But you are missing the one important role of upper management and marketing drones: they are not geeks. Seriously. When you take a look at open source projects without PHBs you'll see geeks writing software for other geeks. (I am a geek, no insult intended). Looking at those OSS projects that aren't geeky, you'll find that they do indeed have upper management.
In the company I work for, we make medical imaging devices. If the hardware and software engineers had their way, we would have a vastly different system, and possibly more robust and powerful. But it would be useless to the physician end-user. We are lucky in that our CEO and many of the top dogs are in fact physicians. Those that aren't are in daily contact with physicians and nurses and hospital admins. If the majority of the users want a feature, we will do that feature, regardless of what the engineers think. This is a Good Thing!
But that's NOT how they work. They DO have management and projects and plans. Do you really thing Bob Young's official title is "Guy in the Red Hat"? Do you really think Mandrake has no PHB's? Do you think SuSE has no offices, and every employee logs in from home whenever they feel like it?
The article is right on the money. There is no bazaar. It's more of an open-air cathedral.
Although shouldn't it be copyright law, rather than RMS, that dictates what is and is not a derivative work?
It already is. A lot of people either haven't read the GPL, or don't understand copyright law. The GPL states that it operates solely under copyright law. When it talks about "works based on the Program" and other derivations, it is meant solely in the sense of copyright.
The issue of drawing the line at process boundaries is a practical matter of drawing the line between derivation (compile time linkage) and performance (runtime linkage). The line is very fuzzy, and I'm on the side that says the boundary should be narrower than the process, but I can still understand and sympathize with the other viewpoint.
the criticism he recieved... after he said "Making Qt available under the GPL makes it legal to take an existing GPL-covered program and adapt it to work with Qt."
Uh, Timothy? Where have you been? The criticism was not directed at the statement you quoted. 99% of it was directed at his "forgiveness" and the remaining 1% directed at the "go GNOME" statement. I don't recall anyone bitching about Stallman's announcement of Qt under the GPL.
Okay, you _used_ to work for this company. You also have an agreement to sign over all IP to them under certain circumstances.
So what's the company's problem? If they have a contract from you, why the heck do they need another signature? It sounds more like they want your name on the application. I would just refuse to sign, letting them know that they already own your work in this regard, and that they need nothing more from you.
One proactive thing you could do is urge them to use a free patent. Write up a license that allows everyone to use the patent, void only if the patent holder is does not have equal access to a user's patent. In the latter case simply go through normal channels and sell or swap the rights.
And I apologize for not being totally up on licenses, so if you could explain the functional difference between a BSD type license and public domain I would appreciate it.
The BSD license and others like it (MIT, Apache, etc) are pretty darn close to public domain from the user's perspective. Basically, you are allowed to freely copy, redistribute and modify the software, to the point that it can even be used in proprietary software.
Some big differences exist though. First of all, it is still copyrighted, so no one else can claim it is theirs (your plagarism concern). There is also the warranty disclaimer, which protects the author. And there is the requirement that the permissions and warranty disclaimer follow the software.
In a nutshell, the BSD license says, "This is mine, I am sharing it with everyone, don't sue me."
Hee, hee! It's not quite at dumb as it first sounds. MFS is a useful thing, but setting it up is not the easiest thing in the world. That's why this is not an article announcing the obvious, that BSD can do ramdisks. Instead it's an article pointing to a HOWTO. Big difference.
Oh, and I don't consider/. to be a news site. I get the impression that it's a discussion board instead. Don't know why I feel this way...
Perhaps the GPL is a temporary measure to achieve their goals in the current situation where IP is used as a weapon in the war.
Moral people do not use evil to fight evil. The abolitionists did not enslave the southern plantation owners, as one example. If software ownership is evil, then so is the GPL. No ifs ands or buts.
I have heard it said that using the copyleft (GPL) against copyright is akin to fighting fire with fire. However, fire is not evil! By using the GPL to fight against copyrights, RMS, as a moral man (and I can only assume that he is), is implying that software copyrights are not evil, but rather out of control. I would agree.
Once the battle against IP is won, perhaps they will put down their weapon (the GPL)
This is a common belief, and the FSF may very well do this, but it will change nothing. Their fight is not against copyright, but against non-free and closed sourced software. Even public domain software can still be non-free and closed source.
How can there be plagarism if software cannot be owned? How can you compel attribution without ownership rights?
As I said earlier, I can go either way with respect to intellectual property and specifically copyright. But I do like things to be consistant. If something cannot be owned then it cannot be controlled. If you should not own software, then you may not control, restrict or limit it in any way, including restrictions to prevent restrictions.
I am glad that you are putting a lot of your work into the public domain, it is a mark of your consistancy. I just wish others in the community were equally consistant. If the FSF (as one example) does not want software to be owned then it should do away with copyrighting their own works under the (L)GPL. But if it does want to use the power of copyright to protect their works, then they should not decry software ownership.
Nevertheless, you missed the point completely. If forbidding the use of the name of the software is an additional requirement, then so is forbidding the use of the name of the author.
Or to put it another way, if the BSD condition is not an additional restriction over and above those of the GPL, then please show me in the GPL where one is not allowed to use the name of the copyright holders and contributors for endorsement or promotional purposes. I can't find it.
I can see your point, but I don't understand why RMS and others are rolling over on this issue. Has no one read Thoreau?
Just ignore UCITA! There is nothing in the Python language saying that the agreement (read contract) can be unilaterally breached without consequence. Read Thoreau and start practicing civil disobedience. When CNRI comes to sue you for violating a future license, make *them* extradite you. And if your state or nation caves in, then countersue them for breach of contract.
The fact of the matter is, the Python license is 100% free, completely and totally. Instead of crying into our beers over UCITA in Virgina, someone should be getting a case into the Supreme Court over it.
Okay, I'll accept your arguments, totally. The big question is, will you? Do you believe that you have the right to take GPLd software, combine it with incompatibly licensed code, and redistribute it? Do you advocate to RMS that he should put emacs and gcc into the public domain? Is all the code you write in the public domain?
If any of your answers were no, then you are being inconsistant. If information should not be owned, then it should not be owned by anyone. Any software/information that has a copyright notice is owned software. Anyone that sues, complains, or even demands begging for forgiveness, over copyright violations is actively affirming their ownership of the information.
You completely missed the whole point of Nick's article. If you don't like proprietary information, stop whining and go create your own non-proprietary stuff.
Stop and think what the world would be like if a young Richard Stallman really behaved as if information really should be free. GNU would not have been created, and he would have instead created an organization devoted to liberating the existing software by urging the distribution of unauthorized multics, SV4 and other software.
Sure, it would have been against the law, but so what? Go read your Thoreau...
Pigeonholing geeks is absurd. Of those that I know personally, very few generalities can be made. They range from fundamentalist christian and muslim to athiest to mysticism-of-the-week. Politics are ditto. I am I libertarian, and that is supposed to be the stereotype, but I personally know more libertarians working for the military than with computers.
The one constant trait of geeks is that they cannot be pigeonholed.
That's simply wrong. I don't think RMS view differs substantially from the FSF view. You could know about compatible licenses by just visiting the FSF-site and read the list of GPL compatible licenses.
The problem is that he can't make up his mind. Exhibit A:
Subject: Re: New Apache license compatible with GPL?
From: Richard Stallman
Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2000 14:47:39 -0600 (MDT)
cc: debian-legal@lists.debian.org
...
"Clauses 4 and 5 are incompatible with the GPL because they are stated as conditions of the license for the copyright."
Exhibit B, clause 4 of the Apache License:
The names "Apache" and "Apache Software Foundation" must not be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without prior written permission. For written permission, please contact apache@apache.org.
And finally, Exhibit C, condition 3 of the new BSD license:
Neither name of the copyright holders nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.
So, as you can see, Richard Stallman has the perogative of picking and choosing which licenses are GPL compatible and which are not without reference to any sort of reality.
Let's split hairs even more. The BSD license is incompatible with the GPL.
Neither name of the copyright holders nor the names of its contributors may
be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without
specific prior written permission.
Since the GPL is silent on endorsements and promotions, this is an additional restriction. But lest you think I'm making this up, RMS has already decreed the new Apache license incompatible for its clauses 4 and 5, and Apache clause 4 is the same as BSD condition 3!
But what happens if the KDE developers don't/b? beg for forgiveness? Will Debian use this as an excuse not to include KDE? Under any interpretation they can still include KDE regardless of "forgiveness", since it is not Debian that needs forgiveness (in this instance). But I suspect there's at least one or two Debian diehards who will go down kicking and screaming all the way, possibly even forking the distro.
Before you start clammoring over unfreedonia, ask yourself one questions:
Since the only difference between the new Python licence and the tried and true BSD licence is the jurisdiction clause, where are the UCITA or UCITA-like clauses in the BSD license? Or for those hard of hearing, what is there in the Python license that some Unfreedonia ndictator can latch on to?
Liberty? Now the Free in Free Software can been a lot of things, but it doesn't mean liberty! My liberty is NOT, repeat NOT, dependant upon a software license. Get a real dictionary instead of the one that RMS gave you.
The GPL clearly states in more than one location that it only applies to the "Program and works based on the Program". Or as the law states, copyright only applies to the copyrighted work and its derivatives. The GPL also clearly announces that it is operating under copyright law.
So, that being said, the question to ask is whether Qt is a work based on KDE, or the other way around...
Slashdot Mirror
But you are missing the one important role of upper management and marketing drones: they are not geeks. Seriously. When you take a look at open source projects without PHBs you'll see geeks writing software for other geeks. (I am a geek, no insult intended). Looking at those OSS projects that aren't geeky, you'll find that they do indeed have upper management.
In the company I work for, we make medical imaging devices. If the hardware and software engineers had their way, we would have a vastly different system, and possibly more robust and powerful. But it would be useless to the physician end-user. We are lucky in that our CEO and many of the top dogs are in fact physicians. Those that aren't are in daily contact with physicians and nurses and hospital admins. If the majority of the users want a feature, we will do that feature, regardless of what the engineers think. This is a Good Thing!
But that's NOT how they work. They DO have management and projects and plans. Do you really thing Bob Young's official title is "Guy in the Red Hat"? Do you really think Mandrake has no PHB's? Do you think SuSE has no offices, and every employee logs in from home whenever they feel like it?
The article is right on the money. There is no bazaar. It's more of an open-air cathedral.
Although shouldn't it be copyright law, rather than RMS, that dictates what is and is not a derivative work?
It already is. A lot of people either haven't read the GPL, or don't understand copyright law. The GPL states that it operates solely under copyright law. When it talks about "works based on the Program" and other derivations, it is meant solely in the sense of copyright.
The issue of drawing the line at process boundaries is a practical matter of drawing the line between derivation (compile time linkage) and performance (runtime linkage). The line is very fuzzy, and I'm on the side that says the boundary should be narrower than the process, but I can still understand and sympathize with the other viewpoint.
the criticism he recieved ... after he said "Making Qt available under the GPL makes it legal to take an existing GPL-covered program and adapt it to work with Qt."
Uh, Timothy? Where have you been? The criticism was not directed at the statement you quoted. 99% of it was directed at his "forgiveness" and the remaining 1% directed at the "go GNOME" statement. I don't recall anyone bitching about Stallman's announcement of Qt under the GPL.
Okay, you _used_ to work for this company. You also have an agreement to sign over all IP to them under certain circumstances.
So what's the company's problem? If they have a contract from you, why the heck do they need another signature? It sounds more like they want your name on the application. I would just refuse to sign, letting them know that they already own your work in this regard, and that they need nothing more from you.
One proactive thing you could do is urge them to use a free patent. Write up a license that allows everyone to use the patent, void only if the patent holder is does not have equal access to a user's patent. In the latter case simply go through normal channels and sell or swap the rights.
And I apologize for not being totally up on licenses, so if you could explain the functional difference between a BSD type license and public domain I would appreciate it.
The BSD license and others like it (MIT, Apache, etc) are pretty darn close to public domain from the user's perspective. Basically, you are allowed to freely copy, redistribute and modify the software, to the point that it can even be used in proprietary software.
Some big differences exist though. First of all, it is still copyrighted, so no one else can claim it is theirs (your plagarism concern). There is also the warranty disclaimer, which protects the author. And there is the requirement that the permissions and warranty disclaimer follow the software.
In a nutshell, the BSD license says, "This is mine, I am sharing it with everyone, don't sue me."
Hee, hee! It's not quite at dumb as it first sounds. MFS is a useful thing, but setting it up is not the easiest thing in the world. That's why this is not an article announcing the obvious, that BSD can do ramdisks. Instead it's an article pointing to a HOWTO. Big difference.
/. to be a news site. I get the impression that it's a discussion board instead. Don't know why I feel this way...
Oh, and I don't consider
Perhaps the GPL is a temporary measure to achieve their goals in the current situation where IP is used as a weapon in the war.
Moral people do not use evil to fight evil. The abolitionists did not enslave the southern plantation owners, as one example. If software ownership is evil, then so is the GPL. No ifs ands or buts.
I have heard it said that using the copyleft (GPL) against copyright is akin to fighting fire with fire. However, fire is not evil! By using the GPL to fight against copyrights, RMS, as a moral man (and I can only assume that he is), is implying that software copyrights are not evil, but rather out of control. I would agree.
Once the battle against IP is won, perhaps they will put down their weapon (the GPL)
This is a common belief, and the FSF may very well do this, but it will change nothing. Their fight is not against copyright, but against non-free and closed sourced software. Even public domain software can still be non-free and closed source.
A good reference on this topic can be found at the Free Nation Foundation
just release into the public domain like BSD.
But the BSD license is not public domain!
How can there be plagarism if software cannot be owned? How can you compel attribution without ownership rights?
As I said earlier, I can go either way with respect to intellectual property and specifically copyright. But I do like things to be consistant. If something cannot be owned then it cannot be controlled. If you should not own software, then you may not control, restrict or limit it in any way, including restrictions to prevent restrictions.
I am glad that you are putting a lot of your work into the public domain, it is a mark of your consistancy. I just wish others in the community were equally consistant. If the FSF (as one example) does not want software to be owned then it should do away with copyrighting their own works under the (L)GPL. But if it does want to use the power of copyright to protect their works, then they should not decry software ownership.
Ah, the exception proves the rule.
Nevertheless, you missed the point completely. If forbidding the use of the name of the software is an additional requirement, then so is forbidding the use of the name of the author.
Or to put it another way, if the BSD condition is not an additional restriction over and above those of the GPL, then please show me in the GPL where one is not allowed to use the name of the copyright holders and contributors for endorsement or promotional purposes. I can't find it.
I forgot a single "". Sue me.
I can see your point, but I don't understand why RMS and others are rolling over on this issue. Has no one read Thoreau?
Just ignore UCITA! There is nothing in the Python language saying that the agreement (read contract) can be unilaterally breached without consequence. Read Thoreau and start practicing civil disobedience. When CNRI comes to sue you for violating a future license, make *them* extradite you. And if your state or nation caves in, then countersue them for breach of contract.
The fact of the matter is, the Python license is 100% free, completely and totally. Instead of crying into our beers over UCITA in Virgina, someone should be getting a case into the Supreme Court over it.
Okay, I'll accept your arguments, totally. The big question is, will you? Do you believe that you have the right to take GPLd software, combine it with incompatibly licensed code, and redistribute it? Do you advocate to RMS that he should put emacs and gcc into the public domain? Is all the code you write in the public domain?
If any of your answers were no, then you are being inconsistant. If information should not be owned, then it should not be owned by anyone. Any software/information that has a copyright notice is owned software. Anyone that sues, complains, or even demands begging for forgiveness, over copyright violations is actively affirming their ownership of the information.
You completely missed the whole point of Nick's article. If you don't like proprietary information, stop whining and go create your own non-proprietary stuff.
Stop and think what the world would be like if a young Richard Stallman really behaved as if information really should be free. GNU would not have been created, and he would have instead created an organization devoted to liberating the existing software by urging the distribution of unauthorized multics, SV4 and other software.
Sure, it would have been against the law, but so what? Go read your Thoreau...
Don't whine, just do.
Pigeonholing geeks is absurd. Of those that I know personally, very few generalities can be made. They range from fundamentalist christian and muslim to athiest to mysticism-of-the-week. Politics are ditto. I am I libertarian, and that is supposed to be the stereotype, but I personally know more libertarians working for the military than with computers.
The one constant trait of geeks is that they cannot be pigeonholed.
Not compatible. See condition three, and my exhibits in an above post.
The problem is that he can't make up his mind. Exhibit A:
Exhibit B, clause 4 of the Apache License:
And finally, Exhibit C, condition 3 of the new BSD license:
So, as you can see, Richard Stallman has the perogative of picking and choosing which licenses are GPL compatible and which are not without reference to any sort of reality.
Since the GPL is silent on endorsements and promotions, this is an additional restriction. But lest you think I'm making this up, RMS has already decreed the new Apache license incompatible for its clauses 4 and 5, and Apache clause 4 is the same as BSD condition 3!
Face it, nothing is compatible with the GPL.
But what happens if the KDE developers don't/b? beg for forgiveness? Will Debian use this as an excuse not to include KDE? Under any interpretation they can still include KDE regardless of "forgiveness", since it is not Debian that needs forgiveness (in this instance). But I suspect there's at least one or two Debian diehards who will go down kicking and screaming all the way, possibly even forking the distro.
Before you start clammoring over unfreedonia, ask yourself one questions:
Since the only difference between the new Python licence and the tried and true BSD licence is the jurisdiction clause, where are the UCITA or UCITA-like clauses in the BSD license? Or for those hard of hearing, what is there in the Python license that some Unfreedonia ndictator can latch on to?
Liberty? Now the Free in Free Software can been a lot of things, but it doesn't mean liberty! My liberty is NOT, repeat NOT, dependant upon a software license. Get a real dictionary instead of the one that RMS gave you.
Frickin' semantics. It was still distributed by Debian.
The GPL clearly states in more than one location that it only applies to the "Program and works based on the Program". Or as the law states, copyright only applies to the copyrighted work and its derivatives. The GPL also clearly announces that it is operating under copyright law.
So, that being said, the question to ask is whether Qt is a work based on KDE, or the other way around...