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Apple Remove Samba From OS X 10.7 Because of GPLv3
recoiledsnake writes "The upcoming release of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Server will remove the formerly bundled open source Samba software and replace it with Apple's own tools for Windows file sharing and network directory services. In both Mac OS X Server and client editions, Samba enables Macs to share files with Windows clients on the network and access Windows file servers. It has also later allowed Mac OS X Server to work as an NT Domain Controller to manage network accounts and make roaming profiles and home directories available to Windows PC users. However, the Samba team has moved active development of the project to the more strict GPLv3 license, which prevents Apple from using the software commercially. Apple is now said to be recommending Active Directory to users who are still dependent upon the older NT Domain Controller network directory services. Apple has previously stopped contributing code to GCC and started looking at other options like LLVM because of GCC's switch to GPLv3."
GPL is bad.
Bullshit.
Seems like an overreaction. Just fork the V2 version. Or maybe that's what they're doing.
No, no you don't have to allow corporations to make money from your (donated) code.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
BS. Apple can still use it commercially. The only reason to drop it, if the GPL3 is really their problem, is so they can sue over patents they hold that cover things in Samba.
GPLv3 license, which prevents Apple from using the software commercially.
No, it doesn't. That's a ridiculous assertion presented without any evidence or reason.
As wikipedia might demand: Citation needed.
Apple has been moving away from the GPL in all it's forms for a while now. They just got around to us (I'm guessing we were pretty high on the list once they got rid of gcc :-).
Jeremy.
You're either for software freedom or your not. GPL restricts what you can, therefor is not free.
GPL is bad.
Bullshit.
Bullshit. BSD license is much more free than GPL.
Nawh, just kidding. We love you, Steve, we really, really, do. Hope your depositioning goes well - we don't want to see you repeat Mr Bill's rocking-chair antics of last century... as funny as that always is.
GPL is bad.
Bullshit.
Strong argument there.
And under the GPLv3, you can still do whatever YOU want. The exception comes when you redistribute, because at that point it's not YOU using it, it's SOMEONE ELSE.
This is a gross mis-representation of GPLv3, and obfuscates the real basis of argument that Apple may have in conforming to the licensing terms.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
The more strict GPLv3 license, which prevents Apple from using the software commercially
Uhhh...no it doesn't. Read the license. If you don't want to read the license, just read GNU's handy GPL FAQ, which includes a section on whether or not you can sell GPL software commercially.
I'll give you a hint: the answer is yes, you can.
That said, Apple may have perfectly legitimate reasons for not wanting to use the GPLv3, but an imaginary prohibition on commercial software isn't one of them!
I think you have a good point there. In trying to place extra restrictions and obligations on free software GPL3 will actually reduce the usage of said software. It's the coders choice, of course, but I think GPL3 is a bad choice.
A latent existence
Wow, really thoughtful. Thanks for sharing those deep arguments against the grandparent poster. Almost convinced me!
Truth is, for better or worse GPL *IS* restrictive. Projects should use it if they want to, with its consequences.
In this case, not mixing up GPLv3 software with commercial software VS more restrictive conditions that might imply people stop using it, or even worse, contributing back to it.
(correct me if I'm wrong)
It is silly to move it to GPLv3 because now Apple developers will no longer contribute to samba. Otherwise, it's a non issue...just install it yourself.
if you try to promote freedom and free code
That's the thing, the GPL isn't about free code, it's about free software. It's about the end user's freedom, not the developer's. That's what differentiates it from the BSD license.
Errr. what?
I don't completely understand the problem here.
The GPLv3 issues in this particular case shoot way over my head. But, the GPL isn't the problem.
WP7 isn't being supported by ZTE and other bulk low-to-mid-end OEMs because of it's licensing requirements(namely, money; and the fact that WP7 hasn't moved a lot of phones).
h.264 is being cross licensed mostly due to patent AND compatibility issues. GPL isn't the core of this issue. Getting sued by the MPEG LA is.
GPL is the solution. If you want your source to be available and don't care what happens to the binary, go GPLv2. If you care about the binary and have RMS like thoughts about "Freedom" and computing go for the GPLv3. The GPL is a legal boilerplate that allows developers the freedom-as-in-freedom to have a legal backing so they can have their wishes respected when it comes to what happens to their code.
What Apple's doing is simply respecting the spirit of the GPL v3. If you really want Samba in Lion server, you can build it yourself from source in Lion after installing Xcode. If you really want Samba, you'll probably know how to do this, and if you don't, you'll probably want to know how to do this anyway.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
woops, OK. It appears GPLv3 allows commercial use. The summary got it wrong? (surprise!)
And under the GPLv3, you can still do whatever YOU want. The exception comes when you redistribute, because at that point it's not YOU using it, it's SOMEONE ELSE.
If a developer in the forest offers to distribute 3rd party GPLv3 code, and no-one is there to see this, has a GPLv3 violation occured?
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
True, but other licenses, like BSD, allow others to place restrictions on what you can do.
Seriously, if you try to promote freedom and free code, you have to allow people to use it how they want.
No, sir, you are confusing liberty with "no charge" free.
The BSD license is free as in beer. A proprietary software developer may take BSD licensed software and use it as the basis for a project of their own without sharing code in return. The users of his software have less liberty to the software's use. That developer exchanges nothing of value for the code that he received.
The GPL license is free as in liberty. Developers who wish to base products on existing GPL software must agree to maintain the liberty of the derived software's users to use the software with the same liberties that the developer did. This is an exchange of something of value: the developer contributes their own code in exchange for receiving the GPL code.
GPL software is not intended to be free of charge to developers who wish to reuse it. Developers who choose the GPL software do not intend to provide their labor without charge to others who will not contribute in return. The GPL promotes liberty, not freeloading.
"However, the Samba team has moved active development of the project to the more strict GPLv3 license, which prevents Apple from using the software commercially. "
Nothing in the GPLv3 prohibits using the software commercially, unless that means taking software that others wrote and released and making it unfree.
As for all the posters who will say now that the GPL is too restrictive and actually has nothing to do with freedom - yes it restricts the freedom of the person distributing the software in either its original or a changed version but only exactly to the extent necessary to guarantee that the person who receives the software gets the same extent of freedom as the original software allowed. The freedom to take other people's freedom away is certainly some kind of freedom, but probably not the kind that the creators of Samba wanted to promote.
It is actually an intended consequence of the GPL to keep companies that want to distribute software in a restricted way (e.g. on "locked" phones where they control what you can install, and probably soon enough on "locked computers" under the pretense of security) from doing this with GPLed software. That Apple cannot use the software for such purposes puts free software and hardware at an advantage and increases the cost for Apple of taking away people's freedom.
Presumably, the developers that put their code under the GPL wanted exactly that.
Yeah, that was my first reaction as well. The summary is flat out wrong the way it is worded, but there are legitimate licensing issues.
The problem is with the iPhone, not OS X (yet). If you distribute binaries covered by the GPLv3 on a device, the license requires you to provide any signing keys, or other information/tools required to run modified versions of the software on the device. The iPhone requires all applications to be signed, and does not provide signing keys to it's users, thus they can't use GPLv3 software (like samba) on iOS.
They probably figure it is easier to maintain a single SMB/CIFS implementation rather than two, so they are ditching it on OS X as well (or they have other plans for OS X that we are not aware of yet).
I couldn't agree more. I'm a big open/free software fan, but GPL is about pushing a social agenda on other people. Free licenses that allow people to do whatever they please with the software, maybe only requiring attribution (if that), is the path to true free software. GPL should not be considered a free software license.
Well if the code can't be used by corporations or business citizens, how is anyone supposed to make money? This GPL restriction makes no sense.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Is a good fertilizer. Don't mix it up with the good for nothing GPL.
Personally, I think Apple is trying to totally close their software and hardware ecosystems so only they can provide software, or are the gatekeeper of all software, that will run on any Apple device. The only way to stop this is by voting with our pocketbooks! After this sort of behavior, I am boycotting Apple products like I am Sony's. If I purchase something, I own it and therefor have the right to use it as I see fit, not as someone else does. The way Apple wants it to work is that you are in effect leasing from them. You don't own it, and are constrained with what you can do with/to it.
Sometimes, real fast is almost as good as real-time.
Claiming someone is a paid shill because they disagree with you is the lamest way to lose an argument.
Gone!
Yes, it's free. Because you don't have to use GPL code.
Your freedom is intact. If you don't like the licensing terms of software then don't use it.
A new set of SAMBA tools. Who knows?
For all their PR about how easy it is to connect Mac & Windows, that has always been (on many different machines and networks) one of the sketchiest OS X features in my experience. From Jaguar days, when a Mac that went to sleep had to be rebooted to ever reconnect to a Windows share it happily saw before, to (Snow) Leopard when they simply won't connect at all most of the time, at home or at work, even with an IP address, it's been the same hell of workarounds that didn't work. I'd be more than happy to stop carrying USB drives around.
If you associate the words "must agree" with the word "liberty," I think you have pretty jacked up definition of liberty.
A major reason I avoid Microsoft software is because there there a lot of lock-in- Microsoft software tends to only work well when you are running ALL Microsoft software and gives you headaches when you try to mix Microsoft software with other software.
The GPL3 is causing the same sort of "all or none" lock-in via legal instead of technical means. It is becoming very difficult to mix GPL3 software with commercial software.
Does this really help the adoption of open source software? I don't think so. I think it will create a separate "ecosystem" of GPL3 software that (face it) the 90% of users that just use what is put in front of them will never be exposed to.
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
Nice statement. Facts please?
The GPL promotes liberty for the end user. Whereas BSD promotes liberty for the developer. Neither is more correct than the other, its just based on your feelings at the time.
No, they have the liberty to disagree. They are then subject to copyright which by default disallows them to distribute copies of the software.
There is nothing "jacked up" about this.
A natural consequence of their freedom. A benevolent dictator's still a dictator, and in this case benevolence goes against true freedom.
At the same time, you don't have to expect anyone to use your (donated) code.
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
How?
The BSD code is still out there. The proprietary commercial code that used the BSD code is not the BSD code.
If Apple doesn't like the licensing terms of other peoples' code, they're free to write their own code. But that doesn't make the license bad simply because it makes Apple's life more difficult for whatever it is they want to do with it.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
What I want is the ability to use it and not be told my customers can't. GPLv3 reduces the value of anything licensed under it. It is the surest way to prevent commercial software from using that technology. If the world were a commune, commercial software wouldn't be necessary. But last I checked, the grocery store called obtaining without purchasing shoplifting.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
They're not, they're meant to subsist off the glory of having their name plastered across codebases world-wide. It's all about the egos, baby!
Only if for some reason your "mix" includes a bunch of lock down designed to trap the user and control how they use whatever the software is installed on. If anything, it's designed to bar use of GPLv3 code in systems that are architected around locking the user in.
I'm not seeing how the GPLv3 is a problem to anyone but control freak assholes. If you aren't, then it's not terribly different from the GPLv2.
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
The mention of GPL means this same decades old BSD vs GPL discussion comes up again and again. You may think GPL is bad, but I think it is great. Both are right depending upon what your objective is. Why don't we just make your post "Flame Bait" and supress it?
Guess what, true freedom is Somalia.
No, because if there is no one to see it, then the developer doesn't have anyone to accept the offer, so (s)he hasn't distributed it!
Next moral dilemma, please!
It doesn't promote anything other than fear of participating.
I fully support your right to put restrictions on how I can modify or distribute something you created. Calling these restrictions "liberty," however, is just Orwellian doublespeak.
No. GPL is only defending freedom. What the GPL is doing is "you're free to do anything with the code, as long as you don't take that freedom over from others". That's the definition of freedom. Freedom is not the ability to do anything, or kidnapping someone would be a freedom. The scale of offense is different, and that's what the scale of punishment for breaking the rule is different (jail if you kidnap someone, only losing the rights to use the software if you violate the GPL), but in both cases it's the same ethical stance : ability to deny to someone the freedom you were granted is not freedom, but power.
And the GPL doesn't prevent making money from the code. Unlike the article says, "GPLv3 license, which prevents Apple from using the software commercially" is false. GPLv3 perfectly allows making money from the code. Even RMS started by selling copies of the GPLed GNU Emacs. What it doesn't allow (like the GPLv2, but with additional protections for new ways of depriving users from their freedom) is only taking freedom away from the users.
As for corporations go, they tend to *prefer* GPL than BSD, because with GPL they are likely to get something back (patches, ...) when they invest on a product and then decide to share it under a free software license. GPL license encourages sharing, while BSD license, with it's "law of the jungle" attitude, rewards the selfish (who take from the community without giving back their own pacthes).
You're either for software freedom or your not. GPL restricts what you can, therefor is not free.
This kind of "either you see it my way our you're wrong" statement is NOT a good argument.
There are real reasons why the GPL versions (and other licenses) are problematic for various folks, and this kind of assertion acknowledges none of them.
You can learn the factual basis for arguments against or in favor of various open source or free software licenses at the OSI site and at the FSF site.
Summary says "GPLv3 license, which prevents Apple from using the software commercially" but I don't understand that at all. My understanding was that the GPL does not prohibit commercial use. Can someone explain why GPLv3 would prevent Apple from using code commercially?
What?
The GPLv3 prevents someone from redistributing GPL'd software and saying to the end user "you cannot replace this software, you cannot alter or modify it in place." The only people who have a problem with the GPLv3 are those who enjoyed making an end-run around the spirit of the GPLv2 by distributing source but crippling the hardware it was used on.
He has exchanged his vision of how the software could be better. If that vision is "nothing of value" then why would you want the code to it?
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GPL is bad.
Bullshit.
Now there's a towering intellectual reply to a well reasoned arguement...
Because it doesn't. Read the License text before you make stupid comments .
Having a single primary rule (with a small set of rules designed to support that rule) does not make you a dictator.
How does that support the view that the GPL is bad?
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The GLv3 doesn't say that you can't use the software commercially. This article looks like just another shot in the whole "Open Source = BAD" war, from yet another FUD-packer (in this case, the member of the AppleInsider staff who wrote the original article).
was about code reciprocity. Must be getting old now.
But last I checked, the grocery store called obtaining without purchasing shoplifting.
Shoplifting (stealing) isn't obtaining without purchase, it's removing something from the property owner's possession without the required compensation.
Michael J. Fox Remove Samba From OS X 10.7 Because of Parkinsons
You're either for personal freedom or you're not. Civil rights stop me from enslaving people, therefore I'm not free.
If I release some "free software", then someone else comes along and entangles it with their own proprietary software and adds their own restrictions, then the part that is my contribution is no longer free. The software itself is not free, in the same way that a slave is not free. The software has been enslaved. So allowing people to do whatever they want to my software is contrary to my software's freedom.
What you don't understand and likely never will is that "liberty" means you can do as you please and nobody else is making you do it. The GPL promotes making people GPL their software. Why? I understand people could "freeload" but its not like me making something based on GPL code in any way affects the code I'm using. You say the GPL is about liberty but it has a huge "if you use this you have to do this other thing too." In what way is that liberating? If anything its enslaving. You have no option to use any other license if you use GPL without getting rid of all GPL code. That's pretty fucking restrictive. You just think its liberty because it doesn't make you do anything you personally dislike, probably because you don't write anything worth being proprietary.
If I can just reach out with my words and touch a butthole, just one, it will all be worth it.
Apparently you don't.
So it's "orwellian" to insist that the people who receive my software, via you, have the same rights as you did, and can use altered versions of it freely in place of the versions you gave them?
Man, you have a fucked up definition of "orwellian." Or perhaps standing up for the freedoms of others is simply antiquated to you. But then, I get the impression that control freaks don't like end-users having freedom, and thus the GPLv3 is inherently reprehensible to them.
It allows commercial use, but is often a poison pill for companies. It means they can't lock down devices (which may be require for content license agreements), allows possible security holes, it messes with patents. Essentially GPL3 has a viral enough effect on products that it become not worth it to include the software. Apple showed this by replacing the software and you will see that GPL2 to GPL3 will only slow down development because corporations will not use and contribute to the software.
At that point any software under any license is free. You don't HAVE to use Windows, Microsoft is not forcing you to use it on your computer. That doesn't make it freely licensed.
woops, OK. It appears GPLv3 allows commercial use. The summary got it wrong? (surprise!)
You must be new here. What did you do with the person who has user id # 893292 (wow, we're at the point where 6-digit IDs count as old-timers :-)
Seriously, welcome to the world of the paid commercial FUD-packer (TFA was written by AppleInsider staff, who should have known better).
However, the Samba team has moved active development of the project to the more strict GPLv3 license, which prevents Apple from using the software commercially.
That should be: However, the Samba team has moved active development of the project to the more strict GPLv3 license, which prevents Apple from using the software commercially in the way they want to use it.
On the iPhone and iPad, Apple wants the device itself to be closed, which means the user is not allowed to install operating system components. Samba is an operating system component. If Apple allowed the end user to replace it, then jailbreaking would be as easy as replacing Samba with a hacked version, then using Samba from within any application. On MacOS X, no problem; you may replace Samba as much as you like; if it doesn't work, it's your problem obviously.
So on iDevices, Apple cannot use GPL v3 code commercially _the way they want to use it_. So they can't use it. At that point it's obviously better to have one code base and replace it on MacOS X as well.
What the hell is 'has previously'?
http://www.acetonestudio.com
The reason is Apple is moving towards DRM on OS X. You will not be able to install 3rd party software if that software is not signed.
So, summary is complete bullshit. Apple removes GPLv3 software because it conflicts with Apps-only-OSX.
GPL is like promoting free speech until someone saids something YOU don't like. True freedom is letting people do what they want.
The GPL requires that whoever you give the code to - in source or binary form - is just as free to use the code as you were. The way you are "more free" with the BSD is to make others less free, obviously you are more free if your right to swing your fist doesn't end at my nose. Being able to own slaves is a freedom for the slave holder. Except we don't want those kinds of freedoms, because they make others less free. BSD makes Apple more free and OS X users less free than under the GPL. The GPL may not be the absolute and total freedom, but it is the equal and fair freedom.
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Absolutely correct. I should have stipulated that.
Somehow, parent's anti-GPL screed is "insightful" and my post is a "troll". <looks at URL bar> Yup, this is Slashdot <blinks> I'll be in my room.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
I agree 100% with the OP's post but he's still a shill/troll. His timestamp, UID, post history (none), and unrelated Microsoft mention shows that. Same guy who's been trolling /. the last 20 days.
So by your definitional of liberty you can do whatever the hell you want to? Like going on a killing spree, because that is your liberty? Moron
That depends upon your version of 'free'.
GPL forces the freedom of derivatives, BSD retains the freedom to make non-free derivatives.
To some, without the enforced 'freedom' it's not truly free. To others, with the enforced freedom it's not really free.
This isn't an argument anybody is about to win.
Yeah, telling all those congressmen that they "must agree" to uphold the constitution, you'll never get liberty through coercion like that!
What I want is the ability to use it and not be told my customers can't.
So long as you pass on to your customers the benefits that you gained by adopting GPL'd software, no problem. They can use it. If you want to pass on a version with additional restrictions on what they can do with the software, then no, you can't do that. And that's the entire point of the GPL. Is it so hard to understand?
I think you have a good point there. In trying to place extra restrictions and obligations on free software GPL3 will actually reduce the usage of said software.
I don't think anybody disputes that. Simply, for some usage is not the most important goal.
With the due differences, it's like selling a car which verifies if you are drunk before it lets you drive it. Sure, it won't sell as much as other cars, but you know your cars are contributing much less than others to car accidents.
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GPL is bad.
Of course, goes to follow. It is based on bad law. What good can come of it? It is still an appeal to an authority that should be destroyed.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Claiming someone is a paid shill because they disagree with you is the lamest way to lose an argument.
In this case, the original article, where it states:
However, the Samba team has moved active development of the project to the more strict GPLv3 license, which prevents Apple from using the software commercially.
... was written by AppleInsider Staff. If you're not happy about the misrepresentation, tell them so.
AppleInsider takes commercial advertising, so yes, paid shill (or commercial FUD-packer) fills the bill nicely.
Seriously, if you try to promote freedom and free code, you have to allow people to use it how they want.
Exactly. GPLed software can be freely run, studied, modified, and redistributed with modifications. Apple refuses to provide its users with these freedoms, so they cannot use GPLed software.
If you try to define what's allowed and try to get people to do or not to do what YOU want them, you aren't promoting free code. Your code is just as "bad" as proprietary code.
GPL only restricts your ability to take freedom away from your end user. Yes, GPLes software is "bad" for you if you are intending to take the freedoms from your end user. GPL is not "bad" for the software's user in any way shape or form, only for those who would rather abuse copyright and derive monopoly profits from other people's charitable work (e.g. Apple from BSD). Do you seriously not get it?
GPL is like promoting free speech until someone saids something YOU don't like.
And now even a semblance of a rational argument is gone and what you have left is hot air. GPL has nothing to do with freedom of expression (just like copyright, according to the US Supreme Court, has nothing to do with freedom of speech), and everything to do with building a hedge around the public domain. The robber barons stole our public domain by making the copyright terms practically infinite and applying obscene statutory damages to non-commercial violators. Licenses like GPL are legal hacks which help to restore the balance present in the original copyright legislation: creators get some VERY limited distribution monopoly, everyone else gets more and better software.
he only people who have a problem with the GPLv3 are those who enjoyed making an end-run around the spirit of the GPLv2 by distributing source but crippling the hardware it was used on.
Well, the union of that set and the set of people who had the same problem with GPLv2.
How did they take your "free software"? Isn't that still available? People here like to point out that you can't steal bits, so the bits of your "free software" must still be in your possession.
You are either for freedom, that stops at the next user, or you are for freedom, that continues after the next person.
"Feel free to beat up anyone you meet" is no freedom either.
I do. Create whatever restrictions you like. I don't have to use your code.
Not at all; that's not even what I said.
What I said is that it's "Orwellian doublespeak" to use the word "liberty" to describe a scheme where you've set restrictions on how I can use and distribute something.
GPL = code must be free
BSD= people must be free to do what they want with the code
The problem comes with the intention of allowing the user to modify and use the software. The GPLv2 allowed them to do an end run where you could modify and use the software, but never on the device that it was distributed on.
This was corrected in GPLv3, and control-freak assholes are having a problem with it.
The issue is not the freedom of not the first person to use the code, but all the following ones down the chain. The GPL protects everyone by requiring release of source for changes, BSD doesn't protect anyone since the first person to derive the code can then keep their changes secret. So BSD is more "free" in that the first person gets the chance to do anything they want, but that person can then screw over anyone else, while simultaneously building on the generosity of the original author.
So you makes your choice, but don't whine about it, you're getting something for free either way, and the author is well justified to stop BSD-style closing of source.
That is exactly the problem with GPL, you have to think about it to be sure you aren't violating the license. You have to make sure that the way you are distributing software is appropriate and compliant, and in some circumstances, it is possible to violate it without trying to. As an end user, I like what the GPL stands for, but if I were a developer, I would be avoiding it simply because of the headaches.
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Copyright has no role in 'true freedom', as it is only capable of restricting freedom. Copyleft is a clever way of using this restriction to prevent downstream restrictions and thus prevent end-users from losing their freedom.
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You have framed your argument on the assumption that the "freedom" that the GPL was designed to protect is that of the derivative author. But everything Stallman has written indicates that the freedom he is purporting to protect with the GPL is not the derivative author's but the end-user's.
I don't know all the ins and outs of the GPLv3, but the goal of the GPL copyleft in general is to ensure not only that the user has access to the source and the rights to create derivative works from it royalty-free, but that so do all the users of any of the derivative works.
Using the code to support a larger proprietary system does not advance that goal, which is why the 'L' in LGPL was renamed to "Lesser": it goes less far in advancing the goals of the Free Software Foundation, and is mostly offered as a practicality. If Apple wants to add their own Objective-C patches but doesn't want to make them available to the whole community, then the GPL is not for them.
There is nothing in the GPLv3 that says you can't use GPL'd software commercially. Perhaps it doesn't gel with Apple's particular commercial plans for their software. That's fine... they are free to find other options that do so gel. And if those other options involve making their users use proprietary software, then how exactly is that more freedom for us than if they just continued to offer the free software (not to mention get a lot of their OS work done for them, so they can focus on their pretty UIs)?
You're either for software freedom or your not. GPL restricts what you can, therefor is not free.
That's what's known as a false dichotomy.
So.... commercial company gets benefit of tons of hours of labor and troubleshooting but isn't okay when it requires giving something back and you don't like it? Which commercial software company do you work for? Why should people who want their code improved upon and used by others allow a commercial company to take it, use it, make money, and not give back? What you seem to favor is BSD licensing which certainly Apple is okay to use, the folks on the SAMBA team chose not to support that apparently, why is it a problem?
GPLv3 does NOT *prevent* a company from using it but it does sharply restrict their ability to do things like TiVO did which was a major reason for the GPL rewrite. What TiVO did was something no one had thought of and was in the eyes of many pretty underhanded, so it's now been stopped. Oh well!
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Free for whom?
The GPL protects the *freedom of the code*, not the freedom of developers. Hence the term free software. The BSD allows you to lock the code down, and release binaries only and so is not as good at protecting the freedom of the code.
I really can not fathom that this logic still eludes people. So many assume that it is about their own freedom and so misses the point of the GPL entirely.
And besides, if you want to give freedom to developers, release as Public Domain for crying out loud.
That nonense again. Strawman included: You are allowed to make money of GPL code.
The free speech "analogy" I'm inclined to rank as a strawman as well.
You are free to put the terms YOU like on YOUR work, you do not have the right to use the work of others under your own terms.
Your blahblah just means "damn, I'm not allowed to take the work of OTHERS and use it onder MY conditions".
Epic fail.
I don't, actually, have the liberty to go on a killing spree, because it turns out that we have laws against that.
Where all of you GPL-haters keep failing in this argument is that you want to deny rights to software makers. You have to understand that whoever wrote a piece of software owns copyright on it, and can distribute it how they see fit.
If I write a piece of software, I'm free to take one of 3 basic distribution options relevant to the debate:
1) Keep it proprietary, give the code to nobody. Sell compiled versions for money, and/or license the source under NDA to others for money.
2) Give it away under a BSD license (or just make it Public Domain). Anyone can use my software for anything, commercial or not. It's a gift to the world.
3) Give it away under a GPL license. Anyone can use my software for anything, commercial or not. HOWEVER, I stipulate that if you make further enhancements to my code, if you then give the resulting binary to other parties, you are required to also give them a copy of your enhancements in source code form.
None of the options are more or less moral than the others. Licensing code under the GPL does not steal anyone's liberties. It fails to provide you with a liberty you would get if the code were licensed under BSD, but in either case these rights are GRANTED to you by the COPYRIGHT HOLDER. It's a gift either way, and you're saying by failing to give everyone a big enough gift, GPL authors are somehow stealing people's liberties. Bullshit.
So it's "orwellian" to insist that the people who receive my software, via you, have the same rights as you did, and can use altered versions of it freely in place of the versions you gave them?
Maybe not "orwellian," but certainly not liberating. If your software was truly free, you wouldn't be insisting anything, you would just distribute the software.
That said, I of course understand your argument. It's like trying to achieve peace. Some will argue that war is needed, some will argue that we should all just be peaceful. In the case of freedom, some will argue that certain restrictions that attempt to enforce freedom are the best way to get there, others say "if you want to promote freedom, just make your work truly free."
Seriously, if you try to promote freedom and free code, you have to allow people to use it how they want. If you try to define what's allowed and try to get people to do or not to do what YOU want them, you aren't promoting free code. Your code is just as "bad" as proprietary code. True freedom is letting people do what they want, even if they have different values than you.
GPL is like promoting free speech until someone saids something YOU don't like. True freedom is letting people do what they want. That includes making money with the code, or using that code in a larger proprietary code. If you do not allow this you're a hypocrite.
You're confusing code freedom with user freedom. The GPL ensures the *code* is free and stays free forever, with an increasing number of clauses per revision warring with ways to work around that, to use the code in a closed fashion.
The analogy isn't perfect, but it's like a library. The books are free to read, but that doesn't mean you're free to take as many as you can carry, set up a stand on the sidewalk outside and sell them. The *books* are protected by the license and - for their increased safety - imposes restrictions on you so you won't abuse them. It needs teeth to stand its ground.
Translating GPL into user freedom is only correct as long as you abide by the terms it demands of you. You'll be "free" in the sense that you ward yourself against vendor lock-in, unwanted hidden software features made visible by source code availability (eg. espionage, call-home features, man-in-the-middle, etc), and similar freedoms that translate to "not having a master".
Not liberty for you, jackass, liberty for the people you distribute too. The original author is preventing YOU from exploiting downstream users. Your "freedom" to screw people over is not "freedom". You are being saved from yourself, and your shortsightedness.
Let me guess, you're a libertarian? Yeah? That would explain your moral autism on the issue.
Wow, what a specious argument.
1. A *copy* of your software will get entangled with other restrictions.
2. Your software is still free.
3. The status of the copy is up to the other company.
4. Even if the other company ties up the copy, it does NOT impact your software.
So, if you can make a copy of a person, then ship the copy off to another country who might have different laws, then your analogy makes sense. Aside from the racism you imply.
The same goes for pretty much any other non-FOSS license, where you need a lawyer to slog through it to make sure it's OK.
With the GPL, if you make a reasonable effort to understand and comply generally you won't have any problems. The only people who have serious problems are ones who deliberately ignore it and don't try at all.
You do understand what "copyright" is, right? The copies of the code are being restricted. These copies are the result of the work of the upstream authors. The fruits of their labor are being closed. Presumably, they are fine with this, but acting like it's not happening is dishonest.
You're either for software freedom or your not.
False dichotomy
Perhaps the point wasn't to make money?
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
I think you're confusing freedom for developers and freedom for users of software.
The GPL takes freedom away from developers. If you incorporate software with a GPL license in your project, you will have a long list of :you musts" and "you mustn'ts" to comply with. Many developers hate this, of course.
The GPL guarantees freedoms for users of software. If you select a GPL package to solve a problem you have, you can be certain you will always be able to build and modify the latest version yourself.
Selecting the GPL for a project is a promise to your users to stay free.
Bullshit. Public domain license is much more free than BSD.
If you were truly interested in free you would release as Public Domain, do whatever the hell you want with it, i dont care license.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
freedom != anarchy
If I am free to live, that implies there is a restriction against murder.
Don't confuse freedom with anarchy. Anarchy sucks. Slavery was abolished, and as a result, you _cannot_ sell yourself into slavery. Yes, that is a restriction, to preserve your freedom.
That doesn't make GPL bad, what makes it bad in this situation is that it's pushed Apple to abandon Samba for use in OSX. Depending upon your point of view that may or many not be bad, but it means that the install base just shrunk up over the issue and that's not helpful in cases like this.
The project is free to choose whatever license it likes, but some licenses come with strings attached which impede the use of the software more than others.
And under the GPLv3, you can still do whatever YOU want. The exception comes when you redistribute, because at that point it's not YOU using it, it's SOMEONE ELSE.
In the end, you are thus depriving that SOMEONE ELSE the ability to use the software at all. You're defending "their" rights by denying them the access they need. Sort of destroying the city in order to save it.
As far as I can tell, there are two different classes of "SOMEONE ELSE": average users and programmer geeks. In order to preserve the rights of the programmer geeks, you are denying access to average users. Just like Gnu GO on the iPhone. I can't have it at all because a "freedom" advocate believes allowing me to have it would cause them some kind of harm... sounds suspiciously like proprietary software, really. They think they're different because their demands don't involve money.
Then it sounds like you need to create the functionality all by yourself or pay a team of people to do it and pass that cost onto your customers. Seems fair...
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
...the Samba team has moved active development of the project to the more strict GPLv3 license, which prevents Apple from using the software commercially.
Complete and utter rubbish. Who got this wrong, Apple or the submitter?
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
I have no desire whatsoever to infringe on a copyright holder's right to distribute his or her code as he or she sees fit.
My problem stems from the use of the word "liberty" to describe a license as restrictive as the GPL.
That's because it's not liberty for YOU (that's already been granted) but for whomever gets it from you. Stop being so greedy and self-centered with your thought process.
allows possible security holes
What?
-- Linux user #369862
...yes, because we all know that the image of freedom is something out of Mad Max.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Only if for some reason your "mix" includes a bunch of lock down designed to trap the user and control how they use whatever the software is installed on.
What if the lock down is designed to keep malware off of the user's device and maintain its stability, and the user is OK with that?
I bought the iPhone because it is a controlled ecosystem. I don't want my cell phone rooted. I also like the controlled updates. I have a friend with an Android phone who had an update that bricked the device, and his carrier and Google are arguing about who is responsible!
Freedom is great, but we all choose to give up some freedoms for security on occasions.
I hate that sort of comment, but this is the one actual intelligent comment I've seen on this article. It explains clearly the circumstances that mean Apple can't use GPLv3 software in their /System, but can use GPLv2: GPLv3's anti-Tivoization clauses.
The comment above is insightful, highly relevant, and made in a calm, noninflammatory manner in the middle of a GPL vs. BSD argument. Obviously, iluvcapra should face a tribunal to decide whether he or she has violated Slashdot norms.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
You are completely wrong. GPL is designed to preserve the 4 essential freedoms not just grant them once. There is nothing hypocritical about ensuring that future modifications and derivations from GPL licensed code will guarantee the same amount of freedom as the original code.
using that code in a larger proprietary code
If you want to allow that, you can use the LGPL. No problem at all. But again, there is absolutely nothing hypocritical about wanting to ensure that the 4 freedoms are respected not only once but also in future for products based on GPL code.
There have been active and extremely malicious attempts to subvert GPL with any tricks you might imagine. Companies continuously want to literally steal GPL code and use it for their own purposes. Now that's hypocritical.
True freedom is letting people do what they want.
So in your view it's okay if someone just takes your code / program and sells it under his own brand as a proprietary software package, makes lots of money, without contributing back anything to the open source community? Because that's what you're suggesting.
By the way, from your post it's clear that you haven't really heard and reflected what the purpose of the GPL is and what the 4 freedoms are. You seem to associate "freedom" with "freedom for the programmer", but that not at all what the free software idea is about. It's about freedom for each and every individual user of the software. Everyone. The GPL ensures that this freedom is granted to each and every user and that it cannot be taken away again in future. (And , of course, non-programmers can become programmers. In fact, the GPL enourages this.)
The adversaries of GPL are the real hypocrites, because they usually know very well the rationale behind the GPL (and that there is also the LGPL) and that it makes perfect sense. However, most of them are 1.) simply angry that they cannot use all the great stuff for their own shitty proprietary software, or, 2.) on the payroll of a large company that wants to keep its software proprietary in order to take away the freedom of their end users, control them, and force them into their services (paid upgrades, customer lock-in, etc.). So they invent untenable arguments and spread FUD while knowing very well that its bullshit and FUD. Yes, that's the sad truth.
If you're a developer using someone else's GPLed code, you'd need to be careful to ensure compliance with those licensing terms. But if you're the one writing the GPLed code, the care other people should be taking to comply with that license ensures that you can merge their changes with your own.
It's not just a one-way street as far as headaches are concerned.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
Copyleft works by restricting the ability to restrict others, ensuring that end users maintain certain liberties. It's no more doublespeak on liberty than the government protecting someone who says something unpopular from physical or other harm.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
To give an anecdote: I was looking at adding FLAC support to my mobile app. The official site states that the base library (called libFLAC) uses a Xiph license, which is quite open and just requires reproducing the copyright/license blurbs. However, the way it's distributed has libFLAC/ dependent on flac/. As I was trying to get things to compile, I noticed files in flac/ were either GPL or LGPL. Damn -- there goes the opportunity for me to include FLAC support, and FLAC has one less app mentioning it to the general public.
After closer inspection, thankfully, it turns out libFLAC/ only uses the items in flac/FLAC/ and those items have the Xiph license. Tearing out all the code in flac/ means I can now add FLAC support. GPL champions openness over freedom, and in some cases the only solution is not to use it.
So it's "free" as in "don't do that," then. Gotcha. That's fine. Just call it what it is instead of calling it freedom.
Moderate Democrat who wants more regulation in the financial industry, but thanks for trying.
GPL protects the freedom of the USERS not the "code". All users of GPLed code have the same rights - even users of derivative works have the same rights as users of the original work with GPL. BSD licenses allow developers to create derivative works and deny any rights to the users of that work (a work that includes some or all of the original work).
Copyright is the default and doesn't allow anything.
GPL offers a set of additional rights - including creating and selling derivative works (on condition of reciprocity).
BSD offers the additional right to deny the freedom of users of the derivative works.
The right to deny others the same rights you have is not a system that promotes freedom.
The problem with your argument is that the developers of Samba would like to be able to buy a NAS or other hardware device that incorporates Samba and then upgrade it to the latest testing version or change other things about it even if the hardware manufacturer doesn't support it. That's the end of the story in terms of licensing, because no one else owns the Samba code. The Samba developers wanted the ability to modify their own software when it's running on someone else's hardware that they paid money for, and I think that's a fairly reasonable request. Apple's response is basically "Hey, nice code, but we don't really care about your interests and so we won't be using the new version." Either way, Apple wasn't planning on letting people modify the version of CIFS they shipped, or contribute fixes back to the Samba tree, so no real loss there. Long story short, we learned something about Apple's ideology and nothing more.
And banning slavery restricts what sorts of property you're allowed to own, therefore a state that doesn't allow slave ownership is not free.
25% Funny, 25% Insightful, 25% Informative, 25% Troll
You're either for software freedom or your not. GPL restricts what you can, therefor is not free.
This kind of "either you see it my way our you're wrong" statement is NOT a good argument.
GP didn't make a qualitative categorization of the rightness or wrongness of either position. You did that.
I fully support your right to put restrictions on how I can modify or distribute something you created. Calling these restrictions "liberty," however, is just Orwellian doublespeak.
You don't have the 'liberty' to enslave other people either. Restrictions sometimes limit the liberty someone might take away from other people.
-- Linux user #369862
GPL is bad.
Bullshit.
Bullshit. BSD license is much more free than GPL.
He didn't say it was "more free", he said it wasn't bad.
BSD is more free, but does little to promote freedom itself. GPL is less free, but it more strongly promotes freedom. Neither is better than the other except when considered in specific contexts. If you ignore context and make a blanket statement about which is freer, you are making a religious argument.
GPL is a tick riding on the back of a rhinoceros. We should kill the rhino.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Personally, I think Apple is trying to totally close their software and hardware ecosystems so only they can provide software, or are the gatekeeper of all software, that will run on any Apple device. The only way to stop this is by voting with our pocketbooks! After this sort of behavior, I am boycotting Apple products like I am Sony's. If I purchase something, I own it and therefor have the right to use it as I see fit, not as someone else does. The way Apple wants it to work is that you are in effect leasing from them. You don't own it, and are constrained with what you can do with/to it.
Yeah, we all accept this as truth already.The zeroth axiom of Slashdot: Apple wants to run your life, and charge you for it.
Please stop spreading FUD. Do you have any actual evidence that the BSD license results in fewer contributions because it doesn't force people to contribute when they use the code? What I've seen out of GPL companies is that they can easily fulfill the terms of the GPL without contributing back to the original project. Nothing in the GPL requires them to send their patches back up stream, and companies like ASUS sometimes opt to fork and patch their own copy of the software rather than contribute back to the original. Sure there are reasons other than being cheap or dishonest, QA is a lot easier if you control the fork.
As far as GPL defending freedom, what a load. Just be honest about the fact that it only defends a subset of freedoms one could legitimately enjoy going with a public domain, BSD or MIT licensed project. Suggesting that it's in any way shape or form analogous to criminal offenses is just plain stupid.
This is why I support true open source licenses that allow both free and proprietary use. They are the real free licenses, not GPL, and unless we deal with that hypocricy Microsoft will always win.
So which licenses are those? even the 3-clause BSD prevents me from claiming ownership of the code and suing other users for copyright infringement, so it's not really free either.
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
That's some thrilling hyperbole you got there, it really supports your argument. Let me see if I can get into that mindset in my rebuttal...
I think you left out the bit where someone else comes along and MURDERS!!!!!!!! and RAPES!!!!!!!! the original developer and SODOMIZES!!!!!!! the code repository where the software itself resides.
Sorry, I can't do it. But the point is, the original software continues to exist and is available under the original terms. Your complaint seems to be that they did additional work and chose not to make that new improved piece of software available under the original terms. Your desire seems more to be that everyone agrees with your worldview rather than to be a producer of quality, free software that will benefit those who choose to use it.
It's possible for a restriction on one type of liberty to help preserve another. It may even be necessary. Which is favored is a matter of preference and priorities, not some dictate from an absolute and ultimate (and fictional) ideal of "Liberty".
Jesus, this concept isn't complicated. Or new. I can't believe we're having such a large discussion about it.
Oh wait, it's Slashdot and this relates to the basics of political philosophy—yes I can.
Really? "Unless we deal with the hypocrisy [of the GPL] Microsoft will always win?" You mean, just like Linux is losing to Windows Mobile, because the GPL will never let it go anywhere?
Let me tell you how it is: when I work on code, I don't do it because I want some random company to have something for free. If someone else is going to use my hard work, I want something back. Some people pay me money (like my current employer), and they get all rights to the code. But my stuff is valuable, and I'm not going to give it away for free. For my open source stuff I use GPL because if you use my hard work, you will have to contribute something back. It also protects the rights of the users.
Now, some people, like the BSD guys, are more interested in getting their software in more places. They like their name to be recognized. That's fine for them, but I don't care about recognition and attribution. I want to preserve the freedom to recompile. That's what I care about.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Calling them "control freak assholes" is disingenuous. They decided on their values, formed the GPLv3, and stuck to those values. They believe their values have merit, and have requisite need to prevent what they feel is non-free use cases from slipping in.
It took some courage, but I understand with their principles. I don't necessarily agree for all use cases, but I agree for many use cases. For that, I'll respect them. IMHO, Apple becomes less and less free than the ideals expressed when MacOSX arrived, and becomes more and more like Microsoft all the time, in terms of proprietary infrastructure with high walls and draconian developer requirements.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
You've touched upon one of the big issues facing companies: uncertainty. Companies (and, by extension, shareholders) hate uncertainty. Given the choice between using newfangled GPL code where there's s a chance you might get sued at some unknown time in the future by an unknown party for some unrealized violation based on a large, detailed licensing document that you need lawyers to figure out, versus using a package that requires buying a license to do exactly what you want from an established company for a fixed cost, guess which choice the pointy-haired boss is going to take? Certainty wins over free as in beer, and the PHB does not care about free as in speech.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
If you're restricting how I can use something, you may have granted me a license, but you haven't granted me liberty.
Stop redefining words.
Bullshit. Freedom that gives the right to lock out the next person is not automatically more about freedom than freedom that protects also the next persons freedom.
Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
Really? I'd think it was pretty simple: if you give someone the binary, you make the source code available to them. If I was selling software, I'd license it under GPLv3 and just deliver the source code as part of the package at the point of sale. Anyone who came asking for the source would be directed to go look at the original package they received when they bought it, or provide proof of purchase (eg, plug in your receipt number to a webform to be able to download the package again). Problem solved.
Nathan's blog
control freak assholes
The very definition of Apple!
Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
You're either for software freedom or your not. GPL restricts what you can, therefor is not free.
Well, maybe. But it does seem reasonable that, if you're gonna take a "free" product and resell it, you should share some of your profits with the product's original producers.
The GPL has taken this attitude toward "free" from the start. You can have it for free if you promise to pass it on to others on the same terms. But if you want to grab someone else's work and make a profit from it, you have to buy it (and get a license to resell it).
See, it's sort of a "tit for tat" thing. If you want it to be free, you have to keep it free; if you want to be paid for it, you have to pay for it.
(For those who have no idea what I'm talking about, note that most GPL'd software is available from the authors with other licenses. The GPL doesn't preclude providing the software with other licenses. It basically just exists to guarantee that if you don't pay for the software, you can't charge others for it. But most of the authors are quite willing to give you a license to sell their software for profit, if you are willing to share those profits with the authors.)
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Seriously, if you try to promote freedom and free code, you have to allow people to use it how they want.
If you want to promote freedom and free code, you have to ensure that EVERYONE has the same rights to the free code.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
The move to llvm (and its heavy sponsoring) was because gcc was too monolithic to make it evolve the way they needed in XCode (accessing the code parser for instance, or having separate code generation backends). I doubt they cared much about the license in this case, since gcc 4.2 is still shipped with XCode.
If you associate the words "must agree" with the word "liberty," I think you have pretty jacked up definition of liberty.
If you believe that liberty has no conditions, such as equality, then you might be thinking of the word license.
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
>>>Because it doesn't. Read the License text before you make stupid comments .
(sigh). I was only replying to the guy who said, "No, no you don't have to allow corporations to make money from your (donated) code." - I wondered how people would make money if they are not allowed to sell it in their business products.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Without that "social agenda", there would be not Free Software. There would be no contributors because no one would care enough about the "social agenda" to create a suitable framework where contributors feel free to add their contributions free from the fear that someone like Apple or Microsoft will come along and take unfair advantage of the work.
This "social agenda" stuff is just nonsense and FUD.
This is about CONTRIBUTORS. The GPL was created because corporations can't be trusted and CONTRIBUTORS became angry.
The GPL, like any "rule of law" exists because there are people out there that can't be trusted to work and play well with others. External forces need to be created to ensure that everyone acts in a civilized manner and everyone is treated equally.
I don't really see what reasons Apple has to fear "anti-Tivoization". It doesn't look like anyone really addressed that.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
So ironically GPLv3 may hurt the project it sets out to protect. If commercial entities can't use a product because of GPLv3 they're not going to be paying developers to work on it any more. Instead they'll fork or adopt a project with a more suitable licence. It's no wonder that some projects such as the kernel and embedding projects don't want to jump to v3 because it would be the kiss of death.
Those who release code under a BSD license know that down-stream users can take the code wholesale, or make modifications, and do with it what they will. Those people aren't complaining about it. The only people who seem to make an issue out of it are people who haven't or wouldn't release code under a BSD license. Licenses are essentially a religious debate at this point, so please pardon my analogy when I say that pretending there is a debate on the BSD license is like pretending their is a debate on ID vs Evolution. Only one side is interested in having a debate, and that means there is no debate.
can't have it at all because a "freedom" advocate believes allowing me to have it would cause them some kind of harm...
No, you can't have it because Apple prevents you from installing software except through them.
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The difference is one of scope: The BSD license only looks at the individual (and mostly from a developer standpoint) whereas the GPL looks at the bigger picture. In the end, the bigger picture is more important.
(sorry, posting to undo a wrong moderation)
Something said in a short, easy to read sentence, that is completely false.
The question is, freedom for whom? If you let someone distribute your stuff in a closed manner, then you've restricted the freedoms of the users of that software. You can either restrict the right of the end user, or the right of the distributer. It is a choice. Reality is grey. To use an extreme, but obvious, example: in society, we have the choice to restrict the ability to murder people, or to give the victims a chance to live. That most reasonable societies choose to restrict the ability to murder doesn't mean they are not free.
I'd rather force distributers to keep my source open. That's my choice. I don't need to do free work for other people.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I think the point was to have quality crowd-sourced code that solves a problem elegantly available for free and nondiscriminatory use. Businesses saw the value in FOSS because in many cases they didn't have to reinvent the wheel. I think the problem now is, FOSS supporters, contributors and programmers see that the software has real market value that they may not be cashing in on. Or rather, they have a romantic idea in their head that they can dictate usage policy to large profitable companies. IMHO, contributing to FOSS is a donation on your part, but does not imply charity.
Here I am, here I remain.
Devil's advocate here:
The downside to the GPL3 is that companies notice one product or piece of code with the v3 license, then their legal team gets scared, throws the baby out with the bathwater and starts over with a closed source product.
I have known one business which produced embedded controllers move from Linux to Windows CE just because their legal eagles feared that the GPL v3.x would force them to give up their trade secrets of some manufacturing methods to any customers that asked.
All and all, I'd would say the GPL v2 is/was the best balance between being able to do what one wanted and redistributing, versus keeping code available for subsequent users. GPL v3 was made with good intentions, but instead of the intended outcome of killing DRM and dealing with patents, it has gotten some businesses to completely dump F/OSS completely and move to closed source systems.
It doesn't say you can't use it commercially, but it does say you have to give up rights to patents, derivative work, and derivative source code, copyrights, hardware control, etc.
And that is why companies who make money on software will stop using anything relying on GPLv3.
It prevents companies from using GPLv3 software commercially - from a business sense if not a pure licensing sense.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
This is a gross mis-representation of GPLv3, and obfuscates the real basis of argument that Apple may have in conforming to the licensing terms.
Why the innuendo? Why not state exactly the thing you are alluding to?
Because it's not some sort of horrible thing. Not nearly as bad as the imaginary unstated thing could be.
The problem isn't the copyright effects, it's the patent effects. Apple has no problem making source code available (in fact, they are highly active in the open source world), because there's no fear of having to give up the copyright to software they either can't or simply don't want to give up. But patents have no such easy way to partition and can have much more severe business consequences.
This comment is only insighful as it documents the frustration of people who would like to have something for nothing.
The GPL including the v3 allows people to use code "as they want", what it does prohibit is letting them enforce restrictions of their liking to others.
They are perfectly free to have any value they care, they are not allowed to force their values with my code on others.
The hypocisy is not the GPL is people who say: Oh we loooove free software, but we just need to get sommme money out of you to be really happy.
The GPL has not created a problem, the companies who would like to release products without incuring the cost of developping or licencing a solution, and without passing the economy to the user are the problems.
And mixing the GPL issues with the CODECS issues (MPEG-LA, H264, etc...) is an error, and has nothing to do with GPLV2 or V3 or BSD, but everything to do with the restrictive and unfair licencing models that most codec owner impose, and these issue hurts just as bad a "closed source" company as an "open source"..
Finally the SAMBA team has all right to licence as they want, and there is nothing that stops anybody from making any kind of package "around" samba, only modifications to samba are really impacted.
It stops people like APPLE to make modification in the code, not release it and then say "you can have the sources but all the hooks into our operating system are proprietary, so for example using samba to unify authentication between the MAC and the fileserver could depend on non free software".
And introduce vulnerabilities which could only be corrected by Apple.
Finally I suspect the real reason is linked to some of the patent cross licencing between microsoft and apple and they are afraid the this could give "bad ideas" to others.
And yes a free licence can prohibit you from taking a free sotfware deciding that some feature would be central to it's use and is not patented, benefits from microsoft's sponsored "first to fill" reform, and patent it, and then remove all the rights of everybody else...
"The Freedom to bear arms is severly restricted by the interdiction to shoot anybody you do not like, .. how unfair........"
GPL is good, GPL V3 is better (although I do understand why Linus Torvald has reservation and prefers "good enough" to "better")
Bullshit. GPL is much more free than BSD license.
I think by "control freak assholes" he meant apple ..
Did no one read the final paragraph in the article? While GPLv3 may well have been part of the decision, it appears compatibility with Windows 7 has been somewhat problematic for Samba. A quick Google search shows this page, indicating that the current solution involves hacking the registry. Not exactly seamless, and I can see Apple wanting to switch for that reason alone.
You're either for software freedom or your not. GPL restricts what you can, therefor is not free.
Your claim is a false dichotomy.
Just because GPL imposes restrictions does not mean GPL software is not free. It turns out the restrictions it imposes are restrictions against restricting freedom.
What's not free is proprietary platforms... such as the iPhone. You cannot even run your own applications (they have to be approved by Apple). GPL is the carrot that will allow Apple to partake of it, when they stop blocking users' freedom.
Perhaps you misread what I said. I called the people who are pissed about the GPLv3 "control freak assholes." The GPLv3 was created by people who are more concerned with ensuring that people who receive GPLv3 software are not controlled.
Specifically, in this case, SAMBA is losing out because it no longer is getting help from Apple, because it wants to tell Apple how it may use the product, and Apple doesn't want to be told by SAMBA team what it can and can't do with code it contributed to, and shared with the SAMBA team.
The GPL(3) is AWFUL in terms of licensing. If I were building anything useful and wanting to sell it, I sure the hell wouldn't use any GPL(3) code.
The GPL(3) is functioning just as it was designed, to limit commercial use of code. You can't complain that it is doing what it was designed to do. Does this make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside?
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Now Apple will have to code their own shit instead of stealing from free projects.
Many people don't seem to understand the concept that liberty isn't liberty if it's only available to some. Part of this is because some parties have equated copyright with "intellectual property". Of course, the definition of "property" has been so ingrained by custom that most people don't even ask what is property?.
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I think the "control freak assholes" in question are Apple and similar companies that take issue with the GPLv3.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
You're either for personal freedom or you're not. Civil rights stop me from enslaving people, therefore I'm not free.
Yeah.... civilizations are not free.
We lock up people who try to steal things. How is that free? You can't steal things and kill people who say things you don't like? Geez.....
Apple and Microsoft (and many others) want to make sure you are only a "consumer" of their services, they would probably prohibit the distribution of typewriters and adding machines, as it does infringe on some of their patents, and anyway you are not supposed to write text, just buy some on itune, and calculating, what for, the price you have to pay is the one on the bill, and it will be applied on your bank account, you are not supposed to double check...
Linux/Free Software people let you do what ever you want with their code, the only thing you are not allowed is REMOVING SOMEBODY ELSES RIGHTS...
and whine about this just shows lack of caracter...
But there is something wrong with an open source license that caused a major player to revert to proprietary code.
...the Samba team has moved active development of the project to the more strict GPLv3 license, which prevents Apple from using the software commercially.
Blatantly false, as many others have pointed out. If the reason was licensing, it would be more subtle than that, and would have to do with the particulars of Apple's desires around distribution. And that's a big if, it might simply have to do with features and support.
Apple has previously stopped contributing code to GCC and started looking at other options like LLVM because of GCC's switch to GPLv3.
Also false--Apple is switching away from GCC because it's clunky, slow, outdated, and the GCC team is hostile to Apple's extensions and does not want Apple's contributions--every developer I know has been very much looking forward to being able to drop GCC and use LLVM.
But why do we have such laws? To protect others' liberty to live.
Absolute freedom is impossible to achieve. Claiming that the GPL is more free than BSD is absurd. Claiming that BSD is more free than GPL is shortsighted.
Personally, I think the GPL gives a more fair set of freedoms to each party.
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So is society's restrictions against murder then, according to your definition.
Thing is, we have deemed legalized murder to result in less actual freedoms for people than they'd have with it illegal, so we've declared that a society can promote freedom and liberty while keeping murder illegal without it being a contradiction.
Same goes for allowing redistributors to put their own restrictions in place.
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
Yeah there do seem to be a lot of UIDs over 2million sounding very similar, dissing Open Source, and throwing in a pro-MS reference. I've been on /. a long time, and these are the first real shills that have stood out as such for me.
But whose fault is that? If Samba's license came with the rare "not to be installed in baby mulchers" clause that interfered with Apple's new iMulch product and caused it to be dropped, is it the fault of Samba for the license or Apple for not being willing to comply with it?
Samba loses some of its userbase and Apple loses a mature codebase, but I don't see how the GPL's terms are more onerous than any other sort of licensing disagreement.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
The same goes for pretty much any other non-FOSS license, where you need a lawyer to slog through it to make sure it's OK.
Really? I've seen many of the license in the source code deals at a number of companies I've been at and they are completely clear and upfront about what you can and can not do. There is no manifesto and all other sorts of shit you have to wade through like the GPL. There is also none of the associated GPL/FOSS politics to deal with.
This was corrected in GPLv3, and control-freak assholes are having a problem with it.
They are obviously doing this as a symbolic gesture against the GPLv3. Since Samba on MacOS... well.... MacOS allows you to run arbitrary applications, so there's no GPLv3 problem...
Either that or Apple is planning to lock down MacOS like they've locked down the iPhone, with cryptography, and not allow users to install/modify their own software without Apple's say so....
You seem to have an extreme misunderstanding of what freedom WRT the GPL actually means. It means freedom FROM the software for end users and freedom of the code FROM those who would subvert it for their own uses.
That seems to be where people get confused. The freedom is for the source code itself and the end users consuming it and NOT companies that seek to profit from it. Note this doesn't mean a company can't profit from code falling under the GPL, it just means you can't take code and pretend it's yours.
Nobody ever said the freedom meant "take the code and use it for whatever proprietary purposes you have in mind".
So, your solution is that the user shouldn't get access to the code, unless they do it themselves. Typical geek think. The GPL(3) was invented because people didn't like how others were using GPL(2) code. We don't approve, so now we're going to take our ball and go home.
And people are surprised that nobody wants to play ball with that kid any more.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
You do understand what "copyright" is, right? The copies of the code are being restricted. These copies are the result of the work of the upstream authors. The fruits of their labor are being closed. Presumably, they are fine with this, but acting like it's not happening is dishonest.
Yes, that is what can happen when you "give" physical property away. You lose control over what happens to it.
In other words, no, you don't know what copyright it. The GPL does not apply to physical things themselves.
The GPL is not really "giving" something away since it restrict what you can do with it. GPL is not really "free" software. It has very strict terms and conditions which I would argue violates the inherent "copyright" of contributors downstream. Those people have their rights limited by the GPL license because of the viral nature of the license. The fruits of their labour would still exists under a BSD license but they would not necessarily gain the fruits of the labour of others downstream unless if they also chose to give it away. The BSD license is about freedom of choice whereas the GPL is basically stealing the fruits of the labour of people downstream through force of the license rather than receiving it through goodwill sharing.
This is a bunch of religious bullshit. Neither is worse than the other, just different. Both are free licenses.
Also, your claim that the BSD license does not come with restrictions is complete fantasy. In your own words, "the GPL^wBSD License is not really "giving" something away since it restrict [sic] what you can do with it."
No state is free. It isn't really a problem, but thinking they are leads to things like where democracy is held up as an ideal, rather than being better than the alternatives (the ideal situation would be one where no government intervention was ever needed, which is obviously a pipe dream, but ideals don't have to be practical to offer guidance).
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Indeed we agree; my mistake.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
But if not contributing to car accidents is your primary concern, you could simply not make cars. Likewise, if you're more concerned about your code not being used in a bad way, than about it being used at all, why write it?
After closer inspection, thankfully, it turns out libFLAC/ only uses the items in flac/FLAC/ and those items have the Xiph license.
That should be obvious. If libFLAC depended on GPL licensed files it couldn't be distributed as Xiph.
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I'm not seeing how the GPLv3 is a problem to anyone but control freak assholes.
Like commercial, for-profit software companies.
I'd think it was pretty simple:
Sure if you only look at it superficially. You also have to deal with all the uncertainty of what is a derived work or not. Obviously the FSF would like it to be as broad as possibly but there isn't much hard case law to back either way so that uncertainty is something that a commercial company is not going to want to put up with.
if you give someone the binary, you make the source code available to them.
Until people complain that you aren't supplying the source in the form they want and they start a huge stink about it. And that's just a single example and there are many others.
I wish you had mod points too.
I made an app! Shoutium
This is the central conflict -- the code is on my hard drive, it's mine in any "information wants to be free" sense. However, there's the GPL, which is relies on a strong definition of intellectual property, that asserts that even though you have possession of the code, the copyright holder retains a proprietary interest and all of the rights with regard to how it may be distributed. It's really just the same sort of arbitrary IP line-drawing that the USPTO does every day, they just draw the line in a different place than a commercial software vendor. It's designed so that any improvements a contributor may make revert to the rights holder of the base, instead of a commercial source-code license, where improvements and the right to distribute those improvements would be retained by the licensee.
There's a lot of heat and light about freedom, but all it is is RMS using Intellectual Property law to try to keep alive his memories of going to school in the late 70s and having access to the source code to SysV Unix, source code that was licensed to his college for educational purposes and with AT&T hoping that it would make Unix "viral" with CS students.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
That is exactly what is happening. The problem is the people who wrote GPL(3) aren't happy because really good code isn't being used because the restrictions they placed on it are onerous to companies like Apple. The GPL(3) is functioning as it was designed, restricting use of GPL(3) code. It is just not the way they thought it would pan out.
SAMBA is going to be replaced with something that works that has fewer restrictions on it. Unless they revert back to GPL(2).
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
No, it doesn't say that AT ALL.
What it DOES say is that if you put YOUR software patent into YOUR GPL3 code then YOU are agreeing that anyone else can use that software patent under terms compatible with the GPLv3 license.
What it DOES NOT say is that if you use GPL3 software you can't have patents or have to give them away. Just don't modify the GPL3 program or make a derived product (as defined by your government, so if you don't like the definition, take it up with them) and include patents you won't give anyone else.
Since Apple only want to USE Samba, not make their own version of it, they can't be putting THEIR patents in the Samba software, so the GPL3 license isn't a problem.
So those couple of pages of restrictions that come with using GPLv3 make software licensed under it free?
Calling GPL "free software" is probably the biggest lie the FSF ever told. It's restricted to hell and back.
Yes because millions of geeks will sense the violation and suddenly cry out in terror.
Imagine if pre war Nazi Germany had a constitution which prevented the population voting away their own rights. What would have been the result, a less free country or a more free country.
The BSD and similar licences allow you to give away all rights to code based on your work. It was designed to allow software produced in universities to be privatised and that remains its primary purpose. GPLv3 prevents the closure of the code in just the same way as a robust constitution prevents dictators from getting undemocratic practices voted in to replace the democratic ones.
The Nazis would deny this though.
Bullshit WTFPL license is much more free than public domain.
GPL style "freedom" is socialist "freedom" while BSD style freedom is true liberty.
Anarchy != Chaos.
Just because there is no state doesn't mean society will allow you to get away with initiating violence against another.
Don't confuse anarchy with chaos. Chaos sucks. Slavery was first an institution granted legitimacy by states, you could own slaves legally even though a state was in place.
That's shortsighted, because it's considering only two parties (the original developer(s) and the redistributer) while failing to acknowledge the third-party (end user).
Absolute freedom is impossible. The GPL tries to "distribute freedom" between all the parties to ensure that everyone gets all the usage rights, even if it reduces some distribution rights.
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I think you're mixing apples and onions here a little. Corporations are welcome to use and/or modify GPL code all they want - internally. The rub comes when they want to redistribute and/or sell that code. At that point, their modifications have to go back into the kitty so everyone else can benefit. And yes, before anyone tries confuse the issue further, this doesn't apply to LGPL code.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
What's happening is wrong... The GPLv2 is a mature stable license, that has been proven. The GPLv3 is a relative newcomer, bleeding edge. With fundamental problems for some the GPLv2 did not have.
Samba never should have moved to GPLv3. They should have either forked, or closed shop and started a new GPLv3-based project.
The GPLv2 ought to be considered the stable license... the GPLv3 ought to be considered experimental, regardless of whatever the FSF says, it's just not proven -- it's a new animal, like Vista was a new animal. And it breaks compatibility with the GPLv2, being a major new release.
Existing projects should not undercut their users by migrating to the v3.
GPLv3 should be something used by completely new software projects, if it is studied carefully and meets the developer's needs and the community's needs.
I'm not saying the Samba community should cater to Apple... but Apple is not alone in their GPLv3 concerns, and there are likely other Samba sponsors this would have impacted.
Upping to GPLv3 mid development is like changing the deal, especially when other companies have helped assist with or fund Samba development.... now if GPLv3 makes it unusable to them, they don't benefit from what they gave the community.
It's legal, but it's kind of like stealing. The community members being disrespectful to business participants by mucking with the deal (?)
So where is the debate above GPLv2 vs GPLv3?
I wasn't so keen on GPLv2. Its bad enough already but to create revisions when most people hardly understand v1 (most are not slashdot readers.)
I think it should just be GPL+ where the author slaps on additional restrictions instead of pushing more stuff into GPL v# so we end up with a bunch of different things under the same heading.
I like sometimes fixing something in GPL code - for the contribution factor, not because somebody might be locking down an installation of the software. The lock-in part I don't mind and in many situations volunteers wouldn't mind but a few big contributors or some non-profit then decides to shift it to something else -- that kind of bugs me. GPL v4 should state that all future modifications must stick to the GPL it started with and not be allowed to migrate to something else. Sure its still GPL at its core-- until microsoft embraces GPL and their lawyers get GPLv5 in 10 years... (Apple wouldn't they'd do APLv2 or something and claim it was a compatible thing to transition the GPL code to..)
Don't think the law actually works on its own forever; the lawyers seem to have less respect for it than .... May I suggest a documentary which illustrates my point: "The Art of the Steal" which shows just how strong a good legal document actually is.
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Freedom != Do or use as you want. More specifically, Free Software != Software which, you can, use it however / do with it whatever, you want.
People still don't understand the definition of Free Software.
"Free software is a matter of the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. More precisely, it means that the program's users have the four essential freedoms:
The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
The freedom to study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this."
The only reason why someone (Apple) wouldn't want to use/include GPL licensed software is, they don't intend to support or keep the software FREE (as in FREE speech).
The GPL license might imply some restrictions into how you want to distribute the software, but this restrictions are only for the software to STAY free. Now, I'm not gonna monger here about software patents reforms, but let's make it clear, GPL is not bad nor evil. It's your choice if you want or not to use Free Software, but if you do, you are only asked to play by the rules.
This kind of decisions alarm me, as a user. If there's something wrong with the open source Samba implementation, they could fix or improve it. I don't see any good reason (from the user point of view) to redo the implementation and make it closed proprietary software. They could as well create an alternative free implementation, under a license that suites their distribution needs.
good != liberty
patent != liberty
BSD < patent
GPL.patent != Apache.patent
I suspect that the issue is not that the GPLv3 disallows commercial use (because, well, it doesn't). But it does have new clauses, relating to how the presence of GPLv3 code can affect other parts of the product, and the effects can change depending on how the packager did stuff, and nobody really wants to be the first to do something that sounds reasonable and then get slapped with a lawsuit asserting that they interpreted it wrong.
The BSD license is more concerned with "your" freedom while the GPL is more concerned with "mine". The GPL guarantees that everyone involved with a particular piece of GPL'd code will all have the same rights as the first user/distributor did. No one can take rights present for that particular code away. The BSD license makes no such promise, I can take some or all of your project, redistribute without source, and keep all modifications. Now the user of this derivative project doesn't have the same rights as the distributor of said project did. This situation is not possible with the GPL. Use whatever license you want, neither is _more_ free as they both remove rights (the GPL from the distributor and the BSD from the user).
Apple LIKE M$, IBM, ORACLE are for profit companies. They do what is in THEIR best interest. If your "whatever" in any shape or form prevent them from doing what THEY want then they go alternative. There's nothing wrong with profiting from free but give back from which you took....opensource... Its irrelevant if GPL3 is is isn't for you. -The difference of opinion is an opinion.
If a developer in the forest offers to distribute 3rd party GPLv3 code, and no-one is there to see this, has a GPLv3 violation occured?
Good question. Let's wait and see what RMS' lawyers have to say. Or just use a different license that is shorter and simple enough for everyone to understand clearly and doesn't inherently cause a barrage of inter-license incompatibilities. A simple, down-to-earth license is joy.
This author takes full ownership and responsibility for the unpopular opinions outlined above.
Does having a restriction against enslaving others make this a less free society?
The GPL creates an ecosystem of freedom.
Do you see preventing killing sprees as something in opposition to liberty? In an absolute sense, it is, but if you mean liberty in the normal, non-anal retentive way, then it's not a restriction of liberty, and a 'free country' can still prevent killing sprees.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
The GPL tries to balance on a tight rope. The GPL DOES give you freedom to do anything you want with the code EXCEPT deny anyone else the same if YOU distribute the code. The GPLv3 attempted to close a few loopholes that the GPLv2 allowed in that regard. The sticky thing is that you can't take GPL'ed source code and use it with your own code to make a 'closed source' binary application to sell. You CAN sell a software product that uses GPL'ed code, but it has to be licensed under a 'free software' license that is compatible with the version of the GPL that the original code was.
The BSD license lets you do almost ANYTHING with the code including make it part of a closed source project. Here your modifications are lost to the open source world, but the original code you started with isn't. In this regard the BSD license is like a free gift with no strings attached, while the GPL is like marrying the bosses' daughter.
The article mentions that GCC has now been made GPL3, and Apple's stopped contributing.
Now, I understand why the Samba folks might not want their code to be used to produce an unmodifyable network appliance. GPL3 can help there, I guess. But Apple's not preventing Mac owners from updating Samba modules on their systems, so it's not that part of GPL3 that's causing the problem. And GCC isn't likely to appear in locked-down appliances at all. In fact GCC, as a dev tool, is probably a candidate for LGPL-type licensing.
So the Mac ends up being collateral damage to something else in the GPL3. And I assume the problem is the part of GPL3 about patents. I hate software patents as much as the next guy, but I don't see how Apple's embrace of them affects Samba users on Macs one bit. So, it's a political position, not a practical one. And a self-defeating one, if you ask me. All it does is make Macs work worse in Windows-based networks, ceding a bigger segment of the market to Microsoft.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
So long as you pass on to your customers the benefits that you gained by adopting GPL'd software, no problem. They can use it. If you want to pass on a version with additional restrictions on what they can do with the software, then no, you can't do that. And that's the entire point of the GPL. Is it so hard to understand?
And that is exactly why Apple can't use this on the iPhone. They don't want iPhone customers to replace system software with modified system software. They don't mind giving the customers the source code, even if it means that a lot of Apple written source code is running on Nokia or Android devices, and they don't mind customers installing modified or improved versions of Samba on an Android phone. Just not on an iPhone. Which means no GPL v.3 software for Apple.
cmdrtaco, please, please correct that summary. Can you change this However, the Samba team has moved active development of the project to the more strict GPLv3 license, which prevents Apple from using the software commercially To something like However, the Samba team has moved active development of the project to the more strict GPLv3 license, which people at Apple somehow got the idea that it prevents them from using the software commercially Or a more apple friendly solution, However, the Samba team has moved active development of the project to the more strict GPLv3 license, which is not compatible with Apple closed source standard. I think most of slashdot users will agree with the change. The summary is misleading and for people who doesnt understand this might make them that gpl v3 is for non commercial software.
You have the liberty of not using software that is released under a license you don't like.
Liberty does not mean that your actions don't have consequences. You have the liberty of doing anything you want with software someone else created. As a consequence, someone else might have the liberty to sue you.
SAMBA is going to be replaced with something that works that has fewer restrictions on it. Unless they revert back to GPL(2).
Or Apple can't find any replacement that works, and they realize spending thousands of dollars developing a replacement in-house just to continue fighting their own petty war against Openness is idiotic.
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
And if it ceases to be useful to a developer .... ?
The GPL(3) isn't about code, or the users, it is about commercial usage of formerly useful code. It is about appearing to be for "users" but in the end, what good is code that nobody can use, unless they do it themselves?
SAMBA is getting what they deserve, less people using their software, making it less useful for users. You see, it isn't about the users at all, is it?
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Which GPL v2 did and did well. GPL v3 was designed for political reasons from TiVo and is causing nothing but problems. As far as im concerned GPL v3 is the worst thing to happen to open source software.
"either you see it my way our you're wrong"
Isn't that pretty much what RMS and FSF say?
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
So, is aristocracy and feudalism - in which the first to grab something are "free" to create whatever rules they want, live however they want, without accountability to anyone, which frees them to kill, imprison and exploit peasants and serfs with impunity, restrict their travel, etc - freer than democracies, in which no one is "free" to casually restrict the freedoms of others? Like I say above: am I less "free" because I cannot enslave others, if the benefit of that is that no one can enslave me? I think that this restriction makes me freer.
GPL seeks to maximise liberty for the end user.
BSD seeks to maximise liberty for the developer.
Both promote a kind of freedom, just for different parties. That's the way it is in the real world, liberties for different parties are balanced against each other.
Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups.
The BSD license is free as in beer.
I don't think you understand what "free in as beer" means. When something is free as in beer, you are welcome to drink as much of it as you want for no charge. You don't get the recipe to the beer, you aren't given the ingredients, you don't get a say in how the beer should taste or could be tweaked for the better.
Closed source software that doesn't doesn't have licensing costs is the analogy described by "free as in beer."
The GPL license is free as in liberty.
Both the GPL and the BSD are free as in liberty, because you are given the code and permission and customize it to do what you want.
In my opinion, the GPL is less free than the BSD license because my liberty becomes limited when I want to distribute my changes in the application to others. With BSD, I'm given the liberty to license the software how I want and I'm given the liberty of not having to provide my source code to others. For a lot of the work that I do, that becomes a big deal -- I can provide software or a service without having to worry about the extra effort required to release something as GPL.
I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
I actually think you have that backwards--if you think that liberty has conditions, then you might be thinking of the word license.
The GPL grants many things. Perpetual access to the source code of derived works is one of those things. Liberty is not.
Someone didn't get their hug this morning :(
Vonal Declosion
If the developers just wanted lots of users and didn't care for what those users did with their code, they could've just placed code in the public domain and not used the GPL(3) license at all. But since they used that license, they're not losing any sleep over the fact that people who don't like it aren't using their code.
Just as Apple sells iWork under a license that prevents people from distributing it for free on the internet. Therefore, they're not too upset that they might have less iWork users because some people are unwilling to pay for it instead.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
That is just plain 'revenge' IMHO. "You can't have it unless you follow my rules". Well I guess the FSF doesn't want to give the enemy anything they can use against them. M$ will just have to write their OWN code to sell to fund their lawyers in the legal battle against OS.
With GPL you /impose/ it be free. With BSD you /allow/ for it to be free. Seems like an equal equation to me.
It's a constraint satisfaction problem. You want to maximize a certain value (usage) with violating a constraint (contributing to lack of user freedom).
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Indeed. This is the issue with society/humanity in general though. The ideal situation for software licensing (and pretty much all contract and law) would to have absolutely no software licenses simply because everyone inherently doesn't do anything that anyone else disagrees with. Alas, that's an incredibly unlikely situation to occur in the near future (barring there being a worldwide nuclear holocaust with only one survivor). Thus we must stoop to the next best thing: there are laws, contracts, and licenses in place to ensure that at all times, the largest possible group of people is pleased. That's the theory behind democratic government and such. Of course, that's not even close to reality either. I think that time will tell with this current software predicament.
To my knowledge, a number of critical projects have held off switching to GPLv3. Also, this loophole fix in GPLv3 makes it less likely that certain bodies (commercial ones, of course) will use GPL software, as they may have only been willing to comply under the previous terms. On the other hand, the "spirit" of the license has not changed, so I do not see any reason why developers who had chosen not to adopt it before would do so now.
For what it's worth, I'm more of a supporter of the BSD concept, although I do see the need for both. While I do support free software pretty strongly, I don't see commercial software going away any time soon and I think the open source community should seek allies within the realm of proprietary usage. I don't hate iPhones because I believe the user should be able to decide that they don't care if they are locked into a walled garden. Of course it would make me happier if there was a "jailbreak" button that informed users of the consequences of root access, but the fact that there isn't doesn't make me want to boycott Apple. Everyone on all sides of the issue needs to realize that this is not a perfect world and we can't all be happy and in agreement. Compromise is the only way for everyone to move forward.
How many people are running NT domain controllers on a Mac? Seriously... Naturally, my next sentiment is -- who cares.
I'm not sure how it's even legal. Did the Samba team get all the contributors permission before switching to GPL 3? If they had switched to a new license all together I'm certain that legally they would have had to do that. Since the GPL 3 contains new requirements I don't see why it's not being treated as a new license. If I had contributed to Samba I would personally be very upset by the license change.
It's really unfortunate. FSF does a lot of good things and Stallman is no doubt brilliant. But Stallman is also an ideologue and he ultimately controls the licenses. Many people here and elsewhere have the opinion that v3 goes too far but he's been unwilling to listen to the concerns. The real way to deal with patent abuse is through the courts and congress.
The Anti-Blog
For liberty to work it is required to limit liberty a reasonable amount. Not allowing others to remove the other's freedom is completely reasonable. That's what the GPL is intended to be. When you take other's code, modify it and then sell it you are destroying everyone else freedom. In order to preserve freedom you must limit it.
The GPL3 is causing the same sort of "all or none" lock-in via legal instead of technical means. It is becoming very difficult to mix GPL3 software with commercial software.
Not really, it isn't: I've got Unreal Tournament 2004 installed on the very same PC I use to develop software with GCC, no problems installing either whatsoever.
The problems as usual only begin when greedy corporations want to get free code without contributing back, but that's a situation 99.99% of end-users will never find themselves in because most people can't code, most people that can code aren't interested in mixing up their code with pre-existing software, and most people that are interested have no problem contributing back to the project they benefitted from.
Really, as far as ordinary people are concerned, the only difference between the GPLv3 and the BSD license is which set of funny letters they need to type them.
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
>>>Slavery was abolished, and as a result, you _cannot_ sell yourself into slavery.
Yes you can. The US Constitution only forbids INvoluntary servitude. You are free to volunteer to be a slave, or indentured servant.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
WOW. Lets be fair your promoting a BSD licence over a GPL one, While making strong anti-proprietary statements, mixing with Legality of using the Patently Encumbered H.264 format, and the loser OSvs Android WP7. I do not know where to begin.
Open source is a "development model"(amongst other things), GPL unlike BSD enforces that changes to make a are make available. Whereas Changes can be made to BSD code and that code can be kept secret wrapped up in proprietary software. This is why Linux prefers the GPL License for his code and Apply prefer a BSD License in their propriety product. Notice at no time do I use the word freedom, as I believe a developer can choose whatever licence he wants for their code.
I have no idea why you are talking about free speech. If you advocate free speech you do just that, in fact if you advocate free speech the whole point is that people will say things you agree/disagree with. Personally I would rather live in a world where people can not afraid of speaking.
Companies do not have to open source code completely because of GPL that is simply a lie. It does mean that you cannot create a Samba using samba source and not release samba source, but then thats the point, I find it somewhat strange that you are advocating individuals making money from other work without any benefit those who wrote it.
I find it somewhat strange that you talk about the free and opensource movement(sic) on one hand and companies on the other...when they are often the same. The Linux kernel for instance is programmed mainly by companies. In fact what you really mean in companies who don't want to give back.
H.264 is interesting that you mention it because it is patent encumbered. Introspective of License, you pay. Google spent 100 million buying a company, and Firefox haven't used it in there product. Simply becuase the cost is too high. WP7 on the other hand is simply not a good phone OS and Microsofts ever decreasing market share irrespective of the License.
Not really sure about your final conclusion that beating Microsoft and GPL stopping that, on the desktop BSD/Apple haven't done that, and on the new platform of none desktop based OS. Microsoft are not even in the running.
Apple has neither attacked a hacker nor put rootkits on users' systems.
Apple and the FSF may not see eye to eye, but Apple is one of the better corporate citizens when it comes to open source and the end customer.
None of the above has any bearing on whether you want to boycott their closed-system approach. I applaud your boycott, though I won't be joining you.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
Those restrictions are FAR less than you get normally under copyright law. And they protect other people who would benefit from your developments on the code.
It's liberty because protecting everyone's rights at the cost of a few people's desires. If someone wants to go on a murderous rampage, we should most certainly stop that. His desire to do that may fit the dictionary definition of liberty, but it deprives other people of theirs in the process.
If we make a saner definition of Liberty to include not depriving others of their liberty, the GPL most certainly protects liberty, and is in no way Orwellian.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
And that is exactly why Apple can't use this on the iPhone.
And OS X Lion doesn't run on the iPhone.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
then no, you can't do that
As soon as you utter that phrase, whatever it is you're talking about ceases to be free.
Do you see why "limits" on certain rights don't necessarily decrease freedom? It's called living in an equitable and free society; your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins. So it is with GPL: your right to "do whatever you want with the code" ends where other peoples' rights to do whatever they want with the code begins.
Nathan's blog
Brilliant. By that logic, Windows 7 is "free" too.
GPL is like promoting free speech until someone saids something YOU don't like.
It's sad when trolling gets modded up like that. GPL is like promoting free speech where you are and in other countries too, even if the governments in those other countries don't like it. The freedom in the GPL is like your right not to be punched in the face. You could argue that that is a limitation of the would-be punchers freedom, but that limitation is not an infringement on freedom - it is the only possible basis for freedom. If you are free to infringe freedom, then there is no freedom.
Perpetual access to the source code is liberty.
Saying GPL is bad for open source is like saying the sky is the ground.How about a little less contradiction and pull away from the reality of that this is about Apple, and apple's bad decision, as opposed to distracting with a huge ass spam writing that is anti- GPL?
What an extraordinary rebuttal.
No, it's limiting the lock down of otherwise Free Software. That it exposes corporations for being control freaks unwilling to respect end-user freedom is simply a benefit.
Closed source software is crime against humanity!
RMS is always right!
I'm not sure how it's even legal. Did the Samba team get all the contributors permission before switching to GPL 3?
The standard GPL boilerplate says "version 2 of the license or any later version". Later versions of the license allow you to change the boilerplate to "version 3 of the license or any later version"
Developers can remove the "any later version" part, but did the Samba devs?
If they did, and they didn't surrender/assign copyright, it's possible a p****'d off Samba dev (if there are any) could cease-and-decist letter the project, I suppose, and possibly ultimately sue.
They would have to be a very significant contributor or be able to claim other changes were a derivative work, otherwise, the Samba project leadership could just remove the code and claim it no longer infringes.
Also, perhaps somebody could clarify why Samba defaulting to GPLv3 implies Apple not being able to use it as they wish anymore? Has nobody outside Qt ever heard of dual licensing? It seems to be working pretty well for them, and I doubt nobody at Apple has ever thought of this.
Dear /. editors: how about some actual investigation (ever?) into the issue before joining in this willy nilly copy pasta frenzy, hmm? Maybe this was not such a good news source?
Does Apple have to approve everyone's programs now? WTF? Why should someone have to dual-license their code because Apple wants it? Call the Wambulance for Apple, because the GPLv3 keeps them from taking other peoples work and locking it away for their profit. I have said it before, and will keep repeating it: Apple is the enemy of free software, and the FSF.
It's not just control freaks that have a problem with it. It's also security-conscious engineering teams. Those bits of GPLv3 betray a fundamental lack of understanding of the need for proper code signing.
First of all, there is no good way to prevent unsigned virus code from running without preventing unsigned user code from running on a device. The last thing you want is a news story talking about how your phone has been compromised by a virus that spreads across the cell network by SMS and has turned your entire ecosystem into the cell phone equivalent of WinZombies. This goes triply for daemons like Samba, which represent prime attack vectors into home and corporate computers, and thus are in desperate need of signature checks.
Unfortunately, any OS vendor that wants to deploy Samba cannot require that it be signed by a proper, valid code signing cert because those cost money, and would represent an additional restriction on the end user's ability to recompile Samba and run the new version. This makes the GPLv3 fundamentally antithetical to proper security as written, at least by my reading. And I'm not the only one who interprets it this way.
More to the point, you cannot create an arbitrarily open ecosystem that allows for anyone to get a code signing cert from anywhere, as this gives you no additional protection over not requiring signing. If you can get a free cert that allows you to run code on arbitrary hardware, then a a virus writer can, too. Thus, the infrastructure must inherently be designed so that third-party code can be authorized on a per-device basis. This is nontrivial, and costs money to maintain. Yet the GPLv3 would require that such a service be free to use in order to comply with a strict reading of its terms. Clearly, this is an untenable position.
In short, this isn't a knee jerk reaction by a bunch of control freaks. Quite the opposite, really. The GPLv3 was a poorly thought out knee jerk reaction to a bunch of control freaks that had a negative impact on consumers. So although I understand why the GPL proponents want these clauses, in the end, they're doing a disservice to themselves and to the community by policies that effectively prevent the proper use of signed binaries.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
BSD isn't bad per se, but it allows a 'bad player' like Microsoft to modify standards in ways that break interoperability. If you are attempting to write standards-compliant code, and you don't want that code to be used to sabotage the very standards you're trying to support, then the BSD's not for you.
GPL cleverly prevents such a situation. It strikes a nice balance between commercial interests (ability to charge for products based on the code) and the ongoing freedom of the original writer to have the benefit of the code. Not necessarily financial benefit (though that's possible too), but the benefit of outside contributions and a developing ecosystem that makes the code ever more valuable. Up to GPL2 that worked great - witness the success of Linux vs BSD. Linux is much more flexible, because many more players saw the benefits of getting involved.
GPL3 has delved beyond freedom into politics. I believe it attempts to address 2 issues.
The first is Tivo'ization, which I think is a good thing, but some don't like. Yes, Tivo might not exist without Linux, but Linux has gotten a huge boost from being usable in appliances like this. Tivo (or Apple, in this case) still contributes any changes they make under GPL2, so that's not the problem. The problem is that you can't take their loss-leader hardware and use it any way you want. I have no problem with that, but others do (I think they're being unreasonable, and by the way, so does Linus Torvalds).
The second is patents. That's a serious problem, but the best solution is patent reform - not 'I'm taking my ball and going home'. I guess this could work, but depriving Mac users of Samba over unrelated patent issues (I assume Apple has no patents relevant to Samba) is getting beyond the goal of 'keeping the code free'. Software patents are mostly an abomination, but GPL3 is an awfully blunt instrument to attack them with.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
From the anything-you-can-do department. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle indicates that it is impossible to know exact position and exact velocity at exactly the same time. Relativity. Event horizon. What is the position of the particle crossing the event horizon? What is the velocity of the particle crossing the event horizon? There is no event horizon. Relativity. You can do anything.
In related news, GPLv3 has achieved a state of relevance. Gone are the days when we would muse over how the GPLv3 may or may not affect our world. Finally GPLv3 is a real license. It can do anything. Relativity.
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
What if the lock down is designed to keep malware off of the user's device and maintain its stability, and the user is OK with that?
False dilemma. You can achieve that by making the user expressly enable installation of apps from other sources, trading security and stability for flexibility.
Not to mention that the lockdown doesn't work; an tethering app disguised as a flashlight already got through once right beneath Apple's nose. FSM knows how many real malware exists in the Apple Store.
I have a friend with an Android phone who had an update that bricked the device, and his carrier and Google are arguing about who is responsible!
And lots of people had to hold their phone in a specific way. So?
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They don't want to play with companies that insist on denying end users the freedom that the license they chose was intended to grant.
No I'm not surprised, because many of the companies in question HATE user freedom and prefer control. It's more profitable when your users options are deliberately limited.
In practical terms, liberty can have conditions, as numerous examples already given have shown. If you mean absolute liberty, then you can't have conditions, but when people say liberty or freedom, they generally don't mean the absolute version of it. If you want to say that GPL isn't absolute freedom, I will agree 100% with you, but I will also feel the need to point out that any license other than the WTFPL doesn't provide absolute liberty, so if someone were advocating the BSDL instead, they would be a hypocrite. Also, I would say that you should interpret 'freedom' as meaning 'absolute freedom' only when it is proceeded by 'absolute' or a similar adjective.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
TFA doesn't mention a source, and that bothers me. Is this information about Lion derived from the early developer test versions, or has someone at Apple stated that this is the way it is?
* chirp * chirp *
And yet another person mistakes the placement of the freedoms ensured by the GPL. I'm not surprised this ignorance still exists, though. People like FUD, and trying to take other people's work for free.
Limiting lock down is in itself a lock down. Do you see the irony?
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Chaos rocks! Your society sucks... Walking around like a bunch a fags pulling hankies out of your sleeves... hitting dark people with your sticks... You should pray for chaos!
I see your point but the GPL attempts to make others ensure the end user has full usage rights. Which is fine, its up to you to use whatever license you want to use. I just don't think its so much an "open" license as it is an ideology pushing license. Open is "here is this code, do what you will with it." GPL is "Here is this code. If you use it, you have to conform to my ideas of how software should work." I won't say its a bad license, but it isn't open.
If I can just reach out with my words and touch a butthole, just one, it will all be worth it.
And the writers of the GPL(3) hate users, just not the end user, but the user between the developer and the end user.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Enslaved? Really? That's the analogy you want to work with?
/. it's like saying your car has enslaved its tires.
Slavery implies that the person is forced to do something and stripped of their rights to do other things. Software is an object. An inanimate object. Saying someone has enslaved your software is like saying someone has enslaved the bricks they used to build their house, or since this is
If someone uses your code, they have not deprived you of the original code or indeed truly stolen anything of value. You can argue that you took all the time and effort to make the code and thus the code is valuable in the time it took to create. However, you chose to make it freely available. It's polite to contribute back to the code if you've made it better, certainly, as community tends to be an important element of the human social order, but really you haven't lost anything if someone else is using your code. Your code is still freely available, but the new product that someone else made with your code is not. But now something might exist that wouldn't have before your wrote your code. So your code is already increasing utility in the market.
GPL is saying if you want to use my code, then I have to be able to use your code. GPL then places a cost on using your code. So now your code is not free either in the sense of beer or liberty(for the developer, who lets be honest is really the person who's going to look at the code). So does it really surprise anyone that a group of developers would choose to avoid software which makes them less free?
I don't care what you say, all I need is my Wumpabet soup.
I wish you both had brains.
Public domain? Which by the way all code currently covered by GPL will *eventually* be in PD anyways once the copyright term runs out... :)
From TFA:
the Samba team has moved active development of the project to the more strict GPLv3 license, which prevents Apple from using the software commercially.
I know nothing that GPLv3 does which prevents anyone from using it commercially, certainly nothing it does that GPLv2 doesn't. TFA doesn't say what Apple's actual problem is, but as evil as Apple has been, they aren't this stupid.
On the other hand, the version of Samba Apple had been using prevented Macs from seamlessly working with modern PCs running Windows 7, which include security changes in how encryptions protocols work. Apple's own software won't be constrained by the design limitation of Samba.
Wait, how is this lack of a feature a "design limitation" of Samba? They don't provide any source for this claim, and I very much doubt that it's a design limitation. I can believe it exists, but I find it hard to believe something in the design of Samba would prevent them from adding this feature.
There were a few things in TFA that seem plausible, but it really looks like they lose a lot in translation. I have to ask, what is the potential audience for such an article? I usually only see two types of Mac users, the Unix people who gave up on Linux, and the "It's easier, it Just Works" people who gave up on Windows. The "Just Works" people don't care about Samba, and if OS X won't play nice with Win7, they'll either blame Win7 or ask an Apple "Genius" to just fix it. The Unix people are going to be perfectly capable of using Samba if they want, and would probably like a lot more information about what's actually going on, including why GPLv3 is an issue.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
But it was never claimed to be. In fact, Stallman wrote an article called Why Open Source misses the point of free software.
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Either way, Apple wasn't planning on letting people modify the version of CIFS they shipped, or contribute fixes back to the Samba tree, so no real loss there. Long story short, we learned something about Apple's ideology and nothing more.
Wrong : "Apple has been updating and hardening a branch of the Open Group's DCE/RPC library. We'd decided to share
these changes with the community at large and will continue to invest in modernizing and advancing this
code base. The goal is to establish a common, authoritative DCE/RPC codebase that everyone can leverage
or contribute to, under very liberal terms.
We have published Apple's contributions at http://www.dcerpc.org./ Please check out the web site for any
more details. We are looking for someone to port it to the various Linux SMB implementations.
Regards,
James Peach and George Colley
Apple"
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
At work here we are a mixed environment. We are Mainly Windows and Linux, with some Solaris servers, but adding Macs as well, and a NetApp as central storage. Gives us some rather interesting challenges. One of them is dealing with file sharing on the network. NFS only really works well for the UNIX clients and is a fucking disaster security wise. Apple doesn't license AFP to NetApp and Windows has stopped supporting it. So that leaves CIFS for a lot of stuff.
So, a couple interesting things related to CIFS came to light not long ago. The first was playing with Macs. They suck at it, horrible performance. In 10.4 they couldn't even talk to the NetApp with CIFS at all, they could talk to Windows servers but slowly. NFS worked but it was a disaster trying to get permissions to work right.
We figured this was in part because they use Samba which is not necessarily the fastest thing out there, and was originally designed for reverse engineering SMB, not a reference CIFS implementation like the NetApp.
So then we get a new central storage unit, basically a SuperMicro board and chassis with a big RAID card and a bunch of cheap SATA drives. Intended to be cheaper, less reliable, storage that can be used in addition to the NetApp when more space is needed but backups are not important. Good CIFS performance was a must so Windows Server was a consideration but we figured we'd give Samba under Linux a spin first, easier to make NFS work that way.
Well it works fantastic. Full wire speed (which is gig in this case) transfers, no problems at all. Just as fast and as easy as if it was a Windows system there, the clients never know the difference.
Well, maybe Apple isn't interested in this. Why not? Because they seem to like to make anything not Apple look bad. They are grudgingly compatible, because they have to be, but they seem to half-ass it to the maximum extent possible. Quicktime on Windows is a great example. Compare it to QT on the Mac and it is amazing how bad it is.
It isn't an OS-X limitation either, ADmitMac has a first rate CIFS implementation that we use and love. It just costs money.
So maybe that is part of it as well. You've gotten Samba to a point it is really fast, that Samba to a Windows system is as fast as Windows to Windows, and Apple doesn't like it. They want Macs to be faster to Mac servers via AFP, and slower to Windows systems via CIFS.
Actually, it was TiVo (the bastards) that required the creation of GPLv3. (Not that I'm bitter.)
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
Just because there is no state doesn't mean society will allow ...
If society has rules, society will have to enforce those rules or give up on them.
Once you have rules and enforcement, you have enforcers. Whether they are a slashdot lynch mob or someone with a badge, they are there to enforce the rules of society.
Congratulations, you have now developed a state.
"The conduct of neither [party], if strictly examined, will be irreproachable." -Elizabeth Bennet
Slashdot <blinks> I'll be in my room.
Of course you will. This is Slashdot.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
You assume the cost of openness is free, but for a company like Apple it's probably much much greater than the pittance it will take them to make their own. Especially considering they might even get MS to actually help them with compliance.
I don't care what you say, all I need is my Wumpabet soup.
Sorry, I screwed up the link, here: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html
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What if the lock down is designed to keep malware off of the user's device and maintain its stability, and the user is OK with that?
Then the user can live without the software of those who believe he's wrong.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
If the state did allow slave ownership, they still wouldn't be free, at least according to the slaves.
Don't kid yourself. It's the size of the regexp AND how you use it that counts.
And under the GPLv3, you can still do whatever YOU want. The exception comes when you redistribute, because at that point it's not YOU using it, it's SOMEONE ELSE.
lol
Yup, I want to use open source software on my iPhone but the GPLv3 prevents it so my choices are to dump my preferred device or drop the open source software. Dropping the open source software was easy.
The simple fact about Business and GPL.
If the company can make money off of it. They will support it. This works great for companies like IBM who does mostly consulting now and less hardware and software (and there is that nice loophole for it to be OK for IBM but not for TiVo rule).
For other companies who make their money off of making and selling software and hardware GPL becomes more restrictive as it reduces their ability to keep a business model that they are good at.
At work I avoid integrating GPL modules like the plague, if it is GPL we check to see if it is cross licences to a more compatible one. The last thing we dont want is people to say hey your product is cool, we would love to build it but we can't ... But wait you used a GPL something in it, and according to this rule it forces it to be GPL so give us the Code. If they are in the right we loose. If they are in the wrong we loose as we need to go threw legal and other stuff.
The GPL has became very Business unfriendly. Because of this Business will not use it.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Try this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WTFPL
What I said is that it's "Orwellian doublespeak" to use the word "liberty" to describe a scheme where you've set restrictions on how I can use and distribute something.
I used to think it was foolish to use "liberty" in the context of the GPL too, but actually it is very apt in precisely the way you are stating here. Liberty in the usual sense is mainly the right not to be subjected to physical violence. That's just another way of saying that liberty is a restriction on other people's freedom to attack you. If liberty is about having no restrictions, then liberty in the usual sense is not liberty either. In fact liberty is about a mutual set of limitations that maintain equal rights for everyone. That is exactly what the GPL does too, and it is exactly what you are complaining about. Your complaint is that the GPL is too much like the usual notion of liberty, it's just that you haven't realized what the usual kind of liberty is all about - it's about restrictions on your freedom that ensures the rights of other people. In return those restrictions are also applied to other people, so that you receive the same rights as they do. Restricting you from punching your neighbor in the face does not take away your liberty - it is a requirement for liberty.
you said it, "exception" that is the problem. Period.
No, if your doing something commercial and you don't have a lawyer reviewing contracts, you're doing it wrong. Reasonable efforts might be some defense, but if you have skin in the game (and more importantly if you expect others to put money in), you'd best have your butt covered.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Do you have any actual evidence that the BSD license results in fewer contributions because it doesn't force people to contribute when they use the code?
How many OS versions has Microsoft used modified bits of the BSD TCP/IP stack in, and how many contributions have they made back to BSD?
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Uhmmm, you don't seem to know that whole countries have switched the government operations to Free GPL software: South Africa, Brazil and others. So the GPL is not the problem. It is only the attitude of some companies that is a problem.
"You're either for software freedom or your not."
You either like imposing false dichotomies, or you don't.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
You don't have to wade through a manifesto or any 'other shit' to understand the GPL. It is entirely self-contained, although it is long and written in legalese and relies on certain implicit assumptions about the toolchain architecture.
The GNU manifesto helps you understand the motivation for GPL. It's a license written to attempt to push the FSF's agenda, which is that every piece of software that you receive also grants you four basic freedoms.
I happen to agree with this agenda, but I think that the GPL is entirely counterproductive. It tries to make it hard to write non-Free Software, when it should be trying to make it easy to write Free Software. You won't abolish non-Free Software by making software developers jump through legal hoops, the only way you'll abolish it is by making customers demand Free Software, and the only way you can do that is by making sure that there are obvious advantages to Free Software. One of the biggest advantages that Free Software has is that it's usually easy (and, therefore, cheap) to ensure that you are in compliance with the license. You have to try really hard to violate the BSDL. You can violate the GPL if you give a friend a copy of an app binary to open the document that you gave him and forget to enclose a written offer (good for three years) to provide the source...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Or Apple can't find any replacement that works, and they realize spending thousands of dollars developing a replacement in-house just to continue fighting their own petty war against Openness is idiotic.
There is no "petty war against Openness". With the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad Apple is selling some very, very popular devices. The software on these devices, and what you can and also what you can't do with them has a lot to do with the popularity. If you sold cars and started explaining to potential customers all the different ways you can tune the engine, then some (few) would be delighted, some wouldn't care, and some would _run_. It seems that Apple can use GPL v.2 licensed software on these devices while having the devices work as they want to, but not the same with GPL v.3 licensed software.
So Apple has three choices: Change the way that software on the iDevices works, find all the Samba copyright holders and convince them to give Apple a different license, or stop using Samba. The first is not acceptable to Apple, the second is difficult (it worked very fine for Apple with CUPS), so the third choice is it. Nothing petty about that.
Wow... I'm not even sure how to respond to this, exactly?
The reasons for boycotting the purchase of any Sony products are numerous and clear-cut. They loaded spyware on people's computers as part of their "copy protection" mechanism. They continuously try to force people to buy into unnecessary Sony-proprietary variants of industry standard media formats by requiring them in their devices (Sony "memory stick" vs. SD card for example). They sell products with certain, promised functionality that they proceed to take away down the road (PS3 firmware updates removing Linux boot capability). The list goes on. But in Apple's case? I fail to see any justification, beyond ones that have pretty much always been there - if those issues were so important to you. Yes, Apple likes to sell you a complete "solution" vs. only an operating system, only a piece of hardware, or only an application. Yes, that means especially for the electronic devices/gadgets running iOS (vs. full-blown computer systems), they will put up some artificial constraints on what you can/can't do with it. But NO, there's nothing indicating Apple is on a mission to lock down the whole ecosystem so only THEY can provide you with software!
People are WAY over-reacting, IMHO. Much of this stems from people making wild assumptions after Apple offered an "App Store" for OS X, parallel to what they've got for iOS devices. Big deal!?! This just makes sense as "low hanging fruit" for Apple to profit from. If you already have the back-end infrastructure in place for that type of online store, and you've got developers making things for iOS that they can easily port to OSX -- why not port over the store itself and give people one more option there? That doesn't mean Apple suddenly has ideas to change everything so nobody can put a piece of code on a Mac unless it's obtained via that App Store application!
By the same token, what does ANY of that have to do with this current news story? Sounds to me like Apple's simply saying, "Hey... GPL3 is going to give us some licensing hassles if we start adding some networking functionality to devices like the iPad in the future. Let's get off Samba codebase and move to something where we won't lose that flexibility."
> But if you want to grab someone else's work and make a profit from it, you have to buy it (and get a license to resell it).
Not if you provide the source code of the software you used and make it available to all users, at least under GPLv2. You can take what you want as long as you provide the source. How do you think RedHat and everyone else are able to sell linux distributions with all that free software and make a profit? They provide the source.... they aren't paying license fees. In fact, if you give it away free, but don't provide the source, THAT is a violation. You can't distribute the software without the source. You can't even get red hat enterprise linux server for free. It's actually quite expensive.
I could burn 50000 cds with Gentoo on them and sell them for $4.99 at computer shows in a pretty case, as long as I provide the source.
Don't kid yourself. It's the size of the regexp AND how you use it that counts.
But if not contributing to car accidents is your primary concern, you could simply not make cars. Likewise, if you're more concerned about your code not being used in a bad way, than about it being used at all, why write it?
The people who make their livings in the car or software industries aren't going to like this.
You could take that further and say if reducing drain on the world's resources and reducing pollution are your goal, you could simply bury yourself alive.
It would have the side effect of reducing your exposure to car accidents as well! A win-win situation if I ever heard of one.
Putting moderation advice in your
You could not have made your ignorance of the GPL any clearer. But perhaps you do so with vile intent. Perhaps you're benighted. If it is the latter, then do yourself a favor and take the time to learn the truth of the matter which you opine to. Show yourself and fellow man some respect. If you are however of evil purpose, then curses on you.
$ whatis msft msft: nothing appropriate
Does anyone have any actual information on why Apple is dumping Samba?
After approximately 37,249 posts for/against/discussing the GPL and the bad reporting in TFA, I think we've got that covered. But it still leaves the real question unanswered.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
Thanks for sharing.
>> but Apple is one of the better corporate citizens when it comes to open source and the end custome
ha ha ha ha ha
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the GPL is less free than the BSD license because my liberty becomes limited when I want to distribute my changes in the application to others. With BSD, I'm given the liberty to license the software how I want and I'm given the liberty of not having to provide my source code to others.
As someone mentioned earlier, BSD is about the freedom of end users (of your code) to do whatever they want with it, whereas GPL is about keeping the code freely usable by anyone in the future, even customers of your users (such as by preventing patent encumberment). It's hard to say that one's "more free" than the other, because they address different angles on freedom.
Isn't it up to those end users to choose if they want to be restricted by said company or can choose to use alternatives of the same code that isn't restrictive. Leave it up to the end user to choose being restricted or not.
The GPL is designed to protect the freedoms of end users, not that of multinational corporations that want to make a buck off someone else's work without reciprocating.
Ya but some one else can take the same code make something that competes with the non free derivative and thus give users a choice, do i want to use the non free derivative or the free derivative.
You are aware that Samba changed the license? The license used to allow use in Apple's new iMulch program, but then they changed licenses.
Likely, this will result in is a fork. You have Samba GPLv3 on one side an iSamba (with iMulch support!) GPLv2 on the other.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
In the end, you are thus depriving that SOMEONE ELSE the ability to use the software at all. You're defending "their" rights by denying them the access they need. Sort of destroying the city in order to save it.
And the GPL approaches the problem from the wrong end. Why does the grandparent use Free Software? Not because the GPL forces people to grant rights to downstream users, but because he requires those rights and so demands them from his suppliers. Why don't his customers get those same rights? Because they are still happy to do business with him if he withholds them.
The problem is not that he is not forced to give the customers the rights, it's that the customers aren't demanding them. If you want broader adoption of Free Software, then use liberal licenses that let people do whatever they like (and therefore keeps their costs low), but make sure that their customers demand the FSF's four freedoms. The FSF has been trying the top-down approach for almost 30 years now. It's time to try the bottom-up model.
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No, because it's not locking down. It's more like unlocking down.
Samba (by choosing GPLv3) wants to require Apple (in this case) to provide source code to Samba to anyone who uses OSX. The fundamental assumption in that paragraph is that a user can do something useful with the code.
My grandmother can't. Even if Apple shipped the full source on each CD it would make her no more free or less free, no more self sufficient or dependent. It would be about as useful as giving her a book written in Sanskrit.
But wait the GPL folks will argue, sure, most people won't be able to use it, but what about the programmers? Well, I'm a programmer. I want my Mac to read and write windows file shares. If it doesn't work, I'm going to open a ticket with Apple and make them fix it, even if the code is right there on my computer. The GPL folks fail to release that in many cases working and bug free trump the ability to modify; at least in the real world.
In a standard commercial world what the GPLv3 does is not create more freedom. It creates a burden on companies developing GPLv3 software to set up an entire distribution system for the benefit of a fraction of their user base. Like well under 1%. Probably under .1%. Maybe under .01% for a lot of products. When you have a million slaves it is hollow to tell them they are "more free" because you managed to free one of them.
But the real kicker here is that Samba is still free. Any OSX user can download the code, compile it on their OSX machine, and use it. If GPLv3 makes any sense it is on something like the kernel, or device drivers where various proprietary magic is required to make things go, and without the company distributing that information you really are screwed. To require a company to redistribute source to a user land program on a POSIX OS really is just lunacy. Anyone who wants more recent Samba than ships with OSX is already downloading it from Samba!
The BSD folks started to get it more right, and then backed off. The original 4 clause BSD license, with the so-called "advertising" clause was close to a good idea. The problem with it was that it really said advertising. Like if Apple made a TV commercial they would need to have some announcer read the names of every open source package included in OSX. The solution of simply removing it wasn't good either.
What was needed was a slightly different clause, requiring the user to be notified that they are using BSD licensed software, and where to find more information. One can imagine the MOTD on a brand new Unix system saying something like "This system contains BSD licensed software, for more information see /usr/share/bsd.txt. The file would contain not only the license, but the URL of each project involved, the name of the software, and version installed. The user is now aware of the open source project, and knows where to get the source code. That would have done more to promote open source software than either
removing the various clauses (the BSD "solution"), or adding onerous provisions (the GPL "solution").
At the end of the day though, it's technical folks trying to solve a business problem they don't understand and don't think should exist. They want to oversimplify others businesses, and want to believe that every business should be run the way they want. Every company should just release all source, instructions on how to compile it yourself, and so on. That's straight up idealism with a healthy dose of ignorance. In going for a 100% solution, the open source world keeps turning down a 95% solution, and ending up with a 5% solution. A pretty stupid trade off, if you ask me.
There is one up side. I've never found Samba particularly stable, and so if Apple has to re-write it I have every faith they will actually do a better job, and give me one less reason to use Samba.
Not legally, but people make mistakes and there was the added complication of the encode & decode example code not being in libFLAC and the flac/ encoder and decoder files being GPL -- thankfully the example code is Xiph and doesn't use the encoder or decoder files in flac/.
As it is, with a subdirectory having Xiph code in a directory that has GPL/LGPLed code while the FLAC site saying it's Xiph licensed, I wouldn't be surprised if several applications offering FLAC support unknowingly have GPL code in them.
"GPL is like promoting free speech until someone saids something YOU don't like..."
You all have no idea how much I see this sort of behavior from liberal democrats.
...
Now getting back on topic...GPL v3 is not pretty. I prefer v2. Parent is correct. If you want to make your software free(as in speech), let people use it as they wish. You will never get people to take a chance on OSS/FOSS if they have to always be looking over their shoulder worrying about a lawsuit.
...quicker, easier, more seductive the darkside is...but more powerful, it is not.
This whole article sounds kinda fishy to me:
Developers report that Apple has internally officially announced that it will pull Samba from Mac OS X Lion and Lion Server, and replace it with Windows networking software developed by Apple.
Where is the citation for that snippet? Given that they currently heavily rely on not only Samba but also are pretty far in the development of Lion without replacing it, I think this is some uninformed blogger trying to get hits on his Google AdSense account.
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Disclaimer: For all intended purposes, the name "Apple" in the text below can be substituted for "Microsoft", "Oracle", or the name of any other company that sells closed-source, commercial software.
Excerpt from the GPL FAQ web page:
Does the GPL allow me to sell copies of the program for money?
Yes, the GPL allows everyone to do this. The right to sell copies is part of the definition of free software. Except in one special situation, there is no limit on what price you can charge. (The one exception is the required written offer to provide source code that must accompany binary-only release.)
Does the GPL allow me to charge a fee for downloading the program from my site?
Yes. You can charge any fee you wish for distributing a copy of the program. If you distribute binaries by download, you must provide “equivalent access” to download the source—therefore, the fee to download source may not be greater than the fee to download the binary.
If I distribute GPL'd software for a fee, am I required to also make it available to the public without a charge?
No. However, if someone pays your fee and gets a copy, the GPL gives them the freedom to release it to the public, with or without a fee. For example, someone could pay your fee, and then put her copy on a web site for the general public.
Does the GPL allow me to distribute copies under a nondisclosure agreement?
No. The GPL says that anyone who receives a copy from you has the right to redistribute copies, modified or not. You are not allowed to distribute the work on any more restrictive basis.
So my guess here is no, GPL does not prevent commercial use as many have already said. Also just a guess, it's the third and fourth answer here that bothers Apple. They do seem to be keen on preventing anyone on customizing their platform or replicating it in any way. As an example, the Mac OS X license prevents a user from installing it on any other hardware and they have gone legally after companies that did as little as enabling hardware for that purpose.
While not an Apple fan I do like (and use) some of their products. Still I cannot defend them when it comes to openness simply because they are not. Is that "evil"? Not necessarily. The ultimate purpose of any business is to make money. They do that as they find fit. Ultimately, as any other business they choose how much of their product should be free and how much is a revenue generator.
There seems to be a tendency in the software industry to expect companies giving out product for free. Yet we don't expect the same from other industries. I don't expect Nissan to give me a free car, I don't expect the grocery store to give out free bread. Software is a product. It's developed with investment and effort. Yes, in some cases, it's a good business strategy to give it out for free but in some it might not be.
We must keep in mind that GPL in any of its versions is not a political or social statement. It's rather a means of distributing software, of getting to the market and therefore enabler of a specific business model. It's a bit harsh to say someone is evil because they have a different business model. Nor is Apple limiting anyone's freedom. You have the freedom not to use any of their products.
Aniti-GPL people are morons about this point. If I write stuff, I'll use whatever license I want. If that's the GPL, well that's awesome. I've never understood why you are telling me I cannot license software however I want.
All that'll happen here will be : Apple introduces security vulnerabilities into their SMB code.
Who cares? Ain't nobody gonna run a publicly accessible SMB server, especially not on Apple hardware. Are there even any publicly accessible web servers on Apple hardware. lol Ain't nobody gonna write viruses that exploit Apple's cruddy SMB code. Apple hasn't contributed jack to samba development, btw.
Apple's customers will not suffer. Samba will not suffer. Microsoft won't really benefit. etc. Who cares? Seriously.
As an aside, there is one big fucking reason for licensing code under the GPL v3 : All the patent restrictions motivate some minority of companies to license your code directly, avoiding the GPL v3. Yet conversely the GPL v3 does not obstruct widespread corporate adoption. For me, that's a winning combination that ensures my continued usage of the GPL v3.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
YES and GPL v2 was good for this. That was the point was access to the code so the code was free to all. GPL v3 takes it further and because of distribution methods even if the code is free for all to use, its not compatible now with a lot of stuff.
Are such "legal hacks" actually a good idea? They don't create a track-record of legal precedence, so its not a valid means of creating change in the legal system. And such hacks might not be bug-free -- they could make the users vulnerable to legal attacks by license-enforcement trolls, and cannot realistically anticipate future trends and needs of software (thus the "versions" of GPL that must react to emergent trends). Moreover the type of "freedom" (behavior) that GPL seeks to promote effectively undermines the software economy--yet we don't seem to have the socio-political maturity yet to really contemplate the ramifications: the word "socialism" is still a taboo. Finally one might ask if the bulk of GPL-ed works really have economic value at all (many of them being rather un-original programs based on mashups of other people's ideas, or some sort of "glue" code), and therefore if the authors, by choosing GPL, are really having a measurable impact on socio-economic trends or are simply engaged in some sort of self-pleasuring activity. Is the GPL actually an effective form of protest against copyright, or is it a way of pretending to be an intellectual activist while in fact simply preaching to the choir.
Those who would give up freedom to gain a little security deserve neither and will in the end lose both.
If no one is there to see it, then no distribution has taken place.
There is a war going on for your mind.
Anarchy is other words. People who think anarchy a good idea either think they are the biggest with the biggest stick, or aren't thinking it through. You need a system of law and order or the freedom is just academic.
I think you found the two crack head that sometime have mod points. I nice to finaly put a face on those 'mod on crack' moderation.
A programming friends comment on the subject, the truth comes out. "I don't give two shits about users, I care about other developers who use and contribute to my code. No user is going to contribute anything except support requests. I'm not interested in supporting freeloaders, I'm interested in protecting the freedoms of other programmers." So maybe this is why programmers that support GPL v3 don't like Apple, because Apple cares about the end users while programmers don't give a rats ass off of the free loaders. For the first time in my life im going to be thankful we have Microsoft and Apple because a world under the control of people with these attitudes would be horrible. At least some one is looking out for the users.
The GPL is a license same as any other. While there may be politics those aren't in the license which is a legal document as clear as any other license. If you want to use the code, read the license, comply, and use it. Ignore the politics as those don't actually force you to do anything.
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Oh please. During the days when licenses like the MIT, BSD and TeX license were dominant what we saw was: academics wrote open source software, companies took that open source software and wrote closed extensions that they didn't share back. The end result was the systems end users actually used were completely closed. The reason GPL is the dominant license is because GPLed software forced cooperation and collaboration.
We have hundreds of test cases of both styles of license and the results are pretty clear.
Their problem isn't with the "provide source" requirements. Version 3 was aimed squarely at Tivo and other commercial implementations. It is designed to be a "viral" license, requiring other components to become open sourced. Apple doesn't want to open-source OSX, so they quit using GPLv3 Samba code.
BSD gives total freedom to software implementers and takes that freedom away from end users (indirectly).
For those who have no idea what I'm talking about, note that most GPL'd software is available from the authors with other licenses.
Really? It was my impression that copyright assignment was fairly rare, except maybe to the FSF who don't do commercial licensing and a few corporations doing dual licensing as a business model. They and projects that only have one or a few developers can do that, but anything actually community driven is likely to have a pages long contributor list and you'll need a license from all of them. So my impression is that most open source software can't practically be licensed under any other terms.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I should repackage Samba for the 10.7 and set up donations, like the way Xming does it. The more Apple removes software from its OS, the more development opportunities, right?
FYI: Apple is soundly beating Microsoft as "Worst Company in America" in The Consumerist's poll:
http://consumerist.com/2011/03/worst-company-in-america-round-one-apple-vs-microsoft.html
Competition Good, Monopoly Bad.
I want to use BSD code without crediting its original authors.
One that hath name thou can not otter
Because the code as used doesn't match the code as spec. A great example is what happened to X before XFree86. There was a free X implementation that didn't actually run on any particular box, at least not well enough to be usable. What the free X implementation (MIT license) did was give a wonderful roadmap for operating systems manufacturers to see how various parts of X could be implemented and thus cut their costs and increased standardization. But everyone using X was using commercial products with commercial licenses, for end users the "free" code was worthless.
It wasn't until (a) XFree86, (b) commercial vendors stopped improving X, (c) a lot of time passed
that we had an effectively free X again. You think of the free code as being worthwhile because you grew up in the world of the GPL and LGPL where people had to share back their improvement.
Well yeah, the GPL doesn't assume everyone has good will. Rather it gives the downstream authors a choice:
a) Contribute to the open source world
b) Buy another license from the author on more favorable terms, and thus contribute financially to open source.
A proprietary software developer may take BSD licensed software and use it as the basis for a project of their own without sharing code in return. The users of his software have less liberty to the software's use.
How do the users have less liberty on the original software? Source code for the original software is still available, only the modifications are proprietary.
The GPL basically forces other developers (those who create derivative works) to license their code under a license you choose...
Calling GPL "free software" is probably the biggest lie the FSF ever told. It's restricted to hell and back.
The restriction are need to protect the freedom of the next person. It is like a bill of rights.
If you prefere hoarding all the freedom for you alone, then do not use GPL software. No one is forcing you to share and help your neighbours. Just dont expect any of them to help you.
No, GPL3 still doesn't make any requirements on other software than what the GPL2 does. GPL3 just adds extra protection from technical and legal loop-holes that enabled circumventing the GPL2.
But it all is VERY simple: If you don't like the GPL3 then don't use it as a license for software YOU write..
"either you see it my way our you're wrong"
Isn't that pretty much what RMS and FSF say?
Unless you ARE Richard Stallman, whether or not Stallman has that attitude is irrelevant to whether the GPL or any other license is a good fit for your needs. Your choice of a license is based on the goals of your project, your business, and you, as they are served by the terms of the license.
Also, The GPL(3) exposes the hypocritical GNU for being the control freaks that THEY are.
The GPL(2) is a good license. It breed cooperation from those that contribute to it. The GPL(3) has done nothing to further cooperation, but rather instead has started chasing people who once were allies to "Free Software" back to their dens of proprietary code. And I, as an end user am harmed by it, at least indirectly. Samba doesn't get the code from Apple any longer because Apple no longer will contribute given the terms of the GPL(3). If you think that makes Samba better in the long run, good for you. I don't.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
No, we don't allow slavery, and we don't allow indentured servitude either. Because it's basically the same shit under a different name. Even if you want to be one.
Stefan Axelsson
Yes and no. I think each new generation needs to be educated in how free operating systems came to be closed. Particularly the history of the Unix wars of the 1980s. This subthread started with someone from the BSD side throwing out that can of worms, regarding "the GPL isn't really free".
I agree the debate is over mostly now that the GPL is around 70% with BSD around 7%.
Citation needed on the "need" for code signing. But in any case, allowing users to install their own certificates alongside the manufacturer's would allow signed binaries and also allow the user to run software compiled by themselves; that is, it would allow users to control their own hardware.
Liberty without condition is impossible if two people want opposing things. As my buddy said, "How is it freedom if I can't have a piece of property just because someone else is already using it?" The answer, of course, is, "How is it freedom for the other guy if you can just take it away?" That's an example where freedom and license (using the definition of latitude of action, especially in behavior or speech) diverge. Or put another way, "My right to swing my fist ends at the tip of your nose."
On that note, I'm not against GPL, in any form since it gives you more freedom than you would have under traditional copyright (generally, none beyond personal use), and retains full rights as chosen by the producer of the work. It's also less restrictive than most, if not all, end-user licenses. As a user, I'm ahead of the game. As a developer, I'm generally ahead, too.
On the other hand, I think it's a very poor license for certain types of work - utilities, reference code, etc. I believe the web would have taken a lot longer to take off, and would have been a lot more unstable, if the original TCP stack hadn't been BSD.
There's a value to more relaxed licenses in areas where you're trying to achieve ubiquity. And clearly, that's not what users of GPL licenses are trying to achieve. That's fine - freedom is about being able to make your choices, and not hamper others' choices. The only presumption in that application of the term 'freedom' is that you have no inherent right to do whatever you want with code someone else wrote.
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
Seriously, if you try to promote freedom and free code, you have to allow people to use it how they want.
This propagates a common misconception about the "free" aspect of the GPL. GPL software is not unencumbered - it has an ironclad, legal license. Nobody is forced to use the GPL on the software that they write, but those who do have decided that is the way that they are willing to license their software. You as a user have two options - don't distribute somebody else's software in violation of their license, or live by the rules if you do. In either case, you can still use the software yourself, modify it, do whatever you want; you just don't have a free and clear license to distribute. For an end user its great. For somebody trying to rip off somebody else's code, it sucks. That's the point.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
With all the level-headed commentary correcting the parent post (in just about every thread on this story), how did the parent post avoid getting moderated down to zero as a troll or flamebait? The parent post so thoroughly misunderstands relevant issues at hand here ("open source" versus free software, misunderstanding commercialism, saying GPL'd software is as "bad" as proprietary software, etc.) yet the parent post shows up as +3 Insightful (and went to +4 Insightful in the time I wrote this post). I know /. moderation is unreliable but I guess I would have liked to see something closer to the truth than that.
Digital Citizen
I wouldn't worry too much this is a lot like the arguments 15 years ago when the GPL was replacing BSD/MIT style licenses. The fact is as the GPLv3 spreads companies will reluctantly go along, and contribute resentfully at first that they have to give back.
So is imprisoning kidnappers. What is your point?
Punishing those that take freedom away, but taking their freedom away. In one way ironic, in another, very appropriate.
Instead they'll fork or adopt a project with a more suitable licence.
You mean like the GPL v2 licensed SAMBA code in OS X 10.6? Nothing's stopping them from turning over and maintaining that fork that they've already licensed via GPL v2, right?
Actually at this point Microsoft seems more free than Apple. Apple was never a huge fan of open source, they were desperate. Generally companies in their prime can afford to "go it alone" and try to. Its the rest of the time that open source works so well.
Either way, Apple wasn't planning on letting people modify the version of CIFS they shipped, or contribute fixes back to the Samba tree, so no real loss there. Long story short, we learned something about Apple's ideology and nothing more.
Or they want to do something with CIFS that some other license they have restricts them from doing. Say for instance, letting an iPad talk to a SMB server. Samba's code can't be used because Apple truely isn't allowed to let anyone in due to restrictions it agreed to in order to get content licensed for the devices.
They picked the license they thought was more valuable to them to keep, and are replacing the other. Theres no reason they can't open source their new software and take advantage of OSS anyway, and still let people modify it on other devices.
They could also just fork the last Samba that used GPLv2 if its truely v3 that causes the problem. GPLv3 isn't retro active.
Lets also keep in mind, Samba is just a copy of someone elses software, and while its a very good copy with a lot of features the original doesn't have, its far from the only implementation out there and its always lagging behind since they have to reverse engineer to get anywhere. Apple could simply license the tech from Microsoft directly and be done with it. Microsoft in general has no problem licensing that sort of thing out, for the right price, and there are many examples of them doing just that, which is why Apple Mail has no problem talking to Exchange servers using the Exchange protocol for instance.
You assume its because Apple is evil. I assume its because they want to make money. We end up with entirely different reasons for what they are doing.
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The "liberty" that the GPLv3 crowd is talking about is not the liberty of a person, but the liberty of the code. The code in this world is metaphorically a rights-holding free man. It cannot be restricted in its liberty by any interactions with people in the future (add-ons, code contributions, etc). It is a confusing nomenclature because the rational for code liberty involves personal freedom to access and manipulate products derived from "free" code. It is a weird and entirely philosophical argument that has major impacts in the real world.
The BSD version of freedom has great successes, as does the GNU version - yet they are basically diametrically opposed visions of what "open source" means. There's a ton of middle ground in the "open" definition as well - major example: Apache. Then you've got versions of "free" that don't include source - like MS SQL lite, Citrix Xen, Opera, etc.
So although your point is well taken, they aren't worried about your liberty, they are worried about their code's liberty. In fact I believe that the majority of the GPL team would have a different emphasis on the import of personal liberty. They seem to have a more collectivist mindset.
"Unfortunately, any OS vendor that wants to deploy Samba cannot require that it be signed by a proper, valid code signing cert because those cost money, and would represent an additional restriction on the end user's ability to recompile Samba and run the new version. This makes the GPLv3 fundamentally antithetical to proper security as written, at least by my reading. And I'm not the only one who interprets it this way."
Bullshit, the program that launches the daemon can verify the integrity using an external tool (like gpg) and signed hashes of the daemon.
This is close to an admission by Apple that they have copied Samba code in OSX.
It would be interesting to do a bitwise comparison of Samba compiled code to OSX. How much is copied? Where is it?
Just Curious.
Anarchists don't oppose order, they oppose the state. The argument is that order, even rules, can be managed spontaneously rather than top down. You may disagree, fair enough, but that doesn't justify misrepresenting their position.
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
This was corrected in GPLv3, and control-freak assholes are having a problem with it.
Calling them "control freak assholes" is disingenuous. They decided on their values, formed the GPLv3, and stuck to those values. They believe their values have merit, and have requisite need to prevent what they feel is non-free use cases from slipping in.
GP was calling Apple "control freak assholes", not FSF or other GPL3 supporters.
Seriously, if you try to promote freedom and free code, you have to allow people to use it how they want. If you try to define what's allowed and try to get people to do or not to do what YOU want them, you aren't promoting free code. Your code is just as "bad" as proprietary code. True freedom is letting people do what they want, even if they have different values than you.
GPL is like promoting free speech until someone saids something YOU don't like. True freedom is letting people do what they want. That includes making money with the code, or using that code in a larger proprietary code. If you do not allow this you're a hypocrite.
It's backwards thinking and does no good to free and open source movement, as companies won't even be considering using it. GPL alone has created a large problem. It has made companies associate open source with huge legal trouble, and generally will make companies avoid open sourcing and open source code completely just because of GPL. They rather get the easier and guaranteed legally good alternative, which is licensing from other companies like MPEG-LA for H.264 and Microsoft for WP7 and so on.. Yes, it costs money. But when dealing with companies, it's a lot easier for them and solves many troubles that the hypocrites at GPL headquearters have caused for the whole open source movement. This is why I support true open source licenses that allow both free and proprietary use. They are the real free licenses, not GPL, and unless we deal with that hypocricy Microsoft will always win. I'm personally disgusted by this move by Samba team, as they're the ones that try to make it easy to both move away from Windows and integrate with other operating systems. GPL is bad.
There is nothing in the GPL v2 or v3 that would prohibit Apple from including Samba. GPLv3 specifically allows it to be included even if other parts are not GPL. What cannot be done, however, is slap a bigger license over the top of included GPL'd programs that would circumvent the GPL. All Apple would have to do is issue a statement that says something to effect that portions of OSX are released under a GPLv3 license. Then list those portions and the actual require GPL verbage and make the source code available. That's no different than Windows having it's license and the pre-installed apps having theirs.
GPLv3 is not the problem. Companies wanting to use GPLv3 code without adhering to the licensing agreements are the problem. I am curious, though, since the Microsoft networking stuff is copyrighted and patented, how Apple developed a clean room copy without resorting to using the Samba code. If they based their own version on anything they learned from Samba, then they are still, in fact in violation of the GPL. Of course, that would be an argument for a different day and time.
In short, GPLv3 is just an excuse being used to deflect attention from Apple's own internal decisions.
.
Yeah. It's a(n almost) closed system. Much like MS, Apple are, and Java used to be. But unlike MS and Apple, it's easy and free to get into, to use and to extend. How much more do you want ?
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
Then they are going to have a real problem. Think about how complex the software is that runs on macs vs. what runs on tablets.
Lock it down and they kill the platform. People will accept their phones being limited because they always have been (RIM being something of an exception). They may accept tablets being limited but already their is a bit of a backlash. No way will it be accepted on computers.
What? I thought "free as in beer" simply referred to "no monetary cost".
The GPL does not afford maximum liberty.
It does attempt to prevent "freeloading", but the tactics it employs to do so boil down to restricting liberties. One of the troubles can be that the GPL does *not* simply prevent "freeloading", but can be completely incompatible with the use of other software. Say I have a product that I don't mind open sourcing the code *I* written, but that depends on proprietary third-party code that I'm *not* at liberty to share. It's not impossible to imagine a situation in which my dependency on this theoretical proprietary code (excellent and best-of-class though it may be) simply rules out any ability for my project to leverage GPL code.
I'm not framing this as "evil" or "bad"; it's just a fact. I'm not arguing that there's an iota of sinister thought behind the GPL. It's just aiming for an ideal in such a puristic way, that it's a bit blind (or indifferent) toward such cases.
And - again - that's OK.
But if we're talking about licenses that provide *maximal* liberty, period, you're looking at BSD and MIT (as the best-known examples).
Exactly the point.
In BSD licensing and states which permit slavery, you have the freedom to take freedom away from others.
In GPL licensing and non-slavery states, the freedom to take freedom away from others is denied.
Which is more free ?
25% Funny, 25% Insightful, 25% Informative, 25% Troll
Ironic, yes, but a necessity nonetheless, if only to prevent Tivo-ization again. The idea behind the GPL and even FLOSS is the freedom to use the software how you please at any level. If one can restrict the other's use at any time in that level, then the entire idea has been thrown out the window. The only person who should be able to restrict the usage of the work is the original copyright owner, not those creating derivative binaries. FLOSS isn't an idea to commercialize on software, that's what proprietary licenses are for. If one must place a restriction at the highest level on restricting at lower levels to maintain the idea of free software, then it's a sacrifice that must be done, even if the restriction itself is hypocritical.
I'm surprised Apple was able to replace Samba. Hasn't it taken decades of reverse engineering to figure out.
Unless Apple looked at the Samba code to figure out how to write their own.
You're either for software freedom or your not. GPL restricts what you can, therefor is not free.
This kind of "either you see it my way our you're wrong" statement is NOT a good argument.
GP didn't make a qualitative categorization of the rightness or wrongness of either position. You did that.
I made a "qualitative categorization" of the argument, not of the "rightness or wrongness of either position".
The GPL3 is causing the same sort of "all or none" lock-in via legal instead of technical means. It is becoming very difficult to mix GPL3 software with commercial software.
Not really, it isn't: I've got Unreal Tournament 2004 installed on the very same PC I use to develop software with GCC, no problems installing either whatsoever.
That doesn't have anything to do with the "mixing" they are talking about. Neither does "not contributing back". The mixing has to do with having a product that is partially open source and partially closed source which results in an overall product that cannot be modified. The prime example is the Tivo. It was primarily open source, and they contributed code back to the community - but it had a proprietary binary that was designed to render the hardware and software inextricably linked. So even though they were probably the most open (to modifications) hardware manufacturer in history, they were not 100% open and that pissed off the GNU tribe. So they changed their license to disallow this type of integration.
The system apple has for iOS for code signing is already great. A provisioning file requires a crytographic key involving the device and the signature of the application and the signature of the person sending it. The person installing the application needs to first copy the provisioning file into iTunes. Just make that private key public and you have open system.
So even if I infect myself how do infect others. I don't have the Samba Team's private key so I would need to use another private key that wouldn't match the supposed author.
The GPL3 is *MUCH* better, clearer and compatible license than v2.
The only difference is the anti-TIVOisation clause in v3. And Apple is all for locking software to a machine with stuff like Trusted Computing.
This move just tells you where Apple is heading at full speed.
what you can and also what you can't do with them has a lot to do with the popularity
Really? I'm sure people buy iPhones because the App Store provides a convenient way to get apps, but does anyone buy an iPhone because it prevents them from using anything other than the App Store to get apps? The restriction may well be irrelevant to most users, but how is it a positive selling point?
No it doesn't impact my software. It just impacts the version of my software that all the end users actually run and can run. See the history of X for details.
Mod this man up. Eloquent, and directly to the point.
No you can't because a slavery contract cannot be enforced. If you sell yourself to me as a slave day 1, you can leave day 2. If I try and stop you physically that's a battery, kidnapping... The most you can do is sell your labor in advance under guidelines of US labor law which prevent you from selling it too far in advance.
Even things like no compete clauses the courts have interpreted very strictly.
Forcing apps to be signed to run on the iPhone is dictatorial, but saying you can't have signed apps as per the GPLv3 is also dictatorial, so I personally find both Apple and FSF are dictatorships, with zealous charismatic leaders at the head. In fact, I'd argue that Apple and RMS's goals are actually more similar than dissimilar in some respects (on most Apple appliances the software is free, but source disclosure is the missing piece).
Personally, I don't think all software should be free because the hacker culture isn't compatible with generic hardware. Releasing code for a proprietary laser printer (RMS's main reason for starting the FSF movement) is much different than releasing code on a generic PC. If 5 hardware manufacturers pay for development of software on that generic PC and 6 companies use it, which do you think can undercut the competition on price? How about 150 people paying for development of a game that 12 million people play? It becomes unfair to the people that pay for the product unless there is some way to re-compensate them (e.g. advertising revenue, selling personal info of people that didn't pay for it, etc), and that direction scares me more.
Without signing keys or whatever else is needed to run the binaries, you have sources which you cannot use for their intended purpose. You (or someone else you hire) can't fix a bug and produce a new binary you can replace the original with, or even use at all. It is the end of the line for that source code. DRM and keys are the equivalent of the terminator gene in Monsanto products. The source given to you, sitting there and looking pretty is all it can do.
Having a single primary rule (with a small set of rules designed to support that rule) does not make you a dictator.
I seem to recall that the #1 Open Source project (Linux) chafes against what most so-called "F/OSS" devs.CALL "Open". Sir Linus doesn't like GPLv3, either, and in fact, thinks the whole FSF GPLv3 licensing bit is a sham.
Now what? This is a bit like the "Unlimited" internet service that Comcast OVERsold to everyone in their markets, then, when people actually started trying to exercise that condition of the agreement, suddenly, "Unlimited" became more and more of a bad joke (called breach-of-contract in any normal contractual agreement).
I have heard and read this for decades now. It first struck me as doublespeak gobbledygook, and it still does today. The GPL defines liberty as playing their way, not my way. That's not more liberty, it's less; ask any libertarian.
So you are only truly free if you have the right to keep slaves?
Free for whom?
The GPL protects the *freedom of the code*, not the freedom of developers. Hence the term free software. The BSD allows you to lock the code down, and release binaries only and so is not as good at protecting the freedom of the code.
How has the original code been restricted? It's still there for anyone to use. The BSD allows proprietary derivatives but it does not allow you to restrict access to the original code. The GPL would be better described in what it prevents, not what it protects. In fact it could be described without getting into semantic debates about freedom. It prevents proprietary derivatives, where or not that is "freedom" is subjective.
Liberty is the perfect way to describe the GPL. It was written with the express intention of preventing a situation where code in the public domain was being taken, improved or extended, and the improved version being made closed source. It's preserving end user's liberty to have access to the source code at the cost of developer's liberty to use the code as they wish.
Who is being locked out? Yes you can be locked out from derivatives but not the original code. If I make a proprietary FreeBSD I am not preventing anyone from working on FreeBSD. I'm not making my changes available but there isn't a net loss to FreeBSD. I haven't added or taken away anything.
The GP was making an argument centered on the GPLv3's effects on end users, and for end users "running one alongside the other" is as much integration as they'll ever need.
As for TiVo, calling it the "most open" is deceitful: they were merely somewhat less closed than the alternatives, and the fact they made such a closed product by leeching off the Open Source community was what pissed off the "GNU tribe" as well as a good percentage of its user community, leading to the GPLv3.
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
Bullshit. Freedom fries have more freedom than Freedom pancakes.
I rest my case.
We grant you Freedoms, not just carefully follow all these rules to get those Freedoms.
Sounds like something a cult would come up with. It's a Freedom club, now follow the Leader's rules.
Please, please reread the whole sentence:
If you want to pass on a version with additional restrictions on what they can do with the software, then no, you can't do that.
"Freedom" does not mean, and never has meant, that you can do whatever you want. The problem is that to allow that will inevitably force someone else to give up their own freedom to do whatever they want. You have to balance the freedoms.
And that's exactly what was said. The GPL prevents placing restrictions on other peoples freedom. A restriction to prevent further restrictions.
You may not like how the GPL decided to balance freedom, but its approach is completely valid.
Not if you provide the source code of the software you used and make it available to all users, ...
Yeah; I guess I wasn't as clear as I might have been. I was basically addressing the people who want to "take the software private", making it a part of their proprietary binary-only package without paying. This is mostly what private companies want to do, and they're frustrated that it's illegal (in most countries). But in fact they can do this, simply by approaching the authors of GPL'd code and asking for a different license. Those authors will probably want to be paid for such a license, as with any software they'd license from a for-profit company. But the companies want the "FOSS" software without even the minimal restrictions of the GPL. So they're playing the "free means I can take it and claim it's mine" gambit, hoping they can get away with it.
It's the size of the regexp AND how you use it that counts.
Hey, I'm gonna have to steal that one. ;-)
Hmmm ... I wonder if that short list of words would follow under the "fair use" exception to copyright laws. /. does warn us that everything we post is copyrighted by the authors.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
I think the point here is:
Different strokes for different folks.
Point is, the author of the software can choose which they want to license their code under, which is good.
So which licenses are those? even the 3-clause BSD prevents me from claiming ownership of the code and suing other users for copyright infringement, so it's not really free either.
MIT license?
You can't own a slave.
Congratulations, you're not a free human being.
(OK, assuming you currently live in a jurisdiction where slavery is forbidden...)
It is very simple:
GPL - guaranteed freedom for users of software
BSD/Mozilla etc - guaranteed freedom for developer(s) of software
So you're saying that Apple doesn't have Lawyers capable of understanding the GPL? I don't think that is what Apple has a problem with.
God is imaginary
You're not restricting the original code. It doesn't disappear if someone creates a proprietary derivative. Stallman & co just want a "right" to peer into downstream derivatives. That isn't freedom, that's just demanding access to someone else's derivative project. Stallman just parades the whole thing in "freedoms" to grandstand.
Which is the same argument were were having 15 years ago for GPL2. Companies didn't like those terms much either. They didn't have a choice as more and more open source software was GPLed. Apple would have loved when they were building the original samba extension in if Samba had been BSD and they could have created "iMacWin Share" as a sellable product.
On a good day, Microsoft is perhaps the most closed of them all. On a bad day, they are, IMHO.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
The reason companies paid developers to work on the Linux kernel was because they wanted to get out of writing their own kernels. It was from good will. And they hated the GPL even while they did enormous things to make it clear that large scale cooperation worked best under the GPL.
Is it really that hard to see?
Let's assume you know how to make cars really well, and need to put food on your table.
Or let's assume that you want to make cars so people can drive around, but place a lot of importance on having few accidents.
Oh I see, you were just being childish...
But why do we have such laws [against murder]? To protect others' liberty to live.
No. We have such laws to protect others' right to live. Having the source code to a computer program, or ensuring that others do, is not, in any sense, a human right.
It's sad that the sanest comment in this whole discussion comes from an Anonymous Coward.
Under your scenario the far cheaper thing to do is buy a commercial license for that one GPLv3 piece.
But even if they don't, I'm hard pressed to see the downside here. The company goes all commercial and starts heavy licensing fees which they have to pass on, which make their products more expensive than companies that are less open. The board is then confronted with a realistic type cost:
say $3k per developer per year, $1m in backend license fee support costs and $12 / device. If they think staying closed is worth that much, OK.
To Stallman the GPL is the most moral. He compared proprietary developers to criminals after all. What a loon.
Yup.
Debian-based distributions have used code signing since the dawn of time to combat malicious modifications. This is done primarily to allow for effortless mirroring: It doesn't matter who hosts a copy of the repository, as long as the packages are signed by Debian and apt can verify the signatures correctly. As long as the mirrors don't mess with the packages in any way, the software just works. But if you want to host a repository of your own for your own packages, you have to either a) have apt-get scream about missing keys, or b) sign your packages, then tell the users where they can find the repository signing keys and how to install them. (And it uses gpg, so in theory you could use some sort of a chain-of-trust model for the keys, though I have no idea if people actually look that far in the keys. Most 3rd-party repositories just say "here's a damn key, go add it".)
Notice that this only covers distribution of the software, as any sane model for trusted software distribution requires. The .deb packages are just dumb containers for files, metadata and installation scripts. If you want signed binaries, there's no reason why you couldn't use the exact same model for key distribution.
You're either for personal freedom or you're not. Civil rights stop me from enslaving people, therefore I'm not free.
If I release some "free software", then someone else comes along and entangles it with their own proprietary software and adds their own restrictions, then the part that is my contribution is no longer free. The software itself is not free, in the same way that a slave is not free. The software has been enslaved. So allowing people to do whatever they want to my software is contrary to my software's freedom.
Then don't call it free, as in Freedom.
Who says your software didn't want to be incorporated with another project? For if you are anthropomorphizing software to the point that you say that it can be "enslaved", then you must also attribute to that software the free will to associate itself with other software, and the free will to "do things" of which you personally do not approve.
Either you put a big fat Copyright symbol on your software (which is exactly the same as branding cattle, or slaves) and call it YOUR slave, or you let it fly free into the world, to make its way on it own.
By your own analogy, there is no middle ground.
well there's more than one player here. Apple has less liberty yes, but the GPL isn't about protecting the liberty of the distributors of software its designed to protect the liberty of the users of software. The idea is the users of software should be allowed to make changes to the software. Apple doesn't want to give their users the liberty of changing the software on Apple devices.
Bad analogy time: the constitution tries to guarantee citizens liberties. But the police are citizens too, right? Should the police have the liberty to listen on your phone conversations anytime they want? No because that takes away your liberty. So the constitution limits what the police and military can do to protect the liberties of civilian citizens.
The GPL limits what software distributors are allowed to do to protect the liberties of software users.
The GPL has always quite explicitly stated that the license changes as the FSF sees fit. Section 9:
I don't know they could have been more explicit that the GPL is the GNU Public License where GNU is project under the guidance of the Free Software Foundation.
GPL is like promoting free speech until someone saids something YOU don't like.
That is a brilliant way to put it! ...I think that by now we've accumulated enough Real World evidence about how the GPL has utterly failed in its lofty goals of virally forcing everyone to merge code with the FSF and other projects. Now, people might point to the Linux kernel. But Linux is just for servers. It's not in desktops. It's not in other areas (scientific, financial, engineering, medical, aeronautics, defense, etc.). Why?
Because, for many years now, people have made a significant investment - with hefty returns in many cases - in the Windows platform. And they'll continue to do it. They will pay the price the free market stipulates for the proprietary OS, but they will not pay the price the FSF and the Linux fanboys jerk-offs would like to see them pay - throw away your intellectual effort and simply "share", whilst risking bankrupcy.
This fundamental misunderstanding of cost-benefit and risk analysis from the Linux fanboys is what keeps them at the margin. Even if you love Unix, you can enjoy a better Unix experience with the Mac OS. Also, Linux -i.e., IBM - succeeded in running Sun out of the market. Great! I'm really excited about the possibilty of a medical equipment running Windows, instead of Sun's OS.
To add insult to injury, we're witnessing software engineers develop systems software that intends to dump the GPL/FSF while still - and this is important - adhering to an open source license - but one that's not viral.
Main difference between the BSD license and the GPL license: one is from California and the other is from Massachusetts
You're onto the right idea, but I think you've got a few misconceptions. BSD protects the developer's freedom to do what he wants with the code. He can include it in a software package and then relicense that software package however he sees fit, including in a closed-source manner.
It's the GPL that protects the end user's freedom, because any applications he runs that were developed downstream from a GPLed package remain GPLed for him to access all aspects of the code.
But as soon as the end user begins tinkering with code, well then he might refer to himself as a developer and might prefer the lesser restrictions of the BSD.
I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
You do realize that the GPL allows corporations to make billions from GPL software without contributing, right? If the goal is to stop corporations from profiting without giving back then the GPL is a lousy license. It only prevents derivative products that are distributed. Corps are free to make billions from web applications and internal use.
The GPLv3 is designed to support commercial usage. It is however not designed to support proprietary usage. These two concepts are orthogonal.
As we can easily see that from the iOS ecosystem, Apple dreams of a proprietary world, and thus they want to weaken and remove their perceived "obstacles" for getting there.
They would be perfectly fine to continue using SAMBA (GPLv3), since there is not a single technical/legal reason against it with their current usage pattern. However, they are on a crusade against the GPLv3 (for understandable reasons... it doesn't fit their business model), hence the FUD campaign.
They contributed code to the Samba project with the understanding it would be distributed under the GPL2, standard. They've licensed the Samba team under the GPL2. The Samba team is perfectly within their rights.
That romantic ideal has been realized time after time after time. Lots of companies that would rather not have met with FOSS terms have done so to save money.
Actually it does apply to LGPL code. LGPL code just removes the linking restrictions.
As soon as you utter that phrase, whatever it is you're talking about ceases to be free.
Yes you are free to do whatever you want, but if you want to murder someone then no, you can't do that.
Your freedom ends where your neighbor's property begins.
Send your spendthrift head of state this
Then you would distribute under something like the MIT license and as long as you were the primary everything would be cool. Once people started contributing their contributions would like be GPLed and very quickly you would end up with a GPLed encumbered code base so you might was well GPL the whole thing.
You make it sound like code can only exist in an open or proprietary state.
Apple used FreeBSD code and the FreeBSD team was not "less free" because of it. What exactly did they lose? Are they slaves? This really doesn't make any sense. The GPL "freedoms" are just Stallman's demands. He wants to be able to peer into any downstream software project and parades this demand as a "freedom" even though his license could be described more accurately as anti-proprietary.
Please explain me how a clause that is specially added so end users still have the freedom to hack, even if the constructor decide to use signing keys, isn't about freedom ?
The freedoms that GPL is fighting for are the end user's. Not Apple's.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
In a free society there will be risk. Freedom brings risk. Freedom is messy.
Apple has gone with the benevolent dictator approach to things. They built up a technology foundation on free and open software, and promoted the fact that they did, but now that that does not suit them because the meaning of freedom changed when it was realized the relationship was becoming exploitive, they decided they wanted out. I was a Mac guy from 92, but switched to Linux in 08 because no matter how benevolent they may seem, dictators by definition impose their interests and ignore mine when they are not the same.
Is it the GLPv3's fault? Just as much it as it is the rest of the world's fault that many web sites are blocked in China. That argument really turns the idea of freedom on its head, as many have indicated. When its my rights vs yours, one person does not have the right to effectively take away an other's rights.
So there's that Franklin quote which has become a cliche, but does sum this up nicely, "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
The GPL(3) is functioning just as it was designed, to limit commercial use of code.
Nope, that wasn't why it was designed. You can learn about the GPL here: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/quick-guide-gplv3.html
Not that I agree that the GPL is legitimate, since personally I don't believe in ANY intellectual property, BUT, we do have copyright law which permits the existence of proprietary software, which is something I disapprove of.
In that light I see the GPL as an attempt to use that same law to create this 'microcosm' where software is freely distributed, with the added little perk of NOT ALLOWING proprietary code to free ride on in, unlike licenses like BSD who just don't give a fuck.
I call it competition between a hypotetical world with IP and one without.
Send your spendthrift head of state this
IMHO, Apple becomes less and less free than the ideals expressed when MacOSX arrived, and becomes more and more like Microsoft all the time, in terms of proprietary infrastructure with high walls and draconian developer requirements.
I think the number of included F/OSS projects in OS X has actually INCREASED over time; and Apple certainly has been anything but a software leech in terms of the F/OSS community in general.
What "draconinan" developer requirements? If you are talking about the paltry $99 for an iOS dev. license, you have a pretty damned distorted viewpoint on what "draconian" is.
If you looked at the requirements to become a registered Mac developer back in the Macintosh Toolbox and MPW days, versus now (for example, I am a registered Mac OS X developer, and I haven't paid a dime), you certainly would characterize their policies as becoming "more and more" "draconian", or the "walls" being "high".
And as for a proprietary infrastructure; the core of OS X, Darwin, is, was, and remains Open. The parts that are proprietary are, by and large, actually built ON TOP of that infrastructure.
Oh, and BTW, many of those parts are Open, too. So go troll someplace else, ok?
The license is explicit about the form you need to supply it in. The form you were using internally. Apple didn't do that and didn't want to do that for secrecy reasons so they had to negotiate a license exemption. Happens all the time with commercial licenses.
You have atleast twice claimed that this is paid FUD. However, I fail to see anywhere where you have actually proved TFA wrong except cast doubts on it.
They seem to have made a mistake (genuine maybe) that GPLv3 prohibits commercialization. But what is true is that the terms are a little onerous(like handing over signing keys, patent grants etc.) compared to GPLv2 which seems to be the reason that Apple doesn't want to be in a position where it can't use its own contributions, especially with iOS where it banned GPLv3 apps from app store.
So if you think it's paid FUD, what do you think is the reason for Apple not shipping Samba or to stop contributing to GCC? Why should one trust your word over Apple Insider which atleast *seems* to have developer and insider connections?
Exactly. Liberty does not mean that everyone gets to do whatever they want. In a perfect world this might work, but in reality the desires of one party will infringe on the rights of another.
Reminds me of elementary school arguments. Somebody inevitably says "This is a free country! I can do whatever I want!" No, that's not what it means. Unfortunately, many adults never learn what liberty and freedom really are, and keep this quite naive viewpoint.
With the GPL corps are free to profit without giving back. They are only prevented from profiting through a distributed proprietary derivative. Corps all over the world have been able to save billions by not having to pay for proprietary Unix licenses.
Why can't you distribute GNU Go? You have to offer to distribute source code, for whatever you do. So you distribute the entire XCode project on your website. What's the problem?
The GPL requires that whoever you give the code to - in source or binary form - is just as free to use the code as you were.
But the original code is going to remain open no matter what happens in terms of derivative works. This is as true with BSD as with the GPL. So the GPL is not about making sure other users are just as free to use the original code as someone who's created a derivative work. It's about making sure they're as free with the new code as they are with the original.
The distinction is important because it shows that the extra freedom in the BSD license does not make anyone less free. No derivative work of a BSD licensed work can take any freedoms away from anyone because the worst case still leaves the original code as open source, as available to anyone as it was to the author of the derivative work. The BSD license in no way allows for previously available freedoms to be eliminated. Anyone that could do anything with the original work before a derivative is produced is still able to do those same things with the original afterwards.
Further, you liken the creation of a proprietary derivate work to assaulting and enslaving people, which is ridiculous, to say the least. I've already explained that creating proprietary derivate works doesn't make anyone less free in any real sense, but are you suggesting here that the rightful remedy to proprietary software is the same, at least in kind if not degree, as for assault and enslavement?
Also, the GPL only requires derivative works to be licensed under the GPL if they're distributed. But doesn't code that's not distributed at all make people 'less free' in the sense you used, in precisely the same way as propriety derivative works make us 'less free'? That is, other users have more choices if a derivative work is distributed as compared to if it isn't, even though doing the opposite doesn't actually eliminate any previously available choices. So wouldn't it be good if the GPL not only required derivative works that are distributed be licensed under the GPL, but required any derivative works whatsoever be distributed, and to be so under the GPL? That increases freedom in the same way as requiring that derivative works be GPL licensed.
One of the practical downsides that clearly result from the GPL is that licensing a work under it will mean that when someone would like to create a derivative work but can't or won't comply with the GPL for whatever reason, they must find some alternative. They can create their work from scratch (or deriving from some non-GPL work) or they can choose not to produce anything at all. We are not better off if a derivative work is not produced from a GPL work when the derivative would have been produced had the original been BSD licensed (or public domain or whatever). In that case we are worse off, and 'less free' in the sense you used.
If you believe that proprietary software really is like assault or enslavement then we can address the lack of freedom caused by people choosing not to derive GPL works by using the same remedy as for assault and enslavement; laws, fines, regulations etc. We'll make it illegal for people to choose not to write open source software. Of course we can't just make it illegal to write proprietary software, because that would create a loop hole people could wriggle through by not writing software at all, making us 'less free'. No, we have to force people to write software, and make sure it's open source, so we're all more 'free' as a result.
The problem with the GPL is the so-called "viral" nature (a term that, contrary to popular belief was not invented by Microsoft, but rather by BSD license advocates).
Not only does the GPL require that you distribute code that was licensed under the GPL, but it requires you to distribute all other code it touches as well. Of course, there are lots of philisophical arguments why this should be so... but it does make the license distasteful to a lot of people who do not share the same philosophy.
I think most people are fine with software like the LGPL that only requires you to redistribute the LGPL'd code and changes to it.
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Yes the FSF has been trying the top-down approach for 30 years and has met with tremendous success. Virtually every goal for free software set in the 1980 and 1990s has been met.
Perhaps you misread what I said. I called the people who are pissed about the GPLv3 "control freak assholes." The GPLv3 was created by people who are more concerned with ensuring that people who receive GPLv3 software are not controlled.
So, please tell me how imposing MORE restrictions on the distribution of "free" software is not MORE controlling.
Was Apple calling SAMBA its own? No.
Was Apple restricting anyone else from using SAMBA (or its improvements thereto)? No.
Was Apple charging people EXTRA for using SAMBA? No.
Was Apple contributing changes and improvements to the SAMBA project? (I really don't know; but I assume "yes", since SAMBA has its share of bugs.) Yes.
So, please tell me how Apple was "controlling" SAMBA?
Apple very well understands the contributions the F/OSS community have made, and for a very large measure, has repaid those contributions in kind, and with respect.
For example, when Apple purchased CUPS, did they suddenly send C&D letters to all the Linux distro maintainers? What do you think would have happened if MS would have purchased CUPS?
Stop trying to paint Apple as Teh Evilz, it's becoming a more and more tiresome meme; because it is so easily refuted by Teh Factzes.
Let's take a look at some statements form the Church Of Stallman and the cult of Linux fanboysim:
"Either you share your code forcifully and virally with us OR you're not 'free as in freedom' "
False dichotomy. ( -- See: BSD license)
"Proprietary code harms the world"
We have reasons to believe the premise is flawed. ( -- A lot of proprietary code helps a lot of people)
Not only that, all it expresses is an opinon.( --- Not what engineers, doctors, finance wizards, etc.think)
"If more people use the GPL, more people will be constrained to use it too, therefore leading to a greater number of free software"
Unproven assumption. In fact, there are counterexamples. ( --- No support in Real World events. Case in point: Apple, LLVM, etc.)
I could go on and on about this meme the Linux fanboyism freeloader jerk-offs believe.
Did you know that the Linux fanboyism cult movement actually believes that it's legitimate for a carpenter or owner of a metal shop to spend thousands of dollars on power tools, while expecting to pay absolutely nothing for software power tools? I find that amazing...
Main difference between the BSD license and the GPL license: one is from California and the other is from Massachusetts
Regardless of what you armchair lawyers think about whether the GPLv3 allows or disallows commercial use, no sane software company would ever use GPLv3 software.
Period.
It's not just control freaks that have a problem with it. It's also security-conscious engineering teams. Those bits of GPLv3 betray a fundamental lack of understanding of the need for proper code signing.
This is a red herring; the GPLv3 does not prevent you from using code signing, it just requires you to allow those users who want to run their own code to do so. Imagine if your phone had an option that allowed you to import a different a signing certificate, or to disable signature checks, so that those users who wanted to run their own code were able to do so. You could warn people that it might be harmful to security, you could void their warranties, but why is it necessary to tell someone that they are not allowed to modify their own device?
It is not a question of security, it is a question of control.
Palm trees and 8
Which is precisely what Apple is doing. But then GPL advocates throw their arms up and complain when Apple follows the terms of the GPL. You can't win with GPL advocates. When Microsoft said "We don't allow GPL because we don't want to be liable for the terms of the license", GPL advocates accused them of discrimination. Yet, there's always someone that says "If you don't like the license, don't use it", which is in direct conflict.
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The GPL(3) is functioning just as it was designed, to limit commercial use of code. You can't complain that it is doing what it was designed to do.
Most people I know are very happy that GPL limits commercial use, making it possible to reconfigure TVs, Routers and MP3 players to do almost anything. That is something that we would never be able to do if it weren't for GPL products. You can always pay somone to rewrite Samba, Linux, Busybox or GCC.
Okay. I'm glad you asked about TiVO. I have TWO questions about the fallout from that.
1) Has TiVO been improved by the GPL(3) changes?
2) Has the Software used by TiVO been improved by locking it out of TiVO via GPL(3)?
The answer to both these questions is .. NO. It did nothing for users or the software.All it did was soothe the wadded panties of GNU purists. This was nothing short of a little boy temper tantrum when the game didn't go his way, and took his ball home and cried to mommy.
And that little boy is going to grow up and realize that nobody wants to play with him. He'll have a ball playing with himself, while crying to mommy because he has no friends.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Let's remember that originally the point of the GPL was to allow people to share source freely, so that you could pass your work on and be assured that other users could pass it on too. It prevented restrictions on the sharing of something you created. It made your work open and free.
If I understand this right, and GPLv3 requires the allowance of "modifications in place", the GPLv3 is going far beyond that. It's no longer about keeping code open and free, it's forcing others to make their property open and free. It's no longer about sharing your work, it's about how your work is used.
Regardless of how you feel about "tivoization" -- personally I hate it -- this is telling someone else what to do with what they created. That's not making a statement about your own property, it's making a statement about somebody else's.
I'm a developer. Developers have the right and justification to release software under whatever license they choose! If a dev wants to restrict against "Tivoization", that's fine.
But let's not kid ourselves that "modifications in place" is about sharing software. This is going much further, and people with an interest in engineering things for the world to benefit from and making a living in the process have a very well qualified criticism.
~Dalcius
Rome wasn't burnt in a day.
Under GPL v2 thats how it works. GPL v3 became political with the anti tivo stuff which is why you cant get GPL v3 stuff on a iPhone. Lets go back to GPL v2 so we can all live happy together. Programmers who don't give a shit about end users and end users who doing give a shit about programmers :)
True freedom is letting people do what they want.
In the beginning there was true freedom. Since Apple (and Microsoft and Adobe and Oracle and...) are companies trying to make a profit they just take what OpenSource has to offer, make a profit out of it and never give anything back. Thus, GPL is a evolution of the "true freedom" concept. It restricts the freedom in only one respect: free software shall never become unfree.
On se Internetz nobody noes your German.
Not really. Their developer licenses (Microsoft QBasic, Visual Basic, C/C++, etc...) were for many years far more open than other company's. Their OS licenses were pretty open. The degree to which Macros + VBA + Active X allows you to transform Office is pretty open.
They ain't open source but they aren't the worst around. Most companies have gotten more open because of companies like Microsoft. Sorry to say nice stuff about Bill but it's true.
It's $299 for enterprise development, and the agreement is pretty highly walled. Look at Oracle, Microsoft, etc., and then those within the FOSS community. Much different, aren't they? I'm not a much of a fan of either Oracle or Microsoft, and use them emblematically here.
Darwin-the-kernel itself isn't controlled by its community any longer. The kernel used by Apple is now pretty closed up. Seen source recently? Yes, X and SAMBA 4 were used when the GPLv2 were allowed. Lots of FOSS apps ran on MacOS X and still does. Except GPLv3 eventually can't run there.
So go FANBOI someplace else, will ya?
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
I believe it depends on whether you count projects in general or add weight to them depending on how much the projects are used. The vast majority of Free Software projects are tiny and driven by at most a handful of developers, and used by hardly anyone. Almost all of those developers would likely be willing to offer you the code under a proprietary license, if you pay enough.
There are much fewer high profile projects, and they tend to have many developers. Only a few of them offer proprietary licenses.
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Stop saying End users rights and freedoms, its not about the end user it never was. Its all about the union of programmers and that is all its about. Programmers couldn't give a dam about End users. From a programming friend I don't give two shits about users, I care about other developers who use and contribute to my code. No user is going to contribute anything except support requests. I'm not interested in supporting freeloaders, I'm interested in protecting the freedoms of other programmers. So be honest at least. Its only about programmers rights. No one else's.
No, that actually doesn't solve the problem. Do you know how many security exploits there have been in which a user was tricked into installing something? So as I said before, allowing self-signed certs is not significantly better in practice than allowing unsigned binaries.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Yep that's a good example. And if that happened to enough codecs you would end up having to create a whole module architecture to keep it separate and likely LGPL that architecture. Which of course given GPLed codecs and a LGPL module architecture would make it easy for someone to take those whole layers and add them to a GPLed application....
That's how it is supposed to work. You are just in an early phase.
The GPL protects the *freedom of the code*, not the freedom of developers.
(...)
I really can not fathom that this logic still eludes people.
"Freedom" is a concept that only applies to humans!
For instance, can your electrical appliances be considered your slaves, that is, "not free"? I hope you see how ridiculous that line of reasoning is...
'I really can not fathom that this logic still eludes people'. ;-)
Main difference between the BSD license and the GPL license: one is from California and the other is from Massachusetts
Actually at this point Microsoft seems more free than Apple. Apple was never a huge fan of open source, they were desperate. Generally companies in their prime can afford to "go it alone" and try to. Its the rest of the time that open source works so well.
Are you on crack?!?
Let's see:
WebKit
launchd
GCD
CUPS (purchased and then allowed to remain O/S)
Bonjour
Darwin
IOKit
Those are NOT signs of a "desperate" company; but rather a company that recognizes the value the F/OSS community has to offer, AND the value it has to offer the F/OSS community.
Try trolling somewhere else.
Which does exactly two things for security: jack and squat. If somebody finds a way to maliciously modify the daemon, do you really think they can't modify a signature file, too?
And besides, the real security comes not from preventing on-disk modification, but from preventing modification during execution, which means there's a significant win to having the signature information as part of the binary itself. This really has to be done at the kernel level.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
"Samba team has moved active development of the project to the more strict GPLv3 license."
WTF. They are making 'open' software to support sharing between systems, so they want to restrict the use of the software! They should be removing restrictions, not adding them.
It seems clear that as licenses become more strict, the Samba team will choose to use them. Who knows what restrictions will be imposed by GPLv5 or GPLv6. It's better to move to non proprietary, open foundations like BSD if you are developing for the long haul.
What commercial developer needs to get sucked down the GPLvX black hole.
The problem comes with the intention of allowing the user to modify and use the software. The GPLv2 allowed them to do an end run where you could modify and use the software, but never on the device that it was distributed on.
Precisely, and this does actually matter for Samba. It's a very complicated server that every now and again has a serious security issue that needs to be patched... and it's also often embedded in all sorts of hardware whose manufacturers are too lazy to release timely updates. Without the GPLv3 protection, it's easy to end up with kit that has a trivially-exploitable and widely known security vulnerability that can't possibly be patched because the vendor has prevented you from modifying the GPLed code on it.
The only truly free software is public domain. No exceptions. And GPL is like demanding, from the person that listens to you, not to obstruct other people listening to your speech.
PS: It seems that you think that someone is forcing GPL onto you. Because it's not the case. Just like the companies that use Apache software in proprietary products, individuals that release software with GPL require only adherence to their license not money.
PPS: Linux wouldn't be what it is now, if not for GPL. Because none of those new and experimental features would have been released for all of us to use. And GPL somehow hasn't stifled Linux'es march into corporate server room.
This is a text book example on how the GPL is not a "trap" for big companies. The terms changed. A company disagreed with the changes. And they opted out of future usage.
Is it the right thing to do with lawyers? Yes. No fighting or disguised usage; they quit SAMBA "cold turkey" and all lawyers are happy.
Is it right thing to do with SAMBA developers? Yep. They didn't fork the codebase and create a competitive SAMBA GPLv2 effort.
Is it the right thing with Apple developers? Probably. Some older features are missing, so relying on pre-Active directory features will be troubling. For those who really need SAMBA itself (rather than just the features), Apple's GPLv2 forks are public and the GPLv3 work could be taken up by interested companies, researchers, or hobbyists.
Is this the right thing with users? That's what we don't know. Will the new system be secure enough? Will it be integrated well enough? Will end users be oblivious to its replacement? If yes, that's the final word on whether this was the right move at this time for this company. If no, then that shows SAMBA is non-trivial code, that can't be easily replaced.
IMHO, that's exactly how disagreements with GPL licensed code should be resolved.
It is both good and bad. The whole reason the GPL exists is because Richard Stallman saw a "flaw" in the older MIT license. He saw companies "proprietarize" versions of emacs and sought to put an end to companies "stealing his software." He had no issues with people using his software for free. But if a company copied it, and repackaged it as their own, that was a problem. Thus GPL included the "must share code including derivatives" clause. The rest is history. On the one hand, the GPL prevents companies from "stealing and redistributing software." On the other hand, it prevents companies from "using and redistributing software."
This is a boring sig
No you don't. Let the user decide if they want to exercise their rights. If they want the code to work on they will get the code from the source that allows them to work on it. You act as if the second some one makes a locked down product with your code that your original code vanishes and is no longer accessibly or available. Let the user decide what matters.
clarke-hanlon: any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice. thinking that GPLv3 prohibits commercialization is such an egregious mistake as to make me ignore everything this person says about licensing in the future.
my guess would be that apple has "legitimate" (from their point of view) problems with the tivoization rules--they probably want to put windows networking on AppleTVs or something, and GPLv3 definitely isn't compatible with iOS-style lockdown.
Media that can be recorded and distributed can be recorded and distributed.
-kfg
It's not just control freaks that have a problem with it. It's also security-conscious engineering teams. Those bits of GPLv3 betray a fundamental lack of understanding of the need for proper code signing.
On the other hand, your comment betrays a fundamental lack of understanding of how Samba is normally used. Code signing is all well and good from a security perspective right up until the point that your carefully signed and protected from modification code turns out to have a serious security vulnerability - of which Samba has had a number - and the code signing intended to ensure that your users have no possible way to modify the code even if they want to makes it impossible for them to patch it.
Most vendors that user Samba are too cheap to ship security fixes in a timely fashion, or even at all.
iPhone and friends do provide a way to import a signing certificate. It just costs money to obtain the certs because the infrastructure needed to support those certs costs money. Therefore, the GPL effectively prevents any useful implementation of code signing.
If you allow import of arbitrary (self-signed) certs, you might as well be allowing unsigned code, and if you put in a switch to allow unsigned code, somebody is going to find a way to throw that switch without the user's knowledge. It's inevitable. At that point, you have no security.
And if you allow import of certs signed by a large number of authorities, you have the problem that none of those CAs support extensions to limit the code to a specific device, which effectively means that a virus, trojan, worm, etc. signed with their certs can run rampant.
I've thought about this a lot, and I really don't see a better way that retains even a modicum of security from code signing. Either way, the point is that it isn't a case of wanting control for control's sake, but rather wanting control to prevent harm to the users. I realize that the notion of absolute freedom meaning absolute anarchy seems like a good idea to some folks, but most folks would prefer at least some limits to protect them from harm.
That said, I do wish Apple would come up with a way for people to (for free) register their own personal devices and obtain a signing key for those devices. I don't expect it because, as I've noted, it costs money to run a CA, but it would be nice.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
I suspect what Apple does not like is this part of GPLv3:
If you convey a covered work, knowingly relying on a patent license, and the Corresponding Source of the work is not available for anyone to copy, free of charge and under the terms of this License, through a publicly available network server or other readily accessible means, then you must either (1) cause the Corresponding Source to be so available, or (2) arrange to deprive yourself of the benefit of the patent license for this particular work, or (3) arrange, in a manner consistent with the requirements of this License, to extend the patent license to downstream recipients. “Knowingly relying” means you have actual knowledge that, but for the patent license, your conveying the covered work in a country, or your recipient's use of the covered work in a country, would infringe one or more identifiable patents in that country that you have reason to believe are valid.
Here's the nightmare scenario for Apple:
Better to get an alternative ready now, before someone shows up with a patent.
Their rights to do what?
The GPLv2 is not compatible with the GPLv3. If any code is under the GPLv3, you cannot use any GPLv2 code in the software.
Another person thinking he knows what GPLv3 is about. That is how some people think that by using some GPL software on an internal project will require them to publish it...
GPLv3 has nothing anti DRM per se, but does require an option to remove those DRM pieces. So... You can include a full blown DRM, but you are not allowed to add bits that prevent removal of that DRM. In the text from RMS:
I'm not particularly pro GPL or against it. There is a need for GPL in many cases. It's totally absurd using GPL in many other. But this is slashdot and you know me and/or someone else would correct your "understanding".
It seems that Apple can use GPL v.2 licensed software on these devices while having the devices work as they want to, but not the same with GPL v.3 licensed software.
They can use it fine, they just like the loopholes in GPL2, namely tivoization and patents, which GPL3 closes.
Basically, they have to allow Joe Random with his iDevice to take their code, tweak it, compile it, and stick it on his device. They're not allowed to use measures (DRM, locked bootloader, unoverridable signature checking, etc.) to prevent him from doing that.
Also, any patents that cover the GPL3'd software must be licensed downstream. So if Joe Random takes your GPL3 code which is covered by a patent and uses it in his own GPL3 project, you cannot sue him for infringing on that patent, though you can still sue any other infringes that aren't using your code.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
To be pedantic, the GPL protects the freedom of the end users of the code.
Are you talking about this kernel source? http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/xnu/xnu-1504.9.26/ Apple has posted the sources for the 10.6.6 Kernel and directions for building them on MacOSForge.
Apple also continues to add projects to MacOSForge, including the recent addition of a project for DCE/RPC on UNIX systems. http://www.macosforge.org/post/new-project-dcerpc/ There are lots of other fun things there too like the Apple implementation of X.
You're arguing that the right to write code on an arbitrary device that was not designed to run third-party code is an essential liberty. I would argue that this is a pretty serious stretch.
As for comparing the GPLv3 situation to China, that's a ludicrous stretch. China blocks content because it is harmful to the Chinese government, not because it is harmful to the Chinese people. By your argument, we should not have a border patrol or a police force because they can deprive people of the right to commit mass murder.
Freedom does bring risk, and it is messy, but without limits, there can be no freedom. Freedom without limits cannot truly exist for any person unless you deny someone else freedom without limits. By its very nature, I cannot be free to shoot a firearm anywhere I want to without depriving others of one of their inalienable rights—that of life, specifically. So the notion of pure freedom is really just a pipe dream constructed by people in ivory towers looking down on the real world.
In the real world, freedom must be balanced by responsibility, and when it is not balanced by responsibility, it must be balanced by rules to ensure that, as Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. put it, "the freedom to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins."
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
You may wish to look up the definition of a state as used in politics, it's a bit more complicated then you've claimed. A state is an entity with a legitimized monopoly on the initiation of force. A society with multiple competing security firms for instance wouldn't imply an existence of a state as no monopoly on the initiation of force is in place.
Newsflash - they already have. And most already have parted ways with GPLv2. Problem is, unless you're Apache Software Foundation, you will be screwed by the same corporations without GPL(v2 or v3).
This is called the "invent your rules as you go" license. It works like that: I'm a company. Some internal code happened (coders are a commodity). But as is, I can't cash in, because:
a) no one uses it
b) it is not so good anyway
Now what to do? simple: disseminate the code by "giving" it to people. Say something about how it's alright, we don't use it anyway. Now wait until someone does something with it.
Sue. Get their work as a settlement. Lather, Rinse, Repeat.
The GPL protects the original author and the users. You, as a coder, because it ensures that your contributions will never go towards helping someone do something with your code such that your code is not yours anymore. And yet you get to disseminate it/collaborate. You as a user, because if you depend on the code being available, it will be. Because of the above.
Now there is nothing wrong with wanting to make money. It is wrong to make money from someone else's work while making sure they can't even benefit from it. Sadly, this is what a typical company wishes: that way their competitors cannot benefit, and their users are locked.
The politics exist because although humans tend to be nice and cooperative, corporations behave like non-iterated-game-theoretical optimal entities (good ones, anyway). And such are Not Nice (TM).
Only, if those downstream derivatives are distributed, in which case the derivative is taking freedom from end users if the code were proprietary. I have some customized versions of userscripts on my personal computers which are GPL, specifically v3 iirc. However, they only exist in that form on my personal computer, and nobody can have them except me. This is completely in line with the GPL, and the FSF actually considers licenses that don't allow personal or internal versions of software to remain private to be non-free.
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Yes, but if you wanted to use the code, and make sure people could not use your contributions -- which you intend to distribute? Then the GPL is bad ;)
Basically, the GPL forbids you from benefiting from someone else's work if you are not contributing symmetrically. That people try to make the _moral_ point that this is bad boggles the mind. It is like whining because people don't let you steal from stores -- which is clearly unfair as all the items are on display.
Reread my comment. Those were moves made during the 1997-2004 period when Apple was having a rough time. They were wonderful for open source. They did close Darwin for example.
The GPL is all about freedom. However, it is concerned about the absolute freedom of the software, not the user or developer. It's aimed to ensure that all versions of the software remain completely free, regardless of what others might wish to do with it.
My bad, I thought he replied to GP, oops.
I made an app! Shoutium
Now, being an average nerd just out of his mother basement, I appreciate the deal and I certainly have a lot more freedom than if I had to fend for myself. For the same reason, I can also appreciate the GPLv3 - it does a lot from the free availability of software, and protect my work strongly and effectively - but it does it in a fashion that has more in common with Apple walled garden than what can be called Freedom (i.e. unlicensed).
How did they take your "free software"? Isn't that still available? People here like to point out that you can't steal bits, so the bits of your "free software" must still be in your possession.
The GP never said anyone "took" his software. He said that when
someone else comes along and entangles it with their own proprietary software and adds their own restrictions, then the part that is my contribution is no longer free.
Go back and read the post you're replying to, unless your intent is to attack your own strawman.
The GPL was never about freedom, it's always been about keeping things open.
On a good day, Microsoft is perhaps the most closed of them all. On a bad day, they are, IMHO
Microsoft has nothing, nothing on the closed nature of the iPads.
So many in the industry are trumpeting the iPad as being the future of computing -- I can't think of any Microsoft-involved scenario that would be worse than that, sad to say.
You're also not the only one who's patently wrong on that point.
The restrictions on code in GPLV2 or V3 don't prevent a downstream user from creating a signed binary. What they *do* is prevent the downstream user from creating a signed binary without also providing the source code for said binary. The signature is completely aside from the compilation. All the signature says is "I started with some code, ran it through some other code, and it gave me this third code". None of that relates to the freedom of the initial code.
What GPLv3 *does* do is prevent downstream users from modifying source code, forcing it to rely on other proprietary, unavailable software or hardware in order to function, and only distributing the non-proprietary bits in source-code form. Signing software doesn't do that (or at least doesn't have to, any more than an MD5 hash does).
Let's say I build a signed copy of Samba and pony up the cash myself to buy a "real" cert. I make use of it on my NAS appliance, and make the source code for what I built along with any modifications available for download. Does that mean nobody gets the benefit of the changes I made? No. It just means that they don't get to leverage the marketing power of the signed blob I paid for, *based on* that source code. They can build their own signed blob, or not bother with it and just point out to people that the MD5 hashes on the source code are the same.
There may well be internal reasons inside Apple that make them not want to use GPL-licensed software (hello app store), but saying the GPL is anti-security is just not right.
"Murphy was an optimist" - O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law
Perhaps not wordy enough.. the freedom of GPL is such that you are always entitled to it, not that you are free to do whatever you want with it. Stallman's whole thing is about avoiding proprietary lock-in.
People have wrongly ascribed complete freedom to the GPL license when it really shouldn't be.
The simple way would be to generate a "private" developer certificate to go with every phone.
Whooo, GPL3 problem solved.
How is Apple taking freedom from me by not showing me their changes to FreeBSD code? The original FreeBSD code is there for me to see and there is no way that Apple would have used GPL code. There is no net loss.
If someone uses your code, they have not deprived you of the original code or indeed truly stolen anything of value.
You have reduced the freedoms that I want to give to the users of my software - there are people now using my software that are not free to fix it if it breaks. That's how this all started, Stallman wanted to fix the software that made a printer work, and he couldn't fix it.
However, you chose to make it freely available.
No, I chose to release it with limitations that prevent someone from reducing the amount of freedom that applies to use of my software.
GPL is saying if you want to use my code, then I have to be able to use your code.
Close, but not quite, it says that the users of your version have to have the same freedom that I gave you. You are under no obligation to give me your software, or even to let me know that it exists. One of your users might give me a copy, you can't stop that, but you don't have to.
Which I cannot provide because I just gave away $10M worth of my company's R & D budget when I was forced to release the source to my product.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
The iPad isn't OS X, it's iOS. There's a small difference, sure, but it's a derivative. Is it as closed as WM7? No. It's compromised in my judgment, but for its target market, it's doing very, very well. I'm not its target market. You probably aren't, either. Is it more open than Windows 7 Tablet Edition? I think not. More open than Android Honeycomb? No.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Er... people are not going to use OSX as samba domain controllers. This is an non-issue.
People here like to point out that you can't steal bits, so the bits of your "free software" must still be in your possession.
I never said it wasn't. And I don't generally download warez or pirate music, although I won't claim to be 100% innocent. I believe that copyright has a valid place in society, and one useful application of copyright is the GPL, it allows me to release software with restrictions that ensure that the end user has the freedom to fix and modify my software. That some middle-man does not have the freedom to hobble it and pass it on to end users in a restricted form is the intention of the GPL. I don't care about the middle-man, I care about the user.
Hell, we need more words.
Jicehix
The source code isn't that big of a concern for me and not giving out source code is more of a rude thing than an inhibition of freedom IMO, but they are restricting your use of the code they wrote by preventing redistribution and modification. If you have a copy of OS X and the means to share that copy, you would be able to do so absent the legal restrictions of copyright. Copyright takes freedom from you.
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spoken like a true cult follower. Keep up the good work for grand master Stallman.
Unless someone made his bits unavailable then his version is still available, so his contribution is still available right alongside the proprietary entangled version.
Society takes away some of your freedoms (such as the freedom to take what you want and kill people) in exchange for giving everyone a reasonable set of freedoms...
If you had a system where you gave people complete freedom, then a small number of people would abuse that system to sieze power and thus remove those freedoms from everyone else, ie an anarchy would quickly degenerate into war followed by an oppressive dictatorship.
The GPL works like society, it restricts *some* freedoms in order to protect many more.
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I don't consider it anymore rude than a neighbor not wanting me to inspect their their backyard. It's not my business. Stallman can declare a right to inspect code or backyards but I don't have to recognize it.
As for copyright it allows software to be written with a business model that is far more successful than anything the open source world has to offer. Preventing duplication allows the software company to recoup R&D. The GPL itself makes use of copyright
no rulers != no rules
It's a common mistake, but a state of anarchy does not require the absence of laws—only the absence of rulers. An anarchic society can still value and enforce a prohibition against murder, for example. Most non-pacifist models of anarchic society take the Non-Aggression Principle as a given, in some form, although they often disagree about the details—such as whether 'aggression' extends to one's property, in addition to one's person.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
Along with the OCSP infrastructure, plus the additional manpower and infrastructure to provide a way for users to generate a new cert for their signing key every couple of years.
A crypto key is free to generate. Certs are not, and without a cert, a bare crypto key provides no additional security.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
GPL is why Linux won over all the BSD's long ago (or so netcraft confirms).
Recall SunOS and Ultrix?
They were far far ahead of Linux at one point.
Because the BSD license didn't require them to share back, it was easy for those using them not to share back; and as a result Linux improved faster. Same will happen to Apple. It's wonderful for them now that they're very profitable and can hire whomever they need --- just as it was for Sun. But if Apple ever struggles and their recruiters can't attract whichever developers they want; they'll stall like all the other proprietary BSD forks did.
So long as you pass on to your customers the benefits that you gained by adopting GPL'd software, no problem. They can use it. If you want to pass on a version with additional restrictions on what they can do with the software, then no, you can't do that. And that's the entire point of the GPL. Is it so hard to understand?
Let me get this straight, I take your free crap and make it better and want to sell THAT. My customer is free to go get YOUR unchanged crap at their leisure. I have an incentive to make mine better. You want me to be forced to give away my improved version of your work, which gives me no incentive to improve on it in the first place (for people other than myself).
To be clear, in both models everyone is looking out for themselves. The difference is in one, we trade money for features other people want. In the other, we trade features WE as developers want.
Which do you think serves the public best?
We could say the same about Windows. "Windows licensing terms prevent commercialization, because I have to PAY to use the stuff, and I don't want to abide by those licensing terms."
Same thing with Apple."Apple's licensing terms prevent commercialization, because I have to PAY to use the stuff and do a whole bunch more, and I don't want to abide by those licensing terms just to try to get an App published."
It's not the GPL preventing Apple from using the software, but Apple's particular business model. See the difference?
I won't disagree that it does allow for a more successful business model (we would not have a software company as large as Microsoft without copyright), but a good business model is not what copyright is intended for. Copyright is supposed to provide an incentive to authors to write and publish more, hopefully outweighing the social costs of limited term monopolies. In that respect, copyright appears to have been an utter failure. Now, the GPL does make use of copyright, but absent typical usage of copyright, there would probably be little to no need for the GPL in the first place.
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"(For those who have no idea what I'm talking about, note that most GPL'd software is available from the authors with other licenses."
Actually, that's news to me. Samba is just one of a very long list of GPL software that I would not know how to buy.
It seems like it's taken the folks over and Samba many years to get a level of compatibility and stability out of their product (what, with MS changing things on purpose all the time and all).
How is Apple going to fair in that regard? It seems like they just opened pandora's box...attempting compatibility with SMB or CIFS seems like a pretty huge undertaking.
the GPL has the practical effect of ruining any mechanism for monetizing the software.
That is completely untrue. Red Hat is a successful commercial enterprise that uses mostly GPL software.
It would be even easier for Apple to make money on Samba because 99.9% of their users don't know how to download, compile, and configure Samba for their devices. 99% of them probably wouldn't even know it was an option: No one reads the fine print.
You can only "sell" a GPL'd piece of software if you are the author,
Untrue. You can sell GPL software as much as you want. You just have to make sure the source is also available.
Apple Corp is just a bunch of assholes who do not want to contribute to open source software.
No. We have such laws to protect others' right to live.
Rights are liberties. There is a distinction, but my statement isn't wrong.
Having the source code to a computer program, or ensuring that others do, is not, in any sense, a human right.
Ensuring that others have access to the source code of all derivatives of your program is a human (legal) right, yes, through copyright. Whether it should be a right or not is arguable.
Reading through your comment history (to better understand your point), I see you probably mean a natural right. Well, I'm skeptical about the existence of such rights, so I can't discuss it.
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I'm only with you on that for the LGPL actually. Since the GPL is indeed, rather viral. Most software is components nowadays, and GPL binds both the component and the application that uses the component. That's the part where freedom breaks down. Within my company I'm striving to give some more back to open source software, but that will never be GPL'ed software since we will never agree to fully open up a large product just because we want to be using a tiny GPL'ed library or program.
There are two GPL licenses and they are both copyleft licenses. There is the ordinary and there is the lesser. The lesser GPL (LGPL from here on in) is used on software you want to allow people to recompile/include in their own closed source works they can then resell without the consent of the copyright holder.
On the other hand, the ordinary GPL states that you cannot include the work in closed source works, only other open source works. With both, if you attempt to branch the work, the new work will still be covered by the license used to create the original work.
So to sum it up:
LGPL -> can be used in new closed source products and resold. For example AForge, an imaging framework, uses a LGPL.
GPL -> can only be used in other GPL style licensed products. For example Quake3 source. You cannot use (compile) this in a closed source project.
The FSF wants you to use the GPL to force more people to write open source software. I'm all for that.
From gnu.org:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#WhySomeGPLAndNotLGPL:
IMHO Apple is an enemy to open source software. They will drink from the open source font, but when it comes to opening their own software forget it. They hijack FreeBSD and turn it into an abomination of closed source commercialism, flying in the face of everything the copyleft license stands for. That's why instead of just switching their whole operation to open source ordinary GPL they scurry away and remove ordinary GPL software and scour the internet for other LGPL suckers they can suck the life out of to pad their own pockets.
Apple, stop it with the free ride, it took millions of man hours that you didn't pay for to build the software you so arrogantly call OSX. I love the prorogation of FOSS but I hate the way Apple treats everyone. Customers, fans, foes, they are all scum to Apple, to be used and discarded when they become a liability, Samba in this case, but there are many more. If Apple were any friend of open source they would not just use open source, they would be open source and license their software using the GPL.
Apple is so damned good at writing networking software ...
iPhone and friends do provide a way to import a signing certificate. It just costs money to obtain the certs because the infrastructure needed to support those certs costs money.
Therefore, the GPL effectively prevents any useful implementation of code signing.
Interesting conclusion you draw there. The GPLv3 only requires you to leave users with the option of living outside of a tightly controlled environment -- essentially, there needs to be some way for users to be able to run their own code. You only have to provide that option upon request; you do not have to make it as easy as "push this button to disable the signature check!" You can warn users that by importing a third party certificate, they are taking a risk with their security. Security and code signing is not equivalent to, "only Apple gets to sign code."
somebody is going to find a way to throw that switch without the user's knowledge.
Not if the switch requires the user to go to an Apple store in person. The switch does not need to be available in software, and even if it is, if prior to throwing the switch the user cannot run unsigned code, it is substantially hard for the attacker to activate it.
I've thought about this a lot, and I really don't see a better way that retains even a modicum of security from code signing.
Apparently your mode of thought treats all of Apple's customers as if they were all part of one big organization, with Apple acting as the IT department for that organization. This is a skewed view of the world; Apple's customers are not one big family, and Apple is not acting out of a desire to best serve their customers' collective interests.
Either way, the point is that it isn't a case of wanting control for control's sake, but rather wanting control to prevent harm to the users.
No, it is a case of control for profit's sake. Apple wants to get a cut of any money that anyone makes selling software for the iPad; they are not content to just make money selling iPads. This is not the first time we have seen this view of computing; it has been the standard for video game consoles for many years. As far back as the 1960s, companies were talking about computation as a utility, planning systems where users would be billing by the CPU-minute and the megabyte of RAM; that was not control for control's sake either, it was control for the sake of profit.
I realize that the notion of absolute freedom meaning absolute anarchy seems like a good idea to some folks, but most folks would prefer at least some limits to protect them from harm.
Which is exactly why importing a third part certificate, or running unsigned code, should be something that is optional and only made available to those users who ask for it. Security does not have to be draconian; Linux distros have been signing their packages for a long time, and there are plenty of users who just stick to their distro's official repositories and never import other certificates or run unsigned code. There is no reason why Apple could not follow a similar approach: sign all code, but allow users to opt out of the security that signing provides. Like I said, it would be perfectly reasonable to require people to show up at the Apple store, have someone warn them about security, agree to void their warranty, and have their tablet unlocked or enable some third party certificate.
Palm trees and 8
That's not the case at all. They are fully comptable, and the conjoined work becomes GPLv3. The GPLv3 is actually more compatible with other licenses than the GPLv2.
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/quick-guide-gplv3-compatibility.png
This is about goals. It appears to me that the advocates of GPLv3 were willing to reduce the proliferation of software using this license to achieve some new level of "purity". Sadly, they were either unaware or uncaring about the concerns of some people who might want to improve that software and this is now resulting in developers abandoning formerly useful software like Samba.
From my perspective as a developer, GPLv3 practically eliminates my desire and ability to use software under this license. It is too bad, because this encourages the creation of closed software where the user does not get any rights.
Nice going, FSF, you are succeeding in your efforts at "purity", while slowing killing the implementation of the very ideas you espouse.
Yeah, like anyone's using Macs anymore. Might as well worry about Amiga not supporting USB.
My idea was to give every user a CA cert that was trusted on THEIR device, and none other. No need for any OCSP, only user-compiled source would run without being signed by Apple, and it would only run on their own device.
The necessity to jail break things you bought and paid for in order to use them is the main new thing prevented by gpl3. No tivoization, no locked handsets, etc.
Companies are complying with the letter of gpl2-- they will provide the source to i.e., the kernel, but the owners of the devices are still restricted from freely using the hardware they bought and paid for, by these companies requiring things like signed kernels to boot.
I don't see that. I see steady progress for the GPL. When the GPL came out in 1984 virtually all free software was under MIT/BSD style licenses. It wasn't until 1990 that there was a core of support around the GPL at all. Linus was part of that core and his Minix replacement kernel was a definite second fiddle to the Free386 BSD kernel. There were a few tools available in 1990.
By 1995 you had the LAMP stack and that was GPLed. GCC was GPLed.
By 2000 you had the creation of a GPLed desktop environment (KDE).
Today you have JBOSS, MySQL, and many of the crucial components of operating systems under the GPL.
Where do you see failure. As for Linux not in other areas your first example was financial: http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/new-york-stock-exchange-moves-to-linux.html
That's a false argument. If i got the code from the author, then you're free to get the code from the author. If I make changes to the code, then those changes are MY code, not the original authors. You're free to get the original code from the original author and make your own changes, just as I was.
In this day of the internet, the "distribute code with binary" argument is really lame.
All the viral part of the GPL does is extract a form of reciprocation. It's not about freedom, it's about payback.
If you need web hosting, you could do worse than here
Because total freedom includes the freedom to deny freedom to others.
Total freedom is equivalent to some kind of combination of anarchy and libertarian anarcho-capitalism.
It ends up being pretty oppressive for the non-swift or non-bold or non-ruthless.
So some systems, like GPL, which are trying to promote the "most amount of freedom for the
most people" have to have some consitutional rules to guard that overall fair state.
In a way it's analogous to a market. Many are advocates of a "free market",
but of course a free market cannot function without rules (against insider trading, against hacking the trading system,
against fraudulent financial statements or prospectuses) and punishments for violating the rules,
so again, not totally free. But seems to work. That's the key. A level of freedom designed carefully to
conserve the most amount of freedom for the largest number of people and to have it continue to work
despite people trying to game and corrupt the system.
Clever if you ask me, and laudable.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
GPL is bad.
Bullshit.
Well some of the biggest commercial supporters are abandoning projects like gcc because of it.
Bullshit. Freedom that gives the right to lock out the next person is not automatically more about freedom than freedom that protects also the next persons freedom.
But you aren't 'locking out' the 'next person', the code is free and is free to be used however anyone wants, no-one can come along and lock anyone out of using that code. You have the freedom to take it and use it however you want, that does not impact anyone elses freedom to use that code.
Im a End user and I cant use open source software on my preferred device despite the fact the code is accessible and free for all to see.
As an end user GPLv3 doesn't stop you to use the software on whichever device you choose.
GPL (all versions) are copyright license. They only kick in when *distributing* code, not using it. Copyright law says you can't copy without proper license, GPL explain what you need to do to obtain the right to copy (give the code with the same freedom as you received it).
You can run GPL code on any device you choose. Including on Macs running OSX, including on iPhones running iOS, including linux powered toasters. If you can't currently run it on a non-jailbroken iDevice, this is due to the limitations that Apple puts on you.
You'll still be able to use Samba on Mac OS X Lion and even on future versions, as long as Apple doesn't introduce some limitations that prevent you from running arbitrary applications. You could also run Samba on your iPhone / iPod / iPad, but that will require you to either pay for the developer's kit (so you can compile, sign and upload your own code) or jail-breaking the device (so you can run unsigned code).
Apple is not interested in using Samba in iDevice, not because the GPLv3 forbids them to per se (there's no "Apple is forbiden to use this" clause), but because the whole concept behind GPL is to always ensure that the end user has the freedom to hack this code, and apple doesn't want it. Apple want to control what runs on a device, and keep it locked behind signing keys. GPLv3 would require them to hand out said keys.
That's why they prefer BSD type licensing. BSD allows them to get the code, but allows them to limit the freedom of end users and stop the end-user from doing what they want. They use chunks of FreeBSD code into OS-X and iOS. Code that they got for free. But they can lock this code on iDevice and prevent you, the end user to further modify it. Apple want to have the lunch and eat it too.
So if you look at the details, it's all Apple's fault because :
- They don't want users to do what they want. They block it with DRM.
- GPL licenses are designed with the purpose to always let the users do what they want (as long as this freedom is passed to the next in the copy-chain)
- Apple prefers no to use GPL code because it interferes with their intentions of limiting the freedom of the end user.
Is the point of the GPL to protect and share knowledge (code) or to force every one to operate under Richard Stallmans vision. GPL v3 is political. GPLv2 was about the code.
The point of the GPL, the whole point of the GPL, is to make sure that anyone can do whatever he/she wants with GPLed code, as long as this freedom is passed on to the next in chain. There's no intent to protect anything, just intent to be sure that anyone gets the same right to play with the stuff. Every single end user out there should always be able to hack the code, if wanted. Nobody should prevent this and restrict this freedom from the end-user.
GPL makes sure that all get the same freedom.
GPLv2 makes sure that all get the same freedom, even if a company uses patents while still distributing the source code as required by GPLv1
GPLv3 makes sure that all get the same freedom, even if a company uses DRM while still distributing the source code as required by GPLv2.
GPLv3 didn't introduce anything political.
It's just the hardware vendors finding new way to abid to the letter of the GPL (and provide a copy of the source to the end user), while at the same time finding new ways to circumvent the spirit of the license (GPL is about letting the end users do what he/she want, but the manufacturer finds a way to prevent it).
The latest invention of manufacturer is DRM. You get the code, but you can't do what you want with it, because if you want to modify it, you must sign it before uploading it (as the device doesn't run non-signed code) and you don't have t
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
No, it's limiting the lock down of otherwise Free Software. That it exposes corporations for being control freaks unwilling to respect end-user freedom is simply a benefit.
I don't disagree with you, that is absolutely the purpose of it. But if enough of the end-users actually cared about it then wouldn't a company that purposely doesn't do such things flourish?
allows possible security holes
What?
Security holes for the company, not necessarily the user of the device.
IE, if the user is able to modify the code running on his device, it takes control of that device out of the realm of control of that company. They would see that as a security hole.
They contributed code to the Samba project with the understanding it would be distributed under the GPL2
Well they made a faulty assumption unless we can see where the Samba development team officially said "we are not moving the GPLv3 at any point in the future."
"...it is concerned about the absolute freedom of the software, not the user or developer."
If that is what it means, y'all need a better way of saying it. Say what you mean and mean what you say.
"Information" (e.g. software) does not have wants and desires. It is confusing as hell to keep saying "Information wants..." or "freedom of the software". I have no idea WTF that means and I don't think everybody interprets it the same way as you. So as far as a communication goes, it is an epic fail.
Samba has always been GPLvXX-or-later licensed. Everyone who contributes is aware of this fact. Currently we're v3-or-later. Who knows if there'll ever be a v4, but if there is we'd have no problems moving to it as it's already implicit in all code contributions.
Jeremy.
You're wrong. The big 3 BSD projects all innovate and improve. The only reason we're behind is that linux got a head start due to the UCB lawsuit years ago. Think about how many people work on the linux kernel and how many times they have to rewrite things because they rushed into something without thinking it out. Linus does a good job, but other people screw things up a lot. BSD projects are usually much more mature. They have older developers. They like software engineering.
I'll give you that my project is not going that fast and a few of the other smaller BSDs, but trying to say that FreeBSD or NetBSD is slow is just insane. They don't target the same things as the Linux community.
Apple will drop OS X for iOS at some point. It's inevitable. The question is will MidnightBSD, PC-BSD, GhostBSD or some other desktop focused BSD catch up to Linux or Mac OS at some point and get competative. I don't know.
MidnightBSD: The BSD for Everyone
The GPL license is free as in liberty.
No it isn't. Liberty is about being able to govern yourself and act according to your own free will, the fact that the GPL imposes any kind of restrictions whatsoever is a direct contradiction to the idea of liberty.
They may accept tablets being limited but already their is a bit of a backlash. No way will it be accepted on computers.
Don't you see what will happen?
Computers will go away. Tablets will eventually be all there is from Apple, perhaps.
They'll make at first an iMac that you can pick up and use as a tablet.
E.g. Keyboard and mouse are already wireless.
Just unplug the charging cable and take it out of its stand, and it's automatically an iPad, fully locked down as all their tablets are.
Plug it back in and it'll be a full blown Mac again.
Maybe that's it for now.... but eventually, the full blown OS and the Tablet OS become one and the same (gradually), fully locked down.
The GPLv3 conflicts with this strategy, so git rid of all GPLv3 software ASAP to ensure the userbase breaks their attachment with it... by the time anyone realizes what's going on, it will be too late.
...You mean, like, IBM ?! You mean Red Hat (stocks up this week, all thanks to their proprietary per-seat licennsing, just like *all* the other players...)
Geez, seriously delusional...Get some info in your brain.
Main difference between the BSD license and the GPL license: one is from California and the other is from Massachusetts
That's not the case at all. They are fully comptable, and the conjoined work becomes GPLv3.
FALSE. If you did the research, and read the licenses, or at least the FAQ, you would learn something:
Q: Is GPLv3 compatible with GPLv2?
A: No. Some of the requirements in GPLv3, such as the requirement to provide Installation Information, do not exist in GPLv2. As a result, the licenses are not compatible: if you tried to combine code released under both these licenses, you would violate section 6 of GPLv2.
The ONLY exception is if the author included a statement in the source code that allows you to distribute their code under any future version of the GPL (which they sometimes do), but that would not be because the licenses were compatible -- that would be because the author gave the FSF a blank check to offer new licenses that may be used with the code.
Your using the "Your not free if you are not fee to own slaves." argument. It is a BS argument. All things have restrictions. GPLv3 is a communist sort of freedom. (each to their need, each to their ability) BSD is more like sociopath freedom. Freedom for me, but I don't give a crap about you unless it benefits me.
So, line up people... Are you a GPL communist or a BSD sociopath?
They were making it harder for users of software to edit it. That's not "Evil" but it's not helpful so there's no reason to help Apple do it. Let them rewrite whatever they want.
and people with an interest in engineering things for the world to benefit from and making a living in the process have a very well qualified criticism.
Yeah, and the proper response to that is, "Then don't fucking use GPL code. Really, it's not that hard. Christ."
Neither. The whole debate is pointless.
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
I don't think you understand what "free in as beer" means. When something is free as in beer, you are welcome to drink as much of it as you want for no charge. You don't get the recipe to the beer, you aren't given the ingredients, you don't get a say in how the beer should taste or could be tweaked for the better.
The "free beer" comparison doesn't even make sense. First, how often is it that you find beer that you don't have to pay a penny for? And second, on the ingredients, I can guarantee that the primary ones are almost always water, some strain of yeast, malted barley of some variety, and some variety of hops for bittering. Maybe some beers, especially holiday ales, contain spices like ginger and cinnamon, and many of the craft breweries aren't afraid to advertise what extra spices they add. Furthermore, many craft breweries even list (often on their official site) what type of barley and hops they use... Samuel Adams and Sierra Nevada are two that make this information available. Of course, the exact proportions remain a mystery, so you'll never get it exact if you absolutely must attempt re-creating it.
Of course... there are also many beers that don't mention what type of barley/hops they use, so it's not always so obvious. But still, I think the free beer analogy to free software is pretty dumb.
Gotta love freedtards. A single post of "bullshit" contributes nothing yet still gets upmodded...
However, most of them are 1.) simply angry that they cannot use all the great stuff for their own shitty proprietary software
Your argument was ok until you showed yourself as an OSS zealot by labeling OSS 'great stuff' and proprietary stuff 'shitty'. Fail.
I said exactly this. That they know what's happening and are presumably fine with it. Elsewhere I state this is a religious debate, but don't begrudge you for not being familiar with my other posts.
My post was specifically referring to the standard claim by BSD license proponents that copies don't matter. I'm sure they don't matter so much to those who prefer the BSD license, but they very much matter when talking about copyright. You can't just claim copies don't matter when discussing the merits of different copyright licenses.
GPL proponents want the copies to be free, BSD license proponents don't seem to care as much. Neither is "right", they are just different.
Read the context we aren't disagreeing you are agreeing with me.
There's definitely plenty of crazy to go around, if that's what you're trying to say.
Every author included that statement its section 9 of the GPLv2. The options under the GPL are
X or later
X or another GPL license
Confused about what that has to do with whether the GPLv3 is dictatorial.
Break down that word first. an-archy. Anarchy is lack of arbitrary rule. As it applies to software, no one can "own" the code itself (since code isn't a scarce resource like economic goods are, at best you can only own instances of code, like the hard drive), there are only authors. But nothing implies that the authors have any right to tell another person owning a separate instance of code how they are allowed to distribute copies - that would be arbitrary rule, a non-owner (even if author) forcing the owner of property how they are allowed to act within their own person.
Wonder what the public key field is for?
I understand how they could do it. The problem is a fully locked down computer is much less useful than an unlocked down one.
For example to maintain security they don't allow interpreters. That kills VBA which is needed or office. It kills Applescript which their general end users do use and take advantage of.
Signing code is complex, which makes the compile -> test -> debug cycle hard. For iOS that isn't a huge problem because you can run emulators on OSX, so you don't sign until late alpha / early beta? But what do you emulate OSX on?
The whole basis of not having problems with their Unix layer is macports / fink which are compiling apps all the time.
I don't see it.
Forcing apps to be signed to run on the iPhone is dictatorial, but saying you can't have signed apps as per the GPLv3 is also dictatorial, so I personally find both Apple and FSF are dictatorships, with zealous charismatic leaders at the head.
This is inane. Neither are dictatorships any more than your local Safeway is a dictatorship. When you make a product, you set the rules. Dictators forcibly tell *others* what they can and cannot do in an intrusive and unlimited way. You're free to accept or decline Apple's, FSF's, and Safeway's terms.
In fact, I'd argue that Apple and RMS's goals are actually more similar than dissimilar in some respects (on most Apple appliances the software is free, but source disclosure is the missing piece).
I really shouldn't have wasted the word "inane" for the first part.
If history is any guide, the Apple replacement project is likely to be released as an open source project, under a BSD style license.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
Who the hell uses OSX anymore? The apple fan base gets a lot of publicity but its mainly gadgets not their computers. Their Server offerings were so awful everyone dropped them anyway and went back to Linux. This, really does not matter, but it shows the beginning of the end for Apple. Though the NeXT based kernel concept is cute, nobody really cares anymore, especially about anything to do with BSD - Monolithic kernels won the war when they started to develop good realtime characteristics.
Yes, the GPL annoys me too. But so does Apple. :)
Every author included that statement its section 9 of the GPLv2. The options under the GPL are
Not true. Congrats again for failing to actually read the GPL. The GPL only offers later versions if the author stated you may use any later version, OR if the author failed to state a version number. The kernel itself is a good example of a program that may only be distributed under the GPL version 2. Distribution under any other version of the GPL than stated by the copyright owner as allowed would be copyright infringement.
The GPLv2 says accordingly:
Which do you think serves the public best?
You are offering a tradeoff - an improved product, but with restrictions on the user's ability to fix any bugs in that product. The FSF philosophy is that losing that freedom is a very high price to pay for your improvements. You're free to believe that it is not a high price, fine, choose some other crap software with looser licencing to improve, not my crap software.
For example to maintain security they don't allow interpreters. That kills VBA which is needed or office. It kills Applescript which their general end users do use and take advantage of.
I assume they'll build a walled garden for Office, and allow some form of macros inside that walled garden.
Signing code is complex, which makes the compile -> test -> debug cycle hard. For iOS that isn't a huge problem because you can run emulators on OSX, so you don't sign until late alpha / early beta? But what do you emulate OSX on?
Yeah.. i'm sure if they do it, they'll sell a more expensive machine or software to developers that isn't locked down.
Folks with luxurious needs will just pay more... including artists who need scripting/macros for their professional production work
Or they migth allow limited scripting
Missed that typo I must of been holding down the shift key.
LGPL does not equal the GPL
Momento Mori
FTFY:
a) Contribute to the open source world
b) Buy another license from the author on more favorable terms, and thus contribute financially to open source.
c) Use open source from a project that is less restrictive (more open) than GPL code; like apache or bsd licensed code.
d) Pay or develop proprietary code, and the open source world loses potential contributions.
The latter is what Apple is doing. The copyright owners of GCC and Samba have used a more onerous version of the GPL, and Apple decided it wanted to move further away from the open source world. Even if they didn't contribute a lot to the open source world, at least they were training developers to use and program open source code. And developers don't stay in one place forever. They would have went elsewhere and brought their expertise in open source code with them. Now when they go somewhere else, they won't bring that knowledge and experience with them. Granted they will likely have useful experience; just not open source coding.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
I assume you are talking about the below clause from the GPLv3. This does not disallow code signing per se, it disallows the use of code signing as a DCMA measure to prevent copying of copy-left software. Giving the end-user control of the signing keys so they can approve binaries themselves gives you the security from third party malicious code that you want, without taking away the user's freedoms under the GPL.
(From GPLv3)
3. Protecting Users' Legal Rights From Anti-Circumvention Law.
No covered work shall be deemed part of an effective technological measure under any applicable law fulfilling obligations under article 11 of the WIPO copyright treaty adopted on 20 December 1996, or similar laws prohibiting or restricting circumvention of such measures.
When you convey a covered work, you waive any legal power to forbid circumvention of technological measures to the extent such circumvention is effected by exercising rights under this License with respect to the covered work, and you disclaim any intention to limit operation or modification of the work as a means of enforcing, against the work's users, your or third parties' legal rights to forbid circumvention of technological measures.
With the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad Apple is selling some very, very popular devices. The software on these devices, and what you can and also what you can't do with them has a lot to do with the popularity. If you sold cars and started explaining to potential customers all the different ways you can tune the engine, then some (few) would be delighted, some wouldn't care, and some would _run_.
Which is why all cars nowadays are sold with the hood welded shut.
Oh, wait.
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
I think a great deal of people on this site would argue that this statement is very truthful and we loose liberty every day from the actions of congress.
Momento Mori
BSD doesn't restrict what anyone can do with the code released under BSD license. Derivitive works can be restricted yes, but they don't remove the original BSD licensed code from circulation. If the original implementation of TCP/IP was GPLv3 licensed, where do you think the internet would be today?
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Bad choice of words you are going to get this by a few people I would guess.
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." --Benjamin Franklin
You should of said something like sometimes a closed system is simpler by design. That I wouldn't hold against you, but the freedom for security doesn't even hold up with your argument. You really meant to say sometimes you give up freedom for stability. This is often true even outside computing.
Momento Mori
GCD was post 2004, as is CLANG, which is totally open and BSD licensed.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
What you expect from a license from the same guy who doesn't believe in passwords being necessary for computers (RMS, google it)?
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Man, I've posted a lot in this thread today. But I wish I had mod points to rate this up. It is just brilliant.
Momento Mori
This is only true if there is a vulnerability in the keystore that allows unauthorised software to install keys to authorize itself. Requiring expensive code signing certificates from a recognized CA does not fix such a hole.
Requiring signed code is not more secure than unsigned code, as signing certificates are available for a fixed fee. I don't know of any CA that carefully checks all the source code of the requestor to ensure it is not malicious before issuing a certificate.
Heh. Samba is probably a good "poster child" for the sort of open-source software with so many contributors that nobody can reasonably be expected to coordinate them all to agree on offering a second license. Such discussions would naturally break down into the sort of flamefest that we see here all the time.
But, as someone else just commented, this is somewhat of an extreme case. Most open-source projects have a rather small set of developers, so it's not too hard for them to discuss such things and agree on what licenses they will allow. With only a handful of contributors, it's also possible to decide on how to divide up any income that might arise from such things.
The FOSS model doesn't scale well to large groups of software developers. The image of "herding cats" comes to mind ...
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
And yet something tells me that if I walked into your house, picked up your computer, and started walking out again, you would probably try to stop me. You [i]will[/i] stop valuing my freedom to do what I want at the point where you no longer agree with what I'm doing. I guess you're a hypocrite too, huh?
That's a fascinating argument. Shame it is completely contradicted by this little thing called reality. Compare the number of WP7 handsets to the number of Android handsets and let me know how sure you are that people are avoiding the open source option.
Sure, people using Android are being sued. So are people not using Android. Everyone is suing everyone for everything. There is no "guaranteed legally good alternative" and there is no truth to your assertion that free software is perceived as a less good alternative. You are pulling baseless claims out of your ass.
Wow, my bad, you're not making serious arguments at all. Great troll there. You totally got me. I lose. I will have a nice day.
You, sir, are possibly the first person I have ever seen basically describing the Emancipation Proclamation as "Orwellian doublespeak".
That Lincoln! How did he dare to claim to be supporting liberty when he forced -- yes, forced people, at literal gunpoint, to give other people the same freedoms they enjoyed themselves! Truly this was a foreshadowing of Big Brother.
Are such "legal hacks" actually a good idea? They don't create a track-record of legal precedence, so its not a valid means of creating change in the legal system.
Here I used "hack" in an MIT way, meaning a legitimate ingenuity. There has been plenty of testing, and GPL held up in courts just fine.
In the end that purely comes down to opinion - just as RMS does not see any need for even password authentication on login to computers while I have a very different opinion.
I really don't want any random script kiddy to be able to flash my router from the net so for some things it makes sense. On the other side of things I don't want to be locked out of my own hardware. It's a case by case thing so blanket rules are far too much of a blunt instrument.
It's also odd that Apple here is caring more about licences that the guy that chose to move Samba to GPLv3 in the first place. If you use something (eg. bitkeeper) you should stick to the licence even if you think the terms are stupid otherwise you cannot expect other people to respect the licences on your stuff. Here we have exactly that situation - Apple is expected to comply with the terms of somebody that ended up in the press for getting caught in a licence violation which ended up with the entire linux project having to manage source code with a completely different application.
And yet for some reason GPL-licensed Linux is everywhere, and FreeBSD/OpenBSD/NetBSD are niche products. Why is it that most companies that want to migrate from legacy UNIX servers are choosing to migrate to Linux rather than a BSD, if the GPL is such a terrifying thing and the BSD license is so much better?
Perhaps it's something to do with the fact that GPL-embracing companies such as Red Hat have invested so much money in improving Linux. And since Linux is GPL, everyone who has built a product by improving it has released those improvements. So Linux has improved rapidly, while by some miracle Red Hat has not yet been destroyed by the GPL's poisonous touch.
On the other hand, companies that have built products on BSD bases, such as Apple, have tended not to release all their improvements. Most of Apple's interesting, useful improvements have been kept private. Who has benefited from the BSD license? Apple. Only Apple. Certainly not the open source community, which has merely been thrown the bone of Darwin, a project that recently passed the significant milestone of 500 users worldwide.
But wait, you cry! What about CUPS? What about WebKit? Apple so does give things back!
Ooh, guess what? Those both use GNU licenses, not BSD! That's why Apple gives their improvements back -- because they have to. If they didn't have to, they most likely wouldn't. So thanks to the GNU copyleft approach we all, Linux and BSD alike, have a better printing system and better web browsers.
Now tell me you seriously think the GPL is harming open source and BSD would be the cure. Because I'm sorry to say that reality seems to disagree.
If you write BSD code, you are a creator of proprietary software, as much as you're a creator of free software. You are *both*. You contribute to a project that takes freedom away from its users. It doesn't matter that your contributions are also free, the whole isn't. For that one user of, freedom is withheld due to your decision to give the slave driver the ability to enslave. It is like saying: I simply provided the guns, I'm not responsible for the killings. Well, when you provide a gun to a murderer. You are. GPL is a way of avoid doing that.
It's reciprocal. Really, you BSD guys just don't see non-free software as evil, that's what the problem is. It's better not to have proprietary software at all: Software will be substituted eventually, while having non-free software would just postpone that with freedoms lost in the meantime (Would this be a worse world without Windows? Are you sure?). Comparing the ability to make private modifications with the ability to use in non-free software thus fails. It's not the same.
Free software is an ideology. You either think it's important, or you don't. Thinking it's nice to have it is not really middle ground.
But the people you distribute to get the same sort of freedom which you got when it was distributed to you - if it's not liberty for you, it isn't liberty for them either.
GPLv3...which prevents Apple from using the software commercially.
I thought we killed that old canard back in 1999. There's nothing in GPLv3 that's substantially more anti-"commercial" than in GPLv2. Actually, GPLv3 is a lot better in a lot of ways. For example, if you screw up and violate its terms, GPLv3 isn't terminated permanently, unlike GPLv2.
The problem with this view is that by and large the liberties provided by the GPL are only useful to end users if they -are- developers.
Linus didn't upgrade the Linux kernel to GPLv3. If you want to know why, see here.
In the Tivo case, it was a DRM issue, and possible an issue here with Samba and Apple. If Apple wants to take their OS X software toward iOS and start locking down the computer, they're going to need to
1.) Change the definition of computer or call their computers something else, like they did successfully with the iPad not being a tablet PC or Macs not being called PCs, even though the definition of PC is simply "personal computer" (side note: why aren't business computers called BCs?)
and
2.) Lock it up so people can't tamper with it.
They can't do number 2 as most developers that choose GPLv3 specifically, do it to keep DRM away, which is what signed binaries are. Why go iOS route is understandable too. Most computer users in the US and other developed countries can't use a computer beyond the applications they use every day. Installing software is too complicated, even on Macs where it's literally drag and drop (for most apps, not all). Drivers? Don't bother. Software: Why is it soft? Those that peruse Slashdot aren't part of this crowd, but computers have always been made to fit us because we've been the consistent buyers. Now, computers are so cheap that anyone can afford them, even if they don't know how to use them. Our software will have to change to fit those people whom technology is a black art, especially since processor speeds have really stagnated in the past couple of years.
Side note. Read these post of what processors should have been now, discussed back in early 2006. It's sad that their expectations have been crushed by today's standards of PCs.
http://www.knowledgesutra.com/forums/topic/34141-cpus-with-5-ghz-clock-speeds-on-their-way/
Well, if the code can be used by corporations or business citizens without restrictions how is the original developer supposed to make money. Oh, look, this isn't about business models, what a surprise!
Reread my comment. Those were moves made during the 1997-2004 period when Apple was having a rough time.
Wrong. As noted, several of those moves were post-2004.
They did close Darwin for example.
"Close" in what sense?
If a developer doesn't distribute, the the developer hasn't distributed and the GPL didn't apply.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
Yeah.. i'm sure if they do it, they'll sell a more expensive machine or software to developers that isn't locked down.
They already do. They're called "Macs". The locked-down less expensive machines are called "iPhones", "iPod touches", and "iPads".
You can easily comply with GPL3 by giving the user the option to run self-signed code, since the user is OK with restrictions they will not do so.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
Look, as the GP said, it's very simple. A society that forbidds slavery is more free than one that doesn't. Freedom has very little to do with the number of rules in a society and everything to do with the nature of the rules of a society.
Stefan Axelsson
I have to laugh, because Apple does not decide here. It's the FreeBSD project that aims towards LLVM since long time already. Earlier when Apple "decided" about using ZFS, it was FreeBSD that implemented it. Apple had to remove it again, because of license restrictions that work well only for free projects.
It is really stupid to say "Apple decided" because their system is in large parts derived from independent projects. They don't decide about anything there. They have to accept it.
Look at gcc as another example. Apple have thrown their weight behind clang so all the Objective C development in gcc is danger of going bitrotten. I can also imagine that if clang starts to pull ahead (as it already looks like doing) that maybe even some BSD & even Linux based dists might consider using it.
Apple isn't the only one by any stretch either. There is a very good reason that the kernel and certain tools like uclibc & busybox don't adopt GPLv3 and its for the same reason. It would be suicide to do it. I expect in those cases that there would be so many disgruntled people that the project *would* branch and the official branch would die on the vine.
Your argument was ok until you showed yourself as an OSS zealot by labeling OSS 'great stuff' and proprietary stuff 'shitty'. Fail.
I was referring to the sentiment of the angry developers not to my own sentiment, though. Should have been more clear about that. There are plenty of able proprietary software developers that don't have to rely on OSS libraries and write good software. If they need some functionality, they just implement it on their own. These developers are usually not angry about the GPL.
The angry ones are those that when confronted with a problem look for a library or tool (because they can't solve the problem on their own), and then get angry when the tool is under GPL. You know, the guys that essentially want to write wrappers around complicated 3rd party tools and then want to sell it as their own software. Their software tends to be less good, or, as I termed it emphatically 'shitty', and they know it. And btw, in this context it's absolutely fair to say that OSS is great stuff. If you're looking for libraries or tools that solve a particular complicated problem (e.g. kernels, curve fitting, theorem solving, databases, natural language processing, data mining, etc.) you'll nowadays find more useful libraries and tools as OSS than proprietary ones.
How can you say it does not when it clearly does. Can I get GPL v3 Software for my iphone. NO I cant. Its not compatible with the distribution method.
Yes, you can.
You can *GET* GPLv3 software, and try to upload it into your iPhone :
You can download the source, compile it, and try to upload it (either by paying for the SDK or by jailbreaking the phone).
The GPLv3 will only prevent you from publishing binaries that other users can't modify themselves.
So, if you go through the SDK route, you can't publish the binaries, because they need to be signed to be modified and you can't publish the signing key together.(Thank you, Apple !).
If you go through the jail breaking route, you can publish everything you want, as other users aren't prevented to replace component of your software.
So yes that clause does affect me the end user. Good open source software is not on the App store or not for long because of this. Even though the code is free for all to use the distribution method isn't compatible.
What you can't get is precompiled GPLv3 software from the App Store. Because by Apple's design the whole iPhone ecosystem is specially designed so you can't hack your software and you can't do what you want with hardware and software you own. And the GPL is - by design - here to enforce that the end user can have this freedoms to hack.
The whole GPL license is about making sure that the end user can modify the software no matter what. That was the reason it was created back then, that's how it still works today.
The iPhone/iPod/iPad are closed platforms. There are designed so you can't modify the software. This is clearly exactly the opposite of the idea behind GPL and Free Software.
Don't put the blame on GPL for what's done by Apple being control-maniacs and prevent the user doing anything which isn't approved by Saint-Jobs. It's not RMS's fault that iPhones are pieces of crap which need to be jailbroken before being anything close to useful.
If you're not happy, vote with your wallet. Buy phone without such crappy restriction.
Mine is WebOS powered. I just type a command if I want to install non-HP/Palm-approved software.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
OK, there is this long discussion above about freedom.
The creators of the GPL(v3) have one party in mind when they talk about freedom. It is not the developers, it is not the businesses. It is about the users of the software. They want to give as much freedom to the user first. This means the user of the software should always get the source of the software he is using so he/she does not depend on one vendor. There are some clauses about patents too, but they are also about giving the users of the software the ability to take the source and go to an other developer and having them add or remove other functions the original developer didn't want to do.
The BSD-license is about giving the developer the most freedom. They can sell it commercially, adopt it as something new and don't give anyone else the source.
Apparently Apple isn't about giving users the most freedom, but I guess you already knew that. ;-)
New things are always on the horizon
I pretty much agree with you. And I don't understand why a well written post has to be -1/Troll just because people on here don't agree with it.
What I really find completely stupid is releasing some library (or library-type product) with GPL (instead of LGPL or something else). It makes absolutely no sense that an entire software product that is 100x larger than the library is forced to be open-source just because you are using some library. Guess what that means - no commercial application will use it, which could have been a big win in terms of bug reports, contributing code, and publicity.
Read the context. We are talking in terms of a hypothetical where Macs are the ones being locked down. You aren't disagreeing with my point you are agreeing that Macs support for iOS is what makes this possible.
Well you see the problem.
Walled garden for office .....
Walled garden for Adobe apps (which have scripting)
Walled garden for Quark
Walled garden for iOS development
This is exactly what happened to Microsoft with NT4 in terms of security. The "OS" was very secure but the applications, including things like the shell, were all on another layer which wasn't. Their applications, including things like IIS were incompatible with their security model. That strategy is a mess.
Apple is able, so far to pull it off because iPhones aren't used for anything complex. They are able to pull it off because roughly 100% of iPad users also own a laptop. In other words these things are limited secondary and tertiary devices.
Now what they might do is have two entirely different machines. One that is "professional grade" that is less locked down and one that is consumer grade. Apple has always wanted a larger differentiation between the macbook and the macbook pro and having the pro be able to run thousands of applications the macbook can't.....
Maybe it's because Apple doesn't sign their paycheck.
Maybe it's because they like the protection of the GPLv3 more than they would like their hugely popular software to run on the Apple platform as well.
One thing is certain though. They don't need to justify their choice. If you don't like GPLv3, don't use their software or fork from the GPLv2.
The hope is that (d) is more expensive than (b). When its not, for similar quality open source has rarely been able to win.
http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/index.cfm?NewsID=14663&Page=1&pagePos=8
including things like the shell, were all on another layer which wasn't. Their applications, including things like IIS were incompatible with their security model. That strategy is a mess.
There is no requirement that all 'locked down apps' share the same walled garden.
NT's failure wasn't an inherent failure.
And sometimes the perception of high security is better than being perfectly secure against every theoretical attack. Especially when you are trying to sell a product.
Raising the bar for security attackers much higher is almost as good as making security attacks impossible.
The criminals will go after easier targets. Like the human using the hardened devices (e.g. Phishing).
"then the part that is my contribution is no longer free"
False. Your contributions are still free unless they removed your source code form the internet as well. People will still have access to your code via SourceForge/etc.
Once they make a change to your software, it is no longer the same software.
I am not arguing for or against, but your argument is flawed. I'm trying to provide constructive criticism as it's easier to be a critic that to make up my own argument.
Expensive is relative. In Apple's case, I would bet that it is more expensive to develop the code, but far cheaper than if they had to give away big chunks of their revenue generating operating system.
This is the biggest problem with the GPL that I rail against, and which is the crux of the current issue. The GPL, especially v3, makes if very difficult, if not impossible, to use/link GPL code with proprietary code. There should be a way that libraries can be used/called etc. without having to impinge on either party (and I'm not talking about using LGPL either). I might understand if they wanted to get so narrow as to say, 'if you modify our GPL code so that it works better with your own code, then you need to give away your own code'. What I don't like is the idea that you should give away your own code if 'you link our black box binaries' (libraries or whatever... which is how I interpret the GPL). After all, you aren't copying anyone's source code, so how the heck can you be violating their copyright.
Anyway, just the price of something isn't the only factor. It is also what it can cost (in other terms than purchase price or implementation cost).
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
Read the context. We are talking in terms of a hypothetical where Macs are the ones being locked down. You aren't disagreeing with my point you are agreeing that Macs support for iOS is what makes this possible.
Actually, what I'm saying is that I'm not sure why the heck Apple would bother locking down Macs, rather than just saying "we sell iOS machines for people who are happy with machines that can only run software that we bless, and we sell Macs for people who aren't", which is what they are, in effect, saying now.
http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/index.cfm?NewsID=14663&Page=1&pagePos=8
Yeah, I remember that when it was mentioned on Slashdot, and the usual low S/N ratio discussion that followed. And, surprise surprise, Apple made the source to the Intel versions available, so Apple didn't "close down OS X", they just hadn't gotten around to releasing the source yet. Way to jump to a conclusion, dude....
Well, exactly. This is the loophole GPLv3 is designed to close - preventing users from controlling their own hardware (and potentially shooting themselves in the foot).
If you claim that this aspect of security is more important than users' freedom to control their own hardware, then, yes, you have found a fundamental point of contention between you and authors who license under the GPLv3.
I think you have a point in that GPLv3 may be genuinely incompatible with users that are so ignorant as to be tricked into installing malicious software, no matter how clear the UI is about what they're doing. I suspect that's consonant with the stated goals of the FSF - users that ignorant really can be a threat to all our software freedoms, in the same way that ignorant voters are a threat to everyone's freedom.
(The above sounds pretty negative towards the idea of security by lockdown, and I do believe the GPLv3 and free software are important goods in the world. But I personally have no qualms about writing or buying proprietary software, and sometimes I like to be ignorant and protected from myself, too. Like with voters, we have to accept that many or most will be ignorant, and do our best to educate enough of those that can be educated to keep freedom alive.)
I disagree with your specific claim, but I don't have the experience with ordinary users to back that up. I guess your users install software more aggressively than my family, who are put off very effectively by the step of manually loading a key into Ubuntu Update Manager settings.
I do concede your point that plenty of users can be tricked easily into doing whatever an attacker needs them to do. But I can see how authors would be OK licensing under GPLv3 anyway. If you want to serve dangerously ignorant users (and sometimes I do, too) then you have to charge them accordingly and pay someone to write the non-free software to protect them from themselves. The GPL isn't a problem just because it's not the right tool for the job.
Dang. So he doesn't have source? RHEL breaking the license now?!?!?!
No, he gets RH licenses which INCLUDES THE CODE.
I want to use BSD code without crediting its original authors.
That's true, the only entirely-free license is public domain. ...
Assuming that the code does not run afoul of patents.
It doesn't force them to do squat. If anything, it's like the MPEG-LA patent pool where the price of admission is to license to all the others in the pool.
MPEG-LA aren't being bashed for "forcing" anyone to license their patended stuff.
And the payment for using someone else's code is that you have to obey the license. As opposed to Apple or Microsoft et al where you have to pay AND obey the license.
So why are you whinging? Not paying enough?
The problem is circumvention. If you don't draw the boundaries broadly then people can easily circumvent. For example I can inherit your class X library. As my class Y. I can then use your X.a, X.b, X.c as my Y.a, Y.b, Y.c while keeping my replacement for X.d proprietary since its Y.d and not part of your code. The point of the GPL is to make it difficult to use GPL software and link in proprietary extensions.
As far as not copying, the problem is if your work is entirely based on another, wouldn't function without it, then its a derived work. This prevents someone from from changing the format and arguing that they never copied. Say for example I took your book and:
a) render it in a different font so the binaries don't match. For example I go ASCII to EBCDIC.
b) translate it into a new language
c) translate it into a new medium, like a make play based on it.
All of those things are considered copyright violations. And even if I
d) Create a new book whose plot elements crucially depend on yours: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wind_Done_Gone
I agree with you. Though iOS isn't actually quite that strict. And I do think Macs will be tightened up some. But.... I don't think Macs will ever get nearly as tight as iOS systems which is where you and I are agreeing against GP.
OK I stand corrected on that one. Good to know.
If that's so, and I have no objection to what you're saying (the NeXT/GCC affair demonstrates why Bradley Kuhn says "Apple lawyers have a pathological hatred of GPL"): should free software hackers consider forking CUPS or keeping track of the latest GPL'd version of CUPS with an eye toward forking should CUPS' license become non-free? Apple owns CUPS now so I think it's reasonable to wonder about the future of the print system a lot of free software distributions have become dependent upon.
Digital Citizen
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Anarchy?r=75&src=ref&ch=dic
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Anarchy?r=75&src=ref&ch=dic
What I'm saying is a system of freedom rules is freer than no rules. The GPL is just that. You don't have the freedom to take away from others the freedom you where given yourself.
Then you shouldn't have any problem listing these things in detail. I doubt what you're saying is true. I think it's far more likely Eben Moglen's description is the case: (paraphrased) announce GPLv4 and people will love GPLv3 like a brother. This is what happened with GPLv2: when it was announced work began on GPLv3, suddenly GPLv2 was loved.
Some of what Apple does reveals Apple to be just another proprietor who built their fortunes on free software: they know they can't go far without software freedom, and they want to treat the free software community as a market, but they don't want to behave as a member of the free software community.
As for being "quite happy to contribute to GCC", that simply is not true. NeXT committed copyright infringement and GCC's copyright holder (FSF) compelled them to comply with GCC's license (GPLv2). Bradley Kuhn describes it succinctly, "Apple lawyers have a pathological hatred of GPL, which he believes comes directly down from Steve Jobs, who began his dislike of GPL when he tried, while at NeXT, to distribute a proprietary front-end for GCC for Objective-C." and Richard Stallman talks of this in the essay Copyleft: Pragmatic Idealism explaining why GCC can compile Objective-C:
NeXT was lucky they were dealing with a copyright holder who (then as now) seeks compliance with the license above monetary compensation and court appearances. NeXT was also lucky that, at the time, they were able to correct their illegality outside the spotlight of publicity. Apple owns NeXT now and we're talking about the same person in charge at both companies. Apple would go on to commit copyright infringement against the FSF again in May 2010 distributing GNU Go in violation of the GPL (by adding additional restrictions on top of GPLv2 which that license disallows) but that time chose to cease distributing GNU Go.
Digital Citizen
can't have it at all because a "freedom" advocate believes allowing me to have it would cause them some kind of harm...
No, you can't have it because Apple prevents you from installing software except through them.
Oh come on, how is the above comment a Troll? It's a statement of facts that is totally relevant to the discussion. A troll would include some subtle or less-than-subtle insult against Apple fanboys, Apple's wisdom in being the only supplier of iPad apps, or even just insultingly slamming Apple's App Store model in the first place.
So? Dictionaries tend to include all sorts of ways that words are popularly misused. In many dictionaries you'll see one of the definitions of "begging the questions" listed as a synonym for raising the question.
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
They would be perfectly fine to continue using SAMBA (GPLv3), since there is not a single technical/legal reason against it with their current usage pattern.
Actually, the legal problem is that the GPLv3 may ban the use of GPLv3 software on non-free devices. It is, in fact, the reason for the GPL 2->3 changes in the first place, to prevent situations like Tivo where modifications to GPLed software were released back to the Free Software community, but the device enforces that code running on it be signed by Tivo. It's a direct assault from GNU on the practice of preventing the end-user from running 'unapproved' software on his own devices.
So it's "free" as in "don't do that," then. Gotcha. That's fine. Just call it what it is instead of calling it freedom.
Freedom is not necessarily absolute. I have the freedom to plant the types of trees I want in my backyard, but if they drop apples into my neighbor's yard, it interferes with his rights as well. Sometimes one person's freedom will conflict with another person's, and the settling of those disputes doesn't mean that you're taking away the freedom of either.
If the apps don't share a walled garden you have a lot complexity with intra app communications and signaling. Integration of applications is a major selling point. Just think about making drag and drop work between walled gardens.
As for the rest about security and just being harder. I agree.
You contribute to a project that takes freedom away from its users.
Except this is the premise that I already refuted in my earlier post. That post explains that no derivative of a BSD project can possible take anyone's freedoms, and that it's not like enslavement at all. It's not like saying 'I only provided guns, I'm not responsible for the murder.' It's like saying I didn't provide any guns and the murder is only your hallucination.
You need to point out what freedoms exactly are taken away when someone creates a proprietary derivative work from and open source project. The fact is that the original code can't be close-sourced by a derivative and therefore all the same freedoms are available.
The only way to claim you are 'less free' is if you use a definition which has absolutely untenable implications. That is, you say you are less free when proprietary software exists because you are comparing your freedom in that case to a counter-factual where the only difference is that that proprietary software is open source. Besides the fact that such a counter-factual is not always valid (i.e., the software may not have been developed at all if the option to make it proprietary wasn't available), if you count such counter-factuals then you should count them all (or at least explain why only this one counts).
And counting other counter-factuals brings us to the terrible contradiction I alluded to in my earlier post. You must conclude that people choosing not to write software makes you less free, and if you think it's okay to use force to defend freedom then the terrible contradiction is that you can enslave people (literally, chain them to a computer and make them write open-source software for you) to make people more 'free.'
you BSD guys just don't see non-free software as evil
Right, because it's not. If someone creates proprietary software I'm no worse of than if they had created nothing, and in fact I may be better off. Even if I only use open source software I'm no worse off because proprietary software doesn't stop me from making or using free alternatives. On the other hand you say
It's better not to have proprietary software at all: Software will be substituted eventually
which literally means you believe that not having the choice to use a proprietary product doesn't take any choices away! And then you go on to say that having that choice actually takes choices away!
while having non-free software would just postpone that with freedoms lost in the meantime
The contradictions are so blatant, it's amazing.
"However, a statement of the form "You're either A or not-A" is a true dichotomy, as the given options are complementary."
The English language is not precise enough for that to actually work in practice. (I suspect all human language suffers from this problem (more accurately, I suspect it's a human problem, not a language problem, per se), but that's another discussion.) In this particular case:
"You're either for software freedom or you're not."
There are multiple definitions/interpretations/POVs/etc. for "software freedom", and further implications and subtleties within those.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
That post explains that no derivative of a BSD project can possible take anyone's freedoms
You simply didn't. Your argument was that since your contribution is free, you're not responsible if others use it to create software which *denies* certain freedoms to their users (maybe that terminology better suits you than "taking away" freedoms, given that you do not see freedoms as rights, but as privileges granted by the monopolist). You are responsible, since you allowed this.
You need to point out what freedoms exactly are taken away when someone creates a proprietary derivative work from and open source project. The fact is that the original code can't be close-sourced by a derivative and therefore all the same freedoms are available.
I think I've sufficiently addressed this now (and I believe you know which are 4 freedoms), however, I'd like to point out that you're confusing the original with the derivative here. While your software is truly free, it is truly (part of) non-free software as well, considering that you have contributed to it by your explicit permission.
Allow me to cite this in it entirety:
The only way to claim you are 'less free' is if you use a definition which has absolutely untenable implications. That is, you say you are less free when proprietary software exists because you are comparing your freedom in that case to a counter-factual where the only difference is that that proprietary software is open source. Besides the fact that such a counter-factual is not always valid (i.e., the software may not have been developed at all if the option to make it proprietary wasn't available), if you count such counter-factuals then you should count them all (or at least explain why only this one counts).
I had to read between the lines here, so tell me if I don't address the point: First of all, notice that you are making your own case based on a counter-factual. You assume that we would miss something by not having software that denies most of the freedoms. But not having _some_ proprietary software is better than the current situation. Any lacking software is sure to be replaced (I'm confident that no "innovation", given time, is unreproducible by someone else). Moreover, current models of selling software would be substituted with those that are suitable for free software. Free software would fill the missing holes instead of being obstructed as it is now. Fact is, we are missing free software we'd have had it not been for proprietary software schemes.
Your other point, I believe was: Why is a right to privately modify exempt from copy-left. I'm guessing privacy trumps hypothetical (or as you call it "counter factual") social benefit from such code. If we advocated compulsory distribution of modifications, we'd by the same logic indeed have to advocate forcing developers to work, as you've said. Instead, we're saying: _If_ you want to modify software that we've given you freely and then provide your modifications to the public (ie, for non-personal use), _then_ give the users the same freedoms you've been given. It's only fair. You can't say that a world where everyone acts according to this would be a worse one because it may momentarily lack some software.
(quote about compulsory writing code omitted as it has been addressed in the prior paragraph).
you BSD guys just don't see non-free software as evil
Right, because it's not. If someone creates proprietary software I'm no worse of than if they had created nothing, and in fact I may be better off. Even if I only use open source software I'm no worse off because proprietary software doesn't stop me from making or using free alternatives. On the other hand you say
I disagree, and I hope the reader by now can understand why.
It's better not to have proprietary software at all: Software will be substituted eventual
But how many years would you make the cert for? Eventually, all certs expire. That's a real problem with certs.
There's also the problem of how the user would get the certs. Assuming it's electronic, what's stopping somebody from guessing serial numbers and getting access keys for random people's phones? Not sure how practical that would be to exploit, but I'm sure somebody could come up with a way. :-)
As a side note, expiration of certs is a problem that really ought to be fixed. As far as I can tell, the only purposes for cert expiration seem to be A. people who are too lazy to revoke their certs, B. the insane overhead that CRLs represent, and C. so that the cert sales people can make more money, of which B. is irrelevant as long as all your clients support OCSP, and A. could be made irrelevant with a little bit of basic management infrastructure on the part of the CA, leaving C. (greed) as the only reason to continue this stupidity. The key to my door doesn't expire after a year. Why should the SSL key for my server?
And cert expiration is particularly problematic for application signing:
It starts to get more and more complex after that, and most of the problems stem from the inability to create a permanent SSL cert.
So yeah, it's a good idea in principle, but making it work in practice turns out to be more of a pain than it should be, mainly because certs have some serious design flaws. :-)
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
To at least some extent, for app store apps, Apple does, albeit with user testing and static analysis on the binaries rather than examining the source code itself. Not before issuing the cert, mind you, but before allowing it on the store. And until it goes on the store, an app can only be run by devices that the developer owns. So in effect, yes, one CA does do this.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
once you've come to an agreement on the meaning of "software freedom"
Aye, and there's the rub. Most complicated issues quickly get into an infinite regression trying to define terms.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
You simply didn't. Your argument was that since your contribution is free, you're not responsible
Given that I don't have any problem with people producing proprietary derivatives I don't acknowledge that there's any 'responsibility' to be assigned for it. Really there's only 'credit' to be handed out for any good projects, free or proprietary. ;)
if others use it to create software which *denies* certain freedoms to their users (maybe that terminology better suits you than "taking away" freedoms, given that you do not see freedoms as rights, but as privileges granted by the monopolist). You are responsible, since you allowed this.
Yes, labeling that as denying freedoms is a more accurate way to put it (in that it is accurate while "taking away" is not at all accurate).
About this 'freedoms are only privileges granted by monopolists' comment; you are being disingenuous. The monopolist here is the person producing the work, and the freedoms are the four freedoms protected by the GPL (I'll focus on the first, the freedom to run the program for any purpose). Do you believe that that freedom is a right, and that the 'monopolist,' as you so charitably put it, is violating someone's rights if he does not agree to make his program available to them to use? If so then that's a contradiction with your later assertion that
privacy trumps hypothetical [ . . . ] social benefit from such code.
So, no, I don't believe that the four freedoms are rights, and I believe that someone who produces a work is within their rights to provide their work only to people that have agreed to whatever preconditions the producer cares to make, whether those are the terms of the GPL or a proprietary license or anything else.
(and I believe you know which are 4 freedoms), however, I'd like to point out that you're confusing the original with the derivative here.
I'm not confusing the original with the derivative, I'm the one making that distinction, which I will do again: When a proprietary derivative is developed not one of those four freedoms is taken away with respect to the original because the original is still free software, and not one of the four freedoms is taken away with respect to the derivative, as those freedoms didn't previously exist. Of course you've already amended the claim from 'taking away freedoms' to 'denying freedoms,' and I will readily admit that proprietary software denies freedoms (but that no rights are violated).
You assume that we would miss something by not having software that denies most of the freedoms.
Safe to say.
But not having _some_ proprietary software is better than the current situation.
Hard to say, unless you count the existence of proprietary software as bad in and of itself (in which case the whole argument becomes circular I think).
Any lacking software is sure to be replaced
Possible, but not actually a sure thing. The question isn't if a given innovation could be reproduced in free software, the question is would it be.
Free software would fill the missing holes instead of being obstructed as it is now. Fact is, we are missing free software we'd have had it not been for proprietary software schemes.
Quite possibly, but free software isn't actually being obstructed at all, people are simply choosing to do other things.
You can't say that a world where everyone acts according to this would be a worse one because it may momentarily lack some software.
One thing I appreciate is that, to the best of my knowledge RMS has never once advocated using any kind of force or aggressive violence to coerce anyone into making their software 'free' (by his definition). Instead he's done this thing with the GPL where his agenda is advanced when p
If everyone thinks something means something, that is what it means. Meaning aren't static. Dictionaries need to reflect this else they fall out of date and usefulness. Sorry, but that's reality. You can argue with dictionaries if you want, but I'm not going involved in such madness.
Too late. Besides, you should have pointed out that I was contradicting myself by being opposed to dictionaries as non-state arbiters of order. ;-)
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
If the apps don't share a walled garden you have a lot complexity with intra app communications and signaling. Integration of applications is a major selling point. Just think about making drag and drop work between walled gardens.
Intra app communications get provided by a framework. Of course the OS itself can pierce walled gardens. Much like the way when you are securing computer networks with a network "air gap", it is possible you can put an indirectly connected proxy server in each isolated network for web access.
I don't think we'll see inter-app communications completely disappear if MacOS is locked down; however, I think we'll see them more limited to "approved" frameworks.... exactly what apps are allowed to pass between each other may have to go through a broker that imposes certain restrictions.
I'm thinking content providers / new application providers will be demanding DRM / Trusted computing technology that goes as far as ensuring an application can secure its files (at OS level) against unapproved access.
Windows 7 is getting there already on trusted computing. Apple may have to lock MacOS down more to compete, for fear content providers will start making "Windows only content" and shun MacOS (due to not having sufficient OS-level "security" to meet publishers demands)
One thing I appreciate is that, to the best of my knowledge RMS has never once advocated using any kind of force or aggressive violence to coerce anyone into making their software 'free' (by his definition). Instead he's done this thing with the GPL where his agenda is advanced when people voluntarily agree to be bound by its conditions. I heartily support people making such voluntary agreements.
I'm not sure if there's anything else to discuss here. I see freedom as a must, and you don't. I see freedoms as something that should be necessary given to everyone (much like personal freedom is), which is why I, despite the current law, call it taking freedoms away. And to iterate my argument one last time, your BSD licensed software enables this (whatever the name you choose for it).
Well you alluded to some proprietary software we'd be better off without and claimed that proprietary software created some kind of obstruction to free software. I still don't see why proprietary software is evil, or why I'm better off not being able to do something I want to (in the case that a free alternative isn't available).
My argument is that precisely because of the existence of proprietary software, you often may not have free software (alternatives) - eg. graphics drivers come to mind.
The obstruction I'm talking about is the old-world model of "granting" or even selling licenses (which take away freedoms) pretending there's scarcity where there isn't. This has such deep roots that even the viral nature of GPL has hard time plucking out. BSD, worth noting, does nothing to do help the situation. It enables non-free software to at least always be one step ahead.. So this law-granted monopolistic approach of selling software as if it was a tangible (unreproducable) product is here to stay for a while more.
Lastly, why is using non-free software worse than nothing at all? Because if there wasn't proprietary software, you would either have a free software version, or nobody would. And in the latter case, this demand would ideally be satisfiable through commercial free software models. Etc.
I hope this answers your subsequent questions. With this post, I've expressed my opinion as clearly as possible. In the case you disagree, let as not go back and forth forever, but instead recognize that our differences stem from different views on the importance of freedoms.
Thanks.
I see freedom as a must, and you don't.
but obviously not all freedoms.
You didn't answer my comment about the contradiction between the four GPL freedoms being rights and people having a right to not publish their work. Are people free to not publish their work (or to only publish it partially, or to pick and choose who they send it to based on who voluntarily agrees to what conditions), or does that violate everyone elses' right to use the program (and to exercise the other GPL freedoms)?
which is why I, despite the current law, call it taking freedoms away
What does law have to do with it? I'm not talking about software patents or anything. I'm talking about whether it's okay or not for an author to choose not to send their work out, or to make decisions about when and to whom they do the work of distributing their program. This is purely about voluntary agreements, not laws.
My argument is that precisely because of the existence of proprietary software, you often may not have free software (alternatives) - eg. graphics drivers come to mind. The obstruction I'm talking about is the old-world model of "granting" or even selling licenses (which take away freedoms) pretending there's scarcity where there isn't.
I might accept software patents as an obstruction to free software, but your answer here isn't correct. In cases where there's no free software alternative to some proprietary software, the lack of the free alternative is caused by the proprietary software adequately filling demand. That is not an obstruction.
Lastly, why is using non-free software worse than nothing at all? Because if there wasn't proprietary software, you would either have a free software version, or nobody would.
Right, so what it all comes down to is that you don't want other people's demand for software to be met unless your demand is met as well. You prefer that everybody do without rather than allow other people to have their demand met while yours isn't. This isn't because other people want to have and prevent you from having the same, it's because other people have lesser demands and once their lesser demands are satisfied there just aren't enough people with your higher demands to actually justify the resource expenditure* of meeting your higher demands.
You might find Frederic Bastiat's The Law and Henry Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson enlightening.
our differences stem from different views on the importance of freedoms.
It's not the case that you view freedom as important and I don't.
*assuming you don't think it's okay to break into the original proprietary developers' computers or force them to open source their work, which would not require much resource expenditure.
That's obviously untrue. This whole flamethread started with a first post by someone who was saying the GPL was morally wrong.
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
I see freedom as a must, and you don't.
but obviously not all freedoms.
Not a quasi-freedom of denying other people their freedoms, no.
You didn't answer my comment about the contradiction between the four GPL freedoms being rights and people having a right to not publish their work. Are people free to not publish their work (or to only publish it partially, or to pick and choose who they send it to based on who voluntarily agrees to what conditions), or does that violate everyone elses' right to use the program (and to exercise the other GPL freedoms)?
I believe I have, and i referred to it above. There isn't a contradiction, it's simply a matter of priorities. People are free to withhold publishing the work if such act would compromise their privacy. Differing views behind AGPL which further address the issue of the extent of this freedom may be of interest. I suggest Eben Moglen's Google tech talk, and Bradley .M. Kuhn's general commentary on GPLv3. In any case, GPL is explicit about distribution being the occasion of sharing of code. It is saying: personal use possible, but when sharing modifications, share in fullness, so as to not deny/take away(the comparison still stands, think of children born as slaves) anyone their freedoms.
which is why I, despite the current law, call it taking freedoms away
What does law have to do with it? I'm not talking about software patents or anything. I'm talking about whether it's okay or not for an author to choose not to send their work out, or to make decisions about when and to whom they do the work of distributing their program. This is purely about voluntary agreements, not laws.
There are people who view EULA's as invalid agreements, since noone is actually signing it for the sake of receiving a software copy, it's rather happening post-facto (smth like that, I don't remember). But this is besides the case, I'm not going to argue this. The law I'm talking about is a copyright law, arguably unfit for the digital goods world. It is making able for authors to withhold rights from users. Whether there should not be such a possibility even for original work, I didn't decide yet (but I suggest reading 'Some thoughts on a "Copyright Offensive"' by zotz). However, there is absolutely no reason why one should support this behavior with his free code. Once again, GPL is only fair.
I might accept software patents as an obstruction to free software, but your answer here isn't correct. In cases where there's no free software alternative to some proprietary software, the lack of the free alternative is caused by the proprietary software adequately filling demand. That is not an obstruction.
Yes it would, as free software alternative would have less motive to be developed, or that same piece of proprietary code could've itself been free instead.
Lastly, why is using non-free software worse than nothing at all? Because if there wasn't proprietary software, you would either have a free software version, or nobody would.
Right, so what it all comes down to is that you don't want other people's demand for software to be met unless your demand is met as well. You prefer that everybody do without rather than allow other people to have their demand met while yours isn't. This isn't because other people want to have and prevent you from having the same, it's because other people have lesser demands and once their lesser demands are satisfied there just aren't enough people with your higher demands to actually justify the resource expenditure* of meeting your higher demands.
You might find Frederic Bastiat's The Law and Henry Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson enlightening.
Or I want all people to have equal freedoms, rather than satisfying for black boxes. Yes, you'r
You have the liberty to use the software for any purpose. You also have the liberty to redistribute the software. You are at liberty to do anything other than deprive others of their liberty.
As I said in the original post: The GPL is not a free-as-in-beer license. Code has an economic value. Those who receive GPL licensed code are asked to provide continued access to the code and the freedom to use it in return for receiving the same.
As well they should, considering it's only slightly mangled from "begging for the question" which would be a perfectly valid way of phrasing such a thing. Compared to the 'proper' usage of "begging the question" which is both mangled english and a mistranslation in the first place.
Not a quasi-freedom of denying other people their freedoms, no.
So what do you think about the freedom to prevent people from using a binary for which the source is not published? Do you think it’s okay to stop people from using those binaries?
There isn't a contradiction, it's simply a matter of priorities. People are free to withhold publishing the work if such act would compromise their privacy.
So if someone sees publishing the binary as not reducing their privacy but publishing the source as doing so I guess you’d support them publishing only the binary? Or is that yet another contradiction?
There are people who view EULA's as invalid agreements, since noone is actually signing it for the sake of receiving a software copy
That’s fine, for the sake of argument I’m only considering agreements made up front. Those other issues are beside the point.
Yes it would, as free software alternative would have less motive to be developed,
Lack of motive is not an obstruction; there is not a thing that imposing a restriction. There is simply no one who cares to do. If you care then nothing’s stopping you.
or that same piece of proprietary code could've itself been free instead.
Right, but they didn’t so you either use violence to make them open-source their project or someone has to redo the work.
Or I want all people to have equal freedoms, rather than satisfying for black boxes. Yes, you're right. To make an analogy, I would, given an opportunity, vote against some big brother law, or a police state law, while others might find it great to live under such law, having their "practical" needs met, or simply not knowing anything else / any better.
Another bad analogy. Arguing by analogy is usually not successful since often making such analogies requires the other party to take things for granted for which no argument has been presented, and also because analogies almost universally have flaws. In this case you’re talking about voting when it's not clear that voting is analogous to what you’re advocating, you’re talking about a police state forcibly imposed on everyone (regardless of their vote) when that’s not actually analogous to allowing someone somewhere to create proprietary software, and more flaws besides. Come to think of it, your analogy could be marginally improved if you switched it to say you’re voting in favor of the police state, but the analogy would still be bad.
All evidence speaks to the contrary. Eg. you refuse to recognize reciprocity as good.
false. it’s good when someone contributes to an open source work and makes their contribution open source.
And while you defend author's "right" to take away freedoms
You mean deny, not take away, and yes because the alternative is that an author can’t deny others the ‘freedom’ to get onto the author’s computer and take unpublished work, whether that’s the whole work, or just the unpublished source to a published binary. It's not 'a matter of priorities,' the two are absolutely mutually exclusive.
, you argue against of a right to take away "the freedom" to take away freedoms (no, i'm not giving up on this terminology just yet).
In fact I have explicitly acknowledged that it’s perfectly okay for an author of an original work to say that people can only make derivatives if they allow others the same access to the derivatives (and make the same demand for 'reciprocity'). I don’t think you could have gotten the idea that I think otherwise from reading anything I’ve written.
I have written a long reply and decided to discard it, and end the convo. I've said what I wanted to say. There's no benefit in repeating that, people can understand what you're saying and what I'm saying (freedoms != privileges) by now perfectly fine.
Well perhaps you could at least answer a couple of the questions I asked earlier:
If someone chooses to publish a binary to their original work without publishing the source, is that okay with you? If not what should be done about it?
If someone uses a binary for which no source has been published is that okay? If not what should be done about it?
If you want me to. But please don't make this an excuse to re-start the conversation then (if at all possible).
I apologize in advance for not making my first answer black or white (yes, or no) for you, as you'd probably like it. I honestly don't see it black and white. So here's my answer: Denying source code of a published original work (which does not integrate or build upon free software) is not a right. I tolerate it, because the big part of the industry relies on it, and I don't want to take anyone's bread away over night. However, I fully support copyleft efforts of changing that. So, not a right (as in: freedom), simply how the law works now. But if the law was different, if it mandated that software was free, I wouldn't have a problem with that. In fact I'd support that law. And before you think you've got me again, please understand for once that I'm not talking about practical benefits for the society. And I certainly do not superimpose those above freedoms. "Your freedom to swing your fits ends where my nose begins". That is, it's not by denying freedoms (a freedom not to slave over a piece of code) that we should try to secure freedoms for the users. And mandating software to be free does not do that - it doesn't compromise RL freedoms. It just takes away a "right" to monopoly of one's own source. I don't consider monopoly to be beneficial for the society. So steps to take are 1) viral copyleft, 2) copyright reform (perhaps.. in the future).
Now, using software with no source is ok. However, this does not excuse the proprietor for not releasing the source. You'll have to forgive another analogy, but I personally view proprietary software users very much like I view smokers. That is, the evident demand for cigarettes does not exonerate tobacco manufacturers, or cigarette sellers. Using this stuff should not be criminalized just like that, but producing the stuff? That's another matter.
Peace be with you.
P.S. You might perhaps want to check out the idea of "Distributism" (as opposed to both capitalism and socialism). I think it fits very well with free software, and a free software commercial model I've presented in http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/community_posts/pay_patch_free_software_market_model
Hmmm, I saw a reply to this earlier but I don't see it any more. I'll just have to respond to it from memory.
Your answers seemed pretty black and white to me. I'm glad that you at least don't advocate prohibiting people from obtaining programs for which no source is available (i.e., you don't advocate prohibiting people from obtaining 'unapproved' software). I had been hopeful of receiving a similar answer to the other question; that, while you might feel it's less than morally upright to give away software without giving the source as well, no crime is being committed so really social pressure is the only way to handle it. Instead you went full bore and said that not only does an original author have no right to withhold source from anyone to whom the binary has been provided, but that a law prohibiting such withholding would be just (Bastiat's The Law is critical reading on the subject of just laws). Clearly you don't believe in natural rights, so just what is your theory of rights? With all your talk of laws perhaps you're a legal rights purist or something?
The two actions you mentioned for dealing with the above crime were 1) viral copyleft and 2) copyright reform. I've already mentioned that I have no argument with the GPL, at least in terms of the mechanism it uses (voluntary agreements), but I don't get your second recommendation at all. As far as I can tell copyright is entirely beside the issue. For example imagine a software developer on his porch offering disks containing a software binary he's created to passersby while the source exists only as encrypted data on his private computer. He's making no use whatsoever of copyright, so how exactly is this deviant behavior to be corrected?
I only see two ways for the law to force him to behave 'correctly.' Either he's prevented from handing out disks, or stormtroopers break into his house to 'liberate' the source on his computer. You mentioned something about not stopping people from exercising their freedoms in order to guarantee other people their own, so I guess you don't want to stop him from handing out disks. So can I take it that you'd opt for the home invasion solution? This is pretty much exactly what I was thinking when I suggested earlier that your position was more akin to voting in favor of a police state than against it.
Random replies to statements I recall were made in the (deleted?) post:
Really, how you can argue that what this developer is doing is like punching someone (who? Everyone in the world I guess?) in the face is beyond me.
Whether you (mis)label it 'monopoly' or just 'respect for property rights,' I do think it's critical to a society free and prosperous for all. I think history (think French and Soviet revolutions) supports me on this.
Something about 'distributism'. It sounds pretty much like capitalism to me except that it tries to distinguish itself by hoping that property will be pretty evenly distributed. So basically the same as free-market capitalism as understood by most free market advocates. It is definitely different from socialism and crony capitalism though.
You mentioned an article that I guess you wrote, 'Pay Per Patch: A Free Software Market Model.' Seems like a fine idea to try. You should start a business providing the service.
Ah, here we are. For some reason I wasn't seeing this post when I wanted to reply earlier. Here's the reply I wrote:
Your answers seemed pretty black and white to me. I'm glad that you at least don't advocate prohibiting people from obtaining programs for which no source is available (i.e., you don't advocate prohibiting people from obtaining 'unapproved' software). I had been hopeful of receiving a similar answer to the other question; that, while you might feel it's less than morally upright to give away software without giving the source as well, no crime is being committed so really social pressure is the only way to handle it. Instead you went full bore and said that not only does an original author have no right to withhold source from anyone to whom the binary has been provided, but that a law prohibiting such withholding would be just (Bastiat's The Law is critical reading on the subject of just laws). Clearly you don't believe in natural rights, so just what is your theory of rights? With all your talk of laws perhaps you're a legal rights purist or something?
The two actions you mentioned for dealing with the above crime were 1) viral copyleft and 2) copyright reform. I've already mentioned that I have no argument with the GPL, at least in terms of the mechanism it uses (voluntary agreements), but I don't get your second recommendation at all. As far as I can tell copyright is entirely beside the issue. For example imagine a software developer on his porch offering disks containing a software binary he's created to passersby while the source exists only as encrypted data on his private computer. He's making no use whatsoever of copyright, so how exactly is this deviant behavior to be corrected?
I only see two ways for the law to force him to behave 'correctly.' Either he's prevented from handing out disks, or stormtroopers break into his house to 'liberate' the source on his computer. You mentioned something about not stopping people from exercising their freedoms in order to guarantee other people their own, so I guess you don't want to stop him from handing out disks. So can I take it that you'd opt for the home invasion solution? This is pretty much exactly what I was thinking when I suggested earlier that your position was more akin to voting in favor of a police state than against it.
Random replies to statements I recall were made in the (deleted?) post:
Really, how you can argue that what this developer is doing is like punching someone (who? Everyone in the world I guess?) in the face is beyond me.
Whether you (mis)label it 'monopoly' or just 'respect for property rights,' I do think it's critical to a society free and prosperous for all. I think history (think French and Soviet revolutions) supports me on this.
Something about 'distributism'. It sounds pretty much like capitalism to me except that it tries to distinguish itself by hoping that property will be pretty evenly distributed. So basically the same as free-market capitalism as understood by most free market advocates. It is definitely different from socialism and crony capitalism though.
You mentioned an article that I guess you wrote, 'Pay Per Patch: A Free Software Market Model.' Seems like a fine idea to try. You should start a business providing the service.
Clearly you don't believe in natural rights, so just what is your theory of rights? With all your talk of laws perhaps you're a legal rights purist or something?
Oh, but I do believe in natural rights, property included. However, I, much like Donald Knuth, lump code in the same category as math. I don't believe one should own math or software or be able to have patents on it. The problem is, as you rightly note, that software algorithms can be distributed in an obfuscated form - binary/executable. I don't believe this to be an inherent right of the source code copyright holder, and I don't see why I would (which should explain why I think making distributing binaries alone illegal isn't a big deal). Copyright itself is a late invention, with concepts inherited from the licensed printers, which are themselves a product of governmental bans on printing books. While I might see a benefit for it in the realm of books, I'm not convinced the same arguments applicable there can be also applied to software. You're welcome to convince me otherwise. I'd be glad to hear your arguments, because I admit (and I believe I've said so before), I'm not completely convinced in a copyright reform myself. Why do I keep saying "copyright"? Because it is copyright that grants users rights to take away/withold freedoms.
I also believe this whole thing to be an issue of the copyright law because simply changing the form of the work doesn't make a new work. That is, compiled code is still that hidden source code even though it's in a (less)convenient form for the users. Similarly, if I were to compile leaked CounterStrike source, or Windows NT source, I wouldn't make an original product. I hope this makes sense.
I should note that even if you manage to convince me that source code is personal property regardless of its compiled form is given to the public, it still doesn't mean BSD is a good thing. There is absolutely no reason as to why one should (want to) support the opposing, non-free camp, if one cares about freedoms. Non-free software companies like to leech, I understand their motives. But the free software author's? Doesn't make sense to me.
While I might see a benefit for it in the realm of books, I'm not convinced the same arguments applicable there can be also applied to software. You're welcome to convince me otherwise.
Here's the thing, I don't want to convince you otherwise because I don't think copyright is relevant. In the case I described earlier, of an individual offering binaries to passersby from his porch, it is not copyright that is protecting the source from distribution.
Think about what copyright actually does for a moment. Copyright says that a person who holds a particular expression is prohibited from duplicating it without permission, with the intent of addressing the perceived incentive problem for original authors of such expressions. That is, copyright applies when the act of duplication is physically possible but perceived as harmful. Copyright is irrelevant to my story about porch distributed software for two reasons, first because the act of duplication is not physically possible and there is therefore no one to exercise this freedom that can be prohibited from doing so. Second, because the fact that the man on the porch is the copyright holder isn't really relevant to my point. Imagine that he is not the author, imagine instead that he got the source code from a friend, and then the friend forgot about it, and then died, with no heirs, 100 years ago so it wouldn't be covered by copyright anymore anyway. Despite this lack of copyright protection we still have a man distributing binaries to software of which he is in sole possession of the original source. You may argue that he is despicable and mean spirited for failing to distribute the source, but you can't argue that someone wishing to obtain the source need violate no rights but copyright.
I also believe this whole thing to be an issue of the copyright law because simply changing the form of the work doesn't make a new work. That is, compiled code is still that hidden source code even though it's in a (less)convenient form for the users.
Why even include the change in form? Imagine that we both possess copies of the same work in the same form. Does the fact that I have a copy mean you have no right to withhold your copy from me? Whether a mathematical proof we both printed out, or a book, or an art print, or a piece of software, why should I have to get your permission in order to access the copy in your possession? Why should anyone have to obtain the permission of the man on the porch in order to access the copy of the source in his possession? What I don't see is what the need to obtain such permission has to do with copyright.
Perhaps you'll agree with me that it is absurd to deny that such permission is necessary, but then we come back again to the only other remedy I can see: prohibiting the man from passing out disks.
That is, it's not by denying freedoms [...] that we should try to secure freedoms for the users. And mandating software to be free does not do that - it doesn't compromise RL freedoms.
It seems to me that such a prohibition would be a clear violation of a 'real life' freedom, indeed, of a real life right; free speech.
Would you please drop it? I'm never gonna say that it's ok to take away someone's source code by invading his home. That is not to say the author shouldn't be obliged to provide source code. Fines on binary-only distributors are fine.
A lot of people accept fines and such as a more benign form of coercion, but it's really no better in principal. Especially in this case, it should be clear that this is simply trading one problem for another of the same kind; how shall the fine be collected, if the man refuses to give in to threats?
Of course in practice most people do give in to threats so the results aren't as grisly and people who support it can sleep at night, but it's really no different than when people give up their wallets in the face of muggers' threats.
Rules and regulations don't enforce themselves. Also note that the same thing you've described happens to people when they pirate or reverse engineer things, because the law grants author such rights. I'd much rather advocate pro-freedom laws.
That's a good point. You'll notice that we do in fact have police raids over piracy and reverse engineering cases. Why should we advocate the elimination of such injustices if we're only going to replace them with more of the same?
Just in case you haven't already read it: http://bastiat.org/en/the_law.html#SECTION_G002
You assume its because Apple is evil. I assume its because they want to make money. We end up with entirely different reasons for what they are doing.
The two possibilities are not necessarily disjoint. I wouldn't ascribe malice to Apple, merely the typical amoral corporatism. The GPLv3 attempts to formalize a small aspect of (some people's) morality, and it's interesting to see how corporations respond.
Because it's a dichotomy. What else is there? The only alternative to both is anarchy, which I consider an intrinsically doomed idea.
A lot of text behind that url, but it seems it is (surprisingly) trying to present anarchy as God-made. I don't believe so. But, is there any specific chapter you want me to read right now?
There are works concerning the issue we've come to discuss (I think st. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas), but I haven't read them, so I can't be of much help other than to say: whatever Church preaches to be true, I concur. My own "philosophy" is in that regard still superficial - it deals with the current order of the world, rather than trying to imagine an idealistic one (in most cases anyway).
The references to God aren't really necessary to the argument. It might as easily begin "We take these truths to be self evident," but whether the source of the rights is taken to be God or something else, as long as the existance of the rights Bastiat posits is accepted then the argument should hold together.
Nor is anarchy necessary. In fact The Law points out that as long as law is restricted to its rightful purpose the form of government is immaterial. (Of course, as a practical matter the form of goverment is important because the different forms have different characteristics in terms of how likely they are to try to restrict law to its rightful purpose and to what injustices they are prone.) So it may seem like it's advocating anarchy, since it places an outer boundry on law (which has probably been far exceeded by every nation ever) and only gives passing reference to an inner boundary, but I don't think it's incompatible with other forms of governance.
In this case I don't think there's really a problematic dichotomy between laws that permit the use of force to keep some information secret and laws that mandate some information not be held secret. It's true that in some cases they are mutually exclusive and that one might identify the law taking neither side as anarchy, but I think it's an invalid equivocation to take the improbability of complete anarchy (the law remaining silent on every issue) as an argument against the law remaining silent on one particular issue. And that's what makes The Law important, it tries to identify and argue for a particular conception of when laws are okay, and on what issues the law should remain silent, leaving the advancement of those issues to institutions other than force.
On that note, I recomend reading the whole thing, because the arguments rely and build on each other. It's longer than a typical article, but it's a really tiny book. Perhaps a kindle version would make the read more comfortable. However here are some sections that I think contain particularly relevant or important conclusions and bits of the argument: "What is Law?" "How to Identify Legal Plunder" (when he talks about taking things that belong to someone, don't think in ephemeral terms like 'information,' instead think in concrete physical terms such as 'the book in which a novel mathematical proof has been written,' or 'the money of a fine levied against someone refusing to publish source'), "Law Is Force," "Law Is a Negative Concept," and "Law and Charity Are Not the Same"
Will read when i get the chance. I hope. Thanks for the conversation.