You just aren't free to 'buy' it at the price you chose.
No, but you should be free to buy it at a fair market price.
The content monopolies know damn well that there's not enough value in their products to justify their prices. If prices approached the cost of distribution plus fixed cost we wouldn't be in this mess.
Some people say this means less musicians. I'm not sure, but if that's what the market dictates, the market has a way of discarding the crap and keeping the good stuff.
Apple is entirely right.. they are not getting in the middle of it.. why should they? They were clear about what they offered, and what it cost.. and you took it.
Thank god you didn't write US contract law. Not all mutually consensual agreements are legal.
For instance, to take an extreme example, even if Apple clearly states that your firstborn child will be a slave in their iPod factory, and even if you then agree to those terms, the terms are illegal. I'm sure you've seen unenforceable EULA's and employment ip/noncompete agreements in your time; you can ignore the illegal parts of those agreements because they are invalid even if both parties agree to them. Do you know anyone who's never signed an EULA they didn't read all the way through?
There are many other limitations on the way that you can buy and sell things. One of them is that you may not restrict the right of buyers to resell the item you've sold them. This would give suppliers with (even limited) monopolies too much power over prices.
The right of first sale is an important consumer protection safeguard
They've eliminated the doctrine of first sale for all practical purposes with their copyright monopoly and the ever present threat of DMCA enforcement.
Apple makes pretty computers and music players but I know I didn't elect them.
In a way it's good that they've tried to weasel out of this- they are at least acknowledging that in theory the right of first sale might apply to digital bits. That means it's not a license, it's actually a sale. In the words often attributed to Winston Churchill, "We've already established what you are Madame, now we are simply negotiating the price."
None of the problems you describe are unique to linux- on windows boxen, you get those problems *plus* the windows-specific ones.
Not to mention that Outlook is an electronic Petri dish; Windows support contracts are outrageously expensive; many people are required to enter auth codes for winxp- I've never had to do this with linux even at install time; support-motivated upgrades for linux don't cost you extra, you just download and install the new version of the distro; and the 50 CD's are for all the software that doesn't come standard on Windows but does on modernlinuxdistributions- why make your own when you can just download the free software version without having to worry about licensing issues?
That's the ultimate benefit of free software in my mind- the freedom to not have to deal with any licensing bullshit before installing my software. No license code entry, etc. Just download to any computer and install.
What are you talking about? That has nothing to do with this discussion. Of course you can't GPL something that's already been patented if you're not the patent holder- we're talking about rights to derivative works. Here's the real analogy:
Group A makes some software.
Group B writes an obvious extension to that software and it becomes a defacto standard. Group B patents that extension.
If Group A originally licensed under the BSD license, tough luck. The obvious extension is now closed and can not be reimplemented.
If Group A originally licensed as GPL, they can sue for copyright infringement since the patent invalidates Group B's right to use the software in the first place, and Group A can probably take control of that patent as a derivative work of their copyrighted material.
" "Water is the engine driving growth at beverage companies," says Steven Dixon, manager of the Global Beverage Fund, a $27 million (assets) fund run by Arnhold & S. Bleichroeder Advisers. "
Open source is such an infinitesimally small business for IBM that I doubt the top level executives even now they're fiddling around with it.
They've made a VERY public commitment to it. True they do other stuff (including more software patents than anyone) but the fact is they've got a very fat finger in this pie.
if someone already owns the copyright to a method that is patented, they get the patent.
Which again is a completely separate matter from licensing.
No, the GPL prohibits patents and protects against patents made from derivative works. What part of that is not a licensing issue?
It seems like you assume that I'm all for sofware patents. I'm not.
No, I'm saying that the BSD license suffers from the problem that we live in a world where software patents exist, so a free codebase can be truly extended and extinguished. We agree software patents should go away - I just think it's a bigger and more relevant problem than you'll admit to.
A very apt characterization. "They manage". How do you think an investor would feel about that?
I was facetiously understating my case. They do more than manage, they make almost pure profit because water is so inexpensive to create. Code is similar in the sense that once you've paid the fixed cost of creating it, bang- you can copy it at essentially no cost forever.
In other words, sure you can run a nickel-and-dime business with open software but you can never hope to achieve world wide acceptance and most of all profits.
Linux is making a run for it even against unfair competition (i.e., proprietary software and closed protocols). Idea monopolies mess with the free market, causing mediocre products pushed by the companies with the most locked-in clients to dominate. Opening markets to new competition usually *increases* the size of the pie, rather than decreasing it- it's just that the most established operators don't wield such a large barrier to entry any longer.
Sadly, it's still unclear if even the most successful open source company, RedHat, is actually in the black or if it is just an accounting trick.
IBM seems to be doing ok for itself. Micorosoft is depending on their lockin lasting forever. It won't.
do you think GPL would win in court if faced with a patent infringement suit?
Yes, in two ways. 1. The patent owner loses her right to the code she based her patented extension on, and is sued for massive copyright infringement. This alone is a deterrent. 2. The patent is shown to be an unauthorized derivative work of someone else's code, the patent is awarded to the original copyright owner. I admit IANAL, but I think if someone already owns the copyright to a method that is patented, they get the patent. Please do point me to a reference if you know this to be wrong, a cursory google didn't help me.
No it doesn't. You're free to extend the free codebase just like the company did.
Software patents make this complicated. You can't create your own version of a patented process. I know you never brought it up - I did because it proves you wrong.
Furthermore, creating your own version of a copyrighted process is tricky. If a proprietary extension establishes a de facto standard, you have to do expensive and difficult clean-room reverse engineering to achieve compatibility, and you hope that the security provisions of the DMCA don't bite you in the ass. Embrace and extend baby.
Their code is their property
What makes it so? The government grants monopolies over ideas, but the system is out of control. It's stifling innovation more than it's causing it. I'd be ok with a one-year software copyright term (with exemptions for major projects- perhaps 3 years for operating systems, compilers and such if a system can be worked out to identify software that truly requires massive capital investment) and no software patents, but one-click shopping carts for 17 years, assuming Amazon doesn't find a way to evergreen the patent? Microsoft security protocols protected by the DMCA for over 100 years? Crazy.
Even so, my point is only that the GPL is *more* free. I'm not saying there should be no proprietary software, only that proprietary software hurts freedom.
impossible if you give away your product for free
Yes, bottled water vendors have to compete against tap water. They manage. So do a number of companies that sell free software by the way. You read slashdot, you've heard of them.
GPL does not protect you from software patents.
Yes it does. Exclusive patents are forbidden by the GPL.
It is a way to ensure no single person controls it. The only way to keep other people from using code is to claim proprietary rights to it; that's all the GPL restricts. Plain and simple, it's the only way to guarantee freedom of code in a world where idea monopolies are granted by the government.
does not result in a net loss of the freedom of original code.
This need not be true for my point to stand. It makes the original code more troublesome to extend in obvious ways. Of course the original code is still available, but it's only useful if you can extend and improve it. When the obvious improvments/fixes have been patented, the inevitability of bitrot means that we have in fact lost the original codebase for all intents and purposes.
If I write code, you do not have the right to see/use it.
In other words, I am not "free" to see/use it. When you start patenting your code, it becomes a big problem- I can't even make my own implementation of your feature. If you merely copyright your code and release under a closed license, I have to take extra care to be sure I don't duplicate your code, and as SCO has proven, even if I don't duplicate your code that doesn't mean you can't sue me. The GPL gives me an affirmative defense against that. What you're missing is that *all* proprietary software restricts freedom by its very nature.
deprives people of their natural freedom to decide on the license
You can't have a natural right to something that doesn't exist in nature. Licenses are human constructs.
Furthermore, the freedom to "decide on the license" amounts to the freedom to "decide how much freedom others can have", and is therefore a net loss in freedom for everyone even if it's a small gain for the person releasing the code. Hence less free.
Ok, you're right- it's more like kidnapping someone's children; some code is still free, but related code is not. Either way it complicates the process of reproducing that (often obvious) functionality, especially (but not only) when patents get involved.
Don't get me wrong, I think it's ok for people to release their stuff under a BSD license, I just believe it's dead wrong to say that such a license is "more free."
Nice adhom as well. I haven't released very much free code it's true (although I've given all the music I've ever done away under a free license), but I will tell you this- I've released no closed code, and I certainly haven't made any closed extensions to otherwise free products.
People who whine the loudest about the BSD license on the other hand are typically people looking to take advantage of the generosity of others to produce their own closed software product. After all, that's the only difference between the GPL and the BSD.
you should accept that people may take your code and close it. That's what the truly free software is about
In order to free the code we have to close it? I call flamebait.
This is saying we can't be truly free until we abolish laws against kidnapping. This doesn't make sense becasue each instance of kidnapping takes away more freedom (basically all of the victim's freedom) than it grants the user of that freedom (the kidnapping itself).
But supporting the cause of my noise isn't going to make me quiet- look, I've already made two responses to an AC just because of your position, and the more profit Amazon makes the more I (and folks like me) will complain.
You don't hear shrill Amazon supporters because no one likes them. Help us solve the problem if you don't want to listen to us.
RMS even called Linus only an engineer and not an advocate.
While the point RMS was making is valid in a strict sense, the larger effect of their positions is complementary.
RMS holds the ideological line, he gives people a reference implementation for programming ethics. You don't have to think precisely the same way, but he'll tell you if you're not conforming to spec.
On the other hand, Linus, in his public comments and in his approach to linux development and licensing, is more like an optimized implementation with a few out-of-spec hacks included to keep things greased.
Put together, their public personae add up to a goodcop/badcop act that works pretty well. RMS will fume about all sorts of things, while Linus will maintain a more zen attitude about it all. Even if RMS is right about whatever he's talking about at any given moment, people have a way of filtering out the Free Software gospel because it requires them to do things that may not be in their personal interest, even if it's the right thing to do. But when the stars align properly and Linus is as angry as RMS, the full fury of the FSF is unleashed.
If you want to check your neighbor's security, you ASK YOUR NEIGHBOR and then TELL YOUR NEIGHBOR what weaknesses you found.
Um, you're not very good at analogies.
It's more like an apartment building, and this guy was the Super. He knew that the locks on all the apartments could be opened with a butter knife, but the landlord said he'd fix it- then fired him.
6 months later, the super checks- still butterknifable. He distributes leaflets throughout the apartment complex by sliding them under the doors.
The Landlord starts busting into people's apartments and taking the leaflets away and has the Super arrested not for breaking and entering (which *maybe* he's guilty of), but for telling the tenants that their own (and by extension, their neighbors) apartments are unsafe due to the negligence of the landlord, so they should guard their stuff until the situation is resolved.
Let's all have a moment of silence for all the linux and *bsd boxen whose legendary uptimes were mercilessly snuffed out by this service interruption. Some clung to their UPS's bravely until every ampere of juice had been drained.
They will be missed, and we will build even longer uptimes to replace them.
Slashdot Mirror
You just aren't free to 'buy' it at the price you chose.
No, but you should be free to buy it at a fair market price.
The content monopolies know damn well that there's not enough value in their products to justify their prices. If prices approached the cost of distribution plus fixed cost we wouldn't be in this mess.
Some people say this means less musicians. I'm not sure, but if that's what the market dictates, the market has a way of discarding the crap and keeping the good stuff.
Apple is entirely right.. they are not getting in the middle of it.. why should they? They were clear about what they offered, and what it cost.. and you took it.
Thank god you didn't write US contract law. Not all mutually consensual agreements are legal.
For instance, to take an extreme example, even if Apple clearly states that your firstborn child will be a slave in their iPod factory, and even if you then agree to those terms, the terms are illegal. I'm sure you've seen unenforceable EULA's and employment ip/noncompete agreements in your time; you can ignore the illegal parts of those agreements because they are invalid even if both parties agree to them. Do you know anyone who's never signed an EULA they didn't read all the way through?
There are many other limitations on the way that you can buy and sell things. One of them is that you may not restrict the right of buyers to resell the item you've sold them. This would give suppliers with (even limited) monopolies too much power over prices.
The right of first sale is an important consumer protection safeguard
Like Lessig said:
Code is law.
They've eliminated the doctrine of first sale for all practical purposes with their copyright monopoly and the ever present threat of DMCA enforcement.
Apple makes pretty computers and music players but I know I didn't elect them.
In a way it's good that they've tried to weasel out of this- they are at least acknowledging that in theory the right of first sale might apply to digital bits. That means it's not a license, it's actually a sale. In the words often attributed to Winston Churchill, "We've already established what you are Madame, now we are simply negotiating the price."
None of the problems you describe are unique to linux- on windows boxen, you get those problems *plus* the windows-specific ones.
Not to mention that Outlook is an electronic Petri dish; Windows support contracts are outrageously expensive; many people are required to enter auth codes for winxp- I've never had to do this with linux even at install time; support-motivated upgrades for linux don't cost you extra, you just download and install the new version of the distro; and the 50 CD's are for all the software that doesn't come standard on Windows but does on modern linux distributions- why make your own when you can just download the free software version without having to worry about licensing issues?
That's the ultimate benefit of free software in my mind- the freedom to not have to deal with any licensing bullshit before installing my software. No license code entry, etc. Just download to any computer and install.
What are you talking about? That has nothing to do with this discussion. Of course you can't GPL something that's already been patented if you're not the patent holder- we're talking about rights to derivative works. Here's the real analogy:
Group A makes some software.
Group B writes an obvious extension to that software and it becomes a defacto standard. Group B patents that extension.
If Group A originally licensed under the BSD license, tough luck. The obvious extension is now closed and can not be reimplemented.
If Group A originally licensed as GPL, they can sue for copyright infringement since the patent invalidates Group B's right to use the software in the first place, and Group A can probably take control of that patent as a derivative work of their copyrighted material.
" "Water is the engine driving growth at beverage companies," says Steven Dixon, manager of the Global Beverage Fund, a $27 million (assets) fund run by Arnhold & S. Bleichroeder Advisers. "
source: Forbes Magazine 8/8/03
Open source is such an infinitesimally small business for IBM that I doubt the top level executives even now they're fiddling around with it.
They've made a VERY public commitment to it. True they do other stuff (including more software patents than anyone) but the fact is they've got a very fat finger in this pie.
if someone already owns the copyright to a method that is patented, they get the patent.
Which again is a completely separate matter from licensing.
No, the GPL prohibits patents and protects against patents made from derivative works. What part of that is not a licensing issue?
It seems like you assume that I'm all for sofware patents. I'm not.
No, I'm saying that the BSD license suffers from the problem that we live in a world where software patents exist, so a free codebase can be truly extended and extinguished. We agree software patents should go away - I just think it's a bigger and more relevant problem than you'll admit to.
A very apt characterization. "They manage". How do you think an investor would feel about that?
I was facetiously understating my case. They do more than manage, they make almost pure profit because water is so inexpensive to create. Code is similar in the sense that once you've paid the fixed cost of creating it, bang- you can copy it at essentially no cost forever.
In other words, sure you can run a nickel-and-dime business with open software but you can never hope to achieve world wide acceptance and most of all profits.
Linux is making a run for it even against unfair competition (i.e., proprietary software and closed protocols). Idea monopolies mess with the free market, causing mediocre products pushed by the companies with the most locked-in clients to dominate. Opening markets to new competition usually *increases* the size of the pie, rather than decreasing it- it's just that the most established operators don't wield such a large barrier to entry any longer.
Sadly, it's still unclear if even the most successful open source company, RedHat, is actually in the black or if it is just an accounting trick.
IBM seems to be doing ok for itself. Micorosoft is depending on their lockin lasting forever. It won't.
do you think GPL would win in court if faced with a patent infringement suit?
Yes, in two ways. 1. The patent owner loses her right to the code she based her patented extension on, and is sued for massive copyright infringement. This alone is a deterrent. 2. The patent is shown to be an unauthorized derivative work of someone else's code, the patent is awarded to the original copyright owner. I admit IANAL, but I think if someone already owns the copyright to a method that is patented, they get the patent. Please do point me to a reference if you know this to be wrong, a cursory google didn't help me.
No it doesn't. You're free to extend the free codebase just like the company did.
Software patents make this complicated. You can't create your own version of a patented process. I know you never brought it up - I did because it proves you wrong.
Furthermore, creating your own version of a copyrighted process is tricky. If a proprietary extension establishes a de facto standard, you have to do expensive and difficult clean-room reverse engineering to achieve compatibility, and you hope that the security provisions of the DMCA don't bite you in the ass. Embrace and extend baby.
Their code is their property
What makes it so? The government grants monopolies over ideas, but the system is out of control. It's stifling innovation more than it's causing it. I'd be ok with a one-year software copyright term (with exemptions for major projects- perhaps 3 years for operating systems, compilers and such if a system can be worked out to identify software that truly requires massive capital investment) and no software patents, but one-click shopping carts for 17 years, assuming Amazon doesn't find a way to evergreen the patent? Microsoft security protocols protected by the DMCA for over 100 years? Crazy.
Even so, my point is only that the GPL is *more* free. I'm not saying there should be no proprietary software, only that proprietary software hurts freedom.
impossible if you give away your product for free
Yes, bottled water vendors have to compete against tap water. They manage. So do a number of companies that sell free software by the way. You read slashdot, you've heard of them.
GPL does not protect you from software patents.
Yes it does. Exclusive patents are forbidden by the GPL.
GPL is a way to have control over one's code
It is a way to ensure no single person controls it. The only way to keep other people from using code is to claim proprietary rights to it; that's all the GPL restricts. Plain and simple, it's the only way to guarantee freedom of code in a world where idea monopolies are granted by the government.
does not result in a net loss of the freedom of original code.
This need not be true for my point to stand. It makes the original code more troublesome to extend in obvious ways. Of course the original code is still available, but it's only useful if you can extend and improve it. When the obvious improvments/fixes have been patented, the inevitability of bitrot means that we have in fact lost the original codebase for all intents and purposes.
If I write code, you do not have the right to see/use it.
In other words, I am not "free" to see/use it. When you start patenting your code, it becomes a big problem- I can't even make my own implementation of your feature. If you merely copyright your code and release under a closed license, I have to take extra care to be sure I don't duplicate your code, and as SCO has proven, even if I don't duplicate your code that doesn't mean you can't sue me. The GPL gives me an affirmative defense against that. What you're missing is that *all* proprietary software restricts freedom by its very nature.
deprives people of their natural freedom to decide on the license
You can't have a natural right to something that doesn't exist in nature. Licenses are human constructs.
Furthermore, the freedom to "decide on the license" amounts to the freedom to "decide how much freedom others can have", and is therefore a net loss in freedom for everyone even if it's a small gain for the person releasing the code. Hence less free.
Ok, you're right- it's more like kidnapping someone's children; some code is still free, but related code is not. Either way it complicates the process of reproducing that (often obvious) functionality, especially (but not only) when patents get involved.
Don't get me wrong, I think it's ok for people to release their stuff under a BSD license, I just believe it's dead wrong to say that such a license is "more free."
Nice adhom as well. I haven't released very much free code it's true (although I've given all the music I've ever done away under a free license), but I will tell you this- I've released no closed code, and I certainly haven't made any closed extensions to otherwise free products.
People who whine the loudest about the BSD license on the other hand are typically people looking to take advantage of the generosity of others to produce their own closed software product. After all, that's the only difference between the GPL and the BSD.
you're confusing "make" and "close".
The source served it's purpose in allowing the spinoff to be made; the license betrayed everyone else's freedom by allowing the spinoff to be closed.
you should accept that people may take your code and close it. That's what the truly free software is about
In order to free the code we have to close it? I call flamebait.
This is saying we can't be truly free until we abolish laws against kidnapping. This doesn't make sense becasue each instance of kidnapping takes away more freedom (basically all of the victim's freedom) than it grants the user of that freedom (the kidnapping itself).
Looks like Dennis' check from IBM finally cleared...
I wish I could still cash my paychecks 26 years after doing the work - mine expire after 180 days or so.
La la la...
But supporting the cause of my noise isn't going to make me quiet- look, I've already made two responses to an AC just because of your position, and the more profit Amazon makes the more I (and folks like me) will complain.
You don't hear shrill Amazon supporters because no one likes them. Help us solve the problem if you don't want to listen to us.
Well you're a fine curmudgeon then.
Why are people so hostile to political awareness? I don't understand it.
Reduce their margins and they'll eventually fold or be bought out by someone less prone to abuse the ip system.
Don't give Amazon any of your money until they clean up their act. You can afford the difference, you can't afford to overturn bad patents later.
Has there ever been a Clue mod for quake2?
"Col. Mustard got bored with life, with the candlestick, in the ballroom..."
RMS even called Linus only an engineer and not an advocate.
While the point RMS was making is valid in a strict sense, the larger effect of their positions is complementary.
RMS holds the ideological line, he gives people a reference implementation for programming ethics. You don't have to think precisely the same way, but he'll tell you if you're not conforming to spec.
On the other hand, Linus, in his public comments and in his approach to linux development and licensing, is more like an optimized implementation with a few out-of-spec hacks included to keep things greased.
Put together, their public personae add up to a goodcop/badcop act that works pretty well. RMS will fume about all sorts of things, while Linus will maintain a more zen attitude about it all. Even if RMS is right about whatever he's talking about at any given moment, people have a way of filtering out the Free Software gospel because it requires them to do things that may not be in their personal interest, even if it's the right thing to do. But when the stars align properly and Linus is as angry as RMS, the full fury of the FSF is unleashed.
That's not what he was arrested for. It was for making the network less secure, not having a list of customers.
And damnit, I'd be glad if I was a customer that he blew that whistle.
If you want to check your neighbor's security, you ASK YOUR NEIGHBOR and then TELL YOUR NEIGHBOR what weaknesses you found.
Um, you're not very good at analogies.
It's more like an apartment building, and this guy was the Super. He knew that the locks on all the apartments could be opened with a butter knife, but the landlord said he'd fix it- then fired him.
6 months later, the super checks- still butterknifable. He distributes leaflets throughout the apartment complex by sliding them under the doors.
The Landlord starts busting into people's apartments and taking the leaflets away and has the Super arrested not for breaking and entering (which *maybe* he's guilty of), but for telling the tenants that their own (and by extension, their neighbors) apartments are unsafe due to the negligence of the landlord, so they should guard their stuff until the situation is resolved.
A joke detection meter might help; a humour-detection meter wouldn't be of much use in this situation, you have to admit.
erm, perhaps the problem is that nvidia and ati's drivers are binary, not that the infrastructure is GPL'd...
That truly is tragic. For the record this had not happened when I made the post, and had I heard of it I would not have made light of it.
I'm sure not looking forward to the end of my own uptime.
Let's all have a moment of silence for all the linux and *bsd boxen whose legendary uptimes were mercilessly snuffed out by this service interruption. Some clung to their UPS's bravely until every ampere of juice had been drained.
They will be missed, and we will build even longer uptimes to replace them.