For one thing, it will have lowered the FSF to the same level of trying to gets its way through contemptible legal trickery as the very people it claims to oppose.
Copyleft was always about turning the present legal system on its head, using the present legal system as the tool. I doubt that FSF wants to bring suit, anyway. They want to have an estoppel defense if Microsoft brings a patent suit. They would have some very big friends in doing that, bigger than Microsoft.
Regarding whether any of this would scare business away, I just don't think so. I work with large corporate customers all day, they are aware of Microsoft's nature and express a good deal of anger. None of the FUD, SCO, etc., has scared them off so far.
I don't see how. MS if free to distribute such software under the GPL2 license.
But they are not legally able to strip off that "and any later version" language. So, what if I get the software from Novell with a Microsoft coupon, and I accept the GPL3 on GNU LIBC? Did Microsoft and Novell not convey it to me under that license? Do Microsoft and Novell have the right to say I can only accept that software under GPL2? There is room for litigation here...
OK, but what if I distribute vouchers to purchase legitimate copies of Britneyz new hit, and the distributor decides instead to distribute bootleg copies? Am I in violation of the copyright? I entered into a contract with my distributor in good faith. They changed the rules after the fact.
It seems to me that Novell can't possibly have guaranteed to Microsoft that it either party would continue to have the right to distribute under Microsoft's contract terms, or that the licenses on the software would stay the same. There are a great many third parties who are copyright holders of the distributed software and were not party to the deal. They can not arbitrarily terminate the licenses on old versions of software that are under the GPL, according to the GPL's own terms. But they don't owe Microsoft any obligation to keep their license the same on any subsequent versions, and Novell can't stick with old versions if they want their distribution to be marketable.
So, in analogy, if Britneyz label decided to change the terms on their license to prohibit distribution under the coupons, the distributor and you would not have any right to continue distribution. You would not be able to show in court any reasonable expectation that the terms would stay the same because the label would not be party to your deal at all.
Some of the copyright holders are disgruntled over the loophole around the patent terms in their licenses that Novell and Microsoft attempted to engineer, and would consider this move on Microsoft to be pay-back or fair-play.
GNU LIBC is the only C library in common use in GNU+Linux distributions. Anything not using it is probably targeted to the embedded market. It might be possible to make a BSD C library work with the kernel, but nobody does it and getting it to be LSB compliant is a further task once you get it to work.
Oh, you think Microsoft was not playing games when it cross licensed Novell's customers instead of Novell to avoid the patent terms of the GPL? They were just doing business, right? Well, this is payback.
Well, for analogy, consider that I contract with someone to distribute bootleg copies of a CD for me, in return for coupons. I then claim to the judge that I owe nothing to the record label, since the license of the CD was not a contract and did not compel me to give up my pre-existing funds.:-)
I don't think it's relevant that the GPL is a license rather than a contract, since MS has the right to tell Novell to stop honoring those coupons, and thus to stop joining Microsoft to the license.
Well, the theory is that since Microsoft is paying Novell - and has a contract with them - to distribute copies of SuSE to customers who have coupons. The coupons are not just like paying with dollars, since the coupons have no real cash value and there is a contract that says what they are for. So Microsoft is a party to that distribution because it has essentially contracted for someone else to distribute software for them. If you contracted for someone else to distribute bootleg copies of Britneyz new hit, do you think you would have much chance of convincing the court you aren't a party to her label's copyright license or otherwise an infringer?
All of the software that gives "GPL 2 and any later version" as its license is now optionally under GPL3, and new versions of Samba, LIBC, etc., will be "GPL 3 and any later version" and will be included in SuSE. So, Microsoft is obligated under GPL3 if SuSE accepts one coupon for a distribution that contains "GPL3 and later" software. Possibly MS is obligated for "GPL2 and later" software, although that is less clear.
Microsoft has the right to tell SuSE to stop honoring coupons now and keep the money, and then Microsoft would have to refund anyone who had outstanding coupons and eat crow in public. If Microsoft does not do that, it's going to be difficult to show that they didn't accept the license, since they had a way to escape from doing so.
MS is obviously concerned, they would not be making noise if they were not. I suspect that they have lost their last chance to keep Free Software away from their patent portfolio by doing this. They gave up the chunk of rights that we would not have already had due to doctrine of laches, etc. And they will settle for that rather than go to court.
This happpened to Debian once. I remember the very careful quality of the notifications, and the forensic analysis, and the fact that it was caught quickly and there thus wasn't much damage. It showed that a volunteer community can be right on top of this sort of problem with as much or more professionality than any paid staff. It's unfortunate that the configuration of Ubuntu and its loco teams has them pointing fingers at each other. And what about those systems that can't be upgraded? Are they, per chance, using proprietary network drivers? If so, well, folks should know better.
Slashdot is feeding a troll who just wants links from Slashdot back to
his blog. There is essentially no content in his post except to comment
that there are hundreds of Linux distributions. He doesn't make any
reasonable case that this actually does harm. It's also not
news. There have been that many Linux distributions for a long time.
But tonight's troll, who wants to draw traffic to his Information Week blog, got on the Slashdot front page tonight because
he knows that baiting us is the way to do it.
Forking of software development projects has interesting consequences,sometimes good, sometimes bad, sometimes neither. Having more than onedistribution... I'm not sure that "forking" is even the right word toapply to that.
Richard Stallman wrote me and said I mis-interpreted him. Here is his clarification:
Free Software and Open Source seem quite similar, if you look only at
their software development practices. At the philosophical level, the
difference is extreme. The Free Software Movement is a social
movement for computer users' freedom. The Open Source philosophy
cites practical, economic benefits. A deeper difference cannot be
imagined.
The origin of Open Source lies in a practice that could have come from
Dale Carnegie: if you seek to persuade someone, present the case in
terms of his values and desires. For persuading business executives,
citing practical, economic advantages can be effective. By all means
do so, if it feels right to you, when speaking privately to executives.
Talking to the public is something else entirely. When we talk to the
public, we promote whatever values we cite. If we cite only
practical, economic advantages, and not freedom, we encourage people
to value practical advantages and not value freedom.
Those values make our community weak. People who prefer a state of
freedom only for the secondary practical and economic advantages it
brings do not appreciate freedom itself, and they will not fight to
defend it.
This is the reason I stated, in my joint speech with Bruce Perens, for
not supporting the practice of presenting Free Software in public in
the limited economic terms of Open Source.
Given the unrecorded provenance of most of the code prior to 2.4.x
Works of unrecorded provenance have probably already been overwritten to the point that the survival of the original copyrighted work in 2.6.22 would be difficult to show out to a court. The person with the most standing in pre-2.4 works is Linus himself, he can make a pretty good case that the work continues to be a derivative of his original creation. Folks who feel they have a surviving claim should not ignore a public notice. Folks with early works who ignore public notices and whose work has been massively overwritten probably don't have much standing to file any sort of complaint.
I don't really think it is necessary to write out unrecorded 2.4 code contributors. Let them respond to a public notice, or not. Their contribution is in general being eroded to the point of unrecognizability as a copyrighted work, anyway.
A certain number of people (many?) would not object or do anything at all, but they would have the right to sue Linus and every Linux distro for copyright infringement any time in the next decades
Folks who ignore a public notice in a combined work like the kernel and then choose to sue as their first action would not have much chance in court. I think it would be sufficient to just write them out when they are heard from.
you can't assume that silence now is permission to relicense.
But this is how a large collaborative work like the kernel is different from a stand-alone work. If the majority of copyright holders go along with a change in license and some small minority does nothing, the best assumption may be that the minority has abandoned their copyright. Indeed, in a work like the kernel individual work tends to be overwritten to the point that an older copyright can cease to exist.
And yes, I have better legal advice than you on this. Or I should say that I have legal advice.
Bruce
Re:OpenSolaris
on
GPLv3 Released
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Linux relicensing won't happen. It pretty much can't happen.
This is an urban myth. Linux can be relicensed at any time, with a simple legal process. It is not necessary to find all of the developers to get their permission.
How can the Linux kernel project, with its thousands of developers, ever change its license? We can't even reach them all, and some of those developers are dead and their estates don't know software licenses from driver's licenses. But changing the license is easier than most people think.
First, it's not a fundamental change: the intent of GPL 3 is that of GPL 2, the change is in the implementation. Given that, what would be required for such a change would be for Torvalds (or someone else) to publish his intent to start making releases with the new license, as a legal notice. A certain number of people would object, and they would have the right to require that their contributions be removed from the new release.
The kernel team has never been loath to replace code when necessary, and never slow to handle the job, no matter how large the item to be replaced. Just look at the replacement of Bitkeeper with "git", a big job that took a ground-up rewrite and yet was working in five weeks. So, code belonging to GPL3-objectors would be swiftly dealt with.
After some time passed, the release would happen under the new license, and life would go on. There is precedent for this, as Torvalds has already made two significant changes to the prelude to GPL2 on the kernel, publishing his intent and then making a release.
And you should not be bothered by the more lines, either. Compare them to the more lines of "intellectual property" legislation like DMCA and the more lines of case law. GPL has to deal with all of that or it will progressively weaken. So what you are really seeing is FSF running as fast as it can to stay still in the context of new law.
Well this certainly is out of the question for the Linux kernel
There is BSD for that.
One has to wonder however how much cash a commercial license for some projects would bring in allowing for the funding and development for the free/open version.
Dual-licensing brings MySQL 50 Million Dollars Per Year. Which means that the GPL is a really effective capitalist tool. Folks who oppose it are often looking for a gift, rather than sharing. It seems to me that they should be willing to pay. That would be more fair.
Actually, there are. Novell got let off easy in a way because FSF feels it's more important to use the Microsoft "coupons" to go after Microsoft's remaining patent rights with GPL3 (after doctrine of Laches, etc. has already cost MS most of those rights). But I don't think Microsoft would be very happy about Novell using GPL3 software because of that. How this plays out will be interesting.
When GPL2 was written, people got music from phonograph records and a touch-tone phone was the most sophisticated input device available in most people's homes. The world changed a whole lot since then. One of the things that changed is that manufacturers gained the capability to lock down software in a way that they could change, but nobody else could. It's fine for them to have that ability, but I am not going to choose to let them do that to software that I write and they do not pay for. I don't see why anyone else would want to either. If they want to lock the code down, maybe it would be a good idea for them to find its authors and buy a commercial license.
A wrestler and his family died recently, allegedly at the wrestler's hands.
And that did not get on Slashdot, because it wasn't anyone we know. Reiser is interesting to Slashdot readers because he was connected with the kernel developers, and some of us here identify ourselve as being connected with that community.
so what's your POV? I don't mean who did what, but what kind of people they are?
For several years before this happened, Hans built a record of being really abusive of the Linux kernel developers on public mailing lists. I thought upon occassion of asking him "Do you know you are completely screwing up all of your business hopes for nothing?", but what I read from him also put me off enough that I just stayed away from him.
Nina Reiser doesn't seem to be around to defend her reputation. I won't make a judgement about her because of that. I have managed to get almost to age 50 without ever having any friends or even frequent associates like the two other people described in the article. And I consider that I've been really lucky that way.
In Reiser's case, a critical piece of data -- the location of Nina Reiser -- has gone missing.
Ugh. OK, this is a crowd that makes rough jokes, etc. In this case I am having a bit of a problem taking it. I've met Hans and have spoken with Nina on the phone. Oh shit, I found that interview very unsettling and while reading it in the audience at a conference in Norway I got upset enough by page three that I did not continue it for fear of getting too visibly upset in front of the audience.
Maybe we should have a bit more respect this time.
Slashdot Mirror
I thought they discontinued the Unix compatibility product that contained GPL components. In which case this would be moot.
Regarding whether any of this would scare business away, I just don't think so. I work with large corporate customers all day, they are aware of Microsoft's nature and express a good deal of anger. None of the FUD, SCO, etc., has scared them off so far.
Bruce
Bruce
It seems to me that Novell can't possibly have guaranteed to Microsoft that it either party would continue to have the right to distribute under Microsoft's contract terms, or that the licenses on the software would stay the same. There are a great many third parties who are copyright holders of the distributed software and were not party to the deal. They can not arbitrarily terminate the licenses on old versions of software that are under the GPL, according to the GPL's own terms. But they don't owe Microsoft any obligation to keep their license the same on any subsequent versions, and Novell can't stick with old versions if they want their distribution to be marketable.
So, in analogy, if Britneyz label decided to change the terms on their license to prohibit distribution under the coupons, the distributor and you would not have any right to continue distribution. You would not be able to show in court any reasonable expectation that the terms would stay the same because the label would not be party to your deal at all.
Some of the copyright holders are disgruntled over the loophole around the patent terms in their licenses that Novell and Microsoft attempted to engineer, and would consider this move on Microsoft to be pay-back or fair-play.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce
Bruce
I don't think it's relevant that the GPL is a license rather than a contract, since MS has the right to tell Novell to stop honoring those coupons, and thus to stop joining Microsoft to the license.
Bruce
All of the software that gives "GPL 2 and any later version" as its license is now optionally under GPL3, and new versions of Samba, LIBC, etc., will be "GPL 3 and any later version" and will be included in SuSE. So, Microsoft is obligated under GPL3 if SuSE accepts one coupon for a distribution that contains "GPL3 and later" software. Possibly MS is obligated for "GPL2 and later" software, although that is less clear.
Microsoft has the right to tell SuSE to stop honoring coupons now and keep the money, and then Microsoft would have to refund anyone who had outstanding coupons and eat crow in public. If Microsoft does not do that, it's going to be difficult to show that they didn't accept the license, since they had a way to escape from doing so.
MS is obviously concerned, they would not be making noise if they were not. I suspect that they have lost their last chance to keep Free Software away from their patent portfolio by doing this. They gave up the chunk of rights that we would not have already had due to doctrine of laches, etc. And they will settle for that rather than go to court.
Bruce
Bruce
Forking of software development projects has interesting consequences,sometimes good, sometimes bad, sometimes neither. Having more than onedistribution... I'm not sure that "forking" is even the right word toapply to that.
Bruce
Free Software and Open Source seem quite similar, if you look only at their software development practices. At the philosophical level, the difference is extreme. The Free Software Movement is a social movement for computer users' freedom. The Open Source philosophy cites practical, economic benefits. A deeper difference cannot be imagined.
The origin of Open Source lies in a practice that could have come from Dale Carnegie: if you seek to persuade someone, present the case in terms of his values and desires. For persuading business executives, citing practical, economic advantages can be effective. By all means do so, if it feels right to you, when speaking privately to executives.
Talking to the public is something else entirely. When we talk to the public, we promote whatever values we cite. If we cite only practical, economic advantages, and not freedom, we encourage people to value practical advantages and not value freedom.
Those values make our community weak. People who prefer a state of freedom only for the secondary practical and economic advantages it brings do not appreciate freedom itself, and they will not fight to defend it.
This is the reason I stated, in my joint speech with Bruce Perens, for not supporting the practice of presenting Free Software in public in the limited economic terms of Open Source.
- Richard Stallman
Works of unrecorded provenance have probably already been overwritten to the point that the survival of the original copyrighted work in 2.6.22 would be difficult to show out to a court. The person with the most standing in pre-2.4 works is Linus himself, he can make a pretty good case that the work continues to be a derivative of his original creation. Folks who feel they have a surviving claim should not ignore a public notice. Folks with early works who ignore public notices and whose work has been massively overwritten probably don't have much standing to file any sort of complaint.
In other words, I don't think it's a problem.
Bruce
Bruce
Folks who ignore a public notice in a combined work like the kernel and then choose to sue as their first action would not have much chance in court. I think it would be sufficient to just write them out when they are heard from.
you can't assume that silence now is permission to relicense.
But this is how a large collaborative work like the kernel is different from a stand-alone work. If the majority of copyright holders go along with a change in license and some small minority does nothing, the best assumption may be that the minority has abandoned their copyright. Indeed, in a work like the kernel individual work tends to be overwritten to the point that an older copyright can cease to exist.
And yes, I have better legal advice than you on this. Or I should say that I have legal advice.
Bruce
This is an urban myth. Linux can be relicensed at any time, with a simple legal process. It is not necessary to find all of the developers to get their permission.
How can the Linux kernel project, with its thousands of developers, ever change its license? We can't even reach them all, and some of those developers are dead and their estates don't know software licenses from driver's licenses. But changing the license is easier than most people think.
First, it's not a fundamental change: the intent of GPL 3 is that of GPL 2, the change is in the implementation. Given that, what would be required for such a change would be for Torvalds (or someone else) to publish his intent to start making releases with the new license, as a legal notice. A certain number of people would object, and they would have the right to require that their contributions be removed from the new release.
The kernel team has never been loath to replace code when necessary, and never slow to handle the job, no matter how large the item to be replaced. Just look at the replacement of Bitkeeper with "git", a big job that took a ground-up rewrite and yet was working in five weeks. So, code belonging to GPL3-objectors would be swiftly dealt with.
After some time passed, the release would happen under the new license, and life would go on. There is precedent for this, as Torvalds has already made two significant changes to the prelude to GPL2 on the kernel, publishing his intent and then making a release.
Bruce
Trust me to miss any reference to pop culture. Not enough time in my life. Not even enough sleep, this time.
Bruce
That is the Affero GPL, a separate license.
There is BSD for that.
One has to wonder however how much cash a commercial license for some projects would bring in allowing for the funding and development for the free/open version.
Dual-licensing brings MySQL 50 Million Dollars Per Year. Which means that the GPL is a really effective capitalist tool. Folks who oppose it are often looking for a gift, rather than sharing. It seems to me that they should be willing to pay. That would be more fair.
Bruce
Hah! See what you get for not including that "And any later version" language.
Actually, there are. Novell got let off easy in a way because FSF feels it's more important to use the Microsoft "coupons" to go after Microsoft's remaining patent rights with GPL3 (after doctrine of Laches, etc. has already cost MS most of those rights). But I don't think Microsoft would be very happy about Novell using GPL3 software because of that. How this plays out will be interesting.
Bruce
Bruce
And that did not get on Slashdot, because it wasn't anyone we know. Reiser is interesting to Slashdot readers because he was connected with the kernel developers, and some of us here identify ourselve as being connected with that community.
For several years before this happened, Hans built a record of being really abusive of the Linux kernel developers on public mailing lists. I thought upon occassion of asking him "Do you know you are completely screwing up all of your business hopes for nothing?", but what I read from him also put me off enough that I just stayed away from him.
Nina Reiser doesn't seem to be around to defend her reputation. I won't make a judgement about her because of that. I have managed to get almost to age 50 without ever having any friends or even frequent associates like the two other people described in the article. And I consider that I've been really lucky that way.
Bruce
Ugh. OK, this is a crowd that makes rough jokes, etc. In this case I am having a bit of a problem taking it. I've met Hans and have spoken with Nina on the phone. Oh shit, I found that interview very unsettling and while reading it in the audience at a conference in Norway I got upset enough by page three that I did not continue it for fear of getting too visibly upset in front of the audience.
Maybe we should have a bit more respect this time.
Bruce