I fully agree with you that trading mp3s en masse is illegal, the web site operators are in the wrong, and they should be busted.
Even so, the Recording Industry Association of Korea has no right to publish patently false damage claims. I don't think any person in their right mind can possibly believe that national record sales would have been 535% higher without this web site.
Media and software companies have been publishing ridiculously implausible damage figures for years, and it's time they put a stop to it. The reality of copyright infringement is bad enough; there is no need to falsely inflate the damage.
they should expect to be berated by the minority in the Free Software community who look upon every act GPL-advocacy as a quest on par with the search for the Holy Grail in terms of importance.
So, let me get this straignt. Berating someone is a bad thing, unless you're doing the berating, right?
As for the "License? Who cares? Do what you like" attitude, I'm all for it, as long as you apply it consistently. If you disregard the GPL, then you must disregard proprietary licenses as well, and furthermore you cannot expect anyone to heed any licenses you may have on your own software.
Thank you for that clarification. It's good that we both agree the GPL should be legal.
To get back to your original questions:
Not everything has to be GPL compatible. In fact, there probably exists more GPL incompatible software, than GPL compatible software.
A company is perfectly free to release software not under the GPL. In light of this point, your use of the words "virus" and "invade" is inappropriate.
No one forces you to use the GPL. But when other people like the Python developers choose to use the GPL (or any other license), please respect their licensing terms.
The fundamental paradox of your position is, you cannot disregard GPL licensing terms without at the same time disregarding all other licensing terms. Both are based on the same premise: if you wanna use the code, you gotta follow the license.
Why can't a company be free to release an open-source app that doesn't allow the General Public Virus...
As far as I can tell, a company is still perfectly free to release an open source app under a license other than the GPL. There is no law against it.
Conversely, there is no law against choosing to release your program under the GPL. However, there are laws against releasing viruses, and it sounded very strongly to me that the poster would support illegalizing the GPL "virus".
Unless you are suggesting that the Python developers were forced to change their license involuntarily, I see no reason why there is anything wrong with the Python developers choosing a new license for their code, on their own free will.
And I think the rest of us who use the Python software are obligated to follow the new license, whether that license is the GPL or a Microsoft EULA.
Harassment is a strong word, with a legal definition. Do you really RMS and other GPL advocates subjected the Python team to legal harassment?
If harassing tactics were used to force the Python team to change their license, then that is clearly wrong. But if the Python team voluntarily chooses a new license, then I think everyone else using their code is obligated to respect that decision.
I was addressing the majority of GPL complainants, not you specifically. For the vast majority of GPL complainants, my admonishment is relevant.
Faced with an anonymous coward post, I had to go with the numbers and choose the reply with the greatest chance of being relevant. I apologize for completely misreading your particular perspective.
Anyway, if you are not a programmer, why do you hate the GPL so much, to the point of calling it a virus? It can't possibly affect your life.
If you have plans to sell a proprietary product, then you are the pot, and you are calling the kettle black, and you are merely reinforcing my point.
Why in God's name are you allowed to choose whatever restrictions you want on your proprietary software, no matter how restrictive, but I can't choose the GPL without drawing your flames?
In my experience, everyone who dislikes the GPL does so because they want to use open source code in proprietary applications and the GPL won't let them.
And so I ask you: If you are writing proprietary applications, or allowing development of proprietary applications, then what right do you have to complain against the GPL, when your own proprietary program has a far more restrictive license?
Please let loose the strings on your own code, before you complain about strings other people choose to attach on their code. You're the one who is crying gimme gimme gimme.
In his cancer sentence, Ballmer deliberately and misleadingly lumps all open source software into the same category as GPL software. Many here have already pointed out this mistake.
However, a point that no one has yet made, that I think deserves to be made, is that source code for closed source programs like Microsoft Windows is not allowed to be used in other programs AT ALL. What right does Mr. Ballmer have to complain about GPL restrictions, when his own software carries far worse restrictions?
Why is there a double standard, whereby Mr. Ballmer may choose any restrictions he wants on Windows code, but any licensing restrictions on Linux code is automatically considered "a cancer"?
As far as I can tell, there is only one thing the BSD license allows that the GPL does not allow: the ability to use the covered code in a proprietary program.
Accordingly, the only way you might benefit from the BSD license over the GPL is if you were writing or using a proprietary program.
In this case, who are you to complain about freedom?
This amendment has no bearing on privacy. Mere observation does not fall into the category of "searches and seizures". The difference is that the former does not require physical contact, while the latter does.
Many believe that the authors of the Constitution did not bother to set forth any rights to privacy, simply because it never occurred to them that it could be taken away. Things like long range directional microphones and satellite photography were completely inconceivable during that era.
Psst. Try hitting the MENU button. Skips past all that introductory crap.
Many DVD players (especially the cheaper ones) do not allow you to skip past opening content that is marked by the manufacturer as unskippable. Pressing the Menu button with these players yields only a red circle in the corner with a red slash through it.
It really sucks, especially so because many consumers on the market aren't even aware of this so-called "feature".
I wonder what RMS would say on this one? Anybody want to ask him?
RMS's position on copyrighting software (and data) is that even though the GPL depends on software copyrights to function, he would much prefer a world without software copyrights, where there would be no need for the GPL.
I remember once reading a quotation on the GNU web site that asserted the above directly, but I can't find it any more. I did, however, find the following quotes, which together amply illustrate the FSF position:
No matter what sort of published information is being shared, we urge people to reject the assumption that some person or company has a
natural right to prohibit sharing and dictate exactly how the public can use it. (
source)
The idea of copyleft is that we should fight fire with fire--that we should use copyright to make sure our code stays free. (source)
Since proprietary software developers use copyright to stop us from sharing, we cooperators can use copyright to give other cooperators an advantage. (source)
Almost all current algorithms are based on a NP-complete math problem- something like factoring, in the case of RSA.
This sentence is misleading for the following reasons:
It has not been proven that the integer factorization problem is NP-complete. An NP complete problem by definition is both NP and NP-hard. Integer factorization is known to be NP but it is not known to be NP-hard.
It has not been proven that RSA is equivalent to factoring. We know that if the factoring problem is solved then the RSA problem is solved, but we do not have a proof that factoring is the only way to solve the RSA problem.
Please try to avoid furthering the misconceptions that factoring is NP-complete or that RSA is equivalent to factoring. Both facts might very well be true, but they have not yet been proven.
I assure you that binary.dsp files aren't the source code.
Let me begin by saying I am one of the most die-hard free software advocates out there. I have yet to read any article by RMS that I disagree with.
That said, your complaint that the dsp modem algorithms, which would typically be present in hardware, should be given to the world in source form, is enough to give even me pause.
So-called hardware algorithms, written in microcode and etched in silicon, are pervasive in the computing world, not just in modems, but also CPUs, hard drives, network cards, video cards, and a whole lot more. The free software community has not demanded release of such silicon code in the past. Whether or not we should is a different question. I suspect that if you put the question to RMS directly, he would have to advocate free-ness of the code. However, even the FSF purchases and uses hardware containing such (closed-source) silicon code without compunction.
I myself think (and I may even find myself disagreeing with RMS on this one, although to be fair I haven't asked him for his view) that the need for free software stops as soon as you start talking about software that is so integrally tied up with the hardware, that you would need whole new hardware to even contemplate making use of changes in the software. Processor microcode, hard drive error correction algorithms, and yes, modem dsp code, all fall into this category. I do not require the availability of Intel Pentium microcode, Seagate hard drive error correction code, or IBM modem dsp code when purchasing hardware, and neither should you.
Actually, djb's software is not open source, because it does not come with permission to distribute modified packages.
djb's qmail license is very famous in distributor circles. Its restrictiveness is the primary reason why qmail is not included in most major linux distributions.
As for djbdns, as near as I can tell the djbdns package comes with NO license at all (please someone correct me if I'm wrong), which means that with regards to djbdns you and I have only the rights allowed under fair use, and nothing more. (Interestingly, djb has written an entire page addressing this very point.)
I agree that open source software offers business opportunities, but djb's software sadly is not open source.
encryption regulations would restrict less well-financed criminal operations.
No, they wouldn't.
Gnu Privacy Guard is a very popular, well known, open source and free software e-mail encryption program available from Germany. Exactly how would US encryption regulations affect anything done in Germany?
Key escrow sounds very nice in theory but how in the world do you propose enforcing its use by international terrorist groups? Even the most poorly-financed terrorist group has free access to Gnu Privacy Guard which obviously has no key escrow capabilities.
US laws regulating encryption have the distinct disadvantage that criminals and foreigners (the very two groups the US is trying to control) are not bound by them.
Just because a directory name is 32 characters long does not mean you have to type all 32 characters to enter it into the computer. I suggest you read up on the "TAB completion" feature that others in neighboring threads have already pointed out.
I can enter about 10 keystrokes in the amount of time it takes you to move your hand over to the mouse to fire off a mouse click. Your computation also neglects to consider the mouse motion required in moving over from the folder to the text editor. And I don't know about you but most people don't have text editors open all the time--opening a text editor is a fairly nontrivial action considering that we're sitting here counting 17 keystrokes.
Did I mention that in many cases you might want to save the text file after you were done pasting in the filenames? More steps on mac, zero steps on unix. Also bonus extra keystrokes if you want your filename to be something other than "Untitled"
Even if outputting the clipboard to a file was a keystroke, what would that file be named? If the user must enter in the filename, the Mac comes off much worse than unix, as most of the 17 keystrokes in the unix measurement consisted of typing in the filename.
Macs are great for many things but text processing is not one of them. "ls *.txt" is damn near impossible on a mac.
Is anyone else even slightly worried that Dubya will reverse the executive order legalizing export of encryption software from the United States? Crypto liberalization has been a great thing; I hate to see it taken away.
that doesn't justify "freeloading" off of them. Two wrongs DO NOT make a right.
As I said I have been on complete boycott for two years. My "freeloading" suggestion was meant as an alternative for those who might prefer it over a complete boycott.
I value your responses very highly and I am definitely re-evaluating my opinions to take your points into account.
The MPAA's actions are legal and conform strictly with the letter of the law, but they are unethical. Using lobbyists to buy a law which overly restricts copying above and beyond what our Founding Fathers intended, just to add to your corporate profits, is legal but unethical.
My actions are illegal but ethical. I challenge you to find a single entity in the world which is materially harmed when I freeload a movie that I wouldn't have watched anyway without the freeloading. And of course even this argument is a moot point, because I don't freeload anymore -- I've been boycotting the MPAA for two years and counting.
Illegal actions should not be confused with unethical actions. When Rosa Parks refused to yield her bus seat, what she was doing was very illegal, but also very ethical. Sometimes when the law is unjust, honesty actually demands that it be broken.
I do not recommend watching Hollywood movies at all. This position should have been abundantly clear from the rest of my post.
However I realize that the practical reality is that many people cannot live without their Hollywood movies. If they don't care about MPAA issues, then fine; but if they do care, theater switching may be a viable alternative to total deprivation.
It is slightly dishonest, and I would not recommend this procedure for the Abe-Lincoln types out there. However, like most americans, I have no moral objections to freeloading something that has near-zero marginal cost, especially if I wouldn't have paid for it under any circumstances anyway.
My last question is, if theater switching is "empty" and "pointless", then why do you care so much?
Slashdot Mirror
Even so, the Recording Industry Association of Korea has no right to publish patently false damage claims. I don't think any person in their right mind can possibly believe that national record sales would have been 535% higher without this web site.
Media and software companies have been publishing ridiculously implausible damage figures for years, and it's time they put a stop to it. The reality of copyright infringement is bad enough; there is no need to falsely inflate the damage.
Two wrongs don't make a right.
So, let me get this straignt. Berating someone is a bad thing, unless you're doing the berating, right?
As for the "License? Who cares? Do what you like" attitude, I'm all for it, as long as you apply it consistently. If you disregard the GPL, then you must disregard proprietary licenses as well, and furthermore you cannot expect anyone to heed any licenses you may have on your own software.
To get back to your original questions:
- Not everything has to be GPL compatible. In fact, there probably exists more GPL incompatible software, than GPL compatible software.
- A company is perfectly free to release software not under the GPL. In light of this point, your use of the words "virus" and "invade" is inappropriate.
No one forces you to use the GPL. But when other people like the Python developers choose to use the GPL (or any other license), please respect their licensing terms.The fundamental paradox of your position is, you cannot disregard GPL licensing terms without at the same time disregarding all other licensing terms. Both are based on the same premise: if you wanna use the code, you gotta follow the license.
As far as I can tell, a company is still perfectly free to release an open source app under a license other than the GPL. There is no law against it.
Conversely, there is no law against choosing to release your program under the GPL. However, there are laws against releasing viruses, and it sounded very strongly to me that the poster would support illegalizing the GPL "virus".
Unless you are suggesting that the Python developers were forced to change their license involuntarily, I see no reason why there is anything wrong with the Python developers choosing a new license for their code, on their own free will.
And I think the rest of us who use the Python software are obligated to follow the new license, whether that license is the GPL or a Microsoft EULA.
If harassing tactics were used to force the Python team to change their license, then that is clearly wrong. But if the Python team voluntarily chooses a new license, then I think everyone else using their code is obligated to respect that decision.
Faced with an anonymous coward post, I had to go with the numbers and choose the reply with the greatest chance of being relevant. I apologize for completely misreading your particular perspective.
Anyway, if you are not a programmer, why do you hate the GPL so much, to the point of calling it a virus? It can't possibly affect your life.
Why in God's name are you allowed to choose whatever restrictions you want on your proprietary software, no matter how restrictive, but I can't choose the GPL without drawing your flames?
And so I ask you: If you are writing proprietary applications, or allowing development of proprietary applications, then what right do you have to complain against the GPL, when your own proprietary program has a far more restrictive license?
Please let loose the strings on your own code, before you complain about strings other people choose to attach on their code. You're the one who is crying gimme gimme gimme.
Many other comments here have already addressed the specific point that you bring up. See for example here, here, and here.
However, a point that no one has yet made, that I think deserves to be made, is that source code for closed source programs like Microsoft Windows is not allowed to be used in other programs AT ALL. What right does Mr. Ballmer have to complain about GPL restrictions, when his own software carries far worse restrictions?
Why is there a double standard, whereby Mr. Ballmer may choose any restrictions he wants on Windows code, but any licensing restrictions on Linux code is automatically considered "a cancer"?
Accordingly, the only way you might benefit from the BSD license over the GPL is if you were writing or using a proprietary program.
In this case, who are you to complain about freedom?
Many believe that the authors of the Constitution did not bother to set forth any rights to privacy, simply because it never occurred to them that it could be taken away. Things like long range directional microphones and satellite photography were completely inconceivable during that era.
autorpm
Many DVD players (especially the cheaper ones) do not allow you to skip past opening content that is marked by the manufacturer as unskippable. Pressing the Menu button with these players yields only a red circle in the corner with a red slash through it.
It really sucks, especially so because many consumers on the market aren't even aware of this so-called "feature".
RMS's position on copyrighting software (and data) is that even though the GPL depends on software copyrights to function, he would much prefer a world without software copyrights, where there would be no need for the GPL.
I remember once reading a quotation on the GNU web site that asserted the above directly, but I can't find it any more. I did, however, find the following quotes, which together amply illustrate the FSF position:
The discs are the same discs as the ones regularly sold in stores. It appears that most of them are region 1.
This sentence is misleading for the following reasons:
- It has not been proven that the integer factorization problem is NP-complete. An NP complete problem by definition is both NP and NP-hard. Integer factorization is known to be NP but it is not known to be NP-hard.
- It has not been proven that RSA is equivalent to factoring. We know that if the factoring problem is solved then the RSA problem is solved, but we do not have a proof that factoring is the only way to solve the RSA problem.
Please try to avoid furthering the misconceptions that factoring is NP-complete or that RSA is equivalent to factoring. Both facts might very well be true, but they have not yet been proven.Let me begin by saying I am one of the most die-hard free software advocates out there. I have yet to read any article by RMS that I disagree with.
That said, your complaint that the dsp modem algorithms, which would typically be present in hardware, should be given to the world in source form, is enough to give even me pause.
So-called hardware algorithms, written in microcode and etched in silicon, are pervasive in the computing world, not just in modems, but also CPUs, hard drives, network cards, video cards, and a whole lot more. The free software community has not demanded release of such silicon code in the past. Whether or not we should is a different question. I suspect that if you put the question to RMS directly, he would have to advocate free-ness of the code. However, even the FSF purchases and uses hardware containing such (closed-source) silicon code without compunction.
I myself think (and I may even find myself disagreeing with RMS on this one, although to be fair I haven't asked him for his view) that the need for free software stops as soon as you start talking about software that is so integrally tied up with the hardware, that you would need whole new hardware to even contemplate making use of changes in the software. Processor microcode, hard drive error correction algorithms, and yes, modem dsp code, all fall into this category. I do not require the availability of Intel Pentium microcode, Seagate hard drive error correction code, or IBM modem dsp code when purchasing hardware, and neither should you.
Actually, djb's software is not open source, because it does not come with permission to distribute modified packages.
djb's qmail license is very famous in distributor circles. Its restrictiveness is the primary reason why qmail is not included in most major linux distributions.
As for djbdns, as near as I can tell the djbdns package comes with NO license at all (please someone correct me if I'm wrong), which means that with regards to djbdns you and I have only the rights allowed under fair use, and nothing more. (Interestingly, djb has written an entire page addressing this very point.)
I agree that open source software offers business opportunities, but djb's software sadly is not open source.
No, they wouldn't.
Gnu Privacy Guard is a very popular, well known, open source and free software e-mail encryption program available from Germany. Exactly how would US encryption regulations affect anything done in Germany?
Key escrow sounds very nice in theory but how in the world do you propose enforcing its use by international terrorist groups? Even the most poorly-financed terrorist group has free access to Gnu Privacy Guard which obviously has no key escrow capabilities.
US laws regulating encryption have the distinct disadvantage that criminals and foreigners (the very two groups the US is trying to control) are not bound by them.
- Just because a directory name is 32 characters long does not mean you have to type all 32 characters to enter it into the computer. I suggest you read up on the "TAB completion" feature that others in neighboring threads have already pointed out.
- I can enter about 10 keystrokes in the amount of time it takes you to move your hand over to the mouse to fire off a mouse click. Your computation also neglects to consider the mouse motion required in moving over from the folder to the text editor. And I don't know about you but most people don't have text editors open all the time--opening a text editor is a fairly nontrivial action considering that we're sitting here counting 17 keystrokes.
- Did I mention that in many cases you might want to save the text file after you were done pasting in the filenames? More steps on mac, zero steps on unix. Also bonus extra keystrokes if you want your filename to be something other than "Untitled"
- Even if outputting the clipboard to a file was a keystroke, what would that file be named? If the user must enter in the filename, the Mac comes off much worse than unix, as most of the 17 keystrokes in the unix measurement consisted of typing in the filename.
Macs are great for many things but text processing is not one of them. "ls *.txt" is damn near impossible on a mac.Is anyone else even slightly worried that Dubya will reverse the executive order legalizing export of encryption software from the United States? Crypto liberalization has been a great thing; I hate to see it taken away.
As I said I have been on complete boycott for two years. My "freeloading" suggestion was meant as an alternative for those who might prefer it over a complete boycott.
I value your responses very highly and I am definitely re-evaluating my opinions to take your points into account.
My actions are illegal but ethical. I challenge you to find a single entity in the world which is materially harmed when I freeload a movie that I wouldn't have watched anyway without the freeloading. And of course even this argument is a moot point, because I don't freeload anymore -- I've been boycotting the MPAA for two years and counting.
Illegal actions should not be confused with unethical actions. When Rosa Parks refused to yield her bus seat, what she was doing was very illegal, but also very ethical. Sometimes when the law is unjust, honesty actually demands that it be broken.
I do not recommend watching Hollywood movies at all. This position should have been abundantly clear from the rest of my post.
However I realize that the practical reality is that many people cannot live without their Hollywood movies. If they don't care about MPAA issues, then fine; but if they do care, theater switching may be a viable alternative to total deprivation.
It is slightly dishonest, and I would not recommend this procedure for the Abe-Lincoln types out there. However, like most americans, I have no moral objections to freeloading something that has near-zero marginal cost, especially if I wouldn't have paid for it under any circumstances anyway.
My last question is, if theater switching is "empty" and "pointless", then why do you care so much?