It sounds like you have two issues: License proliferation and a vague ideological disagreement.
License proliferation is a known problem, and the GPLv3 doesn't make it significantly worse. Most GPLed software today is released under "GPLv2 or any later version", so it can be upgraded to v3 with no problems. The codebase of "GPLv2 only" software isn't significantly bigger than the codebase of Apache Licence 2.0 software (which the GPLv3 is now compatible with), so the License proliferation issue is about as bad as it was before. In order to have this community standard patent-protection text, a new, incompatible version was necessary.
As for the ideological disagreement, what exactly is the problem that you have? Is the "installation instructions" clause really that big a deal? I mean... even Linus has said he would consider moving to GPLv3 if there was some technical advantage to doing so.
Oh, don't worry about LGPL compatibility or forks due to licensing. Those are not a problem and not a new problem respectively.
Please state your argument that opposes my claim, and I'll see if I can defend my stance.
If people are using MySQL in any sort of product or website that they intend to use for revenue generation, that makes them a commercial user. Heck, any use by a for-profit corporation should count as commercial use, and thus that corporation is a commercial user.
Actually, given that MySQL is dual-licensed, it's questionable whether it even is free software.
Even Richard Stallman wouldn't look at it that way. MySQL is available under the terms of the GPL, so it's free software. Like the LGPL, the total license that MySQL AB offers compromises the viral nature of the GPL for another goal (profit isn't innately an ethically positive goal, but it's still a goal).
Compare the effects to releasing the program under the MIT license or some other non-copyleft free software license. The only real difference is that MySQL AB gets to charge a bunch of money to the developers of proprietary products that use the software.
It's possible that certain medical devices will be excluded by FDA regulation from using GPLv3 software without arranging for an exemption from the author. That sucks, but it's more a problem with the FDA regs than it is with the GPL. The GPL requires that end users be able to modify their own software and use their modifications; products that can't meet that requirement are out of luck (and that's OK).
As for "overly verbose and complicated", that's your personal opinion as a non-lawyer who apparently isn't entirely convinced by the free software viewpoint. The FSF and a number of major corporations had *teams* of lawyers and non-lawyers trying to accomplish the specific goal of making sure that GPLv3 software is and will remain free software - my personal opinion as a non-laywer who supports the idea of free software is that they got it just about right.
A lot of companies use those binary blobs because they have other restrictions from letting them release them as open source (such as patents on graphics technology).
Binary blobs and Linux are a completely unrelated discussion. What I was recommending for wireless devices is binary firmware. Firmware is software running on an embedded CPU in the hardware device itself - the GPL doesn't effect it at all unless the code for the firmware itself is GPLed.
Besides, the FSF really didn't care about the concerns of people like Linus... they were going to put out the license they wanted regardless of community concerns.
They fixed all his major problems with the early drafts. Yes, there's some controversy left because the FSF pushed the license creation process through in "only" 18 months. Yes, Richard Stallman didn't compromise on the license ensuring that the end user can use their software in freedom.
But... all of these things are way overblown as legitimate problems. For end users, the GPLv3 is strictly an improvement. For developers who don't intend to violate the GPLv3 by trying remove freedoms from end users, the GPLv3 is also an obvious improvement.
Distributors that intended to abuse patents to extract royalties from their users (thus making the software effectively proprietary) get screwed - which is a good thing. Distributors that intended to prevent users from using modified versions of GPLed software also get screwed - again, that's the whole point of the GPL.
The only people who have room for legitimate complaint are device manufacturers with regulatory burdens, but laws requiring them to distribute their software in a manner that cannot be modified do innately conflict with the goal of the GPL. Sucks to be them, but that's life.
And now so-called 'commercial users' (there is no commerical user of Free Softwar - only commercial exploiters like Tivo, Apple, Novell and Microsoft) are cashing in on the Free Software movement.
Wait... what?
I suggest the following: If you carefully stop talking, you can avoid saying anything stupid like that in the future. If there are no commercial users of free software, then why does MySQL exist, and who uses it?
We're talking about a big clunky computer hardware, that can't be moved around easily and that will have to stay in a fixed position.
And a secretary who works with that computer 8 hours a days, 5 days a week, 11 months a year (depending on vacations).
All this with little freedom in changing position.
We are? Why?
This stuff isn't interesting because it can replace some office workstation - at least not anytime soon. This stuff is neat because of the new devices it can enable. Something like an electronic easel for a painter is *exactly* the sort of thing that makes this interesting.
Because you have to, in order for the appliance to actually work (like, perhaps, anything that needs an AACS license)?
I think I covered that in my "ridiculous malicious features like DRM" comment. If companies want to implement that sort of anti-consumer feature, they'll have to find some way to do it that doesn't involve preventing GPLv3 software they've distributed from being modified and used.
Because the FDA says you can't sell a heart monitor that someone can change the software on without FDA approval?
That doesn't sound much like a "consumer device" to me.
Because the FCC says you can't create wireless hardware that allow users (and we're not talking an EE who could create the hardware from scratch) to violate the spectrum (for example, bleeding into other slots, boosting the power and blocking other users, etc?
The actual FCC rules are a bit more complicated than that, but - in any case - this has been clearly solved by the binary firmware solution that's used in many wireless cards today. The GPLv3 doesn't interfere with that at all.
There are all kinds of embedded devices which can't use GPL3 code because they can't create the device and still adhere to the terms of the GPL forcing them to make it so users can tamper with the code that would violate their government licensing mandates (good luck selling a medical device without FDA approval).
There may be some, but I strongly doubt there are as many as you claim. Mostly devices like that should fall into the "not a consumer device" exception in the GPLv3. Further, putting some pressure on the government agencies who do have policies like that to change their rules is probably a good thing.
The GPLv3 process went on for nearly two years. If there were serious problems with that clause in practice (rather than just in Slashdotter's minds), they would have been brought up by the companies effected in the discussions.
GPLv3 has a significantly more nasty viral nature than GPLv2, as the Anti-TiVo clause and the Anti-Patent clause, as well as the significant expansion of the term "conveying", makes the GPLv3 much more dangerous for a business to deal with/use.
How is it "more viral"? How are any of the other things relevant to most businesses?
Sure, a couple companies like Tivo are going to have to find ways to implement their malicious features without denying users the ability to modify the GPLed software they're using in their appliances. For most companies - or at least those companies that don't want to add expensive hardware to their product to make it harder for their customers to tinker with their own property - the tivoization clause is irrelevent.
As for the patent text, any rational company should welcome any protection from patents they can get. Sure, if they redistribute the software they're giving up the right to sue their customers for using the software that they distributed... but that really shouldn't have been part of their business plan anyway. Even *Microsoft* is wary of suing their own customers.
Personally, I don't see why anyone should ever run into the tivoization clause unless they're trying to implement some ridiculous malicious feature like hardware-enforced DRM. Seriously... why put in *extra hardware* to prevent users from voiding the warranty on their appliance?
His other citation is a 1 hr 22 minute video that 99% of people aren't going to watch.
Reguardless of your opinion of the author of the article, you should take the time to watch Moglen's speech in Scotland (as linked to in the article). It's worth the time, just to understand why a Columbia University law professor like Moglen would dedicate a year of his life to the FSF.
When it comes to software, don't even talk about "Open Market Capitalism". Once taxpayer dollars are being spent to buy monopoly products, you don't have a free market anymore.
There is no open specification for time-limited DRM.
That's because time-limited DRM is a technological absurdity. It can't be accomplished without perverting the very concept of a general purpose computer. The BBC has never required limitations like that before in other media (and they digitally broadcast all their content by radio waves, over the entire country, in the clear).
Requiring that particular "feature" is simply protectionist nonsense for Microsoft's benefit, and such anti-competitive requirements shouldn't be tolerated by the citizens of the UK.
The whole number is calculated, basically based on "how many derivative works could have been written in that time." I'm sorry, but are we actually losing something worth anything there? We're not talking valuable original works, we're talking, basically, mashups based on wholesale plagiarism, if only copyright law is what keeps them from being published before copyright expires. Seriously.
Derivative artworks have been illegal your entire life, so I can easily see how you would under-value them.
Still, there are a number of examples I can give of high quality works that can serve as examples of what would be possible with limited duration (i.e. short enough for one person to see them start and end) copyrights. Some well known third party dervitive works include: Disney's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves", Disney's "Beauty and the Beast", and DJ Danger Mouse's "The Grey Album". The first two are based on public domain works, and the third is illegal to distribute due to copyright.
The sort of works I'd expect to see first with sorter copyright durations would be remixes and media shifts. Someone could make a movie out of their favorite novel, or a video game out of their favorite movie. Once people got used to the idea more, we'd get a chance to see all kids of interesting things - it's hard to know exactly what because the whole area has been banned for so long.
Your examples are really bad. Things like "dilbert with fart jokes" are what we're stuck with now, becase parody is the only thing that's allowed. We don't get higher quality stuff because it's illegal - and therefore not worth dedicating a budget to.
You are Elmer J. Fudd, millionaire. You own a mansion and a yacht. Your estate will pass to your children without question.
The claim that copyright is the same as physical property is absurd, and only absurdities result when you assume that they're the same.
The geek, you will learn, is libertarian only when it is convenient.
No true Libertarian would support a law allowing the government to snoop on what CD's they are copying. That's them using their property on their land - it's none of anyone else's business at all.
No one gets enough money from one song, or one book or any single work to live off it for the rest of their lives.
That's true. It's also OK.
I think that it's a tired old argument to say that artists deserve unlimited rights to extort money from other people just because they produced a single artistic work.
If the political system in the United States is corrupted by money, that is unfortunate, but it doesn't mean the same is true in all Western countries.
Campaign finance laws, media coverage laws, and (especially) proportional representation can help a lot in reducing the influence of money on politics. That doesn't mean that the influence has been eliminated, or even that it *can* be eliminated. Society is one large, interacting system, and the idea that the economic component of that system can be kept completely separate from the political component is absurd.
The one where a self-styled economist expresses his baseless opinion, strewn with lots of weasel-words? No, I didn't get very far on that one.
He's got some pretty good references, from real economists and everything, backing up his argument.
But you're obviously not interested in that - you'd much rather say that the people who you are arguing against are unqualified and "making up numbers" rather than actually address the points that they're making.
Consider the h.264 video codec. It cost millions of dollars to develop
So... you think it's a good idea to create a government granted monopoly that causes a hundred times that much economic damage in order to possibly create an incentive for that development? I'd rather just have that money come out of my taxes as a government grant to some University.
I don't even think we need to go that far though - I think the basic premise that patents promote innovation *at all* is incorrect. For the argument I would use, in full, see http://fare.tunes.org/articles/patents.html. If we need to discuss some sort of innovation incentive, we should do that - but patents aren't one of the valid answers.
I don't believe there's an engineer on the planet who supports the idea of patents (unless they're one of the crooked ones who is making a fortune out of their own patents).
So, are all patents bad? Do inventors just have to keep things quiet as possible and fend for themselves?
So... if engineers are against patents, then what inventors are left in the "for patents" camp?
You're significantly over-rating the difficulty of using something like Ubuntu with a Windows background. Once you're using OpenOffice and Firefox on Windows, switching to a Linux distro is basically trivial for anyone but a heavy power user.
If they started using that scanning tool here, I'd probably resign; I rely on Open Source tools pretty heavily to do my job. I could probably manage without, but I'd be pretty miserable.
Why not resign anyway? If they aren't letting you use basic, industry standard tools like Firefox...
And the anti-patent clause represents unilateral disarmament in the defensive-patent war, so even if you weren't going to enforce the patents, just have them for defense, GPL3 is a vulnerability.
This is only true if your opponent's software business uses only GPLv3 software derived from software you have conveyed. If that's the case, they've given up their right to sue you as well (assuming that you've folded their changes back into your products) - so you don't need defensive patents against them at all.
Yes, the GPLv3 results in "Patent Disarmament". No, that's not likely to result in a situation where it prevents you from using your patents defensively.
Slashdot Mirror
It sounds like you have two issues: License proliferation and a vague ideological disagreement.
License proliferation is a known problem, and the GPLv3 doesn't make it significantly worse. Most GPLed software today is released under "GPLv2 or any later version", so it can be upgraded to v3 with no problems. The codebase of "GPLv2 only" software isn't significantly bigger than the codebase of Apache Licence 2.0 software (which the GPLv3 is now compatible with), so the License proliferation issue is about as bad as it was before. In order to have this community standard patent-protection text, a new, incompatible version was necessary.
As for the ideological disagreement, what exactly is the problem that you have? Is the "installation instructions" clause really that big a deal? I mean... even Linus has said he would consider moving to GPLv3 if there was some technical advantage to doing so.
Oh, don't worry about LGPL compatibility or forks due to licensing. Those are not a problem and not a new problem respectively.
If people are using MySQL in any sort of product or website that they intend to use for revenue generation, that makes them a commercial user. Heck, any use by a for-profit corporation should count as commercial use, and thus that corporation is a commercial user.
Even Richard Stallman wouldn't look at it that way. MySQL is available under the terms of the GPL, so it's free software. Like the LGPL, the total license that MySQL AB offers compromises the viral nature of the GPL for another goal (profit isn't innately an ethically positive goal, but it's still a goal).
Compare the effects to releasing the program under the MIT license or some other non-copyleft free software license. The only real difference is that MySQL AB gets to charge a bunch of money to the developers of proprietary products that use the software.
Here's where the disagreement is. That's an interesting claim, what's your argument to support it?
Fortunately, not abusing others isn't one of my personal goals.
It's possible that certain medical devices will be excluded by FDA regulation from using GPLv3 software without arranging for an exemption from the author. That sucks, but it's more a problem with the FDA regs than it is with the GPL. The GPL requires that end users be able to modify their own software and use their modifications; products that can't meet that requirement are out of luck (and that's OK).
As for "overly verbose and complicated", that's your personal opinion as a non-lawyer who apparently isn't entirely convinced by the free software viewpoint. The FSF and a number of major corporations had *teams* of lawyers and non-lawyers trying to accomplish the specific goal of making sure that GPLv3 software is and will remain free software - my personal opinion as a non-laywer who supports the idea of free software is that they got it just about right.
Binary blobs and Linux are a completely unrelated discussion. What I was recommending for wireless devices is binary firmware. Firmware is software running on an embedded CPU in the hardware device itself - the GPL doesn't effect it at all unless the code for the firmware itself is GPLed.
They fixed all his major problems with the early drafts. Yes, there's some controversy left because the FSF pushed the license creation process through in "only" 18 months. Yes, Richard Stallman didn't compromise on the license ensuring that the end user can use their software in freedom.
But... all of these things are way overblown as legitimate problems. For end users, the GPLv3 is strictly an improvement. For developers who don't intend to violate the GPLv3 by trying remove freedoms from end users, the GPLv3 is also an obvious improvement.
Distributors that intended to abuse patents to extract royalties from their users (thus making the software effectively proprietary) get screwed - which is a good thing. Distributors that intended to prevent users from using modified versions of GPLed software also get screwed - again, that's the whole point of the GPL.
The only people who have room for legitimate complaint are device manufacturers with regulatory burdens, but laws requiring them to distribute their software in a manner that cannot be modified do innately conflict with the goal of the GPL. Sucks to be them, but that's life.
Wait... what?
I suggest the following: If you carefully stop talking, you can avoid saying anything stupid like that in the future. If there are no commercial users of free software, then why does MySQL exist, and who uses it?
We are? Why?
This stuff isn't interesting because it can replace some office workstation - at least not anytime soon. This stuff is neat because of the new devices it can enable. Something like an electronic easel for a painter is *exactly* the sort of thing that makes this interesting.
I think I covered that in my "ridiculous malicious features like DRM" comment. If companies want to implement that sort of anti-consumer feature, they'll have to find some way to do it that doesn't involve preventing GPLv3 software they've distributed from being modified and used.
That doesn't sound much like a "consumer device" to me.
The actual FCC rules are a bit more complicated than that, but - in any case - this has been clearly solved by the binary firmware solution that's used in many wireless cards today. The GPLv3 doesn't interfere with that at all.
There may be some, but I strongly doubt there are as many as you claim. Mostly devices like that should fall into the "not a consumer device" exception in the GPLv3. Further, putting some pressure on the government agencies who do have policies like that to change their rules is probably a good thing.
The GPLv3 process went on for nearly two years. If there were serious problems with that clause in practice (rather than just in Slashdotter's minds), they would have been brought up by the companies effected in the discussions.
How is it "more viral"? How are any of the other things relevant to most businesses?
Sure, a couple companies like Tivo are going to have to find ways to implement their malicious features without denying users the ability to modify the GPLed software they're using in their appliances. For most companies - or at least those companies that don't want to add expensive hardware to their product to make it harder for their customers to tinker with their own property - the tivoization clause is irrelevent.
As for the patent text, any rational company should welcome any protection from patents they can get. Sure, if they redistribute the software they're giving up the right to sue their customers for using the software that they distributed... but that really shouldn't have been part of their business plan anyway. Even *Microsoft* is wary of suing their own customers.
Personally, I don't see why anyone should ever run into the tivoization clause unless they're trying to implement some ridiculous malicious feature like hardware-enforced DRM. Seriously... why put in *extra hardware* to prevent users from voiding the warranty on their appliance?
Reguardless of your opinion of the author of the article, you should take the time to watch Moglen's speech in Scotland (as linked to in the article). It's worth the time, just to understand why a Columbia University law professor like Moglen would dedicate a year of his life to the FSF.
When it comes to software, don't even talk about "Open Market Capitalism". Once taxpayer dollars are being spent to buy monopoly products, you don't have a free market anymore.
That's because time-limited DRM is a technological absurdity. It can't be accomplished without perverting the very concept of a general purpose computer. The BBC has never required limitations like that before in other media (and they digitally broadcast all their content by radio waves, over the entire country, in the clear).
Requiring that particular "feature" is simply protectionist nonsense for Microsoft's benefit, and such anti-competitive requirements shouldn't be tolerated by the citizens of the UK.
Derivative artworks have been illegal your entire life, so I can easily see how you would under-value them.
Still, there are a number of examples I can give of high quality works that can serve as examples of what would be possible with limited duration (i.e. short enough for one person to see them start and end) copyrights. Some well known third party dervitive works include: Disney's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves", Disney's "Beauty and the Beast", and DJ Danger Mouse's "The Grey Album". The first two are based on public domain works, and the third is illegal to distribute due to copyright.
The sort of works I'd expect to see first with sorter copyright durations would be remixes and media shifts. Someone could make a movie out of their favorite novel, or a video game out of their favorite movie. Once people got used to the idea more, we'd get a chance to see all kids of interesting things - it's hard to know exactly what because the whole area has been banned for so long.
Your examples are really bad. Things like "dilbert with fart jokes" are what we're stuck with now, becase parody is the only thing that's allowed. We don't get higher quality stuff because it's illegal - and therefore not worth dedicating a budget to.
The claim that copyright is the same as physical property is absurd, and only absurdities result when you assume that they're the same.
No true Libertarian would support a law allowing the government to snoop on what CD's they are copying. That's them using their property on their land - it's none of anyone else's business at all.
That's true. It's also OK.
I think that it's a tired old argument to say that artists deserve unlimited rights to extort money from other people just because they produced a single artistic work.
Campaign finance laws, media coverage laws, and (especially) proportional representation can help a lot in reducing the influence of money on politics. That doesn't mean that the influence has been eliminated, or even that it *can* be eliminated. Society is one large, interacting system, and the idea that the economic component of that system can be kept completely separate from the political component is absurd.
He's got some pretty good references, from real economists and everything, backing up his argument.
But you're obviously not interested in that - you'd much rather say that the people who you are arguing against are unqualified and "making up numbers" rather than actually address the points that they're making.
Did you read the link I gave?
So... you think it's a good idea to create a government granted monopoly that causes a hundred times that much economic damage in order to possibly create an incentive for that development? I'd rather just have that money come out of my taxes as a government grant to some University.
I don't even think we need to go that far though - I think the basic premise that patents promote innovation *at all* is incorrect. For the argument I would use, in full, see http://fare.tunes.org/articles/patents.html. If we need to discuss some sort of innovation incentive, we should do that - but patents aren't one of the valid answers.
So... if engineers are against patents, then what inventors are left in the "for patents" camp?
You're significantly over-rating the difficulty of using something like Ubuntu with a Windows background. Once you're using OpenOffice and Firefox on Windows, switching to a Linux distro is basically trivial for anyone but a heavy power user.
Why not resign anyway? If they aren't letting you use basic, industry standard tools like Firefox...
This is only true if your opponent's software business uses only GPLv3 software derived from software you have conveyed. If that's the case, they've given up their right to sue you as well (assuming that you've folded their changes back into your products) - so you don't need defensive patents against them at all.
Yes, the GPLv3 results in "Patent Disarmament". No, that's not likely to result in a situation where it prevents you from using your patents defensively.