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Corel Beta now GPL-compliant
SilentReproach writes "According to Bruce Perens at Technocrat.net, the latest version of the Corel beta license is up to par - victory declared for the GPL!"
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Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
First, perhaps next time before flaming a company everybody could wait a couple of days to see how they respond to complaints, and consider their intentions.
Second, everyone keeps commenting that we need a big court battle to uphold the GPL, and every time some big company messes up everybody goes "This is it!" No matter how sure they are that they can win no big company is going to go about it like that. If I were say MS, and I wanted to get the GPL ruled worthless I would take some little tiny subsidiary I don't care about, and have them try to redistribute "Tom's Tetris" or something of the sort. The GPL specifically states that if you violate it you lose all rights to the software whatsoever, including useing it. No large company is going to risk losing the right to use Linux ever, just in case it gets big.
God does not play dice - Einstein
Not only does God play dice, he sometimes throws them where they
Graphical frontend to apt? I'm going to assume it's not gnome-apt (as the system is KDE based), so that's something I'd like to see.
And yes, dselect is (mostly) evil. I only use it for package management over 'apt-get update, apt-get dist-upgrade' because I like to see what's new in packages and get an interactive look at dependencies.. But the learning curve of dselect cost me my first 2 install attempts of Debian. I hope that gets sorted out.
I also wonder, if it's KDE, there aren't any main official debs for it.. *ponders if the distro will use the mainstream package archives much, mostly because of dependencies that would arise from off-stream KDE packages*
Here on Slashdot, in one of the discussions of CodeWarrior, someone made a claim that they used GPL code in their closed-source product.
Are they a bad guy? Are they a bad guy if someone steals their source and shows GPL code?
That chinese Linux release that was claimed to not follow the GPL, are they a bad guy? Or, are they un-touchable because of international copywite issues?
Or, is the only bad guy Microsoft?
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
...but wasn't it ESR that gave the initial notice that Apple's Public Software License was "open source"?
It's nice that Bruce Perens thinks Corel's being GPL compliant, but how about a second opinion?
J.
damned vulpine http://sb.drtwister.com/
Most likely YES. Technocrat.net is edited by Bruce Perens. Perens was the author of the Open Source Definition amongst other things. He was in contact with Corel about the GPL violations in their beta test agreement earlier. Makes sense that he'd know doesn't it? Steve
Have you compiled your kernel today??
Is it really a victory?
Yes it is.
I'm as glad as anyone that Corel saw the error in their ways and fixed it when we (read: Bruce) asked them nicely.
Hmm, putting it that way makes it sound like Bruce didn't necessarily have the support of the communittee. That is just plain wrong IMHO - to convince yourself of that, look here and here - the original slashdot discussions.
But part of me thinks that a trial-by-fire would have been useful. We need the GPL to be tested.
You could also test the efficiency of the fire department by burning your house down.
We need legal precedents to establish a secure position.
Yes, but we don't need to get them by entrapping those that are supporting us.
Corel wasn't intentionally trying to steal rights,
You don't know that. My take on it is that it is natural enough for a corporation, as it is for an individual, to try and carve out a little extra turf for itself wherever it can. Children do it, Corel does it, even you and I do it. It's called testing. When testing happens, with children and friendly corporations, the correct response is a gentle push back to the straight and narrow.
but what if a larger company tried something like this (not mentioning any names: Sun, AOL, MS) - maybe it would've been easier to take Corel to task.
In other words, you're suggesting that we collectively beat up on the weakest guy out there. I for one wouldn't support that - that is the kind of tactic we despise when those big bad corporations use it on little tiny corporations and private individuals. Not something to be emulated. When the time comes for the fight, we will fight fairly. I sincerely hope.
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
When the news first came out about Corel`s beta violating the GPL, everyone fell over themselves to lambast and denigrate it. Now they`ve done the necessary and amended the licence - and where are all the comments commending their actions? It seems that now that they`re doing the Right Thing, people aren`t interested any more. We ought to be pulling out all the stops to let Corel know that we appreciate what they`ve done. Can you say "positive enforcement"?
On that note, I wish to say, Well done Corel!
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Nowhere does the GPL state that a GPL product has to be freely distributed to every one. An entity can be entirely selective about who it distributes the product to, but retstrictions are not allowed to be place on further distribution.
Maybe one or more of the beta testers will upload the distribution somewhere. But they will more than likely have to first remove the non-GPL portions such as WordPerfect.
The desktop is KDE, which looks rather windowsish to begin with. They seem to have configured it so that by default it appears as much like Windows as possible :) The configuration looks like windows, as well. All crucial configuration can be done graphically, as far as I know (though the files are still there, so you can do them manually). The install is also streamlined - likely overly so for people already familiar with linux, but if it actually works even semi-reliably it really will make Linux significantly easier to install than windows (which isn't saying much...when I set up my computer at work, the linux setup took approx. half an hour, and the windows closer to 3). They've also created a nice graphical front-end for apt.
My first instinct was to hate it - I like Linux because it isn't windows (amongst other reasons). I'd still be happier if they'd made Linux easier to install/use without making it a Windows look-alike. However, it makes sense considering that a good portion of their market is people who are used to Windows and aren't as likely to switch to something that looks entirely unfamiliar.
I'm also glad its based on Debian and not RedHat. Perhaps this will lead to a more widespread availability of Debian packages and acceptance of Debian in general (since the initial learning curve of dselect seems to be what turns a lot of new Debian users off of it).
I still wouldn't use it, personally. But if the real world results are anything near what I saw in the demo, I may attempt to talk my parents into letting me install it on their computer :)
Corel is a huge company, they claim to be right behind Microsoft in size in the market sector they address, and they are the largest software company in Canada. For a company of that size to act on an issue like this in 4 days is excellent. That's how long it took from when they first became aware of the problem to when they made a policy-change announcement. I got the impression that they sincerely cared about what the Free Software community wanted.
I'm also pleased that they based their system on Debian. It's nice to see that Debian is finally being appreciated for the fine system it is, by Corel, by SGI/VA/O'Reilly, by Storm Linux, etc.
Thanks
Bruce Perens
Bruce Perens.
4) I'm from the government and here to help.
3) I won't ____ in your mouth.
2) Micros~1 products are stable.
1) I read it on the internet, so it must be true.
I would feel more comfortable actually reading the GPL in this story.