Sigh. Sorry, I didn't have the time today to write about that topic. A course on copyrights, patents, trade secrets, and trademarks is something every programmer should take. There are a few good books on the topic aimed at us. I don't have the references, but you should be able to find them.
In my experience, the most likely reason for this happening is the engineering firms desire to do everythig cheaply, and they have their managers interpret the license rather than hiring an attorney to do it. The manager says something like "this is an embedded device, so this source-code requirement must not apply". Obviously, the pay lawyers and expert witnesses much more later in exchange for what they saved by not hiring a lawyer to advise them about the license.
Linus has contradicted himself a few times on this. In a later comment, he tried to say that proprietary modules were OK only if you were sure that copyright law made them OK.
And of late there has been an effort among the kernel developers to hide some kernel symbols from proprietary drivers. There's a macro you can use to control what symbols are exported, and what they are exported to.
Modules don't directly make system calls, so what Linus says about them is probably moot. I can not conclusively tell you today that proprietary run-time loadable device drivers for Linux are legal. I've studied the problem a lot, looked at the relevant cases, and talked with lots of lawyers about it. And the result is that I can find no legislation, no case law, and nothing in the license that would make them legal. Thus, I tell my customers not to engage in making them.
I'm not a big GPL supporter, The BSD License is more commercially acceptable.
People don't seem to realize that there are two sides to this equation. The GPL is commercially very useful, because it provides the copyright holder with a means to restrain his competition and potential customers. With the BSD license, a competitor or potential customer can run away with your product, with no obligation to fulfill any sort of quid-pro-quo. With the GPL, the competition and customers either have to follow the rules and release the derivative works that they distribute with your code, or they have to come to you to buy a commercial license that lets them out of the GPL obligations.
Thus, I often wonder if most people who find BSD licensing more acceptable just don't release much free software of their own.
But then, I have gotten a number of emails of the form so-and-so stole my code in their product, but I guess it's my own damn fault because I used BSD licensing. Some people don't seem to think this through until it's too late.
Actually, it doesn't even permit printouts as fulfillment of the source-code obligation. It requires machine-readable media. Even with today's OCR technology, I think I could make a case that listings aren't machine-readable. Some things, like which characters are in the white space, don't come across.
If your product is from perens.com, perens.com must provide you with a download site. It would not be kernel.org unless we had contracted with the site operator to provide that service for us. You can't just point to a third party as your fulfillment of the source code obligation.
Actually, my personal agenda comes into these cases less than you might think. Before I get to talk, the witnesses are all deposed. Then I read the depositions. Then I get to sum up to the judge what went wrong, who was responsible, and what it should cost. The other expert does the same, and the judge decides who is more convincing.
I can't lie under oath. And I have to deal with discovery - the fact that the court can force me to give my opinion whether it is to the customer's advantage or not.
So, when I think my testimony would damage them, I have once or twice told a customer - you don't want me to work on this any longer, and you don't want to know why. And they know not to probe farther.
Well, what happens when you sell or give away a computer with Windows? At the very least, you should give the person those pages with the holograms and activation passwords, and the licenses. Oh, but some of those licenses don't permit resale! So you have to remove the software before you sell the computer.
In the case of a computer with Linux, if you give it away you fall under 3(c) of the GPL, and only have to pass on the source-code offers that were given you. If you sell it, you fall under 3(a) and 3(b), so you either distribute the source code with the computer or make an offer to do so valid for 3 years.
Me, I'd wipe the disk, put on a fresh install, and give the buyer the CD set.
Did they modify busybox? If so, I'd get involved because it's my copyright (and Erik Andersen's, and a bunch of other folks). The DVD player probably does contain busybox. The copyright holders can contact the violator directly, or they can ask FSF to do so. Or they can ask me for help - not that I have tons of time lately.
And by the way, if you don't distribute the source with the product, you must include a written offer with the product, valid for 3 years, to distribute the source to anyone who asks. If that product doesn't come with source and doesn't come with that offer, they are in violation right now.
Bzzzzzzzzzzz! Go read the license before you get up on that high horse. You have to distribute source. Yes, you have the option to distribute it with the product, or at a later date when asked. But you don't have the option to not distribute source.
The big difference is that the people who are violating the GPL are distributing the GPL code in a product. When you redistribute or sell the code, you have a different set of obligations than a user. The GPL allows the end-user to do almost anything.
There have been a lot of cases of far-east engineering firms including GPL code in products, and selling those products to other companies that are not made aware of the licenses they have to comply with.
Cisco got trapped this way, too. And they can turn around and sue those far-east folks, if it's worth their time.
This has nothing to do with zeal. Just following the rules of the license. If the source is not distributed with the product, or made available from the entity distributing the binary for a period of three years after the binary is distributed, you're not complying with the license and have no right to distribute the software.
Lots of people ask for tons of money for a privilege we let people have without charge. The least they can do is comply with the terms of the license.Bruce
BPL works by using the power lines as the medium for a radio-frequency modem. The problem is that the power lines work as antennas to radiate that radio frequency into their surroundings. You can't really "focus" it. It just goes into the air, and tends not to go down the wire where you want it since the power line is so bad a medium for high frequencies. So you have to use lots of power, which means a very strong signal in the air.
And of course the BPL providers don't care how much they pollute the radio spectrum.
BPL makes a total mess of the wireless spectrum wherever it's used. HF receivers are 10 dB over S-9 with the interference. There are lots of users of that HF spectrum. And of course the BPL promoters attitude is "F**k-you, wireless users! We've got money to be made, and if it causes you pollution, that's too damn bad!"
The fact is that even DSL causes interference, because the twisted-pair phone wires weren't designed to convey those high frequencies and leak like a sieve. Now, go to power lines, which are not twisted-pair, have no form of shielding whatsoever, and simply aren't designed for frequencies over 60 Hz. They radiate like antennas.
Traffic lights take very little bandwidth to operate, generally they are on a 200 KHz system that works like the X-10 switches many people have in their homes. It's not good for much more. The claims of greater bandwidth than cable or DSL are absurd.
Well, I see that you have done a little work on Chandler. I think that if you would like to solve the problems you're complaining about, the best path is for you to code. I don't yet believe that a public license that "enforces usability" is going to be much help.
And before I accept your point about the GUI not working as an add-on, I'd like to hear what systems you like.
One could also make the moral argument that developers who have contempt for newbies have entirely no right to the desktop. You could even take this one step further and say that any action taken against such developers (e.g. licenses, patents on innovative UI stuff, project wars, etc) is morally justified.
That's just silly. If you don't like their work, you have the right to not use it. Find or create an alternative that is more to your liking. The thought of punishing a free software developer because they don't meet your personal standards is simply offensive.
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks
Bruce
Sure, but given that any third party can apply and must be honored, why take the trouble?
Bruce
Bruce
Bruce
And of late there has been an effort among the kernel developers to hide some kernel symbols from proprietary drivers. There's a macro you can use to control what symbols are exported, and what they are exported to.
Modules don't directly make system calls, so what Linus says about them is probably moot. I can not conclusively tell you today that proprietary run-time loadable device drivers for Linux are legal. I've studied the problem a lot, looked at the relevant cases, and talked with lots of lawyers about it. And the result is that I can find no legislation, no case law, and nothing in the license that would make them legal. Thus, I tell my customers not to engage in making them.
Bruce
People don't seem to realize that there are two sides to this equation. The GPL is commercially very useful, because it provides the copyright holder with a means to restrain his competition and potential customers. With the BSD license, a competitor or potential customer can run away with your product, with no obligation to fulfill any sort of quid-pro-quo. With the GPL, the competition and customers either have to follow the rules and release the derivative works that they distribute with your code, or they have to come to you to buy a commercial license that lets them out of the GPL obligations.
Thus, I often wonder if most people who find BSD licensing more acceptable just don't release much free software of their own.
But then, I have gotten a number of emails of the form so-and-so stole my code in their product, but I guess it's my own damn fault because I used BSD licensing. Some people don't seem to think this through until it's too late.
Bruce
Bruce
Bruce
I can't lie under oath. And I have to deal with discovery - the fact that the court can force me to give my opinion whether it is to the customer's advantage or not.
So, when I think my testimony would damage them, I have once or twice told a customer - you don't want me to work on this any longer, and you don't want to know why. And they know not to probe farther.
Thanks
Bruce
In the case of a computer with Linux, if you give it away you fall under 3(c) of the GPL, and only have to pass on the source-code offers that were given you. If you sell it, you fall under 3(a) and 3(b), so you either distribute the source code with the computer or make an offer to do so valid for 3 years.
Me, I'd wipe the disk, put on a fresh install, and give the buyer the CD set.
Bruce
Bruce
Bruce
3(b) of the GPL says the written offer must apply to any third party, not just the person who got the binary.
Bruce
Bruce
Bruce
Bruce
Bruce
Cisco got trapped this way, too. And they can turn around and sue those far-east folks, if it's worth their time.
I am an expert witness in one such case.
Bruce
Lots of people ask for tons of money for a privilege we let people have without charge. The least they can do is comply with the terms of the license.Bruce
Bruce
And of course the BPL providers don't care how much they pollute the radio spectrum.
Bruce
The fact is that even DSL causes interference, because the twisted-pair phone wires weren't designed to convey those high frequencies and leak like a sieve. Now, go to power lines, which are not twisted-pair, have no form of shielding whatsoever, and simply aren't designed for frequencies over 60 Hz. They radiate like antennas.
Traffic lights take very little bandwidth to operate, generally they are on a 200 KHz system that works like the X-10 switches many people have in their homes. It's not good for much more. The claims of greater bandwidth than cable or DSL are absurd.
Bruce
And before I accept your point about the GUI not working as an add-on, I'd like to hear what systems you like.
One could also make the moral argument that developers who have contempt for newbies have entirely no right to the desktop. You could even take this one step further and say that any action taken against such developers (e.g. licenses, patents on innovative UI stuff, project wars, etc) is morally justified.
That's just silly. If you don't like their work, you have the right to not use it. Find or create an alternative that is more to your liking. The thought of punishing a free software developer because they don't meet your personal standards is simply offensive.
Bruce
If you want do demonize me, try "Brucifer" :-)
Now, seriously, will it be server or desktop first?
The customer has both. The customer gets both, pretty much at the same time.
Bruce