What do you think about this behavior? Is it still not considered "viral" by you?
You have an exciting research project A released under the GPL. Company X wants to integrate it into their product B because it's a cool new feature and their customers would really like to use it. - Although, because of the GPL they can't, because if they integrate it, they'd have to release their whole product B under the GPL.
e.g. project A could be TCP/IP and product B an OS.
Because the GPL is "viral" it is just the wrong license to publish academic works under because of the following characteristic:
- You can't integrate it with a commercial product to further advance innovation. (In fact you can't even look at the source and write your own implementation because you might be subject to the GPL's "viral" effects then)
I think it's one thing to share your modifications and derivative works at will, but it is IMHO not okay to force someone to release a whole product into which you integrated it.
btw: As surprising as it may be, Microsoft also pays taxes and therefore funds academic projects.
Please point me to the slide where they stated that they want to be the sole owner of any academic work published in the US.
AFAIK they just stated clearly and with a complete and reasonable argument why, in their opinion, publishing academic works under the GPL is not desirable.
That's nonsense. Sure it does. You were impacted by this. You couldn't get your ISA NIC to work. There was a good driver available as GPL code but Be wasn't able to use it because of the GPL.
And you still say "that has nothing to do with the utility of GPL code"??
I only partially agree with your analysis. You haven't decided to license program B under the GPL because the GPL made this decision for you.
That's exactly why it is viral. - To show this I'll use your STD example:
If you're so desperate to use the GPL library then you have waived your right to complain when you have to license your program B under the GPL.
Did you get my argument?
It basically comes down to your viewpoint:
Fact is that the GPL forces its license onto other programs that just link with the GPLed library. - If you consider this to be "forced" or the "choice" because you had the choice to use another library really depends.
But whatever way you see it, based on your analogy it is viral.
Basically true, but there are normally too many people working on a GPLed software product and you'd have to buy a license from too many people. It's just not worth the effort if you have >x contributors.
The real problem is that if many people modify the GPLed code and contribute changes back that you have to negotiate with a lot of people. (Just look at the THANKS files of any GNU program and you get the idea)
For academic use I think a BSD-style license is just the right thing to do.
Why is it that nobody wants to see the truth in MS's statement but only picks about the chosen words of a non-US presentation published in english?
Maybe you're just too used to reading licenses and finding exceptions to what someone wrote. Please be a little bit more open and think about what other people wanted to say and you'll find that sometimes they have valid opinions you should think about.
AFAIK this whole debate is NOT about the DMCA or any other copyright enforcement. It is about choosing the right license for the job at hand and not about enforcing that license by using code. - Your comment makes no sense to me, sorry.
IMHO they just said that it should not be released under the GPL but rather on a BSD-style license. - What's wrong with that?
They don't take anything away from you. - It's the other way around. If you use the GPL you're taking opportunities away from them, which they, obviously, don't want.
Using GPL in these cases would clearly harm innovation in IT. - Do we really want that for the sake of the GPL?
- SO/OO has no collaborative comparable to MS Office 10. (e.g. saving multiple file versions and revisions from multiple people in one file) - Or at least I haven't found them or they're only in the latest versions.
- SO/OO XML is not guaranteed to be a stable format. - Hell, if it would be so easy to have a stable format MS would've saved them and their customers a lot of trouble.
I don't want to say that SO/OO is no alternative in some cases but at least at school/uni I really prefer MS's way to handle multiple people working together in Office 10 or maybe even through Groove. (although I haven't used Groove productively yet because it just wasn't available when I finished my last school project)
For personal productivity work SO/OO might be an alternative for even most people but I doubt that the collaboration features that SO/OO offers are enough for teamwork. - SO/OO feels much more like plain old paper in that respect.
Slashdot Mirror
If there's someone there recording it and creating a CDR image of the recording on a notebook where's the problem of mass-burning and selling them?
I don't think the problems for this approach would be technical...
Believe it or not but AFAIK blocking invalid IP addresses is a common things for ISPs.
The problem is that this is not very effective for large carriers with huge lists of crossconnects to others because of dynamic routing.
It is much easier (and is done) at the level of NASes and gateways to customers.
What do you think about this behavior? Is it still not considered "viral" by you?
You have an exciting research project A released under the GPL. Company X wants to integrate it into their product B because it's a cool new feature and their customers would really like to use it. - Although, because of the GPL they can't, because if they integrate it, they'd have to release their whole product B under the GPL.
e.g. project A could be TCP/IP and product B an OS.
Because the GPL is "viral" it is just the wrong license to publish academic works under because of the following characteristic:
- You can't integrate it with a commercial product to further advance innovation. (In fact you can't even look at the source and write your own implementation because you might be subject to the GPL's "viral" effects then)
I think it's one thing to share your modifications and derivative works at will, but it is IMHO not okay to force someone to release a whole product into which you integrated it.
btw: As surprising as it may be, Microsoft also pays taxes and therefore funds academic projects.
Please point me to the slide where they stated that they want to be the sole owner of any academic work published in the US.
AFAIK they just stated clearly and with a complete and reasonable argument why, in their opinion, publishing academic works under the GPL is not desirable.
Did I miss anything?
That's nonsense. Sure it does. You were impacted by this. You couldn't get your ISA NIC to work. There was a good driver available as GPL code but Be wasn't able to use it because of the GPL.
And you still say "that has nothing to do with the utility of GPL code"??
Sorry, but I can't follow this logic.
I only partially agree with your analysis. You haven't decided to license program B under the GPL because the GPL made this decision for you.
That's exactly why it is viral. - To show this I'll use your STD example:
If you're so desperate to use the GPL library then you have waived your right to complain when you have to license your program B under the GPL.
Did you get my argument?
It basically comes down to your viewpoint:
Fact is that the GPL forces its license onto other programs that just link with the GPLed library. - If you consider this to be "forced" or the "choice" because you had the choice to use another library really depends.
But whatever way you see it, based on your analogy it is viral.
To get a glimpse of what Microsoft thinks of the GPL you can read the document atf aq.doc.
http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/downloads/Gpl-
This document is actually really good and should be a must read for every SMB or OSS developer.
If you would've been a user of Be (I haven't been) you wouldn't say that the GPL helped you in that case.
You talk about MS like shit and don't consider if their arguments might be valid but you still spread FUD yourself. pathetic.
Basically true, but there are normally too many people working on a GPLed software product and you'd have to buy a license from too many people. It's just not worth the effort if you have >x contributors.
A license doesn't attack. The people that use it attack someone or not.
MS and its employees are also tax payers and IMHO also deserve to use software developed with their money.
I have to totally agree with your statements but it is rather strange that MS and the OSS community seem to be on the same side on the patent issues :)
The real problem is that if many people modify the GPLed code and contribute changes back that you have to negotiate with a lot of people. (Just look at the THANKS files of any GNU program and you get the idea)
For academic use I think a BSD-style license is just the right thing to do.
I have to totally agree!
Why is it that nobody wants to see the truth in MS's statement but only picks about the chosen words of a non-US presentation published in english?
Maybe you're just too used to reading licenses and finding exceptions to what someone wrote. Please be a little bit more open and think about what other people wanted to say and you'll find that sometimes they have valid opinions you should think about.
MS is not as misleading here as you think.
Wouldn't you agree that freedom for everyone would be greater if academic software would be released under BSD-like licenses?
Who coined that term?
Is it really true?
What's with the BSD-license? Isn't that more free? And doesn't every license provide and take away your freedoms?
AFAIK this whole debate is NOT about the DMCA or any other copyright enforcement. It is about choosing the right license for the job at hand and not about enforcing that license by using code. - Your comment makes no sense to me, sorry.
IMHO they just said that it should not be released under the GPL but rather on a BSD-style license. - What's wrong with that?
They don't take anything away from you. - It's the other way around. If you use the GPL you're taking opportunities away from them, which they, obviously, don't want.
Using GPL in these cases would clearly harm innovation in IT. - Do we really want that for the sake of the GPL?
Yeah. sure. What about this scenario:
You use library A that is licensed under the GPL. - You write a program B.
Now you link program B to library A. - What just happened with program B during linking to GPL'd library A?
Viral anyone?
True, but IMHO this whole discussion is about academic software and this is basically written to be distributed, isn't it?
That was posted to esa three days ago!
This primarily has the following problems:
- SO/OO has no collaborative comparable to MS Office 10. (e.g. saving multiple file versions and revisions from multiple people in one file) - Or at least I haven't found them or they're only in the latest versions.
- SO/OO XML is not guaranteed to be a stable format. - Hell, if it would be so easy to have a stable format MS would've saved them and their customers a lot of trouble.
I don't want to say that SO/OO is no alternative in some cases but at least at school/uni I really prefer MS's way to handle multiple people working together in Office 10 or maybe even through Groove. (although I haven't used Groove productively yet because it just wasn't available when I finished my last school project)
For personal productivity work SO/OO might be an alternative for even most people but I doubt that the collaboration features that SO/OO offers are enough for teamwork. - SO/OO feels much more like plain old paper in that respect.