I wholeheartedly agree with you on the subject of enforcement. Certainly, if no one enforces the GPL, it's not much of a useful license, is it? I do think that this whole Beta == Internal Release issue needs to be addressed in the GPL. That would definitely made enforcement easier.
What Corel did wasn't all that bad - you're right about that. However, I think the reason people are getting so upset is because of the threat that maybe, somewhere along the lines, a company like Microsoft or AOL *will* do something like this, and their intentions will not be so honorable. This is a case of precedence, where we need to make a firm stand on the full disclosure of source to GPL'ed software. I don't hold any ill-will towards Corel, but they do need to be aware of the legal implications of the GPL, in regards to their Beta. I think that Bruce Perens has done a wonderful job making our needs clear to them, and I feel that this situation will be resolved clearly and to both group's acceptance.
Yes, this is definitely a serious issue. One that, we can only hope, will be fixed in the next release of the GPL. I'm no lawyer, but it seems like it's open to a lot of abuse as it stands.
Bruce really spearheaded this and I think we all owe him a big "thank you" for his efforts on our behalf. If it were up to a lot of us, Corel would've just been spammed with hate mail, and them where would we be?
Dvorak (and all the others who make the same point) aren't trying to take away choice. Far from it. They are trying to create a standardized interface, and that's something that big businesses like to see. Different Window Managers react differently and having 5 different WMs in a given company is a training nightmare. I agree that the ability to customize our WM is great, and I'm not willing to sacrifice it, but it would be nice if most of the distributions could choose the *same* WM as the default. If the user wants to change it afterwards, fine, but for non-technical types who just want to do their work, and don't care what the hell the window looks like, it will just get left alone. On other hand, I know this will never happen - oh well:)
Well there's a reason for his either/or take on subjects - he's an editorialist. His articles are supposed to incite emotion/response in people. It's not a "just the facts, m'aam" column, and it's not supposed to be either. Do you think that Dvorak really believes everything that he writes? I realized awhile ago that most of the time his predictions aren't right. I still like his column in PC Magazine though, because it makes me think about topics from a different perspective. Even if I know they're incorrect, it still provokes a little pondering on my part.
Yes, that's true - so the FSF would certainly have a gripe with Corel, but they defintely aren't the only people who are responsible for bringing this problem to court - And on top of that, a good deal of that code was altered (and so, I believe, copyrighted) by programmers outside the FSF.
Hmm, I'm no lawyer, but would the relatively small number of programmers in a distribution be considered a class? I really have no idea on that one. I guess that woule be up to the judge to decide.
It's only a sublicense if you think about it as Corel distributing software to people under contract (which would, as you say, be illegal). But that's not what they're doing at all. The terms of the beta contract place the tester as part of the Corel team. They aren't receiving the software at all - they're helping to develop it. And it's inhouse because it's not distribution. If
I'm developing the Fooglix OS, and I'm doing so under the GPL, I do not have any obigation to give anyone the source code until I release the software (read: binaries, or compilable code) to the general public. Because, before that point, it hasn't been distributed yet.
The GPL says (in the preamble, I'll let the lawyers deal with the rest of it)
if you distribute copies of such a program, whether gratis or for a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights that you have. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the source code. And you must show them these terms so they know their rights.
Now Corel has *not* distributed their software yet. It is my understanding that, by signing an NDA, beta testers more-or-less make themselves part of the Corel development team. In this sense, Corel is not distributing the software - it's still in house. Of course, I could be mistaken.
Not at all - certainly the code for the Kernel isn't exactly beta, but it's inclusion into their distribution *definitely* is. Now, I'm not defending what they've done. I think it's a abuse of the GPL, but I don't necesarrily think that it's illegal. It might just need to be readdressed with the next version of the license. Copyright holders can feel free to amend their licences on future versions to disallow this sort of thing, of course.
The FSF would likely make monetary contributions to the legal aid of a developer suing a company for violation of the GPL - I don't know what kind of money the FSF has though, so that might not be very useful.
It is a problem, but it may not be so cut-and-dry. A beta, by the very idea, is for *internal* release. The fact that they are having people sign this, puts the testers under a light contract with Corel, upholding that "internal" specification. Since the release is internal, and not public, they are under no obligation to release the source, as they haven't actually released the binary either.
Now, having said that - I agree that this needs to be addressed. This sets a dangerous precedent for companies releasing things under the title Beta that are really just commercial-grade.
Putting aside the issue of whether or not this is an actual violation of the GPL (that's for courts to decide, not me) - The FSF can only sue Corel for the violations on the software that they hold the copyright on. This means that in order for Corel to be forced to release the source, etc, the holders of the copyright have to press charges. So if they happen to be distributing code that I own - then it's up to me to press charges.
Ok, admittedly the Catholic church has gone through a lot of crap about some of their priests. It's certainly not a majority of them though - not by a long shot.
How can you say that you don't like Christians? I refuse to believe that there is not a single Christian out there who you would call your friend. That's stereotyping - same as if you said I just don't like jews or even I don't like black people Slashdot is supposed to be an open forum, so you can say whatever you like, but c'mon - leave the bigotry at home.
No, the act of going to church does not make him a better person - I said he was "active" in the church, and by that I mean he was an active member of the community, helping others and providing a sense of leadership. Yes, that is a statement of morality. I could just have easily said that he was "an active member of the men's basketball league", but that wasn't the case.
Did you really find it necesarrily to trash another person's country and religion based on some preconception that we're all gullible? Yeah, you're my hero.
You're grabbing at straws and no court in this man's country would let an obvious pedophile off on such a basis. The fact is that this "13 year-old" told him that she was 13. He had *every* reason to believe that she was. It doesn't matter if he couldn't prove that she was 13 - that's totally incidental. And that crap about seeing an adult there and going ahead with it would never stand up either. He didn't actually have sex with a 13 year-old, did he? No, but that's not the charge - it's intent.
Having said all that, I firmly believe that all men are innocent until proven guilty. Should it turn out, in court, that McNaughton was unfairly arrested, then I think he should be let go. The facts presented in these accounts do not seem to lend themselves to that scenario, however.
Eh... I agree with you to a point, but driving from Seattle to California goes past that point. The FBI had every reason to believe that he would've gone through with the act had this actually been a 13 year old girl. That's a whole lot more than just thoughtcrime. I think it's good that they caught him before he actually did take advantage of any underage girls.
I don't think so, no. I found out awhile back that I man I'd known quite well had been wanted by the police for attempted murder and domestic abuse. I said to myself "Well, y'know - he was a really nice guy..." I'm not sure where I'm going with this, but I think if I saw him today I'd probably say hello and shake his hand. He was always a decent fellow to me and quite active in the church... Of course, he's in jail now, so it's sort of academic.
I whole-heartedly agree - Email, FTP, and CVS are what allow us to collaborate, but my point was that to get where were are today, the Internet needed to become popular. If there wasn't a WWW there wouldn't be nearly as many people on the Internet as home/business access would really be out of the question on a large scale. All that would be left is universities, and while that is a large chunk of many development teams, it's just won't cut the cheese for the kind of heavy development that goes on now.
Anyway, I don't this TBL should be nominated, I was just making a point
That's kind of interesting. The OSS community would *never* have gotten to the point it has without the advent of the WWW. Certainly the internet is what allows us to communicate and coordinate so well, but without the WWW on top of that, there wouldn't be nearly as many of us on this crazy thing. Of course, if we're going to trace back to people who made it all possible, we might as well give the award to Charles Babbage or Alan Turing or someone like that. Oh well, my nomination goes to Alan Cox.
You don't need to spend $1550 to use KDE in a commercial environment, do you? No, of course not. If fact, since KDE was built using the free version of QT, it would be illegal to release it under the non-free version commercially. Obviously, if KDE was released under the Professional version, it would not qualify -- But it wasn't, so that doesn't even come into play
QT is not GPL, so you're right - the people at Troll shouldn't be eligible. But KDE *is* GPL (since everything written under the Free Version of QT has to be), so I don't see why it should be excluded.
A couple of centuries?? Seriously?? I have no clue about this sort of thing, but that seems to push way too far back - You're saying that the monarchy hasn't touched the laws since 1799??
I can totally understand the MS+Java scenario. If you are trying to introduce CS to a bunch of computer newbie freshman, you aren't going to shove them into the world of UNIX right away. Well the truth is that the two best implementations of Java are the Solaris and Windows ports. The Linux port from the people over at blackdown (last time I checked) was still a couple of steps behind. Since the students are trying to learn Java, but not necessarily UNIX, it's best to keep them in an environment that they are familiar with -- Windows. That being said, I attent UMass Boston and our CS110 class was Java, to be compiled on a Sun system that we would telnet into from NT workstations or Macs.
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I wholeheartedly agree with you on the subject of enforcement. Certainly, if no one enforces the GPL, it's not much of a useful license, is it? I do think that this whole Beta == Internal Release issue needs to be addressed in the GPL. That would definitely made enforcement easier.
What Corel did wasn't all that bad - you're right about that. However, I think the reason people are getting so upset is because of the threat that maybe, somewhere along the lines, a company like Microsoft or AOL *will* do something like this, and their intentions will not be so honorable. This is a case of precedence, where we need to make a firm stand on the full disclosure of source to GPL'ed software. I don't hold any ill-will towards Corel, but they do need to be aware of the legal implications of the GPL, in regards to their Beta. I think that Bruce Perens has done a wonderful job making our needs clear to them, and I feel that this situation will be resolved clearly and to both group's acceptance.
Yes, this is definitely a serious issue. One that, we can only hope, will be fixed in the next release of the GPL. I'm no lawyer, but it seems like it's open to a lot of abuse as it stands.
Thanks Bruce!
Dvorak (and all the others who make the same point) aren't trying to take away choice. Far from it. They are trying to create a standardized interface, and that's something that big businesses like to see. Different Window Managers react differently and having 5 different WMs in a given company is a training nightmare. I agree that the ability to customize our WM is great, and I'm not willing to sacrifice it, but it would be nice if most of the distributions could choose the *same* WM as the default. If the user wants to change it afterwards, fine, but for non-technical types who just want to do their work, and don't care what the hell the window looks like, it will just get left alone. On other hand, I know this will never happen - oh well :)
Well there's a reason for his either/or take on subjects - he's an editorialist. His articles are supposed to incite emotion/response in people. It's not a "just the facts, m'aam" column, and it's not supposed to be either. Do you think that Dvorak really believes everything that he writes? I realized awhile ago that most of the time his predictions aren't right. I still like his column in PC Magazine though, because it makes me think about topics from a different perspective. Even if I know they're incorrect, it still provokes a little pondering on my part.
Yes, that's true - so the FSF would certainly have a gripe with Corel, but they defintely aren't the only people who are responsible for bringing this problem to court - And on top of that, a good deal of that code was altered (and so, I believe, copyrighted) by programmers outside the FSF.
Hmm, I'm no lawyer, but would the relatively small number of programmers in a distribution be considered a class? I really have no idea on that one. I guess that woule be up to the judge to decide.
I'm developing the Fooglix OS, and I'm doing so under the GPL, I do not have any obigation to give anyone the source code until I release the software (read: binaries, or compilable code) to the general public. Because, before that point, it hasn't been distributed yet.
if you distribute copies of such a program, whether gratis or for a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights that you have. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the source code. And you must show them these terms so they know their rights.
Now Corel has *not* distributed their software yet. It is my understanding that, by signing an NDA, beta testers more-or-less make themselves part of the Corel development team. In this sense, Corel is not distributing the software - it's still in house. Of course, I could be mistaken.
Not at all - certainly the code for the Kernel isn't exactly beta, but it's inclusion into their distribution *definitely* is. Now, I'm not defending what they've done. I think it's a abuse of the GPL, but I don't necesarrily think that it's illegal. It might just need to be readdressed with the next version of the license. Copyright holders can feel free to amend their licences on future versions to disallow this sort of thing, of course.
The FSF would likely make monetary contributions to the legal aid of a developer suing a company for violation of the GPL - I don't know what kind of money the FSF has though, so that might not be very useful.
Now, having said that - I agree that this needs to be addressed. This sets a dangerous precedent for companies releasing things under the title Beta that are really just commercial-grade.
Putting aside the issue of whether or not this is an actual violation of the GPL (that's for courts to decide, not me) - The FSF can only sue Corel for the violations on the software that they hold the copyright on. This means that in order for Corel to be forced to release the source, etc, the holders of the copyright have to press charges. So if they happen to be distributing code that I own - then it's up to me to press charges.
How can you say that you don't like Christians? I refuse to believe that there is not a single Christian out there who you would call your friend. That's stereotyping - same as if you said I just don't like jews or even I don't like black people Slashdot is supposed to be an open forum, so you can say whatever you like, but c'mon - leave the bigotry at home.
Did you really find it necesarrily to trash another person's country and religion based on some preconception that we're all gullible? Yeah, you're my hero.
Having said all that, I firmly believe that all men are innocent until proven guilty. Should it turn out, in court, that McNaughton was unfairly arrested, then I think he should be let go. The facts presented in these accounts do not seem to lend themselves to that scenario, however.
Eh... I agree with you to a point, but driving from Seattle to California goes past that point. The FBI had every reason to believe that he would've gone through with the act had this actually been a 13 year old girl. That's a whole lot more than just thoughtcrime. I think it's good that they caught him before he actually did take advantage of any underage girls.
I don't think so, no. I found out awhile back that I man I'd known quite well had been wanted by the police for attempted murder and domestic abuse. I said to myself "Well, y'know - he was a really nice guy..." I'm not sure where I'm going with this, but I think if I saw him today I'd probably say hello and shake his hand. He was always a decent fellow to me and quite active in the church... Of course, he's in jail now, so it's sort of academic.
Anyway, I don't this TBL should be nominated, I was just making a point
That's kind of interesting. The OSS community would *never* have gotten to the point it has without the advent of the WWW. Certainly the internet is what allows us to communicate and coordinate so well, but without the WWW on top of that, there wouldn't be nearly as many of us on this crazy thing. Of course, if we're going to trace back to people who made it all possible, we might as well give the award to Charles Babbage or Alan Turing or someone like that. Oh well, my nomination goes to Alan Cox.
You don't need to spend $1550 to use KDE in a commercial environment, do you? No, of course not. If fact, since KDE was built using the free version of QT, it would be illegal to release it under the non-free version commercially. Obviously, if KDE was released under the Professional version, it would not qualify -- But it wasn't, so that doesn't even come into play
QT is not GPL, so you're right - the people at Troll shouldn't be eligible. But KDE *is* GPL (since everything written under the Free Version of QT has to be), so I don't see why it should be excluded.
A couple of centuries?? Seriously?? I have no clue about this sort of thing, but that seems to push way too far back - You're saying that the monarchy hasn't touched the laws since 1799??
I can totally understand the MS+Java scenario. If you are trying to introduce CS to a bunch of computer newbie freshman, you aren't going to shove them into the world of UNIX right away. Well the truth is that the two best implementations of Java are the Solaris and Windows ports. The Linux port from the people over at blackdown (last time I checked) was still a couple of steps behind. Since the students are trying to learn Java, but not necessarily UNIX, it's best to keep them in an environment that they are familiar with -- Windows. That being said, I attent UMass Boston and our CS110 class was Java, to be compiled on a Sun system that we would telnet into from NT workstations or Macs.