Congress should not legislate the behavior of employees, networks sysadmins, or companies as some have been suggesting. The primary areas where Congress should be concerned are:
1. Vulnerability of our commerce systems to domestic or international attack.
2. Creating an environment that encourages companies and consumers to protect themselves.
3. Ability to obtain properly authorized evidence in the event of a warrant to pursue suspected criminals.
Item one is the most critical, and what seems to be completely ignored by our current legislators. Any scheme of encryption cracking that is available to our goverment in the event of a warrant, is also available to our enemies. Yes, the FBI may be able to read Bin Ladin's email if no encryption exists, but, terrorists would also be able to have full access to our e-commerce infrastructure, private information, etc... and have the ability to cause significant damage, especially since e-commerce is becoming a more significant part of our economy every day.
2 implies educational programs, and sponsorship of groups that promote real security.
3 is important, but may not be realistic in the context of 1.
2b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License.
IANAL but this implies that if I download the Microsoft SDK, develop some code against it, then release it under the GPL, or incorporate any GPL code, the GPL applies to the entire program, not just the modifications of the original GPL program.
It is perfectly within the rights of Microsoft to prevent another license from superceding their own, or to allow users to be confused.
This problem is exactly why LGPL was developed. For a program to be GPL, ALL OF THE SOURCE REQUIRED TO MAKE THE PROGRAM MUST BE GPL. You can't develop GPL code that works against non-GPL code, and distribute them together.
2b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License.
IANAL but this implies that if I download the Microsoft SDK, develop some code against it, then release it under the GPL, or incorporate any GPL code, the GPL applies to the entire program, not just the modifications of the original GPL program.
It is perfectly within the rights of Microsoft to prevent another license from superceding their own, or to allow users to be confused.
This problem is exactly why LGPL was developed. For a program to be GPL, ALL OF THE SOURCE REQUIRED TO MAKE THE PROGRAM MUST BE GPL. You can't develop GPL code that works against non-GPL code, and distribute them together.
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Congress should not legislate the behavior of employees, networks sysadmins, or companies as some have been suggesting. The primary areas where Congress should be concerned are:
1. Vulnerability of our commerce systems to domestic or international attack.
2. Creating an environment that encourages companies and consumers to protect themselves.
3. Ability to obtain properly authorized evidence in the event of a warrant to pursue suspected criminals.
Item one is the most critical, and what seems to be completely ignored by our current legislators. Any scheme of encryption cracking that is available to our goverment in the event of a warrant, is also available to our enemies. Yes, the FBI may be able to read Bin Ladin's email if no encryption exists, but, terrorists would also be able to have full access to our e-commerce infrastructure, private information, etc... and have the ability to cause significant damage, especially since e-commerce is becoming a more significant part of our economy every day.
2 implies educational programs, and sponsorship of groups that promote real security.
3 is important, but may not be realistic in the context of 1.
If you refer to the GPL license at http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html, you'll note the following:
2b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License.
IANAL but this implies that if I download the Microsoft SDK, develop some code against it, then release it under the GPL, or incorporate any GPL code, the GPL applies to the entire program, not just the modifications of the original GPL program. It is perfectly within the rights of Microsoft to prevent another license from superceding their own, or to allow users to be confused. This problem is exactly why LGPL was developed. For a program to be GPL, ALL OF THE SOURCE REQUIRED TO MAKE THE PROGRAM MUST BE GPL. You can't develop GPL code that works against non-GPL code, and distribute them together.
If you refer to the GPL license at http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html, you'll note the following:
2b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License.
IANAL but this implies that if I download the Microsoft SDK, develop some code against it, then release it under the GPL, or incorporate any GPL code, the GPL applies to the entire program, not just the modifications of the original GPL program. It is perfectly within the rights of Microsoft to prevent another license from superceding their own, or to allow users to be confused. This problem is exactly why LGPL was developed. For a program to be GPL, ALL OF THE SOURCE REQUIRED TO MAKE THE PROGRAM MUST BE GPL. You can't develop GPL code that works against non-GPL code, and distribute them together.