless) in 2010, the end result is a derivative work of both the original source code and the new license text, and should have copyright protection from the present for 95 years or for 75 years after the death of the last author.
Or you can add some trivial but easily satisfiable condition to the BSD license, such as 'everyone who distributes this code is required to thank someone at some point in their life.' Because this condition is not in the GPL, and the GPL prevents you from adding any other conditions, no matter how reasonable, to the licenses of anything linked with GPL'd code, this means that you may not use the resulting code with GPL'd code. You may, however, use it with pretty much any other Free Software license, including most of those that are GPL-incompatible (e.g. MPL, CDDL, APSL).
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I can't fucking upload shit
Skip the enema the next time you are fucked...
It means that people who received glibc were not allowed to remove the parts that were not this code and distribute the result. This means that there was an additional constraint placed on the code, which meant that anyone downstream distributing glibc was violating the LGPL and therefore had no valid distribution license. Fortunately, copyright assignment means that the FSF is the only organisation that has standing to sue, and they decided to be reasonable, but they did not have to be - anyone who distributed glibc before now is liable for statutory fines of tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in the USA, if the FSF did choose to sue. The FSF is also in violation of the license itself, but has the right to distribute the code anyway because it is the copyright owner.
This is important for several reasons:
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Serious question: can I take a PD work verbatim and claim authorship? Or more precisely, in which countries can I do this?
One country where you can _not_ do it is Germany. They have distinct rights; one is similar to copyright, which allows you to control copying and make money from the works, and one is the right to claim authorship. And only the author can ever, ever have the right to claim authorship. It is a right that cannot be sold, that cannot be lost. If you wrote it, then nobody else can ever gain the legal right to claim they wrote it.
You're either trolling or clueless and wrong. Going by your nick you're just a stupid troll, but anyway I'll tell you the big secret; The GPL doesn't restrict or place any burden on anything, full stop. That's a blatant misrepresentation or misunderstanding on your part that disqualifies you from the discussion.
If you don't get this post, keep reading it until you do.
You are called to submit yourself to the taint for the greater good.
Join us brothers and sisters. Join us in the shadows, where we stand vigilant. Join us as we carry the duty that cannot be forsworn, and should you perish, know that your sacrifice shall not be forgotten, and that one day we shall join you.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
The reason their FAQ says this is that some of the clauses in other CC licenses break software distribution. For instance, the no-derivitives license would prevent distribution of binaries. The attribution requirements would likely have some strange effects with regards to how binaries can be distributed. CC share-alike (their equivalent of copyleft) requires only relicensing under the same terms, but doesn't require distribution of source code, so would be effectively useless. But CC0 has none of these problems. The only potential issue is that it explicitly doesn't include trademark or patent grants, so if you have either of these rights over your program you'll need to deal with those separately.
If I understand you right, they originally _did_ take "pragmatic" approach to 4-clause BSD, i.e. ignoring the advertising clause on the basis that it couldn't be enforced, and on that basis stating that 4-clase BSD was compatible with (L)GPL.
GLibc was one of the places I recall where 4-clause BSD code was used.
Later, someone (Alan Cox, I think) acutally got legal advice that contradicted the FSF position, and I think there was then some sort of effort to purge the 4-clause BSD code.
> You can incorporate it into your own code, provided that you license your code as GPL (commercial software doesn't usually allow that)
Actually, you only have to license your code as GPL if you distribute it. I know it's a small point (why would you write software and then not distribute it?!), but if you don't distribute your code (binary and/or source) you can use GPL code without restriction.
return 0; }
No. They are the new target for Bill's Shills. The astroturfers paid to hang out and attack FOSS have Oracle on their list these days.
No, only if you *redistribute* that code. You can take GPL'd code, and link it with any code you like, no matter what license, for your own use. It's only when you redistribute GPL'd code to another user that you have to give them the same freedoms the GPL gave you.
But most commercial software does not even have one of these licenses. Try getting a license for Windows that allows you do distribute copies you've made. Or Photoshop. Or any other commercial app. (Note - not pass on existing copies, which you can also do with GPL'd software, but distribute new copies) Or even if talking about libraries or frameworks (a very small subset of commercial software) try getting a license for a commercial library that allows you to redistribute modified versions at all.
I don't see how, comparing like with like, that for any reasonable definition of "free", the GPL is "less free" than 99.9% of commercial software licenses.
Well, I'm a Debian user, so let's look, shall we?
Go to the Debian homepage, click "CD ISO Images", and then select any "download" option other than the "download a minimal bootable CD image". Hey, look at that. Right there, with the links to the binaries for each architecture, there's a link labelled "source". I wonder what that does. :-)
Well, my package manager downloads binaries from:
http://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/stable/main/
Hmmm...right next to the arch specific directory for my downloads, again there's a "source" directory. Wow!
No, it's a bit more subtle than that.
GPL2 3 states: If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering access to copy from a designated place, then offering equivalent access to copy the source code from the same place counts as distribution of the source code, even though third parties are not compelled to copy the source along with the object code.
GPL3 6d states: Convey the object code by offering access from a designated place (gratis or for a charge), and offer equivalent access to the Corresponding Source in the same way through the same place at no further charge. You need not require recipients to copy the Corresponding Source along with the object code. If the place to copy the object code is a network server, the Corresponding Source may be on a different server (operated by you or a third party) that supports equivalent copying facilities, provided you maintain clear directions next to the object code saying where to find the Corresponding Source. Regardless of what server hosts the Corresponding Source, you remain obligated to ensure that it is available for as long as needed to satisfy these requirements.
So, if you distribute over the internet, you can fulfil your obligations under the GPL by making the source accessible alongside the binaries, for only as long you distribute the binaries. If a client chooses not to get the source from you at the time they get the binaries, you need not offer them the source at a later date. The "3 year offer" is
Why doesn't the gene pool have a life guard?
How exactly do you put something into public domain legally, such that you can legally protect them to be in public domain?
If you mean to say that the public domain means "no strings attached" then you could do by simply forfeiting all rights to the piece of work. That implies you own the rights to the work.
I like the GPL in that it tries to eliminate parasitic misuse of "public domain" software. Software in absolute public domain could be taken, altered minimally and be resold as one's own, or very near to that anyway.
To me, producing software under a license that allows parasitism causes devaluation to software. The producer is not likely to be compensated for the work. Hell, the free-loader probably won't even appreciate the software he's getting for free as in beer.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
That's probably a troll but yes there are people who seriously get this upset over a software license. Well, they don't precisely get upset over the license itself. They get upset that anyone else would use a license that they would not use. The fact that your choice to use whatever license you like for what you create does not prevent them from using any license they like for what they create won't give them a moment's pause.
Unfortunately, that's not entirely true. The GPL seeks to restrict the license you may use for any software you make that depends on the covered software. If someone else chooses GPL, and you want your software to use their software, suddenly you have a lot less licenses to choose for your own software.
Does it ever occur to you fucks to contact an attorney when you have a legal question?
Did it ever occur to you that asking for legal information on Slashdot carries the connotations "What did your lawyer tell you?" and "What should I know before walking into the lawyer's office to make the most of the first consultation?"
Because they pay lawyers and politicians lots of money?
From TFA: Both projects had decided to take a hard line and removing the code from glibc and portmap was going to be a real headache, especially for the stability of glibc.
The code is question is the RPC code. Why is glibc's stability dependent on RPC code?
FreeSpeech.org
BSD is 100% GPL compatible
Tell that to Theo.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Quick, someone kill the last author!
I have a serious problem with this mentality. Alcohol cannot tear anything apart. It's an inanimate object. People's actions are what tearing relationships apart.
It's like saying good ol' Melly (Gibson) isn't responsible for the shit that spews from his various orifices. Why should he be excused for behaving rudely while drunk? Did someone force feed him the alcohol or something?
The key to this problem is the one we keep avoiding at all costs. Make people responsible for their actions.
There's really a range in there, it's not all black and white the same. There's plenty of factual evidence that your choice to drink poses a significant statistical risk of killing me.
For marijuana, there's a similar, but much smaller risk.
For porn, not so much.
Where our society chooses to draw the line in terms of protecting one person from statistical risks taken by another person is .. well ... a choice to be made by our society. After experimenting with prohibition, we decided that the risks to all of us from that strict law were greater than the benefits, and we pulled back.
People who decide to make decisions for other people aren't inherently evil or stupid, that's just the reality of society ... every law is a decision of some kind you've decided to make for someone else, and NOT every law is wrong, just the ones that demonstrably involve themselves in other people's business FOR NO BENEFIT.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
I completely agree with 90% of what you are saying, but you miss one factor: That the 'Grand Inquisitor' style Authoritarian, who intentionally limits freedom because he honestly believes it is best for all, can sometimes be wrong. Case in point: Some aspects of the subprime mortgage crisis.
We don't just have to worry about evil, but also misguided incompetence.
It entirely depends on whose freedom you mean.
If you mean only your own as a developer using the software to make other software with, you may be correct.
If you mean humanity on the whole, well that's what those restrictions in the GPL are for. To make the software as free as possible to as many as possible by sometimes restricting the freedom of an individual for the good of the whole.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
The gpl was originally written because of works made public domain by rms that were taken out of public domain by someone else who tried to restrict rms.
ipv6 is my vpn
GPLv2 doesn't. GPLv3 actually has a list of restrictions that you are allowed to add.
What are you talking about?
This.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
This seems like a sensible distinction to make. There's some analysis of the US situation here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=787244.
The gist seems to be that although copyright itself gives no protection, it can successfully be argued to be fraud to willfully misrepresent PD status at least if $ is involved.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
In fact *you* are the fuckward that's trolling, clueless and wrong.
If GPL didn't place any restrictions on you then there would never need to be a license text pages and pages long (it would be as long as a bsd license instead). You wouldn't have needed a GPL3 revision to *restrict* tivo-iszation. There wouldn't be any legal cases in court because you can't take someone to court if they didn't break a *restriction* placed on the *conditions* of copying.
The only thing you cannot do is incorporate GPL software into your own NON-GPL code without paying the copyright holder for those additional rights, subject to their willingness to license those rights, but you can't do that with commercial software either.
Your solution to the "only thing you cannot do" sounds a lot like "pay to get it relicensed under a less restrictive license".
That's not likely to be a requirement for that commercial software you're integrating.
How can you have a 5 digit UID and not know about Theo de Raadt?
It was an odd interpretation at any rate. A derivative work can have a new copyright notice. Its not changing a legal document etc. Anyway, I think these days its pretty clear, yes?
The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
In the US at least, you can't, AFAIK, since there is no provision of law that allows a work that would be eligible for copyright in the first place to be out of copyright and in the public domain other than by expiration of the copyright (which, as a practical matter, is probably never going to happen for any work currently in copyright, until Congress breaks the habit of extending copyright without bound.)
Anything that purports to dedicate a work to the public domain is effectively just a very broad gratuitous copyright license.
OTOH, because of promissory estoppel, there is very little benefit to be gained by revoking such a dedication even though it is almost certainly, in theory, revocable at will, as all gratuitous licenses are.
So, a simple dedication to the public domain by the creator like that used by SQLite is probably effective for most practical purposes, though strictly speaking the work is not, actually, out of the control of the original creator who remains the copyright holder.
BSD contains requirements (retention of the original copyright notice, conditions, and disclaimer) that are not in the GPL (either v2, nor v3) and are not permitted as additional terms in the GPL v2 (v2 doesn't allow any additional terms, one of the changes in the GPL v3 was to allow specific terms of specifically this sort.)
So, no, strictly speaking BSD-style licenses are not GPLv2 compatible.
Your solution to the "only thing you cannot do" sounds a lot like "pay to get it relicensed under a less restrictive license".
No. You need to pay to license the rights you need. It will be a different license, and may or may not be less restrictive than the GPL.
That's not likely to be a requirement for that commercial software you're integrating.
??? That's precisely a requirement for commercial software. You don't have integration and redistribution rights under copyright law without a license to do it. You must pay to license the rights you need. If you are arguing that most commercial licenses include that right, I disagree and would assert the opposite is in fact the case.
Putting something in the public domain means you no longer have to defend it. Everyone can use it as they please. If someone else claims they own it, that means nothing unless they try to sue you for using it. So you point to the documentation of the prior art showing that it's in the public domain, and they lose the suit.
All the "free software" licenses don't do that. They actually try to keep the software un-free, and out of the hands of people who could make a small profit from it if it were actually public-domain software and they weren't required to perform actions according to the un-free license terms when demanded.
CC-0 doesn't go far enough. They need a CC-Null that equates to pure abandonment of all restrictions on use or any intent to enforce any rights that could have been associated with the work. But that exists. It's called not using the CC licenses.
A computer is not a toilet.
Now ya tell me...
Free Martian Whores!
Then Debian and Ubuntu have been completely hypocritical in dropping cdrtools over wodim, and will now admit the error of their ways and go back to including software that actually works, right?"
MSIE: The world's most standards-complaint web browser.
and I get regular notices that "composting was too slow and has been disabled".
You need to upgrade you're chipper-shreder to a quad core.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
How exactly do you put something into public domain legally, such that you can legally protect them to be in public domain?
In some countries, you can't really. That's why we have the WTFPL. The Wikipedia article says there are only 11 uses of it on Freshmeat, but it's rather commonly used on GitHub.
have you read the Moderation Guidelines Addendum?
That's probably a troll but yes there are people who seriously get this upset over a software license. Well, they don't precisely get upset over the license itself. They get upset that anyone else would use a license that they would not use. The fact that your choice to use whatever license you like for what you create does not prevent them from using any license they like for what they create won't give them a moment's pause.
Unfortunately, that's not entirely true. The GPL seeks to restrict the license you may use for any software you make that depends on the covered software. If someone else chooses GPL, and you want your software to use their software, suddenly you have a lot less licenses to choose for your own software.
If I want to write software, no one else has any obligation to help me out by providing components that enhance the functionality of my software. Their labor and their skills belong to them to use as they see fit. If they choose to assist me, it is appreciated. If they do not choose to assist me, they have that right.
If they choose to assist me under certain conditions, then I have a choice to make. I either accept their aid under their conditions, or, I decline their offer and either do it myself or seek aid from someone else with conditions more to my liking. As the author of their work, they have the right to set the conditions under which it will be used just like I have the right to use the GPL or some other license or public domain.
What you want is to have a claim on someone else's labor. You are complaining that someone might create a useful tool, make it available to you at no monetary cost, but then do so in a way that doesn't suit your desires or purposes. They have no obligation to do anything for you in the first place, let alone to do anything for you according to your precise instructions at your convenience. If you want a programmer to do that, hire him as a contractor or an employee but don't complain when random strangers don't suit your wishes for free.
Please get over this entitlement mentality. It damages a lot more than discussions about software. It's quite literally killing free society.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
It's really very simple. Consenting adults should have the right to do anything and everything they want, until and unless they harm another person (or another person's property) against their will. We do something like this with alcohol today. Want to stay at home and have a drink? Go ahead, you're being responsible. Want to get drunk and then drive? Now we have the right and the duty to arrest you because now you're being irresponsible and posing a threat to others. It's that simple, except that there's nothing special about alcohol other than its legal status.
Also, the very first myth about the War on (some) Drugs is that it is preventing anyone who wants drugs from obtaining them. Anybody who wants to do drugs is already buying them and already doing them. They cannot even keep drugs out of prisons (look it up yourself). The idea that legalizing them is going to suddenly result in more addiction is silly.
About overdosing, if an adult person wants to ingest a substance without fully understanding what it can do or how to safely use it, they are knowingly taking a risk. If that risk doesn't work out so well for them, that's too bad but it isn't the government's business. Adults have the right to take risks with their own body, their own property, and their own money.
I also think the prescription drug system should be eliminated. The reason you'd still go to a doctor to get a recommendation about which drug you should take is because it's a really, really good idea. You'd do it because taking a substance you know little or nothing about to try curing a disease you also know little or nothing about would be stupid. You'd recognize the bleedin' obvious, which is that there's a reason people have to study for years and years before they can claim expertise in this subject. Or you'd knowingly take a risk and be willing to face the consequences.
Others have already pointed out that the subprime mortgage fiasco involved government forcing banks to make loans to people that the banks would have deemed unworthy of credit if left to their own devices.
Here's the real issue. I will unmask it. This is what's behind all the back-and-forth: freedom is not for the faint of heart. Stupid people might hurt themselves in a truly free society. You might have to be responsible for your mistakes in a truly free society. People might say and do things that you really don't like in a truly free society, though they would not have the right to force you to participate.
We have a nation of mostly cowards who cannot stand all of the above. Of course they don't say "I'm a coward and that's why I don't like freedom unless it's the freedom to do what I would approve of". They don't see it that way. If they knew that they were cowards they'd be much more humble. Instead they are in denial about their cowardice, so they call it something different (often quite sincerely). They call it a concern for their fellow man, for society, or a worry about what might go wrong. In the process they ignore the tremendous social costs of things like the War on (some) Drugs, the nanny state we have today and are increasingly empowering, and the nation of cowards we are creating who have no self-control and no personal responsibility and therefore need some politician to guide every choice they could make lest something bad happen.
Two words: fuck that. The rest of the world is already that way. I want this to be the one free nation. Let those who don't like it vote with their feet. I for one am tired of them instituting their childishness and cowardice here.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Well, seeing how the GPL doesn't apply unless you are distributing the code, I assumed it was given that all this talk was about distributing the code.
In case you are wondering what I mean here, the GPL doesn't even start to go into effect for use, it's not a EULA or anything you have to agree to in order to get the code or use it.
Well, the GPL doens't apply to getting copies or using them so I'm not sure how you are equating them to end use license agreements in good faith. If Microsoft will not issue a distribution license for windows or photoshop, then it's pointless to bring it up because their licenses simply do not exist and cannot apply. What does exist is situation where you can get a license to distribute the code/product and the licenses do apply. MS has a few distribution licenses that do not require you to distribute source or offer it to anyone, Other companies do as well. But let's make sure we are in perspective, the EULA you click through without reading isn't a license to distribute the product, it's a license to obtain and use the product, it's certainly not on the same level as the GPL seeing how it doesn't apply to any of that.
Did I mention debian specifically? I don't think so but I do find it interesting that you specifically proved my point. Why was it that you didn't want me to select minimal install? It's because it doesn't follow the GPL in listing the source. The GPLv2 says
The GPLv3 says
Is the source for the minimal install in the sam
So I have been incorrect all these years when I thought I couldn't build a closed source app that links to a GPL'd library or that it was against the rules for me to take something like the linux kernel and put it in a specific device like a Tivo then lock the device down so only my version would run in it, then sell them to the masses?
My oh my, all the things I can do now that I always thought I couldn't. Here in a couple of weeks, you will hear me yelling "I'm rich- bitch" and it's all thanks to your clarification there.
$touch copyright.txt
copyrights can be renewed.
good to know.
Well all my code i have released as BSD (my preference), I have assumed that folks can change it with a derivative work to GPL providing that my name still show up somewhere. Since many still need to use GPLv2, I guess I will make dual licensing explicit.
The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
Sorry, in your post that I replied to, you wrote:
I really thought you were talking about "use", not "distribution". Or the actual act of linking (i.e. linking bits of compiled code yourself), not the distribution of linked binaries.
Apologies for misunderstanding you.
I'm trying to get my head around the statement (not yours though) that:
I was trying to point out that for >99.9% of commercial software that exists, whatever license or permissions you get with it, as far as I can tell, is "less free" than the GPL. This includes commercial redistributable libraries and frameworks, as most of these will not give you the freedom to modify the libraries.
No, you mentioned "some distro". I had to pick one to test, so I picked Debian because I that's the distro I happen to use. *shrug*
Because the minimal install is specifically for people who want to download as little as possible. That's what "minimal" means. If you want a minimal install, you are almost certainly not interested in the source.
But, still, let's have a look. The minimal install for amd64 points to:
http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/5.0.5/amd64/iso-cd/debian-505-amd64-netinst.iso
So, let's look at:
http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/5.0.5/
Oh yes, there's a "source" directory. But this brings us to:
This is the real point of contention, isn't it.
Well, there I happen to think you're being a bit picky w.r.t. "the same place". It's on the same server (and therefore doesn't activate the "on a different server" subclause of the GPL), as part of a well-organised directory tree, and trivial to find given the filenames involved.
For a binary file called "[base]/amd64/foo.tgz", is it really substantially different to call the corresponding source file "[base]/source/foo.tgz" instead of "[base]/amd64/foo.source.tgz"?
If you're going to be that strict about how you interpret "in the same place", surely you could interpret it to mean that the source must be present in the same file (iso, tar, deb, etc...) as the binary. After all, by your reasoning, if it's in a different file, is that not "a different place"?
By your interpretation, the source has to be in the same directory as the amd64 isos, and again in the same directory as the x86 isos, and in the same directory as the sparc isos, ad nauseum. Do you really think that's the intent of the GPL? Do you think that's practical? (I know, I know; whether something is practical has no bearing on whether it actually adheres to the license. I just balk at impracticality.)
Hmmm....I think we have a real, legitimate difference of interpretation here. The distros happen to agree with me. That doesn't mean I'm right of course (that would be argumentum ad populum) but I will point out that the distros do have lawyers who have gone over this.
Why doesn't the gene pool have a life guard?
Crap, it looks like I replied to my comment instead of yours. See my other reply below. Sorry.
Why doesn't the gene pool have a life guard?
I can see now how the wording is a little confusing. I will try better to avoid that next time.
Here is the big issue. If we were to keep comparing apples to apples instead of apples to trucks or something, then we would ignore the End User License Agreements that come with most close source software altogether and only look at the distribution licenses. This is because the GPL is only a distribution license, not an EULA. Even the anti Tivoisation clauses in the GPLv3 do not kick in until the device is being distributed in a way that copyright would preclude without a license. So in theory, until such time that you decide to distribute such device, you are free to make as many tivos as you want.
So when we narrow our field down to apples and apples license comparisons, we find that much of them have different requirements which some of them being less free and other being more free. When you are paying for the right to distribute something, you end up getting a lot more freedoms when you pay a lot more. If we do not narrow the license options or comparisons down, we might as well be comparing the GPL to your drivers license. I think your confusion, if it still exists, is within the overly broad use of licenses and what they actually pertain to. we need to concentrate on the aspects of the license, not the subject they contain.
You think that's jumping through hoops? Clicking the ".." link twice and looking for the word "source" is "jumping through hoops"? On the same server where they host and distribute the binaries, the source is only a couple of directories away, in a directory called "source", at the same level as the architecture-specific binaries, and finding that is jumping through hoops? Just how clear do the instructions need to be for you?
Uh, really? You think that telling someone where something is, e.g. writing a hyperlink, is the same thing as providing them with that thing yourself, e.g. by owning a computer which hosts and actually *distributes* it? By analogy, would you say that telling people the name of the street where the dope dealers hang out is the same thing as selling dope?
It's certainly an ... individual way of looking at things. I can't say I think it's correct.
No, the clause requires that both the binary and source be equivalently accessible from the same place - i.e. from the place where they actually are. Not necessarily from each and any link that happens to point to them, but from where the files really exist.
If it worked your way round, I could actually keep the binary and source files on completely different servers, provided I always maintained links to the binary and source files in pairs.
But your binary server probably doesn't just host GPLd binaries. It might host your media files, or a mailing list archive, or something. So a search spider comes along and indexes your binary server, traversing all the directories on it, finds the GPLd binaries, and provides links to them. Now someone's breaking the law, because the search engine now points to a binary, but someone who finds it has no hope of finding the equivalent source file. Is it the spider? It's just found and indexed publically available content. Is it you? You've maintained your pairs of links scrupulously.
As far as I can tell, that's just absurd.
The only thing that makes sense to me is to either provide the binary and source in the same place, or to provide instructions on how to get the source in the same place as the binary. That's the actual place where the binary is. Not on any and each page that happens to link to the binary, but where the binary is.
Because, once the source, or the instructions to get it, are in the same place as the binary, you don't need to duplicate links any more. Everyone knows the source is in the same place as the binary. It doesn't matter what the page that linked to the binary says, or doesn't say, or if it was auto-generated by a spider, because the source is right there.
Why doesn't the gene pool have a life guard?
I'm not sure what the dictionary says in your country, but in mine, the word Same is defined as equal in amount or value. When the requirement is to provide the same or equal in amount or value, then yes, having to look for the source, even if you have to click the parent directory, is not the same in the spirit or wording of the GPL. I know it's trivial to some, but we are talking about a legal document that has specific requirements.
If you link to their download page and allow the user to select the download, it's the third party distributing it. But if you are linking directly to the binary (as the statement originally implies) and the link from your page starts the download directly, then _yes_you_are_distributing it. And yes, several court cases concerning copyright infringement have backed that statement up. Lime wire and the pirate bay are some of the larger ones.
To keep with the dope dealer scenario you laid out, the differences is that one is telling someone where the dope dealer is might be complicity to the dealing (if it can be proven the intent was to initiate the dealing but that's not what this particular part of the copyright is about) where linking directly to the file and starting the download is the same as saying wait here, I get your smack for you- even though the dealer is holding it. The first is on shaky grounds, but how can you argue the later isn't dealing too? I mean you might just be the middle man, but you are providing the dope.
Let me spell this out a little clearer. IF you have a website and on that site, there is a download page. And if this download page has a link to a GPL'd binary file, for it to count as distributing both source and object code, there must also be a link to the source. Otherwise, you have to provide an offer valid for 3 years to anyone requesting the source or pass along the offer you received if your distribution qualifies. The link doesn't have to initiate both the binary and source downloads, there just has to be a link to both from the same page.
Actually, you can. The FSF has even wrote about doing so saying it's not against the GPL but it can get complicated isn't a good idea.
You also can "not" distribute the binary and source together and simply take the "make the source available for 3 years to anyone" option. The same place is only concerning files on a server when you are attempting to distribute the source and binary together to escape the 3 years requirement.
The link I posted had all the unnecessary paramters stripped. The parameter(s) that stood out the most was (were) (a) parameter(s) for FireFox. (I don't remember how many parameters were FireFox related.)
There was at least one parameter that specified the encoding as Unicode, and I removed that one too. Removing that might have induced more or less sensitivity to my posting the query from Japan.
Come to think of it, the URL tends to automatically re-write to google.co.jp when posting from here, and I changed that to google.com . That could have been what moved things?
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
Well, the google.co.jp thing is done by google doing (basically) a GeoIP lookup on you as you connect, and sending you a 302 Moved.
The other stuff tends to be added either by the in-browser search bar, or perhaps from reading stuff out of the browser when you search? I've only ever noticed it when I use the browser search bar. ... which is why I didn't understand what you meant. It makes more sense now though :)
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
So, Google distributes most of the internet? Because Google links to plenty of HTML pages directly. And people click on links from google, and their browser downloads those web pages directly. Are you really saying that Google distributes other people's HTML? All of those end-point HTML pages are copyright by someone other than Google, and I'm pretty sure that Google does not have a license to redistribute those pages. Google links to some of my web pages, allowing people to download them, and I didn't give Google permission to distribute my copyrighted material. Is Google liable for copyright infringement of my content? Is anyone who links to any content on the web without first getting the copyright holders permission guilty of copyright infringement?
I'm pretty sure you'll find that in all of those cases, none of the parties were convicted of copyright infringement themselves, because, TBP in particular, were not distributing content. They were merely linking to content that 3rd parties distribute, much like Google does. They may have been charged for promoting the copyright infringement of others, but I'm aware of no cases where a court decided that linking to copyrighted material was equivalent to distributing it.
I'll happily look over any actual evidence to the contrary.
A "download" web page does not distribute anything. The thing a download page links to is distributed from some server or other, yes, (and it might even be the same server), but it's the server the file exists on which is where it's distributed from, and the directory in which the file is actually located which is the place that it's distributed from.
How can you not tell the difference between linking to something which can be distributed, and actually distributing it? The whole World Wide Web is based on the fact that person A can link to files (whether those files are .HTML, .PNG, .ISO, or other) that person B hosts and distributes, without needing to host or distribute those files themselves, and also without person A needing to get permission from the copyright holder to link to that file, because person A is not distributing the content!
Why doesn't the gene pool have a life guard?
Did you just completely ignore what I wrote then make something up in your own mind and attribute it to me? Yes, Google distributed the internet when it links to a copyrighted work without taking you to a the authors page. Yes, Google does distribute your copyrighted works when someone follows a link from them. However, you do not need to give Google or any other search engine permission to link to your works because the law specifically allows that behavior. That was the law I specifically quoted. Further more, copyright law specifically allows for then caching of copyrighted works on computers in order to view them. This would also apply to viewing web pages.
In other words, being linked to from a search engine is not one of the exclusive controls you have as a copyright holder under US law. There is also the implied permission you gave by making it available in a public venue. Further more, it's pointless to argue this as the GPLv3 has made it specific within it's own document.
Actually, I got the pirate bay confused with napster while I was attempting to find more recent cases. Anyhow, napster and limewire do back up the statement that links directly to a file is downloading regardless of who is serving the file or made it available.
I'm not going to argue with you. You know damn well what I mean and are attempting to muddle the point in some failed attempt to retain your incorrect position. Whether FTP, HTTP, or .torrent, there is a page somewhere that links to the file and allows the browser to start the transfer. Sitting on the same server without the links being together is completely useless as far as counting the same place or distribution as I can otherwise place the source code on a non-public side of the server or bury it inside a completely unexpected garbage making it near impossible for you to get the source code. When the GPL says you have to make the source code available, it has specific rules on how to make that available. If you do not comply, you are in violation of it and therefore in violation of copyright laws.
No, the whole web is not based on that. A
Copyright on the internet does not work the way you think it works.
If comedy central hosts a video of The Daily Show, and I (or Google) links to it, that is fine.
If I copy the video onto my own server, and host it from there, and then I (or Google) link to the video that I am hosting and distributing, then I am committing copyright infringement by distributing the video. I am not committing copyright with my link to my hosted copy of the video, I am committing infringement with the actual copy I am distributing. Google still isn't infringing copyright themselves, but could be thought of as contributing to or aiding copyright infringement, by linking to my infringing copy of TDS. The law you point to is specifically meant to limit Google's (or other search engine's) liability in the case that they link to already-infringing works. They are not infringing by linking.
Seriously.
Read the wikipedia articles on Deep linking and Copyright_aspects_of_hyperlinking_and_framing.
Read them. Carefully. Please, while allowing for the faint possibility that you might be mistaken, or have been misled by others in the past.
Yes, people have sued over deep linking. But, in the US and Europe, have not won. After all, you can sue someone for anything, but it's winning a suit that lets you know if you were right. No-one in the US or Europe has ever been convicted of copyright infringement for linking to content.
All cases have either been found in favour of the linker, or been settled out-of-court, or the sued party has been convicted of something else. That something else might be aiding or contributing to copyright infringement, or for actual copyright infringement, such as when hosting and serving cached copies of a document (or derivative works, such as thumbnail images). Note that, in this last case, it is because the defendant is hosting and distributing their own copy of the work that they are committing copyright infringement, not because they are linking to the original.
Looking at the cases you are citing: Napster and Limewire (I have the Limewire case right, right?), you'll note that they are both convicted of "contributory infringement" - i.e. helping others commit infringement by linking to infringing content, or "vicarious infringement" - failing to supervise the infringing conduct or others despite having the ability to do so.
They were not convicted of copyright infringment, as they were not hosting any infringing content, or breaking copyright themselves.
They were convicted of contributory and vicarious infringement, not because they were linking to content provided by their users, but rather because the content they were linking to, hosted and distributed by those users, was in breach of copyright, and on a massive scale. The users were hosting and distributing their own copies of other people's files in breach of copyright. That was the issue.
Linking to content is legal.
I wasn't trying to muddy any points. A link is a link is a link is a link. All links are equal. And links could reside anywhere, and point to any content. Or to no content at all. Or to content that has changed since the link was created. It doesn't matter. It's the content itself which is important. And content is hosted and distributed from a particular place. It may be linked to from many places, or none. But it's the actual storage and distribution that is what copyright law applies to.
*sigh*
Even if, after all that, you still convinced I'm wrong, and you're right, be aware that most of the other people on the internet, and plenty of courts by the looks of things, appear to disagre
Why doesn't the gene pool have a life guard?
I remember that. It wasn't that the BSD code was GPL-incompatible, it's that some developers stripped off the copyright notices altogether and replaced them with their own.
I know who Theo de Raadt is, but that's no reason to think Theo says the BSDL isn't GPL-compatible. I'm pretty sure he doesn't, because he actually understands licensing.
No. I haven't lived in the LA area in a decade and a half.
I remember -- RMS *did* bitch about the copyright assignment thing.
Correct. It wasn't enough that we were GPL (v2), but we had to get copyright assignments to the FSF from an organization that didn't exist and people who were unwilling to do that.
My only personal contact with Stallman was a phone call just a bit after I took over from Chuck and he promised to "go to war against me" (his words) if I didn't get all the copyright assignments. I couldn't and he did.
In an interesting twist, my successor has managed to get the code base to GPL v3. Sigh.