I don't know about you but I always thought "based on" meant "based on" in the same way it was used in copyright law (i.e. the movie was "based on" the book) and aggregation meant the same thing as a "compiled" or "collected" work (i.e. an anthology or a scientific journal).
There are several kinds of works under US copyright law, and the best reading of the GPL v2 only requires passing the license on if it meets the legal definition of "derivative work" (i.e. a work based on another work in the same sense that a movie might be based on a book, or a sequel might be based on the original book).
So let's look about this in the area of published documents. In this area, if I plagiarize or if I translate another work into a new language or medium, I may create my own copyright-worthy work, but it may be derivative of another. I.e. only if I have permission to create derivative works could I legally distribute my own work. This is the sort of permission the GPL grants if my first paragraph is correct, but adds the requirement that the new derivative work must be under the same license.
On the other hand, I could take your articles, add others, bound them together into a single volume and distribute that. This would be mere aggregation under the GPL.
Under this, it is hard to see why linking would be a magic test. After all, suppose I go out to a bunch of astrophysicists and get permission to use a set or articles in a compiled work I will call "Astrophysics Today." I then add cross-referencing footnotes to the articles like [^2, but see page 443, paragraph 2] (which will cause most readers to JMP to page 443, paragraph 2, read that, and then return). Is this suddenly a derivative work instead of a compiled work? I don't think so. But this is arguably the sort of thing the linker does. Linking by default should be seen as creating aggregated works while adding or taking nothing away which is sufficiently expressive to create derivative works.
Now, as I see it, the linking question is not decisive to the question of whether work A is derived from work B. There can be cases where derivation exists where no code is shared in any way. There can be cases where derivation exists where linking exists. There can be cases where no derivation exists where linking exists.
In the first case, suppose I make a video game and release it under a standard Eula. You come along and, without looking at my code, make a clone of that game and release it under the GPL. In all likelihood you are infringing on my copyrights not so much of the software code, but of the audiovisual work component of the game. Most likely I could sue you and win.
In the second case, suppose I make a video game and you create a module for it which, say, makes walls transparent, etc. The combined work as presented to the user becomes derivative of my work and I can sue, particularly due to the audio-visual components. This would be no different if you were using pipes instead of linking.
In the third case, suppose I distribute the Linux kernel, ndiswrapper, and a bunch of proprietary wireless drivers (with the permission of the hardware manufacturer). I don't think even if these link together at runtime it would be any different than assembling a single bound copy of several related scientific articles (and hence aggregation as opposed to being derivation). I don't think Linus could sue me and win.
There are distros that do distribute both the kernel and the nVidia drivers, for example.
The proper way of looking at linking in my view is to ask a few specific questions:
1) Are the interfaces standard? Remove all standard interfaces (API or ABI) from consideration. Hence it doesn't matter what C library you are linking to if you are programming in ANSI C. Similarly it doesn't matter what driver you are using if using ODBC.
2) How tightly bound are the two works? This would require more than knowledge of header structures and probably require some sort of functional assessmen
I guess I was thinking more about the rhetoric RMS uses about linking, about how Linus could enforce his copyrights against Nvidia if he wanted to, etc. and rejecting them. The FSF faq regarding the GPL has stated that such things are GPL violations since well before the GPL v3 was released.
In that theory (RMSs), the GPL work author (Linus) might have standing to sue the ndiswrapper author on the basis that the work is derivative of the Linux kernel (maybe, it is, maybe it isn't, and I am not sure) and that indirectly linking to proprietary drivers violates the license to create derivative works. This is fairly close to the viral derivation arguments raised by SCO against IBM which were thrown out of court. (Basically, SCO argued that if A is derivative of B and B is derivative of C, then A is always derivative of C, but the court said you had to prove that A contained derived components of C in that case.)
Here is another case that comes up more frequently.
OpenRadius (under the GPL v2 as of last time I saw this discussed) has a plugin that allows one to authenticate against PostgreSQL via libpq (BSD licensed). Libpq can optionally be built with SSL support by linking to OpenSSL (old BSD with obnoxious advertising clause). Most distros ship SSL-capable versions of Libpq. So the question becomes whether shipping the Openradius plugin causes licensing issues. If I were maintaining a distro I would argue that it does not cause licensing issues because I don't think indirect linking, esp. of an optional component is sufficient to cause such problems. However Debian has generally gone the other way.
However, if RMS was right, and linking creates derivation, then the license granted to exclude system files is merely granted as a matter of copyright license and not required by copyright law. Such an opinion would, if it turned out to be correct, given Microsoft rights over EVERY piece of software that would run on Windows and allow them to ban as copyright infringement competing word processors and the like.
You're thinking that the GPL is viral, again, it isn't a damn disease, you have to analyze who the copyright owners are, and what complaint could be made and who is allowed to make it.
We're on the same page here. I am arguing against the viral interpretation of the GPL given by folks like RMS.
The original driver author (read the hardware manufacturer) might take legal action against folks distributing their compiled binaries, because that is likely a copyright violation.
Not if the Linux community says "download the drivers from the hardware manufacturer's site." Hence any copyright violation would be independent of the intended use of NDISwrapper.
The person who is using NDISWrappers could realize that person who distributed the software to them, didn't comply with the GPL (because the binary portions were given to them without source in the "preferred form"). The only person who could could take legal action to remedy this situation is the author of the NDISWrappers as they are the copyright owner.
I disagree here that the GPL is binding on the drivers in such a hypothetical.
Basically my reasoning is that the proprietary hardware drivers are in no way derivative of a GPL'd work REGARDLESS of whether they are linked at run-time to a GPL'd work.
Here is my reasoning.
NDIS drivers in general have been written for Windows. NDIS is an ABI specification. As an ABI specification, it is purely functional in form and the actual practical elements to it are outside the reach of copyright law. Consequently, if I create an ABI implementation of this (say, NDISwrapper without the linking exception), it might be derivative of the Linux kernel or it might not be and that would be very fact-sensitive. However the work is NOT derivative of any given NDIS driver, nor is any given NDIS driver derivative of it. Consequently, the fact that any given NDIS driver works under NDISwrapper doesn't imply derivation either way.
In this case, you can see NDIS as being sort of kernel-level equivalent to HTTP. Certainly using Internet Explorer to connect to an Apache web server would not make the installation of IE derivative of Apache, would it?
Derivation is a tough issue though because in some cases it may be possible to share no code and still have a work be derivative. Video game clones are the most obvious example here, as might video game mods if they alter the underlying audio-visual work that is the video game itself.
If you distribute the kernel and the nVidia blob as a combined work, then they must be distributed under the GPLv2, which is not possible due to the blob's license.
Are you sure that wouldn't be mere aggregation under the GPL v2?
Basically if "based on" in the GPL v2 means the same thing as "based on" in US copyright law (i.e. a move "based on" a book), then you have to ask whether it is a derivative work in copyright law. If aggregation is hence separate, I would argue that a compiled or collected work (i.e. several smaller works in one volume) would be beyond the scope of the GPL.
I see no reason why distributing the nVidia driver on the same CD as the Linux kernel would violate the GPL v2.
I agree with you, but I believe you to be wrong on a technical point. The license applied to the kernel is the GPLv2 with the specific stipulation that the userspace boundary was not considered a derivative work by the author. Otherwise, I believe distributing a binary that linked with the Linux kernel would have been a GPL violation (depending on the weird interpretation about OS/tools libraries "get out of jail free" clause in the GPLv2).
Wouldn't that make ndiswrapper and the Nvidia drivers into GPL violations?
But that can't work. The proprietary bits of the latter were ported from another platform (Windows) and an LGPL wrapper was provided. It is hence not a derivative work.
The same goes for using proprietary wireless drivers under ndiswrapper with or without a linking exception. An NDIS driver doesn't suddenly become derivative of Linus's work just because it is indirectly linked to it.
Note that, although the FSF requires copyright assignment, they then grant you an unconditional, non-exlusive, license to the code that you contribute to them. This means that you can do anything with the code (including use it in proprietary code and sublicense it under any other set of conditions). The only thing you can't do is sue someone else for infringing the copyright (because you don't have standing to do so).
That's not my complaint.
The issue has more to do with RMS's discussions of relicensing BSD-licensed works and the like, and his argument that one cannot build a bridge between proprietary and GPL applications without going through pipes and the like. However, derivation is a much wider question than the method of communication. For example, I cannot understand how anyone could think ndiswrapper runs into GPL issues even without a linking exception.
This especially comes up when asking questions about use of BSD code in GPL applications, particularly where the GPL v3 is involved.
(I don't think the 3-clause or 2-clause BSD license can be reduced to the GPL plus additional terms as defined by the GPL v3.)
Uh, what? When did the SFLC get moderate lawyers? They're incredibly shill-like, omitting key facts in press releases and doing everything that they can to push the GPL at the expense of more permissive licenses.
I was thinking of folks like Richard Fontana. Having discussed BSD/GPLv3 compatibility with both him and Moglen, I can tell you there is a world of difference regarding how they interpret the licenses.
I tell people, look for multi-vendor projects. This avoids a lot of this crap. PostgreSQL, Linux, Apache, etc. are all great projects because the authors have cultivated commercial involvement from a variety of companies. The other side are the single-vendor ones like MySQL, SugarCRM, etc. which have dual-license models. They are the companies to avoid.
Sure, MySQL sucks. MySQL sucks technically. The licensing sucks. The whole thing stinks.
However, if you read the story (a lot to ask of Slashdot readers, I know), you would realize that this was about folks discussing the negative influence of MySQL on the whole FOSS industry. Moreover it is about Oracle's purchase possibly ending that era.
Oracle may be a very menacing, evil corporation, but they might have done us all a favor now.
(Honestly, PostgreSQL is a much better RDBMS all around. So is Firebird. Heck SQLite is better for many applications than MySQL.)
I personally think the FSF does overreach in this area. Certainly RMS's rhetoric about what the GPL requires overreaches. If we believe RMS, the GPL reaches well beyond areas traditionally covered by copyright law and into areas like interoperability, which I think is just plain wrong. Indeed, I think linking itself is in no way sufficient to argue derivation.
I think more level heads, like some of the more moderate lawyers at the SFLC, and more level-headed engineers like Linus are closer.
My recommendation is to get the minimum insurance you can possibly get, i.e. something that will only cover major accidents and health problems. Don't get maternity coverage. Don't worry about preventative care coverage. Try to put away at least $10k in the bank to cover normal health care costs. A pregnancy will probably cost twice that (3x if a C-section is needed) but at least you are half-way there.
But do they? Have they actually managed to prosecute anyone for their 3-a-day felonies? Have they managed to actually freeze anyone's assets over these felonies? You can't just freeze assets over any crime.
I have known two relatives who were prosecuted on trumped up charges for political reasons. Both were convicted. Neither one even had assets frozen. However, having assets frozen is not uncommon.
In the first case, it was a lawyer in the McCarthy era who spent a lot of time and energy defending individuals accused of violating the Smith Act. They tried him on perjury for his efforts and he was acquitted, so they came back and tried him on income tax evasion on some technicality (and secured a conviction there). Shortly after he was released from jail he was readmitted to the bar association which suggests that there was reason to think it was politically motivated.
In the second case, it was a doctor who was prosecuted for "medicaid fraud" over an error in billing codes. This was during the Reagan administration and was part of an effort to show the public they were fighting fraud regarding medicare and medicaid. Many, many doctors were unjustly prosecuted and in the case I know of, there wasn't even an allegation that the wrong amount of money had been billed. The government talked to the doctor's partners and pressured them into demanding a guilty plea. Silverglate documents a number of other similar cases in his book.
So yes, it happens. If a prosecutor decides that prosecuting you is in the prosecutor's interest, it can happen and all too often does.
I think part of the problem is that it usually comes up when prosecuting alleged bad guys.
For example, it's really hard to have sympathy for Jeff Skilling or Lori Drew but some of the charges in both their cases illustrate this problem perfectly. I have no problem with the securities fraud charges against Jeff Skilling, but the wire fraud charges? The idea that Jeff Skilling engaged in a fraud to deny Enron the "intangible right" to his "honest services?"
Yet I have known people who were railroaded in these sorts of things for political purposes. They don't make the news. It was a nice republic while it lasted.....
BTW, here was my comment submitted to the USTR regarding the treaty.
RE: 2010 Special 301 Review Docket Number USTR-2010-0003
Jennifer Choe Groves Senior Director for Intellectual Property and Innovation and Chair of the Special 301 Committee Office of the United States Trade Representative 600 17th Street NW Washington, DC 20508 Filed electronically via Regulations.gov
Dear Ms. Groves:
I am a software engineer and developer here in the US. I own copyrights to a number of software programs and published papers, some jointly with corporations or other natural persons. I have also authored two ebooks which are distributed online and one printed book which is available through major retailers. Software I produce is distributed world-wide.
I am deeply concerned about the rush towards greater liability for neutral service providers where copyright infringement is alleged. Holders of copyrights (including myself) should not be able to make end-runs around our traditional system of legal protections by threatening third parties into shutting off services which may be vital for conducting lawful business. This is especially dangerous where very fact-centric elements of copyright and trademark infringement accusations may need to be adjudicated by courts. These cases can occur where questions of fair use or derivation occur.
Thus I am concerned that the rush towards greater protection and greater third party liability will become a sword of Damocles hanging not only over the head of the average citizen but most especially over the head of the copyright holder. After all, if a set of mere accusations is enough to insist that material be taken down or internet access denied, then those who produce copyright-worthy materials will be the most exposed.
Instead, balance is needed, and consumer protections must be a major part of the equation. These consumer protections don't just protect consumers against rights-holders. They protect rights holders against unfair competition, and they protect innovators against entrenched market interests.
Instead of dictating how foreign countries should make laws ensuring elements well outside the traditional boundaries of copyright law (circumvention device control, etc), we should instead be interested in looking at ways to make claims more easily adjudicated when they come up. The emphasis on third-party liability is a major step backwards.
The fact is that each of us probably commits three felonies a day as it is, or so says Harvey Silverglate of the EFF, ACLU, and FIRE (see his book "Three Felonies a Day.") Heck, it's probably a felony (under wire fraud statutes) to surf Slashdot while you are at work. And given that it's a felony there, it's probably also a felony under the CFAA. So if you surf Slashdot at work, you are already two thirds of the way there.....
The fact is it doesn't matter if you have done anything wrong. The current state is that the government can prosecute just about anybody on vague laws and make it extremely difficult to fight (try hiring a lawyer will all your assets frozen).
I am of the opinion that the Constitution is in shambles anyway. I oppose this treaty but I am too cynical to think that will make a difference. Prosecutors can ALREADY go after anybody they want to.
GAAP isn't meaningful to Mom & Pop businesses, but I don't personally have a current issue, as I ported my system over to PostBooks, which allows adjusting transactions. I understand if LedgerSMB wants to only target GAAP shops, but others are likely to get bitten.
We still issued a fix for the problem. It doesn't come installed by default, but then the ability to repost transactions isn't enabled by default either.
Also this is one case where a bug fix to an extremely serious and pervasive problem caused a (slightly less) serious issue for a much smaller set of users. The issue was that a fix for data integrity oversights on SQL-Ledger caused a problem in cases where a transaction was reposted under certain circumstances (usually meaning had been reposted before).
Finally, our approach in 1.3 is very different. Transactions can be saved and adjusted prior to posting. However, one cannot adjust a posted transaction.
1) It doesn't happen on the first repost. You actually have to repost twice. 2) A fix is documented in the release_notes. 3) Since reposting is not GAAP compliant, there are a number of extra steps before you are even allowed to get to that point. 4) Since reposting is not GAAP compliant anyway, it will introduce potentially major issues with bookkeeping under the best of circumstances, which is why it is only supported as a best effort basis, turned off by default, and will be going away in future versions.
Re:Was it a cause of his legal trouble?
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Our Low-Tech Tax Code
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· Score: 2, Insightful
and why are consultants not even easier to outsource overseas?
Actually a fair number of my customers are overseas, so it cuts both ways.
Re:Was it a cause of his legal trouble?
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I wasn't talking about just being a contractor. If you do a few big projects, you have the same job security as an employee.
If you do a lot of smaller projects, it is a very different thing.
Most of the projects I do are under 40 hours. Many are under 20 hours. My income is based on the volume of sales and work. That means some months, income goes down even though I am still self-employed.
The closest thing I can draw on in comparison was my experience as a dishwasher at a college cafeteria in the summer before entering the high-tech industry. My hours would vary one week to the next because it depended on how many conferences the college was hosting. Sometimes I would get 35 hours (on a good week) and some I would get 10 (on a bad week).
If you are a programmer, chances are you are not going through this boom and bust process if you are an employee. As an independent consultant, OTOH, that is a normal life.
Re:Was it a cause of his legal trouble?
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Our Low-Tech Tax Code
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· Score: 1, Offtopic
Still, that's a different situation. While you work, you get a steady paycheck. Most of my projects are less than a week long, occasionally I have some projects that are bigger, but if I have enough work to last me for 2 months, I am happy.
I also get to deal with:
1) Collecting from problem customers.
2) AR aging issues (I might in some cases get paid 30-60 days after the work completes)
3) Billing by milestone (I might do several weeks of work and then have to wait a month to get paid)
The basic thing is that even while I am working I have no guarantee that the next month I will be able to pay my bills. It usually works out, but we have had a few very difficult months and had to call folks and delay all sorts of bills.
The LedgerSMB project made a decision not to support projects which didn't properly support button elements.
This meant IE6 support and even IE7 support were not going to happen. Finally, we can support IE8.
Really, you only have to support the browsers you think actually need to be supported in order to help your users. Sometimes this includes IE6 (public ecommerce sites, for example). For internal business tools though, there is no justification for supporting that browser.
Slashdot Mirror
I hear Cassandra is really a trojan. Can anyone verify? I don't want a trojan on my computer.....
Especially when trojan horses are the cause of such a disaster....
I don't know about you but I always thought "based on" meant "based on" in the same way it was used in copyright law (i.e. the movie was "based on" the book) and aggregation meant the same thing as a "compiled" or "collected" work (i.e. an anthology or a scientific journal).
There are several kinds of works under US copyright law, and the best reading of the GPL v2 only requires passing the license on if it meets the legal definition of "derivative work" (i.e. a work based on another work in the same sense that a movie might be based on a book, or a sequel might be based on the original book).
So let's look about this in the area of published documents. In this area, if I plagiarize or if I translate another work into a new language or medium, I may create my own copyright-worthy work, but it may be derivative of another. I.e. only if I have permission to create derivative works could I legally distribute my own work. This is the sort of permission the GPL grants if my first paragraph is correct, but adds the requirement that the new derivative work must be under the same license.
On the other hand, I could take your articles, add others, bound them together into a single volume and distribute that. This would be mere aggregation under the GPL.
Under this, it is hard to see why linking would be a magic test. After all, suppose I go out to a bunch of astrophysicists and get permission to use a set or articles in a compiled work I will call "Astrophysics Today." I then add cross-referencing footnotes to the articles like [^2, but see page 443, paragraph 2] (which will cause most readers to JMP to page 443, paragraph 2, read that, and then return). Is this suddenly a derivative work instead of a compiled work? I don't think so. But this is arguably the sort of thing the linker does. Linking by default should be seen as creating aggregated works while adding or taking nothing away which is sufficiently expressive to create derivative works.
Now, as I see it, the linking question is not decisive to the question of whether work A is derived from work B. There can be cases where derivation exists where no code is shared in any way. There can be cases where derivation exists where linking exists. There can be cases where no derivation exists where linking exists.
In the first case, suppose I make a video game and release it under a standard Eula. You come along and, without looking at my code, make a clone of that game and release it under the GPL. In all likelihood you are infringing on my copyrights not so much of the software code, but of the audiovisual work component of the game. Most likely I could sue you and win.
In the second case, suppose I make a video game and you create a module for it which, say, makes walls transparent, etc. The combined work as presented to the user becomes derivative of my work and I can sue, particularly due to the audio-visual components. This would be no different if you were using pipes instead of linking.
In the third case, suppose I distribute the Linux kernel, ndiswrapper, and a bunch of proprietary wireless drivers (with the permission of the hardware manufacturer). I don't think even if these link together at runtime it would be any different than assembling a single bound copy of several related scientific articles (and hence aggregation as opposed to being derivation). I don't think Linus could sue me and win.
There are distros that do distribute both the kernel and the nVidia drivers, for example.
The proper way of looking at linking in my view is to ask a few specific questions:
1) Are the interfaces standard? Remove all standard interfaces (API or ABI) from consideration. Hence it doesn't matter what C library you are linking to if you are programming in ANSI C. Similarly it doesn't matter what driver you are using if using ODBC.
2) How tightly bound are the two works? This would require more than knowledge of header structures and probably require some sort of functional assessmen
I guess I was thinking more about the rhetoric RMS uses about linking, about how Linus could enforce his copyrights against Nvidia if he wanted to, etc. and rejecting them. The FSF faq regarding the GPL has stated that such things are GPL violations since well before the GPL v3 was released.
In that theory (RMSs), the GPL work author (Linus) might have standing to sue the ndiswrapper author on the basis that the work is derivative of the Linux kernel (maybe, it is, maybe it isn't, and I am not sure) and that indirectly linking to proprietary drivers violates the license to create derivative works. This is fairly close to the viral derivation arguments raised by SCO against IBM which were thrown out of court. (Basically, SCO argued that if A is derivative of B and B is derivative of C, then A is always derivative of C, but the court said you had to prove that A contained derived components of C in that case.)
Here is another case that comes up more frequently.
OpenRadius (under the GPL v2 as of last time I saw this discussed) has a plugin that allows one to authenticate against PostgreSQL via libpq (BSD licensed). Libpq can optionally be built with SSL support by linking to OpenSSL (old BSD with obnoxious advertising clause). Most distros ship SSL-capable versions of Libpq. So the question becomes whether shipping the Openradius plugin causes licensing issues. If I were maintaining a distro I would argue that it does not cause licensing issues because I don't think indirect linking, esp. of an optional component is sufficient to cause such problems. However Debian has generally gone the other way.
However, if RMS was right, and linking creates derivation, then the license granted to exclude system files is merely granted as a matter of copyright license and not required by copyright law. Such an opinion would, if it turned out to be correct, given Microsoft rights over EVERY piece of software that would run on Windows and allow them to ban as copyright infringement competing word processors and the like.
Now Microsoft will be able to sell all its products with just one click!
Right. No more will you have to double-click!
You're thinking that the GPL is viral, again, it isn't a damn disease, you have to analyze who the copyright owners are, and what complaint could be made and who is allowed to make it.
We're on the same page here. I am arguing against the viral interpretation of the GPL given by folks like RMS.
The original driver author (read the hardware manufacturer) might take legal action against folks distributing their compiled binaries, because that is likely a copyright violation.
Not if the Linux community says "download the drivers from the hardware manufacturer's site." Hence any copyright violation would be independent of the intended use of NDISwrapper.
The person who is using NDISWrappers could realize that person who distributed the software to them, didn't comply with the GPL (because the binary portions were given to them without source in the "preferred form"). The only person who could could take legal action to remedy this situation is the author of the NDISWrappers as they are the copyright owner.
I disagree here that the GPL is binding on the drivers in such a hypothetical.
Basically my reasoning is that the proprietary hardware drivers are in no way derivative of a GPL'd work REGARDLESS of whether they are linked at run-time to a GPL'd work.
Here is my reasoning.
NDIS drivers in general have been written for Windows. NDIS is an ABI specification. As an ABI specification, it is purely functional in form and the actual practical elements to it are outside the reach of copyright law. Consequently, if I create an ABI implementation of this (say, NDISwrapper without the linking exception), it might be derivative of the Linux kernel or it might not be and that would be very fact-sensitive. However the work is NOT derivative of any given NDIS driver, nor is any given NDIS driver derivative of it. Consequently, the fact that any given NDIS driver works under NDISwrapper doesn't imply derivation either way.
In this case, you can see NDIS as being sort of kernel-level equivalent to HTTP. Certainly using Internet Explorer to connect to an Apache web server would not make the installation of IE derivative of Apache, would it?
Derivation is a tough issue though because in some cases it may be possible to share no code and still have a work be derivative. Video game clones are the most obvious example here, as might video game mods if they alter the underlying audio-visual work that is the video game itself.
If you distribute the kernel and the nVidia blob as a combined work, then they must be distributed under the GPLv2, which is not possible due to the blob's license.
Are you sure that wouldn't be mere aggregation under the GPL v2?
Basically if "based on" in the GPL v2 means the same thing as "based on" in US copyright law (i.e. a move "based on" a book), then you have to ask whether it is a derivative work in copyright law. If aggregation is hence separate, I would argue that a compiled or collected work (i.e. several smaller works in one volume) would be beyond the scope of the GPL.
I see no reason why distributing the nVidia driver on the same CD as the Linux kernel would violate the GPL v2.
I agree with you, but I believe you to be wrong on a technical point. The license applied to the kernel is the GPLv2 with the specific stipulation that the userspace boundary was not considered a derivative work by the author. Otherwise, I believe distributing a binary that linked with the Linux kernel would have been a GPL violation (depending on the weird interpretation about OS/tools libraries "get out of jail free" clause in the GPLv2).
Wouldn't that make ndiswrapper and the Nvidia drivers into GPL violations?
But that can't work. The proprietary bits of the latter were ported from another platform (Windows) and an LGPL wrapper was provided. It is hence not a derivative work.
The same goes for using proprietary wireless drivers under ndiswrapper with or without a linking exception. An NDIS driver doesn't suddenly become derivative of Linus's work just because it is indirectly linked to it.
Note that, although the FSF requires copyright assignment, they then grant you an unconditional, non-exlusive, license to the code that you contribute to them. This means that you can do anything with the code (including use it in proprietary code and sublicense it under any other set of conditions). The only thing you can't do is sue someone else for infringing the copyright (because you don't have standing to do so).
That's not my complaint.
The issue has more to do with RMS's discussions of relicensing BSD-licensed works and the like, and his argument that one cannot build a bridge between proprietary and GPL applications without going through pipes and the like. However, derivation is a much wider question than the method of communication. For example, I cannot understand how anyone could think ndiswrapper runs into GPL issues even without a linking exception.
This especially comes up when asking questions about use of BSD code in GPL applications, particularly where the GPL v3 is involved.
(I don't think the 3-clause or 2-clause BSD license can be reduced to the GPL plus additional terms as defined by the GPL v3.)
Uh, what? When did the SFLC get moderate lawyers? They're incredibly shill-like, omitting key facts in press releases and doing everything that they can to push the GPL at the expense of more permissive licenses.
I was thinking of folks like Richard Fontana. Having discussed BSD/GPLv3 compatibility with both him and Moglen, I can tell you there is a world of difference regarding how they interpret the licenses.
I tell people, look for multi-vendor projects. This avoids a lot of this crap. PostgreSQL, Linux, Apache, etc. are all great projects because the authors have cultivated commercial involvement from a variety of companies. The other side are the single-vendor ones like MySQL, SugarCRM, etc. which have dual-license models. They are the companies to avoid.
Sure, MySQL sucks. MySQL sucks technically. The licensing sucks. The whole thing stinks.
However, if you read the story (a lot to ask of Slashdot readers, I know), you would realize that this was about folks discussing the negative influence of MySQL on the whole FOSS industry. Moreover it is about Oracle's purchase possibly ending that era.
Oracle may be a very menacing, evil corporation, but they might have done us all a favor now.
(Honestly, PostgreSQL is a much better RDBMS all around. So is Firebird. Heck SQLite is better for many applications than MySQL.)
I personally think the FSF does overreach in this area. Certainly RMS's rhetoric about what the GPL requires overreaches. If we believe RMS, the GPL reaches well beyond areas traditionally covered by copyright law and into areas like interoperability, which I think is just plain wrong. Indeed, I think linking itself is in no way sufficient to argue derivation.
I think more level heads, like some of the more moderate lawyers at the SFLC, and more level-headed engineers like Linus are closer.
My recommendation is to get the minimum insurance you can possibly get, i.e. something that will only cover major accidents and health problems. Don't get maternity coverage. Don't worry about preventative care coverage. Try to put away at least $10k in the bank to cover normal health care costs. A pregnancy will probably cost twice that (3x if a C-section is needed) but at least you are half-way there.
But do they? Have they actually managed to prosecute anyone for their 3-a-day felonies? Have they managed to actually freeze anyone's assets over these felonies? You can't just freeze assets over any crime.
I have known two relatives who were prosecuted on trumped up charges for political reasons. Both were convicted. Neither one even had assets frozen. However, having assets frozen is not uncommon.
In the first case, it was a lawyer in the McCarthy era who spent a lot of time and energy defending individuals accused of violating the Smith Act. They tried him on perjury for his efforts and he was acquitted, so they came back and tried him on income tax evasion on some technicality (and secured a conviction there). Shortly after he was released from jail he was readmitted to the bar association which suggests that there was reason to think it was politically motivated.
In the second case, it was a doctor who was prosecuted for "medicaid fraud" over an error in billing codes. This was during the Reagan administration and was part of an effort to show the public they were fighting fraud regarding medicare and medicaid. Many, many doctors were unjustly prosecuted and in the case I know of, there wasn't even an allegation that the wrong amount of money had been billed. The government talked to the doctor's partners and pressured them into demanding a guilty plea. Silverglate documents a number of other similar cases in his book.
So yes, it happens. If a prosecutor decides that prosecuting you is in the prosecutor's interest, it can happen and all too often does.
I think part of the problem is that it usually comes up when prosecuting alleged bad guys.
For example, it's really hard to have sympathy for Jeff Skilling or Lori Drew but some of the charges in both their cases illustrate this problem perfectly. I have no problem with the securities fraud charges against Jeff Skilling, but the wire fraud charges? The idea that Jeff Skilling engaged in a fraud to deny Enron the "intangible right" to his "honest services?"
Yet I have known people who were railroaded in these sorts of things for political purposes. They don't make the news. It was a nice republic while it lasted.....
Here is the letter I sent via regulations.gov:
BTW, here was my comment submitted to the USTR regarding the treaty.
RE: 2010 Special 301 Review
Docket Number USTR-2010-0003
Jennifer Choe Groves
Senior Director for Intellectual Property and
Innovation and Chair of the Special 301 Committee
Office of the United States Trade Representative
600 17th Street NW
Washington, DC 20508
Filed electronically via Regulations.gov
Dear Ms. Groves:
I am a software engineer and developer here in the US. I own copyrights to a number of software programs and published papers, some jointly with corporations or other natural persons. I have also authored two ebooks which are distributed online and one printed book which is available through major retailers. Software I produce is distributed world-wide.
I am deeply concerned about the rush towards greater liability for neutral service providers where copyright infringement is alleged. Holders of copyrights (including myself) should not be able to make end-runs around our traditional system of legal protections by threatening third parties into shutting off services which may be vital for conducting lawful business. This is especially dangerous where very fact-centric elements of copyright and trademark infringement accusations may need to be adjudicated by courts. These cases can occur where questions of fair use or derivation occur.
Thus I am concerned that the rush towards greater protection and greater third party liability will become a sword of Damocles hanging not only over the head of the average citizen but most especially over the head of the copyright holder. After all, if a set of mere accusations is enough to insist that material be taken down or internet access denied, then those who produce copyright-worthy materials will be the most exposed.
Instead, balance is needed, and consumer protections must be a major part of the equation. These consumer protections don't just protect consumers against rights-holders. They protect rights holders against unfair competition, and they protect innovators against entrenched market interests.
Instead of dictating how foreign countries should make laws ensuring elements well outside the traditional boundaries of copyright law (circumvention device control, etc), we should instead be interested in looking at ways to make claims more easily adjudicated when they come up. The emphasis on third-party liability is a major step backwards.
Please reconsider.
Sincerely,
Chris Travers
The fact is that each of us probably commits three felonies a day as it is, or so says Harvey Silverglate of the EFF, ACLU, and FIRE (see his book "Three Felonies a Day.") Heck, it's probably a felony (under wire fraud statutes) to surf Slashdot while you are at work. And given that it's a felony there, it's probably also a felony under the CFAA. So if you surf Slashdot at work, you are already two thirds of the way there.....
The fact is it doesn't matter if you have done anything wrong. The current state is that the government can prosecute just about anybody on vague laws and make it extremely difficult to fight (try hiring a lawyer will all your assets frozen).
I am of the opinion that the Constitution is in shambles anyway. I oppose this treaty but I am too cynical to think that will make a difference. Prosecutors can ALREADY go after anybody they want to.
I just checked when the patch for that issue was issued.
November of 2007......
GAAP isn't meaningful to Mom & Pop businesses, but I don't personally have a current issue, as I ported my system over to PostBooks, which allows adjusting transactions. I understand if LedgerSMB wants to only target GAAP shops, but others are likely to get bitten.
We still issued a fix for the problem. It doesn't come installed by default, but then the ability to repost transactions isn't enabled by default either.
Also this is one case where a bug fix to an extremely serious and pervasive problem caused a (slightly less) serious issue for a much smaller set of users. The issue was that a fix for data integrity oversights on SQL-Ledger caused a problem in cases where a transaction was reposted under certain circumstances (usually meaning had been reposted before).
Finally, our approach in 1.3 is very different. Transactions can be saved and adjusted prior to posting. However, one cannot adjust a posted transaction.
Quite frankly the only way you will earn more is if you can grow your business into something with a substantial number of employees.
You are actually wrong....
1) It doesn't happen on the first repost. You actually have to repost twice.
2) A fix is documented in the release_notes.
3) Since reposting is not GAAP compliant, there are a number of extra steps before you are even allowed to get to that point.
4) Since reposting is not GAAP compliant anyway, it will introduce potentially major issues with bookkeeping under the best of circumstances, which is why it is only supported as a best effort basis, turned off by default, and will be going away in future versions.
and why are consultants not even easier to outsource overseas?
Actually a fair number of my customers are overseas, so it cuts both ways.
I wasn't talking about just being a contractor. If you do a few big projects, you have the same job security as an employee.
If you do a lot of smaller projects, it is a very different thing.
Most of the projects I do are under 40 hours. Many are under 20 hours. My income is based on the volume of sales and work. That means some months, income goes down even though I am still self-employed.
The closest thing I can draw on in comparison was my experience as a dishwasher at a college cafeteria in the summer before entering the high-tech industry. My hours would vary one week to the next because it depended on how many conferences the college was hosting. Sometimes I would get 35 hours (on a good week) and some I would get 10 (on a bad week).
If you are a programmer, chances are you are not going through this boom and bust process if you are an employee. As an independent consultant, OTOH, that is a normal life.
Still, that's a different situation. While you work, you get a steady paycheck. Most of my projects are less than a week long, occasionally I have some projects that are bigger, but if I have enough work to last me for 2 months, I am happy.
I also get to deal with:
1) Collecting from problem customers.
2) AR aging issues (I might in some cases get paid 30-60 days after the work completes)
3) Billing by milestone (I might do several weeks of work and then have to wait a month to get paid)
The basic thing is that even while I am working I have no guarantee that the next month I will be able to pay my bills. It usually works out, but we have had a few very difficult months and had to call folks and delay all sorts of bills.
The LedgerSMB project made a decision not to support projects which didn't properly support button elements.
This meant IE6 support and even IE7 support were not going to happen. Finally, we can support IE8.
Really, you only have to support the browsers you think actually need to be supported in order to help your users. Sometimes this includes IE6 (public ecommerce sites, for example). For internal business tools though, there is no justification for supporting that browser.