You can ask the FSF to be the holder of the copyright. That way only the FSF has to know your identity. And the big advantage is that the FSF has the resources to actually defend the copyleft on the program.
Note that they will ask if your employer can have any copyright (or other) claim on your program and if that is the case you will still have to ask them for permission (and the FSF will ask for a signed confirmation that what you do is OK).
I agree. Why didn't he just work with the FSF on the GPL version 3?
The "Open Software License" (interesting name for a license) seems to be a copyleft license incompatible with the GPL. Sigh... Is it really smart for an OSI board member to add new incomptatible copyleft licenses to the mix and also ask for OSI certification. Hmmm...
There are some interesting things in there such as the patent thing, but is it really smart to mix up copyrights and patents in the same legal document?
The license seems a bit US centric which might put off non-americans.
Using multiple languages with the Mono framework
on
KDE Adopting Mono
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Hi,
Is there a good example why/how something like Mono/DotGNU helps using libraries written in/used from other programming languages?
How does one for example mix and match a program written in C# which uses the iconv C library and the Qt C++ library while using the Guile library to give the user a scheme scripting extension to the program.
I looked at the IK.VM.NET a DotNet Java implementation using GNU Classpath. You will see that there is a lot of work needed to make for example Java Exceptions work correctly with C# exceptions (Java exceptions are mostly checked, C# exceptions are never checked at compile time). And even simpler things as mixing the basic Sting classes or the IO library seem like it is non-trivial.
And C# and Java are really very much like each other. What about mixing more "exotic" languages like Logo and Scheme with Prolog or even basic C?
The DotNet runtime seems to support multiple language on top of it but it is not clear how that helps adapting libraries to multiple languages. It seems to me that you still have to write wrappers around every library to make it work with the way for example Strings, Dictonaries or other standard datastructures are represented/used in the different languages. It seems to me that mixing multiple languages will always be a challenge when programming.
The spirit of the GPL is that the user should have the freedom when they receive the software, the APSL makes it sound like the distributor of the software (Apple) should have all the freedom. This is a small but crucial difference in attitude.
(GPL - if you distribute make sure others receive freedom. APSL - If I distribute I should have more freedom.)
You might want to read the very good discussion on why the APSL is not a free software license: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/apsl.html
Note that there are a lot of good Free Software licensing lessons to be learned by reading: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/philosophy .html#Lice nsingFreeSoftware
See the following page for the original vulnerability report by Harmen van der Wal
(as acknowledged by Sun). He even tested the Free Java implementations GNU Classpath and Kaffe.
I see that my original post has been marked as Troll so I must have misunderstood the question.
Or posted flamebait. Hmmm.
The original question was why you should have incentive to create if you weren't paid for it. In this case, this consortium even wants to be paid a lot of money for the ideas that they believe they created.
What I wanted to say is that there are indeed other reasons to create then the profit motive. Eben Mogel even explains why to sustain creation we do not even need the profit approach as primary motive.
In this case we even see the "lets make it illegal to use, copy and/or improve through patents" approach.
You say:
> If I choose to go for profit, your altruism does not allow
> you to trump me and take away my profits.
I am not a native speaker so I am not sure I have the meaning of to trump correct. It seems to mean that I play a winning card in a game, but also that there was something tricky and misleading going on.
I believe that people have a right to earn a living, but I don't think that coorporations are automatically entitled to (huge) profits. Capatalism wouldn't work if we didn't have competition (but competition does not always have to come from the profit motive!). Stifling innovation with patent (claims) is something I do not approve of.
> Where's the incentive to create if it's legal to just steal the invention and pay nothing?
You say steal but you seem to mean reuse.
Look at the GNU project, the Apache project(s), the Linux kernel, the *BSDs, count the number of Debian packages, all the applications on Savannah, Sourceforce and Freshmeat. Look at all the great technologies created at Universities (which are often the basis of those "great" technologies, or cheap ripoffs if you like, that are sold in the industry).
There are a lot of more incentives to create great technology then making lots of money of it. Focussing on how to make money on something often
You might want to read Anarchism Triumphant by Eben Moglen who explains this a lot better then I can.
Don't wait till Sun is finally "ready" to make the Java Platform Free Software. Use what we already have today.
The GNU Classpath project (http://www.classpath.org/) brings us the standard Java runtime libraries (except Swing, but see below). And they have recently merged with GCJ (http://gcc.gnu.org/java) which allows you to compile your applications to native code. You can even mix and match interpreted Java bytecode, with native compiled Java libraries and C++ code (http://gcc.gnu.org/java/papers/cni/t1.html)!
Then you use the GNOME java bindings (http://java-gnome.sf.net/) or the KDE java bindings (http://developer.kde.org/language-bindings/java/) and you have a great programming language integrated with a free desktop environment.
There are even free J2EE things out their such as JBoss (http://www.jboss.org) and Jakarta (jakarta.apache.org). Sun now even includes parts of that project into their own (proprietary) Java platform releases!
The charity-ware is a nice idea. It does build awareness. Very, very, nice.
But he doesn't seem to get the real idea behind Free Software and the GPL.
The GNU General Public Licence (GPL) is more restrictive. Although it claims to ascertain the freedom of software, it restricts the changes you can make. That is, you can make changes, but when you distribute the modified software, you must make the modified sources available as well. Thus people are not free to keep these changes to themselves. I would say this in fact restricts your freedom. On the other hand, allowing anybody to make changes and keep those changes a secret, even though they profit from the part of the program that wasn't changed, also doesn't sound fair. That's why I decided to add the condition that the changes must be made available to me. I can then decide that these changes are useful for most people, and include them in Vim. Or decide that these changes have only a very small audience, and allow a company to make a bit of money from their work. After all, if the source code of a program must be freely available, it is quite difficult to require users to pay money and make a living out of your work.
With the GPL everybody is equal. If you make a little modification to a GPLed program and distribute that to your friends your friends can ask you for the source of the program and your modifications. But that does not mean anybody else can come in and demand all your modifications to their program. But with his license he gets far more power then anybody else that works on VIM. That might seem fair now since he has done a lot (a very lot) of work on it. But this may come back and hunt you after 20 years when someone else is maintaining (a fork) of the program, since for example Bram doesn't like to maintain it anymore, and he suddenly demands that all changes are handed over to him again.
Although respecting peoples privacy is not a very strong requirement for free software it does seem strange that a license that gives the original author more rights then any other authors can be considered Free Software. I really like the fact that the GPL gives alll contributors equal powers and the fact that it only forces you to play nice with people you actually distribute copies to. Having some god like person that can always demand all source code that I changed doesn't sound very free.
I do appreciate his idea that it is unfair that someone can close down the source code and profit from the fact that most the code was free and not sharing improvements is unsocial. But appointing one person to make the "right" decissions what parts of "my" code should be handed over to him doesn't sound fair either. IMHO making everybody equal by using the GPL and giving everybody (including the original maintainer) the same rights or by using the simple MIT/Modern BSD license and risking that someone/everyone closes down the source seems more fair.
Does anybody know how the two projects compare/cooperate? Both projects seem fairly active and doing very good work. I had assumed that Mono would be that part of DotGNU that provided the C# Compiler, Runtime and standard Libraries. But it seems that DotGNU also makes these parts with their portable net (PNet) together with their "Hailsorm" replacement.
The Mono project seems to be only interested in the C# language/compiler and runtime environment.
It is also interesting that the DotGNU project seems to have put a little more thought into the licensing issue. And in particular what it means to be a derived work (check their FAQ) in the new dynamic code environment that.NET brings us.
Even though they are a GNU project they do not not use the ordinary GPL or the LGPL for their work but a GPL plus exception as also is used with GCC. This makes it possible to create derived works (in embedded devices for example where everything is linked together because you don't have a shared library loader) that with "normal" LGPL would be considered derived works.
Which is strange if you think about it. Ximian which sponsors Mono makes use of a more agressive copyleft then the 'regular' GNU project. Which means that if Mono "wins" then we will have more (forced/copylefted) free software then when the GNU project "wins". Never thought that a commercial company would be more agressive about copyleft then the GNU project.
Does anybody have more information about the why/how of the two (competing?) projects?
The DotGNU website and the Mono website don't seem to talk about the other project even though it is obvious that they are doing the same sort of thing.
You may not rip out any copyright notices.
The GPL even requires that you "conspicuously
and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice".
The root of the problem is that Lutris tried to build a free software (open source) product on top of some software libraries that are not Free Software. So they had a very bad case of vendor lockin. (Or at least they could tell a plausible story that Sun didn't want them to do wathever they wanted to do with their own product.)
So the moral of the story is either don't use a proprietary (closed source/source behind glass, etc) foundation for your Free application. Or help one of the projects that make free alternatives for those closed foundations.
There is a possible license problem in the future when GPLed programs from GNOME are distributed with the major components (compiler, kernel, system libraries and so on) of Solaris.
The system library exception of the GPL does not hold "when that component itself accompanies the executable". Which means that the propriatary system components of Solaris would have to be released as source when GNOME is bundled with a future Solaris release.
There is more discussion on this topic on the Gnotices GNOME news site
Why do you care so much for GPL compatibility?
on
Ask Guido van Rossum
·
· Score: 1
It seems that you are personally involved in getting the new Python license GPL compatible so that Python can be mixed with code released under the GPL.
The Apache people seem to have given up on ever getting their license compatible with the GPL since it seems to much work to get the language about the trademarked words right. So they just accept that people writing GPLed software can never use code distributed under the Apache license. It does not seem to hurt the Apache project to much.
Why do you care so much about Python being GPL compatible? And what work should still be done?
I loved the original CWI license by the way, it was short and to the point. Is there any way to get that back as standard license? And is was GPL compatible as a nice bonus.
It is the answer of John Gilmore to a question that Ron Rivest asked: "If the customer is willing to buy extra, or special, hardware to allow him to view protected content, what is wrong with that?"
If you don't like all the marketing hype and shockwave movies don't go to jabber.com, but try the Free Software community site www.jabber.ORG.
Re:Licensing - This is not free software!
on
RPM Package Manager
·
· Score: 2
It is worse then that. Read the following two clauses:
2.You may install the program yourself, but you must do so in accordance with Aduva's instructions. The Program is licensed, not sold. This license does not confer you title or ownership in the Program. The Program is not subject to any General Public License and is in whole or part the proprietary property of Aduva. You are specifically prohibited from reverse engineering the Program.
7.Confidentiality. All elements of the Program, the servers it attaches to, the manner of operation thereof, the code thereof and the information relating thereto are considered confidential information and you agree to maintain such information absolutely confidential and not to disclose such information to any third party whatsoever without first obtaining Aduva's prior written consent.
It seems that the next version of the Apache Public License will finally be compatible with the GNU General Public License. The following was just posted to the debian-legal mailinglist:
I'm working with Stallman now on modifying the Apache license in such a
way to make it GPL compatible, since I believe fundamentally our
philosophies are compatible. Ask most people who BSD or Apache license
their code if they feel that GPL advocates should be able to use their
code, most will say yes.
Slashdot Mirror
Note that they will ask if your employer can have any copyright (or other) claim on your program and if that is the case you will still have to ask them for permission (and the FSF will ask for a signed confirmation that what you do is OK).
Just email them at assing@gnu.org.
I agree. Why didn't he just work with the FSF on the GPL version 3?
The "Open Software License" (interesting name for a license) seems to be a copyleft license incompatible with the GPL. Sigh... Is it really smart for an OSI board member to add new incomptatible copyleft licenses to the mix and also ask for OSI certification. Hmmm...
There are some interesting things in there such as the patent thing, but is it really smart to mix up copyrights and patents in the same legal document?
The license seems a bit US centric which might put off non-americans.
Is there a good example why/how something like Mono/DotGNU helps using libraries written in/used from other programming languages?
How does one for example mix and match a program written in C# which uses the iconv C library and the Qt C++ library while using the Guile library to give the user a scheme scripting extension to the program.
I looked at the IK.VM.NET a DotNet Java implementation using GNU Classpath. You will see that there is a lot of work needed to make for example Java Exceptions work correctly with C# exceptions (Java exceptions are mostly checked, C# exceptions are never checked at compile time). And even simpler things as mixing the basic Sting classes or the IO library seem like it is non-trivial.
And C# and Java are really very much like each other. What about mixing more "exotic" languages like Logo and Scheme with Prolog or even basic C?
The DotNet runtime seems to support multiple language on top of it but it is not clear how that helps adapting libraries to multiple languages. It seems to me that you still have to write wrappers around every library to make it work with the way for example Strings, Dictonaries or other standard datastructures are represented/used in the different languages. It seems to me that mixing multiple languages will always be a challenge when programming.
One of the comments links to a article with a picture of the president and Bill Gates: PRESIDENTE TOLEDO SUSCRIBE CONVENIO CON BILL GATES
The spirit of the GPL is that the user should have the freedom when they receive the software, the APSL makes it sound like the distributor of the software (Apple) should have all the freedom. This is a small but crucial difference in attitude.
y .html#Lice nsingFreeSoftware
(GPL - if you distribute make sure others receive freedom. APSL - If I distribute I should have more freedom.)
You might want to read the very good discussion on why the APSL is not a free software license:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/apsl.html
Note that there are a lot of good Free Software licensing lessons to be learned by reading:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/philosoph
http://www.xs4all.nl/~harmwal/issue/wal-01.txt
I see that my original post has been marked as Troll so I must have misunderstood the question.
Or posted flamebait. Hmmm.
The original question was why you should have incentive to create if you weren't paid for it. In this case, this consortium even wants to be paid a lot of money for the ideas that they believe they created.
What I wanted to say is that there are indeed other reasons to create then the profit motive. Eben Mogel even explains why to sustain creation we do not even need the profit approach as primary motive.
In this case we even see the "lets make it illegal to use, copy and/or improve through patents" approach.
You say:
> If I choose to go for profit, your altruism does not allow
> you to trump me and take away my profits.
I am not a native speaker so I am not sure I have the meaning of to trump correct. It seems to mean that I play a winning card in a game, but also that there was something tricky and misleading going on.
I believe that people have a right to earn a living, but I don't think that coorporations are automatically entitled to (huge) profits. Capatalism wouldn't work if we didn't have competition (but competition does not always have to come from the profit motive!). Stifling innovation with patent (claims) is something I do not approve of.
You say steal but you seem to mean reuse.
Look at the GNU project, the Apache project(s), the Linux kernel, the *BSDs, count the number of Debian packages, all the applications on Savannah, Sourceforce and Freshmeat. Look at all the great technologies created at Universities (which are often the basis of those "great" technologies, or cheap ripoffs if you like, that are sold in the industry).
There are a lot of more incentives to create great technology then making lots of money of it. Focussing on how to make money on something often
You might want to read Anarchism Triumphant by Eben Moglen who explains this a lot better then I can.
Don't wait till Sun is finally "ready" to make the Java Platform Free Software. Use what we already have today.
) and you have a great programming language integrated with a free desktop environment.
The GNU Classpath project (http://www.classpath.org/) brings us the standard Java runtime libraries (except Swing, but see below). And they have recently merged with GCJ (http://gcc.gnu.org/java) which allows you to compile your applications to native code. You can even mix and match interpreted Java bytecode, with native compiled Java libraries and C++ code (http://gcc.gnu.org/java/papers/cni/t1.html)!
Then you use the GNOME java bindings (http://java-gnome.sf.net/) or the KDE java bindings (http://developer.kde.org/language-bindings/java/
There are even free J2EE things out their such as JBoss (http://www.jboss.org) and Jakarta (jakarta.apache.org). Sun now even includes parts of that project into their own (proprietary) Java platform releases!
But he doesn't seem to get the real idea behind Free Software and the GPL.
The GNU General Public Licence (GPL) is more restrictive. Although it claims to ascertain the freedom of software, it restricts the changes you can make. That is, you can make changes, but when you distribute the modified software, you must make the modified sources available as well. Thus people are not free to keep these changes to themselves. I would say this in fact restricts your freedom. On the other hand, allowing anybody to make changes and keep those changes a secret, even though they profit from the part of the program that wasn't changed, also doesn't sound fair. That's why I decided to add the condition that the changes must be made available to me. I can then decide that these changes are useful for most people, and include them in Vim. Or decide that these changes have only a very small audience, and allow a company to make a bit of money from their work. After all, if the source code of a program must be freely available, it is quite difficult to require users to pay money and make a living out of your work.
With the GPL everybody is equal. If you make a little modification to a GPLed program and distribute that to your friends your friends can ask you for the source of the program and your modifications. But that does not mean anybody else can come in and demand all your modifications to their program. But with his license he gets far more power then anybody else that works on VIM. That might seem fair now since he has done a lot (a very lot) of work on it. But this may come back and hunt you after 20 years when someone else is maintaining (a fork) of the program, since for example Bram doesn't like to maintain it anymore, and he suddenly demands that all changes are handed over to him again.
Although respecting peoples privacy is not a very strong requirement for free software it does seem strange that a license that gives the original author more rights then any other authors can be considered Free Software. I really like the fact that the GPL gives alll contributors equal powers and the fact that it only forces you to play nice with people you actually distribute copies to. Having some god like person that can always demand all source code that I changed doesn't sound very free.
I do appreciate his idea that it is unfair that someone can close down the source code and profit from the fact that most the code was free and not sharing improvements is unsocial. But appointing one person to make the "right" decissions what parts of "my" code should be handed over to him doesn't sound fair either. IMHO making everybody equal by using the GPL and giving everybody (including the original maintainer) the same rights or by using the simple MIT/Modern BSD license and risking that someone/everyone closes down the source seems more fair.
Does anybody know how the two projects compare/cooperate? Both projects seem fairly active and doing very good work. I had assumed that Mono would be that part of DotGNU that provided the C# Compiler, Runtime and standard Libraries. But it seems that DotGNU also makes these parts with their portable net (PNet) together with their "Hailsorm" replacement.
.NET brings us.
The Mono project seems to be only interested in the C# language/compiler and runtime environment.
It is also interesting that the DotGNU project seems to have put a little more thought into the licensing issue. And in particular what it means to be a derived work (check their FAQ) in the new dynamic code environment that
Even though they are a GNU project they do not not use the ordinary GPL or the LGPL for their work but a GPL plus exception as also is used with GCC. This makes it possible to create derived works (in embedded devices for example where everything is linked together because you don't have a shared library loader) that with "normal" LGPL would be considered derived works.
Which is strange if you think about it. Ximian which sponsors Mono makes use of a more agressive copyleft then the 'regular' GNU project. Which means that if Mono "wins" then we will have more (forced/copylefted) free software then when the GNU project "wins". Never thought that a commercial company would be more agressive about copyleft then the GNU project.
Does anybody have more information about the why/how of the two (competing?) projects?
The DotGNU website and the Mono website don't seem to talk about the other project even though it is obvious that they are doing the same sort of thing.
It was already discussed on the kernel mailing list.l /0112.1/1573.html
Including a (trivial) port to GNU/Linux.
Local filesystems are OK (except for ReiserFS), but NFS does show some problems.
http://www.uwsg.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux/kerne
> rip out all the credits as to who did what work
You may not rip out any copyright notices.
The GPL even requires that you "conspicuously
and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice".
Please checkout GNU Classpath and GNU ClasspathX extensionsor the Gnu Compiler for Java if you are really interested in Free solutions for Java. Without those free foundations, Java programs will never be truely Free Software!
http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2001-07/msg01834.html
Read it and go implement those layers in GCC :)
The system library exception of the GPL does not hold "when that component itself accompanies the executable". Which means that the propriatary system components of Solaris would have to be released as source when GNOME is bundled with a future Solaris release.
There is more discussion on this topic on the Gnotices GNOME news site
It seems that you are personally involved in getting the new Python license GPL compatible so that Python can be mixed with code released under the GPL.
The Apache people seem to have given up on ever getting their license compatible with the GPL since it seems to much work to get the language about the trademarked words right. So they just accept that people writing GPLed software can never use code distributed under the Apache license. It does not seem to hurt the Apache project to much.
Why do you care so much about Python being GPL compatible? And what work should still be done?
I loved the original CWI license by the way, it was short and to the point. Is there any way to get that back as standard license? And is was GPL compatible as a nice bonus.
What's Wrong with Copy Protection
It is the answer of John Gilmore to a question that Ron Rivest asked: "If the customer is willing to buy extra, or special, hardware to allow him to view protected content, what is wrong with that?"
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-1.4-list/200
Note that there is a offical test plan at:
http://www.gnome.org/~mjs/gnome-test-plans/
Add the following line to your /etc/apt/sources.list file:
deb http://security.debian.org/ potato/updates main
Then do a:
apt-get update
followed by a:
apt-get upgrade
DONE.
If you don't like all the marketing hype and shockwave movies don't go to jabber.com, but try the Free Software community site www.jabber.ORG.
2.You may install the program yourself, but you must do so in accordance with Aduva's instructions. The Program is licensed, not sold. This license does not confer you title or ownership in the Program. The Program is not subject to any General Public License and is in whole or part the proprietary property of Aduva. You are specifically prohibited from reverse engineering the Program.
7.Confidentiality. All elements of the Program, the servers it attaches to, the manner of operation thereof, the code thereof and the information relating thereto are considered confidential information and you agree to maintain such information absolutely confidential and not to disclose such information to any third party whatsoever without first obtaining Aduva's prior written consent.
More (including a nasty termination clause) can be found on http://www.aduva.com/mason/new/licenses.html
Or you could try: .net/cgi-bin/whois?whois_nic=microsoft.com /cgi-bin/whois?whois_nic=apple.com
http://whois.inter nic
http://whois.internic. net
http://whois.internic.ne t/c gi-bin/whois?whois_nic=aol.com
http://whois.inte rni c.net/cgi-bin/whois?whois_nic=whithouse.gov