It's not open source per se. It's a problem with the whole idea of the license. I can't "add value" to a product because by virtue of adding value, I'm forced to give it away for free.
Stick with one of the other opensource licenses, BSD, or the Apple on or even IBMs.
Selling something that can be gotten for free, isn't going to work anywhere.
So how would using one of the other open source licences help? If Eazel had distributed Nautilus under the BSD licence then they would still be "selling something that can be gotten for free".
If Ximian gave away their services for nothing to push a competitor out of the market so that they could then raise prices and make a fortune then that would be dumping, yes. If they give away software as a sustainable long term plan and make pofits on services that others could equally provide then that is not dumping. If we assume that Microsoft becomes unable to make money from selling software as a result of Gnome then they can still provide whatever services Ximian plan to provide.
If Wacky Hacker develops a copy of your product and releases it for free and drives you out of the market, that's not a crime
Correct
despite that the effect is the same.
The effect is not the same. In the dumping example once the competition is forced out of the market prices will go up, in the free software example this does not happen.
I don't see the logic.
The point is to efficiently utilise resources in providing goods and services to the consumer, not to protect the capitalist. The profit is an incentive to the capitalist to provide things the consumer wants. If the consumer can get those things from elsewhere for less cost, or no cost, then they will and the capitalist loses but that's okay because it's the consumer that the system is intended to benefit (and we're all consumers, though not necessarily of this particular product).
Dumping is only a problem because it allows someone to distort the market in the short term against the interests of the consumer in the long run. Free software does not do this, the consumer gets software that they are happy with for the price, if they are willing to pay more for something better then they can do so, if they are not then they've got what they want.
There is no difference between this and if the rival software was being sold at a much lower price than yours but on a long term sustainable basis.
If consumers would rather have the competing software for nothing than your software at the price you are charging for it then you will go out of business. This is a unfortunate for you personally but it is exactly the outcome that the market is supposed to produce.
Apple, and Microsoft, and thousands of small start-ups. And you, and I if we want, too.
I fail to see why anybody except the 'Anti-Micro$oft' fanatic brigade' should care.
The point is that more people would be able to use their code, not less. If their problem with the GPL is that other people can distribute the code for free then the "problem" they would have with the BSD licence would be even worse.
So what you're saying is that IF people had chosen to develop programs under the BSD licence that in fact they released under the GPL, that then Caldera would have been able to take that software and use it? You might as well say that Caldera could have used all that software if the authors had chosen to donate it directly to Caldera; since it didn't happen it doesn't help. The reason Caldera CAN redistribute that software is because it IS released under the GPL.
The BSD licence and the GPL have in fact made quite different impacts on the world. There is no evidence to suggest that if the GPL had not existed that all software (or substantially all software that Caldera wish to avail themselves of) that is released under the GPL would instead have been released under the BSD licence.
The requirements of the GPL are basically that if you distribute the software to anyone you must also provide them with a copy of the source to that software and you may not place restrictions on them that prevent them from distributiong the software and source further.
It does not require you to distribute the software, or changes to the software, to anyone. It does not require you to distribute sourec to anyone unless you distribute the software to them.
In other words, there is nothing in the GPL that prohibits you from making changes inhouse and keeping them inhouse. If you don't want to distribute the code externally then the GPL doesn't require anything at all.
The GPL can be used as a tool by anti-business developers to stop businesses from benefiting from their work.
Only in the same sense that anti-business home owners can stop businesses from taking over their homes for office space. Not even to that extent in face, GPLd software, including GNU software, is utilised by plenty of businesses and the number is growing.
I'm not sure why developers prefer the GPL over BSD... no wait... I do; I'm a developer. Why a business would hire coders to make GPL software _is_ beyond me though. The only rational there is they're looking for long term benefits to the computing world or they don't know dick diddly about business.
Presumably you'd think the same about a business hiring coders to make BSD licensed software too though?
It's not so much that the statistic is wrong as that it's meaningless.
He said "Approximately 95% of software developed", how do you count that to start with? Is Windows one item of software, or do we count every separate little application or utility that comes with it? Individual library routines? Or are we counting lines of source code, or bytes of object code? Or the time spent developing it?
For the inhouse software are we counting every macro and script? Microsoft presumably have plenty of little inhouse pieces of software that aren't intended for distribution that they use in their development process. They might even have more "items" of software the are purely inhouse than they have for distribution.
I think you could make it 95% if you wanted to, or pretty much anything else.
But with apache, creating custom modifications for custom needs, BSD is great. I'm sure one of the reasons Apache is so widely used is that It can be easily used in the business world.
You can apply custom modifications to GPL software too. Anyone you give the code to you have to give the source to as well, and they're free to redistribute further. That's it though, customising software to your own (or your clients') needs, and charging to do so, is perfectly within the scope of the GPL.
Selling GPL'd software to a mass market presents problems, because your first customer can redistribute to other potential customers. Selling individually customised versions of GPLd software, however, works perfectly well.
Whether Caldera capitalises on GPL software is beside the point. He is saying that, quite rightly, distributing thier own software as GPL is not good business sense.
Perhaps surprisingly, that doesn't seem to be what they're saying.
From the article :
"We would back the GPL as the preferred development-model license," Love said, "but we would back different models for other purposes." At the same time, Love explained, "we would continue to develop and publicly license pieces of technology under the GPL."
The question is, if GPL is the preferred "development-model" licence, what will other licences be used for? Are they going to have a "development-model" licence and a stagnation-model licence, or what? Are they planning on releasing software as GPL whilst it's still in development, then a different licence when it's completed? I don't think it's clear what they're proposing but it doesn't seem to be that they're not going to use GPL any more. I'm not sure that what they're proposing is clear to them either though.
GNU software could have existed just as well under a BSD license. And Caldera would have been no worse off for it.
Windows could have existed under a BSD licence too. The question in both cases isn't whether it could have but whether it would have. All we know for sure in both cases is that it didn't.
So GPL is the only free open source license out there?
It seems a BSD style license would've had the exact same effect.
If GPL was the only licence out there then your second sentence might make sense, but it isn't. There is "a BSD style licence", it's called the BSD licence, and it hasn't "had the exact same effect" as the GPL, so what do you mean by saying it "would've" done? Would have if it wasn't for the fact that it didn't?
Which is a result of capitalism and free commerce...
Hardly. If you said a mixed economy with heavily regulated commerce then you might have a point, but free commerce? Copyrights, patents, consumer protection laws, health and safety regulations, the whole concept of a limited liability company for that matter... the question for most people is which regulations are good and which are bad, not whether commerce should be "free" or not.
Prostitution, drug abuse, sucide, and gay marriage, I guess one mans social freedoms are anothers socieital burdens.
I think you must be using a rather unconventional meaning for the word "freedom". If those are things that people are permitted to do then, yes, those are freedoms. Whether you consider those freedoms, or any others, to be desirable doesn't change the fact that they are freedoms.
The GPL grants you certain rights in return for you giving up certain rights.
Specifically you can copy, modify, and distribute the code. But if you do happen to modify it you are forced to release the source to your changes.
No. You can modify the software as much as you please and no obligations will arise as a result.
What the GPL says is that you may distribute copies of the software, modified or not, under certain circumstances. The default poisition in the absence of the GPL is that copyright law prohibits you from distributing copies of the software. What rights do you feel the GPL has taken away? Without GPL you cannot distribute copies, with GPL you can distribute copies on certain terms.
Similarly speaking, it's obvious that shrinkwrap and EULA extend from copyright law as well. That's the basis for the company being allowed to restrict your use in exchange for the right to use it at all.
Whether it's obvious to you or not it is not true. The validity of shrinkwrap licences (where they are valid, i.e. almost no where) extends from UCITA saying they are lawful, they are not a result of copyright laws.
I've never had a right to use restriction on an automobile I have purchased, nor have I on toasters, televisions or wristwatches.
And you almost certainly haven't on any software you've purchased either, at least assuming you buy as a consumer. You might have had a piece of paper or a message on screen saying you did but that does not make it true.
Pecision in a court order is essential. A judge cannot afford to grant a warrant to seize information from the wrong source. This is fundamental to the system. Everyone makes mistakes. In many situations that doesn't matter. When preparing and authorising a court order you make sure there are enough checks to spot the errors. You cannot afford to make errors that impact upon fundamental rights, that's what happens if you sign an incorrect warrant.
Of course, comparing it to copy protection, it's interesting to note that machines w/ rampant pirate (C=64, atari, amiga...) communities have eventually died out.
I don't see any evidence that piracy was more rampant on those platforms than on PC clones. The reason for the death of all of them look much more market related than anything else. C64 in particular just reached the end of its market life, piracy had nothing to do with it. More than anything else the success of the PC clone based on commodity hardware came to dominate the market due to advantages born of many suppliers for the various components and complete systems vying against one another for market share.
I diagree. Court orders are not something to be taken lightly. Getting the contents right is crucial. Typos in court orders that change the object of the order only arise from incompetence. In this case the judge signed an order requiring information from an IP address that the FBI had not presented any evidence of needing information on. That also was incompetence. There was no justification for the issue of the court order as prepared and signed, taht undermines the whole system.
That is not always the case. There is a difference between little family run stores and large chains. I like the feeling of going in a store and having the manager know me. On the other hand, there is something creepy about a computer looking up your purchasing preferences in a database the moment you step in the store.
The difference is that knowing someone is usually reciprocal, the manager in the little store knows you and you know him, at least to an extent. When you walk into the shop you recongise him and think you know what he knows about you. Having someone who doesn't know you, and who you don't know, know about you is much more disconcerting.
IF you say something that has the direct effect of jeopardizing the life of the President, and IF it does not impinge on the rights of others, I am all for the SS tracking you down. In my book, you have lost your right to anonymitity. but IF that method envolves violating, or potentially violating, the rights of others (i.e. Carnivore) then something needs to be done.
Any rights you lose you lose after the case has been proved beyond reasonable doubt in a court of law. However convinced of your guilt the SS may be before that point you have all the same rights as everyone else. To do otherwise is tyrrany.
Individual rights, I agree, should never be sacrificed unless their is *absolute proof* that there is a need for it. If I had a 15 year old daughter, and you raped her, you just lost all of your rights to feel safe and be happy. And if I knew, without a shred of doubt, that it was you (not YOU per se, just this fictitious person) then my duty would be to hunt you like a wild boar, torture you, and, oh I dunno, I'll leave this one open.
Sure. Provided that you realise that the obligation of the government in that situation is a. to protect the alleged rapist from you, b. to bring them to trial and if found guilty to punish them only within the law and c. to bring you to account for any crimes you committed e.g. the torture you refer to.
BUT if there is *any* doubt, whatsoever, then you don't deserve that. It is why we have a judicial system. No one's life should be ruined on a hunch, or an accusation, or a post that may or may not be you. You deserve due process, not the immediate swooping of black (FBI) birds on you.
See, that's the problem. There is doubt until the person has exercised their due process rights, put their case to the court, had proper representation, been tried by a panel of their peers... what you were suggesting is that if a government agency accuses someone of a crime then at that point that person has forfeited rights. If that's so then those aren't rights at all.
Is this really any different than obtaining a record that shows what numbers called someone? That is and has been common practice for quite a while without too many people complaining.
If it's common practice to obtain records of phone numbers called from or by a person against their wishes when that person is not being accused of any crime then there is something seriously wrong. I suspect that the reason that nobody is complaining is because this is not happening. If it is then the reason is most likely that people don't know about it.
As I understand it, Indymedia are not being accused of any crimes. Lists of who they talk to whether by telephone or internet are not something that the police are entitled to. If they want details to help in an investigation of specific crimes then that's diferent, but they have to be able to narrow it down a lot more than just everyone who accessed a particular media organisation.
Slashdot Mirror
It's not open source per se. It's a problem with the whole idea of the license. I can't "add value" to a product because by virtue of adding value, I'm forced to give it away for free.
Stick with one of the other opensource licenses, BSD, or the Apple on or even IBMs.
Selling something that can be gotten for free, isn't going to work anywhere.
So how would using one of the other open source licences help? If Eazel had distributed Nautilus under the BSD licence then they would still be "selling something that can be gotten for free".
If Ximian gave away their services for nothing to push a competitor out of the market so that they could then raise prices and make a fortune then that would be dumping, yes. If they give away software as a sustainable long term plan and make pofits on services that others could equally provide then that is not dumping. If we assume that Microsoft becomes unable to make money from selling software as a result of Gnome then they can still provide whatever services Ximian plan to provide.
If Wacky Hacker develops a copy of your product and releases it for free and drives you out of the market, that's not a crime
Correct
despite that the effect is the same.
The effect is not the same. In the dumping example once the competition is forced out of the market prices will go up, in the free software example this does not happen.
I don't see the logic.
The point is to efficiently utilise resources in providing goods and services to the consumer, not to protect the capitalist. The profit is an incentive to the capitalist to provide things the consumer wants. If the consumer can get those things from elsewhere for less cost, or no cost, then they will and the capitalist loses but that's okay because it's the consumer that the system is intended to benefit (and we're all consumers, though not necessarily of this particular product).
Dumping is only a problem because it allows someone to distort the market in the short term against the interests of the consumer in the long run. Free software does not do this, the consumer gets software that they are happy with for the price, if they are willing to pay more for something better then they can do so, if they are not then they've got what they want.
There is no difference between this and if the rival software was being sold at a much lower price than yours but on a long term sustainable basis.
If consumers would rather have the competing software for nothing than your software at the price you are charging for it then you will go out of business. This is a unfortunate for you personally but it is exactly the outcome that the market is supposed to produce.
That should be easy. Doesn't your unique creation deserve licence number 24, the HelloWorld.java Open Public Free Source Software Licence?
Apple, and Microsoft, and thousands of small start-ups. And you, and I if we want, too.
I fail to see why anybody except the 'Anti-Micro$oft' fanatic brigade' should care.
The point is that more people would be able to use their code, not less. If their problem with the GPL is that other people can distribute the code for free then the "problem" they would have with the BSD licence would be even worse.
So what you're saying is that IF people had chosen to develop programs under the BSD licence that in fact they released under the GPL, that then Caldera would have been able to take that software and use it? You might as well say that Caldera could have used all that software if the authors had chosen to donate it directly to Caldera; since it didn't happen it doesn't help. The reason Caldera CAN redistribute that software is because it IS released under the GPL.
The BSD licence and the GPL have in fact made quite different impacts on the world. There is no evidence to suggest that if the GPL had not existed that all software (or substantially all software that Caldera wish to avail themselves of) that is released under the GPL would instead have been released under the BSD licence.
The requirements of the GPL are basically that if you distribute the software to anyone you must also provide them with a copy of the source to that software and you may not place restrictions on them that prevent them from distributiong the software and source further.
It does not require you to distribute the software, or changes to the software, to anyone. It does not require you to distribute sourec to anyone unless you distribute the software to them.
In other words, there is nothing in the GPL that prohibits you from making changes inhouse and keeping them inhouse. If you don't want to distribute the code externally then the GPL doesn't require anything at all.
The GPL can be used as a tool by anti-business developers to stop businesses from benefiting from their work.
Only in the same sense that anti-business home owners can stop businesses from taking over their homes for office space. Not even to that extent in face, GPLd software, including GNU software, is utilised by plenty of businesses and the number is growing.
I'm not sure why developers prefer the GPL over BSD ... no wait... I do; I'm a developer. Why a business would hire coders to make GPL software _is_ beyond me though. The only rational there is they're looking for long term benefits to the computing world or they don't know dick diddly about business.
Presumably you'd think the same about a business hiring coders to make BSD licensed software too though?
It's not so much that the statistic is wrong as that it's meaningless.
He said "Approximately 95% of software developed", how do you count that to start with? Is Windows one item of software, or do we count every separate little application or utility that comes with it? Individual library routines? Or are we counting lines of source code, or bytes of object code? Or the time spent developing it?
For the inhouse software are we counting every macro and script? Microsoft presumably have plenty of little inhouse pieces of software that aren't intended for distribution that they use in their development process. They might even have more "items" of software the are purely inhouse than they have for distribution.
I think you could make it 95% if you wanted to, or pretty much anything else.
But with apache, creating custom modifications for custom needs, BSD is great. I'm sure one of the reasons Apache is so widely used is that It can be easily used in the business world.
You can apply custom modifications to GPL software too. Anyone you give the code to you have to give the source to as well, and they're free to redistribute further. That's it though, customising software to your own (or your clients') needs, and charging to do so, is perfectly within the scope of the GPL.
Selling GPL'd software to a mass market presents problems, because your first customer can redistribute to other potential customers. Selling individually customised versions of GPLd software, however, works perfectly well.
Perhaps surprisingly, that doesn't seem to be what they're saying.
From the article :
The question is, if GPL is the preferred "development-model" licence, what will other licences be used for? Are they going to have a "development-model" licence and a stagnation-model licence, or what? Are they planning on releasing software as GPL whilst it's still in development, then a different licence when it's completed? I don't think it's clear what they're proposing but it doesn't seem to be that they're not going to use GPL any more. I'm not sure that what they're proposing is clear to them either though.
GNU software could have existed just as well under a BSD license. And Caldera would have been no worse off for it.
Windows could have existed under a BSD licence too. The question in both cases isn't whether it could have but whether it would have. All we know for sure in both cases is that it didn't.
So GPL is the only free open source license out there?
It seems a BSD style license would've had the exact same effect.
If GPL was the only licence out there then your second sentence might make sense, but it isn't. There is "a BSD style licence", it's called the BSD licence, and it hasn't "had the exact same effect" as the GPL, so what do you mean by saying it "would've" done? Would have if it wasn't for the fact that it didn't?
Which is a result of capitalism and free commerce ...
Hardly. If you said a mixed economy with heavily regulated commerce then you might have a point, but free commerce? Copyrights, patents, consumer protection laws, health and safety regulations, the whole concept of a limited liability company for that matter... the question for most people is which regulations are good and which are bad, not whether commerce should be "free" or not.
Prostitution, drug abuse, sucide, and gay marriage, I guess one mans social freedoms are anothers socieital burdens.
I think you must be using a rather unconventional meaning for the word "freedom". If those are things that people are permitted to do then, yes, those are freedoms. Whether you consider those freedoms, or any others, to be desirable doesn't change the fact that they are freedoms.
You realy have to wonder what the engineers who designed this stuff and claimed they could make it an effective copy protection scheme were thinking.
They were mostly thinking "wow, that's a lot of money for putting together a system I've already told them won't work"
I'm not sure I agree.
The GPL grants you certain rights in return for you giving up certain rights.
Specifically you can copy, modify, and distribute the code. But if you do happen to modify it you are forced to release the source to your changes.
No. You can modify the software as much as you please and no obligations will arise as a result.
What the GPL says is that you may distribute copies of the software, modified or not, under certain circumstances. The default poisition in the absence of the GPL is that copyright law prohibits you from distributing copies of the software. What rights do you feel the GPL has taken away? Without GPL you cannot distribute copies, with GPL you can distribute copies on certain terms.
Similarly speaking, it's obvious that shrinkwrap and EULA extend from copyright law as well. That's the basis for the company being allowed to restrict your use in exchange for the right to use it at all.
Whether it's obvious to you or not it is not true. The validity of shrinkwrap licences (where they are valid, i.e. almost no where) extends from UCITA saying they are lawful, they are not a result of copyright laws.
I've never had a right to use restriction on an automobile I have purchased, nor have I on toasters, televisions or wristwatches.
And you almost certainly haven't on any software you've purchased either, at least assuming you buy as a consumer. You might have had a piece of paper or a message on screen saying you did but that does not make it true.
Pecision in a court order is essential. A judge cannot afford to grant a warrant to seize information from the wrong source. This is fundamental to the system. Everyone makes mistakes. In many situations that doesn't matter. When preparing and authorising a court order you make sure there are enough checks to spot the errors. You cannot afford to make errors that impact upon fundamental rights, that's what happens if you sign an incorrect warrant.
Of course, comparing it to copy protection, it's interesting to note that machines w/ rampant pirate (C=64, atari, amiga...) communities have eventually died out.
I don't see any evidence that piracy was more rampant on those platforms than on PC clones. The reason for the death of all of them look much more market related than anything else. C64 in particular just reached the end of its market life, piracy had nothing to do with it. More than anything else the success of the PC clone based on commodity hardware came to dominate the market due to advantages born of many suppliers for the various components and complete systems vying against one another for market share.
I diagree. Court orders are not something to be taken lightly. Getting the contents right is crucial. Typos in court orders that change the object of the order only arise from incompetence. In this case the judge signed an order requiring information from an IP address that the FBI had not presented any evidence of needing information on. That also was incompetence. There was no justification for the issue of the court order as prepared and signed, taht undermines the whole system.
That is not always the case. There is a difference between little family run stores and large chains. I like the feeling of going in a store and having the manager know me. On the other hand, there is something creepy about a computer looking up your purchasing preferences in a database the moment you step in the store.
The difference is that knowing someone is usually reciprocal, the manager in the little store knows you and you know him, at least to an extent. When you walk into the shop you recongise him and think you know what he knows about you. Having someone who doesn't know you, and who you don't know, know about you is much more disconcerting.
gee I wounder if the big infra-red cap will make you look less suspicious
Presumably looking more or less suspicious isn't a concern of his, I assume he doesn't like having cameras pointed at him. I can understand that.
IF you say something that has the direct effect of jeopardizing the life of the President, and IF it does not impinge on the rights of others, I am all for the SS tracking you down. In my book, you have lost your right to anonymitity. but IF that method envolves violating, or potentially violating, the rights of others (i.e. Carnivore) then something needs to be done.
Any rights you lose you lose after the case has been proved beyond reasonable doubt in a court of law. However convinced of your guilt the SS may be before that point you have all the same rights as everyone else. To do otherwise is tyrrany.
Individual rights, I agree, should never be sacrificed unless their is *absolute proof* that there is a need for it. If I had a 15 year old daughter, and you raped her, you just lost all of your rights to feel safe and be happy. And if I knew, without a shred of doubt, that it was you (not YOU per se, just this fictitious person) then my duty would be to hunt you like a wild boar, torture you, and, oh I dunno, I'll leave this one open.
Sure. Provided that you realise that the obligation of the government in that situation is a. to protect the alleged rapist from you, b. to bring them to trial and if found guilty to punish them only within the law and c. to bring you to account for any crimes you committed e.g. the torture you refer to.
BUT if there is *any* doubt, whatsoever, then you don't deserve that. It is why we have a judicial system. No one's life should be ruined on a hunch, or an accusation, or a post that may or may not be you. You deserve due process, not the immediate swooping of black (FBI) birds on you.
See, that's the problem. There is doubt until the person has exercised their due process rights, put their case to the court, had proper representation, been tried by a panel of their peers... what you were suggesting is that if a government agency accuses someone of a crime then at that point that person has forfeited rights. If that's so then those aren't rights at all.
Is this really any different than obtaining a record that shows what numbers called someone? That is and has been common practice for quite a while without too many people complaining.
If it's common practice to obtain records of phone numbers called from or by a person against their wishes when that person is not being accused of any crime then there is something seriously wrong. I suspect that the reason that nobody is complaining is because this is not happening. If it is then the reason is most likely that people don't know about it.
As I understand it, Indymedia are not being accused of any crimes. Lists of who they talk to whether by telephone or internet are not something that the police are entitled to. If they want details to help in an investigation of specific crimes then that's diferent, but they have to be able to narrow it down a lot more than just everyone who accessed a particular media organisation.