It really works! Women at cash registers always smile at the cute penguin! And comment about it. And of course I've been out of that market for the past 16 years, too.
I used to go to Amsterdam to speak for HP. When I was there, I was always tempted to take a customer out to lunch, and go with him to one of the legal-there hashish clubs, and then file for reimbursement with HP:-) I never did it.
In particular, your assertion that there is some leap of logic when groups as opposed to individuals are involved is alarming.
Hm. Certainly you do not treat more distant relationships exactly as you would closer ones. This is getting into sophomoric territory about the operation of societies and why there is need for laws.
What is needed beyond 'social mechanisms' to enforce this rarified kind of 'sharing' you describe? A magistrate and a jail? Isn't the magistrate and the jail a 'social mechanism?'
Too many leaps here and there. And the glints of bare metal beneath the cushy 'social' arguements is insightful.
There's a oft-spoken quote about all law, in the end, being enforced at the end of a gun barrel. This is an unfortunate truism about society, not something I made.
Actually, I am describing mutuality. Without it being mutual, there is no continued motivation to share. The confusion of sharing with gifts was a source of ill will among early Caucasian immigrants to North America, who even coined the derisive term "Indian giver" when the white folks didn't understand the gift exchange.
As far as I can tell, it was your obligation to post publicly that the code was GPL licensed before someone else could have been damaged by making an assumption that the code was not GPL licensed.
If that project had a nice, empathic woman who has been a parent of teenagers to handle your notice, the reply would have been an apology, followed by amplification of your notice, and a calm talk about what to do. Instead, you got Theo:-)
It's as if you ran over a land-mine and people then tried to criticize you for running.
You can share with groups as well as individuals. The main difference is that sharing with an individual can be regulated closely - if that person doesn't share in return, you know never to share with that person again and can enforce a social penalty for not sharing. With a group, you need rules to do that, and possibly more than just social mechanisms to enforce them.
Now I don't personally know what kind of development you've been involved in but commiting to cvs is not and has never been distribution.
Oh? So, if I take my record collection and commit it to a public CVS repository, that's going to be OK with RIAA, then?:-)
Placing code in a source code repository that is accessable for download by any other legal entity is distribution the moment the first download, or even source-code-browse, occurrs. The fact that it is CVS does not make it the slightest bit different from being a regular public web server.
Also, it is not necessary for the code to be "released" for it to be distribution. Remember Corel, who thought they didn't have to comply with the GPL as long as it was a beta test?
The Linux developer had the right to make a public notice that the posted license and copyright statement were not his copyright statement and the correct license. Otherwise, someone, anyone, could have made unlicensed derivative works of his code without knowing any better. A public notice protects unwitting victims like that, as well as the copyright owner.
You know, it's OK to use a GPL driver in BSD code. It causes a phenomenon that the BSD folks really hate, though, which is that the GPL applies to the entire product. But that would have been fine for temporary development. The real problem was the lack of proper attribution of the copyright and license. I see no way for the Linux developer to have rectified that lack other than through a public notice, because it would not have been proper for anyone to be left thinking his code was under the BSD license. It was his right to say publicly that it was not. Perhaps he could have contacted Theo privately and gotten him to do so. But given people who react the way Theo sometimes does, I think the best protection one can have is to do everything in the open where others can see.
When you share, and the other party does not, that is not sharing any longer. That is a gift. It always entertains me that the people who protest that they are most deserving of gifts of source code from the community are those who refuse to share theirs.
It is. This leaves the question of whether you are OK with some people who refuse to share. If the answer is no, use GPL. If yes, use BSD. You also have the option of using GPL, and asking for money from those who prefer exchanging money over sharing code, as MySQL does with its dual-licensing.
Just don't flame on Technocrat.net . Or do flame, and I'll have no problem using that "delete" button in a way that Tio Paco:-) doesn't do here.
Actually, there is a time and place for flame wars. Justified anger is better than sitting aside while bad stuff happens. But this particular encounter did not justify the anger Theo displayed.
Theo is a real sharp programmer, and an eloquent writer when he wants to be. I met him once. I went to shake his hand. I swear, he did not notice. This left me to think that when Theo commits social gaffes, it is not his fault and he can't help himself. We all have our lacks, issues, and strengths.
This was discussed on Technocrat a few days ago. Apparently the
Linux kernel developer did not wish Broadcom to take advantage of
his work in proprietary products. Given Broadcom's record of having a number of undocumented, closed-driver-only products that we have to reverse-engineer, and having some proprietary drivers that IMO violate the GPL on the kernel, I can see why he'd feel that way.
The BSD developer was an accomplished BSD committer and should have
known better. The Linux developer offered to relicense some of his code
under BSD. Theo decided to turn it into a human-rights issue with great flamag. The BSD
developer walked off in a huff.
The whole thing lasted two days, much less than the blog and news coverage. Someone will come along and write this driver for BSD, and
the BSD developer will have some well-deserved cooling-off time.
Most GPL2 software can be licensed to GPL3 automatically. It says "GPL version 2 and any later version" in the standard copyright statement. In a few examples, the author decided not to trust FSF, and took that part out. Now, FSF might decide the two licenses are compatible - this has to wait for the final draft. But if they don't, the people who took out the "and any later version" will have to go through a public notice procedure to allow anyone who doesn't want their contribution to go under GPL3 to say that they want it removed. And then they can relicense under GPL3.
Do you mean GPLv2 software can't link with an LGPLv3 version of libc?
No. Don't worry. The whole point of LGPL is that it can be linked to software with any license. That will be continued with LGPL3. LGPL3 will be like GPL2-with-exception, which has been used recently instead of LGPL - the text will be almost identical to GPL3 except that you will be permitted to link software under other licenses.
I guess some folks see the draft process as inaccessable. It was pretty easy to get on the committee. I actually dropped off of the draft committee, because it is a heck of a lot of work and I have to focus on outward-facing activities to make the best use of my time.
Do you really think that it's a safe or desirable thing to have someone with limitations in that specific area as the leader of a large group of people?
Nobody is proposing to give Richard Stallman an army. And the GPL is hardly compulsory, anyone who doesn't like it need only stay away from our code. Richard does not want the adoration of crowds, he doesn't even want FSF to get too big. He won't run for political office. It's not in him. You really don't have to worry about that.
If you look into Sun's early history, they have reason to be more angry about patents than anyone. They got sued by IBM really early in their history. But back when they made CDDL, they weren't singing a cooperative tune. So, I'm not sure I believe this was just a patent thing. If they'd wanted better patent language in the GPL, they could have done what Afero did, and get a special version of the GPL out of FSF.
The BSD developers do not consider corporate association to be a threat
Nor do the GPL developers. There is a very long list of corporations that participate, I don't believe that BSD can claim as long a list. At the core of the GPL is "share and share alike". As long as a corporation respects that, they're welcome. They have to follow the rules. And it's better to have rigid rules than no rules. But if you go back to when the Kerberos thing happened, lots of folks, BSD developers among them, though that Microsoft was taking advantage unfairly.
Right. The GPL represents a competing monoculture. Microsoft are able to recognise that.
Oh come on. You can't call something with no coherent management structure and no ownership in common a "monoculture". There are a bunch of groups that share only a license in common. It's more like a whole economy than it is like a monoculture.
then why are dissenting responses to that philosophy repressed here to the degree that they are?
Because the people involved have made such a big emotional investment in Free Software that they take attacks personally. Also, there is no author's age field on Slashdot postings, and no maturity field even if there was an age field, and the folks here aren't necessarily representative of the Free Software movement, and come to think of it their attackers weren't generally showing great maturity either. Some of them didn't even show very good integrity, the various SCO apologists come to mind, and those folks should have been flamed.
I have seen people here (including myself) merely being shouted down
IMO you were uncivil enough for it to be appropriate for you to be shouted down this evening. Those other postings must have been real whoppers, if the response was worse than you got tonight. Maybe some of the fault was your own.
It may be true that as you say, Stallman himself does not hold such a perspective [intolerance for dissent]; but if that is so, I am at a loss to explain the discrepancy.
Richard's own brain wiring makes it difficult for him to have empathy for people who do not think as he does, and he finds it difficult to construct a mental bridge to them. I'd hope you could appreciate that. So, I get to have the arguments, because he simply isn't good at it. But nobody sacrifices more than Richard does for this. So, while I am conscious of his limitations, I have tremendous respect for him.
evils are actually customarily committed by those who are impeccably civil to each other on a superficial level.
Well, mostly because they have learned that nobody listens to them when they act rudely. Someone said that the definition of politics is sitting down with someone you dispise and coming to an agreement. Sometimes, you just have to put the emotional content aside until you can have a private chat with a trusted friend.
Is it really "less free?" I thought free was free. The CDDL just reads like a bastardized LGPL with patent termination language.
I didn't really consider Sun as wanting to be a sincere partner in the Free Software community, due to their starting out by making incompatible licenses. I think they figured that out now. And Jonathan doesn't say stupid stuff about us all the time any longer. So, I am waiting for them to drop the CDDL, since even they seem to think it's a dead-end now. So it might be moot whether it's free or not.
Hm. Since they did cooperate with Microsoft in getting into this situation, they would probably require Microsoft's help to get out of it. And that help would not be forthcoming.
Slashdot Mirror
Bruce
Bruce
Hm. Certainly you do not treat more distant relationships exactly as you would closer ones. This is getting into sophomoric territory about the operation of societies and why there is need for laws.
There's a oft-spoken quote about all law, in the end, being enforced at the end of a gun barrel. This is an unfortunate truism about society, not something I made.Bruce
Actually, I am describing mutuality. Without it being mutual, there is no continued motivation to share. The confusion of sharing with gifts was a source of ill will among early Caucasian immigrants to North America, who even coined the derisive term "Indian giver" when the white folks didn't understand the gift exchange.
Bruce
As far as I can tell, it was your obligation to post publicly that the code was GPL licensed before someone else could have been damaged by making an assumption that the code was not GPL licensed.
If that project had a nice, empathic woman who has been a parent of teenagers to handle your notice, the reply would have been an apology, followed by amplification of your notice, and a calm talk about what to do. Instead, you got Theo :-)
It's as if you ran over a land-mine and people then tried to criticize you for running.
Bruce
You can share with groups as well as individuals. The main difference is that sharing with an individual can be regulated closely - if that person doesn't share in return, you know never to share with that person again and can enforce a social penalty for not sharing. With a group, you need rules to do that, and possibly more than just social mechanisms to enforce them.
Bruce
Well, where's my DSM? Oh, that's right, I'm not qualified to use one.
There is a lot of speculation that a number of people we know are somewhere on the Asperger spectrum of disorders.
Bruce
Oh? So, if I take my record collection and commit it to a public CVS repository, that's going to be OK with RIAA, then? :-)
Placing code in a source code repository that is accessable for download by any other legal entity is distribution the moment the first download, or even source-code-browse, occurrs. The fact that it is CVS does not make it the slightest bit different from being a regular public web server.
Also, it is not necessary for the code to be "released" for it to be distribution. Remember Corel, who thought they didn't have to comply with the GPL as long as it was a beta test?
The Linux developer had the right to make a public notice that the posted license and copyright statement were not his copyright statement and the correct license. Otherwise, someone, anyone, could have made unlicensed derivative works of his code without knowing any better. A public notice protects unwitting victims like that, as well as the copyright owner.
Bruce
Bruce
When you share, and the other party does not, that is not sharing any longer. That is a gift. It always entertains me that the people who protest that they are most deserving of gifts of source code from the community are those who refuse to share theirs.
Bruce
It is. This leaves the question of whether you are OK with some people who refuse to share. If the answer is no, use GPL. If yes, use BSD. You also have the option of using GPL, and asking for money from those who prefer exchanging money over sharing code, as MySQL does with its dual-licensing.
Bruce
Actually, there is a time and place for flame wars. Justified anger is better than sitting aside while bad stuff happens. But this particular encounter did not justify the anger Theo displayed.
Bruce
Bruce
And by the way, first post :-) . OK, I'm a subscriber, I guess that's cheating.
Here is the Technocrat.net discussion of the same issue.
Bruce
The whole thing lasted two days, much less than the blog and news coverage. Someone will come along and write this driver for BSD, and the BSD developer will have some well-deserved cooling-off time.
Bruce
Bruce
No. Don't worry. The whole point of LGPL is that it can be linked to software with any license. That will be continued with LGPL3. LGPL3 will be like GPL2-with-exception, which has been used recently instead of LGPL - the text will be almost identical to GPL3 except that you will be permitted to link software under other licenses.
I guess some folks see the draft process as inaccessable. It was pretty easy to get on the committee. I actually dropped off of the draft committee, because it is a heck of a lot of work and I have to focus on outward-facing activities to make the best use of my time.
Bruce
I had to look twice to make sure this wasn't April first come early.
Bruce
That's what Afero GPL is about. It covers the ASP problem, perhaps not as elegantly as I'd like.
Nobody is proposing to give Richard Stallman an army. And the GPL is hardly compulsory, anyone who doesn't like it need only stay away from our code. Richard does not want the adoration of crowds, he doesn't even want FSF to get too big. He won't run for political office. It's not in him. You really don't have to worry about that.
Bruce
Bruce
Nor do the GPL developers. There is a very long list of corporations that participate, I don't believe that BSD can claim as long a list. At the core of the GPL is "share and share alike". As long as a corporation respects that, they're welcome. They have to follow the rules. And it's better to have rigid rules than no rules. But if you go back to when the Kerberos thing happened, lots of folks, BSD developers among them, though that Microsoft was taking advantage unfairly.
Right. The GPL represents a competing monoculture. Microsoft are able to recognise that.
Oh come on. You can't call something with no coherent management structure and no ownership in common a "monoculture". There are a bunch of groups that share only a license in common. It's more like a whole economy than it is like a monoculture.
then why are dissenting responses to that philosophy repressed here to the degree that they are?
Because the people involved have made such a big emotional investment in Free Software that they take attacks personally. Also, there is no author's age field on Slashdot postings, and no maturity field even if there was an age field, and the folks here aren't necessarily representative of the Free Software movement, and come to think of it their attackers weren't generally showing great maturity either. Some of them didn't even show very good integrity, the various SCO apologists come to mind, and those folks should have been flamed.
I have seen people here (including myself) merely being shouted down
IMO you were uncivil enough for it to be appropriate for you to be shouted down this evening. Those other postings must have been real whoppers, if the response was worse than you got tonight. Maybe some of the fault was your own.
It may be true that as you say, Stallman himself does not hold such a perspective [intolerance for dissent]; but if that is so, I am at a loss to explain the discrepancy.
Richard's own brain wiring makes it difficult for him to have empathy for people who do not think as he does, and he finds it difficult to construct a mental bridge to them. I'd hope you could appreciate that. So, I get to have the arguments, because he simply isn't good at it. But nobody sacrifices more than Richard does for this. So, while I am conscious of his limitations, I have tremendous respect for him.
evils are actually customarily committed by those who are impeccably civil to each other on a superficial level.
Well, mostly because they have learned that nobody listens to them when they act rudely. Someone said that the definition of politics is sitting down with someone you dispise and coming to an agreement. Sometimes, you just have to put the emotional content aside until you can have a private chat with a trusted friend.
Bruce
I didn't really consider Sun as wanting to be a sincere partner in the Free Software community, due to their starting out by making incompatible licenses. I think they figured that out now. And Jonathan doesn't say stupid stuff about us all the time any longer. So, I am waiting for them to drop the CDDL, since even they seem to think it's a dead-end now. So it might be moot whether it's free or not.
Bruce
And of course they can replace Samba with something from Microsoft, right? And then the 100 other programs they need. It gets expensive.
Bruce
Bruce