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Bruce Perens Discusses Lawsuit Against Corel (UPDATED)
ac writes "It seems that Corel has made one mistake too many. Bruce Perens [?] is calling for a lawsuit against Corel on the behalf of Debian.
The text of his message follows and should appear here soon.
" Wow - check out the recent story regarding the 18 and older EULA. Update by RM: Bruce later backed off on the lawsuit threat. He reads Slashdot comments and takes them seriously, and he's a good dude at heart, okay?Update: 11/26 08:53 by H :And for all the people e-mailing me, mea culpa. Shoulda checked.
To: debian-legal@lists.debian.org
Subject: Corel Lawsuit
Date: Fri, 26 Nov 1999 10:09:00 -0800 (PST)
From: bruce@perens.com (Bruce Perens)
Message-Id:
It's time for us to bring suit against Corel for this "can't download unless
you're 18" stuff. That's not in our license and they know it. I've tried to
help them several times, and they continue to be 100% clueless. I think at
this point they are not representing Debian well, and should not distribute
it. I'm not going to help them any longer.
Bruce Perens
The problem is the EULA on the Corel software--in Canada at least, you cannot sign a binding contract if you're a minor.
well, he is right... corel does seem to be clueless. its like a kid being told by their parent to give something back to their sibling, but the kid only gives back part of it - like the remote control minus the batteries. hehe :)
:)
Hopefully this'll be the proverbial spanking that they need
And why in the hell would they possibly say 18 only download? is it maybe because a minor can not enter into a legally binding contract or something?
And he should be keeping us up to date...so why did an AC post this? BTW Bruce's earlier post is here Someone may want to link this in the article posting if they haven't all ready, personally i like seeing someone taking this inceiteve(sp), we won't take our rights being violating standing down. Normally i wouldn't care, but this a blantent violating of the GPL in the EULA as bruce pointed out in his earlier post. :)
Got two posts confused, it was ottffssent's post i was refeering to here which i find more intresting and would really like to know more about the reply to :)
I agree with this, I know that in the previous story about the 18 year old restriction there were many people trying to rationalize it or say it was a good way to prevent lawsuits.
The fact remains, it is a violation of a license, and this kind of stuff cannot go unchecked. Granted, it's minor, but we do not want to send the message that these open source licenses (especially GPL) can be violated in ANY way.
As more clueless companies (I honestly had hope for Corel) get into open source, we need to be really be on guard to make sure they do it correctly. This kind of thing can only get worse if left alone.
Finkployd
Let me first say that I agree, Corel has made _some_ mistakes. However, it is obvious that a big company with a huge legal department would have such problems.
We should NOT however alienate them. Do you think that they would have spent so much money into Linux and made such a huge booth at Comdex if they were just around for the hype? of course not.
We need to be forceful, yet forgiving in the way we handle the corel situation. If we alienate the first major company to support Linux then we may be jeoperdizing our future.
I think Bruce Perens simply misses the spotlight. I respect him for what he has done and accomplished, but a lawsuit will not solve anything for Linux users and for the image of Linux.
Bruce: you really ought to give this some more thought.
-Davidu
# Hack the planet, it's important.
What "other stuff"? Help them "several times"?
This "over 18 stuff" has already been discussed - it just the same "minors can'y enter into legal agreements stuff." Is this really so horrible that it's "the last straw?"
You have to rememeber that businesses can't move as fast as individuals. Remember the Comdex thing? Give them a little room to think, and I think this will be fixed.
Yes, Corel is clueless about the Free Software licensing schemes. However, there is a catch to all this:
In the US, you have to be of a certain age to be legally bound to any agreement you make. Since the GPL is a legal agreement, it is possible someone could circumvent the agreement and avoid any consequences, simply based on being a minor.
What could a minor do with GPL'd software that isn't covered by the GPL? Beats me. Perhaps use the code in a non-GPL program. How does this affect Corel? It doesn't. So, it's rather senseless for them to include this in their license agreement.
But I suspect that is the reasoning for this little bit of silly legalese. And this is yet another example of how our world is changing beyond our current society.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Regardless of how many mistakes Corel has made, suing is not the answer. Suing does not make Corel feel very happy about spending dollars developing for a platform that only turns around and hits them with a lawsuit. Instead, try contacting Corel's legal department civilly about the concerns. It'd be a mistake to ruin development for the community.
"In individuals, insanity is rare, but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule." -Nietzsche
I can only read this as "Perens calls for Corel to be sent signal that Debian's patience has limits". Debian would surely win if they sued, so I guess perhaps he's come to the conclusion that threats are the only language Corel's lawyer's speak. In other words, if all you recognise is "cover your ass" thinking, then you'll have to cover your ass from GPL violations too.
I'm surprised, and I advocated showing patience to Corel earlier, but maybe Bruce is right: maybe it is time to say that the GPL demands attention and has backup if it's needed.
--
Xenu loves you!
Following is a letter I just sent to Bruce. I'm wondering if this is more a problem with the GPL than Corel; the GPL is not sacred folks, and it may indeed have flaws that need to be fixed. Anyway, we're getting ahead of the deal.
I'm getting tired of the community going off half-cocked. Less than 24 hours after a problem DOES NOT MEAN we've looked at the things from all sides. Have we gotten REAL legal advice? From at least 3 different sources? Are we SURE of what we're doing? I'm getting really suspicious of the "witchhunt" mentality everyone someone screams "GPL violation!!!" Hysteria is bad for us, and I want us to think things through before we jump with both feet into the quicksand....
-Erik
Letter follows:
Bruce,
This is a followup to my thread on /. (found here) about the possibilities that an age restriction might be necessary to uphold the GPL.
On further thought, I was wondering about this:
The GPL requires that in order to use the software, I agree to the term (the contract) that forces me to distribute it to anyone who asks. And I must insure that the code is passed along with the GPL.
Implicit in this is that I must insure that the person I'm passing the code to must uphold (or at least legally agree to uphold) the GPL. If they cannot, or willnot, I cannot pass the code to them, since I would be responsible for breaking my contract.
This, however, is a catch-22 (or paradox) when talking about minors. The GPL requires that I give it to anyone who asks; however, I cannot give it to a minor, since I cannot insure that they abide by the contract (indeed, I have foreknowledge that they CANNOT), which is a further condition of the GPL.
Paradoxes in contract law are EXTREMELY BAD, as it immediately invalidates the contract.
Is this a flaw? Does the GPL need to be modified?
Also, here is another pertinent question: suppose I am restricted from distributing the program due to content it contains. I've looked at sections 7 & 8 of the GPLv2, and it's not clear as to what the ramifications are in this situation. My reading is that any legally required restriction on code makes that code ineligible for coverage by the GPL (in otherwords, the author cannot GPL the program, nor can GPL'd code be included in the program).
Have we got ourselves a serious problem here?
There are always four sides to every story: your side, their side, the truth, and what really happened.
Basically, the way I see it, if Canada law says that you can't enter into a binding agreement, and even a GPL license is an agreement, than that means that in Canada, an 18 year old can't agree to honor the GPL. As such, Corel is insuring that anybody that downloads has to otherwise agree to all the license requirements, including GPL. If they are correct, then any minor can break the GPL and use the software however, and whereever they want, without having to return modifications, etc.
This really puts us in a very odd position. Corel's EULA is likely to cause a boycott of it's product by us, the Linux community. But that would be a VERY bad thing for Linux' continued acceptance and integration into the coorporate mindset.
I think we all need to be calm right now and don't jump Corel's case too quickly. Give them a day or two to get this rectified. I have faith (I hope well placed) that Corel will do the right thing here and recend this part of the language in their EULA.
If not, Debian users still have, well... Debian. And Corel's version will never catch on (which will be bad for everyone, but may be necessary to protect the spirit and letter of the GPL.
Brought to you by Frobozz Magic Penguin Fodder.
first significant commercial investment in linux, and short-sighted people are going to sabotage it.
how annoying.
there are plenty of people within the linux community who would like nothing more than to keep it off-limits to all but CS majors so they can feel some type of misplaced belonging.
annoying.
lawsuits. bah. there are better ways to solve this, ways that aren't so distasteful.
Time to go back to Microsoft. The linux community really sucks sometimes.
I only wish it wouldn't have been an entity that is friendly towards Linux (well, at least in theory). And no, I didn't mention that one special everyone's favorite company, they have enough lawsuits anyway.. ;)
I wonder if Corel felt like they can do whatever they want, pee on Debian people and the whole Linux community just because Debian isn't a commercial distribution.. Could you see them do this if Corel Linux was based on RedHat ?
IANAL, but it seems to me that any restriction Corel places on the original download of their distribution is legal. The GPL allows me to distribute software for money or with a warranty, and AFAIKT, any further restrictions that do not restrict the ability of my customers to redistributing the binary and source.
Corel could refuse to sell their software to anyone other than Tibetan monks between the ages of 65 and 70. They just can't keep those monks from redistributing the GPLed portions.
So in short, Corel's actions may not be in keeping with the spirit of Free Software, but I see nothing in the GPL to prevent them.
--
"L'IT c'est moi!"
Make sure Corel has explained why they have added this clausule, and check whether they might change it. If not, do *something* about it (still not sure suing is the answer, see post below), but don't be too quick with a lawsuit. My two cents...
Is this the rule we're playing by in the Open Source community? Make 3 mistakes and then we get the big guns on you and stop being friendly?
Every other time Corel arsed up their licenses they complied without any fuss, why is this time any different?
I think his lawsuit threat will scare people off rather than make them release open source stuff
Iain
I'm sure Corel has had enough contact with people like BP (and Linux folk in general) that there's really not much of an excuse for being contiunally clueless ... I was (or still am) willing to give Corel the benefit of the doubt about their Linux/OpenSource romance but things like these make me very skeptical ... I think it's about time they wised up and manage to produce a licence without any obvious problems ... this is not rocket science and should be an achievable goal for a company that manages to writes pretty good software ...
On the other hand, maybe a GNU inspired lawsuit against something as obvious a violation of the GPL as this one, might actually make other potential offenders think twice about actually doing so.
So whose shoulders would it fall on to enforce the license, when push comes to shove? I suppose since the Free Software Foundation owns a lot of the code, they could press the issue, but I don't see someone like Linus (or any small time developer) wanting to spend time in a lengthy court battle over this stuff. I certainly wouldn't.
Do tell us, Bruce.
IANAL, and I don't know what the law literally states... but there's absolutely no way that the software industry would let a "minors aren't bound by software licenses" precedent be set. What, is it OK to be a warez dude as long as you're under 18? Does CompUSA have to start checking IDs before it sells the next Kings Quest installment?
... need lessons in PR and/or human interaction.
These type of comments from our unelected open source leaders turn off companies to adopt any type of open source license.
Imagine if you're a small company with little budget for expensive legal advice. Will you be willing to try out one of these licenses and then be sued by Mr. Open Source (tm) here ?
Geez, give me a break. Are we lawyers or coders here ?
- sigs are for wimps.
however, I cannot give it to a minor, since I cannot insure that they abide by the contract (indeed, I have foreknowledge that they CANNOT), which is a further condition of the GPL.
Well, I think this is a bit strong. Although a minor cannot be compelled, by Canadian law, there is no reason why a minor cannot act in good faith and uphold the contract even though he is not legally bound to do so.
I think this is well demonstrated by the number of minors making successful contributions to GPL projects.
Like what the hell is wrong here???? there have been many people pointing out that a contract with a minor is not binding in canada. (i live in ottawa) you know what that means? the GPL is not binding to a minor. corel isn't breaking any FSF/OpenSource rules : they are following canadian law. you wanna yell at someone or sue someone (what kind of a dummy thought that one up? i had thought that some people were smarter than they seem!) then talk to the canadian government, NOT COREL. sheesh!
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
A minor can't enter into a contract of any kind unless it is necessary for his existance.
If a minor does enter into a contract, for let's say, an operating system, that is obvioulsy not necessary for his survival, than he can renig on said contract without any repurcusions.
To avoid this problem, vendors in general don't want to enter into contracts with minors.
As more publicly-traded companies try to get in on the popularity of Linux, we are going to have more problems like this. The basic problem is that companies are shared shitless of getting sued, and will always try to put in contractual language to limit their liability. This, unfortunately, is completely at odds with the tenets of Free Software (particularly the DFSG). I think what has got Bruce Perens so angry is that he has *repeatedly* dinged Corel on this issue, and apparently they have ignored his cautions. In essence, Corel has violated the DFSG by the restrictive language in the EULA. This has happened before -- Corel linked the apt package (a GPL'd component) to the QT library (non-GPL'd) and had to get special dispensation from the apt author to do this. It just depresses me because I had hoped that Corel *really understood* the DFSG and what it meant to the community. I'd like to think that this was just an oversight, but it would have to be pretty gross negligence on Corel's part to let this get by. At the very least, it shows that Corel has been sloppy in their technical understanding of the DFSG, which is unforgivable given that they have had the direct cooperation of Bruce Perens for several months. Corel should be given to understand in no uncertain terms that this kind of behavior is unacceptable.
Seriously, this is NOT good press. Why didn't anyone CONTACT BRUCE before posting this flame magnet? Now we need to go into damage control mode.
Now that linux is getting popular with the business world, you see how the GPL interferes with making money off of GPL'ed code?
I know there is more to the point then the whole being 18 thing.. But how many minors are actually gonna stop using the distro, let alone even READ the EULA? I think we should treat this like porn sites... No one but yourself knows your real age. :)
As I understand, the Corel license prohibits minors from downloading their distro, right? So, if say, a minor was able to email or call and get a CD sent to them (for cost) wouldn't Corel be perfectly within their bounds?
Chris.
It's my understanding that if the Agreement is invalid therefore the disclaimer (in the EULA) is invalid. This would open Corel up to lawsuits and generaly nasty stuff. In my opinion Corel really has nowhere to go on the issue.
Why not be quiet about what a shitty job Corel is doing and just stop using their distro? It's just a Debian spinoff, so use Debian! Easy way to avoid many unneccsary problems. If we don't use it, they won't sell it or get hits, therefore, they will stop making it because it is not profitable. Remember, they are a commercial company, which is why they are doing all this in the first place... so use their own tactics against them. They don't want peolpe to download it, ok, we won't! :)
If you think you know what the hell is going on you're probably full of shit.
If you think you know what the hell is going on you're probably full of shit.
jdube is who I am
"I think at this point they are not representing Debian well..."
Dumb question: Didn't Bruce leave Debian several years ago? Can't Debian defend themselves?
As for representing someone well, sending a terse combative email to a well-known flamefest-prone site isn't all that great, either.
Corel, which is now finding itself attacked at every turn by the GPL "faithful," should now recognize that it jumped on the Linux bandwagon too hastily. Because Corel is a commercial software developer, the GPL is not its friend but rather its enemy, and is in fact designed to destroy it. (The GPL does not even conform to the "Open Source Definition," as it discriminates against Corel's field of endeavor: the creation and publication of commercial software.)
Hopefully, Corel will be smart enough to do an about-face and promote software which is not encumbered by the GPL's "poison pill" provisions. I'd recommend OpenBSD, since it is not only perhaps the world's most secure OS but also a Canadian product which makes better use of encryption than an exportable American product could.
--Brett Glass
IANAL, and I haven't spent any time studying the GPL and its implications, but I doubt the lawsuit will accomplish anything. The EULA looks like a cut and paste job. (Note that the generic portions, including the offending portion, are in all caps, and the parts specific to Linux were written using both upper and lower case.) It doesn't look like Corel has any intent to be anti-GPL. They do need help keeping things straight, maybe a my-lawyer-call-your-lawyer thing at most. Corel (or the clerk who types these things) seems to be a "GPL newbie". If the community treats Corel bad, they will have reason not to deal with the Linux community, and the Linux community will be setting a bad precedent, probably scaring off other developers, including hardware developers whose drivers we might like to have. So even if we win the battle, we lose the war.
The lack of licences opens companies up to trivial lawsuits. The point of the matter is, if you cannot legaly agree to a contract (meaning you are 18+) you cannot agree to the discliamer.
Can Linux succeed without the help of big corporations? Yeah, only in server market. If it's ever going to compete with Windows in desktop market, the Linux community couldn't do it alone. Just imagine Creative Labs never released their drivers for SB Live. Imagine 3dfx, Matrox, NVIDIA never supported Linux. Imagine Sun cut off any production for a Linux version of Star Office. Where would we be right now? Mention Linux as a desktop alternative and Windows people will laugh in your face.
I'm using Linux to replace Windows as my desktop system now, and I'm really looking forward to NVIDIA and Aureal to release their drivers and Corel to release their office suite. The day that Corel withdrew their commitment to make WordPerfect Office for Linux (because of such negative attitude toward Big Corporation) is the day I'll quit using Linux.
Consider this a flame.
When is Slashdot in general going to develop a sense of journalistic integrity? Face it, Slashdot is WAY to big and popular now to play the locker-room game anymore.
Yet, once again, we've got an EXTREMELY inflammatory lead article, with NO background checking done on Bruce's or Corel's part, and once again EVERYONE IS RUNNING AROUND SCREAMING "LAWSUIT! GO GIT HIM BOYSS!" Why is it that most of the Slashdot commentary has degenerated into juvenile dick-size games?
Sheesh. Slashdot, you do NOT represent the opinions and ideas of the nebulous entity we know as the Linux Community. Yet, Slashdot is being used more and more to measure the pulse of the community, and is giving an erroneous impression.
Slashdot is hurting the Linux community with this irresponsible attitude. Come ON, how hard is it to fire off an email to someone at Corel and to Bruce asking "Hey guys, can you elaborate? We're working on a story here..." Instead, a piece of hear-say is posted (with NO inside word from Corel on the matter). Worse, it makes Bruce look even more like an idiot. Did Bruce say this as an official proclamation of Debian? Did it OCCUR to any of the Slashdot moderators that maybe Bruce was just really, really angry (yes, we're all allowed to get angry once in a while)???
I can't WAIT to see the morons at ZDNET pick up on this article. Just wait for Jesse Berst's next 'alert' about how immature the Linux Community is, waving Slashdot around as an example.
Thank God we've still got Linux Today for -real- Linux news reporting.
--a former Slashdot reader, who fondly remembers the days when Slashdot meant clueful commentary.
The GPL doesn't force me to give covered software to anybody. If I choose to do it I have to include the source but if I refuse to distribute the software that's my business. So why can't Corel refuse to give the whole package to certain people?
I think we need to step away from this 'holier the thou' attitude and take a closer look at the situation. Companies like that don't get into the position they are currently in by leaving themselves wide open to stupid lawsuits. Judging by the amount of posts on Slashdot regarding the whole 'if user x is a minor, then x cannot legally accept the GPL therefore . . . ', i'd say that the entire issue is very grey and Corel is just covering their ass.
As for the people at Debian, chill the hell out, Have you tried to contact Corel and ask them their reasons for putting such a clause in their EULA. One thing I appreciate about the open source community is that fact that people are willing to look at problems from a variety of angles. However, it seems to me that everyone automatically has a problem with Corel because they are a company that 'GASP' actually makes money by selling commercial software. Instead of jumping all over them, why isn't a little constructive criticism offered. If I was running the Corel Linux development I would seriously get discourged by having the Linux community try to bite me in the ass every time I took a step.
My point is this, the issue is obviously somewhat complicated because it doesn't seem like anyone on Slashdot has posted a definitive legal opinion on the matter. Lets take a bit of time and analyze things before we start making accusations.
I got frustrated with Corel because I have worked to smooth these things out twice before. I sent a message asking if it was time for a lawsuit to a Debian mailing list. I did not expect that message to be posted to Slashdot. The people on the Debian list told me to chill out, which was good advice.
So, Corel folks, I apologize. You need to sort our some issues with the community, but any talk of a lawsuit at this time is way out of proportion.
Bruce Perens
Bruce Perens.
Now I know this could turn into a heated "should-not-have-ever-been-idealized" idea, but could it be possible for Slashdot admins to take away articles/threads after they've been posted? Like keep them in the archives, but not let anybody see them any more... Because sometimes when you speak too soon, it'd be nice if you had some way of recovering from the matter. Although... maybe this isn't such a good idea.
the real at&t mix
Still, I think it's a Good Thing you did this. Sometimes Marketing/Lawyer drones don't understand anything else. Kinda like the dog in Simpsons.
:)
"blah blah blah SIT!"
"blah blah blah LAWSUIT!"
Maybe they'll *read* the GPL this time. Who knows?
There is one little flaw in the 'Must be 18 so they cannot agree to the GPL' argument...plenty of software is sold to minors under various lisences. I bought DOS and a couple of compilers when I was minor and even though there was a EULA, no one asked me for ID. When I bought WordPerfect from Corel, no one checked to see if I was of age. Why are they treating their Linux differently? I've downloaded browsers by clicking on 'Yes I agree' buttons, never asked if I was 18.
(Side note: does that then mean my little newphew can make illegal copies, and de-compile games because he cannot be bound by the EULA?)
Dana
Theyve gone too far now... Corel wants to turn itself into the new Microsoft. Theyve abused the goodwill of the Linux community, insulted all that GPL stands for, and ripped off the poor sods who bought their dist. DOWN WITH COREL NOW BEFORE ITS TOO LATE!!!!!!
What Corel is doing, is that they are NOT giving binaries to anyone under 18.
The GPL does NOT say that you have to give binaries to anyone who asks you. It simply says that if you give them binaries, you have to give them source.
Now, As long as you are 18, you can get binaries from Corel, and you can also get sources from Corel.
In what specific way are they breaking any license?
They are just not redistributing their GPL-based product, which is a long stablished right: consider in-house packages based on GPLd code.
Further, does Corel say that if you are over 18 and get their package you can not give it to a minor?
All that is relevent is that our community has certain rules. Corel's license agreement is not acceptable by our rules; if our rules mean anything, then we cannot allow Corel to break the rules while operating under our blessing. You talk about minors entering into obligations? Corel entered into an obligation, too... if they can't handle the fact that free software means free software (as in freedom, not just gratis), they should never have jumped on this bandwagon. We never claimed to be anything other than revolutionaries.
It doesn't matter if minors can't be held by legally binding software licenses. Non-minors can't be held by those licenses either! It doesn't matter if taking a stand on this issue would harm our acceptance by the business community. I'm not writing free software for the business community. (I have this image of Dr. Frank N. Furter telling Janet Weiss, "Well, I didn't make him for you!") I'm happy if they get some benefit from the free software I write for other reasons, but it doesn't really matter to me whether business uses it or not.
What does matter is that everyone with a brain, regardless of trivia like age, is welcome to participate. That inclusion, specifically as applied to people's ages, is the top reason for my involvement in the free software movement. It's fundamental to what we're all about. If the business community can't handle that, I don't want them. If you would excuse it away on the grounds of antiquated contract law, then I don't know which team you're playing for, but it's not the same one I joined.
I agree with Bruce's original, extreme stand, before he toned it down.
There's no reason to get lawsuit happy *or* to say that this is the "end of linux" or to advise people to "go back to NT". Such extremism is unwarrented.
The "under 18" was obviously a boilerplate legal thing. Even if they won't remove it. It isn't against the GPL and affects a fraction of the community.
Why is it that half of you act like tightly coiled springs just waiting to rag on someone? All we need right now to make this paranoid fantasy complete is for the opportunistic John Katz to write an article about it.
So instead get a grip, take a nap, have a long talk with your therapist (this means you Mr. Katz). Sometimes the lack of maturity here ticks me off.
Just wanted to let everyone know, I pointed netscape over to corel's linux site and guess what?? The html is there, but it brings up a blank page. I have a feeling that Corel is gearing up for an apology (or explanation) for their EULA.
Brought to you by Frobozz Magic Penguin Fodder.
Okay. I was wrong.
Brought to you by Frobozz Magic Penguin Fodder.
Maybe they secretly included nudepictures of Natalie Portman (Queen Amidala) in /usr/share/n_p_pictures and don't want minors to download that.
/usr/local/share
# tar zxvf nppics.tgz -C
# echo heheh
Does anyone get the feeling that Corel knows more about what they are doing than they lead us to believe? I wouldn't be suprised if this is all a trap to give Debian, Linux, GPL, and related things (opensource namely) a bad name in the media.
Hey Hemos, take an example from Justin. When you make a mistake, you admit it. Slashdots making a few too many lately and its time they became more careful before they hurt some one.
Do not wright in this space.
Is Bruce Perens over 18?
Seems a bit stupid to me that Corel have written a EULA that requires a person to 'click-sign' to the effect that they are older than 18. We are assuming that they have written this because you cannot sign a binding contract if you're a minor.
So an under 18 year old downloading the software can't 'legally' agree to the EULA anyway.
Too me this seems somewhat of a paradox.
1. you can't say you have to be over 18, that breaks the GPL!
Guess what, if you're under 18, you cant agree to the GPL, so it doesnt apply. Paradox.
OK, a few people have pointed that out, but far far more have totally missed it.
2. AFAICS, no one pointed this out on either relevant thread. This would be the first time the GPL has really gone to court and been fully tested by lawyers. Correct me if I'm wrong, but up until now the GPL has never actually been forced into a courtroom? Because that would set a precedent... if I'm not mistaken, at the moment we're in the happy limbo mode where something hasnt legally been proved watertight, but it hasnt legally been proved bullshit, either. Which is probably the best place to be, and stay in. I'd rather leave it in a happy limbo than push our luck over a relatively small issue, which if during which the GPL was ruled not A-OK somehow, could damage a future case involving *real* violation of its *core* spirit.
Finally, since Bruce has been categorical about the fact that he didnt "mean" it, then why not do an "update" to the story, I think it's well called for, instead of people having to read every post to find out that this story is actually no story.
Man, everyone says that it's because you have to be 18 to enter a legally binding contract. That's all well and good, but a minor can go buy windows without this restriction. It seems to me that through all their little foul-ups that they're trying to own Linux in the end. I hear a lot about how much they've given to Linux, but that's a load of crap too. All I've seen is Word Perfect, which isn't worth a shit anyhow. It's got its own printer drivers that futher confuse its crappy program. I see much more promise with Abi-word (despite bullets ;). Corel seems to have too much of an alterier motive with Linux. They can't beat MS with Dr. DOS, so they're going to try and cash in on Linux since its bound to take over. Also, outside of some pretty backgrounds and a modified kfm (K File Manager) and a gui install, they're just like any other distro. RedHat doesn't require you to be over 18 to download it. I've never understood everyone's excitement over Corel. They haven't offered anything good. They bought Dr. DOS and WordPerfect after DOS and WordPerfect weren't cool anymore (not that dos ever was). I dunno, they suck.
What bothers me is that slashdot even posted this. I've never seen such a low quality post on slashdot before. I agree with the earlier comment by someone who said that posts like this should removed from the main page and archived instead. I just hope the mainstream media doen't get ahold of this. It really makes the Linux community look bad in my opinion.
Check out AbiWord.
This seems to be the way our community works now that we have "news" agencies such as Slashdot to focus our attention to specific issues. You're busy hacking for 12 hours and when you return to the world, perhaps looking quickly at Slashdot, all hell has broken loose. I trust Bruce, RMS and others to handle these situations perfectly well and there's no need for me to get particularly upset about it. I'd rather spend my energy on writing free software instead, wouldn't you?
Is it a violation of the GPL? by canadian law, is the GPL enforcable with someone under 18? i don't think so. therefore, in order to ensure that anything you do is under the GPL (a requirement of the GPL) then you must restrict it to people who are under the GPL (which in canada would not include minors) wow you opensource people gotta stop flaming everyone who tries to make a buck!
no he doesn't. depending on how the law (not corel's motive, but canadian law, which corel is SUBJECT to, and does not control) is interpreted, they may be REQUIRED to put such a clause in whether they want to or not! open source people should read into things before they open their mouths for their feet to enter....
Seeing as Bruce has commented on his words in this column, can someone add ad update to the main page so that people don't think we're going to be sitting at Corel's doors with torches and pitchforks this evening?
Just a thought.
--sugarman--
Who is there to verify you are over 18 years of age? Since your parents probably pay for the isp account, download it anyway. Who is to stop you? Its like agreeing yes I'm over 18 to enter a pr0n site, how many people do that daily?
I am a lawyer, but what follows is off the top of my head; don't quote me and don't rely on this as legal advice.
My recollection is that the general rule regarding contracts entered into by minors is that they are not void but are voidable. This means that minors can decide, after entering into an agreement, that they no longer want to be bound by the agreement. They are released from their obligations under the agreement, but they also give up any rights and benefits they obtained under the agreement.
That means that Corel doesn't have any legitimate reason to be worried about minors downloading their distribution. If a minor decides to void the EULA, the minor loses the rights granted under the EULA. At that point, the distribution is covered by background copyright law, so the minor is not legally permitted to copy the distribution. Only the EULA gives someone the right to copy the distribution. It makes sense, really. If the minor agrees to be bound by the EULA, the minor is permitted to do all of the things that Open Source is all about. If the minor rejects the agreement, the distribution is protected by copyright just like any other software.
I don't think Corel has any justifiable reason to be worried about minors downloading their distribution. And, of course, even if they did have a good reason to be worried, they do not appear to have the right under the GPL to add this clause to their EULA.
-Steve
Democracy is a poor substitute for liberty.
okay, i love slashdot, been reading it for years, but the posting of this article isn't just Bruce's fault.
this article should be deleted. there are many people who read slashdot, but don't bother reading the comments (effectively). they'll jump to conclusions. not to mention the fact that Corel will be very pissed off (as they rightfully should be) when they hear about this.
perhaps its setting a slashdot precidence, but i don't care. please guys, DELETE THIS ARTICLE. and next time you decide to print somebody's email, ask them first if they want it printed! i can't believe you just posted Bruce's email from an obscure debian mailing list and made it a slashdot headline! does anybody else think this was stupid?
- j
They don't seem to care about your age if you download the source :)
For example, the disclaimer of warranty could be a problem, GPL isn't good enough as a contract in some legal systems, the author cannot agree to have no compensation for his work, gift taxes problems etc.
I am no lawyer and don't know much about other countries' law, but at least here in Czech Republic the GPL is fairly problematic. (See here, sorry, in Czech only.)
I am extremely concerned that we could be scaring off companies from developing for Linux. I agree that we need to make sure that people do so legally, but I think Corel should be given the chance to correct this. At the very least they should be given the chance to explain their stance. It is very possible that they took an existing EULA for a product they have available for a no charge download and used it again. This would still potentially constitute a mistake, but not a malicious one and responding maliciously at this point is unwarranted.
It's not like in the states... if the judge even thinks it's a pointless case, he'll throw it out and make you pay court costs...
Maybe Corel Linux includes kernel modules for the FUFME drive and that's why you have to be >= 18.
advice: if you use FUFME, be sure to have a firewall.
ps. For people who've missed it: www.fufme.com
It seems to me that the Corel EULA has problems in addition to the 'minor' business. In particular this little gem:
B. PROPRIETARY RIGHTS:
All right, title and interest in the Software Programs, including source code, documentation, appearance, structure and organization, are held by Corel Corporation, Corel Corporation Limited, and others and are protected by copyright and other laws.
How can Corel just paste in something like this? They don't own any such rights to the bulk of what constitutes Corel Linux. To pass through something like seems to me to be an indication of total lack of clue.
Ok, it might be time for everyone to stop and think on what it means to be human. I would suggest the following two points:
The first one applies to Bruce--to ALL of us. We all make mistakes. Often. Many times. To inifinity. Each and every day. That's part of the reason we love Open Source--it gives us many ways to compensate for making so many mistakes in an average day! :-) So cut Bruce some slack. I appreciate him stepping forward and admitting being wrong. That shows character. It takes a lot to admit your wrong. It takes even more to admit it to the large crowd that is Slashdot and the linux community at large.
The second point is for all of you who immediately jumped the gun on this. You know who you are. When I saw this post, the first thing that came to my mind was, "Ah, Bruce." That is not an insult to Bruce, but an understanding of his passion. I'm a passionate guy too--we passionate people tend to overreact and act before fully thinking through our actions. So when I saw this post, I thought back to the Bruce Perens I have come to know over the past two years in conferences and news stories and I thought, "I'm sure this isn't the last word." Thinking through tough, emotionally-charged situations like this is something the ENTIRE community needs to grow in. Perhaps the more "calm" (I don't want to say passion-less--they are just better at separating emotion from the moment) folk in the community can serve as a balance to the passion that this community seems to have no shortage of.
Everyone just cut everyone else some slack and be calm. Grace would be a good characteristic to show in this situation.
"Doubt your doubts and believe your beliefs." -- Switchfoot, Ode to Chin
IANAL, but it is still illegal in Canada for anyone to violate copyright laws, even minors? If a minor cannot legally agree to the terms and conditions of the GPL, then he/she must use the product under normal copyright laws, with full rights reserved. Then they cannot distribute or modify the source code at all. I know that Canadian minors can't go around warezing M$ products with free reign just because they can't agree to the M$ EULA, they are still guilty of violating copyright laws.
It seems to me that Corel has complete right to put this clause in the EULA. The GPL doesn't require that you distribute to everyone; it just says that _if_ you distribute, you need to also make sure you give them the source. If Corel doesn't give minors any copies of Linux, they're not required to provide the minors with Linux source code, or with anything at all.
The clause would only be a violation of the EULA if:
- Corel was distributing binaries with a written offer that pointed to the site with the EULA, the binaries were distributed to minors, and the EULA did not allow distributing the source to minors, or
- Corel was requiring that recipients of the code also not distribute the code to minors.
Neither of these, as far as I know, took place; Corel's restriction is still legal.Man, I must need more caffiene. Am I the only one who misread this sentence?
can't download unless you're 18"
Whoa, you need to be really well hung to use Corel Linux!
No, but seriously folks. Lets not go off half cocked on a (USA centric) holiday weekend. Obviously Corel's legal staff needs some clues. The standard boilerplate just isn't going to work alongside the GPL. A lawyer who is trusted by the community and a master of open source legal issues could make a killing right now. Corel really needs an expert on their staff. On the other side, the Free Software community needs to politely and firmly correct them. Keep the lawyer on speed dial, but don't make it the first button you hit.
They need to be given some time to be able to resolve the issue and explain themselves. Have they made a statement? Hell, linux.corel.com is 404ing right now. The power of the Internet may be rapid communication, but evicerating a company over a long weekend is not its best use. Personally, I'd rather not force them into making hasty decisions about matters of legal importance. Lets give their semi-clued lawyers a day or two to figure things out and make a statement before heading to Canada with pitchforks and torches.
-BW
It isn't claiming that Corel owns the rights to the bulk of it, everyone else is merely covered by the "and others" bit.
Basically it's saying that the people who own the various bits of software have their rights and interests protected by laws.
Who'd a thunk it?
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
I think we all know why Corel is withholding their distrobution from minors. Instead of playing Tetris while you install, Corel Linux connects to pr0n.corel.com and streams you live pictures of nekkid dancing penguins. Minors beware!
this sig limit is too small to put anything good h
All right, title and interest in the Software Programs, including source code, documentation, appearance, structure and organization, are held by Corel Corporation, Corel Corporation Limited, and others and are protected by copyright and other laws.
I think we're the "..and others..." Corel isn't claiming copyright; they're just saying that the code is copyrighted, and Corel owns part of that copyright.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Frankly, the whole issue is moot. Here is why: 1. If one is 18+ yrs old, then the clause does not apply to him or her and that person can download the software with both a clear conscience and a legal right to do so. 2. If the person is less than 18, the agreeing to the contract is pointless because a minor cannot be held responsible anyway. In either case, the clause serves no purpose because either it doesn't apply because of age, or because of age, the responsibility is negated. This is not to say, that I support Corel. I think they were wrong to add this clause. But I think the real point is being missed. The question is not why are minors being licensed, but rather, why is anybody being licensed? Each individual piece of software has its own license. Be it GPL, BSD, or Corel. Why included the EULA at all?
You can't get a blue screen on a black and white monitor.
Bruce Perens wrote
/.ers only do two things well, initiate flamewars and inflate their karma :-). Don't know what the solution is, perhaps introduce a new rule that once your karma reaches 100 (tribal elder status?) you can moderate at any time and simultaneously post iff you're willing to sacrifice your existing karma. The alternative is to make sure that karma moderations on average sum to zero (or 1) (more difficult) so that people have an equal chance of going up/down and that the total karma doesn't tend to infinity and thus become overinflated (and thus devalued).
... the fun of designing a social currency.
Besides, I don't have Ulitmate Karma on Slashdot. Sig11's is higher than mine (I just happened to look at his user record a while back), probably other people as well.
Well, IMHO the absolute karma becomes rather meaningless after a while. I think what is more important is the relative karma/post ratio, ie some sort of median of how often your score goes up relative to the postings you make per week. I suspect people goes through a number of stages, initially posting lots to get the +1 bonus. Then more strategically (e.g. very early on in the thread to get noticed early) to race against the competition in running up your karma. Then I suppose the boredom stage sets in or your time runs out when more important things intrude in your life like an SO.
The biggest problem is that because you can create unlimited karma, the whole process gets out of control (can we say unbounded feedback loop?) and the whole system becomes inflated beyond recognition. To paraphrase Peter Drucker's saying that governments only do two things well, wage war and inflate the currency, I'd toss in the contention that
Ahhh
LL
I think the whole thing is a ploy by Bruce to get Karma points ;> He got four for just apologizing!
This was a rather nasty thing to do. As Mr. Perens has already stated, he did not intend for the email to be posted to Slashdot. Couldn't somebody have, as a courtesy, checked with him before this went up? Even if only to make sure that he was really the one that sent the message?
There were 11 follow-ups on the Debian mailing list last I checked and then I reload Slashdot to find nearly 100 comments already posted to this article. I think it took a total of 30 minutes for all of this.
Will Slashdot be changing from green to yellow? This kind of sensationalism within the community only hurts us. I first started reading Slashdot early this year and in that short time I've been here the tone of the articles has gone from 'Stuff that matters.' to that of the mock page 'Stuff that splatters'. Not entirely, of course, but the average is moving that way.
Maybe there should be some sort of flag system for articles. As an over-simplified example, good vs. bad news. New advances, project completions, et al. are good. Censorship, legal action, things that Microsoft does are bad. Bad news seems to have five times the impact as good news, judging from what I recall of comment counts. If there aren't five times or more 'good news' articles, Slashdot becomes the hive of raving lunatics that other news wires think it is.
Perhaps a survey of articles should be done. Maybe weigh the value of an article by the number of comments and their moderation points. It would probably be best to exclude funny moderations. Then classify the articles according to a flag system and see what is most beneficial to us. Hell, that could probably be the start of a doctoral thesis in something.
I don't mean to say that 'bad news' is unimportant or should be ignored. But since bad trends are more important than bad events, perhaps the reporting should reflect that. Somethings are urgent ('Congress voting on suprise bill tomorrow' et al.); but most bad news isn't really new, it's the same-old-**** in a new form which indicates that there is a more fundamental problem that hasn't been addressed.
Darn it, my fingers are starting to hurt. Ciao.
If you burp, it'll make the news.
So be carefull where you burb.
It's a small net, and your words get around fast.
Kudos to /. for informing the public.
and Bruce, let's be carefull out there.
I'm beginning to feel very sorry for Corel -- They want to be able to offer a bunch of services to the linux community, as well as broaden linux's acceptance as a viable operating system (yadda yadda, you've heard this all before), but they're getting hit left and right by technicalities in licensing agreements. I suppose somebody can argue against me here, but isn't this why we have the BSD/GPL/Etc all in the first place? Not to intentionally stuff words into anybody's mouth, but programmers who are working for free just want to be saved from the hassle of writing up something to protect their code, and I am beginning to think that all these issues will be extremely destructive to the concept of linux by linux users themselves. I know that this certainly dropped my respect for Bruce Perens quite a bit. Good luck to Corel's overtaxed legal team as they try to find a way around this.
Being a Canadian (this doesn't, by itself, mean I'm more qualified to answer) I may have heard more about Corel pre-linux than others since it is a Canadian company. Over the years, watching one of the largest, if not the largest, software company in Canada, I have had a distinct impression that Michael Cowpland only supports one thing - himself.
Corel has gotten creamed in the Office software department, losing miserably to MS Office. This is Corels big opportunity to get in on something great on the ground floor. If they can get their products ported and included in linux now, if it turns out to be the Next Big Thing, then they have the market, to some extent, cornered. I do not believe for one second that Corel and Michael Cowpland are supporting Linux out of altruism, or because they "believe" in it. It is for money, pure and simple, and if they can change the licensing without people suing them, they damn well will.
Just my $.02 canadian,
GC
You may not have expected that message to be posted to SlashDot, but you _DID_ put your "I'm not working with Corel any more and I'm thinking of suing" message as the first item on your site (technocrat.net).
/. reposted a private email. Sorry, but that's BS. You posted it publicly, you even trumpeted it on your site, and you should have known that such a dramatic statement would draw attention.
/. Try taking responsibility for your messages _and_ your site.
Now you've removed it from Technocrat and you're trying to make it sound like
This morning you wanted the world to know. You regret your words now, fine. But you can't rewrite what happened to make it sound like you were victimized by
--Brian
In Canada someone under 18 cannot enter into a contract. Life insurance is considered a product and requires a parent or guardians signature to purchase for a minor. Most products do not include a contract, so minors can buy most things with a few legal exceptions (like alcohol or tobacco). Software as a product typically includes a contract, does it now follow that in areas where contracts cannot be entered into with a minor mean that it is technically illegal to sell software to a minor? It would be assumed that said minor intends to open it and therefore enter into the contract.
Who is responsible, the retailer, the distributor, the programmers? It certainly won't be the minor.
This could change the face of EULA if companies realized that it is illegal to sell to what might be a significant portion of their market.
Everyone -- businesses and the open source community -- would be better off if we adopted the win/win, "live and let livee" approach of other software licenses, such as the BSD license, the MIT X license, and the Artistic License.
Open source that's reusable by all -- such as the BSD TCP/IP stack -- is responsible for the growth of the Internet and the success of the World Wide Web. Instead of threatening lawsuits based on overly restrictive licenses such as the GPL, we should say, "Use this code as you will. You can't un-publish what's already been published for the world to see, so you can't 'take' it; you can only use it to avoid tediously reinventing the wheel. Now, let's see what you can do wih it! If you do not choose to publish the source to what you build with it, good luck to you -- it's not easy to make a living that way. If you are good enough to do it you deserve success."
Bruce, in the past you have had the strength and foresight to opt out of movements and groups which have become dogmatic and/or territorial. Perhaps it is time to reconsider your support of the GPL.
It seems that the only thing that the GPL has done which less restrictive licenses have not is to alienate and hurt people. (The GPL hasn't "forced" the opening of any code; people who don't want to publish their source, such as Be, have merely worked around it or reimplemented the algorithms themselves.) It even appears to violate Point 6 of the Open Source Definition -- which you helped to write! -- by discriminating against a field of endeavor: the creation of software which does not happen to be open source.
I realize that this would be a bold move, to be sure, but you're one of the few people I've encountered who has the guts to make it. Let's end the conflict, the bitterness, and the spite. It's time to get on with writing software, and to publish it in a way that quells conflicts rather than creating them. We will all be more productive, and happier, if we do.
--Brett Glass
Lawyerclysm imminent!!! News at 11!!!
;> ;)
One semi-hothead spouts off, 13 bazillion
other buffoons jump in.
Lot more talking than thinking going on around
here this morning.
Isn't peer pressure an awesome force?
Situations like this really point out the strength
of the open sources (sores heh heh heh) community.
Would Bill Gates listen to anyone telling him he
was full of buffalo sh*t? Don't think so. So,
BP gets a mouthful of shoe leather. Once he gets
tired of the taste of pavement, he will think
harder before speaking...
It's all very well to be calm and rational and reasonable. However, in the event of someone calmly and rationally taking actions to basically weaken the GPL by setting a precedent to alter pre-existing licenses on the grounds of convenience, I would calmly and rationally have their head for it :)
More accurately, since I _have_ read the GPL, do have a reasonable idea of what it requires, and have released software under it based on my desire for my licensing terms to be _just_ _like_ _that_, I will calmly and rationally suggest that Corel not only has to either recant quickly or lose their permission to redistribute GPLed software, I would also suggest that this 'worsening of the signal to noise ratio' is harmful. It is harmful because the more this is allowed, the more will happen. I would suggest (calmly and rationally) that it is very much a bad thing that Corel is permitted to blunder in this manner. Their mistakes make it appear that the GPL isn't really a license, or doesn't really bind, or doesn't really mean what it says. Never mind that no commercial vendor would _want_ licenses in general to be questioned- that their own EULAs and agreements depend on the same respect for the wording of licenses- the reality is that for Corel's legal people and many other people in their position, 'some are more equal than others' if they can get away with it. And that's not something that can be encouraged.
In other words: yes, somebody at Corel would have no problem with simultaneously arguing that the GPL doesn't really need to be taken literally, yet the Corel EULA _does_ need to be taken literally. Hence this confusion, and this problem. The central irony is this: in order for Linux to be properly protected, Linux has to _demand_ equal protection for its intellectual property under the law, and equal respect for its licenses. On the other hand, the people responsible for endangering this IP protection are the people who _most_ depend on it. The logical consequence is that Microsoft ought to donate huge sums to the FSF in order to fight Corel in court over the GPL, because then Microsoft is rid of Corel, and the GPL is finally tested in court and given the same protection as EULAs and such. It's nuts, but it's logical. Who better to protect the rights to IP than corporations? And what is this but a challenge by Corel (intentionally or not) that risks weakening the GPL's right to impose terms on IP? Calmly, rationally, this nonsense has to stop.
blame Hemos!
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Leadership requires wise usage of words since words can do too much harm too easily.
Given the fact that any thought/mail/comment/rant can not only be on slashdot, but on cnn.com as well in a few hours, so-called "leaders" should be extremely careful,
OR they are simply not qualified as leaders, or at least people others will listen to. Period.
Who cares about persons under 18? I am sick to death of constant whining on slashdot from idiot teenagers. Teenagers usually have nothing at all worthwhile to contribute to the discussions on slashdot or anywhere else. Children should be seen and not heard.
Yeah, and thanks for fanning the flames, moron.
BSD license is a fine license for many. Others,
such as myself, prefer GPL/LGPL. In fact,
given a choice of proprietary or BSD, I would
pick purely proprietary. I am sure many others
would do the same.
See, this is EXACTLY what I'm talking about...clueless Slashdorks like yourself that start spouting this garbage.
Grow up, get a clue, and take a downer.
Why not just explain it to them one more time? It may be tiring, but it sometimes pays off to stay friendly.
"I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
I thought that for a contract to be legally binding it had to be signed in writing?
Any lawyers in the house to answer this question?
I wish Andover would hire some intelligent editors and dump clowns like Hemos, etc.
The clause is actually quite moot in Canada, where that law applies, because minors cannot be held to the "I agree that I am under 18" clause. The only thing this clause does is cause problems for minors in other countries.
--------
"I already have all the latest software."
Bruce, for starters you really need to be more careful in the future. You're pretty high-profile; watch what you say, even on free-form mailing lists. Slashdot is a prime example of how your words can come back to haunt you. ZDNET could have done the same thing Slashdot did.
Sadly, this isn't the first time something like this has happened. Take a look at most of the MORONIC responses to this article...Slashdot is full of mouse jockeying idiots who would rather foam at the mouth and mumble about 'lawsuits' not a single ONE of these cowards would pursue on their own, rather than engage in honest discourse. The sad thing is NO ONE on this site did ANY background checking. No one contacted you personally, and no one bothered to contact Corel. Once again Slashdot has made the Linux community look like COMPLETE IDIOTS.
Bruce, I don't consider myself a 'fan' of yours...In fact I've been quite against a lot of things you've been for. However, this time I don't finger YOU as the primary culprit. Everyone can have a bad day, and I challenge ANYONE to say that they haven't spouted off on Usenet/The Web at one time or the other in anger.
SLASHDOT IS TO BLAME IN THIS. Rob, you better start whipping your droogs and stooges into shape because SLASHDOT FUCKED UP, BIG TIME. Why is it NO ONE running the show here bothered to follow this up properly? Bruce's words were taken TOTALLY OUT OF CONTEXT (did any Slashdot moderator bother to notice that the debian list had discussed and dismissed what Bruce had to say?).
Ah, I'm wasting my breath here...this is Slashdot.org, after all, home of stupid discourse.
If somebody has written some software and kindly allowed people to package and distribute it under their own label for profit, then they have an absolute right to dictate the conditions under which this may be done. I corel don't want to, or can't meet those requirements they mustn't distribute it.
Sig is taking a break!
I did mention in this post that I couldn't see the reason for the proliferation of licenses. I still can't see why there are just a few standard licences that we're all familiar with. I wouldn't have to read the Norton License, the Mozilla licence, Corel license etc if they just simply stuck to one of the more common license agreements out there. I'm sure we could get it down to about 3-4 different licenses in the end. Another good thing about cutting down on the number of licenses is that we are more likely to get litigation which hopefully would validate these licenses in law courts i.e. create precedents. AFAIK, we STILL don't know if the GPL is legally binding and effective. As far as I can see, Corels' 18 year old license restriction would have little effect anyway; since minors can't be bound by licenses in Canada, the term itself is paradoxically invalid. It MAY be valid in other countries though.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Before I forget.
When ZDNET or some other clueless rag does something like this, we're all OVER them. We don't give ZDNET room for lazy journalism, why the hell should we give such leniancy to Slashdot? It's just plain irresponsible, not to mention extremely hypocritical.
4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance.
--------
"I already have all the latest software."
Maybe Bruce has more intension to sue Corel than he now indicated. But the ultimate question is, what if Debian sue Corel, so what?
:)
Corel has been cutting GPL corners left and right. They are the ones who's putting it, whob know what's coming after that if they push one more hand. Exactly who is giving a shit about Corel anymore? In the win32 platform? Do you know aol is going to bomb american with staroffice with their CDs? Do you know how much AOL cd my little cousin has collected? 4 Aol5.0 and about 5,6 AOL 4.0. (She uses Netzero
Who give Corel permission to be so disrepectful to GPL? If open source community can sustain a tiny law suit, then GPL is not a good license. I say sue them asses off. Use a law suit to clear up the shadom area.
CY
You are correct about a minor acting in good faith. It is not law, but is common practice. "Common practice" means a lot in English Common Law as many of the laws aren't written down. In this case the law will generally look the other way. However if there is any damage caused, even if the minor was acting in good faith, then you have all sorts of trouble. The law was designed to protect against minors entering contracts that they could not fullfill. Under the Canadian Contract law minors cannot make purchases over $50. I have never heard of that being enforced. However whenever a contract is signed, say a damage waiver for paintball, the parent's or legal gaurdian's signature is required.
Basically Corel feels that it must include this clause under Canadian Law.
Well...looking at the karma system I have an idea.
:)
All users with positive karma should always be allowed to moderate. But every time they moderate, they lose one point of karma. They gain it back, or lose more, depending on how well they faired at metamoderation.
The only catch is that Signal 11's 270 or so karma points will be enough to moderate this entire discussion.
OFTC: By the community, for the community
Any license which requires a developer to give up the value of his work in order to adapt or adopt freely available open source will inevitably cause friction between authors of open source and those who publish software for a living. The LGPL, which you mention above, is far less extreme than the GPL in terms of what it demands. However, because it still attempts to appropriate the work of others (some would say "confiscate," though I think the term is a bit strong), it is problematic and subject to serious legal questions. And these questions will cause court battles. (I don't want to go into this in great depth here, but the most serious problem with a license that requires disclosure of modifications under the same license is that it is a "contract to execute a contract," which -- according to basic contract law -- is per se unenforceable.)
I do not believe that many people are really so spiteful that they would withhold their code altogether, as you suggest above, just because someone else could use it to construct his or her own product. Apache -- which with 50%+ market share is arguably the most successful open source project of all -- has no problems obtaining code. And it uses the most liberal open source license of all -- in fact, it's a hair's breadth away from putting the code in the public domain.
We will all have the opportunity to prosper as the base of code that's truly free grows. While Stallman, and others, attempt to fan the flames of petty jealousy, I am inclined to believe that most people will be able to see past this appeal to childish spite and pettiness and recognize that it hurts rather than helps. I believe that all programmers will ultimately come to recognize the benefits of universally reusable open source -- code with no strings attached. Let's start now by consigning the GPL to history and moving on.
--Brett Glass
I mean If open source community can't ... and two other tpyo :)
sustain a tiny law suit, then
Argument 2: Since EULA's of any kind do not apply to minors, (per Corel's arguement 1) it follows that 13-year-old Canadian warez d00dz are can't be held responsible for their actions either. Corel's logic here implies that even though warez kids break the licenses of the SW they pirate, you can't go after them. Let's compare a 13 year old downloading Corel Linux to one who distributes warez. Both kids broke a license. If one can't be held responsible, neither can the other. Oops!
So when is Slashdot's hotheaded posting of rumors going to result in them getting sued? It's bound to happen sooner or later. This should be relabeled "Rumors for Nerds, Stuff that is heresay".
1. Be called Bruce Perens or another proeminent Free Software/Open Source community
2. Make a big mistake (hey, this happen to everybody), big enough that it get caught on
3. Post 10 comments to apologize and explain why you were wrong... so you get moderated up for these explanations.
Bingo, your Karma is much bigger than this morning
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
no he doesn't. depending on how the law (not corel's motive, but canadian law, which corel is SUBJECT to, and does not control) is interpreted, they may be REQUIRED to put such a clause in whether they want to or not! open source people should read into things before they open their mouths for their feet to enter....
So you're basically saying you shouldn't have posted this until you actually checked out Canadian law and seen if it's actually required, instead of just speculating, like the rest of us are.
--------
"I already have all the latest software."
My stocks are going *up* (Corel, RedHat, etc...), I have a stable, configurable, excellent alternative to (b. gates' private parts are)Microsoft, and everyone gets to put their two cents into this entire Linux adventure. Great game, huh? OOPS! someone fouled - but I don't think it's the end of the GPL, Corel, or minors being able to download software (do you?). I have scoffed minor laws all my life and will continue to do so, as I expect will others. Corel isn't sending out the "catch-those-lying-minors-and-throw-them-in-jail" police. Don't worry, if they posted a standard form, they'll either remove it, or ignore it. If they think they can impose their will, they'll be unpleasantly surprised. The power of the computing community has finally overwhelmed corporate 'hugeness' - with Linux.
Without empty space there would be nothing...
Without the EULA she can download it. She can then grep for Corel Replace it with MicroSoft. Replace any graphics indicating corel, with ones indicating Microsoft then give it to her loving dad. He markets it. She is not legaly bound by nothing. Corel would have no legal rights.
They can bloody well go to hell for all I care if they think they can stop me from running it. If they try then back I go to redhat or hell.... I will just give the real debian a try.... not that pseudo-debian distro from corel. BTW corel's distro is pretty good... but it still needs work. The boot loader is pretty disgusting. I miss the BeOS bootmanager already.
Are minors required to follow copyright law? If I've understood this correctly the GPL gives you more rights than copyright law. So if you are a minor and don't want to agree to the GPL you instead have to follow (c)-law which is more restrictive.
It's not Corel that is flawed but the GPL. We should learn something from this instead of shouting "sue sue!". It IS true. An underage cannot be binded by an agreement so this IS a possible threat to GPL itself. Corel has vast legal resources. Instead of shouting and screaming ya all better contact their legal department and help each other out. In my eyes Corel just pointed to a hole in the GPL no one ever thought about before.
people seem to be missing the point. they are "sublicensing" the GPL which states that you are not allowed to do so.
Corel is not the first order distributor for the distro. Debian is.
/. jumping the gun, that's what /. is for a public discussion. This isn't a news wire, this isn't a chat room, it's a discussion forum. Just because everyone knows about it makes it no different than posting on USENET or a mailing list.
... tools... (siglim 120 chars)" Like cars... to the office no more no less.
Debian decided to put stuff under the GPL, therefore they cannot change it.
As for
"Computers should be
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
It's all a matter of 'tortology'!
This is really just silly. The GPL is not legally applicable to minors so the fact they are excluded by Corel makes no difference.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
A a retired CEO of a consultancy/VAR selling WordPerfect/Corel products and related services I was not amused by the Corel license on Linux, to put it very mildly. I have today written to Corel to express my concerns but as I do not have the purchasing power anymore, I suspect my critism will have no effect. I made the point that the 14, 15 and 16 year-olds of today are the IT directors of tomorrow. I would be very sure whose product I would NOT allow through the doors!
Hmmm.
Good on you, I guess...
Some thoughts from me: I downloaded and tried this last week, and was frankly disgusted. It took too long to boot into the GUI. The package selection was foul - clicking 2 levels of trees to find only one package where I *know* the real debian has masses. Then the worst insult of all - repartitioning. No, you can't assign a mountpoint to an existing partition, you have to delete and recreate it. No, when you recreate it you specify a size in megs and it uses that as the cylinder difference instead. Then it complains that there's not enough space to install your selected packages. Having gone through this rigmarole twice, at about 15mins apiece, the CD hit the opposite wall with a satisfying thud, although it still works (worse luck) - oh, and I posted to my favourite local Linux newsgroup with a flame of a review and forwarded a copy to the Corel feedback email address.
It says it all that I've not even had an acknowlegement of the email I sent them, let alone the time I wasted one evening setting it all up.
I *have* gone back to the real Debian, and intend to stay with it for a while - on both desktops (the home one has just been reinstalled) and my notebook.
So as for these petty licensing derangements - Corel can indeed go to hell. I'm totally in favour of boycotting them, especially given what it says for the real debian.
~Tim
--
Rushing on down to the circle of the turn
Disclaimer, my experience with Debian was several years ago. Maybe Debian is better now. Then again, maybe not.
First off, IANAL. I do believe that GPL loopholes will have a significant influence on the direction taken by commercial Linux development and should be worked out by legal types. However, I also believe that falling back to legalease behavior will help neither the Corel situation nor GNU/Linux effort in general. In fact, it could have disasterous consequences.
Lawsuits involving licensing issues in Linux development and distribution will put the GPL to test and set dangerous legal precedents for OSS. They could partition development and restrict the freedom of distribution that has always been the cornerstone of the GPL for commerce. And if the GPL stops being applicable to commerce, OSS stops being applicable to the free-market economies that determine what lives and what dies for the mainstream.
BESIDES.
There is a big difference between what the Corel license accomplishes in theory and in practice. Frankly, I see the term at the top in a lot of licenses I don't read. And It's the *only* one I see. I scroll past the rest and hit the big, friendly button. For most practical intents and purposes, it's meaningless. Corel can't tell whether the guy that clicks "Accept" is 90 or 14, and they don't care anyway until they see him in court.
So, I say address the issue, but keep it out of court. Refine the GPL. Make sure that OSS has a very sound legal foundation. If it's good enough, you'll never have to use it.
-the gentleman general jenkins
Brett, you're an idiot. We all know you think the GPL is the most evil thing since communism (which is, itself, a load of B.S.), but your attempts at mincing words and being duplicitous ("would you Lynx authors please let me have your code, without any recompense to you, so that I can make lots of money writing software for blind folks") are *NOT* welcome here. Except that you've proven a distinct failure to grasp English during our "debates" (rather one sided, given your lack of reasonable discourse) on Infoworld, I'd continue pointing out how assanine your post is. Now GO AWAY! If *YOU* don't like the GPL, *YOU* *DON'T* *USE* *IT*. Sheesh.
--
Ben Kosse
Remember Ed Curry!
I should be sued for being an anonymous coward
Why was this guy's comment moderated down? He uses irony to make a legitimate point. The word "flamebait" is a code-word for the politically correct. Anytime someone brings it strong to the mic, Slashdot resorts to censorship. Before posting anymore articles about censorship, Slashdot should clean up its own house.
They are not sublicensing.
If they were sublicensing, you would be getting the software under a license that is NOT THE GPL.
Here, you are getting it under the GPL, or you are not getting it at all.
Now, the only place where they could be breaking a license is if the GPL would force them to give it to you, "you" being one specific minor, and they refused.
Now. If you can show me a case for it, I'd happily agree they are violating the GPL.
Please: I think the limit sucks. I think it is legal, too.
That's rubbish, because if it were true then minors wouldn't be bound by the licenses in shrink-wrapped games either.
Now just go and ask games manufacturers whether their licensing binds minors as well. I don't think you'll find any disagreement or hesitation in their answers.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Well said. I was going to post a reply like this but I just couldn't think of a way to respond without going into flame mode. The guy is so clueless that it's a waste of time attempting to respond. Just let the moderators handle it.
By US law, I cannot be legally bound to contracts. That also means I could legally violate the GPL. But would I? HECK NO!
In my mind, common sense comes over law. I would never, even take advantage of loopholes such as that, especially when it comes to GPL and the free software dogma. Basically, my karma did not, and will not, run over the dogma.
Not like I would download or even use Corel Linux anyway...I'm happy with Slackware 7.0, thank you!
Alas, the FSF seems eager to do this. Via the GPL, it attempts to turn code into a weapon and set up a battle -- open source vs. closed source -- which need not be. The two can, and should, coexist gracefully and complement one another.
The only way that this can happen, however, is if we eliminate licenses with so-called "copyleft" provisions. These provisions truly do discriminate against the creation of software which does not happen to be open source. This is a field of endeavor -- in fact, a whole industry. By discriminating against it the GPL truly does violate the Open Source Definition. What's more, as I've mentioned earlier, "copyleft" restrictions are almost certein be ruled unenforceable by any court, because by agreeing to them one is making a contract to make a contract (in fact, to make many contracts).
The problematic provisions of the GPL stem from author Richard Stallman's having declared war on the very concept of intellectual property -- the coin of the realm in the electronic age. But no one bemefits from war. What we need instead is a positive, cooperative, synergetic relationship between open source -- truly open source -- and closed source. Between free sharing and the fundamental needs of creative people to be compensated for their work. The incident we see here is just one of the many possible problems we can avoid if we return to the classic, unencumbered form of open source that was pioneered at MIT and Berkeley long before the GPL.
--Brett Glass
As far as I'm concerned /. does far more harm to the open source and the Linux community with premature nonsense articles like this than anything else. Yet another blindly posted article that was not investigated to any degree whatso ever. This is good flamebate against Open Source and basically shows the acute immaturity in the Linux Community. You people who run /. have an obligation to the community to report things that are correct, complete and fair instead of acting like a bunch of immature kiddies who post garbage like this. Any RESPONSIBLE person would have contacted Bruce for a clarification of the issues. Instead you post this crap and create waves within the community. It should have stayed on the mailing list where it orginated.
You have been assimilated.
I know he's backed off now, but I agree with his actions. Corel must be held accountable.
Corel has dropped the ball so much recently. They must have some lawyers -- did it ever occur to them to consult with these lawyers? If they did, why did the lawyers not stop them?
First, they break the GPL by trying to be the same old closed-source company. Why did we accept this? Because they were new, and a mistake is OK the first time.
Next, they decided to link in GPLed code with code that does not share a similar licence. Why? There was no excuse for this one, but we forgave them because they were well intentioned. Heck, I've worked on a GPL program that uses libraries that are not GPLed. However, I did check to see if the licence permitted it (it did).
And now, they seem to have decided that only people who can be held responsible for using a free as in freedom operating system shall have it. IT IS FREE! FREEDOM! Who do they think they are? How do they think they can dictate fair usage of FREE, OPEN code?
I'm Canadian, and so are they. Corel makes me feel ashamed to be in the same country. Why? Because they are too apathetic to even get a Linux distribution done correctly. Hopefully Linux One, and a similar slew of "We have a distro, too!" companies won't make the same screwups, otherwise we're in for a hellish new year.
---
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
by saying that anyone under age of 18 cannot download corel linux is purely a disclimer for Corel... Corel cannot be sued if something goes wrong. As simple as that. Minours cannot enter into contracts and so this text must be present
You lot need to get a life and *think for yourselfs
GET A LIFE
moderators, mark this down if you have to.. but it is reality... i'm sorry if the truth hurts.
There's no conflict between this notion and that of moving to a license which is not antagonistic to business.
"Sharing" does not mean demanding something unreasonable in return -- which is, alas, what the GPL does. "Sharing" must be done willingly. If you start by demanding things in return, you are not sharing; you are negotiating a transaction. You are being adversarial, not cooperative.
And, yes, individuals and businesses will and do give back, as has been shown in every open source software project which uses a license other than the GPL. Why? Because it is in their interest to do so. Who wants to maintain thousands of tiny enhancements through different versions of an open source program? The only thing which businesses will keep private -- and they are justified in doing so! -- are major creative works for which they deserve the chance to be compensated. So, things sort themselves out properly without the need for undue restrictions -- or for lawsuits.
Self-interest is a far stronger and more pleasant motivator than any license.
--Brett
...what sublicensing means.
In particular, how can they be sublicensing when they are giving it to you under the GPL?
Please notice: they are not saying you can't use the software if you are a minor. They are not saying you can't copy the software if you are a minor. They are not saying tou can't modify the software if you are a minor.
All they are saying is that if you are a minor, THEY will not give the software to you. I could give it tou you. I WILL NOT give it to you. Am I breaking the GPL too? Am I "sublicensing"?
Of course not!
Rob, Hemos, Roblimo and all, ... I hope you're listening. This story should have never been posted at all. I've read through all of the comments (moderated @ 3 or higher) and I tend to agree with most of them. This story should have stayed on debian-legal until it really was a story. Obviously Bruce was upset and *shouting* a bit to his closest correspondence partners to let off some steam. Only problem was his steam happens to be publicly available on the Internet and you folks choose to run a story on it,... big mistake judging on the proportions that this hype has grown to.
And Bruce apologizes to Corel ? Slashdot should apologize to everybody including Bruce and the Slashdot reader community.
Bottom line is, I'm a 4 year Linux only user who has been *DESPERATELY* waiting for Windows quality apps to come to Linux. Replacements for apps like Corel Draw, Pagemaker, Microsoft Money, etc would make my life a hell of alot easier. Corel is the first company that has even come close to giving me hope that I will eventually get Linux replacements for these apps.
Let's try not to piss them off before they even get the first app out the door (wp doesn't count, there are plenty of word proc apps and I use vim mostly anyway). I'd also like to see for once the Linux "lynch em all" attitude chill just for a moment and realize that everything that Corel is doing for the Linux users is ultimately a good thing.
Thanks, Aaron Newsome
Who gives a shit? Do you really know any 14 years who are such dorks that a non-enforceable clause in a EULA would stop them from downloading anything? I mean, it certainly doesn't stop them from downloading mp3's, or NES ROM's, or porn, or warez, or super-strength versions of PGP (disregarding nationality), so why should we care about a stupid clause included by Corel's clueless legal department? Le's get up in arms about things that actually impact our lives.
I know, now that I have broached the subject, a few dorks will identify themselves and try to make an issue out of this dead horse. Others will mis-read my words and accuse me of encouraging the deliquency of minors.
Bruce Perens, any respect that I might have had for you has been destroyed utterly.
Neopets - the best free game on the Int
I mean they only have really stupid things to say, and they're all cowards, not willing to sign their real name to their idiocy!
Anonymous Cowards should be shot and never heard from again.
- the above sarcasm is brought to you by the society for the abolition of annoying people.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
Thus, while it might be nice to sit idly by, we must do more. If we care about what our world will be like in the future, it is insufficient to "go away" or "just not use the GPL." Instead, we must take action to dissuade programmers from using the GPL and to help them see through the deceptive rhetoric which Richard Stallman uses to promote it. We must actively free code from the GPL by any means possible. (It's a shame that it is necessary to expend the enerty to do this, but we may not be able to rid ourselves of the scourge in any other way.) If necessary, we may have to have the GPL's onerous "copyleft" provisions ruled invalid by a court of law (though I would hope that this is not necessary; lawsuits consume time, money, and energy and create conflict).
The GPL destroys markets, retards programmers' progress by forcing them to reimplement the wheel needlessly, and hurts livelihoods. In the case of the browser project for the blind to which you allude above, licensing problems (including the presence of the GPL on much of the code in Lynx) has caused our group to reimplement and re-test code needlessly. No good comes of this -- only harm which would have been avoidable were it not for the GPL. We'd be much closer to the finish line -- and those blind users would be much closer to having a good browser -- were it not for the GPL and for attitudes such as the ones you express above. I am not sure why you seem to be spoiling for conflict, but I, personally, am not. I want to build, to share, and to give back. Our group's goal is not to make "lots of money" but merely to be fairly compensated for our hard work. If you begrudge this to your colleagues, you are being spiteful and destructive -- for no good reason. This is what we should eliminate: the conflict and the spite. And this is why we should eschew the GPL, which was designed to embody these things.
--Brett Glass
Brett Glass as a political candidate:
"I welcome my competition to this debate and look forward to taking them to task on the issues. I'm glad that we decided not to get into personal issues even though I have hard evidence that both my opponents are into kiddie porn and have funded the creation of several illegal movies. But let's not talk about that, I'm here to debate the budget, the economy, and our national defense."
"My opponents stand on the budget is unworkable and will cost this nation dearly, just like those little kids paid dearly. They simply don't understand that we must increase our budget to subsidize all those open source programmers out there, without whom our major source of income (taxes on the computer industry) will dry up as they derive most of their income by raping the open source programmers of their intellectual property (much like those little kids)."
"The phrase used to be "it's the economy, stupid!" Now, the phrase should be "it's intellectual property, stupid!" Why? Because my oponents don't realize that today's economy is based on intellectual property. The basis for our exploding growth is the wide base of intellectual property that the USA has tied up in copyrights, patents, and licensing agreements. (Sure, it's just a large pyrimid scheme, but that's besides the point) My opponents failure to understand the intellectual property laws and their proper use in building this economy to greater hights will get this nation into an economical disaster, just as their failure to understand pornography laws will get them plenty of jail time for their actions.
"Our national defense must be strengthened. My opponents fail to see the threat on the horizon, those communist "GPL" heathens that call them selves "open source programmers." Everyone knows that the BSD license is the only "true" license for Americans. We must use our military might to root out the source of this communist movement and take care of it once and for all. Countries that support this underground "open source" should be hit with large sanctions for supporting non-BSD licensing. I stand for the strong capitolistic and American ideals that are personified in the BSD license. My oponents would rather sit back and let everyone make the decision on their own as to what license people should release their code on. They would rather people belong to some sort of commune and restrict the use of intellectual property to those who share their ideals. I believe in the 100% American ideal of capitalism. I should be able to buy your soul, let alone your measly code, just like my opponents bought the souls of those poor kids."
This ad paid for by the commitee to elect Brett Glass and your local branch of the committee to abolish the GPL. Support America, write some code today and send it directly to your competition along with a BSD license so that they can integrate it into their proprietary intellectual property. Do this especially if you are not a citizen of the United States of America, which can only mean that you are a citizen of some communist country. The United States of America, land of the Free (code), and the home of the Brave!
But no, this isn't flamebait!!!
I remember, years ago, the copyright statement
for Turbo Pascal (3.0?) said that we could use
the product "like a book". This made eminent
common sense. Basically, it said that the product
was copyright just like any other intellectual
property (such as a book) and was entitled
to the same level of protection, not more, not less.
Specifically, it said that, like a book, the
compiler could only be used by one person at
a time. Having it installed on more than one
machine was explicitly allowed, as long as there
was no possibility of it being used simultaneously
by more than one user. Thus, you could install
it at work and install it at home, if you knew
that nobody used the compiler at work while you
were at home, and vise versa.
Of course, since then Borland (and everybody else)
have switched to license agreements which are
considerably more restrictive than the "like a book" policy.
Does anyone know the legality of all this?
Can I legally install on a desktop and a laptop if I never ever use both at the same time?
From ZDNet news talkback
It seems you are unable to distinguish between commercial and proprietary software. RedHet is Free Software and commercial, and the FSF has no problem with them. Cygnus sells gcc as a commercial product, and they also sign over copyright on their work to the FSF. The only thing the FSF is against, is the use of proprietary licensing, regardless of the commercial or non-commercial nature of the software in question.
RedHat, Cygnus and dozens of other companies have no problems respecting what the GPL required of those who distribute or modify GPLed software. The only people it seems to be paining are those who are incapable of reading, or actively seeking to take the rest of us for a ride.
craig
Have you released ALL your source under BSD ? If not, which licenses have you used ?
At common law in Canada, contract with infants (the legal term for minors) are either void or voidable (depending on the circumstances). A void contract is invalid and effectively never existed. A voidable contract can be repudiated. Of course minors can enter into contract in Canada. Hell, the act of buying something in a corner store is technically entering into a contract of sale (i.e. I will pay you X amount for this candy bar - offer, acceptance, exchange). The real catch comes in whether or not the minor is held to be capable of entering into a particular contract. The law seeks to protect minors by preventing them from entering into contracts which would be detrimental to them. They are considered to be a "weaker party" and it is assumed that others will attempt to take advantage of them. The complexity of the GPL can pretty much be safely assumed to be beyond the ken of a fair percentage of minors. Hell, most contractual legalese is barely understandable to adults. Therefore, it seems likely that a court would consider the GPL to be voidable when applied to a minor. In other words, he could simply turn around at a later date and say, "I don't want to be held to that contract." That opens up a hellish legal can of worms for Corel (since it throws a wrench in their GPL compliance). Therefore, in order to ensure compliance with the GPL, Corel has to ensure that all who enter into a licencing agreement are legal adults (18+). Yup, I think the GPL needs to be re-examined. To be honest, I think any broad contract like this will shoot itself in the foot when it comes to minors.
And mayhap you will all understand it. I see no wrong in Corels move in this. Or at least I see nothing in the GPL that states otherwise. There is laws to fullfill, even for the GPL. ----- Every company/organization that sell or otherwise distribute a service or a product, must follow the various laws of all the countries that make up this planet. If you really want to get freaked out, read the license agreements for Borlands (Inprise) Interbase SQL server and Client software. And you'll see that a license agreement aplies diferently depending on in wich country you live in. -----
I'm not aware of any programmer's livelihood, market, or end users that have been harmed by the GPL. If you have evidence of any, I'm sure everyone would like to hear it.
Man! You are one bitter person. Don't you have anything better to do that spew forth hate and loathing for the GPL? What, specifically, has got your panties in a bunch, or are you always such a mean person? Are you pissed because you can't take a GPL browser and extend it for blind people so that you can sell it for proprietary reasons? If so, you'll get no simpathy for me. The moral and ethical thing to do would be to get a job actually doing something and work on your browser enhancements in your spare time. That way, you could do the blind community a great service and still be able to support your family. Hell, do something else for your paying "job." You could be a network person, as that is tied closely to programming and in my expereince people with programming skills are very good at networking. Besides, it probably pays better than you could get programming. Be constructive, not destructive. Love, don't hate. Paraphrasing an insurance commercial I hear recently, "raise that other finger when you make a gesture. See, doesn't that feel better, now you have a peace sign!"
And what do you mean you're not spoiling for conflict! Don't you realize how hateful and inciting your comments are? Don't you know that for a person who believes it's our right to be able to do anything we want with our code and release it under any terms your comments are unbelievably objectionable? I know my comments must be objectionable to you, and you may even view them as flamebait. If you take them that way, then accept my appologies but now you know what it feels like. I think we are just sick and tired of listening to people like you, and Sun with their SCSL, and the BSD people (although most of them are O.K.), try to put us into some guilt trip and force us to release our code under a license that we fundamentally disagree with. Just accept the fact that some people have different views than you and get on with your life.
Clueless Hemos more like. When will this idiot ever learn that airing one's bottomless ignorance in public is, well, stupid?
/. altogether.
Hemos. IQ less than his shoe size. Moderate him off
So, somebody on that Debian list is your typical paparazzi and someone in Slashdot is your typical sensation-seeking news editor. Doesn't that just make one feel all warm and fuzzy? ;-(
What annoys me more though is that people are making silly interpretations of the GPL instead of examining Corel's stuff. I would have thought that the relevant statement in the GPL was clear enough: 'You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works.' How can that leave any doubt that there is no requirement in the GPL for contractual binding, since the GPL is not a contract binding its signatories but a legal copying and distribution constraint binding the software, and that therefore contract law is irrelevant? And as if that weren't enough, anyone with half a clue can see that games licenses do not lose validity when games are sold to minors, else the games industry would be in utter shambles. So what is there to discuss? About the GPL, nothing as far as I can see.
But about the EULA there's plenty to discuss so let's discuss it, without throwing irrelevant contractual nonsense about the GPL into the works.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
I'm seeing quite a bit of sentiment indicating that Linux users and GPL-using authors should ask Corel to apologize, to say 'oops', and then should sit back and trust them.
Well... of course somebody at Corel will be told to say 'oops'. That's his job. Its name is 'Public Relations'.
There's also people there whose job it is to figure out the next testing of the outside of the envelope. They are called 'lawyers'.
Forget that they have PR people for a minute, and also forget about their lawyers, and let's just look at their ACTIONS, okay? Their actions have consistently been causing problems. It doesn't matter that there's somebody to say 'oops'. That is a PR person, that's their job, it does not mean as much as people would like to believe.
I personally have a lot more respect for Bruce Perens for momentarily _refusing_ to listen to the PR flacks and looking at what Corel is repeatedly doing. I'm not sure if people realise that permitting such abuses of the GPL is very similar to letting people talk about xeroxing documents...
If you do that, the Xerox people _will_ speak to you and make sure you are aware that you are using their registered trademark as if it were a generic term, that other companies have lost their trademarks over just such weakening of the mark, and that Xerox (r) does not intend to weaken its mark in such a manner.
Well, the behavior by Corel obviously weakens the GPL- to the extent that it goes unchallenged. Anybody picking a fight with the GPL will be able to point at the Corel actions involving it, and the community responses to it. They will be able to truthfully say to a judge or jury, "This is not actually binding, because it is not obeyed or respected by even the people who use it. Look, here are 500 slashdot posts saying that Corel should not be penalized in any way for their alterations of the license, because Corel will benefit the community. Isn't it true that the GPL is a legal fiction that is not actually intended to be followed- as seen by these posts effectively waiving it in the court of public opinion... and therefore, shouldn't it be declared null and void?"
That's a perfectly legitimate approach for a lawyer to take, to invalidate the GPL. It's Corel above all who are making that argument possible, by repeatedly adding and altering conditions- and it's Linux users who are helping, by assenting to this alteration of the license, and making the argument that Corel should not be held responsible to the terms of the license.
I'm sorry, but I don't assent to the alterations of the license. I have software out there under the GPL, and I don't remember giving Corel permission to alter, challenge and weaken the license for their own convenience. I'm not concerned with how quickly a PR flack can be found and made to say 'oops'. These changes need to stop, or Bruce Perens' hasty reaction will be the only sensible course of action in the long run.
I _realize_ people want to be nice and not seem threatening or combative, but this is not fantasyland, or high school: this is the real world, there are consequences, and allowing a widely used agreement like the GPL to be defined differently in practice than it is in writing is bad. It makes an argument possible that the written version isn't really the applicable one- just as we need to look at Corel's _action_, so the courts will assuredly look at the Linux community's _action_ to ascertain how valid the GPL is when challenged. Do we, seriously, want to establish the precedent that you get to do whatever you want as long as you don't keep doing it for so long that it gets annoying? More relevantly, how many people advocating that Corel be let off easy have themselves written GPLed software- which of these people don't actually have anything to lose?
I think if attention is paid to the Linux community's wishes as to how closely the GPL must be followed, the attention needs to go to the people who have written software that uses it. I don't think it's at all helpful for people who aren't actually using the license on their own work to say 'Take it easy, maybe they don't have to obey this license that closely'. I think most people who do use the GPL on their own work would not wish legal precedent to be set that the license isn't really real, that in practice it's customarily altered and bent to fit situations. I certainly do not. From Bruce Perens' initial reaction, I don't think he wishes that conclusion to be drawn either.
"Sharing" does not mean demanding something unreasonable in return -- which is, alas, what the GPL does. "Sharing" must be done willingly. If you start by demanding things in return, you are not sharing; you are negotiating a transaction.
You are mistaken here. "Giving" is done willingly, without demanding something in return. "Sharing" is done with the expectation that the other person will "share" back.
Demanding something unreasonable in return is neither of those, and nor does it pertain to the GPL. The GPL enforces sharing, the BSD license expects the other person to want to share. The businesses I have worked with in the past have absolutely no intention of ever sharing code, so I release under the GPL. If businesses in general were willing to share, I'd put my code in the public domain.
You are being adversarial, not cooperative.
No, I'm being realistic. If your experience with businesses and other people leads you to view the world as rosey, then feel free to BSD your code. I have a less-rosey view of businesses, so I GPL mine.
It seems that Andover has given Slashdot some much needed professional network know-how, now it is time that Andover step in and put a mature, professional editorial team in charge of Slashdot. The current crew of kiddies running Slashdot are doing Linux more harm than good.
To say that Red Hat Linux, and other distributions of Linux which are published by companies like Red Hat, are "commercial" is intentionally misleading. It is part of Richard Stallman's rhetoric, and is an attempt disguise the anti-business mechanisms of the GPL. (Richard Stallman endorses a strategy which he calls "pragmatic idealism" -- i.e. "The end justifies the means." Alas, he appears to condone the use of deceptive rhetoric so long as it furthers his ultimate cause: the destruction of truly commercial software.) In fact, the GPL is anti-commercial.
--Brett Glass
Wow. That's trippy. I could almost see the froth coming from your mouth.
...we must take action to dissuade programmers from using the GPL and to help them see through the deceptive rhetoric...
So you'd suggest re-education camps for everyone who uses copyleft? How about copyright?
If necessary, we may have to have the GPL's onerous "copyleft" provisions ruled invalid by a court of law
Uh... wow. Once again I find myself dumbstruck. You realize that removing the ability of people to license their software means that you'll have to sell your software instead of licensing it? That I'll have free reign to disassemble it, code a new version, and release mine for free with each AOL CD, and that you won't be able to do a damn thing about it? Are you sure that's what you want to do?
Brett, it's been said before, and I *WILL* continue to say it until you give up on this tirade of yours.
The GPL is a way for the Lynx programmers, in your words, "to be fairly compensated for their (orig. 'our') hard work." In the US, and probably most other countries, one form of exchange is to give up certain rights or to ask for someone to give up certain rights. This is the principle behind NDAs and, ironically enough, your code. You ask people to, amongst other things, give up the right to disassemble their code, in exchange for receiving a binary that hopefully does what they want it to do. With the GPL, all that's being asked is for you to give up your right to subsequently keep code private. In exchange, you receive a specific amount of code (namely, the GPLed software). Whether or not the code you get is enough to sway you towards using GPLed code is another matter. If you feel the value of the GPLed code isn't high enough, then you obviously feel that the value of the code is worth less than your time to reimplement it.
I don't spite, nor begrudge my colleagues, Brett. Rather, I say, use what works for you. You, on the other hand, *DO* begrudge any and all who use the GPL. You insist that all people coding open source software release it in a way *YOU* can take and make money on. I don't suppose you feel any desire to then funnel a fair amount back to the coders, do you? No. You'd rather that coders just give you stuff, to hell with their rights, time, etc.
By the way, nice attempt at making those who like the GPL out to be the bad guy. After all, it wasn't your choice not to GPL your software. To put it differently, "We'd be much closer to the finish line -- and those blind users would be much closer to having a good browser -- were it not for my desire to keep my code private and for attitudes such as the ones you (Brett) express above."
--
Ben Kosse
Remember Ed Curry!
Revolutionary #1: We have 'liberated' this evil person's car, house, and food for the benefit of the Revolution. He was hoarding them, which is an affront against the People.
Revolutionary #2: Yes, these things are now Free! Long live the Revolution! Oh, and pass me another turkey leg....
In short, Richard Stallman believes that it is legitimate to confiscate intellectual property to benefit the organization which he controls: the FSF. The GPL is the instrument via which, he believes, he can harness government power to do this.
What is real sharing? Well, for one thing, true sharing is always speculative. When one shares, one recognizes the a possibility that that the other person might not reciprocate. But this is part and parcel of sharing.
Insisting that the other person give up his or her livelihood (which is the effect of forcing a professional programmer to release source without compensation) is not sharing; it is confiscation.
--Brett Glass
Chilli
-=- Just a random lambda hacker
As pointed out earlier, it's not entirely certain that the GPL couldn't use a bit of reworking to fix that 'paradox' deal.
- Plus, I think it's fairly safe to say that a lot is riding on how Corel does in the Linux world- we can be sure many other companies are watching this, a bit hesitant on whether to jump on the wagon or not. Will they look kindly upon developing distributions (maybe even software) if Corel gets torn to pieces by holy soldiers of the GPL?
Just a thought.
free speach
Did you mean: free speech
You don't "enforce" the GPL. You simply declare they've terminated the special rights the GPL had provided, and then enforce your copyright.
Not so. In fact, by stamping the GPL onto their code, they have forfeited any hope of compensation for their efforts. They have done so by reducing the market value of their work to zero (users will not pay for the functionality, because they can obtain it for free) and eliminating any opportunity to do parallel commercial licensing. (They don't own changes introduced by others, and so cannot license the latest version for money.)
I don't spite, nor begrudge my colleagues, Brett.
It appears that you do. By supporting the GPL, you are supporting a mechanism of spite and malice. You may not recognize that this is so -- possibly due to the misleading rhetoric which accompanies the license. But the fact remains that the purpose of the GPL is designed to deprive programmers of their livelihoods and destroy their businesses.
Rather, I say, use what works for you. You, on the other hand, *DO* begrudge any and all who use the GPL.
I do not "begrudge" them anything -- rather, I point out that their actions are harmful and they therefore should stop. By adopting the GPL -- either without realizing its effects or because they desire to be malicious -- they hurt people. They further sow the seeds of conflicts such as the one we see here between the GPL zealots and Corel.
You insist that all people coding open source software release it in a way *YOU* can take and make money on.
Not so. Your statement above is replete with loaded and misleading language.
In fact, I advocate the release of open source software in such a way that anyone can build on it, advance the state of the art, and avoid needless duplication of effort. Since the source has been published, it cannot be "taken" -- it's still out there. And any profit which is made on a derivative work will stem solely from an author's improvements, since the original functionality is available for free. The creator of the derivative work is not making money "on" the original; he or she is merely saving tedious and redundant coding by incorporating code which no longer has market value.
Anyone can do this -- not just me in particular, but the whole world. The benefits are tremendous. The Internet exists today in its current form because the Berkeley TCP/IP stack was available to all comers -- open source, closed source, commercial, or non-commercial.
This entire discussion is, alas, an example of the conflict that the misleading rhetoric of the GPL creates. The FSF's rhetoric appears to have created in you such hostility toward alternatives to the GPL -- or even toward recognizing its true agenda -- that you are flaming me and refusing to see the big picture.
--Brett Glass
I agree: tell the administration end of Corel to kick the legal end in the ... end, as it were.
I've already posted that Corel's legal department still doesn't get the Gnu World Order (patent pending). And an earlier post is correct - in Canada, the losing side can be made to pay the successful side's court costs. I regularly argue for solicitor and his client (every bloody penny) costs to be paid to my clients when they win.
But as a Canadian, I suggest a Canadian response: let Debian keep its money and focus on yet one more explanation to Corel about the GPL and its terms. Most Canadians (even lawyers!) are a helluva lot more reasonable if you remain patient rather than choking the living hell out of the idiots who inflict all nations, including your northern neighbour.
Keep trying, my friend. We believe in you, even we Red Hat - using scum.
Actually, both types of licenses constrain both use and copying. The shrinkwrap license constrains when, where, and how you can run the software and also generally prohibits you from making copies. The GPL attempts to constrain the ways in which you can use the source on which it has been stamped for your own purposes -- in particular, in code you write for a living. It also prevents you from making copies in some cases and demands that you make copies in others.
The GPL is, ironically, longer and more complex than most shrinkwrap licenses. Worse still, it is deceptive. It implements an intentionally veiled agenda: the destruction of commercial software businesses. (The "preamble" to the license makes misleading claims about its goals which are belied by Stallman's writings and public statements.)
--Brett
Most of the corporately braindead things you spew are not easy to unconvince you of, but I will say this. I, at least, do not agree with the ideals of business. It's selfish, profiteering and soulless. I suspect that alot of other GPL supporters feel the say way. not sure though.
/* no comment */
RedHat Linux is not proprietary software.
You are an idiot, so you will never, ever understand the difference.
foo
It seems to me that this is rather a sweeping condemnation. What about the many good and ethical businesspeople out there? Or, in fact, all of the individuals out there? (In the most basic sense, each one of us is really a business comprised of a single worker.)
One of the greatest deceptions of the Free Software Foundation is that it goads adherents into attacking "business" as if it were the enemy. But ironically, as Pogo Possum once put it, "I have seen the enemy, and he is us!"
The GPL creates conflicts by setting one programmer against another. And only the FSF wins.
--Brett
This is a pretty good point - it is too bad that Brett keeps getting slammed for stating the obvious and going against the prevailing "religion" of the GPL zealotry.
All we need to do is look at the BSD and X communities, especially X to see that a truley open and free license is a viable option and a good thing.
Now, persoanlly I think the GPL and friends will find themselves in for a VERY serious court issue sometime soon - it is inevitable as more and more money flows into the Linux world but I don;t really mind if anyone wants to use it. If you want to make a political statement with yout software thats fine - but understand how completely and seriously that limits the ultimate acceptance of your work in the business world.
Not so. In fact, by stamping the GPL onto their code, they have forfeited any hope of compensation for their efforts. They have done so by reducing the market value of their work to zero (users will not pay for the functionality, because they can obtain it for free) and eliminating any opportunity to do parallel commercial licensing. (They don't own changes introduced by others, and so cannot license the latest version for money.)
Like the man said before, programmers using the GPL *are* asking for compensation, it's just that the compensation is not monetary. Can you not get that through your thick fucking skull?
If you want to use the code, you agree to the license, just like you would if you were using proprietary code.
If you don't like the licensing, don't use the code, and for crying out loud, stop bitching about it !
He's spamming this discussion.
The trendiness siren went off, so here I am to put out the fire!
So you run an OS based on what other people do or don't do, and not what it does for you? Sounds like you'll be a pox on ANY "community", based on that alone.
Linux may attact script kiddies, pups, and riceboys (you know who you are), but that doesn't affect MY reasons for using it. Get a clue.
Star Division had produced a linux port of star office long before Sun bought them out. If you step out of the past conditional and start talking about future development, then your point would be correct. Still, I would not tie my continuing linux use to Corel if I were you; they have a history of jumping onto bandwagons without following through. Hopefully this time will be different, but such hope is no reason to be rash.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
I agree. Each to his or her preferred license. I'll say outright that I prefer the BSD license and dislike the GPL definition of free -- but I am very willing and happy to reinvent the wheel if I do not agree with the license put forth.
I think Brett's problem is that he views the GPL as an evil disease that will eventually take over the software industry if not combatted by his presentation of logic. Truthfully though, when push comes to shove, if livelihood is damaged, then people will stop using a particular license.
There is also no risk of widespread GPL "infection". Really, the GPL, BSD, and some other licenses aren't particularly compatible with many types of software. Really.
What I don't like, is the license zealots trying to force others into their license preference. If sun were to GPL all their software (their OS in particular) -- as some would have it -- then there is nothing stopping people from integrating that code into linux (or whatever), partly eliminating their hardware advantage, as we could then probably easily scale x86 smp, and whatever else to competitive levels.
This is a perfect example of the business man's inability to grasp concepts foreign to him. You need to spend far less time arguing and pointing out what you see as faults, and far more time reading, and trying to really understand us. Here's a few hints. Compensation does *not* have to mean money We restrict our code with the gpl so that large companies can't take it, market it and sell it under proprietary terms, to make money at the world's expense. This is our compensation, the knowledge that our creations will never be ripped off by some company for their money-making purposes. We resent this activity, yes. Sue us.
Most of everything else you say is just a difference in perspective, not right or wrong. You say that this lawsuit discussion is a bad thing though, and we freely admit that, it's a mistake. These things happen when people have the values that we have, not when people use the licenses that uphold these values.
/* no comment */
The GPL protects companies that release existing code, because others cannot proprietarize it.
What you are doing is actually confiscation. You just think that it should be *you* doing the confiscating.
GPL keeps software Free.
MONKEYJUMP.COM/ANTI-LINUX POST CARDS ARE HERE!!
what is wrong with zealots and revolutionaries??!?!?!?!?!?! Bad current pratices can't be changed without them
/* no comment */
communism does not work.... in communism the greatest good for the greatest number...in reality someone has to win or lose
Having read the majority of the posts, it seems to boil down to the following: 1)BP posted an angry letter to a debian mailing list. 2)Slashdot picked up the story and headlined it. So, where does the fault lie? BP has already posted a few times claiming that the post he made was in anger and, he thought, to a relatively obscure Debian mailing list. Somewhere in the mix Slashdot [finds|gets alerted to] that post and runs with it. Like nearly everyone else, I have said things in anger that I wish later that I hadn't said. Fortunately, not being quotably famous, in general the only ones affected by it are those around me. I am not sure what the staffing level of Slashdot is, but it seems that there is at least the need for one additional to do some crosschecking of headlines before they get posted, or at a minimum, that the subjects of the headline get contacted before inflammatory headlines get published.
In the immortal words of Socrates, who said; 'I drank what?'
Let's examine these remarks (except for that last question there, which is clearly meant to be inflammatory.) We know that programmers who release code under the GPL can't be expecting any monetary compensation, since the GPL works very well to preclude that. So, what sort(s) of non-monetary compensation would someone who opted for the GPL over the BSD or Artistic License want? Let's see:
1. To feel good about doing the maximum good for one's fellow programmers? Nope; if this were so, there'd be no reason to opt for the GPL over the BSD license. In fact, the code would be more available and see more widespread use under a non-GPL license.
2. To get credit and respect from other programmers? Nope; there's nothing about the GPL that ensures that the programmer will get any more recognition than if he or she had published under another license. In fact, the GPL can prevent the programmer from getting recognition, since he cannot insist upon being credited for his work in documentation or advertising. (The original BSD license specifically required this.) Furthermore, if the programmer contributes to one of the FSF's "GNU" projects, the situation is even worse. He or she must sign over all rights to the code; it bears the FSF's copyright, not his.
This leaves only one thing:
3. To prevent the code from being used by programmers who publish commercial and/or closed source software.
Bingo.
But this is an odd form of "compensation" indeed, as the programmer does not benefit from it. In fact, he hurts his profession by undermining software companies' ability to benefit from published source code -- potentially depriving himself of a job in the future.
So, the only way for our programmer to derive non-monetary compensation from the use of the GPL rather than one of the other licenses is if he or she derives satisfaction from creating handicaps for businesses which could potentially produce good, creative work. At the same time, he must derive joy from hurting his profession and his own job prospects. This is a perverse sort of pleasure indeed!
Worse still, the GPL drives a wedge between open source and closed source when they should be synergistic. (Those who publish closed source will be less inclined to open it because they are not able to benefit from as much open source -- and because they see open source as hostile to their interests.) This is not something in which I think one should take pleasure.
--Brett Glass
Mr. Glass is doing the latter.
On Usenet, what he's doing is known as a "spew."
People who write improvements in free software often work for companies or universities that would do almost anything to get money. A programmer may want to contribute her changes to the community, but her employer may 'see green' and insist on turning the changes into a commercial product.
When we explain to the employer that it is illegal to distribute the improved version except as free software, the employer usually decides to release it as free software rather than throw it away.
Interestingly, in a case of almost Orwellian revisionism, Stallman removed the bit about "seeing green" from the version of the essay that's now published at http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/copyleft.html . He did this after I cited it on a public mailing list as an example of his strongly anti-business agenda. However, the Web remembers: mirrors of the original text may be found throughout the Internet. The revised essay still encourages programmers to incorporate GPLed code in their work as a way of "monkey wrenching" private enterprise, but it is now more subtle.
It's also worth noting that, shortly thereafter, Stallman changed the word "commercial" (used in the original version) to "proprietary." The shift to the word "proprietary," which has more negative connotations, cleared the way for another rhetorical device: the FSF's claim that Linux can be "commercial."
I believe that this may not be the only place on the site where Richard has honed his rhetoric to cloak his animus against businesses of all kinds.
--Brett Glass
If they're REQUIRED to put such a clause in their license, then they're REQUIRED not to redistribute GPL'd code, since the GPL REQUIRES that the distribution not exclude one or more classes of people (in this case minors).
When I release code under the GNU GPL, I receive intellectual compensation. I get to see what my peers have done to make my code a better product.
If I were to release the same code under the BSD license, someone could come along, make it better, and tell me to take the 99% of the work I did and fuck off. This is exactly why I will never use the BSD license.
Go get him, then! :-)
The GPL, by its very nature, creates conflicts between open source developers and honest businesses ... by putting them at odds with one another.
... to see the antagonism.
... would be better off if we adopted the win/win, "live and let livee" approach of other software licenses...
That is, unfortunately, an inevitable result of the restrictions the GPL places on how you can redistribute code based on GPL'ed software. Many people like the benefits of the GPL, and they will have to live with those conflicts.
It doesn't take more than a few minutes' reading at the FSF Web site
The GPL has a number of advantages to many people. Just because the people who originated it are somewhat, shall we say, vocal in their opinions, does not mean we should abandon it. When I evaluate the GPL, I look at the words in the license, not the rhetoric on the FSF website.
Everyone
There is some debate over that issue (to put it mildly).
People have made the very good point that the GPL helps prevent the forking we've seen with Unix. The lack of restrictions on the BSD license lead to the fragmentation of BSD into tens of free and commercial OSes, all mutually incompatible with each other.
There is also the "Free Ride" syndrome. The GPL seeks to encourage open source development by preventing people from taking open code and using in their closed products, with no return to those who wrote the original code.
I often think of this as an alternative form of payment. With commercial software, you pay a fee to use source code. With GPL software, you are required to give something back to the community to make use of the GPL code. You are always free to not use the GPL code, of course.
The GPL hasn't "forced" the opening of any code...
You are certainly correct there. The GPL cannot force you to do anything. Again, it comes down to what you are willing to "pay". If you are willing to open your own code, to the benefit of the community, the GPL is fine. Otherwise, you will have to invest time and money in reimplementing what the GPLed code would have done for you. This is no different then any other software license; if you are not willing to pay the price, you don't use the software.
The reason I say lawsuits are inevitable, period, is because so many are sue-happy these days. What if some company decides that you are using a patented algorithm in your BSDL'ed code? A lawsuit, I am sure. Will the GPL lead to more lawsuits then the BSDL? Possibly. But those who use the GPL will doubtless say that the lawsuits are worth it.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
I agree with you. Corel should have investigated the linux "community" more carefully. ,calling them stupid,cluelss,threatening to sue, etc.
While essentially i agree with the GPL i don't agree with the "community's" immature attitude. Linux seems to attract every adrenaline-pumped 12 year old who has nothing else in mind other than to cause chaos and a lot of racket. This thread and this whole article is a PRIME example of that.
On the other hand the BSD camp is mostly serious people with a certain level of maturity and professionalism. Although i am not that comfy with the BSD license i commend them for their professionalism.
Corel would have had much less worries if they went with BSD. Heck the BSD peeps would have THANKED em instead of accusing them
I can't say how dissapointed i am at the linux community after reading this article and this thread as a whole.
Sorry, but I don't have time for that. Bye.
Arsenic?
Seriously, consider the following:
Had Microsoft published the FULL Win API, the boys at Netscape and Opera would not have had to reinvent the wheel to write their web browsers.
Had Marc Andreesen published his work under the GPL, Microsoft would have had a much harder time getting MSIE off the ground, *and* their improvements would be available for use by the Netscape/Opera developers.
You're right, the GPL is awful!
NOT!
That's going to happen anyhow, without Sun's code.
The GPL will take over mainstream software distribution, but that's because it does a better job at resource allocation, not because of some sinister conspiracy.
Actually, contrary to Raymond's "Halloween document," there hasn't been a new fork of the BSDs in several years. However, there are now a couple of dozen forks of Linux, and more are appearing all the time.
The truth is that there is absolutely nothing about the GPL which does anything to prevent forking. However, the culture of the various BSD projects -- in particular, their greater willingness to share code -- has done a great deal to discourage forking. Hence, the fragmentation of Linux into many incompatible distributions.
--Brett Glass
Err, regardless of his overall intents, that single quote does not, IMHO, promote "sabatoging" a company's work. All it says is that if Entity A writes a free, open-source program, and Sally (employed with A) contributes code under the pretense that *her* code is free, Sally herself should retain rights to her code.
The situation is both idealistic and a tad unrealistic, but it's not expressly to undermine the company's efforts. Sally doesn't want to find some GPL'd bit of code to ruin the commercial release of her company's product-- she just doesn't want her own code used for purposes other than the one she had in mind when she wrote it.
Corel Developer: The RCMP are on their way to force feed you your lithium.
The EULA may specify 18 or older, but the Corel Public License on the source makes no such license. I guess this means that the only minors allowed to download this stuff are the ones with the experience and know-how to build and compile it themselves.
"Proximity to wonder has blunted our perception and appreciation of it" --Tim Hartnell in 'Exploring ARTIFICIAL INTELLI
People, you severely misunderstand slashdot.
Slashdot is not your grandfather's news service.
Firstly, the majority of its content is derived from outside sources. Not in terms of taking a source and basing something on it, but really just providing a pointer to it.
Secondly, slashdot gives away old notions of editorialism. Completely, out-the-window. I think we all know that now. It's not a newspaper, and it doesn't try to significantly 'back up' any news posted. The news comes as-is.
It is these properties that make slashdot a real marketplace in information. It's a real laissez-faire thing; caveat emptor is very much the rule of thumb. If anything, slashdot holds a closer resemblance to its historical precedents (mailing lists and usenet) than to any 'real' news group.
This gives it a distinct disadvantage for certain people: ye gods, you actually have to think. Heavens forbid such an awful imposition on you poor suckers. You actually have to take your mouth off the teat and realise that slashdot is fallible, and that it should always, always be taken with a grain of ionised salt.
Suddenly you may realise this is true of every single thing you have ever heard, ever read, ever known. All of it is subject to bullshit. If anything, I am more prepared to rely on slashdot. Why? Not because of some long-winded document about editorial method. I prefer to rely on the collective brainpower of people whose job it is to think about things. They will surely fuck up, but at least they will argue first.
If the price of freedom is eternal vigilance, then the price of truth is eternal criticism.
be well;
JC.
-- The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the fictional entity who may or may not have expressed them
DaemonDownTheHall wrote:
The GPL enforces sharing, the BSD license expects the other person to want to share.
--end quote--
contraire. BSD expects nothing at all. people who use the BSD are not negotiating for the same kinds of things that people using the GPL are negotiating for. they are simply giving their code to the world. end of story. to say that people expect 'sharing' in return is to miss the point.
sh_
Interested in learning Chinese or Japanese? check out Chinese/Japanese-English Dictiona
If Corel does the right thing, then could come out of this thing like angels. Remember when IBM went after CmdrTaco for trademark violations? After the storm receded, IBM clearly explained their view; /.'s logo was not correct. But here's the correct logo, and /. is clear to use it.
Billy Carter was right.
Free Software has certain rights protected for the user. He wrote:
``Free software'' refers to the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. More precisely, it refers to four kinds of freedom, for the users of the software:
- The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
- The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1).
- The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
- The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits. (freedom 3).
A program is free software if users have all of these freedoms. Thus, you should be free to redistribute copies, either with or without modifications, either gratis or charging a fee for distribution, to anyone anywhere. Being free to do these things means (among other things) that you do not have to ask or pay for permission.I refer you to the original article for more detail.
Copyleft inherits all the properties of Free Software and adds another one: that Copylefted software must only be combined with other Copylefted software; and that non-Copylefted software becomes Copylefted if combined with Copylefted software.
This is the 'viral' clause of the GPL. It is the clause which causes the most angst and anger out there. I've criticised it myself as Freedom From Above; akin to 'liberation' by the Red Army (you are Free, under our terms).
But be very, very clear on this: while all Copylefted Software is Free Software, not all Free Software is Copylefted Software. Just today, I got an email from RMS in reply to a question of mine:
Both versions of the BSD license count as free software.However, the BSDL is not necessarily a GPL-style Copyleft license.
That's enough of my preaching for now.
be well;
JC.
-- The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the fictional entity who may or may not have expressed them
Assuming that Canadian law demands that Corel discriminate against minors:
:) We're loosing these rights IMHO because we're too lazy to keep our governments at bay. Same thing here people if we let this slide then Corel or someone else will keep chipping away at the GPL like the American government has been chipping away at constitution of the US.
Read section 7 of the GPL, here's an excerpt.
"7. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent
issues), conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this
License, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your
obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the Program at
all."
Seems pretty straightforward to me. My interpretation:
If you can't follow the rules for whatever reason you can't play.
Section 8 says:
"8. If the distribution and/or use of the Program is restricted in certain countries either by patents or by copyrighted interfaces,
the original copyright holder who places the Program under this License may add an explicit geographical distribution limitation excluding those countries, so that distribution is permitted only in or among countries not thus excluded. In such case, this
License incorporates the limitation as if written in the body of this License."
Now if Corel won't or can't change their EULA then we must act swiftly and brutally. If we give an inch, we set precedent that will eternally weaken the GPL. If Canada is indeed the culprit then Section 10 might be a way out for Corel:
"10. If you wish to incorporate parts of the Program into other free programs whose distribution conditions are different, write to
the author to ask for permission."
If Canadian law isn't the bad guy here and Corel is just totally clueless then we need to be hit them as hard and as fast as possible because they're testing the waters. According to many of the articles here on slashdot we're loosing our rights left and right
... he just considers you too much of a lost cause to try and convince you of his view.
/* no comment */
Come on. You know that is not the kind of forking that is being referred to. The kind of forking that is being refered to is when a piece of software splits, aquiring two different maintainers and the two versions of the software become incompatible.
That isn't what happens with Linux distros. All the software remains self-compatible. The kernel doesn't fork - it's still maintaied by Linus.
The BSD code promotes forking by allowing binaries to be distributed without source. The GPL doesn't do this - and hence doesn't promote forking in the same way.
Bruce Perens was wrong, admitted it, Corel won't be sued, and this discussion has once again raised many interesting points about the legal status of the GPL that need ampler discussion in some other forum.
As one poster put it, the GPL is a license that must be fulfilled exactly, else the user has no rights, and the original copyright prevails to prevent further use, modification, copying, or distribution.
Unanswered is how to resolve technical legal problems not foreseen when the GPL was drafted. The Canadian lawyers for Corel evidently believe it would be prudent to put in the EULA a clause about minors. Many Slashdaughters say that would violate the GPL. But if a corporation is to work with the free software movement and still stay inside the laws of its own country, it might need to add in its EULA some statements not fully covered in the GPL.
The alternatives don't look good. Either commercial companies can try to help produce and distribute Free Software under GPL (and risk violating some laws not covered by GPL), or they can forego GPL code and turn to other licenses such as BSD (as Bret Glass eloquently argues), and stay within prudent commercial practice.
I don't think at all justified the position of many here on /. that Corel and other companies are only in the business of making money and don't care about the Free Software developers. I would hate to have Corel people think that these posters represent the entire Free Software movement.
If Free Software and GPL advocates wish Corel and other companies to be part of the movement, then they need to work more closely with these companies, and in a more professional manner. Uninformed and wild arguments on /. will not suffice. Instead, FSF should appoint a lawyer to meet with Corel and other companies and render some reasonable advice. Bruce Perens was supposed to have been doing that, but it seems the communication has badly broken down. It's time to get it going again, but not here on /.
Hemos, please feed these ravaging dogs some other meat to keep them occupied while saner minds work on the real problems.
if this article doesn't tell you otherwise, you are 100% unreasonable
/* no comment */
... and so are all the hardcore Linux fanatics (not USERS!!!) out there. Corel writes an agreement to protect themselves from harm resulting from improper or irresponsible usage of the software ("Holy shit, dad... I didn't know I would wipe out your Excel spreadsheets installing linux!"), and everyone starts yelling about GPL this, and rights's violations that, etc. Damnit, people... isn't it time for you to just SHUT THE HELL UP and let someone attempt to do something right?
As a Linux user, it saddens me to see so much aggravation being caused by the GPL and the FSF fanatics (HI RICHIE!). Let people write their software and do whatever they want with it, and not force them to GPL it. Let them contribute to any projects they want, do whatever they want, write all the code they want, withouth your preaching and your whining and your GPL crap. Let 'free software' be FREE SOFTWARE and not this bundle of legal crap everyone wants to make it be. You never see crap like this from the *BSD folks, do you now?
Maybe it's time we learn something from them.....
When I see GPL software taking over traditional software such as quicken, notes, photoshop, anything with a limited market and high profit margins and/or very complex software, any number of productivity business solutions, industry specific software such as 3d studio max, lightwave, and softimage, I might believe you. Until then, no way. Things like games, of course, will likely always remain closed.
Visiting freshmeat, there aren't many particularly innovative products. You can find anything there, and 100x better in the commerical software world. This may just be because this way of doing things is in its infancy, but I wouldn't hold my breath. There are only so many things that can be done in this recipricol or symbiotic manner. This becomes particularly apparent when making typical easy to use end-user software.
>The GPL destroys markets, retards programmers' progress by forcing >them to reimplement the wheel needlessly, and hurts livelihoods.
Who gives a shit anymore? The very people you are crying the blues about are also the very same people who have gone out of their way to screw over the consumers of their products for years. Why is it Brett that the software "industry" you are bending over backwards to defend is so opposed to having the same kinds of "Lemon Laws" applied to them that used car salespeople operate under? What are you cowards so afraid of? Brett,it's people like youself who generate the conflict and the spite you are bitching about. Want to stop it? Take a good long look in the mirror and start with yourself.
Implicit in this is that I must insure that the person I'm passing the code to must uphold (or at least legally agree to uphold) the GPL. If they cannot, or willnot, I cannot pass the code to them, since I would be responsible for breaking my contract.
This is utterly false.
From the GPL itself:
---
Frankly, I'd favor such laws so long as they applied to the cash-rich FSF.
--Brett Glass
There was nothing new in your debian-message. You had basically been repeating this lawsuit threat ALL day ON SLASHDOT in another article here.
Actually, he can get at most 3 karma points per post because he has a default score of 2.
I'm a pretty big fan of free speech, and I can tell you why I do NOT believe /. moderation is censorship.
Slashdot is not suppressing anyone's opinion to the point of making them unheard. It's merely giving you a suggestion.
Do you have a problem against positive moderation? I think it's one of the most useful systems I've seen. Do you think it's also censorship because increasing the score of one post inherently devalues the other posts to some degree (since the more high-score posts a person reads, the fewer normal-scored posts they're likely to read).
Think of -1 scores not as negative scores, but as giving everyone else a positive score.. In a way, it's just saying, "I think everything else is more worthwhile than this."
Imagine if we all started out with default thresholds of -1, and people had to manually set their thresholds to 0, just like some people set their thresholds to 2 or 3 or more. Do you still think that'd be censorship?
But the main point remains that you can very very easily read the -1 comments, and thus they are not being suppressed. In fact, quite to the contrary, Slashdot employs multiple mechanisms to facilitate your reading -1 comments. That's hardly suppression!
Trademark Law and Copywrite Law are VERY different. There is NO dilution of a copyright, like there is with a trademark.
./ers miss). If I create an artistic expression, it is copyrighted. It is MY work. I can do whatever I want. I can license it as arbitrarily as I want, because it IS mine.
/. says "do nothing," if any copyright owner complains when his copyright is violated, he can sue. There is NO concept of dilution of a copyright.
Trademarks protect a company that utilizes a name from others profitting on that good will. If the term ceases to be specific to the company, than it is considered diluted and not trademarked.
This does NOT apply to copyrights (or patents, another point that
If I create a name for my business that becomes synonymous with the industry, then that word no longer refers to my business, so my trademark goes away.
Do you understand the difference? It doesn't matter if the copyright owners do nothing 90% of the time and everyone on
Alex
I can understand Mr. Perens' reaction, as I have suffered the same in regard to feeling the need to protect a concept.
.coms/nets/orgs, with the main goal of keeping deceptive megasloth greedmongers from getting them. I then offered their use, for advertising/information to any/all in the community for free. I figured that I would at least break even on the expenses (enormous, and growing), and serve to promote the concepts that offer an alternative to megasloth greedmonger control of all that is PC.
One defense is that we are so innundated with corpirate BS, that we can be left suspicious of every action by any1 that is connected to megaslothism.
It is clear that Mr. Perens has worked VERY hard (understatement) to promote/protect the concepts of o-s. He should be able to feel proud of his efforts, and not be judged per incident. same goes for Mr. Stallman, & Mr. Raymond. Obviously, peoples' emotions/personalities, are exposed in their efforts to work towards goals. look at FUDbilLIEgates.
Experience that evokes my empathy:
Last year, sensing the rise in (commercial) popularity of linux/o-s/gnu, and the corresponding onslaught of MS BS PR trashing, of the concepts/community, I felt inspired to do some protectionary things.
I registered a whole bunch of linux/o-s related
Well, the results were/are less than stunning. However, i have managed to retain control of a whole bunch of urls, and HAVE NOT succumbed to the sizable offers of fortune from the deceptive marketeer community.
Anyway, the moral to the story, to me, is: all form of GOOD intention can be misconstrued, when negative judgement is applied, based on suspicious reaction due to preconceived notions, that are inaccurate.
doesn't mean I'm going to start trusting in the kingdumb of fud.
We haven't changed a bit in what we are attempting to accomplish, which is promotion of the concepts of gnu/linux/o-s. any positive input is appreciated. we've already heard ALL the reasons why knot.
The conflict of interest that justify the GPL, is the interest of (some) free software programmers to ensure that all public enhancements to their code remain free, as opposed to some companies interest in keeping their enhancements to the code unfree.
One way to resolve this conflict would be, as you suggest, for the free software programmers to give up their right, and let these companies keep their enhancements unfree. This particular brand of conflict resolution is called "unconditional surender."
Another way to solve the conflict would be to note that the interest of the free software programmers are in no way helped by the unfree enhancements, while making free enhancements have proven valuable to many companies. This leads to to potential conflict resolutions: One is that the company ignore the free software, in which neither part have lost anything. The other is that the company makes free enhancements to the code, in which case both parts win.
This later way of resolving the conflict is, to me, much prefereable than your suggestion which basically amounts to telling the free software programmers to "bend over and let them bugger you".
This is the kind of "freedom" you get when you start messing with Linux. Thank god I'm not part of the Linux community.
What I really love about the GPL is how it can have so many passionate defenders who disagree so much on what it actually means in legal terms. At least no one disagrees on what the BSDL requires...
Why don't we write a EULA and post it to Corel (and any other company which wants it)?. This should clear out the boiler plate that Corel is currently using.
I can throw myself at the ground, and miss.
Coding is "doing something". Anyone who tells you otherwise is either a liar, insanely talented or has never written a line of code in their lives.
I don't know this guy or his work in detail, but from the crash course in this thread, the GPL is clearly harming the blind community. Were the relevant code released under a BSD-style license or as true FD/PD, they could take it, build in the necesssary bits for the blind users and release it. As it is, they're having to reimplement the GPL'd sections. Net result? More work, so the blind community has to wait longer and pay more for the software they need to fulfil a task we take for granted.
Yes, he could work on this in his spare time but it would take how long? Y'know, some people do have lives. Could I (or anyone else, for that matter) seriously spend as long on a project in my spare time as I could if I was being employed full-time? No way. I need to sleep, eat and do certain household tasks. If I want to stay sane I hae to relax periodically. I'm lucky if I can devote a few hours a day to this sort of thing, frankly.
What Brett appears to be attempting is entirely legitimate. The GPL, for all its claims of promoting freedom, is holding him back in this endeavour and is forcing higher costs on to a disadvataged minority's information access. To be blunt, in this case and from what has been said in this thread, the GPL is hurting the blind.
Greg
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
This is one of the best summaries of how the anti-GPL people come off to GPL people. They rant and rave about "freedom," when in fact what they really want is the "freedom" to restrict what others can do with software (i.e., restrictive binary licensing). But, what's worse is that they want a free ride from Free Software authors while doing so.
If that isn't downright despicable, I don't know what is.
Look, I have no problem with the BSD License, and similar licenses, as a general rule. It's not what I prefer, but I understand that some people prefer them. The GPL advocates I see posts from seem to feel the same way Now, if we could just get the remaining few rabid anti-GPL advocates to take the same view, everyone can be happy.
Interested in XFMail? New XFMail home page.
Yeah, right!
--Brett Glass
It is a misrepresentation of the goals of the FSF
to state that it's "focus is the destruction of [yadda, yadda]". The goal of the FSF and the GPL is to promote innovation in the software industry by removing proprietary obstacles. The only people who are threatened by the GPL are companies who make significant revenue from these proprietary obstacles.
Don't forget that most corporations in the world use software, but very few make it. The GPL ensures that software is widely available. I work as a software engineer for an embedded systems company: My desktop is RedHat 5.2 with egcs; I port to VxWorks using the gcc cross-compiler that WindRiver sold us (all GPL'd) and I install my code on a Motorola chassis using their embedded version of (the GPL'd) RedHat Linux. Motorola, WindRiver and my company have all benefited handsomely by the GPL. There is not a significant BSD-licensed tool in our shop.
The argument that the GPL removes the incentive to innovate might have some merit in an academic conversation, but the real world tells us that this is a false proposition.
For every 1 company you can name that is threatened by the GPL, I can name 25 that benefit from it. The fact is, the GPL
is a very good thing for capitalism and industry. Despite your protestations, the BSD-style licenses are not going to overtake the GPL in popularity and consumers, developers and software users all over the world are reaping the benefits.
Unfortunately, as stated in the GNU Manifesto, Richard Stallman and the FSF consider such things as good salaries for programmers to be "obstacles" that must be removed. Stallman advocates "banning" them.
--Brett
You are a PRIME example of what i meant.
Maybe it won't alter my preferences but you can be DAMN SURE that a serious company will think twice before making moves to support linux.
And that puts ME THE USER of linux in a disadvantage cause of litle kiddies like yourself who do not know when to shut up and when to speak up.
Even the moderators of slashdot act like litle kids. You can be damn sure that i will not be reccomending linux to my boss anytime in the near future.
> To be blunt, in this case and from what has been said in this thread, the GPL is hurting the blind.
Bullshit. I've actually had first-hand experience with these kinds of browsers. For instance, I remember one that came out a few years ago, it was a Windows only program that interfaced to a speech synthesizer. It was 'designed for the visual impaired'. It was proprietary and cost $150. It was also a piece of shit.
It took a few months for the thing to actually work properly (despite the fact we paid for it long ago). In the end, it was hopeless to use, and we ended up trying Lynx on DOS instead-- which was much better, not to mention $150 cheaper.
In the end, though, Lynx's inability to parse today's modern graphics-choked web pages
Today, my visually impaired friend uses Netscape and a Windows speech synthesizer interface, merely for the fact that nothing else can read the pages properly.
There is a need for a decent speech interface browser, but I think an open development is the only way to go. You have to accept the fact that you're not going to get rich selling web browsers to the blind, and it would be better to have the greatest number of contributors (i.e. open source) than try to get a few people to work on it in secret and not make any money anyway.
Brett's course down the lane of proprietary web browsers is only going to lead to another piece of crap, I'm afraid. There really is little or no market for proprietary browsers today, not to mention proprietary browsers for the blind.
I also expect that if he does come out with a browser product, he'll probably sell a few dozen or hundred copies, and then abandon it the next year. This is basically what happened to the browser mentioned above.
Nothing -- and I will not do so. To contribute to Linux (I find it hard to believe that Stallman has managed to convince people to put the name of the organization he controls in front of it) would be to contribute to the base of GPLed software. This, in turn, would reinforce Stallman's intentionally spiteful and destructive agenda.
The GPL is Richard Stallman's attempt to transform open source software into software which is not open to people he does not like -- and to use it as a weapon against them.
I believe in making positive contributions. When I do publish open source, it is under the BSD license, not under the GPL's "poison pill" license.
--Brett GLass
This is not Slashdot's fault. Did they make up the statement? Did they post something that wasn't said? Did they double check their source and find that it had been said? Mr. Perens posted the comment to an Online mailing list and to his web site. Is it news that the driving force behind one of the major Linux Distributions wants to sue Corel? If I was to make these comments no one would care and I probably would only get one or two "go away" type flames. If Mr. Torvalds was to post these comments all hell would break loose. If you don't want to live with your comments then don't make them. I think even Mr. Gates has started to discover the consequences of making comments even in what he thought would be private emails.
"not antagonistic to business"
Why is there this insistance that Open Source has to be particularly sensitive to business? Most academic institutions can play by GPL rules; most nonprofits have no problem with it and most individual users have no problems with it. It seems that the only people who think the GPL is a "restrictive" license are pro business zealots. I have no problems with business using this stuff and even pitching in a hand. Even RMS doesn't have a problem with business using the software.
A business has no special right to Embrace and Extend community code. If a sufficiently large and powerful business were to Embrace and Extend free code then that version would become "canonical". This would impose restrictions...that word again..that the community users and developers would find intolerable. Why must we sanction attempts by large and powerful organizations to usurp this code? That is the freedom you are so ardently defending.
You are defending a paradox. Does your concept of freedom include the freedom to sell yourself into slavery? If so, then there is a problem. No reasonable concept of freedom will countanance slavery. You argue a related case. That developers should be free to let bigger fish steal their code. This is not freedom. You mention "major creative works" for which business has the right to demand compensation. This may be so but what if this "major creative work" is based on code that is the product of the sweat of others? They have no pride of place in this context. That is what the GPL prevents. The GPL insures that in the very worst case...say Microsoft having untrammeled power to borg the entire industry..that there is a base of software immune to the tactics necessary for this to take place.
Unfortunately, as stated in the GNU Manifesto, Richard Stallman and the FSF consider such things as good salaries for programmers to be "obstacles" that must be removed. Stallman advocates "banning" them.
Is this what make you so sore on this subject? You seem to be worried that those evil GPL fanatics are going to come and take your job or at least reduce you to Burger King wages? Get real! A very few developers like Carmack get to drive Ferraris. Most of the rest have to subsist on upper middle class wages. How terrible for them! Even if ALL the software in the world were GPLed (never happen cool down Brett.....) quite a few people will be able to make a reasonable living making needed enhancements or spot bug fixing for.....hmmmm...Business users. Yes, you would still be able to make a good living. No, you are not "Going to get handjobs from women you hardly even know." on account of the Jaguar that proprietary software was going to buy you.
No, but I think it would be completely accurate to say that people who urge others to release using a BSD license instead of a GPL license are more likely to expect other people to share without sharing themselves, as the major difference between the licenses is that BSD code can be taken proprietary while GPL code can not. Assuming that is the only major difference, what other reason would someone using the code prefer a BSD license over the GPL? I can see reasons for developers to possibly prefer to release code under the BSD license as it allows their code to be used in proprietary systems and therefore has a larger possible base of users. But, if you take a look at it from the point of the user of code, it's clear that those who want to take code proprietary would prefer the BSD license. So, if your a programmer and want to release your code to the "community" where "community" is defined as those who either author original works and give them to the "community" or extend/enhance existing "community" code and give it back the GPL is the only choice. If you don't mind someone taking your ideas and work and making any extensions or enhancements to them proprietary then you can't use the GPL and have to use the BSD license. The difference is that the GPL obliges those who use the "community" code, or in other words "takes from the community" to "give back to the community" while the BSD license does not. It definately allows for a "community" but does not oblige those who use community code to give back, ever.
Why would you not want to oblige others to give back to the community and instead allow them to make proprietary extensions? Anyone remember the fragmentation of Unix? Would this have been possible if the original code was released under the GPL instead of the BSD license? Do you want to see this again? I'd rather not.
Oh, and sorry to have edited your post but I'm not having language like that in my name.
You miss the point of what I was saying.
I agree that he probably won't get rich in this market. I agree there's every chance they'll fail. But they're trying. And is there a GPL-based project out there to develop such a product? If there is, it's awfully quiet.
Y'see, the problem here is that programmers tend to want to work on fun or visible projects if they're going to work for free. I don't blame them, I would. But Mozilla hit this problem and so would a speaking web browser, as is rather suggested by the (apparent) absence of such a project.
If someone wants to make a non-proprietary browser for the blind, all power to them. Until some kind souls decide to do such work, however, the GPL is harming the market as there is a developer who is willing to do this work but unwilling to do it without pay, which means they believes the GPL cannot be used. They may well be wrong, but that's their belief. It may well prove to be bad, it may well sell in low numbers and be dropped by its author. But they're trying and they cannot harm the market by trying.
I repeat, having seen no sensible arguments to the contrary, my assertion that, in this case, the GPL is harming blind users. Think about this sort of scenario next time you release a new program, please. And think whether this was really what you wanted when you chose the GPL on any previous releases.
Greg
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
Corel has taken Debian and provided additives they felt an user would expect to be available or useful. Likewise, Debian took the GNU system and packaged additivies they felt an user would expect or find useful. Seems to me that your failing to acknowledge the thousands of hours put in by developers to create the GNU system that provides a large chunk of what makes Debian what it is today.
Huh? Would you care to quote where RMS says precisely that?
BTW I just reviewed the GNU Manifesto, and that's not what it says. So either you give a TEXTUAL QUOTE where the FSF LITERALLY says that "good salaries" for programmers are "obstacles" that must be "banned", or you lose.
Deliberate misquotation and misrepresentation are very vile practices, Mr. Glass.
---
It's always nice to hear personal and "real world" experience.
Thanks sgml4kids
From Stallman's "GNU Manifesto," at http://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html:
--Brett Glass
Personally, if I were Corel, I would quickly move Corel Office, CorelDraw, and future open source development efforts to OpenBSD.
This would have the following advantages over the current situation:
1. Questions regarding the GPL would be moot, as OpenBSD -- of all of the open source UNIX-like operating systems -- uses the least GPLed code (and this only for the toolchain).
2. Corel would no longer be subject to attack by GPL "zealots."
3. Corel still be able to support versions of its applications for Linux, because the APIs of OpenBSD and Linux are very similar. Porting would amount to little more than a recompilation -- and possibly minor changes in the locations of a few files. (These could be handled by very simple logic in the installation programs for the applications.)
4. Because OpenBSD is a Canadian product, Corel need not worry about the possibility that US export restrictions would prevent it from obtaining and/or redistributing parts of the OS that used encryption.
5. Corel is often accused of shipping software which is not fully debugged and/or which crashes frequently. However, OpenBSD's code has been -- and continues to be -- fastidiously audited and maintained, and will raise the perception of Corel's code quality as a whole. The OpenBSD developers are fanatical about code correctness and will fix bugs that are pointed out to them promptly. They will also welcome the bug reports.
6. There are no commercial distributions of OpenBSD, whereas there are dozens of Linux distributions. Corel, as a distributor of OpenBSD, would be alone in its niche with a unique and well-differentiated product. What's more, it could add unique enhancements -- e.g. binary hardware drivers -- without being forced to give them away.
7. OpenBSD is reknowned for its security, but is a bit less user-friendly than the other BSDs. Corel, by bringing an office suite and other applications to the table, could turn this around, creating a symbiotic relationship between itself and the OS project.
8. While Theo DeRaadt, the leader of the OpenBSD project, is noted for his cantankerousness, Corel always has the option of creating its own distinct fork of the OS. However, the ability to fork is actually a deterrent to forking, since both sides would realize that it would be a duplication of effort. So, the BSD license would encourage Corel and the OpenBSD team to cooperate for their mutual benefit.
9. The transition could be done quickly and painlessly due to the similarities between the OSes and their APIs. Corel would not see an interruption in its revenue stream as a result.
For all of these reasons, the best course of action for Corel is to recognize that it almost got it right, but needs to tweak its strategy a bit to maximize its effectiveness. OpenBSD is the way to go for Corel, and I believe that it should move that way before the next release.
--Brett Glass
I think Linux/GNU users are deluding themselves if they beleive that they are not bound by any licenses.
The fact remains that all Linux users are bound by GNU General Public License or GPL for short, and although the GPL does not restrict minors from using its license, in order for a minor (generally below the age of 18 in most countries) to be bound by the terms of the GPL, they have to be able to accept its terms legally.
Therefore, for a company like Corel not to be legally liable if something did go wrong, it has to make sure that those people who are legally able to accept the conditions of GPL are the people that are responsible for downloading and installing it.
So, its just a question of liability law and licensing law.
If you ask my opinion, I would insist that people agree to the GPL license before they install the software, just like Corel has done and all major companies with major concerns do.
Any thoughts?
Ali
(mail@nospam.tecpronet.com)
This post doesn't seem to refute any of the arguments of the previous post. Rather it seems to use sarcasm as a tool to avoid needing a rational argument.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
--Brett Glass
Yet another plus of OpenBSD for Corel would be the value inherent in the OS's emphasis on security. Corel, because it's in Canada, can export a secure OS to the world -- giving it an advantage over any American company (including Microsoft). And being able to demonstrate that one's OS is far more secure than Windows NT would likewise be a tremendous marketing point.
Finally, because OpenBSD has Linux emulation, Corel can cross-develop for Linux directly on the OpenBSD platform. If the code runs on the emulation, it will run well under Linux. Cross-development for FreeBSD would likewise be a snap.
It's ironic that Corel has, up to this point, overlooked a fantastic opportunity right in its own backyard! But fortunately, the animus of the GPL and its supporters toward private business has given Corel a "wake-up call." Now's the time for Corel to act.
--Brett Glass
Oops. I should have said, above, that OpenBSD's roots lie in NetBSD -- the world's most portable OS.
If your motive is simply to create a experimental OS for use in University teaching environments, then embracing the GPL makes sense.
If your motive is to create an alternative OS to take on Microsoft, you can forget about it.
As Mr. Perens has so expertly shown, any company seriously trying to make money using Linux is likely to find themselves tasting something sour.
All you need to accomplish that is put a provision in your license that says "For non-commercial use only. If you want to include this in a commercial product contact me."
Us programers have been doing this for 20+ years. It's nothing new.
Brett is absolutely correct in his analysis of the GPL. I don't understand why some people continue to grasp for straws in support of Stallman.
Bhwhahahahahahahahahah!!!!!!!!!!!
The current Slashdot moderation system is made by gay communists!
This is ridiculous. Corel has done alot for linux-a heck alot more than alot of other people. they are porting their whole line to linux, improved Wine and of course came out with their new distro. I don't know of any major company that ported its whole entire line of products except for maybe Netscape (but some people still think they are evil for not using GPL). I was pondering whether to try corel linux but this made me finalize my decision. I'm going to download it and try it for myself to show my support for Corel.
---
Actually, contrary to Raymond's "Halloween document," there hasn't been a new fork of the BSDs in several years.
I wasn't quoting Eric Raymond, and I was not referring only to the past few years. Don't reply to ESR or RMS; reply to me, if you please.
BSD forked into many, mutually incompatible systems. There are the three major "free" forks: FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD. IIRC, they all derive from a 386BSD project which is now defunct. Furthermore, many (most?) commercial Unixes trace their roots to those original, source available without restrictions, Unixes from AT&T and UCB.
That is what I am refering to when I say BSD forked. Unix could have been the universal future of interoperability between all computers; instead, it turned into a bunch of petty turf wars between Unix vendors. As others have put it, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
However, there are now a couple of dozen forks of Linux, and more are appearing all the time.
There are? I was not aware of any. Perhaps you refer to the various projects like RT-Linux, HA-Linux, ucLinux, and so on? There is a difference here between those and your typical BSD fork.
What we have here are a number of side projects. A bunch of people have a particular need or see a particular problem. To maximize development efficency, they start hacking in a high-density, limited system. Their work remains freely available -- because of the GPL -- and in every case I know of, they are ideally aiming to remerge with the Linux kernel proper. If not, the mainstream kernel people can take ideas they like and incorporate them back into the main kernell. The GPL ensures that nobody can make a propriatary, closed Linux variant. That is the major selling point of the GPL. Yes, it causes problems with some people, but many others feel it is worth it.
Hence, the fragmentation of Linux into many incompatible distributions.
I would like to call that FUD, but I was called out for over using that term, so I will instead call it an outright lie.
As far as I know, there is not one single Linux distribution which is not compatible with every other Linux distribution out there (platform specific dependcies aside -- don't complain that LinuxPPC doesn't run on your Alpha).
Do problems occur because someone's pre-compiled, third-party binary was dynamically linked against a different C library then which it was compiled for? Yes, that is not unheard of. But the problem comes from user X's system being out of date. Try to run a modern FreeBSD binary on a first-release 386BSD system, and I suspect you will have similar problems. You can hardly expect libraries to magically distribute themselves.
I am not saying the GPL is the end-all and be-all of all existance, like certain people (*cough* Stallman *cough*) do. I am simply asserting that, like any license, it has its strengths and weaknesses, and that many people believe the strengths are worth the weaknesses.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
Okay my bad. But the point is still the same. They have no business fucking with the license
... tools... (siglim 120 chars)" Like cars... to the office no more no less.
"Computers should be
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
Fat chance anybody will read this, but I wanted to point out that OpenTV has basically stolen gnu C to make their product.
It's not as if it isn't completely obvious though, any fool can see that it's GNU c, and of course, the source code isn't avaliable.
Welcome to Realityville pop: the world - slashdot readers.
If a minor can't enter into a contract, then they can't accept the terms of the GPL, meaning that anything they do with GPL software is illegal. Granted, nobody is going to sue them as long as they respect the terms of the GPL, but if they violate the GPL and get called on it, they could be charged with violating copyright law, since they'd basically be using the software without a license. So no, a minor could not exploit some loophole to violate the GPL. That would be like saying that it's legal for a kid to sell porn to other kids. Corel doesn't need to put this stipulation into their license agreement. Given that this is not material that could be considered harmful to children (unless you include source comments, which can be edited), the burden is not on them to protect it. Kids can be held criminally responsible for copyright violations everywhere in the world, except under certain circumstances when below a certain age their parents could be held civilly liable. And since you need to be an adult to incorporate, and an adult to create a contract, it would be impossible for a minor to use GPL code in a non-GPL project without their employer being liable. Furthermore, they wouldn't be able to profit from it, since they couldn't charge a fee without making some adult legally responsible for it. The only danger I see is if a bunch of 13 and younger German kids made their own secret network for developing a forked kernel, and then abandoned the project on their 14th birthday. Possible? Yes. Plausible? No. Besides, the courts would figure out a way to deal with such a rare case. They usually have vast leeway when dealing with juveniles and civil law, and all the case law in existence suggests that they'd basically tell the kid to give it back (cough up the source code) and don't do it again. Everything ends up ok. This is hardly a serious loophole, and Corel seems to be violating the GPL more than they're protecting it.
I can't believe people can moderate this bullshit to 5 with *interesting*. Ok, we are not supposed to moderate because we agree or disagree but because it is interesting or stupid, so let me show you why this is stupid with a parody of his post:
The EULA, by its very nature, creates conflicts between closed source developers and honest businesses -- large and small -- by putting them at odds with one another. It doesn't take more than a few minutes' reading at MS's Web site -- in which Bill Gates repeatedly issues a call to arms against "free" software (i.e. software which one can make money by selling a service) to see the antagonism. (His essay in which he asks hobbyists not tocopy his software is an especially good example of this attitude.) A movement whose focus is the destruction of people's businesses and livelihoods can only lead to a battle -- no, rather, to a war consisting of many battles and many casualties.
Everyone -- businesses and the open source community -- would be better off if we adopted the win/win, "live and let livee" approach of other software licenses, such as the BSD license, the MIT X license, and the Artistic License.
Open source that's reusable by all -- such as the BSD TCP/IP stack -- is responsible for the growth of the Internet and the success of the World Wide Web. Instead of threatening lawsuits based on overly restrictive licenses such as the EULA, we should say, "Use this code as you will. You can't un-publish what's already been published for the world to see, so you can't 'take' it; you can only use it to avoid tediously reinventing the wheel. Now, let's see what you can do wih it! If you do not choose to publish the source to what you build with it, good luck to you -- it's not easy to make a living that way. If you are good enough to do it you deserve success."
Do you think Billy boy will throw is EULA and adopt the BSD license because of your rethoric?
No, WHY?
Because different licenses have got different aims. The EULA's aim is to forbid you to copy the software or to use the code, the BSD aim is to allow anybody to use the code, open source developers or close source developers and the aim of the GPL is to allow people that are willing to share code to the GPL'd base to do so, without helping closed source program (the poroblem is that it helps less the non-GPL programs that are Free Software too).
Of course the GPL is more restrictive than the BSD,but it is his aim, and of course the GPL can lead to potentially more lawsuit, but only if people STEAL GPL'd code. You can't steal BSD code because he is given with quite no restrictions but if you use GPL'd code in proprietary product then you STEAL GPL'd code.
You would want us to throw away all our rights to the code, including the right for it to remain open, i won't do it until big corporations (MS in particular, or their heir (in the sense that MS is IBM heir for monopoly things and unethical practices)) do the same thing.
I may do it once in a while but this certainly is not my intent to give them all my code if they don't give me code or money back.
You can keep your bullshit for yourself.
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
#1. No, someone cannot relicense your code without your permission since you hold the copyright. If your claim were true I could release GPL'ed code under a BSD license.
#2. No, my example allows for commercial use, but requires the commercial entity to ask for permission. And possibly give a financial reward in exchange for allowing it to use your code.
I see no reason for the GPL's existence other than Stallman's crazy idea that programmers should all work for the government(like he does).
I can't get into this thread that has some posts I really feel like responding to, because at the level of nesting and citation it's already at, I really want to be using Gnus in Emacs, not a web browser.
I hate to be negative, but I can't help the feeling that a news interface to topic threads wont happen because there are no banner ads in an NNTP newsgroup. I keep writing long replies and then at some point hitting Meta-Q (format paragraph in Emacs, quit in Netscape) and losing my work. If you override this using a resource file, netscape seems to crash more often. Yes I did submit that as a bug to Netscape. Yes I have read the Slashdot FAQ regarding NNTP, yes this is a little offtopic, sorry!
Chris Morgan
Mr. Peren's mailing-list posting doesn't sound to me like the threat of a lawsuit. If fact it doesn't sound like "News for Nerds: Stuff that Matters" either. He posted a few sentences to a mailing list and some Anonymous Coward decided the whole world should read about it.
Even if the coward was genuine it makes me wonder how many people are employed to read Linux mailing lists and misinterpret them publicly. Anyone care to admit to being a muckraker and identify themself and their employer?
I'm especially suspicous because one of the more popular anti-Linux memes is "the Linux community is weak because it is fragmented" which is just a purposeful misinterpretation of "The Linux community is strong because it is diverse."
I really think the editorial staff of Slashdot were way to quick to post this story especially when the "supporting evidence" links were didn't exist. Perhaps they should have emailed Bruce Perens and actually asked him if the Anonymous Coward's report were true.
Well, this conversation is a perfect example of the forking that GPL is causing...I have had to duplicate a large amount of GPL'd code to support various projects that I have contributed to under the MPL, Artistic License and BSD licenses. Every other OS license plays nicely with each other and thus enables the free sharing of code and preventing duplicate effort among OS developers. If I am to understand this whole thing correctly, the negative aspect of forking is that it causes undue duplicate effort and competition among OS projects, and this is exactly how I view the GPL vs (BSD|MPL|Artistic) those of us who choose to keep our code truely free are having to duplicate the work of those misguided souls who jumped on the GPL w/o understanding its consequences (case in point, Enlightenment fell down the GPL path but realized its mistake and switched to a truely free license.)
Information, on the other hand, is capital, because it can be reused again and again.
Stallman's goal is to force people to give up their intellectual capital.
--Brett Glass
The relationship -- at least up to the time when the GPL was created -- has always been similar to that between pure research and engineering. Researchers do their work in a rarefied, somewhat artificial environment where the sharing of information -- via publishing -- brings the maximum reward. The scientists in this environment know full well that they are foregoing some monetary rewards for their work, but are generally quite happy to do so -- since in return, they are allowed to live and work in an incredibly rich academic "playground."
Once scientists publish their results, engineers who produce commercial (or, as Stallman calls them, "proprietary") products may use it to develop practical solutions for the real world. These engineers, being outside the research "bubble," world, do not reveal everything they build upon the scientists' work (though they may reveal some of it, in exchange for a temporary monopoly, via patents). Why? Because in their world, rewards arise from the unique value that they add to their products -- value that their competitors cannot duplicate.
Richard Stallman worked in a research facility: the MIT AI Lab. However, like many hackers who have trouble dealing with the "real world," he failed to understand the symbiotic relationship between the artificial, rarified environment inside the research "bubble" and the world at large. What's more, he was jealous of his peers who left the research environment to join companies which made use of what had been done in the AI Lab. (In Stallman's "GNU Manifesto," he advocates that high programmer salaries be "banned" to prevent programmers from leaving academia.)
Now, the truth is that not many of these people actually achieved great wealth. Symbolics -- the AI Lab spinoff whose creation enraged Stallman and led directly to the creation of the GPL -- failed miserably. But Stallman, in his rage, took it as a given that all of them were going to make tons of money. This is reflected in Stallman's writings, none of which recognize the fact that most commercial software companies fail.
Feeling that he himself could never leave the research environment (he was so inured to it that he literally lived on a couch in the lab), Stallman sought -- out of spite -- to "queer the deal," as it were, between the two worlds. This was the purpose of the GPL: to prohibit reuse of work done in a research or research-like environment -- where knowledge is shared openly and the rewards are largely non-monetary -- to the commercial sector.
What Stallman failed to recognize, however, is that the academic research environment is not self-sustaining. In fact, it is artificially created (and heavily funded) by government and by commercial interests in the hope that all of society can share and use the results. And, yes, some of us will use those results for profit. But that's a good thing -- it creates money which industry willingly feeds back into the research environment to generate more knowledge. And commercial spinoffs from publicly funded projects such as the Space Shuttle have improved all of our lives.
The same is true of projects which make use of freely reusable (that is, non-GPLed) open source software. I and my team can spend less time re-inventing the wheel, and more time solving tough, new problems, if we can stand on other programmers' shoulders -- rather than, as Brian Reid once said, on their feet. But, like many companies that build on publicly available knowledge, we would not be able to consider doing a browser unless we can at least break even on our efforts. And this means making our product commercial. Given the limited market for our work, we do not expect to be able to use the "give away the source/profit from support" business model. The market simply isn't large enough. Without closed source, we couldn't contemplate the project at all.
In short, the greatest benefit to everyone -- in this case -- will arise from a product which is, at least initially, closed source.
Again, there is a symbiosis and a balance here. Giving some of one's work away is fine. But mandating that everyone give everything away destroys the relationship between the two worlds by attempting to impose the artificial rules of one upon the other. Instead, we must recognize, support, and sustain the very useful and positive relationship between the two worlds, and allow them to benefit from one another.
--Brett Glass
Yes he is. Corel is clueless when it comes to GPL. But Bruse and many others are also clueless of REAL laws that btw are not made by Corel or Microsoft BUT by your local politician! They just have to make something like that to protect themselves. I also think it should be icnluded in GPL that minority is not included! Hell there are mothers out there who sued schools because their kid jumped (suicide) from a school window. Insurances because of such stupid things won't let you have open windows in some areas of schools etc... I am sure some mom, pa out there would be ready to sue Corel for any harm caused by his/her urchin to his/her computer, causing data loss and such while trying to install Corel Linux or for that matter RedHat I think we all need some clues here!
--Brett Glass
Luser Attitude Readjustment Tool, something large, heavy, and painful. As a verb, it can be read as "grievously wound."
Ok. I hereby now grant Bruce Perens, the status of SuperHuman!
By my fiat*, he can no longer make mistakes, his position if far too important for that kind of thing. He is no longer allowed to discuss his ideas with friends/co-workers/etc. He must only speak The Utter Truth of the Matter. He must be better than you or me could ever hope to be.
* not the car.
The current Slashdot moderation system is made by gay communists!
Hiring Stallman, or buying an FSF product, is a thinly veiled way of "donating" to his organization. While Stallman is very uncomfortable with money, he does want the FSF -- his "weapon" against commercial software -- to be well armed.
--Brett Glass
Brett Glass writes:
"There is no point in arguing with such pronouncements."
That's why this will be my first and last reply to you in this thread.
"However, there is some value in throwing them into sharp relief via satire."
That only works if the "satire" -- in your case, snide sarcasm -- is *funny*. So scratch that, then...
Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
Christian R. Conrad
mail me at iki.fi ; same user ID as here