Nope. The thing is, the interpretation some people are suggesting is ludicrous. To say "Any negative effect on your redistribution rights" is flat-out insane - for example, it would make it illegal to distribute anything GPL with non-free hardware, as the cost of the hardware would negatively impact your future ability to make non-free redistributions (by mail, by bandwidth, by CDR - none of those is free). Whatever/bots want, the likely court interpretation will be "a direct restriction on those rights", not any remote resemblance to an incentive not to do so. The key will be that the option to accept the source under the GPL only must always be available - the GPL does not mandate additional rights like support, warranty, access to future binaries, etc, and as such its legit to make a side contract between yourself and the recipient of the GPL from you, so long as you don't require the recipient to accept the side contract as a condition of receiving their GPL rights.
You aren't being forced to do anything additional to use your GPL rights; you're being forced to do something additional to maintain your hardware lease, which is *not* covered by the GPL.
You may buy my GPL software for $50. Pursuant to that, but not required as a condition of purchasing my GPL software, you may contract my services for free. If, however, you redistribute your GPLed software, you owe me $9,999,950.
If you sign the EXTRA agreement stating you forfeit your house, then yeah, you would, and it would be legit.
The GPL says you must be given your rights. Anyone buying a Sveasoft firmware must be given their GPL-granted rights. However, if they choose (and choice is the important part here!) to sign an additional agreement that places a condition on redistribution, that's between them and the customer.
You may not force someone to accept additional conditions on the GPL. However, nowhere in the GPL does it say you may not *choose* to accept further restrictions in exchange for some consideration, so long as you aren't forced to and people can still receive the product from you under the unrestricted GPL.
They are not restricting your ability to distribute the code. They may be putting some limits on your desire to do so, but that's not the GPL's domain.
Much like a violator of the GPL loses the rights given to them under the GPL, a violator of Sveasoft's subscription agreement loses the rights given to them under that agreement. The loss of those rights doesn't impair your right to distribute the source you already have; therefore, it is not a restriction on distribution of the code.
And don't bring up your goddamn million dollars example - the two aren't equivalent. In one, if you distribute you must do something additional - pay up. In the other, if you distribute you have an additional right (access to future source and binaries) revoked. Nothing in the GPL gives you that right; as such, Sveasoft may revoke that right for any reason valid under their contract.
No, there's a pretty big difference between the two.
The GPL allows you to *freely* distribute the software. A restriction saying "You may distribute the software but you will owe us money for it" doesn't qualify as freely distributing. However, Sveasoft is saying - here's your GPLed software, as is required by the GPL. However, if you redistribute it (which you may do if you so choose), you will break agreement B, which has nothing to do with the GPL. You are NOT required to sign agreement B to obtain access to your source code; however, if you do sign it, you have to abide by agreement B as well as the GPL.
Essentially, your example would be equivalent if they said "Here's your GPLed source code; if you want future revisions of the source (that you don't have binaries for) you can have them, but if you redistribute that source you owe us one million dollars." That's legitimate; the GPL says nothing about other contractual agreements.
Now, if they were to say "Here's your GPLed source code that we have to give to you because you got binaries from us; if you redistribute this GPLed source, you owe us a million bucks" that would be a violation. Its a subtle distinction, but an important one - the access to pre-release code is granted by a seperate agreement, a seperate contract from the GPL license. As such, the GPL has little power to bind anything to that contract; if the user agrees to it and the conditions do not violate the GPL, its legit.
A restriction of your right to distribute the software would mean "If you do X, you may not distribute the software" or "If you do X, you may only distribute the software once" or anything like that. Saying "You may distribute, but if you do, we will revoke your right to do X" is not restricting distribution. If you think about it, before you first distribute and after you first distribute, your rights to distribute haven't changed at all. Therefore, there's no restriction on the right of distribution.
You have the right to modify and redistribute the software. If they revoke your lease and seize the appliance, you still have that right... of course, you no longer have hardware to run it on. As long as they aren't trying to restrict the rights you have under the GPL (redistribute, modify) then they're within the letter.
That's actually a pretty interesting loophole in the GPL.
On the other hand, you could argue that the recipients rights (to modify, use, redistribute) the code they have already received are not being restricted. Instead, a different right (to access future source code *directly from Sveasoft* prior to its public release) is being terminated. As this right is not guaranteed by the GPL, the GPL isn't being violated.
Let's say that these CDs are, in fact, CD-Rs burned by an employee upon request. I have no idea if this is, in fact, true, but let's say it is.
Let's say, further, that it takes roughly 25 minutes worth of time to burn and mail a CD. 10 minutes for the burn (finding a CD-R, opening the app, finding the crap you're supposed to burn to CD, so forth). 10 minutes to write up the airbill. 5 minutes to walk it over to the mail drop for your building.
Let's further suppose that they don't get enough of these requests to justify a full-time employee to handle them, so their developers do instead. Let's say its a $40k per year developer. Going on the 40/52 assumption, and the 30% benefit assumption, that developer is worth about 25 bucks an hour. Add in shipping at, oh let's call it 5 bucks, and we're already at 30 bucks worth of cost. I'm sure I could find other incidentals (cost of CD-R and packaging, amortized cost of computer and burner) to bring it to 50 bucks.
In my professional life, I have encountered *one* engineer using a Mac, and they were pretty much only doing project management at that point anyway.
And I mean, far be it from me to judge from working for some of the biggest corporations and government agencies in existence, but when they have ONE engineer using a Mac, I suspect there's a reason.
I submit that it might be that most engineering applications are written for the PC, and usually better on Windows or Linux than on MacOS.
People who use the server just want it fixed, you are correct. However, most of them also want one place to call for support - be it IT or the provider of the software, they don't wish to do any extra work to get it back into a working state.
I'm thinking of serious support; the kind that comes with, for example, embedded compilers (there really is nothing like calling Green Hills and saying "Your shit is broken. Come fix it" and seeing an engineer the next day, or even sooner.) or high-end CAD programs. OSS, on the other hand, may or may not be supported - I've certainly rarely found the level of support given to be any better than the support provided by user communities for commercial software. Yes, *if* you can attract the project's attention, and *if* they deem it to be worthy, you might get a quick fix for it... or maybe not.
Well, generally because if they were to steal your design and you proved it, they would never have another customer again in their lives. If you think your design is so valuable they might risk it, I suggest you think again; if you still think so, then learn your own damn fabrication techniques, or find a machine shop that'll sign some sort of legal document preventing that sort of occurrence.
I can think of a few things, and they're all related to one thing: drawing.
If you're an artist (the kind who actually draws), I could see some use for a tablet. Especially if you want to get into doing computer-based things without going through the hassle of scanning, or if your computer skills are significantly inferior to your artistic skills. Penny Arcade, IIRC, uses a tablet PC for all the artwork now.
Some of our factory people have tablet PCs - they bring up a PDF of a schematic, and they can draw on it while they discuss things with engineers. Useful.
I think the tablet PC has uses... its just that they're not going to be for everyone, ever.
I think there's something even more nice about having the server break down, and being able to fix the machine yourself, but maybe that's just me.
This is only true for programmers, and really only for those who can/want to work on the application or OS that's broken. For people who *use* the server, they would much rather have the company working their ass off trying to fix it.
The beauty of OSS is that development is done by many more people than a proprietary company could afford, given the footprint of the software in question.
The beauty of commercial software is that the company can provide focused support, subsidized by the money made by selling the software, in a quantity and quality greater than even a dedicated support company can provide for OSS.
That's the difference. OSS support has to pay for itself. Commercial support can be subsidized by sales.
The spec exists, and is published. If MS buys Macromedia and decides that they want to change the spec, the rest of the world can decide "screw that" and continue to use the old published spec. The whole point of an open file standard is that everyone uses the same one. Non-standard versions of standards tend to suffer and fail.
The first time I "installed", my keyboard DID NOT WORK. At all. Not during install. Not ever.
The second time (on SuSe, Mandrake, and Gentoo all) I get kernel panics during install. Keyboard works long enough to start the install, but then the kernel panics.
I like the command prompt just fine; I use more than a few UNIX systems at work. But fuck you hippy ass superior Linux zealots who think that obviously your system is superior for everything; for some things, ease of use and NOT HAVING TO FUCKING WASTE MY LIFE TRYING TO GET IT INSTALLED trumps whatever technological superiority you may or may not have.
Oh, and remember: CLI is great for programming and sysadmin, but sucks for many other things. You, on the other hand, suck for all things.
Just like when those huge buildings (we have em in Chicago too) get wired for cable modems, they run multiple wires to maintain the proper ratio of subscribers to bandwidth.
2. If the open source ones exist. If they work. If they support all the features properly. Then yeah, sure, they might be more reliable.
3. This may be true for consumer hardware, but the people who make high-end recording studio hardware don't have the luxury of being able to piss off their customers. They don't sell enough volume. It's the same as a high-end IBM software stack - part of the purchase price is the maker's assurance that they will resolve issues for you.
No, because quite honestly I'm perfectly happy with it in Windows. I have zero interest in moving solely to Linux, since the existing solutions are "good enough", and every time I've tried a Linux install on my machine it has died horribly (far before the point where I could make a decision about ease of use and interface).
I was thinking more along the lines of one of the modern sequencers that can accept sequence data from a PC; edit on a good interface, dump it to the hardware sequencer for timing reasons. But if you want the better interaction, but don't have special timing needs, why not upgrade from the ST?
I don't know. All my current live stuff is about as far away from sequenced as you can get (improvised, nothing pre-recorded and nothing pre-planned), so it's been a while since I've had to fight with a sequencer.
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Nope. The thing is, the interpretation some people are suggesting is ludicrous. To say "Any negative effect on your redistribution rights" is flat-out insane - for example, it would make it illegal to distribute anything GPL with non-free hardware, as the cost of the hardware would negatively impact your future ability to make non-free redistributions (by mail, by bandwidth, by CDR - none of those is free). Whatever /bots want, the likely court interpretation will be "a direct restriction on those rights", not any remote resemblance to an incentive not to do so. The key will be that the option to accept the source under the GPL only must always be available - the GPL does not mandate additional rights like support, warranty, access to future binaries, etc, and as such its legit to make a side contract between yourself and the recipient of the GPL from you, so long as you don't require the recipient to accept the side contract as a condition of receiving their GPL rights.
You aren't being forced to do anything additional to use your GPL rights; you're being forced to do something additional to maintain your hardware lease, which is *not* covered by the GPL.
I believe that what you suggested is invalid.
I believe the following is valid.
You may buy my GPL software for $50.
Pursuant to that, but not required as a condition of purchasing my GPL software, you may contract my services for free. If, however, you redistribute your GPLed software, you owe me $9,999,950.
Do you see the difference between the two?
I'm willing to bet you the cost of a blank tape in 1985 that it wasn't $150 less shipping.
If you sign the EXTRA agreement stating you forfeit your house, then yeah, you would, and it would be legit.
The GPL says you must be given your rights. Anyone buying a Sveasoft firmware must be given their GPL-granted rights. However, if they choose (and choice is the important part here!) to sign an additional agreement that places a condition on redistribution, that's between them and the customer.
You may not force someone to accept additional conditions on the GPL. However, nowhere in the GPL does it say you may not *choose* to accept further restrictions in exchange for some consideration, so long as you aren't forced to and people can still receive the product from you under the unrestricted GPL.
They are not restricting your ability to distribute the code. They may be putting some limits on your desire to do so, but that's not the GPL's domain.
Much like a violator of the GPL loses the rights given to them under the GPL, a violator of Sveasoft's subscription agreement loses the rights given to them under that agreement. The loss of those rights doesn't impair your right to distribute the source you already have; therefore, it is not a restriction on distribution of the code.
And don't bring up your goddamn million dollars example - the two aren't equivalent. In one, if you distribute you must do something additional - pay up. In the other, if you distribute you have an additional right (access to future source and binaries) revoked. Nothing in the GPL gives you that right; as such, Sveasoft may revoke that right for any reason valid under their contract.
No, there's a pretty big difference between the two.
The GPL allows you to *freely* distribute the software. A restriction saying "You may distribute the software but you will owe us money for it" doesn't qualify as freely distributing. However, Sveasoft is saying - here's your GPLed software, as is required by the GPL. However, if you redistribute it (which you may do if you so choose), you will break agreement B, which has nothing to do with the GPL. You are NOT required to sign agreement B to obtain access to your source code; however, if you do sign it, you have to abide by agreement B as well as the GPL.
Essentially, your example would be equivalent if they said "Here's your GPLed source code; if you want future revisions of the source (that you don't have binaries for) you can have them, but if you redistribute that source you owe us one million dollars." That's legitimate; the GPL says nothing about other contractual agreements.
Now, if they were to say "Here's your GPLed source code that we have to give to you because you got binaries from us; if you redistribute this GPLed source, you owe us a million bucks" that would be a violation. Its a subtle distinction, but an important one - the access to pre-release code is granted by a seperate agreement, a seperate contract from the GPL license. As such, the GPL has little power to bind anything to that contract; if the user agrees to it and the conditions do not violate the GPL, its legit.
No, it isn't.
A restriction of your right to distribute the software would mean "If you do X, you may not distribute the software" or "If you do X, you may only distribute the software once" or anything like that. Saying "You may distribute, but if you do, we will revoke your right to do X" is not restricting distribution. If you think about it, before you first distribute and after you first distribute, your rights to distribute haven't changed at all. Therefore, there's no restriction on the right of distribution.
Yep.
You have the right to modify and redistribute the software. If they revoke your lease and seize the appliance, you still have that right... of course, you no longer have hardware to run it on. As long as they aren't trying to restrict the rights you have under the GPL (redistribute, modify) then they're within the letter.
That's actually a pretty interesting loophole in the GPL.
According to the GPL, you may not add additional restrictions to the EXERCISE OF THE RIGHTS GRANTED BY THE GPL.
Since their additional license doesn't add restrictions to your exercise of rights granted by the GPL, I don't see a violation there.
On the other hand, you could argue that the recipients rights (to modify, use, redistribute) the code they have already received are not being restricted. Instead, a different right (to access future source code *directly from Sveasoft* prior to its public release) is being terminated. As this right is not guaranteed by the GPL, the GPL isn't being violated.
Depends.
Let's say that these CDs are, in fact, CD-Rs burned by an employee upon request. I have no idea if this is, in fact, true, but let's say it is.
Let's say, further, that it takes roughly 25 minutes worth of time to burn and mail a CD. 10 minutes for the burn (finding a CD-R, opening the app, finding the crap you're supposed to burn to CD, so forth). 10 minutes to write up the airbill. 5 minutes to walk it over to the mail drop for your building.
Let's further suppose that they don't get enough of these requests to justify a full-time employee to handle them, so their developers do instead. Let's say its a $40k per year developer. Going on the 40/52 assumption, and the 30% benefit assumption, that developer is worth about 25 bucks an hour. Add in shipping at, oh let's call it 5 bucks, and we're already at 30 bucks worth of cost. I'm sure I could find other incidentals (cost of CD-R and packaging, amortized cost of computer and burner) to bring it to 50 bucks.
The argument on cost of reproduction is *weak*.
Pedant, jackass.
You wear pendants around your neck. Pedants, on the other hand, are worn around the nerves.
In my professional life, I have encountered *one* engineer using a Mac, and they were pretty much only doing project management at that point anyway.
And I mean, far be it from me to judge from working for some of the biggest corporations and government agencies in existence, but when they have ONE engineer using a Mac, I suspect there's a reason.
I submit that it might be that most engineering applications are written for the PC, and usually better on Windows or Linux than on MacOS.
I refer you to David Cross's award-winning* "Stephen Hawking and a prostitute" impression.
*not actually award winning, but very, very funny.
People who use the server just want it fixed, you are correct. However, most of them also want one place to call for support - be it IT or the provider of the software, they don't wish to do any extra work to get it back into a working state.
I'm thinking of serious support; the kind that comes with, for example, embedded compilers (there really is nothing like calling Green Hills and saying "Your shit is broken. Come fix it" and seeing an engineer the next day, or even sooner.) or high-end CAD programs. OSS, on the other hand, may or may not be supported - I've certainly rarely found the level of support given to be any better than the support provided by user communities for commercial software. Yes, *if* you can attract the project's attention, and *if* they deem it to be worthy, you might get a quick fix for it... or maybe not.
Well, generally because if they were to steal your design and you proved it, they would never have another customer again in their lives. If you think your design is so valuable they might risk it, I suggest you think again; if you still think so, then learn your own damn fabrication techniques, or find a machine shop that'll sign some sort of legal document preventing that sort of occurrence.
Oh, and stop taking the paranoia pills.
I can think of a few things, and they're all related to one thing: drawing.
If you're an artist (the kind who actually draws), I could see some use for a tablet. Especially if you want to get into doing computer-based things without going through the hassle of scanning, or if your computer skills are significantly inferior to your artistic skills. Penny Arcade, IIRC, uses a tablet PC for all the artwork now.
Some of our factory people have tablet PCs - they bring up a PDF of a schematic, and they can draw on it while they discuss things with engineers. Useful.
I think the tablet PC has uses... its just that they're not going to be for everyone, ever.
I think there's something even more nice about having the server break down, and being able to fix the machine yourself, but maybe that's just me.
This is only true for programmers, and really only for those who can/want to work on the application or OS that's broken. For people who *use* the server, they would much rather have the company working their ass off trying to fix it.
The beauty of OSS is that development is done by many more people than a proprietary company could afford, given the footprint of the software in question.
The beauty of commercial software is that the company can provide focused support, subsidized by the money made by selling the software, in a quantity and quality greater than even a dedicated support company can provide for OSS.
That's the difference. OSS support has to pay for itself. Commercial support can be subsidized by sales.
The spec exists, and is published. If MS buys Macromedia and decides that they want to change the spec, the rest of the world can decide "screw that" and continue to use the old published spec. The whole point of an open file standard is that everyone uses the same one. Non-standard versions of standards tend to suffer and fail.
Get over your fucking paranoia.
The first time I "installed", my keyboard DID NOT WORK. At all. Not during install. Not ever.
The second time (on SuSe, Mandrake, and Gentoo all) I get kernel panics during install. Keyboard works long enough to start the install, but then the kernel panics.
I like the command prompt just fine; I use more than a few UNIX systems at work. But fuck you hippy ass superior Linux zealots who think that obviously your system is superior for everything; for some things, ease of use and NOT HAVING TO FUCKING WASTE MY LIFE TRYING TO GET IT INSTALLED trumps whatever technological superiority you may or may not have.
Oh, and remember: CLI is great for programming and sysadmin, but sucks for many other things. You, on the other hand, suck for all things.
Just like when those huge buildings (we have em in Chicago too) get wired for cable modems, they run multiple wires to maintain the proper ratio of subscribers to bandwidth.
1. This sounds like a Linux problem to me.
2. If the open source ones exist. If they work. If they support all the features properly. Then yeah, sure, they might be more reliable.
3. This may be true for consumer hardware, but the people who make high-end recording studio hardware don't have the luxury of being able to piss off their customers. They don't sell enough volume. It's the same as a high-end IBM software stack - part of the purchase price is the maker's assurance that they will resolve issues for you.
No, because quite honestly I'm perfectly happy with it in Windows. I have zero interest in moving solely to Linux, since the existing solutions are "good enough", and every time I've tried a Linux install on my machine it has died horribly (far before the point where I could make a decision about ease of use and interface).
Yes, but the Yankees losing 4 of 7 to the Tigers this year means their self-respect might be.
I was thinking more along the lines of one of the modern sequencers that can accept sequence data from a PC; edit on a good interface, dump it to the hardware sequencer for timing reasons. But if you want the better interaction, but don't have special timing needs, why not upgrade from the ST?
I don't know. All my current live stuff is about as far away from sequenced as you can get (improvised, nothing pre-recorded and nothing pre-planned), so it's been a while since I've had to fight with a sequencer.