Novell has made a couple of choices which don't display a clear committment to formats one can play with FLOSS.
Recently they started an audio show distributed online and this show is encoded exclusively in MP3 format. I wrote to them suggesting that they upload a WAV or FLAC file to archive.org and let archive.org make derivative files in a variety of formats including Ogg Vorbis, thus simultaneously offloading bandwidth and hosting resources while allowing people to hear their show without necessarily giving up their software freedom.
Now their "narrated screencam" is distributed exclusively in RealMedia format, for which there is no FLOSS player. This doesn't have to be this way—one could distribute the same movie in Ogg Theora+Ogg Vorbis format as well as their (apparently) preferred non-free format.
Has OldVersion.com reviewed the licenses for the proprietary software it distributes? Some proprietary software is not redistributable by anyone but the proprietor, some proprietary programs are only distributable if one observes onerous terms (like constantly monitoring a website for updates). When I skim this site, I get no impression that anyone there cares much for licensing and this is really just a place to find multiple ongoing copyright infringements.
The reason why they're making their case against the GPL is important. Proprietors are saying that the GPL makes them nervous, they don't like the commons the GPL creates and maintains. Proprietors want to discourage everyone from using and developing GPL-covered code so that they have less competition and won't have to spend their time lobbying governments around the world to help make Free Software implementations of various programs impossible. Thus this is just another legal risk FUD case against the most widely used Free Software license, the GNU GPL which fails to mention what the Software Freedom Law Center points out:
"Historically, GPL violations have not triggered massive lawsuits for damages the way that violations of proprietary license agreements have. The primary enforcer of the GPL is the Free Software Foundation (FSF), who has never used a GPL violation as the basis to go to court to seek a large damage award or enjoin software distribution. The FSF's stated policy is to ensure compliance, not to prevent software distribution or to seek damages.
What this means practically for the vast majority of companies complying with SOX is that the threat to their businesses posed by potential GPL license violations, both inadvertent and intentional, is so low as to be immaterial. In any case, the financial impact of GPL violations is likely to almost always be lower than the impact of proprietary license violations, for which parties routinely bring suit for damages."
And when it comes to GPL-covered software being so complicated to deal with, the SFLC has this to say:
"In most instances, compliance with proprietary licenses is much more complex than GPL compliance because the GPL is a general license with obligations that are fairly simple and understandable. No money changes hands, seats are not counted, and licenses are not time-limited. GPL compliance is a fairly simply matter, and if a company has concerns about how to comply, the FSF is staffed with experts who can and do help companies create efficient compliance procedures. Proprietary licenses, on the other hand, often contain both a greater number of provisions and a greater complexity than the GPL. Thus, a company trying to understand its rights and comply with its obligations under such a complex and detailed license will have a much harder time than one who must merely comply with the GPL. Accordingly, the risk of inadvertent license violation is often greater with non-GPL licenses."
Please read the links I so carefully included in the grandparent post, not just the text of the post. There, in the final paragraph of the page labeled "The RIAA License Agreement", you'll see the RIAA restrictions I refer to.
As for why KOTZ doesn't abide by these restrictions, one needs more information to say specifically. Perhaps that station doesn't play tracks licensed by the RIAA (in which case the aforementioned license agreement doesn't apply). Perhaps the station has chosen to play RIAA-licensed tracks and set up some other means of complying with the aforementioned restrictions (in which case they can maintain an ongoing broadcast and not bother you or anyone else on the webcasting end with compliance details). Perhaps the station has chosen to play RIAA-licensed tracks and ignore the aforementioned restrictions (better known as courting a copyright infringement lawsuit). Perhaps something else is afoot; one can't say without more information about what, exactly, KOTZ plays online.
The aforementioned restrictions were not always in place. But these restrictions have been in place for a while now (they came after the Digital Millennium Copyright Act was signed into law) and if any American webcaster plays RIAA-licensed tracks, they must comply with these restrictions or arrange another deal with the RIAA (which, I understand, the RIAA is quite unwilling to do).
""Companies could still maintain intellectual property rights, so that they are the only ones who can sell it, but members of the public should be able to inspect it," Dill says."
Not only does maintaining "intellectual property rights" not preclude others from distributing copies of the software for a fee (as anyone who understands Free Software licensing already knows), merely inspecting the software is insufficient to get real work done in a way that is beneficial to the public.
I served on the Champaign County election equipment advisory board—an appointed board made up of representatives of businesses and political parties from Champaign County, Illinois. Over months in the past couple of years this board weighed a few machines from a variety of vendors so that we could make a recommendation to the elected County Board who would then make the final decision and sign the appropriate contracts. We were told at the first meeting that we were only to consider machines from "approved vendors" but in the end we learned that even the machines we were considering had not yet all been approved by the State of Illinois. It was just a means of narrowing the allowable debate, effectively excluding a variety of vendors who probably never knew we were seriously considering voting machines.
I knew early on (and did my darndest to convince my fellow board members) that we want complete source code to the machines we'd buy so that we could make repairs and improvements while enjoying the benefits of global competition. Locally we have lots of talented computer programmers, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is in this county. It is a shame to waste all the talent we have by getting into a monopoly.
Politically, there are good reasons to need the source code too: it's your machine paid for with your tax dollars, so you should not be restricted from getting it fixed when it breaks, running it any time you want, and not just inspecting what it ostensibly does. But we should also not constrain ourselves to the features the machine has today. Locally, we could switch from a first-past-the-post to some kind of ranked voting system (like instant run-off or some Condorcet system) for local elections. But so long as we can't get the vendor to do what we want and as long as we can't help ourselves because we're choosing to buy into a monopoly for support (which is what you do when you get proprietary software), we have an additional restriction to overcome with our voting machines—we can't switch to the voting system we want because the proprietor won't let us and we can't afford to simply switch to another set of machines.
I think that the state government of Massachusetts would argue that we're in the "then they fight you" stage. Microsoft has already fought hard with lies to make sure Massachusetts doesn't stop using Microsoft Office and its proprietary file formats. Very little of Microsoft's shills arguments have merit and those arguments are quickly dismissed once one realizes the power of controlling one's own computer by thinking highly of software freedom.
This entire conversation is a trap, and most/. readers are falling into the trap. The trap is that Microsoft would rather frame the debate around software features than software freedom. This way Microsoft can continue to have a part of the debate rather than being dismissed out of hand.
I hope you'll not only share a link to where your music can be found but you'll keep your sensibilities about music and the RIAA when talking to radio stations. I work at a community radio station (WEFT 90.1 FM) which plays a great deal of music licensed by the RIAA. Hardly what I'd call alternative, but mine isn't the only opinion in the place.
Recently we had a light discussion about what it would take to do webstreaming. For those of you who don't know, the RIAA licenses tracks of their clients and the terms of the license are rather vague and somewhat hard to shift to if one is used to being able to broadcast almost anything.
WORT recently announced a new and improved webcast. Their announcement is interesting because it starts by lying claiming that they'll webcast "all of its programming!" (see page 13 of the PDF newsletter). When you read further you see that WORT plans to comply with RIAA licensing restrictions by not webcasting some of its programming (presumably either shows or tracks that can't be webcast at that moment). Like I said, it's not easy to webcast if you insist on doing what you can to avoid losing a copyright infringement lawsuit while playing RIAA-licensed stuff. If you've grown used to the over-the-air rules, which don't restrict you in the way RIAA's webcasting restrictions do, you've got a tough row to hoe. The RIAA's online restrictions say things such as you can't play the same featured artist more than 4 times in a 3-hour period, nor can you play more than 3 tracks from the same CD/tape/record in a 3-hour period.
I was curious how much adjustment WEFT would have to make to take on webcasting RIAA tracks. So I looked at some of WEFT's playlists and compared them to RIAA webcasting restrictions. Suffice to say, WEFTies don't yet realize how many shows they'll have to change. I forsee much unpleasant discussion about this topic as we wrestle with exchanging increased listenership for playlist freedom and the hassles that go along with assembling an RIAA-compliant playlist.
/.ers will read this and think that this is a natural application for a database. And if you're thinking this way, you're right but there's more to it than that. WEFT has roughly 40,000 CDs in its library and lots of CDs coming in every week. Finding the financing for the hardware to host the database on alone is a daunting task, finding the volunteer commitment needed to make the database workable for everyone (not just the techies) is another tall order. I'm up for it, but I know a lot more about writing software than I do about writing grant requests, and I estimate we'll need many thousands of dollars to do this in a way that won't fall over when the power dies or a couple of hard drives go bad.
Still other/.ers might think differently and conclude that we should just stop playing RIAA tracks, or WEFT should severly cut down on the RIAA tracks we play. Again, I'm up for that—I host a public-affairs program called "Digital Citizen" every other Wednesday from 8-10PM where I play only stuff my listeners can share. I focus on copyright law, patent law, and Free Software (as in the Free Software movement) issues. The only RIAA licensed tracks I play are fair-use snippets, so these webcasting rules don't apply to me. Other public-affairs shows (like News from Neptune) don't play RIAA tracks at all. The majority of shows on WEFT are music shows and it remains to be seen how receptive they will be to giving up 90% or more of what's in WEFT's library.
So now you're slightly more familiar with the restrictions from the radio end of things, even on community radio which is ostensibly more accessible to the public and less likely to play the mainstream RIAA-licensed stuff you can hear everywhere else.
The only front man I'd be happy with is Linus, and obviously we don't want him taken away from the kernel. So we're left with something like a power vacuum, and RMS is a nice plump shape to plug such a hole.
If you could drop the name-calling long enough to engage in an adult discussion, you'd see that Linus Torvalds doesn't speak for Free Software because he's opposed to it. He opposed Andrew Tridgell when Tridgell worked on a free program to allow users to pull data from Bitkeeper repositories. The FSF's FAQ entry on "strengthen[ing] Linus Torvalds' role as posterboy for our community" is helpful as well. On top of that, he has changed his position on giving GNU any credit at all. When his kernel was first announced he was ready to give GNU credit for what it is, now Torvalds denies GNU any credit and apparently believes that Linux is an operating system. His self-aggrandizing takes the form of routinely allowing interviewers to come away with that misunderstanding by never taking the time to correct their misstatements.
You are will must to be like it.
I don't understand what this sentence means. The grandparent post of this post is quite wrong about RMS' involvement in GNU and authorship of Emacs.
Apart from that, you're the first person I've ever known to say that Richard Stallman isn't a "zealot".
Actually, I didn't say he was or wasn't a zealot. I asked you to justify calling him that. And you haven't done so.
I notice the difference in who is tarred with the term "zealot" and how the norm is defined. Business leaders are not called zealots yet they defend their views on "intellectual property", ownership of code, and control over how you use your computer to unreasonable extremes often lapsing into revisionist history and a profound disagreement from what their own organizations have done. Microsoft's Bill Gates, for instance, told an audience of unquestioning sycophantic students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign that the GPL was an improper license for software distribution. He said this while Microsoft was doing distributing GPL-covered software in its services for Unix package which includes a number of GNU programs (a package of programs Microsoft had been distributing for some time). The public is ostensibly supposed to take Gates' talk as perfectly reasonable assertions of fact when they are demonstrably false. I contacted the University of Illinois about scheduling a rebuttal talk from someone at the FSF, and they gave me the runaround. In trying to schedule this talk, I learned that Gates had contacted UIUC and the University was apparently only too willing to have him talk.
RMS' talk is far more correct than incorrect and it is still impressive just how far ahead of the curve he was and is: his objections to software patents preceeded many and only now are we seeing real organized political objection to software patents (but not in the US, in Europe); the events in RMS' dystopic story "The Right to Read" are more within reach now than they ever were, but business proponents of so-called "Digital Rights Management" (itself a revealing term that reframes the debate away from its effect on users and towards asking you to agree with the publisher's desire for more control over users) don't want you to see this future because you might reject it; RMS discussed the problems with the Bitkeeper fiasco when many here were championing licensing power (and confusing that with freedom). The cleverness of the GPL in using copyright law to build a commons for all was ahead of its time and that license played a big part in building a social movement known as the Free Software movement. His arguments are ahead of the curve in that they aren't technocratic, they are framed on an ethical basis. This means that his arguments are far more likely to survive whatever technological changes come about, but a lot of Americans have trouble discussing things in ethical terms because we're taught by businesses to value and internalize business values. I'm sure this only touches on a few instances where RMS was right about important matters concerning our ability to stay free to communicate with each other and build a community of sharing information.
RMS does things I don't agree with, to be sure. But these points are few in number and of relatively little significance when compared to the things he deserves to be lauded for. I've recently posted on his take on the Creative Commons licenses. However from what I can see, RMS has much wisdom to offer and makes far far fewer missteps than others that/. readers would supplant him with if given the opportunity (like you endorsing Linus Torvalds in another post).
If it's free software, why is RMS restricting my freedom to do with it as I please? In a free country you are not allowed to arbitrarily restrict someone's freedom (as killing does). If the software is free, then that implies there are no restrictions. This is not the case for GPLed software. It is the case for public domain software such as BSD.
Going in order of what you mention:
Freedom doesn't mean "do[ing] with it as I please" because you can't have all possible freedoms. Some freedoms conflict. Society must choose which freedoms to preserve, then restrict other freedoms in order to ensure other freedoms. The GPL is no different; it prohibits proprietary derivatives so that the freedoms of Free Software (running, inspect, sharing, and modifying software at any time for any reason) are maintained for users of the work and its derivatives.
The restrictions in the GPL are not arbitrary, they favor the preservation of software freedom above the power to deny others that freedom. The restrictions in law in most countries favor wealthy people and are also not arbitrary.
"Public domain" software is not covered by any copyright license. Hence "public domain software such as BSD" makes no sense because it is a contradiction. However, even the new BSD license has restrictions. Works licensed under the new BSD license are not in the public domain.
Please do spell out for us how RMS' advocacy for software freedom and the GPL are properly described as "zealotry".
Also tell us why one should attempt the impossible: to grant all freedoms to all people. In what way is the GPL "unrealistic"? You appear to be complaining that the GPL won't let you do whatever you want with the covered code. Why should the GPL allow proprietary derivatives? That would not be granting a freedom, it would be allowing others to have power over users. Power and freedom are different. Why can't you write your own program to do what you want it to do and then license it as you wish?
Of course, RMS doesn't believe you as the developer should have a say in what license you choose.
Where do you get that idea? The essay "Freedom or Power?" would suggest otherwise, particularly when Stallman and Kuhn acknowledge that copyright holders have the power to choose whatever license they wish. Developers writing derivative works can choose what code they want to base their work on. Thus, it seems to me that developers certainly have a say in what license they choose, whether choosing a license for their own copyrighted work or in making a derivative work.
The FSF says more about their objection to the original Artistic license than you're repeating. What did they say when you asked them for more specifics about their objections? They aren't an organization to refrain from offering such information about licenses that matter—their objections to the Apple Public Source License are noteworthy. They also point to a revised version of the Artistic license that is a GPL-compatible Free Software license. Perhaps it simply isn't terribly pressing to offer extended commentary about an old version of a license. Also, as a practical measure, so few programs use the first Artistic License relative to other Free Software licenses it really isn't a compelling case to argue about it.
As for your objection that it is RMS' opinion alone which determines whether a license qualifies as a Free Software license, you would do well to support the point, not just state your opinion on the matter as if its above justification.
Didn't RMS blow a gasket a few weeks ago, talking about how Creative Commons sucks eggs because it includes optional clauses?
No, RMS pointed out that not all CC licenses confer the same rights onto licensees and that it is a mistake to talk about them simultaneously as if one is just as good as another:
"Some Creative Commons licenses are free licenses; most permit at least noncommercial verbatim copying. But some, such as the Sampling Licenses and Developing Countries Licenses, don't even permit that, which makes them unacceptable to use for any kind of work. All these licenses have in common is a label, but people regularly mistake that common label for something substantial."
As a practical matter, this is not much of a problem because so few works are licensed under any of the Sampling licenses (even the one that allows non-commercial verbatim copying) and the Developing Countries Licenses.
As a matter of principle, I think his objection was fair, proper, and clearly and concisely stated. People who learn what he's talking about can repeat this critique when explaining what CC licenses are, so they won't spread more confusion about the Creative Commons. If it were me interviewing him I'd want to know why he chooses to raise an objection to an organization that is doing good work, broadly speaking? It seems to me that if one's friends are doing generally good work, it is strategically better to clarify one's critique (repeating it often so it's clear), champion their successes, and downplay their flaws until the flaws become a more practical problem down the line.
How is this different? Now, instead of GPLv3, we have GPLv3-with-patent-restrictions, and GPLv3-with-attribution, and GPLv3-with-different-disclaimer-of-liability, and...
It's different because he's not complaining about optional clauses (short additions to a license, the bulk of which remains the same and confers the same rights and responsibilities on licensees). The current GPL allows one to add various clauses to give licensees things the unmodified GPL doesn't allow. This version of the GPL has been around for more than a decade. The GPLv2's popularity (the most popular Free Software license) with optional clauses didn't result in different GPLs. The GPLv3 will continue this now time-honored way and apparently successful strategy in licensing.
Either RMS likes customizing licensing, or he doesn't. He's being a hypocritical here.
He does, he's not being hypocritical here.
Your post is not interesting. It is incorrectly moderated.
All of these terms are new. There is no more "tradition" behind the monopolist's nomenclature than there is behind RMS' user-centric nomenclature. Nor should "tradition" define what is right and proper for a society. Did it ever occur to you that an "average Joe who wants to learn more about FOSS, GNU, etc." might want the ethical take on the matter that RMS presents and that it is the dog-eat-dog business-speak which alienates people? Since when did the business language become unquestioningly correct and any alternative become de facto offensive? Finally, if RMS were answering your question to your face, I'm sure he'd point out that what he's focusing on is his movement, the Free Software movement, not Open Source. Hence the term "FOSS" doesn't apply—that term is used for people who don't want to make the distinction between the movements or take a side, but he definately does take a side.
I don't, unfortunately. I read this in the newspaper itself, not a website maintained by the newspaper. Not all of the sections of the paper appear online. If I recall correctly, the article appeared in a section for kids—the focus of the section is what kids are doing, letters from kids, etc.
Sure, at face value this is about getting kids under control for the benefit of the Copyright holders. But, so long as the education is accurate, can you think of a better thing than a population who understands copyright law, what a mess has been made of it, and how crippling the status quo is? Anything that serves to inform is good.
The MPAA has (rather unsuccessfully) held classes in high schools across the US (such as one they had about a year or two ago in Urbana, Illinois) ostensibly aimed at teaching the students about American copyright law. It was reported in the local paper (the News-Gazette) at the time. Their view, like yours below, was dangerously myopic and factually incorrect. The kids in Urbana saw through it and asked tough questions which the corporate representative couldn't answer.
Knowing how close representatives are to their corporate funders, I strongly suspect that any state program will be no different in California.
Regardless of what people's personal opinions are on p2p file sharing, the fact is that it is against copyright law. Should it be? Well, only people who understand the issue can intelligently consider that. So bring on the truth.
No, it's not blanketly "against copyright law". But it's so nice of you to dismiss the value of others opinions on the matter while asserting your own incorrect one.
In the US, distributing copies of any copyrighted work depends on the license under which the work is distributed. Under some licenses, legal distribution can occur. I can legally share copies of any Free Software program I want. I can share copies of any work not under copyright—works in the public domain. I can share copies of my own copyrighted works. And the mechanism I use to do this is immaterial (be it a "p2p" program or something else).
For all of the bravado posts here on/., don't forget that this audience is the same audience that is happy to run (even defend) proprietary software that leaks information about you to untrusted parties, argue that such secrecy is an important expression of freedom (confusing freedom with power), and believes in the myth of the marketplace (if your employer is oppressive, find another job). Once RFID injection becomes commonplace, you'll see this myth exposed yet again (because the poor end up switching jobs that all require RFID injection).
I wouldn't be surprised if the debate switched from "I don't want to be injected with RFID tags at all!" to "How can I maintain RFID tag portability when I switch jobs?".
All of the controversy over the GPL3 isnt so much caused by the details, but by the underlying mentalities. RMS is more of the belief that freedom is a necessity and everyone should do everything in an open, free manner, and that people can't be trusted.
How do you conclude that RMS says people can't be trusted? If he didn't trust people, he'd distribute software under licenses that prohibit inspection, modification, and sharing. He might even restrict when the program can be run by using DRM or an encryption manager. This is what proprietors do and what RMS fights against.
Torvalds sees freedom as more of a tool, a bonus, and people/businesses are generally trustworthy. I like to think of it that way, and that is why I prefer BSD/MIT style over other licences.
Torvalds argues that programs are to suit his convenience, hence he uses whatever suits his immediate technical needs best. The reason he wrote the initial version of (what came to be called) Linux was because it served as a good learning tool and the reason he chose Bitkeeper was because he didn't like the alternatives.
Your license choice means that you're helping proprietors "restrict what the user/developer can do" by distributing a proprietary derivative. So what you distribute is free software, but it does nothing to protect that freedom for derivatives; the loss of these freedoms (as you point out) adversely impact users. Treating proprietors as charities can be a benefit if what you want is popularity above freedom preservation, but it's a risk and should be considered deeply.
Businesses will always make proprietary software, that won't change.
Initially software was not proprietary. IBM, for instance, distributed software for mainframes that could be shared, modified, and run at any time. Proprietary software didn't come along until later. Some businesses today (such as consultancies I know of) write software that builds on copylefted free software, that software is not proprietary. So only some business will always make and distribute proprietary software, but why should society bend over to meet their desires?
Proprietary isn't bad, and prohibiting it only restricts what the user/developer can do.
That you think such restrictions are not "bad" speaks a lot about your values.
Because we all know RMS is a crusader trying to press his beliefs onto others.
I think this says a lot less than you think it does. Everyone who tries to convince others of the weight of their argument is "trying to press [their] beliefs onto others". This does not address whether those beliefs are wise or valuable.
I think the creators of the GPL are trying to be much more influencial than Linus ever was.
They already are much more influential, but influence isn't that important without understanding what the influence is trying to get you to do. The GNU GPL is almost 20 years old and is the most popular license in the Free Software community. GNU is a remarkably popular OS. Linus Torvalds has not written any license, nor has he assembled a social movement, nor has he put together an operating system. The Linux kernel was originally his work, but now there are many forks of the Linux kernel and Torvalds' fork is one (and this fork has many contributors, Torvalds no longer writes Linux alone). People draw inspiration and code from his fork of the kernel, but plenty of people in the community don't use the Linux kernel at all, yet they still use some GNU programs (such as GCC). Even some proprietary software projects use GNU programs to build their systems (again, GCC among them). The GNU project aims to bring people software freedom—the freedom to run, inspect, modify, and share programs—freedoms which Torvalds sometimes works against (his chastising Andrew Tridgell for working on a program to allow users to copy data from Bitkeeper repos comes to mind).
RMS wants complete reform (or removal) of IP laws.
Please cite a source to back this up; I know of nowhere RMS says that he would like all patent, trademark, copyright, and other laws to disappear. RMS presents a clear understanding of why we should not use the term "intellectual property" (which is what you mean by "IP" here), and has come up with a clever use of copyright law to create and maintain a legally defensible commons. Someone who is utterly opposed to copyright law would not do this. They would probably reject copyright law entirely for copyrightable works, place their copyrightable works into the public domain and encourage others to do the same. Yet in his explanation of "copyleft", RMS says why he doesn't place his copyrightable work into the public domain (but would be fine with his copyrighted works entering the public domain through systematic copyright expiration, in fact during the recent GPLv3 conference Eben Moglen said that RMS would be more comfortable with a copyright regime from long ago instead of the one we have now).
Your post is vastly overvalued in its moderation. It is not interesting nor does it deserve a +5.
Neither of the commenters to date take your question seriously, so I'll make a guess: at the time software was developed to encode and decode JPEG, it was not common knowledge that JPEGs were ostensibly patent-encumbered. As far as I know, no unencumbered alternative to JPEG was developed. But it is widely understood among those who deal with these matters that MP3 is patent-encumbered and that we should use and encourage others to use the apparently unencumbered (and higher quality, besides) Ogg Vorbis instead.
The Bitkeeper story should tell any onlooker that Linus Torvalds is quite hostile to software freedom. Torvalds advocated against Andrew Tridgell who was working on a Free Software program to pull data from Bitkeeper repositories, thus allowing Linux kernel developers to not have to get a proprietary program to do that job.
To see Torvalds express such disdain for GPLv3 so early in its revision process is disappointing but not surprising.
It is my hope that other kernels (like the GNU variant with the BSD kernel Debian distributes) and the HURD (the official GNU kernel replacement) will pick up enough development in the years to come that we can move to a system that need not include the Linux kernel. A lot of people pay attention to what Torvalds says and he's willing to go along with whatever he thinks is the best technology with no regard for software freedom (two facets I don't agree with him on). In 20 years of the Free Software movement, I've come to appreciate the freedoms Free Software gives me in their own right. I've seen so many successes in this community that I'm convinced whatever jobs need doing can be done with Free Software.
Reading the Wikipedia article on Tridgell, I see that I have mistaken "network protocol analysis" with "reverse engineering". I'll endeavor not to make the mistake again.
In this context, knowing that you have been recognized by your peers is quite rewarding.
He was one of the people I had hoped would win, in particular because of the pro-software freedom behavior he showed during Linus Torvalds' time spent with Bitkeeper. Andrew Tridgell was working on a free software program to let users pull data from Bitkeeper repositories, despite Torvalds' protestations. I think that Tridge's reverse engineering work on Bitkeeper and in Microsoft Windows printer/file sharing is important (perhaps there are other reverse engineering projects I'm unaware of as well). Hence, I'm glad he won.
Slashdot Mirror
Novell has made a couple of choices which don't display a clear committment to formats one can play with FLOSS.
Recently they started an audio show distributed online and this show is encoded exclusively in MP3 format. I wrote to them suggesting that they upload a WAV or FLAC file to archive.org and let archive.org make derivative files in a variety of formats including Ogg Vorbis, thus simultaneously offloading bandwidth and hosting resources while allowing people to hear their show without necessarily giving up their software freedom.
Now their "narrated screencam" is distributed exclusively in RealMedia format, for which there is no FLOSS player. This doesn't have to be this way—one could distribute the same movie in Ogg Theora+Ogg Vorbis format as well as their (apparently) preferred non-free format.
By contrast the Fedora project, York Student television (including Fluendo's Java player; I don't yet know if this will work with the Free Java software, but it's a handy way to point someone to a URL and let them watch the show) and a number of others distribute audio in Ogg Vorbis and movies with audio in Ogg Theora+Vorbis one can play on any platform using Free Software. There are even plugins for proprietary players to play these files (like illiminable's Windows Media player software).
Has OldVersion.com reviewed the licenses for the proprietary software it distributes? Some proprietary software is not redistributable by anyone but the proprietor, some proprietary programs are only distributable if one observes onerous terms (like constantly monitoring a website for updates). When I skim this site, I get no impression that anyone there cares much for licensing and this is really just a place to find multiple ongoing copyright infringements.
The reason why they're making their case against the GPL is important. Proprietors are saying that the GPL makes them nervous, they don't like the commons the GPL creates and maintains. Proprietors want to discourage everyone from using and developing GPL-covered code so that they have less competition and won't have to spend their time lobbying governments around the world to help make Free Software implementations of various programs impossible. Thus this is just another legal risk FUD case against the most widely used Free Software license, the GNU GPL which fails to mention what the Software Freedom Law Center points out:
And when it comes to GPL-covered software being so complicated to deal with, the SFLC has this to say:
Please read the links I so carefully included in the grandparent post, not just the text of the post. There, in the final paragraph of the page labeled "The RIAA License Agreement", you'll see the RIAA restrictions I refer to.
As for why KOTZ doesn't abide by these restrictions, one needs more information to say specifically. Perhaps that station doesn't play tracks licensed by the RIAA (in which case the aforementioned license agreement doesn't apply). Perhaps the station has chosen to play RIAA-licensed tracks and set up some other means of complying with the aforementioned restrictions (in which case they can maintain an ongoing broadcast and not bother you or anyone else on the webcasting end with compliance details). Perhaps the station has chosen to play RIAA-licensed tracks and ignore the aforementioned restrictions (better known as courting a copyright infringement lawsuit). Perhaps something else is afoot; one can't say without more information about what, exactly, KOTZ plays online.
The aforementioned restrictions were not always in place. But these restrictions have been in place for a while now (they came after the Digital Millennium Copyright Act was signed into law) and if any American webcaster plays RIAA-licensed tracks, they must comply with these restrictions or arrange another deal with the RIAA (which, I understand, the RIAA is quite unwilling to do).
From the article:
Not only does maintaining "intellectual property rights" not preclude others from distributing copies of the software for a fee (as anyone who understands Free Software licensing already knows), merely inspecting the software is insufficient to get real work done in a way that is beneficial to the public.
I served on the Champaign County election equipment advisory board—an appointed board made up of representatives of businesses and political parties from Champaign County, Illinois. Over months in the past couple of years this board weighed a few machines from a variety of vendors so that we could make a recommendation to the elected County Board who would then make the final decision and sign the appropriate contracts. We were told at the first meeting that we were only to consider machines from "approved vendors" but in the end we learned that even the machines we were considering had not yet all been approved by the State of Illinois. It was just a means of narrowing the allowable debate, effectively excluding a variety of vendors who probably never knew we were seriously considering voting machines.
I knew early on (and did my darndest to convince my fellow board members) that we want complete source code to the machines we'd buy so that we could make repairs and improvements while enjoying the benefits of global competition. Locally we have lots of talented computer programmers, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is in this county. It is a shame to waste all the talent we have by getting into a monopoly.
Politically, there are good reasons to need the source code too: it's your machine paid for with your tax dollars, so you should not be restricted from getting it fixed when it breaks, running it any time you want, and not just inspecting what it ostensibly does. But we should also not constrain ourselves to the features the machine has today. Locally, we could switch from a first-past-the-post to some kind of ranked voting system (like instant run-off or some Condorcet system) for local elections. But so long as we can't get the vendor to do what we want and as long as we can't help ourselves because we're choosing to buy into a monopoly for support (which is what you do when you get proprietary software), we have an additional restriction to overcome with our voting machines—we can't switch to the voting system we want because the proprietor won't let us and we can't afford to simply switch to another set of machines.
I discussed Free Software voting machines on Counterpunch.
I think that the state government of Massachusetts would argue that we're in the "then they fight you" stage. Microsoft has already fought hard with lies to make sure Massachusetts doesn't stop using Microsoft Office and its proprietary file formats. Very little of Microsoft's shills arguments have merit and those arguments are quickly dismissed once one realizes the power of controlling one's own computer by thinking highly of software freedom.
This entire conversation is a trap, and most /. readers are falling into the trap. The trap is that Microsoft would rather frame the debate around software features than software freedom. This way Microsoft can continue to have a part of the debate rather than being dismissed out of hand.
I hope you'll not only share a link to where your music can be found but you'll keep your sensibilities about music and the RIAA when talking to radio stations. I work at a community radio station (WEFT 90.1 FM) which plays a great deal of music licensed by the RIAA. Hardly what I'd call alternative, but mine isn't the only opinion in the place.
Recently we had a light discussion about what it would take to do webstreaming. For those of you who don't know, the RIAA licenses tracks of their clients and the terms of the license are rather vague and somewhat hard to shift to if one is used to being able to broadcast almost anything.
WORT recently announced a new and improved webcast. Their announcement is interesting because it starts by lying claiming that they'll webcast "all of its programming!" (see page 13 of the PDF newsletter). When you read further you see that WORT plans to comply with RIAA licensing restrictions by not webcasting some of its programming (presumably either shows or tracks that can't be webcast at that moment). Like I said, it's not easy to webcast if you insist on doing what you can to avoid losing a copyright infringement lawsuit while playing RIAA-licensed stuff. If you've grown used to the over-the-air rules, which don't restrict you in the way RIAA's webcasting restrictions do, you've got a tough row to hoe. The RIAA's online restrictions say things such as you can't play the same featured artist more than 4 times in a 3-hour period, nor can you play more than 3 tracks from the same CD/tape/record in a 3-hour period.
I was curious how much adjustment WEFT would have to make to take on webcasting RIAA tracks. So I looked at some of WEFT's playlists and compared them to RIAA webcasting restrictions. Suffice to say, WEFTies don't yet realize how many shows they'll have to change. I forsee much unpleasant discussion about this topic as we wrestle with exchanging increased listenership for playlist freedom and the hassles that go along with assembling an RIAA-compliant playlist.
/.ers will read this and think that this is a natural application for a database. And if you're thinking this way, you're right but there's more to it than that. WEFT has roughly 40,000 CDs in its library and lots of CDs coming in every week. Finding the financing for the hardware to host the database on alone is a daunting task, finding the volunteer commitment needed to make the database workable for everyone (not just the techies) is another tall order. I'm up for it, but I know a lot more about writing software than I do about writing grant requests, and I estimate we'll need many thousands of dollars to do this in a way that won't fall over when the power dies or a couple of hard drives go bad.
Still other /.ers might think differently and conclude that we should just stop playing RIAA tracks, or WEFT should severly cut down on the RIAA tracks we play. Again, I'm up for that—I host a public-affairs program called "Digital Citizen" every other Wednesday from 8-10PM where I play only stuff my listeners can share. I focus on copyright law, patent law, and Free Software (as in the Free Software movement) issues. The only RIAA licensed tracks I play are fair-use snippets, so these webcasting rules don't apply to me. Other public-affairs shows (like News from Neptune) don't play RIAA tracks at all. The majority of shows on WEFT are music shows and it remains to be seen how receptive they will be to giving up 90% or more of what's in WEFT's library.
So now you're slightly more familiar with the restrictions from the radio end of things, even on community radio which is ostensibly more accessible to the public and less likely to play the mainstream RIAA-licensed stuff you can hear everywhere else.
If you could drop the name-calling long enough to engage in an adult discussion, you'd see that Linus Torvalds doesn't speak for Free Software because he's opposed to it. He opposed Andrew Tridgell when Tridgell worked on a free program to allow users to pull data from Bitkeeper repositories. The FSF's FAQ entry on "strengthen[ing] Linus Torvalds' role as posterboy for our community" is helpful as well. On top of that, he has changed his position on giving GNU any credit at all. When his kernel was first announced he was ready to give GNU credit for what it is, now Torvalds denies GNU any credit and apparently believes that Linux is an operating system. His self-aggrandizing takes the form of routinely allowing interviewers to come away with that misunderstanding by never taking the time to correct their misstatements.
I don't understand what this sentence means. The grandparent post of this post is quite wrong about RMS' involvement in GNU and authorship of Emacs.
Actually, I didn't say he was or wasn't a zealot. I asked you to justify calling him that. And you haven't done so.
I notice the difference in who is tarred with the term "zealot" and how the norm is defined. Business leaders are not called zealots yet they defend their views on "intellectual property", ownership of code, and control over how you use your computer to unreasonable extremes often lapsing into revisionist history and a profound disagreement from what their own organizations have done. Microsoft's Bill Gates, for instance, told an audience of unquestioning sycophantic students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign that the GPL was an improper license for software distribution. He said this while Microsoft was doing distributing GPL-covered software in its services for Unix package which includes a number of GNU programs (a package of programs Microsoft had been distributing for some time). The public is ostensibly supposed to take Gates' talk as perfectly reasonable assertions of fact when they are demonstrably false. I contacted the University of Illinois about scheduling a rebuttal talk from someone at the FSF, and they gave me the runaround. In trying to schedule this talk, I learned that Gates had contacted UIUC and the University was apparently only too willing to have him talk.
RMS' talk is far more correct than incorrect and it is still impressive just how far ahead of the curve he was and is: his objections to software patents preceeded many and only now are we seeing real organized political objection to software patents (but not in the US, in Europe); the events in RMS' dystopic story "The Right to Read" are more within reach now than they ever were, but business proponents of so-called "Digital Rights Management" (itself a revealing term that reframes the debate away from its effect on users and towards asking you to agree with the publisher's desire for more control over users) don't want you to see this future because you might reject it; RMS discussed the problems with the Bitkeeper fiasco when many here were championing licensing power (and confusing that with freedom). The cleverness of the GPL in using copyright law to build a commons for all was ahead of its time and that license played a big part in building a social movement known as the Free Software movement. His arguments are ahead of the curve in that they aren't technocratic, they are framed on an ethical basis. This means that his arguments are far more likely to survive whatever technological changes come about, but a lot of Americans have trouble discussing things in ethical terms because we're taught by businesses to value and internalize business values. I'm sure this only touches on a few instances where RMS was right about important matters concerning our ability to stay free to communicate with each other and build a community of sharing information.
RMS does things I don't agree with, to be sure. But these points are few in number and of relatively little significance when compared to the things he deserves to be lauded for. I've recently posted on his take on the Creative Commons licenses. However from what I can see, RMS has much wisdom to offer and makes far far fewer missteps than others that /. readers would supplant him with if given the opportunity (like you endorsing Linus Torvalds in another post).
Going in order of what you mention:
Please do spell out for us how RMS' advocacy for software freedom and the GPL are properly described as "zealotry".
Also tell us why one should attempt the impossible: to grant all freedoms to all people. In what way is the GPL "unrealistic"? You appear to be complaining that the GPL won't let you do whatever you want with the covered code. Why should the GPL allow proprietary derivatives? That would not be granting a freedom, it would be allowing others to have power over users. Power and freedom are different. Why can't you write your own program to do what you want it to do and then license it as you wish?
Where do you get that idea? The essay "Freedom or Power?" would suggest otherwise, particularly when Stallman and Kuhn acknowledge that copyright holders have the power to choose whatever license they wish. Developers writing derivative works can choose what code they want to base their work on. Thus, it seems to me that developers certainly have a say in what license they choose, whether choosing a license for their own copyrighted work or in making a derivative work.
The FSF says more about their objection to the original Artistic license than you're repeating. What did they say when you asked them for more specifics about their objections? They aren't an organization to refrain from offering such information about licenses that matter—their objections to the Apple Public Source License are noteworthy. They also point to a revised version of the Artistic license that is a GPL-compatible Free Software license. Perhaps it simply isn't terribly pressing to offer extended commentary about an old version of a license. Also, as a practical measure, so few programs use the first Artistic License relative to other Free Software licenses it really isn't a compelling case to argue about it.
As for your objection that it is RMS' opinion alone which determines whether a license qualifies as a Free Software license, you would do well to support the point, not just state your opinion on the matter as if its above justification.
No, RMS pointed out that not all CC licenses confer the same rights onto licensees and that it is a mistake to talk about them simultaneously as if one is just as good as another:
As a practical matter, this is not much of a problem because so few works are licensed under any of the Sampling licenses (even the one that allows non-commercial verbatim copying) and the Developing Countries Licenses.
As a matter of principle, I think his objection was fair, proper, and clearly and concisely stated. People who learn what he's talking about can repeat this critique when explaining what CC licenses are, so they won't spread more confusion about the Creative Commons. If it were me interviewing him I'd want to know why he chooses to raise an objection to an organization that is doing good work, broadly speaking? It seems to me that if one's friends are doing generally good work, it is strategically better to clarify one's critique (repeating it often so it's clear), champion their successes, and downplay their flaws until the flaws become a more practical problem down the line.
It's different because he's not complaining about optional clauses (short additions to a license, the bulk of which remains the same and confers the same rights and responsibilities on licensees). The current GPL allows one to add various clauses to give licensees things the unmodified GPL doesn't allow. This version of the GPL has been around for more than a decade. The GPLv2's popularity (the most popular Free Software license) with optional clauses didn't result in different GPLs. The GPLv3 will continue this now time-honored way and apparently successful strategy in licensing.
He does, he's not being hypocritical here.
Your post is not interesting. It is incorrectly moderated.
All of these terms are new. There is no more "tradition" behind the monopolist's nomenclature than there is behind RMS' user-centric nomenclature. Nor should "tradition" define what is right and proper for a society. Did it ever occur to you that an "average Joe who wants to learn more about FOSS, GNU, etc." might want the ethical take on the matter that RMS presents and that it is the dog-eat-dog business-speak which alienates people? Since when did the business language become unquestioningly correct and any alternative become de facto offensive? Finally, if RMS were answering your question to your face, I'm sure he'd point out that what he's focusing on is his movement, the Free Software movement, not Open Source. Hence the term "FOSS" doesn't apply—that term is used for people who don't want to make the distinction between the movements or take a side, but he definately does take a side.
I don't, unfortunately. I read this in the newspaper itself, not a website maintained by the newspaper. Not all of the sections of the paper appear online. If I recall correctly, the article appeared in a section for kids—the focus of the section is what kids are doing, letters from kids, etc.
The MPAA has (rather unsuccessfully) held classes in high schools across the US (such as one they had about a year or two ago in Urbana, Illinois) ostensibly aimed at teaching the students about American copyright law. It was reported in the local paper (the News-Gazette) at the time. Their view, like yours below, was dangerously myopic and factually incorrect. The kids in Urbana saw through it and asked tough questions which the corporate representative couldn't answer.
Knowing how close representatives are to their corporate funders, I strongly suspect that any state program will be no different in California.
No, it's not blanketly "against copyright law". But it's so nice of you to dismiss the value of others opinions on the matter while asserting your own incorrect one.
In the US, distributing copies of any copyrighted work depends on the license under which the work is distributed. Under some licenses, legal distribution can occur. I can legally share copies of any Free Software program I want. I can share copies of any work not under copyright—works in the public domain. I can share copies of my own copyrighted works. And the mechanism I use to do this is immaterial (be it a "p2p" program or something else).
For all of the bravado posts here on /., don't forget that this audience is the same audience that is happy to run (even defend) proprietary software that leaks information about you to untrusted parties, argue that such secrecy is an important expression of freedom (confusing freedom with power), and believes in the myth of the marketplace (if your employer is oppressive, find another job). Once RFID injection becomes commonplace, you'll see this myth exposed yet again (because the poor end up switching jobs that all require RFID injection).
I wouldn't be surprised if the debate switched from "I don't want to be injected with RFID tags at all!" to "How can I maintain RFID tag portability when I switch jobs?".
How do you conclude that RMS says people can't be trusted? If he didn't trust people, he'd distribute software under licenses that prohibit inspection, modification, and sharing. He might even restrict when the program can be run by using DRM or an encryption manager. This is what proprietors do and what RMS fights against.
Torvalds argues that programs are to suit his convenience, hence he uses whatever suits his immediate technical needs best. The reason he wrote the initial version of (what came to be called) Linux was because it served as a good learning tool and the reason he chose Bitkeeper was because he didn't like the alternatives.
Your license choice means that you're helping proprietors "restrict what the user/developer can do" by distributing a proprietary derivative. So what you distribute is free software, but it does nothing to protect that freedom for derivatives; the loss of these freedoms (as you point out) adversely impact users. Treating proprietors as charities can be a benefit if what you want is popularity above freedom preservation, but it's a risk and should be considered deeply.
Initially software was not proprietary. IBM, for instance, distributed software for mainframes that could be shared, modified, and run at any time. Proprietary software didn't come along until later. Some businesses today (such as consultancies I know of) write software that builds on copylefted free software, that software is not proprietary. So only some business will always make and distribute proprietary software, but why should society bend over to meet their desires?
That you think such restrictions are not "bad" speaks a lot about your values.
I think this says a lot less than you think it does. Everyone who tries to convince others of the weight of their argument is "trying to press [their] beliefs onto others". This does not address whether those beliefs are wise or valuable.
They already are much more influential, but influence isn't that important without understanding what the influence is trying to get you to do. The GNU GPL is almost 20 years old and is the most popular license in the Free Software community. GNU is a remarkably popular OS. Linus Torvalds has not written any license, nor has he assembled a social movement, nor has he put together an operating system. The Linux kernel was originally his work, but now there are many forks of the Linux kernel and Torvalds' fork is one (and this fork has many contributors, Torvalds no longer writes Linux alone). People draw inspiration and code from his fork of the kernel, but plenty of people in the community don't use the Linux kernel at all, yet they still use some GNU programs (such as GCC). Even some proprietary software projects use GNU programs to build their systems (again, GCC among them). The GNU project aims to bring people software freedom—the freedom to run, inspect, modify, and share programs—freedoms which Torvalds sometimes works against (his chastising Andrew Tridgell for working on a program to allow users to copy data from Bitkeeper repos comes to mind).
Please cite a source to back this up; I know of nowhere RMS says that he would like all patent, trademark, copyright, and other laws to disappear. RMS presents a clear understanding of why we should not use the term "intellectual property" (which is what you mean by "IP" here), and has come up with a clever use of copyright law to create and maintain a legally defensible commons. Someone who is utterly opposed to copyright law would not do this. They would probably reject copyright law entirely for copyrightable works, place their copyrightable works into the public domain and encourage others to do the same. Yet in his explanation of "copyleft", RMS says why he doesn't place his copyrightable work into the public domain (but would be fine with his copyrighted works entering the public domain through systematic copyright expiration, in fact during the recent GPLv3 conference Eben Moglen said that RMS would be more comfortable with a copyright regime from long ago instead of the one we have now).
Your post is vastly overvalued in its moderation. It is not interesting nor does it deserve a +5.
Neither of the commenters to date take your question seriously, so I'll make a guess: at the time software was developed to encode and decode JPEG, it was not common knowledge that JPEGs were ostensibly patent-encumbered. As far as I know, no unencumbered alternative to JPEG was developed. But it is widely understood among those who deal with these matters that MP3 is patent-encumbered and that we should use and encourage others to use the apparently unencumbered (and higher quality, besides) Ogg Vorbis instead.
The Bitkeeper story should tell any onlooker that Linus Torvalds is quite hostile to software freedom. Torvalds advocated against Andrew Tridgell who was working on a Free Software program to pull data from Bitkeeper repositories, thus allowing Linux kernel developers to not have to get a proprietary program to do that job.
To see Torvalds express such disdain for GPLv3 so early in its revision process is disappointing but not surprising.
It is my hope that other kernels (like the GNU variant with the BSD kernel Debian distributes) and the HURD (the official GNU kernel replacement) will pick up enough development in the years to come that we can move to a system that need not include the Linux kernel. A lot of people pay attention to what Torvalds says and he's willing to go along with whatever he thinks is the best technology with no regard for software freedom (two facets I don't agree with him on). In 20 years of the Free Software movement, I've come to appreciate the freedoms Free Software gives me in their own right. I've seen so many successes in this community that I'm convinced whatever jobs need doing can be done with Free Software.
Reading the Wikipedia article on Tridgell, I see that I have mistaken "network protocol analysis" with "reverse engineering". I'll endeavor not to make the mistake again.
In this context, knowing that you have been recognized by your peers is quite rewarding.
He was one of the people I had hoped would win, in particular because of the pro-software freedom behavior he showed during Linus Torvalds' time spent with Bitkeeper. Andrew Tridgell was working on a free software program to let users pull data from Bitkeeper repositories, despite Torvalds' protestations. I think that Tridge's reverse engineering work on Bitkeeper and in Microsoft Windows printer/file sharing is important (perhaps there are other reverse engineering projects I'm unaware of as well). Hence, I'm glad he won.