Just because you can look at source doesn't make it open in any way. There's some source code that has penalties for looking. Indeed, exposing yourself to source code with some licenses could contaminate you legally regarding similar software that you write.
If it's called Open Source, it has to have licensing complying with the Open Source Definition. Otherwise, you're being decieved.
Open Source and Free Software both refer to software that is licensed the same way. The Open Source initiative is just a way of talking about Free Software to people who would not take Free Software's traditional arguments (about Liberty as being more important a priori).
Actually, I'd assume that SMC (or the hardware vendor, if not SMC) passed the infringement on to Skype, as no doubt this device ran Linux when given to Skype. Which would mean that Skype could sue them for pass-on infringement, which would put the vendor in a mood to negotiate.
If it's a kernel driver for the Skype protocol, that could be a problem for them.
Hm. If it had significant value, and had to live in the kernel, it would have to be a low-latency streaming protocol over IP. Not the higher-level voice bits. But you can already get such a protocol under GPL. Someone with wireshark could tell us whether Skype is running on top of TCP or not.
Are there any proprietary Linux apps that don't use ANY dynamic libraries that are under the GPL?
All of the important libraries for applications to use, like GLIBC, are under LGPL instead of GPL. You'd have to be sloppy to get a GPL library in a proprietary application.
However, the Skype code, at least the important part of it, isn't in the Linux kernel. It's a user-mode application and the GPL of the kernel doesn't apply to it.
Not sure I understand this portion of your comment. You don't have to be kernel code to dynamically link to a library...
Harald Welte holds copyright to part of the kernel. It's less likely that Skype used Harald's GPL code in their application, which wouldn't be part of the kernel.
Legal issues aside, it's just a bad position for the GPL to be in.
Actually, the Linux system is pretty clean for people who want to make proprietary works, because the facilities they would need to directly incorporate aren't under GPL. However, there are pieces which are under GPL that shouldn't be married to your propiretary code, and wouldn't be unless you just didn't know what you were doing.
Unless... Suppose when they became aware of the whole GPL thing and did an internal code audit, they discovered that they had also used GPL code in their proprietary software? Suppose they're trying to knock down the GPL now, before someone discovers what other code they stole?
Well, let's assume that there are such infringements, since as far as I can tell most embedded developers mess this up. It would still make the most sense for them to fix the problems and release new code. Harald would forgive past infringements in exchange for present compliance.
Even in Germany, making software available for absolutely everybody to use, redistribute, and modify, under the same terms for everybody, does not create a cartel. I don't see how a German judge is going to find any differently from the U.S. one.
Even if assuming your description is correct and Skype would forego nothing of value by doing this, what course they pursue isn't a sign of that, since lawyers ultimately (if they are doing their job) pursue the course their client decides on, within certain ethical boundaries, even if it is not what the lawyer would advise.
So, you're saying the lawyer's not an idiot, it's management that are idiots.
Or, you could put all that GPL code into a library and link it in to your app so you avoid the problem of having to release all of your source.
Linking, even dynamic linking, doesn't get you off the hook if you distribute all of the pieces together and they don't work separately. It doesn't necessarily get you off the hook in other cases either (avoiding a long legal discussion).
However, the Skype code, at least the important part of it, isn't in the Linux kernel. It's a user-mode application and the GPL of the kernel doesn't apply to it.
Perhaps they modified the kernel in some way, for example, adding device drivers for their particular hardware, or something else. Which means that if they supply the source code, they need to supply their own kernel-residing code as well, and not just the vanilla kernel.
Now, figure out how their proprietary value is in that kernel code. If it's just driver code, rather than the skype application, the user interface, etc., it does not represent some big trade secret or a large amount of proprietary value to the company.
No. If, hypothetically, the GPL became invalidated for some reason, all GPL code would revert to the public domain.
That's not how it works.
Both Germany and the U.S. have ratified the Bern Copyright Convention (of sometime in the seventies), which made the default all rights reserved if there is no license, not public domain.
If a GPL term were found to be unlawful, it would be severed from the rest of the license, and the rest of the license would stand.
shooting down the GPL - you can bet there is more behind that push than just "somebody" at Skype
Well, if they tried to do it in a smart way. This is about the most stooooopid way possible. First, they use a legal theory that only a fool would pursue and that is, indeed, known for having been pursued foolishly only to be dismissed with a very clear finding by the judge in a U.S. court. Then, they pursue this case when complying with the terms of the GPL would cost them nothing, which is the mark of a lawyer who isn't considering his client's best interest. There is nothing special about Skype that belongs in the Linux kernel. Their proprietary software is safe in user-mode, where this case won't touch it. The only things that would need releasing is the customization for that particular embedded phone device, which is not terribly different from the wealth of customization for similar devices already in the public.
In other words, complying with the terms of the GPL would cost Skype less than pursuing this case.
They're stupid, or crazy. If eBay can't rein them in, what about eBay stockholders?
The anti-trust theory was already tried in Wallace vs. International Business Machines et al.. OK, Wallace represented himself, and wasn't a lawyer. But it's not going to fly. Why is eBay asleep at the switch while some rogue laywer at Skype pulls this? They have nothing to lose from releasing the kernel, and both reputation and money to lose while they balk.
I think that most businesses, and many governments, currently are on an addiction model of IT purchasing. They get part 1 for free, and then they have to get part 2, 3, etc., from the same company so that they can interoperate with part 1. We want to help cure their addiction.
if Microsoft being involved makes it more likely to succeed then do you think the kids really care?
The kids don't know the issues at all. But someday those kids will grow up, and they will either be able to build a software infrastructure for their countries, that they control, using Open Source, so that they will not be dependent, or they will not know how and will have to go to a proprietary software company for what they can afford.
What if, just what if, this is an actual attempt to do something right without actually being a business choice?
Well, a guy "Big Mike" hung out in your neighborhood, and he'd had some brushes with the law and some convictions, and he had just done something pretty bad recently, would you treat each new situation he got himself involved in as "Let's just assume he's trying to do the right thing", or would you be wary?
He's making the point that some medicine might stop the pain, for now, while addicting you for life - for the sake of assuring the drug pusher a good income. A lot of us see the Microsoft platform as a means for those kids to read textbooks that also closes them out from broader options (like learning how to self-govern their nation's IT infrastructure) and creates a lifelong addiction for their nation on Microsoft software.
Even if Microsoft produces a DRM-encumbered operating system for the XO-1, what makes you think a country will choose it over the freely-available Sugar-on-Fedora that the XO currently runs?
The lure of zero-cost, but DRM-locked, proprietary textbooks.
if an educational body does choose a closed MS platform over a FOSS platform, isn't that their right? If
It's my duty - and that of others who care about freedom - to tell such educational bodies that they're harming their own people, and why.
And when the DRM becomes unbearable, Sugar will still be there, still running on Fedora -- and an easy migration destination, if they've spent a year or so running Sugar on Windows.
You think they're just going to be able to boot an installation system and run it? It takes just a little firmware tweak to make that system boot only signed binaries - and we won't have the signing key.
I don't see teachers in sufficient numbers being prepared to take advantage of open source.
No, they aren't. The very best path to take is to give the children a path to learn those things without teachers. This is not only the case in the third world. Certainly when I was a young person in a wealthy suburb of New York, no teacher available to me was able to spend very much time on the advanced technology that I was interested in. I had to self-teach. That's why the laptop goes home with them. In observation of children and OLPC it's been clear that there is a lot of child-led activity, both collaborative and independent.
I recently keynoted the Latinoware conference at the Itaipu Binational of Brazil and Paraguay. I stayed in Foz do Iguacu. The differentiation between rich and poor was very clear. It was heartening to see 2500 people from all over Latin America there taking classes on Free Software.
the GPL license does not, and will not, empower people
I've got to disagree with you on this. Most people view GPL only from the perspective of the party receiving the software. For the party producing the software, GPL keeps large companies from running away with it while BSD makes it essentially an unrestricted gift to those large companies. Dual-licensing provides an opportunity to charge those who don't want to play by the Open Source rules, and to support the Open Source development with that money. It is true that there are a lot of companies that dual-license and don't really run a convincing community development at all, they are abusing the process.
Microsoft's behavior has been DRM agnostic much of the time.
Well, you excuse Vista, I guess, as just going along with HDCP as an industry-wide effort against the consumer? Consider that Microsoft was an important part of the development of HDCP.
Well, I wish I could believe that it will go the way you say. With folks quitting over philosophical differences, I suspect there is some internal struggle over these ideas that you may not be party to. I'd be happy to meet with the current OLPC staff (do I just send Negroponte an email?) and hear their side.
Every time Microsoft is involved people start seeing creepy characters lurking in the shadows.
Unfortunately the creepy characters are not just lurking in shadows. Around the OOXML process they were quite visible in stuffing the ballot box, subverting votes entirely, etc.
Yes, they haven't proposed DRM yet. When rumors of dual-boot on OLPC first came out, I predicted that Negroponte would get closer to Microsoft. He did. I also predicted that there would be DRM on the platform. It's not there yet, but it will be if OLPC continues on this path, and it will be Microsoft's DRM.
Why should it matter to some poor kid, just needing a way to afford schoolbooks, what OS his laptop is running?
800 years ago, Moses Maimonides enumerated the forms of charity, from best to least:
1. Giving a pauper independence so that he will not have to depend on charity.
Maimonides enumerates four forms of this, from the greatest to the weakest:
a. Giving a poor person work.
b. Making a partnership with him or her (this is lower than work, as the recipient might feel he doesn't put enough into the partnership).
c. Giving a loan.
d. Giving a gift.
2. Giving charity anonymously to an unknown recipient.
3. Giving charity anonymously to a known recipient.
4. Giving charity publicly to an unknown recipient.
5. Giving charity before being asked.
6. Giving adequately after being asked.
7. Giving willingly, but inadequately.
8. Giving unwillingly.
[Text from Wikipedia]
OLPC with Linux and other Open Source is #1 on Maimonides list. It not only gives them textbooks, it gives them a structure that they can use to control their nation's own destiny - the free software on the system that they can use to communicate, plan, write, etc., and it gives them control over that structure so that they have independence.
In contrast, giving them a Microsoft framework is giving them an addictive dependence. Not charity at all.
Slashdot Mirror
If it's called Open Source, it has to have licensing complying with the Open Source Definition. Otherwise, you're being decieved.
Bruce
Bruce
That would have incited Harald, if true, since he worked on that platform. But it's without the cellular chip, I guess, and bigger, and clunkier.
Bruce
Bruce
Bruce
Well, let's assume that there are such infringements, since as far as I can tell most embedded developers mess this up. It would still make the most sense for them to fix the problems and release new code. Harald would forgive past infringements in exchange for present compliance.
Bruce
It's not at all clear to me that Cisco/Linksys could get away with distributing that driver if the kernel developers wanted to do something about it.
Bruce
How long was that after the treaty?
Bruce
So, you're saying the lawyer's not an idiot, it's management that are idiots.
Bruce
Linking, even dynamic linking, doesn't get you off the hook if you distribute all of the pieces together and they don't work separately. It doesn't necessarily get you off the hook in other cases either (avoiding a long legal discussion).
However, the Skype code, at least the important part of it, isn't in the Linux kernel. It's a user-mode application and the GPL of the kernel doesn't apply to it.
Bruce
Now, figure out how their proprietary value is in that kernel code. If it's just driver code, rather than the skype application, the user interface, etc., it does not represent some big trade secret or a large amount of proprietary value to the company.
Bruce
That's not how it works.
Both Germany and the U.S. have ratified the Bern Copyright Convention (of sometime in the seventies), which made the default all rights reserved if there is no license, not public domain.
If a GPL term were found to be unlawful, it would be severed from the rest of the license, and the rest of the license would stand.
Bruce
Well, if they tried to do it in a smart way. This is about the most stooooopid way possible. First, they use a legal theory that only a fool would pursue and that is, indeed, known for having been pursued foolishly only to be dismissed with a very clear finding by the judge in a U.S. court. Then, they pursue this case when complying with the terms of the GPL would cost them nothing, which is the mark of a lawyer who isn't considering his client's best interest. There is nothing special about Skype that belongs in the Linux kernel. Their proprietary software is safe in user-mode, where this case won't touch it. The only things that would need releasing is the customization for that particular embedded phone device, which is not terribly different from the wealth of customization for similar devices already in the public.
In other words, complying with the terms of the GPL would cost Skype less than pursuing this case.
They're stupid, or crazy. If eBay can't rein them in, what about eBay stockholders?
Bruce
Bruce
Bruce
The kids don't know the issues at all. But someday those kids will grow up, and they will either be able to build a software infrastructure for their countries, that they control, using Open Source, so that they will not be dependent, or they will not know how and will have to go to a proprietary software company for what they can afford.
Well, a guy "Big Mike" hung out in your neighborhood, and he'd had some brushes with the law and some convictions, and he had just done something pretty bad recently, would you treat each new situation he got himself involved in as "Let's just assume he's trying to do the right thing", or would you be wary?Bruce
The lure of zero-cost, but DRM-locked, proprietary textbooks.
It's my duty - and that of others who care about freedom - to tell such educational bodies that they're harming their own people, and why.
You think they're just going to be able to boot an installation system and run it? It takes just a little firmware tweak to make that system boot only signed binaries - and we won't have the signing key.
Bruce
No, they aren't. The very best path to take is to give the children a path to learn those things without teachers. This is not only the case in the third world. Certainly when I was a young person in a wealthy suburb of New York, no teacher available to me was able to spend very much time on the advanced technology that I was interested in. I had to self-teach. That's why the laptop goes home with them. In observation of children and OLPC it's been clear that there is a lot of child-led activity, both collaborative and independent.
I recently keynoted the Latinoware conference at the Itaipu Binational of Brazil and Paraguay. I stayed in Foz do Iguacu. The differentiation between rich and poor was very clear. It was heartening to see 2500 people from all over Latin America there taking classes on Free Software.
I've got to disagree with you on this. Most people view GPL only from the perspective of the party receiving the software. For the party producing the software, GPL keeps large companies from running away with it while BSD makes it essentially an unrestricted gift to those large companies. Dual-licensing provides an opportunity to charge those who don't want to play by the Open Source rules, and to support the Open Source development with that money. It is true that there are a lot of companies that dual-license and don't really run a convincing community development at all, they are abusing the process.
Bruce
See this post for your answer.
Well, you excuse Vista, I guess, as just going along with HDCP as an industry-wide effort against the consumer? Consider that Microsoft was an important part of the development of HDCP.
Bruce
Well, I wish I could believe that it will go the way you say. With folks quitting over philosophical differences, I suspect there is some internal struggle over these ideas that you may not be party to. I'd be happy to meet with the current OLPC staff (do I just send Negroponte an email?) and hear their side.
Bruce
Unfortunately the creepy characters are not just lurking in shadows. Around the OOXML process they were quite visible in stuffing the ballot box, subverting votes entirely, etc.
Yes, they haven't proposed DRM yet. When rumors of dual-boot on OLPC first came out, I predicted that Negroponte would get closer to Microsoft. He did. I also predicted that there would be DRM on the platform. It's not there yet, but it will be if OLPC continues on this path, and it will be Microsoft's DRM.
Bruce
800 years ago, Moses Maimonides enumerated the forms of charity, from best to least:
[Text from Wikipedia]
OLPC with Linux and other Open Source is #1 on Maimonides list. It not only gives them textbooks, it gives them a structure that they can use to control their nation's own destiny - the free software on the system that they can use to communicate, plan, write, etc., and it gives them control over that structure so that they have independence.
In contrast, giving them a Microsoft framework is giving them an addictive dependence. Not charity at all.
Bruce