Joe the burger-flipper buys a car with Linux embedded in the dashboard computer. He then sells it to Jim. Jim asks Joe for source-code. Joe doesn't know what source-code is.
So, there are some cases where it doesn't make sense to ask the "distributor". The manufacturer would know what to do, and the manufacturer has created the derivative work involved. In general, the manufacturer would take care of this obligation for Joe.
The vendor has to comply with all of the license terms. Including providing the license statement, etc. We don't want to give them another decision to make by making them check if they've made any changes, and then do so again every time they distribute a new version, we just want them to provide the source as that ends up being easiest.
If they have made no modification, we will be able to see that from the source that they provide. But they often make modifications, if only to fix a bug, to port the software, or to add a feature. If they have any sense they don't link their big proprietary feature into the Busybox executable. But even if they did, they could remove it as part of coming into compliance.
Yes, there's that. He also worked on the program after he was no longer employed by that company. I am not disputing that he has significant copyright interest in the program as it exists today.
When you make an embedded linux system, like in a network access point, Busybox is the user-mode component, and the other main component is the Linux kernel. Busybox provides a command-line environment that looks like the one provided in a Linux distribution, but is smaller. SFLC is involved in prosecuting Busybox violations because nobody with a significant copyright in the Linux kernel has asked them to prosecute GPL violations with regard to Linux.
In the U.S. any of the copyright holders can sue independently. Elsewhere, that might not be true. And they each have the right to decide to look for damages, or not. Mostly, Free Software developers forgive past infringement in exchange for current compliance and do not ask for damages. However, if a company is a long-term non-responder, they will look for compensation for their time.
The current suit is brought in the name of Erik Andersen. Erik worked for an embedded Linux company, now defunct, for a few years and was paid to maintain Busybox during that time. During that time the company's name appeared in copyright statements, and mine mostly disappeared.
I didn't mention a tag, sorry. This would probably be a version pulled from an old Debian release. There were subsequent developers to me, for example Dave Cinege and the Linux Router Project, before the source-code control system currently in use for Busybox was established.
I my contribution is not gone from the rather old version of Busybox which was subject to the copyright registration and is mentioned in the lawsuit. If necessary, yes, a diff can be produced. I also have a compilation copyright of various sorts, which can't be represented with a diff. And there is also the matter of non-literal copying, which probably exists despite Landley's claim, and can't be represented with a diff.
It sounds as if you could be a little confused about this. MySQL owned the complete copyright to the MySQL server. So, they could commercially license it as well as provide it under the GPL. Most GPL projects do not have this capability, because no one entity owns the entire copyright and the aggregate of all copyright holders do not work together to dual-license.
So, Sun bought the rights to commercially license MySQL, and to enforce the GPL on those who do not have commercial licenses. Now Oracle will have that.
Yes. Having seen Eben Moglen speak in favor of Oracle, if someone thinks the GPL partisans are the problem they aren't reading more than the headlines.
MySQL didn't take that many "public" contributions as far as I'm aware. They weren't really community developed, instead they hired the good developers out of the community. If you have a large body of code in there, with relicensing privileges or copyright ownership in Oracle's hands, and you've not been paid to develop it, I'd like to hear from you.
Monty has been paid somewhere north of 100 Million dollars in the MySQL purchase by Sun. Now, having been paid, Monty wants MySQL back for his business - without returning the money. And Monty has no problem with FUD-ing the GPL to get what he wants, even if the GPL provided half of the business method (dual-licensing) that made him rich.
Now, having been paid, I would think that an ethical position for Monty would be to allow MySQL's new owners to have what they paid for.
We can all use MySQL with no problem whatsoever under the GPL. With proprietary clients and Free clients, with no problem. An application across the network interface from the server, speaking a published and standard protocol, is not a derivative work. The GPL wouldn't apply to such an application. There is a GPL-ed client library that has to be replaced with a non-GPL version, but that version has existed for a decade.
Monty is free to do his business with the GPL version if he wishes. But it seems he wants to have his cake and eat it.
The reason that the confusion is a bad idea is that copyright law - not the Open Source folks - define a set of individual rights, and without knowing the definition of those rights you end up not being able to much much sense about them. You end up like those folks who think the internet is made of tubes.
GPL 3 clearly allows commercial use, and is indeed one of the best licenses to use with dual licensing, which is one of the very few proven business methods for Open Source / Free Software.
A lot of people confuse "use" with "derivative works". Use means run the program.
I have the console from the Lucasfilm VAX 780. Just the top part with a few switches and lights, and a key lock, on display on the wall in my office. I removed it before Pixar (which had spun off from Lucasfilm) threw the VAX away. Apparently this is the machine used for the Genesis Effect (Star Trek) and perhaps some later Star Wars effects shot using the Evans and Sutherland Picture System 2 or 3. It would have been purchased in 1981 or later.
It's not me, it's the law and your employment. You probably even signed a work-for-hire agreement when you got your job, and didn't notice. It's that way for most people. But even if you didn't, your employer has a right to certain of your output - generally that which is related to what you do for your employer, regardless of what time you do it. This is often a problem for Open Source developers. We have to convince their company that it doesn't want their Open Source work.
Slashdot Mirror
Joe the burger-flipper buys a car with Linux embedded in the dashboard computer. He then sells it to Jim. Jim asks Joe for source-code. Joe doesn't know what source-code is.
So, there are some cases where it doesn't make sense to ask the "distributor". The manufacturer would know what to do, and the manufacturer has created the derivative work involved. In general, the manufacturer would take care of this obligation for Joe.
The vendor has to comply with all of the license terms. Including providing the license statement, etc. We don't want to give them another decision to make by making them check if they've made any changes, and then do so again every time they distribute a new version, we just want them to provide the source as that ends up being easiest.
If they have made no modification, we will be able to see that from the source that they provide. But they often make modifications, if only to fix a bug, to port the software, or to add a feature. If they have any sense they don't link their big proprietary feature into the Busybox executable. But even if they did, they could remove it as part of coming into compliance.
Yes, there's that. He also worked on the program after he was no longer employed by that company. I am not disputing that he has significant copyright interest in the program as it exists today.
When you make an embedded linux system, like in a network access point, Busybox is the user-mode component, and the other main component is the Linux kernel. Busybox provides a command-line environment that looks like the one provided in a Linux distribution, but is smaller. SFLC is involved in prosecuting Busybox violations because nobody with a significant copyright in the Linux kernel has asked them to prosecute GPL violations with regard to Linux.
In the U.S. any of the copyright holders can sue independently. Elsewhere, that might not be true. And they each have the right to decide to look for damages, or not. Mostly, Free Software developers forgive past infringement in exchange for current compliance and do not ask for damages. However, if a company is a long-term non-responder, they will look for compensation for their time.
The current suit is brought in the name of Erik Andersen. Erik worked for an embedded Linux company, now defunct, for a few years and was paid to maintain Busybox during that time. During that time the company's name appeared in copyright statements, and mine mostly disappeared.
I didn't mention a tag, sorry. This would probably be a version pulled from an old Debian release. There were subsequent developers to me, for example Dave Cinege and the Linux Router Project, before the source-code control system currently in use for Busybox was established.
I my contribution is not gone from the rather old version of Busybox which was subject to the copyright registration and is mentioned in the lawsuit. If necessary, yes, a diff can be produced. I also have a compilation copyright of various sorts, which can't be represented with a diff. And there is also the matter of non-literal copying, which probably exists despite Landley's claim, and can't be represented with a diff.
It sounds as if you could be a little confused about this. MySQL owned the complete copyright to the MySQL server. So, they could commercially license it as well as provide it under the GPL. Most GPL projects do not have this capability, because no one entity owns the entire copyright and the aggregate of all copyright holders do not work together to dual-license.
So, Sun bought the rights to commercially license MySQL, and to enforce the GPL on those who do not have commercial licenses. Now Oracle will have that.
Yes. Having seen Eben Moglen speak in favor of Oracle, if someone thinks the GPL partisans are the problem they aren't reading more than the headlines.
MySQL didn't take that many "public" contributions as far as I'm aware. They weren't really community developed, instead they hired the good developers out of the community. If you have a large body of code in there, with relicensing privileges or copyright ownership in Oracle's hands, and you've not been paid to develop it, I'd like to hear from you.
Because it works with so much software. Next to that, ANSI 92 isn't important. It makes sense that Open Source could trump an Open Standard.
There are a number of MySQL forks, one of which is being operated by Monty's company, under the GPL. They don't seem to need BSD for that.
Monty has been paid somewhere north of 100 Million dollars in the MySQL purchase by Sun. Now, having been paid, Monty wants MySQL back for his business - without returning the money. And Monty has no problem with FUD-ing the GPL to get what he wants, even if the GPL provided half of the business method (dual-licensing) that made him rich.
Now, having been paid, I would think that an ethical position for Monty would be to allow MySQL's new owners to have what they paid for.
We can all use MySQL with no problem whatsoever under the GPL. With proprietary clients and Free clients, with no problem. An application across the network interface from the server, speaking a published and standard protocol, is not a derivative work. The GPL wouldn't apply to such an application. There is a GPL-ed client library that has to be replaced with a non-GPL version, but that version has existed for a decade.
Monty is free to do his business with the GPL version if he wishes. But it seems he wants to have his cake and eat it.
Bruce
The reason that the confusion is a bad idea is that copyright law - not the Open Source folks - define a set of individual rights, and without knowing the definition of those rights you end up not being able to much much sense about them. You end up like those folks who think the internet is made of tubes.
A lot of people confuse "use" with "derivative works". Use means run the program.
Elephants have been larger in the past, the big ones are now extinct. Besides food inefficiency, cooling is a problem.
The problem with social networking is that society, as an aggregate, sucks :-)
It seems to me that a transfer oriented architecture is conceptually very easy to parallelize.
I've got some of them around somewhere. Sorry. :-)
I have the console from the Lucasfilm VAX 780. Just the top part with a few switches and lights, and a key lock, on display on the wall in my office. I removed it before Pixar (which had spun off from Lucasfilm) threw the VAX away. Apparently this is the machine used for the Genesis Effect (Star Trek) and perhaps some later Star Wars effects shot using the Evans and Sutherland Picture System 2 or 3. It would have been purchased in 1981 or later.
It's not me, it's the law and your employment. You probably even signed a work-for-hire agreement when you got your job, and didn't notice. It's that way for most people. But even if you didn't, your employer has a right to certain of your output - generally that which is related to what you do for your employer, regardless of what time you do it. This is often a problem for Open Source developers. We have to convince their company that it doesn't want their Open Source work.
Just the work that is directly coupled with what we pay them to do. Yes, that is justly public property. I don't want their hobby photography project.
Actually, this is part of federal law and doesn't vary by state.
But there's still the moon! And now we know it has 20 buckets of water!