Right and Wrong are quite subjective here. My opinions appear pragmatically correct in the sphere I apply them. I have no objection to giving those reasons to those who are interested.
I make money singing this song and I'll admit that if I didn't, I'd not be so loud in doing so. I can't even say what I'd believe in that case. I hope it would be simply that I cannot make money in this industry given a more free market where the buyers expect more rights than they are currently granted.
But really, what kind of arguement is that you offer?
We can never answer the question of wether software ought to be Free or not but that won't stop the trends of its adoption. In the end, I refer you to those and ask where you see them slowing.
Firstly, noone is dictating that software must be Free. It is up to the customer and they have only been fed one set of propaganda in the past. Now they have two and its easy to see which THEY prefer.
Secondly, sallary nor ego have anything to do with this. Ellison and Gates have larger of both than I and arn't singing the same song.
As backup of my assertions, please look at any respectable, non Microsoft sponsored report on the subject. Go and speak to anyone who routinely purchases software and listen to their opinions. Listen to those who don't understand the issue but who annualy produce budgets and see their "New Pool Table" cancelled becuase for some new vital software product Accounting requires, they have to upgrade to W2000.
They, like you, don't like being forced to hand over money every two years to update their systems.
Free is popular, to some degree, because it is also free but then there are free compilers. GCC is more popular though. A simple case but there are many more like it.
To large users of sofware, the free part is irrelevent, their biggest savings in using Free software come indirectly from initial purchase. They come from having many tool choices and being able to easily find the best (without having to waste developer time filling in product evaluation forms and getting trial license keys.
This already turns most off, so they just use MS stuff becuase it works for the rest. Almost. Some others do exactly the above and still others let their developers choose what works. They tend to choose Free software.
Then there are the other cost savings such as not having to audit for unlicensed software in a paranoid stupor less the BSA shut you down. There are many more widely documented.
So your client is going to sell your work? That's not how the service industry works. You write it on an hourly rate (or salary) and its Free. You wrote it becuase it scratched an itch that was worth scratching for the cost of development. You keep the rights as much as anyone else. Free. If its good, others may contribute to it. In time a comunity may form around it and you may become irrelevent to it. So be it, that is far better than you making a chunk of money for something that remains a distance from what it could become - if only you had the time...
Don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying "You must make your software Free", that would be tryranical.
What I'm saying is that the current trends indicate that in time you will find a competitive advantage in creating and extending Free software for a fee. Many already do.
The point is, when the Shareholders realise that Free Software makes them money (or rather costs them less) they'll want it where it fits and the technology policies of many corporations will change becuase of that.
The small developer will always have unwritten software to write but that larger corporates will find their products written for Free. They already are in many cases.
Many people fear that small developer will lose out if Free software becomes the consumers choice. I don't think this will happen (in fact, I think they'll be in high demand - suddenly they can know and support sytems knowing everything they are capable of knowing, not what they are allowed to know). But even if it does, this is not a reason to hold something back, nor can you stop it.
Developers are sellers. Markets are defined by the buyers and they will move in time when it suits them to do so.
Granted, but I think this issue is truely one where the slippery slope argument is most likely to fulfil itself. In every other case of history, the removal of freedom leads those doing it to continue if left unchecked. America now has the DMCA and a human being in jail because of it. If I suggested this would happen 5 years ago you'd have laughed.
While there probably is much middle ground where everyone plays nicely, this doesn't make up for the fact that the most tyrannical extreme is creeping further and further along.
On the latter point you make, I would argue that teaching people not to accept closed software is in their long term interest. I'll readily admit it may cause many of them trouble in the short term.
Many are just waiting till the short and long terms benefits are both positive. That's not far away.
I think you miss the point. Software is inherantly free. Bits are inherantly copyable, 1's and 0's are just 1's and 0's. Patterns. Copyable by nature of being digital. You can't stop this happening, so you have the tax payers fork over the fee to remove their right to do so. Tyranny knows nothing worse.
1000101001001010101001 is probably owned by someone. I'm probably breaking a law quoting it. It could be the key to unlock a DMCA covered product, it could be a BZIP2 compressed chunk of Mr Gates' The Road Ahead. It could be a million things but it is just 1's and 0's. Free by the very nature that they reach you machine as they already have.
The reason software is not free is not "natural". Its a ruling that has cost enormous amounts of money to enforce and "educate consumers" (brainwash). Why? Because of one reason. One that benefits far fewer people than it harms - it is in a commercial interest.
The majority of people have nothing to loose by mandating free software (or rather, retaining their rights to not granting software companies a stick to beat them with).
Given the current political establishment, this won't happen soon. Microsoft, Oracle et al spend far too much money pandering to the large parties to have them keep their faith. The people no longer care. Some write what you wrote. "We don't need free softare". Well, no we don't need it, but you can bet as sure as hell the commercial software companies "need" copyright protection and they will do anything to get it. Including jailing russians.
This path only leads to tyranny. Coporate tyranny maybe, but tyranny nonetheless.
At the end of the day, Free Software will win. People will come to trust it more and more in the future and closed software less and less. They'll also save money doing so. When someone like, say Ford or HSBC move to free desktops, the world will never be the same again. It will happen. Its just a matter of when. They don't like spending money and you can bet they are already looking at that avenure.
You should note It is already left to Microsoft to defend the "Commercial software model". Who else is? And why do you think they are?
Its their last chance. If they don't say something now, anything no matter how many know its crap, it will be too late tomorrow. In truth it already is. Who doesn't know about Free Software these days? Why would they ever return to only closed source now?
This trend started years ago and like most the encourage freedom and community membership, it is growing exponentially with the staturation point no where in sight yet. World domination will happen. It is simply a matter of when.
Microsoft know their time is limited in the 'commodity software' market. This is why they are changing licensing models, extract as much money as possible in the time they have left. Spread their focus into other areas, XBOX and.Net. Do you hear them say half as much about Windows or Word any more? These are where they may most of their money and they are dying becuase of Free Software.
It is important to seperate the issue of Free Software and some of its supporters, you do that with your copy of Windows and Bill Gates.
At the end of the day, in future everything you want to do with a computer will be more and more free because others are making it so. Nobody can ignore that forever.
The GPL has nothing to do with any of the problems here. The same would happen under BSD or even a closed license. Look at the Java / Microsoft case for enough proof of that!
Mod this post way down. It is the most unquestionably stupid and ill thought out post to reach even +1.
Slashdot would be a whole lot better if people thought for 10 minutes before posting as soon as possible.
You miss something obvious when you talk about "Open Source" being bad for single shot, client specific applications.
These already ARE Open Source, most clients pay a service charge to have these application developed and they control the right to use the resulting application (most of those who have any ounce of clue anyway, I'm sure some are stung). In effect, the client is then free to take the work and extend it independently, redeploy it, place the code on the internet, anything. (This would be my experience from development contracts anyway - Perhaps some lucky people are getting away with harsher terms - I suppose Microsoft do).
Those choosing not to further distribute doesn't make it less like Open Source software to them - they can still have someone else work on it later and are not tied to a specific vendor (assuming the documentation is up to scratch). Many just don't realise the benefit of doing open distribution (it tends to save money to have vital, reusable parts of your system available for others to use and improve.
The Major Linux vendors today announced similar privacy invading tactics as Microsoft. Their reverse engineered configuration mining code was found to be...
Does it matter? Most of the 25k users will have an OS simply to run Star Office on. In time these will become Linux (or other Free system capable of running SO). Either way you know Redmond is upset.
While I can't speak on his behalf, my guess is it was one of the following...
a) Time constraints
b) Enough people present quite capable of a decent arguement against Mundie.
c) The chances of Mundie even trying to be open minded enough to entertain the arguments Stallman would present are too small to bother.
You'll notice Mundie didn't even respond to Bruce's almost perfect response to the opening message. Why is that Craig? I think Stallman probably predicted the level of over protective "media trained" drones checking over what Mundie writes and deciding which points are 'strategically viable' to answer.
From Microsoft's view, none of the interesting issues are viable. They'd lose every time and so won't bother. Look at the postings. See?
I should also add that this will let you use whatever language you like. I can use Emacs / Glade and GTK from C and Python and only have to change language to do so, not entire IDE and gui builder.
Build you own IDE from seperate bits that fit how you work.
I use Glade (libglade is great!), Emacs and a few other things to make my development environment. Sure, you can argue that Emacs is an IDE to some degree but you can easily use any other editor in its place. This way I don't have all my application skills stuck in one place that later means I have to ask such a question.
Try lots of things and peice together what you like to suit your preferences. From there you can refine your environment until you've got something you know so well you're able to improve it beyond its limitations.
Otherwise you just get stuck with what another bunch of folk *think* is good for you.
Unlike Trademarks, Patents do not require defence for their validity to remain in tact. This much is obvious from the antics of BT and their belated (and idiotic) hyperlink threats.
Patents are granted monopolies in exchange for full declaration the invention.
Those holding patents often realise that there is more money to be made licensing the patent to other companies as this tends to make their technocology wider used and a small peice of a huge pie is better than all of a tiny one. This is why Dolby are so successful, for a fee and a balanced royalty anyone can play with their stuff and thus, many do.
There is No Legal Reason why any company holding software patents cannot license them to anyone they like for or without a fee and for this precise reason Bruce Perens et al are trying to get IBM and HP to set a 'social precident' for software companies to not sue free software developers for patent infringement.
IPIX are doing themselves no favours here, if they had the foresight their monotonous press releases suggest ("IPIX, the world leader in..." play another record!), they'd allow free software folk to improve their ideas (they still own the patent underneigth and can make a killing licensing the whole shebang to camera producers).
If you have more to gain by co-operating, and less to lose by calming the legal dept down, do it! Otherwise you'll just find many of those you most want to embrace IPIX stuff won't touch it with a barge pole. They already seem to prefer the other method of stitching images together to get panoramas.
All this happened AFTER they GPLd it. NeXT spoke to the FSF and Stallman has this to say about what happened...
NeXT initially wanted to make this front end proprietary; they proposed to release it as.o files, and let users link them with the rest of GCC, thinking this might be a way around the GPL's requirements. But our lawyer said that this would
not evade the requirements, that it was not allowed. And so they made the Objective C front end free software.
Notice that it is the FSF lawyers who said "No" and NeXT accepted this as fair play. This is a precident that a court will consider.
They've already arguably agreed to the GPL and their users have the right to demand the source for their application under the license propegation.
In the event of court, I think three outcomes are possible...
1) They are deemed not in violotion of the agreement and the GPL as it stands has no safe guard against this (this is UNLIKELY people, judges are looking for FAIR findings and the intent of the GPL here is clear enough. The FSF has compiler and linker programmers to explain this to the judges, they have clear industry set precidents that linking against GPL libs is not permitted and they have a case that most judges will genuinely find interesting to understand.
If you need a precident, courts more often defend the right of the author than the recipient, you've seen that before!
2) They are deemed in violation of a binding agreement and as such must honour it. GPL source for their application to customers.
3) They are deemed to not be bound to the agreement and as such are forbidden from using the GPL code in future unless they properly accept the GPL.
The latter is probably the most likely (the courts will probably side with your view that their code should be protected) and I'd probably give this judgement myself. Both parties walk away relatively happy and neither is massively harmed as a result.
I'd guess a token fine to be paid to the FSF and Avery would be ordered to set a clear winner precident, not enough to warrent appeal but enough to indicate the court is happy with our own precidents.
But that's all assuming Vidomi are stupid enough to do this. They aren't and the GPL will probably never get to court. As soon as you put a decent lawyer in front of it and explain the technology, they just arn't confident of anything other than it being upheld. That's why its never been to court before and a handful of companies have considered it before involving their lawyers.
There's a rumour its because Eben Moglen kicks ass and no one wants to take him on, but I'm not sure if its true;)
> whether dynamic linking to a library makes something a derivative work in the copyright sense.
I think it does since the libraries header files are used in the subsequent work. The courts will always take into account NON COURT precedent in the absence of previous similar findings and there they would run into the NeXT Object C compiler based on GCC (NeXT backed down, its GPL now!), the QT problem, the absence of linking to GPL libs on Linux/UNIX systems, the intent of the LGPL to specifically permit this (this alone should tell you the intent of the GPL is NOT to permit it)
You statement about making 3rd party developers beholded to OS vendors is wrong. They already ARE beholden to them but most sucessful OS's permit free linking to their application without license propegation to the result. The LGPL allows this too and is why glibc and mesa are LGPLd.
The interface between kernel and application is via an LGPL application and Linus specifically permits binary only drivers in Linux (basically making the header files required to use them effecticely LGPL)
You are incorrect on a lot of counts here and you're not alone.
Of course it is a company like SloMedia. Sony and Cisco's lawyers would no doubt run a mile from the case knowing the likely outcome.
You only have to find out why GCC has a GPL'd Objective C compiler front end to see that larger companies with Real Lawyers tend to consider the GPL clear enough to make them unfavourable in court.
Remember that Vidomi/SloMedia are not asking for the court case, Avery is. They will probably back down if they have any sense, if they do it now, the demands for their application under GPL may die down but I'd be pushing to get it to court just to prove the point.
Its a pretty clear cut case and most courts will side with the intent of the author, especially now Vidomi has published their intent not to play fair on their own web site.
You are wrong. Linux applications tend to use the GNU C Libraries which is LGPL - specifically allows closed apps to link against it (even dynamic linking require uses of the header files which are used to form the main application and therefore you have a derivative work).
The Java argument is why Free javalike systems (like kaffe and gnu classpath) were produced, so people can use Java and know that their application can run on a free system.
However, Sun do no require that Java application linking against their classes be subject to their licenses. The GPL does require that.
You cannot link a closed source application to a GPL library becuase it becomes a derivative work, there are parts of the library in the main app even if the bulk is loaded at runtime.
Except that the header files from the shared library are used in the main application making it a derivative and quite subject to GPL.
I think a court would always side with the intent of the developer, especially now they can clearly see that Vidomi has no intent to comply with the GPL or the author's wishes and if they don't protect those, then perhaps all software will become less protected by law.
It looks like Vidomi are trying to remove themselves from this while still allowing the code to be used with their closed source product. By decoupling the GPLd code into dynamically shared libraries and distribtuting them seperately, the GPL violation is less obvious but still quite present.
The header files describing the libraries had to be used to produce the application linked (dynamically) to it and so their application forms a derivative work. This is why GPL shared libraries are not linked against elsewhere and is why the LGPL was produced.
Even if Vidomi produced an middle man DLL, that middle man DLL would be subject to the GPL for the same reason and anything linked against it would also be. However, it would be interesting as it would make Vidomi responsible for prosecuting any violation of their proxy DLL. I still think most courts would not favour their case after the situation was clearly explained.
It is really a true shame that Vidomi have put their own interest in front of the Avery's, it shows them in a very bad light, although it would be interesting to see the GPL subject to court-time but I think the outcome is predictable.
I can only suggest they save their time in court, GPL their application and get on with writing applications that people want to use, that is what its all about, right Vidomi?
Slashdot Mirror
Right and Wrong are quite subjective here. My opinions appear pragmatically correct in the sphere I apply them. I have no objection to giving those reasons to those who are interested.
I make money singing this song and I'll admit that if I didn't, I'd not be so loud in doing so. I can't even say what I'd believe in that case. I hope it would be simply that I cannot make money in this industry given a more free market where the buyers expect more rights than they are currently granted.
But really, what kind of arguement is that you offer?
We can never answer the question of wether software ought to be Free or not but that won't stop the trends of its adoption. In the end, I refer you to those and ask where you see them slowing.
Firstly, noone is dictating that software must be Free. It is up to the customer and they have only been fed one set of propaganda in the past. Now they have two and its easy to see which THEY prefer.
Secondly, sallary nor ego have anything to do with this. Ellison and Gates have larger of both than I and arn't singing the same song.
As backup of my assertions, please look at any respectable, non Microsoft sponsored report on the subject. Go and speak to anyone who routinely purchases software and listen to their opinions. Listen to those who don't understand the issue but who annualy produce budgets and see their "New Pool Table" cancelled becuase for some new vital software product Accounting requires, they have to upgrade to W2000.
They, like you, don't like being forced to hand over money every two years to update their systems.
Free is popular, to some degree, because it is also free but then there are free compilers. GCC is more popular though. A simple case but there are many more like it.
To large users of sofware, the free part is irrelevent, their biggest savings in using Free software come indirectly from initial purchase. They come from having many tool choices and being able to easily find the best (without having to waste developer time filling in product evaluation forms and getting trial license keys.
This already turns most off, so they just use MS stuff becuase it works for the rest. Almost. Some others do exactly the above and still others let their developers choose what works. They tend to choose Free software.
Then there are the other cost savings such as not having to audit for unlicensed software in a paranoid stupor less the BSA shut you down. There are many more widely documented.
So your client is going to sell your work? That's not how the service industry works. You write it on an hourly rate (or salary) and its Free. You wrote it becuase it scratched an itch that was worth scratching for the cost of development. You keep the rights as much as anyone else. Free. If its good, others may contribute to it. In time a comunity may form around it and you may become irrelevent to it. So be it, that is far better than you making a chunk of money for something that remains a distance from what it could become - if only you had the time...
Don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying "You must make your software Free", that would be tryranical.
What I'm saying is that the current trends indicate that in time you will find a competitive advantage in creating and extending Free software for a fee. Many already do.
The point is, when the Shareholders realise that Free Software makes them money (or rather costs them less) they'll want it where it fits and the technology policies of many corporations will change becuase of that.
The small developer will always have unwritten software to write but that larger corporates will find their products written for Free. They already are in many cases.
Many people fear that small developer will lose out if Free software becomes the consumers choice. I don't think this will happen (in fact, I think they'll be in high demand - suddenly they can know and support sytems knowing everything they are capable of knowing, not what they are allowed to know). But even if it does, this is not a reason to hold something back, nor can you stop it.
Developers are sellers. Markets are defined by the buyers and they will move in time when it suits them to do so.
Granted, but I think this issue is truely one where the slippery slope argument is most likely to fulfil itself. In every other case of history, the removal of freedom leads those doing it to continue if left unchecked. America now has the DMCA and a human being in jail because of it. If I suggested this would happen 5 years ago you'd have laughed.
While there probably is much middle ground where everyone plays nicely, this doesn't make up for the fact that the most tyrannical extreme is creeping further and further along.
On the latter point you make, I would argue that teaching people not to accept closed software is in their long term interest. I'll readily admit it may cause many of them trouble in the short term.
Many are just waiting till the short and long terms benefits are both positive. That's not far away.
I think you miss the point. Software is inherantly free. Bits are inherantly copyable, 1's and 0's are just 1's and 0's. Patterns. Copyable by nature of being digital. You can't stop this happening, so you have the tax payers fork over the fee to remove their right to do so. Tyranny knows nothing worse.
.Net. Do you hear them say half as much about Windows or Word any more? These are where they may most of their money and they are dying becuase of Free Software.
1000101001001010101001 is probably owned by someone. I'm probably breaking a law quoting it. It could be the key to unlock a DMCA covered product, it could be a BZIP2 compressed chunk of Mr Gates' The Road Ahead. It could be a million things but it is just 1's and 0's. Free by the very nature that they reach you machine as they already have.
The reason software is not free is not "natural". Its a ruling that has cost enormous amounts of money to enforce and "educate consumers" (brainwash). Why? Because of one reason. One that benefits far fewer people than it harms - it is in a commercial interest.
The majority of people have nothing to loose by mandating free software (or rather, retaining their rights to not granting software companies a stick to beat them with).
Given the current political establishment, this won't happen soon. Microsoft, Oracle et al spend far too much money pandering to the large parties to have them keep their faith. The people no longer care. Some write what you wrote. "We don't need free softare". Well, no we don't need it, but you can bet as sure as hell the commercial software companies "need" copyright protection and they will do anything to get it. Including jailing russians.
This path only leads to tyranny. Coporate tyranny maybe, but tyranny nonetheless.
At the end of the day, Free Software will win. People will come to trust it more and more in the future and closed software less and less. They'll also save money doing so. When someone like, say Ford or HSBC move to free desktops, the world will never be the same again. It will happen. Its just a matter of when. They don't like spending money and you can bet they are already looking at that avenure.
You should note It is already left to Microsoft to defend the "Commercial software model". Who else is? And why do you think they are?
Its their last chance. If they don't say something now, anything no matter how many know its crap, it will be too late tomorrow. In truth it already is. Who doesn't know about Free Software these days? Why would they ever return to only closed source now?
This trend started years ago and like most the encourage freedom and community membership, it is growing exponentially with the staturation point no where in sight yet. World domination will happen. It is simply a matter of when.
Microsoft know their time is limited in the 'commodity software' market. This is why they are changing licensing models, extract as much money as possible in the time they have left. Spread their focus into other areas, XBOX and
It is important to seperate the issue of Free Software and some of its supporters, you do that with your copy of Windows and Bill Gates.
At the end of the day, in future everything you want to do with a computer will be more and more free because others are making it so. Nobody can ignore that forever.
That "license" agreement is for the web site, not LinuxDA.
The GPL has nothing to do with any of the problems here. The same would happen under BSD or even a closed license. Look at the Java / Microsoft case for enough proof of that!
Mod this post way down. It is the most unquestionably stupid and ill thought out post to reach even +1.
Slashdot would be a whole lot better if people thought for 10 minutes before posting as soon as possible.
To sum that up as what I meant...
"Free / Open Source does not always mean free or available via FTP"
You miss something obvious when you talk about "Open Source" being bad for single shot, client specific applications.
These already ARE Open Source, most clients pay a service charge to have these application developed and they control the right to use the resulting application (most of those who have any ounce of clue anyway, I'm sure some are stung). In effect, the client is then free to take the work and extend it independently, redeploy it, place the code on the internet, anything. (This would be my experience from development contracts anyway - Perhaps some lucky people are getting away with harsher terms - I suppose Microsoft do).
Those choosing not to further distribute doesn't make it less like Open Source software to them - they can still have someone else work on it later and are not tied to a specific vendor (assuming the documentation is up to scratch). Many just don't realise the benefit of doing open distribution (it tends to save money to have vital, reusable parts of your system available for others to use and improve.
The Major Linux vendors today announced similar privacy invading tactics as Microsoft. Their reverse engineered configuration mining code was found to be...
/proc/cpuinfo | mail licensing@linux.com
cat
--
This is funny too...
http://linuxpr.com/releases/3925.html
Does it matter? Most of the 25k users will have an OS simply to run Star Office on. In time these will become Linux (or other Free system capable of running SO). Either way you know Redmond is upset.
While I can't speak on his behalf, my guess is it was one of the following...
a) Time constraints
b) Enough people present quite capable of a decent arguement against Mundie.
c) The chances of Mundie even trying to be open minded enough to entertain the arguments Stallman would present are too small to bother.
You'll notice Mundie didn't even respond to Bruce's almost perfect response to the opening message. Why is that Craig? I think Stallman probably predicted the level of over protective "media trained" drones checking over what Mundie writes and deciding which points are 'strategically viable' to answer.
From Microsoft's view, none of the interesting issues are viable. They'd lose every time and so won't bother. Look at the postings. See?
I can't say I blame RMS.
The code should be all on one line. I've tested it in mozilla 0.91 and it worked ok...
Its tweaked from the Googles 'Googlet' javascript thing. I've no idea what is putting the odd spaces in, remove them.
Tweak to suit your choice of site.
At least there is the choice. Free Software.
I should also add that this will let you use whatever language you like. I can use Emacs / Glade and GTK from C and Python and only have to change language to do so, not entire IDE and gui builder.
Build you own IDE from seperate bits that fit how you work.
I use Glade (libglade is great!), Emacs and a few other things to make my development environment. Sure, you can argue that Emacs is an IDE to some degree but you can easily use any other editor in its place. This way I don't have all my application skills stuck in one place that later means I have to ask such a question.
Try lots of things and peice together what you like to suit your preferences. From there you can refine your environment until you've got something you know so well you're able to improve it beyond its limitations.
Otherwise you just get stuck with what another bunch of folk *think* is good for you.
Patents are granted monopolies in exchange for full declaration the invention.
Those holding patents often realise that there is more money to be made licensing the patent to other companies as this tends to make their technocology wider used and a small peice of a huge pie is better than all of a tiny one. This is why Dolby are so successful, for a fee and a balanced royalty anyone can play with their stuff and thus, many do.
There is No Legal Reason why any company holding software patents cannot license them to anyone they like for or without a fee and for this precise reason Bruce Perens et al are trying to get IBM and HP to set a 'social precident' for software companies to not sue free software developers for patent infringement.
IPIX are doing themselves no favours here, if they had the foresight their monotonous press releases suggest ("IPIX, the world leader in..." play another record!), they'd allow free software folk to improve their ideas (they still own the patent underneigth and can make a killing licensing the whole shebang to camera producers).
If you have more to gain by co-operating, and less to lose by calming the legal dept down, do it! Otherwise you'll just find many of those you most want to embrace IPIX stuff won't touch it with a barge pole. They already seem to prefer the other method of stitching images together to get panoramas.
Cluetrain anyone?
GPhoto - Free Digital Camera Software
All this happened AFTER they GPLd it. NeXT spoke to the FSF and Stallman has this to say about what happened...
.o files, and let users link them with the rest of GCC, thinking this might be a way around the GPL's requirements. But our lawyer said that this would
NeXT initially wanted to make this front end proprietary; they proposed to release it as
not evade the requirements, that it was not allowed. And so they made the Objective C front end free software.
Notice that it is the FSF lawyers who said "No" and NeXT accepted this as fair play. This is a precident that a court will consider.
Full text is at...
http://lwn.net/1998/0409/pragmatic.html
Yes, Brian allowed XFree to include it under their license but it was originally LGPL.
They've already arguably agreed to the GPL and their users have the right to demand the source for their application under the license propegation.
;)
In the event of court, I think three outcomes are possible...
1) They are deemed not in violotion of the agreement and the GPL as it stands has no safe guard against this (this is UNLIKELY people, judges are looking for FAIR findings and the intent of the GPL here is clear enough. The FSF has compiler and linker programmers to explain this to the judges, they have clear industry set precidents that linking against GPL libs is not permitted and they have a case that most judges will genuinely find interesting to understand.
If you need a precident, courts more often defend the right of the author than the recipient, you've seen that before!
2) They are deemed in violation of a binding agreement and as such must honour it. GPL source for their application to customers.
3) They are deemed to not be bound to the agreement and as such are forbidden from using the GPL code in future unless they properly accept the GPL.
The latter is probably the most likely (the courts will probably side with your view that their code should be protected) and I'd probably give this judgement myself. Both parties walk away relatively happy and neither is massively harmed as a result.
I'd guess a token fine to be paid to the FSF and Avery would be ordered to set a clear winner precident, not enough to warrent appeal but enough to indicate the court is happy with our own precidents.
But that's all assuming Vidomi are stupid enough to do this. They aren't and the GPL will probably never get to court. As soon as you put a decent lawyer in front of it and explain the technology, they just arn't confident of anything other than it being upheld. That's why its never been to court before and a handful of companies have considered it before involving their lawyers.
There's a rumour its because Eben Moglen kicks ass and no one wants to take him on, but I'm not sure if its true
> whether dynamic linking to a library makes something a derivative work in the copyright sense.
I think it does since the libraries header files are used in the subsequent work. The courts will always take into account NON COURT precedent in the absence of previous similar findings and there they would run into the NeXT Object C compiler based on GCC (NeXT backed down, its GPL now!), the QT problem, the absence of linking to GPL libs on Linux/UNIX systems, the intent of the LGPL to specifically permit this (this alone should tell you the intent of the GPL is NOT to permit it)
You statement about making 3rd party developers beholded to OS vendors is wrong. They already ARE beholden to them but most sucessful OS's permit free linking to their application without license propegation to the result. The LGPL allows this too and is why glibc and mesa are LGPLd.
The interface between kernel and application is via an LGPL application and Linus specifically permits binary only drivers in Linux (basically making the header files required to use them effecticely LGPL)
You are incorrect on a lot of counts here and you're not alone.
Of course it is a company like SloMedia. Sony and Cisco's lawyers would no doubt run a mile from the case knowing the likely outcome.
You only have to find out why GCC has a GPL'd Objective C compiler front end to see that larger companies with Real Lawyers tend to consider the GPL clear enough to make them unfavourable in court.
Remember that Vidomi/SloMedia are not asking for the court case, Avery is. They will probably back down if they have any sense, if they do it now, the demands for their application under GPL may die down but I'd be pushing to get it to court just to prove the point.
Its a pretty clear cut case and most courts will side with the intent of the author, especially now Vidomi has published their intent not to play fair on their own web site.
You are wrong. Linux applications tend to use the GNU C Libraries which is LGPL - specifically allows closed apps to link against it (even dynamic linking require uses of the header files which are used to form the main application and therefore you have a derivative work).
The Java argument is why Free javalike systems (like kaffe and gnu classpath) were produced, so people can use Java and know that their application can run on a free system.
However, Sun do no require that Java application linking against their classes be subject to their licenses. The GPL does require that.
You cannot link a closed source application to a GPL library becuase it becomes a derivative work, there are parts of the library in the main app even if the bulk is loaded at runtime.
Except that the header files from the shared library are used in the main application making it a derivative and quite subject to GPL.
I think a court would always side with the intent of the developer, especially now they can clearly see that Vidomi has no intent to comply with the GPL or the author's wishes and if they don't protect those, then perhaps all software will become less protected by law.
It looks like Vidomi are trying to remove themselves from this while still allowing the code to be used with their closed source product. By decoupling the GPLd code into dynamically shared libraries and distribtuting them seperately, the GPL violation is less obvious but still quite present.
The header files describing the libraries had to be used to produce the application linked (dynamically) to it and so their application forms a derivative work. This is why GPL shared libraries are not linked against elsewhere and is why the LGPL was produced.
Even if Vidomi produced an middle man DLL, that middle man DLL would be subject to the GPL for the same reason and anything linked against it would also be. However, it would be interesting as it would make Vidomi responsible for prosecuting any violation of their proxy DLL. I still think most courts would not favour their case after the situation was clearly explained.
It is really a true shame that Vidomi have put their own interest in front of the Avery's, it shows them in a very bad light, although it would be interesting to see the GPL subject to court-time but I think the outcome is predictable.
I can only suggest they save their time in court, GPL their application and get on with writing applications that people want to use, that is what its all about, right Vidomi?