RedHat's Solution to Pseudo-Free Software Problem.

Christian Winebrenner writes "RedHat seems to have seen the new licensing terms on rdist (background story: Pseudo-Free software...) and decided that the best solution to the problem is to recommend that users DOWNgrade to the previous version. Their RH 6.0 errata page offers the solution of ditching rdist 6.1.5 in favor of 6.1.0. Who knows how long it will be until we find that distributions will be riddled with "holes" from out of date non-free-for-commercial-use software? "

Comments

Software Licence Grouping Proposal.

[Anonymous Coward]

As more and more commercial products based on
Linux come into the market, this becomes
fantastically important. Many of these systems
will be made up of a hoge-podge of programs, some
GPL, some BSD, some with the author's wierd non-
commercial licence. They break down into three
categories:

GREEN: BSD Licence. Do whatever you want.
YELLOW: GPL. Use it, but if you improve it, you
gotta share.
RED: You can't use this in a commercial product
without reading the fine print.

Don't know wher LGPL fits in.

Some categorization (check me guys):

GREEN
BSD and family
TCL
Python
PostgreSQL

Yellow:
Linux Kernel
GCC
GlibC

RED:
rdist (bummer!)
MSQL
MySql
...

It is crucial that people understand what goes
where and what you can do with each part.

Look folks, people are making money wit Linux.
This is great, but as a consequence the Lawers
are out there, licking their chops. We've got
to be carefull.

-- cary

Re:Software Licence Grouping Proposal.

[Brian Knotts]

Minor change; GPL should be GREEN. BSD and X11 licenses should be YELLOW.

Was it not a BSD-licensed package (rdist) that caused this mess in the first place? Could that have happened had rdist been GPLd? Yes, I know if it was authored by a single author, it could, as long as he holds the copyright, but I don't believe that was the case here, was it?

You should look at this from the perspective of the *end user*; that is who the GPL is designed to protect. It is not designed to protect software developers primarily. It protects end users, because it keeps the software free. Not surprisingly, this ticks off developers with dreams of proprietary products, so they FUD the GPL by calling it less free than the BSD license, which is simply a matter of perspective. You cannot rationally define freedom as the freedom to deprive others of freedom.

--

Re:Software Licence Grouping Proposal.

[sjames]

More sorta greenish yellow. Linking is green, using it's source (other than as a whole and seperatly linked) is yellow.

Re:Software Licence Grouping Proposal.

[Bruce Perens]

This is sort of what I was trying to do when I proposed the Debian Free Software Guidelines (which became the Open Source Definition). It's been pretty successful - even IBM bought into it. I think a check-box approach (as I use at the end of my Open Sources chapter is more useful, but the bottom line is of course you've got to read the license before you put serious work into something.

Thanks

Bruce

Re:Software Licence Grouping Proposal.

[itp]

You're taking a very biased approach to your color coding. True, you can do more with a BSD licensed program than a GPL licensed program. But try this scenario on for size:

I'm a faithful user of program foo. All of a sudden, program foo++ shows up on the market. Here's the problem. If foo was under a BSD license, there's no reason foo++ has to be free software. So now foo++ costs $400, and if we want the new features, we've got to reimplement them.

But if foo were a GPL licensed program, anybody who creates foo++ has to release it back under the GPL if they want to distribute it. In other words, people aren't able to take our work, extend it, and refuse to share it back.

I don't know about you, but when I see a new project, I'm much more comfortable to hear that it's under the GPL than any other license. True, I can't take that code and go commercial with it, but the good thing is, no one else can either.

--
Ian Peters

Re:Software Licence Grouping Proposal.

[itp]

Thank you for writing this reply. This is what I was trying to say in my reply to the red-yellow-green proposal comment, but you have said it much better.

--
Ian Peters

Re:Software Licence Grouping Proposal.

[Bun]

"I'm a faithful user of program foo. All of a sudden, program foo++ shows up on the market. Here's the problem. If foo was under a BSD license, there's no reason foo++ has to be free software. So now foo++ costs $400, and if we want the new features, we've got to reimplement them."

Ï don't really see a problem with this. It is irrational to believe that one is entitled to free software. The original foo would still be available, and noone could stop you from using it, so your right to use that software would not be affected in any way.

However, if you changed that to read "I'm a faithful, LONGTIME CONTRIBUTER OF CODE TO THE FOO PROJECT. All of a sudden, program foo++ shows up on the market, sporting a bunch of new features, and costs $400....", then I can see a reason for complaining. I think it would bother me quite a bit if someone else started making money off a code base I played a large part in developing, while keeping their additions proprietary, and not compensating me and the other major contributors.

I'm not saying this is what happened with rdist - I'm unfamiliar with the particulars there - but the scenario doesn't seem that unlikely with a BSD style license.

Good copmany

[Anonymous Coward]

I really admire Red Hat. Red Hat and Debian are the only two distributions with this strong a policy towards free software. Red Hat is the only commercial distribution with this strong a moral stance.

It's stuff like this that makes me really annoyed at people who make the Red Hat/Microsoft comparison. I mean people are buying SuSE, a distribution that is known to use underhanded tactics (undermining the Red Hat IPO), proprietize everything they can, and act generally sleazy to avoid the new Microsoft of Red Hat. In the meantime, Red Hat is one of the only two really ethical major distributions.

Re:Good copmany

[jaqbot]

Here Here!I'm glad to see that someone has intelligence enough to say these things. I only wish I could've been the one posting it. I Feel that a company such as RH and Debian, are doing the right thing. They have a real working ethic about the way Linux is supposed to be, but are applying it to a business model. This is changing the face of many things, including other businesses practices. I think this is a good thing. One should NEVER say that Debian, RH, or even Suse is anything like MS. I agree that bad business is bad business, but as we have seen with MS, what goes around, comes around. We must unite, stop worrying about which distro is better, and try to make all distro's better with our utilities, apps, pathes, and our attitudes towards the goals that linux is attempting to acheive. Becoming a useable OS (note: i did not say distrobution) while maintaining the Free software model. It takes patience, tolerance, and honesty to work with so many thousands of other people in the world. Why spend time squabbling over what distro is the best. GPL has no distro it subscribes to. Keep it free!
- JaqBOT

Re:Argh.

[gavinhall]

Posted by Synsthe:

:I installed it many times and everything just
:plain annoys me, from the installer to the stupid
:X only control panel. Hmm, so I have to do some
:remote administration... Too bad, gotta have X.

For the record, I'm not a RedHat fan either - I use Debian. However, this argument is pretty baseless - You aren't required in any way to use that control panel tool to administer a RedHat box.


:And if you don't like it, don't buy or download
:it. Use RedHat and never ever use Civ:CTP,
:Borland's software (if they do it), Codewarrior,
:or any other piece of useful software that isn't
:specifically GPL'ed.

This part I have to agree with - I've witnessed far too many people whine and complain about software simply for the reason being that it's not free. Get over it - some things just weren't meant to be that way, and being that way doesn't make them any less useful. If you're going to pick at software, atleast find some valid reasons.

I think this is one problem out of a few that the Linux community faces right now; they're too busy fighting amongst themselves over stuff like this, instead of putting that energy to something useful. There are people who are so elitist in their views that they don't consider distributions like RedHat or suse, etc, to be Linux simply because they're backed by a company of some kind.

That's just silly I think. It's still Linux, and disregarding items simply for a commercial background is more trouble than it's worth. Quite simply, if you don't want to support the company for whatever reason, than don't - other than that, let people choose for themselves what they want; it's still Linux after all.

Okay.. slided a tiny bit off topic there with that last rant. =)

--
Mark Waterous (mark@projectlinux.org)

Re:No, distributions won't be riddled with holes

[Bruce Perens]

Daniel,

Please post to debian-legal@lists.debian.org and ask them to look at it.

Thanks

Bruce

Re:No, distributions won't be riddled with holes

[Bruce Perens]

By the way, I don't run the license-discuss mailing list. I just dominate it :-)

Re:No, distributions won't be riddled with holes

[Bruce Perens]

I've thought about auditing Red Hat and the others - of course it would take a lot of time, and that's something I don't necessarily have. If someone else wants to do this there's a good article in it and I can help you get it published.

Thanks

Bruce

No, distributions won't be riddled with holes

[Bruce Perens]

Distributions won't be riddled with holes because they'll be too careful to include poorly-licensed software in the first place.

Red Hat made a mistake in this case. It was their policy to not put this kind of software in their distribution, and one package slipped by. We all had some fun razzing them, but this was never a controversy - we knew they'd revert to another version of the package.

We also had fun exploring the alternatives to the problem package, there were at least two of them, at least one of which was much more powerful and both had no questions about their licenses.

In other words, this is no big deal. It's nice to note that Red Hat did the right thing, though.

Thanks

Bruce Perens

Re:No, distributions won't be riddled with holes

[Signal 11]

Question for you - has anybody (independent of redhat) gone through all of redhat's current packages to make sure there aren't other license issues? I think you'd be the point-man to ask, given that you run a list dedicated to talking about licenses..



--

Re:No, distributions won't be riddled with holes

[SEE]

cxhextris has a similar problem, however, and there may be others. To quote:

/*
* hextris Copyright 1990 David Markley, dm3e@+andrew.cmu.edu, dam@cs.cmu.edu
*
* Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute, this software and its
* documentation for any purpose is hereby granted without fee, provided that
* the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that both that
* copyright notice and this permission notice appear in supporting
* documentation, and that the name of the copyright holders be used in
* advertising or publicity pertaining to distribution of the software with
* specific, written prior permission, and that no fee is charged for further
* distribution of this software, or any modifications thereof. The copyright
* holder make no representations about the suitability of this software for
* any purpose. It is provided "as is" without express or implied warranty.

[italics mine]
It just seems likely that other packages have slipped through the screening, too, in inverse relation to the package's importance.

Re:No, distributions won't be riddled with holes

[dillon_rinker]

That's not the point. If I have to ask you for your permission to distribute your software, then it is -=*NOT*=- free. Software which is not free can become quite a burden. I could probably buy the rights to the software in question from the original programmer for $100,000 - he gets the money, and I get to be the person that people have to ask for permission. Then I file a lawsuit against EVERYONE who has distributed this software without permission. I would get my $100K back in a hurry - for example, what do you think Red Hat would pay me if I threatened to publicize my lawsuit a day before their IPO?

I know this is not a real likely scenario, but I use it to make the point that software is either free or it isn't, and non-free software has the potential to bite you in the butt if you don't treat it like non-free software.

GET A CLUE!!!!

[kevin lyda]

dear god!

redhat spent $2.2 million on development last year. cygnus did a fair amount of development last year. so did suse. and caldera. and the debian developers. and the samba team. and the apache team.

the old rdist has an acceptable license. we fork. it's that simple.

less hand wringing, more code. more clue, less talk.

sheesh.

Re:RDist is free with Linux

[dvdeug]

I think you've missed part of the point. They can distribute the software now, but they choose not to as it's not free. That part seems to be unresolvable without you permitting general for-profit distribution, which you appear not to want to. (While I accept you're decision, I would ask you to extend Linux to include Hurd and BSD - for one thing, Debian would like to include it, and that includes Hurd.)

Re:gnu

[itp]

Where'd you get this idea? Look at what makes up the GNU system. The FSF clearly recognizes that things like the BSD license, the XFree86 license, etc are all free software. Hell, RMS recognizes that Qt 2.0 is free software. All the FSF says is that the GPL and LGPL guarantee that software will remain free, whereas things like BSD (as evidenced in this case) do not.

--
Ian Peters

Re:gnu

[itp]

Maybe Richard Stallman was right in insisting that the only true free software was under the GPL?

Sigh ... RMS has never insisted on this. Go to the gnu web page some time, look at the official list of GNU software. You'll find many pieces that aren't under the [L]GPL.

We should start projects to recreate all partially free software in GPL or BSD licensed form, and _keep_ it that way.

This is what the GNU project is! All GNU software is free software. Not all under the GPL, but all free. Even if a program like rdist, under a BSD license, is taken non-free, we still have the older version under a BSD license. This cannot be taken back from us.

--
Ian Peters

RDist is free with Linux

[Mike Cooper]

I'm the Founder/Owner/President/Primary Developer for MagniComp.

I've recently been made aware of the discussions on this site regarding the licensing terms of RDist. It came as a bit of a shock to learn about the trouble with our RDist license agreement.

I have always been a free/open software supporter and have always intended to make sure RDist was freely distributable by all like minded groups. This definetely includes all the Linux distributions both free and for-profit. The trouble is, the license agreement was originally written long before Linux rose to it's current stature.

After reviewing our RDist license agreement I can easily see where there's a problem with the Linux groups. So I have updated the RDist License Agreement to clearly state it's fine to distribute as part of any Linux distribution.

I welcome any and all feedback on this and other topics.

- mike