Hmm, I assume MS will make this a part of.NET...one of the reasons they want to centralize everything is so that when people get nickel-and-dimed to death, MS is right there getting their cut. It's kind of scary when you think about it that when MS pulls this off, sites will REQUIRE you to have a passport login to access the site since MS is their "official enterprise content access and licensing solutions strategic partner".
I'll give five bucks for the head of any of the lyon's group's attack lawyers.
Tsk tsk tsk, taking a contract on lawyers. Watch out, or they might sue you for emotional distress.
(looks like GTK can be compiled with MSVC or gcc 2.95xxx)
Unfortunately, the next logical step is to disallow using a MS compiler for making programs that are distributed under these kinds of licenses. Hell, they will probably force all compiler makers to put such clauses into their licenses, or else be shut out of lowlevel info needed to write the compilers.
I don't think it will end up the way you're thinking. Honestly, I see them sending out a HUGE number of programs with Windows, and making it so you only have to d/l the software once (per upgrade cycle), but then it's always on your local machine. The differences I see under this model are that a) they can charge you on a pay-per-use basis, by requiring you to get a _KEY_ every time you want to use the programs. and b) they will have your data uploaded to their centralized servers so you can access it anywhere. This can be a good idea. Think about it, you can log onto a computer at a local coffeehouse and work on your novel without lugging your laptop around.
However.
It scares the crap out of me, because as soon as this.net stuff goes online, it becomes the biggest baddest target for criminals that the world has ever seen. I'm not talking kiddies trying to break into accounts. I'm talking international organized crime and terrorist states, as well as domestic companies using hired guns to try to bring the system down or to steal or alter information. Imagine if they break in one day, and the data has to be restored from old backups...thereby eliminating a day or a week of business transactions for a large portion of the US. What happens when the data you have on your server doesn't match up with the data on their servers, such as if your "licensing privileges" get mysteriously changed. It's really scary to think about.
...because I believe it's an insidious deception worked on the public...
Let me see if I can encapsulate your argument:
a) You _really_ understand the GPL.
b) Other people don't _really_ understand the GPL.
It's not a good idea to base your argument on the assumption that other people really don't know what they're doing. For users who never develop software, the GPL provides more rights than any proprietary software EULA I have ever seen.
If someone is capable of writing software that's worthy of any sort of protection, they are smart enough to understand the GPL. If they use someone else's work as a base, they must abide by the license. Also, what's the chance of someone coming from a proprietary background into the world of open source/free software without being bombarded by explanations and discussions of the various licenses? If I had never seen this idea of sharing before and I was used to the types of restrictions in proprietary software, I know that I would check things out first to make sure it wasn't a trick.
If someone develops his own work from scratch, then he's free to close his work if he realizes that using the GPL is a mistake. I submit that by the time his program gets to the point that it's worth something, he will have figured out the extreme complexity of the real meaning of the GPL.
I assume you are at least a pretty good programmer. You have probably spent a few years (at least) taking classes and learning to program. Did you start out learning assembly language first? Probably not, but somehow you overcame this obstacle and managed to learn anyway. I always get a big chuckle out of people who are experts in a field who think that because they see and understand the big picture, (and it took them a long time and a lot of small steps to see that picture), then they need to go and beat the shit out of the next generation by trying to ram the big picture down their throats.
You should not teach assembly first. Just because you have more experience now and you "know" where newbies are going when they learn to program doesn't mean you feed it to them all at once.
This is the same kind of problem you see in mathematics. Math professors know so much math that when it comes time to teach people who are slower or less knowledgable, they assume that teaching them the "real way things are" is the best way. This isn't the best way. Whatever you're doing may have some deep background theory that explains the "proper" way of doing things, but it isn't a good idea to make the students learn that first. It will just turn most of them off. If a body of knowledge has useful mechanics, you should teach people that and skip (most of) the deep background theory until they have the mechanics and some of the less deep theory down.
Did you take calculus? Did you enjoy the sections on Lebesgue measure and integration? What? You mean you took a class in calculus where they taught you how to "differentiate" and "integrate" and they didn't tell you what's _really_ going on? Oh well, it's too late now. You've picked up bad habits and these habits can't be remedied by having more advanced courses teach you the real way things work later on.:P Oh Puhleeeaase.
If your goal is to make an elite society of 31334 C0d3rz where only the truly gifted and dedicated are ever taught to use a machine, then fine do that, but don't be surprised when most people drift away. If your goal is to try to teach a larger body of workers, then you train them in such a way that you give them a foundation of useful mechanics, and then delve into the deep background theory later. Then that deep background theory (assembly) will have meaning, and they will see how it's used so they don't get scared away.
I tend to flip channels as soon as commercials come on. The only way they could make me watch commercials is to stream shows to me individually and to force me to watch 2 minutes of commercials for every 12 minutes of shows that I watch no matter what channel I try to change to. This is such a sick idea, I wish I had the money to patent it just so I could keep the dorks from using it on us.
This is a different situation. Unisys never really said one way or another what it was going to do. Thompson has said they won't go after people who aren't trying to make money off the technology. That means they can't come along later and change their minds due to the concept of
Estoppel
The doctrine designed to protect a party from the detriment which would flow from that party's change of position if the assumption or expectation that led to it were
to be rendered groundless by another.
This is, of course, outside the basic argument that you shouldn't get patents for flipping some switches on a machine, but that's another battle.
Code is speech because math is speech and typing a math paper into a computer is speech so typing math into a computer using a specific set of symbols is speech.
And what happens when we have robots that understand real speech and you teach your robot to "weed the garden" by explaining how to find weeds vs plants and how to pull weeds and how to throw the weeds into the compost pile. Then code == speech is even more clear. And what happens when people have neural implants in their brains so teaching people in school is "programming a computer"? Will you be sued for telling someone how to do something?
He wasn't saying D Reed has to follow the GPL. He's saying that things are easier when you have one license as opposed to a mishmash of licenses since individual authors writing their own ambigious licenses won't be able to come along later and "clarify" things in ways that people weren't expecting. With the GPL you have a common language and understanding and these kinds of situations will be less rare (unless your goal is to "get around" the GPL).
IS it a big shock that you can download things off Napster and listen to mp3's you already have? How is this any different? It's still just digital data in a well-known format.
If this is patentable, then I suppose I could get a patent for a machine that records any kind (or some kinds) of digital information from MP3 to MPEG to.gif to regular CD or CSS DVD to software to HTML downloads to any other format that gets created in the future, since it's all just bits.
I could also say that the machine could accept downloads from many different sources of many different kinds of digital data at once. I could also say that the machine will be able to tell what kind of digital information each of the downloads is and place it in locations where it can be found again on the drive.
I Could also say that the machine will come equipped with playback programs that allow me to use any previously downloaded data while downloading more data of any form. The playback program might only be downloaded at the time of use, or might contain a special key perhaps based on customer information and the digital data being used to make sure everyone's getting paid. Or, it might have to feed a key into the playback device which gets sent only after you show you have a license to use this data. Since many of the downloads could not be used all at one time, I could use my playback devices to use things that are in the process of being download by allowing access to the parts that have been downloaded.
I could also say that the machine will come equipped with "rights management" software and hardware that makes sure that someone has paid the proper fees in order to use the digital information each time it's used. This could include things like using.net to spellcheck your document or running a patented algorithm in your spreadsheet and having to pay a small fee each time. Or, in fact the rights management software would be able to track what kind of licensing each piece of digital information has on it, and how that customer is licensed to use it. Perhaps someone pays 100 dollars for unlimited use of a movie, while someone else pays 5 dollars each time the view the movie. Each device or household or person would have an individual licensing status with respect to each piece of digital data, and would pay according to that status for each piece of data.
I could say that the device would make sure that all downloads are only from "approved" sources, so that you wouldn't be able to get a download from someone else.
And hey, let's take it one step farther...the machine will download any kind of data in any currently known or future format from any number of "warehouses" on demand, thereby freeing me from having to have infinite drive space. The licensing and rights would be taken care of automatically at download time by plugging into the machine owner's credit card or bank account or some other kind of account to make sure they can actually use this digital information at this time.
Can I get a patent on this idea? If it's a nonobvious leap going from saving an audio stream while listening to another to doing it with video AND audio, then why not patent this machine.:P Gee I feel so nonobvious and clever today.
Not to pick nits...but "I'm 3117"? Don't you mean "I'm 1337"? I can't believe I'm posting here correcting d00dspeak, I need to go rummage around and find a life.
Re:A Simple Business Model
on
GPL FAQ
·
· Score: 1
But all it takes is one developer to remove the nag box, then everyone gets the program from that developer.
tommorow Linus could take the Linux kernel along with all the changes others have contributed to it and start selling it without releasing the source?
No. If Linus had written _everything_ in the kernel, then yes he could do this. The only way this could ever happen to linux is if every person who ever contributed a line of code agreed to do this. Linus doesn't hold the copyright to the code...well not all of it. And, in fact anything that he wrote years ago has probably been tweaked and enhanced by so many other people that any given piece of code would require many? dozens? of people agreeing to release under another license. What Linus could do is change the copyright on his old old old versions back when he was working by himself. But, who would use those when the software has gone so far beyond that point?
But did other, more restictive, EULA, has been in court?
I don't know of other cases off hand, but they are much more restrictive.
And remember, the GPL is *not* an EULA (*end user* license agreement) , it's a license for the developer(s).
I have to disagree with you on this one. If you get a binary of a piece of GPLed software and use it as you would be required to use a piece of "regular" proprietary software...i.e. don't try to figure out how it works, don't give it away to anyone else, just use it as written, then you can't run afoul of the GPL. However, the GPL allows you to do many things with the software that a standard EULA prohibits. So, I do see the GPL as an EULA in that sense.
So, that would mean that every copy of linux would have to be returned and destroyed, and every webserver running linux would have to shut down immediately? That wouldn't happen. What might happen is that the "viral clause" might be destroyed, but that's unlikely. Considering the crap that other companies put into their EULA's, the GPL requirement is actually quite minor. What would be interesting is if the viral clause is declared to be too restrictive, could that precedent be used to attack other EULAs?....
Since you're coming from the side of an FPS, I will try to explain it this way.
First, there aren't any "levels" or "maps", or perhaps I should say the world is one huge level. There are things to attack and kill all over the world, there are things to pick up and use just like in an FPS. The world is persistent, and you can enter and leave the world, but it doesn't stop just because you leave.
The main difference is that you keep your character. When you log in and do stuff, you become better at using certain skills...like for example from an FPS, maybe aiming would be a skill, fast loading, resistance to damage. Every time you get into combat, you use skills, so you get better at them over time. So, an old experienced character with mediocre equipment could destroy a newbie with the best player in the world with the best reflexes and hardware and client cheat upgrades. What it does is make it less of a "player skill" game and more of a "character skill" game by letting you build up your character over a long time.
There are also other things possible. You could go out and mine for ore and take that ore and make items out of it. You could chop down trees and make furniture, if this has been coded. So, there are other kinds of things you can do if that's what interests you. If the game is set up correctly, you should be able to play without engaging in combat much at all, if you so choose.
The pace IS slower than an FPS, but when things do happen, like fighting a big monster, or seeing 10 people walking up to you to pkill you, you get the same kind of rush. The big difference is that if you die, you lose your equipment, maybe some of your skills, but you can work on those skills and get that equipment back, and your character isn't set back to absolute nothing. The learning curve is pretty shallow to start, but generally there's lots of depth and you can't possibly explore all the things to do in only a few hours. If they have it set up correctly, you should be able to get tutorials and introductory maps to starting shops and simple places to learn skills, but if not it can be difficult.
So, there you go...it's kind of like an FPS where there's one huge map representing the whole world, and people can enter and leave the map when they want, and as you kill things on the map, or do things, you get skills that improve that make your CHARACTER better, so that you aren't so reliant on your PLAYER clicking/aiming skill over time.
But most box makers sell the machines at a loss so they can make it up in software. If Nokia is primarily selling the box, won't they have to charge a real price for it?
Ewww...what if this IS related to the whole RIAA/MPAA fiascos...that somehow THEY'RE behind this to get rid of all those nasty CD drives without their crippling hardware in it.
Rofl. Like that's gonna happen. That would be like some asshole patenting hyperlinks, then forcing the entire web to shut down due to unauthorized use.:P
This recall won't happen. Not in a million years since it would screw up the country too much, and the only reason patents exist is because on balance they help society more than they hurt it.
But my question is what if you take some GPLed code with no patented code in it, and you add YOUR patented code to it. Then, you sell it and tell your recipients the only way they can execute the code is to never release it. They could choose to get the code and never execute it, and in that case they could continue to release it, so everything's ok. It's only if they want to execute your patented code do they run into a problem.
Since the US government allows software patents, is it possible to void the GPL by using patents?
1. You take a GPLed product, and extend it. You add some patented code into it.
2. You sell it to someone, and you give them the source code as the GPL requires.
3. However, since the GPL doesn't cover the execution of the code, you tell them that the only way they can get a license to execute the patented code is by never releasing the source or binaries to anyone else.
4. And anyone else who got the code downstream would have the right to have the source code, but not the right to execute it since that would be a patent violation.
Does this mean that a company can use patents to "close" GPLed code?
I'm especially interested in how an author can control how some software is used,
or by whom
I think you lose the right to specify who can use it, or how. The only thing you can specify is that if someone else takes your software and gives/sells it to someone else, they must provide the source code to that person.
You can't stop them from doing anything else, and you can't stop specific people from using the code.
On the other hand, if you are the only author of your code, and you don't have any issues with special libraries being used, you could release a GPL version, and then later on you could put your extended version into closed-source software, provided that you are the owner of all of the copyright associated with the source code.
It's clear to me that they should have spent less time sitting around playing stupid "role-playing" games and instead they should have gone out and protected their IP space. Had they gone and gotten the appropriate patents (and believe me this idea would easily be patentable in today's climate), they would have much more than a product. They would have IP. That is so much more important than producing something. Now, by going out of business and by not having their patent portfolio up to date, someone can come along and code this idea up in a day or two. Even though they had to spend years doing expensive basic research to get to where they could produce a product. If they had done that, going out of business wouldn't be the end of it. Failing to produce any code wouldn't be the end of it. They could have licensed their IP for years to come and guaranteed themselves a nice income. Oh well, until those dotcom morons learn that protecting your IP comes first and making products comes second, they will continue to fail.
Slashdot Mirror
Hmm, I assume MS will make this a part of .NET...one of the reasons they want to centralize everything is so that when people get nickel-and-dimed to death, MS is right there getting their cut. It's kind of scary when you think about it that when MS pulls this off, sites will REQUIRE you to have a passport login to access the site since MS is their "official enterprise content access and licensing solutions strategic partner".
I'll give five bucks for the head of any of the lyon's group's attack lawyers. Tsk tsk tsk, taking a contract on lawyers. Watch out, or they might sue you for emotional distress.
So, open source is like an orgy while shared source is like a strip club?
Hmm....
Unfortunately, the next logical step is to disallow using a MS compiler for making programs that are distributed under these kinds of licenses. Hell, they will probably force all compiler makers to put such clauses into their licenses, or else be shut out of lowlevel info needed to write the compilers.
However.
It scares the crap out of me, because as soon as this .net stuff goes online, it becomes the biggest baddest target for criminals that the world has ever seen. I'm not talking kiddies trying to break into accounts. I'm talking international organized crime and terrorist states, as well as domestic companies using hired guns to try to bring the system down or to steal or alter information. Imagine if they break in one day, and the data has to be restored from old backups...thereby eliminating a day or a week of business transactions for a large portion of the US. What happens when the data you have on your server doesn't match up with the data on their servers, such as if your "licensing privileges" get mysteriously changed. It's really scary to think about.
Let me see if I can encapsulate your argument:
a) You _really_ understand the GPL.
b) Other people don't _really_ understand the GPL.
It's not a good idea to base your argument on the assumption that other people really don't know what they're doing. For users who never develop software, the GPL provides more rights than any proprietary software EULA I have ever seen.
If someone is capable of writing software that's worthy of any sort of protection, they are smart enough to understand the GPL. If they use someone else's work as a base, they must abide by the license. Also, what's the chance of someone coming from a proprietary background into the world of open source/free software without being bombarded by explanations and discussions of the various licenses? If I had never seen this idea of sharing before and I was used to the types of restrictions in proprietary software, I know that I would check things out first to make sure it wasn't a trick.
If someone develops his own work from scratch, then he's free to close his work if he realizes that using the GPL is a mistake. I submit that by the time his program gets to the point that it's worth something, he will have figured out the extreme complexity of the real meaning of the GPL.
You should not teach assembly first. Just because you have more experience now and you "know" where newbies are going when they learn to program doesn't mean you feed it to them all at once.
This is the same kind of problem you see in mathematics. Math professors know so much math that when it comes time to teach people who are slower or less knowledgable, they assume that teaching them the "real way things are" is the best way. This isn't the best way. Whatever you're doing may have some deep background theory that explains the "proper" way of doing things, but it isn't a good idea to make the students learn that first. It will just turn most of them off. If a body of knowledge has useful mechanics, you should teach people that and skip (most of) the deep background theory until they have the mechanics and some of the less deep theory down.
Did you take calculus? Did you enjoy the sections on Lebesgue measure and integration? What? You mean you took a class in calculus where they taught you how to "differentiate" and "integrate" and they didn't tell you what's _really_ going on? Oh well, it's too late now. You've picked up bad habits and these habits can't be remedied by having more advanced courses teach you the real way things work later on. :P Oh Puhleeeaase.
If your goal is to make an elite society of 31334 C0d3rz where only the truly gifted and dedicated are ever taught to use a machine, then fine do that, but don't be surprised when most people drift away. If your goal is to try to teach a larger body of workers, then you train them in such a way that you give them a foundation of useful mechanics, and then delve into the deep background theory later. Then that deep background theory (assembly) will have meaning, and they will see how it's used so they don't get scared away.
I tend to flip channels as soon as commercials come on. The only way they could make me watch commercials is to stream shows to me individually and to force me to watch 2 minutes of commercials for every 12 minutes of shows that I watch no matter what channel I try to change to. This is such a sick idea, I wish I had the money to patent it just so I could keep the dorks from using it on us.
Estoppel
The doctrine designed to protect a party from the detriment which would flow from that party's change of position if the assumption or expectation that led to it were to be rendered groundless by another.
This is, of course, outside the basic argument that you shouldn't get patents for flipping some switches on a machine, but that's another battle.
And what happens when we have robots that understand real speech and you teach your robot to "weed the garden" by explaining how to find weeds vs plants and how to pull weeds and how to throw the weeds into the compost pile. Then code == speech is even more clear. And what happens when people have neural implants in their brains so teaching people in school is "programming a computer"? Will you be sued for telling someone how to do something?
He wasn't saying D Reed has to follow the GPL. He's saying that things are easier when you have one license as opposed to a mishmash of licenses since individual authors writing their own ambigious licenses won't be able to come along later and "clarify" things in ways that people weren't expecting. With the GPL you have a common language and understanding and these kinds of situations will be less rare (unless your goal is to "get around" the GPL).
If this is patentable, then I suppose I could get a patent for a machine that records any kind (or some kinds) of digital information from MP3 to MPEG to .gif to regular CD or CSS DVD to software to HTML downloads to any other format that gets created in the future, since it's all just bits.
I could also say that the machine could accept downloads from many different sources of many different kinds of digital data at once. I could also say that the machine will be able to tell what kind of digital information each of the downloads is and place it in locations where it can be found again on the drive.
I Could also say that the machine will come equipped with playback programs that allow me to use any previously downloaded data while downloading more data of any form. The playback program might only be downloaded at the time of use, or might contain a special key perhaps based on customer information and the digital data being used to make sure everyone's getting paid. Or, it might have to feed a key into the playback device which gets sent only after you show you have a license to use this data. Since many of the downloads could not be used all at one time, I could use my playback devices to use things that are in the process of being download by allowing access to the parts that have been downloaded.
I could also say that the machine will come equipped with "rights management" software and hardware that makes sure that someone has paid the proper fees in order to use the digital information each time it's used. This could include things like using .net to spellcheck your document or running a patented algorithm in your spreadsheet and having to pay a small fee each time. Or, in fact the rights management software would be able to track what kind of licensing each piece of digital information has on it, and how that customer is licensed to use it. Perhaps someone pays 100 dollars for unlimited use of a movie, while someone else pays 5 dollars each time the view the movie. Each device or household or person would have an individual licensing status with respect to each piece of digital data, and would pay according to that status for each piece of data.
I could say that the device would make sure that all downloads are only from "approved" sources, so that you wouldn't be able to get a download from someone else.
And hey, let's take it one step farther...the machine will download any kind of data in any currently known or future format from any number of "warehouses" on demand, thereby freeing me from having to have infinite drive space. The licensing and rights would be taken care of automatically at download time by plugging into the machine owner's credit card or bank account or some other kind of account to make sure they can actually use this digital information at this time.
Can I get a patent on this idea? If it's a nonobvious leap going from saving an audio stream while listening to another to doing it with video AND audio, then why not patent this machine. :P Gee I feel so nonobvious and clever today.
Not to pick nits...but "I'm 3117"? Don't you mean "I'm 1337"? I can't believe I'm posting here correcting d00dspeak, I need to go rummage around and find a life.
But all it takes is one developer to remove the nag box, then everyone gets the program from that developer.
No. If Linus had written _everything_ in the kernel, then yes he could do this. The only way this could ever happen to linux is if every person who ever contributed a line of code agreed to do this. Linus doesn't hold the copyright to the code...well not all of it. And, in fact anything that he wrote years ago has probably been tweaked and enhanced by so many other people that any given piece of code would require many? dozens? of people agreeing to release under another license. What Linus could do is change the copyright on his old old old versions back when he was working by himself. But, who would use those when the software has gone so far beyond that point?
I don't know of other cases off hand, but they are much more restrictive.
And remember, the GPL is *not* an EULA (*end user* license agreement) , it's a license for the developer(s).
I have to disagree with you on this one. If you get a binary of a piece of GPLed software and use it as you would be required to use a piece of "regular" proprietary software...i.e. don't try to figure out how it works, don't give it away to anyone else, just use it as written, then you can't run afoul of the GPL. However, the GPL allows you to do many things with the software that a standard EULA prohibits. So, I do see the GPL as an EULA in that sense.
So, that would mean that every copy of linux would have to be returned and destroyed, and every webserver running linux would have to shut down immediately? That wouldn't happen. What might happen is that the "viral clause" might be destroyed, but that's unlikely. Considering the crap that other companies put into their EULA's, the GPL requirement is actually quite minor. What would be interesting is if the viral clause is declared to be too restrictive, could that precedent be used to attack other EULAs?....
First, there aren't any "levels" or "maps", or perhaps I should say the world is one huge level. There are things to attack and kill all over the world, there are things to pick up and use just like in an FPS. The world is persistent, and you can enter and leave the world, but it doesn't stop just because you leave.
The main difference is that you keep your character. When you log in and do stuff, you become better at using certain skills...like for example from an FPS, maybe aiming would be a skill, fast loading, resistance to damage. Every time you get into combat, you use skills, so you get better at them over time. So, an old experienced character with mediocre equipment could destroy a newbie with the best player in the world with the best reflexes and hardware and client cheat upgrades. What it does is make it less of a "player skill" game and more of a "character skill" game by letting you build up your character over a long time.
There are also other things possible. You could go out and mine for ore and take that ore and make items out of it. You could chop down trees and make furniture, if this has been coded. So, there are other kinds of things you can do if that's what interests you. If the game is set up correctly, you should be able to play without engaging in combat much at all, if you so choose.
The pace IS slower than an FPS, but when things do happen, like fighting a big monster, or seeing 10 people walking up to you to pkill you, you get the same kind of rush. The big difference is that if you die, you lose your equipment, maybe some of your skills, but you can work on those skills and get that equipment back, and your character isn't set back to absolute nothing. The learning curve is pretty shallow to start, but generally there's lots of depth and you can't possibly explore all the things to do in only a few hours. If they have it set up correctly, you should be able to get tutorials and introductory maps to starting shops and simple places to learn skills, but if not it can be difficult.
So, there you go...it's kind of like an FPS where there's one huge map representing the whole world, and people can enter and leave the map when they want, and as you kill things on the map, or do things, you get skills that improve that make your CHARACTER better, so that you aren't so reliant on your PLAYER clicking/aiming skill over time.
But most box makers sell the machines at a loss so they can make it up in software. If Nokia is primarily selling the box, won't they have to charge a real price for it?
Moderation totals: Paranoid: +5
This recall won't happen. Not in a million years since it would screw up the country too much, and the only reason patents exist is because on balance they help society more than they hurt it.
But my question is what if you take some GPLed code with no patented code in it, and you add YOUR patented code to it. Then, you sell it and tell your recipients the only way they can execute the code is to never release it. They could choose to get the code and never execute it, and in that case they could continue to release it, so everything's ok. It's only if they want to execute your patented code do they run into a problem.
1. You take a GPLed product, and extend it. You add some patented code into it.
2. You sell it to someone, and you give them the source code as the GPL requires.
3. However, since the GPL doesn't cover the execution of the code, you tell them that the only way they can get a license to execute the patented code is by never releasing the source or binaries to anyone else.
4. And anyone else who got the code downstream would have the right to have the source code, but not the right to execute it since that would be a patent violation.
Does this mean that a company can use patents to "close" GPLed code?
I think you lose the right to specify who can use it, or how. The only thing you can specify is that if someone else takes your software and gives/sells it to someone else, they must provide the source code to that person.
You can't stop them from doing anything else, and you can't stop specific people from using the code.
On the other hand, if you are the only author of your code, and you don't have any issues with special libraries being used, you could release a GPL version, and then later on you could put your extended version into closed-source software, provided that you are the owner of all of the copyright associated with the source code.
It's clear to me that they should have spent less time sitting around playing stupid "role-playing" games and instead they should have gone out and protected their IP space. Had they gone and gotten the appropriate patents (and believe me this idea would easily be patentable in today's climate), they would have much more than a product. They would have IP. That is so much more important than producing something. Now, by going out of business and by not having their patent portfolio up to date, someone can come along and code this idea up in a day or two. Even though they had to spend years doing expensive basic research to get to where they could produce a product. If they had done that, going out of business wouldn't be the end of it. Failing to produce any code wouldn't be the end of it. They could have licensed their IP for years to come and guaranteed themselves a nice income. Oh well, until those dotcom morons learn that protecting your IP comes first and making products comes second, they will continue to fail.