We ought to have discussion about the GNU General Public License (GPL) v3. The GPLv2 is an important license, the most widely used free software license. We should have critical discussions to help make the GPLv3 better, and of course defining "better" requires understanding the goals of the license.
But there's a profound unfairness in the two articles linked to here. They are filed in the "Linux & Open Source" section on the eWeek website, and not by accident. The GPL was initially written well before either the Linux kernel or the open source movement began and it was written to serve the purpose of furthering software freedom (an issue the open source movement does not want to talk about because it gets in the way of making their pitch to business, this movement's main audience, on "solid pragmatic grounds rather than ideological tub-thumping", as their FAQ says. This name-calling is starkly less insightful than the analysis the Free Software Foundation offers about the open source movement). So, there is simple miscrediting going on here, but it's also ironic that is no "GNU/Linux & Free Software" section at this website. Such a section would be far more accurate for describing stories about the most widely used and most important free software license.
When version 3 of the GNU GPL is released, it will be the first version to come out that had a chance of being edited by someone involved in the open source movement. As far as I can tell, nobody from the open source movement has had a hand in revising any version of the GPL. The GPL was written by people from the FSF (and the listed author is the FSF). Yet the GPL is routinely cited as an open source license by proponents of that movement, essentially taking credit for work that nobody in that movement did.
The Linux kernel is but one program in a complete GNU/Linux system. It's ironic that this license is so pivotal to the development of the GNU/Linux OS but GNU can't get just a share of the credit.
Of the two men featured in articles which are linked to in this Slashdot thread, one is an authority on the GPL and a co-author of the GPL, the other is someone who exhibits no significant insight into how the free software community came to be or what the GPL is here to accomplish. I'm grateful that Linus Torvalds began the Linux kernel and continues to work on the most widely used fork of that kernel, but this is not about the technical inner workings of the Linux kernel, where Linus Torvalds is unquestionably an authority on the matter. Torvalds is no authority on the GPL or software freedom in general. If you point your friends to these two articles, please don't give Moglen and Torvalds equal billing here. Equal billing would either diminish the attention we should pay to Moglen's comments on this matter or give Torvald's comments more attention than he deserves on this topic.
There is Rhythmbox and Totem Movie Player and both have important plug-ins/codecs missing for playing MPEGs or MP3s and there's no other MP3 player.
This seems like a bad thing at first blush, but it's a good thing that Ubuntu is not distributing software that some users can't redistribute (notably, users in countries burdened with software patents, like US users).
It's a real hassle to not be able to double-click on a file and have it do the right thing immediately, but there is a good reason for not including MP3 software: (for those who aren't aware of this) MP3 is patent-encumbered. In some countries all implementations of MP3 are covered by patents held by the Fraunhofer corporation and patent licenses are acquired through Thomson. If you want to merely share a verbatim copy of a GPL'd MP3 player with your friend (again, in some countries), you need a license.
This restriction makes the software non-free for some users, despite the license. This is why free software proponents endorse the use of unencumbered protocols and file formats to do the same job. Ogg Vorbis is a fine replacement and most reviews I've read say that the Vorbis codec sounds better than MP3, or can sound just as bad but with a smaller file size. Have a friend set up a blind test for you and figure out what you like.
There are restrictions on various other kinds of formats too, and there are unencumbered replacements for most of them.
"The basic idea behind open source is very simple: When programmers can read, redistribute, and modify the source code for a piece of software, the software evolves. People improve it, people adapt it, people fix bugs. And this can happen at a speed that, if one is used to the slow pace of conventional software development, seems astonishing.
We in the open source community have learned that this rapid evolutionary process produces better software than the traditional closed model, in which only a very few programmers can see the source and everybody else must blindly use an opaque block of bits.
Open Source Initiative exists to make this case to the commercial world."
The Open Source Initiative started the open source movement and defines the term "open source". That is a development methodology aimed chiefly at businesses. I fail to see how my wording or RMS' views of the open source philosophy fail to describe what's going on.
It's also disappointing to see that the new head of the OSI takes so quickly to name-calling and casting aspersions.
The open source movement has no problem with advocating for software that is not "open source". This movement's philosophy champions a development methodology aimed chiefly at businesses. When you focus on criteria where you can't always excel, like technological innovation, you sometimes have to stump for things that won't qualify for the imprimateur of your own organization.
Free software proponents, by contrast, champion a different philosophy: all computer users deserve the freedom to run, inspect, share, and modify computer software. Thus, software freedom is primary, not technical innovation or faster and less buggy development. Hence, free software proponents never have the ironic situation of advocating the use of software they don't agree with. From the perspective of the older free software movement, the goals of the open source movement are nice as far as they go but they don't go far enough.
No, we're talking about the same thing, the IBM patent pledge, but you refuse to see a nebulously defined condition that ultimately results in suppressing your ability to defend your rights under law as a loss. This condition is why I refuse to join you and call what IBM is offering a "gift". Gifts don't come with conditions.
Let's weigh the IBM patent pledge in terms of what you had before and after the pledge (your framing) and the set of programs you can now deal in without fearing lawsuits so long as you behave in a certain way (my framing):
Before the pledge, most people had no access to any of IBM's patents and one could defend all of their rights under law (including those defined under the prejudicial and overgeneral term "intellectual property"). One could defend those rights against anyone (including against "Open Source Software", again citing the purposefully imprecise language of the IBM patent pledge; it's not clear exactly whom one is not to sue).
The only way to leverage the pledge for sure is to forgo defending these rights against "Open Source Software". If one defends their rights they risk losing access to these 500 patents. Your point that there's no guarantee of losing access to these 500 patents by defending one's ("intellectual property") rights (against "Open Source Software") is true but another reason why one can come away thinking this pledge is not all it has been cracked up to be. Businesses are the target audience of the open source movement, yet I would not want to build a business making or distributing "Open Source Software" by leveraging these 500 patents because IBM has left enough wiggle room in their pledge to be able to shut off my access to these 500 patents at any time.
Let's consider what this pledge actually gets us: what programs can you deal in (run, write, distribute, modify, etc.) leveraging the ideas described in these 500 patents that also do not leverage the ideas described in any of IBM's other active patents? This is the set of programs where you genuinely benefit from the pledge. The larger the set of qualifying programs, the more beneficial this pledge is to you.
I don't know for sure what the answer to this question is. But this is a perfectly valid way to weigh the value of the pledge, and we must weigh it before concluding that this is a good or bad offer. If the set of programs that qualify is empty, you gain nothing and in exchange (if you behave to continue your access to the 500 patents) you choose not to defend some of your "intellectual property" rights against "Open Source Software". Effectively, this means you lose those rights against those defendants (an undefended right is no right at all). If the set of qualifying programs is small, you gain something but it's not much more than you had before the pledge. In either of these situations, you are trading away something valuable for something of little value. I believe one of these two cases is likely.
In order to take advantage of IBM's promise, you take on a new risk: you must forgo enforcing your "intellectual property" rights against "Open Source Software". You don't know if you'll remain in IBM's good graces otherwise.
So, what programs might I deal in that leverage any of the 500 patented ideas listed in the pledge and none of patented ideas from the rest of IBM's active patents?
If there aren't significant programs in this answer, you're under no less risk than you were before. All you really get out of the pledge is not enforcing your rights under "intellectual property" law (which, as the FSF is right to point out, is not a real subject at all being both purposefully overgeneral and prejudicial).
The open source movement's philosophy focuses on technical superiority in their aim to benefit businesses. This is an incredibly weak philosophy which means open source proponents end up sometimes stumping for software that doesn't qualify as "open source"--proprietary software, in particular (because there is proprietary software that does a job better than the "open source" equivalent). Free software proponents argue for software freedom for all computer users, and thus never end up in an ironic position of stumping for non-free software. This means that proprietary software is treated two different ways: for open source proponents, proprietary software is an acceptable, if less technically efficient, means to an end. For free software proponents, proprietary software is anti-social and wrong.
The state of Massachusetts will end up watering down their concepts in a similar way: they'll accept Microsoft's proprietary formats as "open formats", and they'll fall back to quibbling about the "terms of usage". Which means Microsoft has either exploited an extant weakness in "open formats" or blown a new one open. Will Massachusetts state government end up placing public documents in a proprietary format? Do they still care about OASIS' OpenDocument? It looks like interoperation for the purpose of helping to keep government documents readable and changeable without losing information is lower on the priority list than it was before.
Do you think that RMS hasn't read that section you quote? Or that he forgot to mention it?
I don't know what he's read, but I see no mention of the IBM patent promise revocation clause in the philsophical documents on gnu.org or in this essay about Sun. Keeping silent as political negotiation seems to be out of step with how RMS has behaved in the past: pointing out good and bad things organizations do, and reminding us that we must not judge an organization by one thing that they do.
It seems to me that IBM has given us quite a bit, and the worst scenario you've come up with, I think, is that by filing the wrong lawsuit, one could go back to the pre-IBM-gift status quo. It's really hard to criticise IBM for that.
Defending your rights is hardly the wrong thing to want to do. My interest in free software comes from my increased awareness of my rights and my eagerness to defend them. The rest of your statement hits at my problem with IBM's offer: it's impossible for me to agree with that until I know the real value of what IBM is offering.
Clearly IBM is offering something, but how easy it is to lose this pledge and what must one trade away to stay in IBM's good graces? These are more practical ways to measure the value of IBM's pledge rather than unexamined silence. What IBM has given us is not a gift, it is a conditional promise. A gift with strings attached is a questionable gift. You don't give someone a birthday gift on the condition that they don't sue you for copyright infringement, thus allowing you to illicitly make derivatives from their blog.
I don't see a problem with encouraging people to consider what rights they're being asked to waive in exchange for this increased access. But I don't see press reports or opinion pieces doing this. When I consider how many more patents IBM has, and if I assume the best conditions (where I don't get sued over these 500 patents so long as I behave in a certain way), I have to wonder what programs might I might deal in which would leverage the 500 patented ideas I now have access to without leveraging any of IBM's other active patents. I'm not asking about this as a setup to fail, this is not a trick question.
The vague terms of the promise--terms that would receive criticism in other contexts--make it hard to know what lawsuit to avoiding filing, assuming you want to act to continue access to these patents. I can't easily say how much this access is worth to me, and therefore, I can't conclude that I'm actually under less risk than I was before IBM published the pledge. To agree with you that we've been given "quite a bit" suggests that it's possible to ascertain the value of IBM's promise.
Regarding criticizing Sun's "offer": I have no qualm with such criticism here; it seems more like shooting fish in a barrel if you read what Sun published. What sticks out to me is the difference in coverage--virtually nothing of the full terms of IBM's pledge, deservedly close examination for Sun. I don't think it's healthy to let people come away thinking they've been given something good because something else is so much worse (or non-existant).
IBM's patent pledge gets considerable praise from RMS here; several times he notes that IBM has undertaken a real step and he says that IBM's step is a substantive one--you are gaining increased access to 500 more patents than you had access to before. I agree that it is a step in the right direction. However, one should consider the terms of the deal before relying on IBM's promise not to sue regarding the listed 500 patents. One of the finer points of the IBM promise gets no mention.
In the last page of the IBM patent promise, you'll find the revocation clause: (all punctuation, and lack of ending punctuation, is theirs)
Subject to the exception provided below, and with the intent that developers, users and distributors of Open Source Software rely on our promise, IBM hereby commits not to assert any of the 500 U.S. patents listed above, as well as all counterparts of these patents issued in other countries against the development, use or distribution of Open Source Software. In order to foster innovation and avoid the possibility that a party will take advantage of this pledge and then assert patents or other intellectual property rights of its own against Open Source Software, thereby limiting the freedom of IBM or any other Open Source Software developer to create innovative software programs, or the freedom of others to distribute and use Open Source Software, the commitment not to assert any of these 500 U.S. patents and all counterparts of these patents issued in other countries is irrevocable except that IBM reserves the right to terminate this patent pledge and commitment only with regard to any party who files a lawsuit asserting patents or other intellectual property rights against Open Source Software
Note what you have to give up in order to enjoy IBM's promise not to sue you--if (someone involved with, I gather) "Open Source Software" infringes upon your copyright (one of the many so-called "intellectual property" rights) by, say, distributing copies of essays on your blog without permission, or distributing derivatives based on programs you hold the copyright to without complying with your license, you are put in a serious conundrum: you have to choose between enforcing your rights under law and continuing to enjoy IBM's non-aggression promise. I think this is an exchange one should consider very carefully, particularly considering how different and numerous so-called "intellectual property" laws are (another essay worth reading which RMS points to in his essay on Sun's "no-op announcement"; an essay one should read with IBM's patent promise as well). The number of laws under that overgeneralized catch-all phrase might catch you off guard, thus making you more vulnerable to patent infringement regarding these 500 patents than you thought you were.
Brilliant concepts, perhaps, but management that was anything but brilliant. "Kits" (proprietary software--collections of ObjC objects and classes--one was encouraged to build dependencies upon) were obsoleted quite quickly, frustrating developers. The underlying OS was a rapidly decaying proprietary variant of 4.2BSD. I vaguely recall the details on how to build shared libraries were kept secret. This might have helped developers write programs that could work better on machines that had less than the full 64MB RAM (on a NeXT Cube). 64MB might not seem like a lot of RAM today, but back then RAM was considerably more expensive.
Many of the apps that came out for the OS were profoundly overrated and overpriced. There were some unquestionable gems here and there (some gems were even available with source code so one could learn from them, like the sorting demonstration application which allowed you to sort groups of bars of varied heights using different sorting algorithms), but I think many people looking back on what NeXT had to offer are wearing rose-colored glasses and are likely to have never owned NeXT hardware.
My experience with my NeXT Cube (ownership starting with NS 2.1, user experience starting before that, perhaps with v2.0) helped lead me to appreciate the free software movement. I didn't have my software freedom then and now I do, using commodity hardware I can afford to enhance and replace if need be.
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We have no idea if someone else would have written another compiler, but we do know that GCC is still the chief (if not the only) free software compiler. GCC was developed for the purpose of furthering software freedom, initially written by RMS.
GNU was not "centric to open source" because GNU predates the open source movement by over a decade. But the open source movement got its start by building on what the free software movement had built in those years.
Finally, the namecalling seals the deal: I think your post deserves a flamebait or troll moderation.
The GPL is not properly credited to "open source".
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You may be thinking, "I can do that already with software that's in the public domain, or covered by other open source licenses, like the BSD-style license.
I'm not thinking that because I know the history of the open source and free software movements better than to credit the GNU General Public License to the open source movement. As RMS pointed out to someone wanting to help trademark GCC to help the "open source community":
Open source advocates do contribute to our community, when they work on free software packages, but our community is older than that movement, and owes its existence to the idealism that movement rejects. It was built by the free software movement, so it is the free software community. If you help us, please keep in mind that what you're helping is the free software movement.
Speaking more specifically to what Joe Barr said, it is a relatively trivial thing to create a set of rules and list a license as conforming to those rules, than to write the license and define a movement. By the time the open source movement came into existence, the GPL was in widespread use. The ideas the GPL speaks of (software freedom, chief among them) are the ideas the open source movement was founded, in part, to move away from.
As the FSF explains quite clearly, the open source movement was started by people who wanted to "sell" free software to business and thought that freedom talk would get in the way. So they droppped it and pursued a different philosophy which is essentially a development methodology.
As the essay also indicates, the term "open source" is no more clear to people at first blush than "free software", hence it is not really an improvement on free software at all. I'd argue that open source is actually considerably weaker than free software because open source proponents are sometimes compelled to argue for software that doesn't qualify as open source. Their insistence on technical achievement (borne from their devotion to speaking to business) makes an odd message to send to others. Free software proponents are never put in the position of stumping for proprietary software because proprietary software, by definition, doesn't give users freedom. The goal is not to pursue technological achievements at the expense of software freedom. Technological improvement will happen over time, but freedom may not if we don't work to preserve it.
The reason I love the GPL is because it has made one of the richest men in the world -- some would say that makes him one of the most powerful men in the world -- impotent against the surging growth of Linux and its user base.
Then perhaps you'd be willing to consider giving GNU a share of the credit, since the GNU GPL came from the need to ensure software freedom for covered works and their derivatives. The Linux kernel is a fine and useful program, but it is not the entirety of the OS, and Linus Torvalds' political views on software matters--pragmatism, basically--are not that of the GNU project, the free software movement, or those who appreciate software freedom. It is ahistorical to give his views sole credit (essentially, crediting him for work he did not do) and to lead people to look to his philosophy when explaining the importance of the entire operating system of which the Linux kernel is a part.
I stand partially corrected. I will admit to partial correction here, and I'll thank you for the correction. However, the bulk of my points remain valid.
One more patent is one more than IBM is promising to not sue over. Further, Levien's patent is being offered on far more amenable terms than any of IBM's 500 patents listed in their patent promise--one doesn't have to forgo enforcing one's rights under law to use Levien's patent. Finally, even though GPL v2 contains too little language on software patents, the new BSD license contains absolutely none, so it's possible for the GPL to be interpreted in a way that would favor protecting one's ability to share and modify software.
At a trade show in late 1998, dedicated to the operating system often referred to as ``Linux'', the featured speaker was an executive from a prominent software company. He was probably invited on account of his company's decision to ``support'' that system. Unfortunately, their form of ``support'' consists of releasing non-free software that works with the system--in other words, using our community as a market but not contributing to it.
He said, ``There is no way we will make our product open source, but perhaps we will make it `internal' open source. If we allow our customer support staff to have access to the source code, they could fix bugs for the customers, and we could provide a better product and better service.'' (This is not an exact quote, as I did not write his words down, but it gets the gist.)
People in the audience afterward told me, ``He just doesn't get the point.'' But is that so? Which point did he not get?
He did not miss the point of the Open Source movement. That movement does not say users should have freedom, only that allowing more people to look at the source code and help improve it makes for faster and better development. The executive grasped that point completely; unwilling to carry out that approach in full, users included, he was considering implementing it partially, within the company.
The point that he missed is the point that ``open source'' was designed not to raise: the point that users deserve freedom.
Spreading the idea of freedom is a big job--it needs your help. That's why we stick to the term ``free software'' in the GNU Project, so we can help do that job. If you feel that freedom and community are important for their own sake--not just for the convenience they bring--please join us in using the term ``free software''.
I find this situation comparable because in both cases the work is being done under the title of "open source", not "free software" (perhaps businesses understand that the open source movement is more amenable to their goals and the free software movement exists to pursue freedom for computer users), and because in both cases the work is being done to benefit the organization that sets out the deal, not the users of the programs. Sun wouldn't grant permission to deal in their patented ideas because they want to help computer users. They're doing it to motivate more people to license their programs under the applicable Sun license, just as this executive was out to make the program "open source" for people in the organization, not the users.
You can use GPL-covered code in your new BSD-licensed projects by relicensing the derivative work under the GNU GPL. Or you can merge the two programs together, creating a GPL derivative (the new BSD license is GPL-compatible). Or you could run the GPL-covered program, see what it does, and reimplement the program entirely (we're dealing with copyrighted works here, not patent exclusions which prohibit leveraging the idea).
But speaking of patents, which this thread is, there are good reasons why you would want to switch to the GPL: the GPL is the most popular free software license, the GPL will grant you access to more patents than the new BSD license, and the GPL has patent language whereas the new BSD does not. Raph Levien has granted "a fully paid up, nonexclusive, royalty free license to practice the patents" he lists on his patent page. That means you get access to the 500 IBM patents (a patent pledge with huge strings attached that might not make it worth your while to use this access) plus Levien's patents (which are granted on far more reasonable grounds). Also, the GPL has some language concerning patent licensing, the new BSD has none. The next GPL (GPL v3) is said to have more language concerning patents. I know of no change planned for the new BSD license's language.
It's not overly idealistic, it's part of the logic by which VCRs were made legal in the USA. In Universal v Sony, the concept of substantial non-infringing uses was key to why Sony's VCR (the Betamax) was allowed to be distributed. The machines could be used to make illicit copies but they could also be used for lawful purposes. The distributor of the tool used to infringe copyright cannot be held liable for users' copyright violations so long as the tool has substantial non-infringing uses. The US Supreme Court wisely chose not to throw out the baby with the bathwater and consider the entire technology tainted.
When the US Supreme Court considers MGM v Grokster a little over two months from now, I think they will re-read the Betamax decision and be compelled to acknowledge that so-called peer-to-peer file-sharing programs have substantial non-infringing uses. This will justify the continued legal existence of the programs and allow the infringing users, not the distributors of the programs, to be held liable for their infringments.
Finally, this issue isn't centered on fair use. However, since you mentioned fair use, it should be noted that there's nothing wrong with taking advantage of fair use. It exists for Americans to continue to enjoy free speech with regard to copyrighted work where the default is to disallow copying, distribution, and preparing derivative works. If we didn't have fair use, it would be far more difficult to express dissent without permission from the copyright holder (which would virtually never be granted.
I'm curious what you really mean by "in actuality"--isn't BitTorrent actually used to distribute copies of all sorts of data, illicitly and legally? Or are you focusing on the kind of data (MP3s, DiVX movie files, and pornographic movies in a encoded with a variety of codecs) and trying to get us to read something into that? Maybe I have a license to share that MP3 file (like the Creative Commons-licensed song files first distributed in Wired magazine late last year); maybe that DiVX file is a home movie I made (therefore making me the copyright holder); maybe I'm a licensed distributor of that pornographic DivX file (trying to get people to buy a copy of the movie by giving them a free sample)?
Usually when people place an emphasis on illicit distribution in this context, they are trying to impune the distribution mechanism, as if it is somehow BitTorrent's job to stop the user from doing something illegal.
As a result of my questions, I fail to see how your post is fairly moderated up as insightful.
First, thanks for participating in our discussion.
Since you work for Real, perhaps you can help us understand: Could Real have paid the one-time MP3 decoder license fee then added a GNU GPL-covered MP3 player to HelixPlayer? Would this have made a free software MP3 player? Why didn't this happen?
There seem to be no other processes that it spawns other than related to the actual playing of audio and/or video. Any attempt to hide spyware in a Linux app would be quite transparent.
You can't tell that by looking, in fact you can't tell what the single process it runs does. You certainly can't tell if it is sending data about your computer use somewhere without doing analysis of data on the wire (so to speak)--looking at recent connections isn't even enough because it could be sending data to the same place you're getting streaming audio/video from. By the time you've done that, it's too late to stop the potentially sensitive data from leaving your computer. You can't legally improve the program to make it not happen again (preparation of a derivative work is regulated under copyright law, restricted by default, and not allowed in the RealPlayer license). If you figure out which bits to flip to improve the program, you can't legally distribute the improved version to help everyone else out (same copyright issue).
I can listen to AirAmerica without firing up the Windows machine and RealAlternative.
I'd be surprised if "RealAlternative" is anything but the proprietary RealPlayer software with a different GUI front-end. http://bigelow-springs.net/airamerica/ points to a live streaming mirror of Air America in Ogg Vorbis format, complete with Ogg Vorbis archives of previous Air America shows (thus making this page better than the official Air America website). It is quite busy and apparently in need of more bandwidth. Perhaps they take donations.
All that and I still don't have an answer to the question I asked about regarding the one-time MP3 license fee.
Not according to how the FSF would like their work to be credited--even putting aside this silly lack of distinction between an OS and a kernel, "GNU Hurd" is a kernel replacement (Hurd) developed under the aegis of the GNU project, not an OS (hence there is no GNU Linux because no version of the Linux kernel has been developed thusly). "GNU/Hurd" or "GNU+Hurd" is a more precise way to describe the official GNU OS--the GNU OS running on the HURD kernel replacement.
There are significant distinctions which need to be made because GNU runs on top of multiple kernels and kernel replacements (probably more than I know about: I believe Debian distributes a variant of GNU running on top of the NetBSD kernel called "GNU/NetBSD" but would more accurately be referred to as "GNU/kernelofNetBSD" because NetBSD is an OS, not just a kernel).
The syntax the FSF uses might be too subtle to convey the importance of the differences amongst GNU variants, but as variants of GNU become more numerous, we will need to clearly distinguish our choices. More importantly, we don't accurately convey how we got to where we are by allowing one contributor to get credit for all the major parts of the work. Hence the FSF asks that you give GNU a share of the credit, not just Linux.
If Real paid the US$60,000 one-time MP3 license fee and added the MP3 decoder to HelixPlayer, would HelixPlayer's MP3 decoder constitute a legal free software MP3 player for users in software patent-burdened countries like the US?
As it is, I don't see how this story is any more interesting than running Windows Media Player or WinAMP via WINE on an i386-based GNU/Linux system.
Trying to reduce the discussion of freedom to namecalling is unproductive. Trying to water down the acceptance of freedom to pragmatism (use the best tool for the job) misses the point which motivates some to choose nothing but free software. Giving GNU not even a share of the credit for the OS (or, conversely, giving the Linux kernel project all the credit) misunderstands history and any sense of fairness, particularly noticed because you're apparently trying to dissuade people from freedom talk (despite how you claim to respect people's freedom to choose, which is not what software freedom is about either).
I concur, please do consider donating the memory. I worked for a local place that refurbished donated computers and used them for a community networking initiative which provided poor people with:
a gentle introduction to using a computer (many hours of hands-on use with an instructor who can answer questions on-the-spot),
a computer system (including all the hardware and software they needed to do real tasks),
and a dialup account at the ISP operated by the organization.
All of this was provided at no cost to the recipient. As I understand the financing, the place is run on a combination of grant money, selling dialup accounts and hosting, and donations. After building and testing a bunch of low-end machines used for these classes, my work there ended. It was a good karma job with good people working there and I would work there again if the need arose.
As a former technician there, I would have been grateful to receive donated RAM for what is today considered old. I'm sure someone's machine would have used it (or some machine that will soon be donated there would use it).
I could respect what the AmigaOS folks were doing if the OS had something to offer me. As it is, the OS is proprietary and it doesn't come with programs to do some of the tasks I've come to expect from a modern OS (such as a modern GNU/Linux distribution): word processing, spreadsheet calculations, web browsing, and text editing all with best-of-breed programs from the free software world. So, it misses on both a software freedom scale and a functional scale.
The hardware is simply lacking. I can get a comparable used G3-based machine for less money (like a used Apple iBook for about US$300 on eBay) that will run a modern free software OS.
I don't care about AmigaOS being unpopular. I reject it because it is useless to me on grounds that I care about.
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We ought to have discussion about the GNU General Public License (GPL) v3. The GPLv2 is an important license, the most widely used free software license. We should have critical discussions to help make the GPLv3 better, and of course defining "better" requires understanding the goals of the license.
But there's a profound unfairness in the two articles linked to here. They are filed in the "Linux & Open Source" section on the eWeek website, and not by accident. The GPL was initially written well before either the Linux kernel or the open source movement began and it was written to serve the purpose of furthering software freedom (an issue the open source movement does not want to talk about because it gets in the way of making their pitch to business, this movement's main audience, on "solid pragmatic grounds rather than ideological tub-thumping", as their FAQ says. This name-calling is starkly less insightful than the analysis the Free Software Foundation offers about the open source movement). So, there is simple miscrediting going on here, but it's also ironic that is no "GNU/Linux & Free Software" section at this website. Such a section would be far more accurate for describing stories about the most widely used and most important free software license.
When version 3 of the GNU GPL is released, it will be the first version to come out that had a chance of being edited by someone involved in the open source movement. As far as I can tell, nobody from the open source movement has had a hand in revising any version of the GPL. The GPL was written by people from the FSF (and the listed author is the FSF). Yet the GPL is routinely cited as an open source license by proponents of that movement, essentially taking credit for work that nobody in that movement did.
The Linux kernel is but one program in a complete GNU/Linux system. It's ironic that this license is so pivotal to the development of the GNU/Linux OS but GNU can't get just a share of the credit.
Of the two men featured in articles which are linked to in this Slashdot thread, one is an authority on the GPL and a co-author of the GPL, the other is someone who exhibits no significant insight into how the free software community came to be or what the GPL is here to accomplish. I'm grateful that Linus Torvalds began the Linux kernel and continues to work on the most widely used fork of that kernel, but this is not about the technical inner workings of the Linux kernel, where Linus Torvalds is unquestionably an authority on the matter. Torvalds is no authority on the GPL or software freedom in general. If you point your friends to these two articles, please don't give Moglen and Torvalds equal billing here. Equal billing would either diminish the attention we should pay to Moglen's comments on this matter or give Torvald's comments more attention than he deserves on this topic.
This seems like a bad thing at first blush, but it's a good thing that Ubuntu is not distributing software that some users can't redistribute (notably, users in countries burdened with software patents, like US users).
It's a real hassle to not be able to double-click on a file and have it do the right thing immediately, but there is a good reason for not including MP3 software: (for those who aren't aware of this) MP3 is patent-encumbered. In some countries all implementations of MP3 are covered by patents held by the Fraunhofer corporation and patent licenses are acquired through Thomson. If you want to merely share a verbatim copy of a GPL'd MP3 player with your friend (again, in some countries), you need a license.
This restriction makes the software non-free for some users, despite the license. This is why free software proponents endorse the use of unencumbered protocols and file formats to do the same job. Ogg Vorbis is a fine replacement and most reviews I've read say that the Vorbis codec sounds better than MP3, or can sound just as bad but with a smaller file size. Have a friend set up a blind test for you and figure out what you like.
There are restrictions on various other kinds of formats too, and there are unencumbered replacements for most of them.
According to the front page of the OSI website: (emphasis theirs)
The Open Source Initiative started the open source movement and defines the term "open source". That is a development methodology aimed chiefly at businesses. I fail to see how my wording or RMS' views of the open source philosophy fail to describe what's going on.
It's also disappointing to see that the new head of the OSI takes so quickly to name-calling and casting aspersions.
The open source movement has no problem with advocating for software that is not "open source". This movement's philosophy champions a development methodology aimed chiefly at businesses. When you focus on criteria where you can't always excel, like technological innovation, you sometimes have to stump for things that won't qualify for the imprimateur of your own organization.
Free software proponents, by contrast, champion a different philosophy: all computer users deserve the freedom to run, inspect, share, and modify computer software. Thus, software freedom is primary, not technical innovation or faster and less buggy development. Hence, free software proponents never have the ironic situation of advocating the use of software they don't agree with. From the perspective of the older free software movement, the goals of the open source movement are nice as far as they go but they don't go far enough.
No, we're talking about the same thing, the IBM patent pledge, but you refuse to see a nebulously defined condition that ultimately results in suppressing your ability to defend your rights under law as a loss. This condition is why I refuse to join you and call what IBM is offering a "gift". Gifts don't come with conditions.
Let's weigh the IBM patent pledge in terms of what you had before and after the pledge (your framing) and the set of programs you can now deal in without fearing lawsuits so long as you behave in a certain way (my framing):
Before the pledge, most people had no access to any of IBM's patents and one could defend all of their rights under law (including those defined under the prejudicial and overgeneral term "intellectual property"). One could defend those rights against anyone (including against "Open Source Software", again citing the purposefully imprecise language of the IBM patent pledge; it's not clear exactly whom one is not to sue).
The only way to leverage the pledge for sure is to forgo defending these rights against "Open Source Software". If one defends their rights they risk losing access to these 500 patents. Your point that there's no guarantee of losing access to these 500 patents by defending one's ("intellectual property") rights (against "Open Source Software") is true but another reason why one can come away thinking this pledge is not all it has been cracked up to be. Businesses are the target audience of the open source movement, yet I would not want to build a business making or distributing "Open Source Software" by leveraging these 500 patents because IBM has left enough wiggle room in their pledge to be able to shut off my access to these 500 patents at any time.
Let's consider what this pledge actually gets us: what programs can you deal in (run, write, distribute, modify, etc.) leveraging the ideas described in these 500 patents that also do not leverage the ideas described in any of IBM's other active patents? This is the set of programs where you genuinely benefit from the pledge. The larger the set of qualifying programs, the more beneficial this pledge is to you.
I don't know for sure what the answer to this question is. But this is a perfectly valid way to weigh the value of the pledge, and we must weigh it before concluding that this is a good or bad offer. If the set of programs that qualify is empty, you gain nothing and in exchange (if you behave to continue your access to the 500 patents) you choose not to defend some of your "intellectual property" rights against "Open Source Software". Effectively, this means you lose those rights against those defendants (an undefended right is no right at all). If the set of qualifying programs is small, you gain something but it's not much more than you had before the pledge. In either of these situations, you are trading away something valuable for something of little value. I believe one of these two cases is likely.
In order to take advantage of IBM's promise, you take on a new risk: you must forgo enforcing your "intellectual property" rights against "Open Source Software". You don't know if you'll remain in IBM's good graces otherwise.
So, what programs might I deal in that leverage any of the 500 patented ideas listed in the pledge and none of patented ideas from the rest of IBM's active patents?
If there aren't significant programs in this answer, you're under no less risk than you were before. All you really get out of the pledge is not enforcing your rights under "intellectual property" law (which, as the FSF is right to point out, is not a real subject at all being both purposefully overgeneral and prejudicial).
The FSF has repeatedly told us that words matter. "Free" versus "open" makes a difference because they don't mean the same thing and they don't have the same implications.
The open source movement's philosophy focuses on technical superiority in their aim to benefit businesses. This is an incredibly weak philosophy which means open source proponents end up sometimes stumping for software that doesn't qualify as "open source"--proprietary software, in particular (because there is proprietary software that does a job better than the "open source" equivalent). Free software proponents argue for software freedom for all computer users, and thus never end up in an ironic position of stumping for non-free software. This means that proprietary software is treated two different ways: for open source proponents, proprietary software is an acceptable, if less technically efficient, means to an end. For free software proponents, proprietary software is anti-social and wrong.
The state of Massachusetts will end up watering down their concepts in a similar way: they'll accept Microsoft's proprietary formats as "open formats", and they'll fall back to quibbling about the "terms of usage". Which means Microsoft has either exploited an extant weakness in "open formats" or blown a new one open. Will Massachusetts state government end up placing public documents in a proprietary format? Do they still care about OASIS' OpenDocument? It looks like interoperation for the purpose of helping to keep government documents readable and changeable without losing information is lower on the priority list than it was before.
I don't know what he's read, but I see no mention of the IBM patent promise revocation clause in the philsophical documents on gnu.org or in this essay about Sun. Keeping silent as political negotiation seems to be out of step with how RMS has behaved in the past: pointing out good and bad things organizations do, and reminding us that we must not judge an organization by one thing that they do.
Defending your rights is hardly the wrong thing to want to do. My interest in free software comes from my increased awareness of my rights and my eagerness to defend them. The rest of your statement hits at my problem with IBM's offer: it's impossible for me to agree with that until I know the real value of what IBM is offering.
Clearly IBM is offering something, but how easy it is to lose this pledge and what must one trade away to stay in IBM's good graces? These are more practical ways to measure the value of IBM's pledge rather than unexamined silence. What IBM has given us is not a gift, it is a conditional promise. A gift with strings attached is a questionable gift. You don't give someone a birthday gift on the condition that they don't sue you for copyright infringement, thus allowing you to illicitly make derivatives from their blog.
I don't see a problem with encouraging people to consider what rights they're being asked to waive in exchange for this increased access. But I don't see press reports or opinion pieces doing this. When I consider how many more patents IBM has, and if I assume the best conditions (where I don't get sued over these 500 patents so long as I behave in a certain way), I have to wonder what programs might I might deal in which would leverage the 500 patented ideas I now have access to without leveraging any of IBM's other active patents. I'm not asking about this as a setup to fail, this is not a trick question.
The vague terms of the promise--terms that would receive criticism in other contexts--make it hard to know what lawsuit to avoiding filing, assuming you want to act to continue access to these patents. I can't easily say how much this access is worth to me, and therefore, I can't conclude that I'm actually under less risk than I was before IBM published the pledge. To agree with you that we've been given "quite a bit" suggests that it's possible to ascertain the value of IBM's promise.
Regarding criticizing Sun's "offer": I have no qualm with such criticism here; it seems more like shooting fish in a barrel if you read what Sun published. What sticks out to me is the difference in coverage--virtually nothing of the full terms of IBM's pledge, deservedly close examination for Sun. I don't think it's healthy to let people come away thinking they've been given something good because something else is so much worse (or non-existant).
IBM's patent pledge gets considerable praise from RMS here; several times he notes that IBM has undertaken a real step and he says that IBM's step is a substantive one--you are gaining increased access to 500 more patents than you had access to before. I agree that it is a step in the right direction. However, one should consider the terms of the deal before relying on IBM's promise not to sue regarding the listed 500 patents. One of the finer points of the IBM promise gets no mention.
In the last page of the IBM patent promise, you'll find the revocation clause: (all punctuation, and lack of ending punctuation, is theirs)
Note what you have to give up in order to enjoy IBM's promise not to sue you--if (someone involved with, I gather) "Open Source Software" infringes upon your copyright (one of the many so-called "intellectual property" rights) by, say, distributing copies of essays on your blog without permission, or distributing derivatives based on programs you hold the copyright to without complying with your license, you are put in a serious conundrum: you have to choose between enforcing your rights under law and continuing to enjoy IBM's non-aggression promise. I think this is an exchange one should consider very carefully, particularly considering how different and numerous so-called "intellectual property" laws are (another essay worth reading which RMS points to in his essay on Sun's "no-op announcement"; an essay one should read with IBM's patent promise as well). The number of laws under that overgeneralized catch-all phrase might catch you off guard, thus making you more vulnerable to patent infringement regarding these 500 patents than you thought you were.
5 golden rings!
4 calling birds,
3 French hens,
2 turtle doves,
and a partridge in a pear tree.
Some assembly required.
Brilliant concepts, perhaps, but management that was anything but brilliant. "Kits" (proprietary software--collections of ObjC objects and classes--one was encouraged to build dependencies upon) were obsoleted quite quickly, frustrating developers. The underlying OS was a rapidly decaying proprietary variant of 4.2BSD. I vaguely recall the details on how to build shared libraries were kept secret. This might have helped developers write programs that could work better on machines that had less than the full 64MB RAM (on a NeXT Cube). 64MB might not seem like a lot of RAM today, but back then RAM was considerably more expensive.
Many of the apps that came out for the OS were profoundly overrated and overpriced. There were some unquestionable gems here and there (some gems were even available with source code so one could learn from them, like the sorting demonstration application which allowed you to sort groups of bars of varied heights using different sorting algorithms), but I think many people looking back on what NeXT had to offer are wearing rose-colored glasses and are likely to have never owned NeXT hardware.
My experience with my NeXT Cube (ownership starting with NS 2.1, user experience starting before that, perhaps with v2.0) helped lead me to appreciate the free software movement. I didn't have my software freedom then and now I do, using commodity hardware I can afford to enhance and replace if need be.
We have no idea if someone else would have written another compiler, but we do know that GCC is still the chief (if not the only) free software compiler. GCC was developed for the purpose of furthering software freedom, initially written by RMS.
GNU was not "centric to open source" because GNU predates the open source movement by over a decade. But the open source movement got its start by building on what the free software movement had built in those years.
Finally, the namecalling seals the deal: I think your post deserves a flamebait or troll moderation.
I'm not thinking that because I know the history of the open source and free software movements better than to credit the GNU General Public License to the open source movement. As RMS pointed out to someone wanting to help trademark GCC to help the "open source community":
Speaking more specifically to what Joe Barr said, it is a relatively trivial thing to create a set of rules and list a license as conforming to those rules, than to write the license and define a movement. By the time the open source movement came into existence, the GPL was in widespread use. The ideas the GPL speaks of (software freedom, chief among them) are the ideas the open source movement was founded, in part, to move away from.
As the FSF explains quite clearly, the open source movement was started by people who wanted to "sell" free software to business and thought that freedom talk would get in the way. So they droppped it and pursued a different philosophy which is essentially a development methodology.
As the essay also indicates, the term "open source" is no more clear to people at first blush than "free software", hence it is not really an improvement on free software at all. I'd argue that open source is actually considerably weaker than free software because open source proponents are sometimes compelled to argue for software that doesn't qualify as open source. Their insistence on technical achievement (borne from their devotion to speaking to business) makes an odd message to send to others. Free software proponents are never put in the position of stumping for proprietary software because proprietary software, by definition, doesn't give users freedom. The goal is not to pursue technological achievements at the expense of software freedom. Technological improvement will happen over time, but freedom may not if we don't work to preserve it.
Then perhaps you'd be willing to consider giving GNU a share of the credit, since the GNU GPL came from the need to ensure software freedom for covered works and their derivatives. The Linux kernel is a fine and useful program, but it is not the entirety of the OS, and Linus Torvalds' political views on software matters--pragmatism, basically--are not that of the GNU project, the free software movement, or those who appreciate software freedom. It is ahistorical to give his views sole credit (essentially, crediting him for work he did not do) and to lead people to look to his philosophy when explaining the importance of the entire operating system of which the Linux kernel is a part.
I stand partially corrected. I will admit to partial correction here, and I'll thank you for the correction. However, the bulk of my points remain valid.
One more patent is one more than IBM is promising to not sue over. Further, Levien's patent is being offered on far more amenable terms than any of IBM's 500 patents listed in their patent promise--one doesn't have to forgo enforcing one's rights under law to use Levien's patent. Finally, even though GPL v2 contains too little language on software patents, the new BSD license contains absolutely none, so it's possible for the GPL to be interpreted in a way that would favor protecting one's ability to share and modify software.
But this isn't surprising, right? From "Why ''Free Software'' is better than ''Open Source''": (emphasis mine)
I find this situation comparable because in both cases the work is being done under the title of "open source", not "free software" (perhaps businesses understand that the open source movement is more amenable to their goals and the free software movement exists to pursue freedom for computer users), and because in both cases the work is being done to benefit the organization that sets out the deal, not the users of the programs. Sun wouldn't grant permission to deal in their patented ideas because they want to help computer users. They're doing it to motivate more people to license their programs under the applicable Sun license, just as this executive was out to make the program "open source" for people in the organization, not the users.
You can use GPL-covered code in your new BSD-licensed projects by relicensing the derivative work under the GNU GPL. Or you can merge the two programs together, creating a GPL derivative (the new BSD license is GPL-compatible). Or you could run the GPL-covered program, see what it does, and reimplement the program entirely (we're dealing with copyrighted works here, not patent exclusions which prohibit leveraging the idea).
But speaking of patents, which this thread is, there are good reasons why you would want to switch to the GPL: the GPL is the most popular free software license, the GPL will grant you access to more patents than the new BSD license, and the GPL has patent language whereas the new BSD does not. Raph Levien has granted "a fully paid up, nonexclusive, royalty free license to practice the patents" he lists on his patent page. That means you get access to the 500 IBM patents (a patent pledge with huge strings attached that might not make it worth your while to use this access) plus Levien's patents (which are granted on far more reasonable grounds). Also, the GPL has some language concerning patent licensing, the new BSD has none. The next GPL (GPL v3) is said to have more language concerning patents. I know of no change planned for the new BSD license's language.
It's not overly idealistic, it's part of the logic by which VCRs were made legal in the USA. In Universal v Sony, the concept of substantial non-infringing uses was key to why Sony's VCR (the Betamax) was allowed to be distributed. The machines could be used to make illicit copies but they could also be used for lawful purposes. The distributor of the tool used to infringe copyright cannot be held liable for users' copyright violations so long as the tool has substantial non-infringing uses. The US Supreme Court wisely chose not to throw out the baby with the bathwater and consider the entire technology tainted.
When the US Supreme Court considers MGM v Grokster a little over two months from now, I think they will re-read the Betamax decision and be compelled to acknowledge that so-called peer-to-peer file-sharing programs have substantial non-infringing uses. This will justify the continued legal existence of the programs and allow the infringing users, not the distributors of the programs, to be held liable for their infringments.
Finally, this issue isn't centered on fair use. However, since you mentioned fair use, it should be noted that there's nothing wrong with taking advantage of fair use. It exists for Americans to continue to enjoy free speech with regard to copyrighted work where the default is to disallow copying, distribution, and preparing derivative works. If we didn't have fair use, it would be far more difficult to express dissent without permission from the copyright holder (which would virtually never be granted.
I'm curious what you really mean by "in actuality"--isn't BitTorrent actually used to distribute copies of all sorts of data, illicitly and legally? Or are you focusing on the kind of data (MP3s, DiVX movie files, and pornographic movies in a encoded with a variety of codecs) and trying to get us to read something into that? Maybe I have a license to share that MP3 file (like the Creative Commons-licensed song files first distributed in Wired magazine late last year); maybe that DiVX file is a home movie I made (therefore making me the copyright holder); maybe I'm a licensed distributor of that pornographic DivX file (trying to get people to buy a copy of the movie by giving them a free sample)?
Usually when people place an emphasis on illicit distribution in this context, they are trying to impune the distribution mechanism, as if it is somehow BitTorrent's job to stop the user from doing something illegal.
As a result of my questions, I fail to see how your post is fairly moderated up as insightful.
First, thanks for participating in our discussion.
Since you work for Real, perhaps you can help us understand: Could Real have paid the one-time MP3 decoder license fee then added a GNU GPL-covered MP3 player to HelixPlayer? Would this have made a free software MP3 player? Why didn't this happen?
You can't tell that by looking, in fact you can't tell what the single process it runs does. You certainly can't tell if it is sending data about your computer use somewhere without doing analysis of data on the wire (so to speak)--looking at recent connections isn't even enough because it could be sending data to the same place you're getting streaming audio/video from. By the time you've done that, it's too late to stop the potentially sensitive data from leaving your computer. You can't legally improve the program to make it not happen again (preparation of a derivative work is regulated under copyright law, restricted by default, and not allowed in the RealPlayer license). If you figure out which bits to flip to improve the program, you can't legally distribute the improved version to help everyone else out (same copyright issue).
I'd be surprised if "RealAlternative" is anything but the proprietary RealPlayer software with a different GUI front-end. http://bigelow-springs.net/airamerica/ points to a live streaming mirror of Air America in Ogg Vorbis format, complete with Ogg Vorbis archives of previous Air America shows (thus making this page better than the official Air America website). It is quite busy and apparently in need of more bandwidth. Perhaps they take donations.
All that and I still don't have an answer to the question I asked about regarding the one-time MP3 license fee.
Not according to how the FSF would like their work to be credited--even putting aside this silly lack of distinction between an OS and a kernel, "GNU Hurd" is a kernel replacement (Hurd) developed under the aegis of the GNU project, not an OS (hence there is no GNU Linux because no version of the Linux kernel has been developed thusly). "GNU/Hurd" or "GNU+Hurd" is a more precise way to describe the official GNU OS--the GNU OS running on the HURD kernel replacement.
There are significant distinctions which need to be made because GNU runs on top of multiple kernels and kernel replacements (probably more than I know about: I believe Debian distributes a variant of GNU running on top of the NetBSD kernel called "GNU/NetBSD" but would more accurately be referred to as "GNU/kernelofNetBSD" because NetBSD is an OS, not just a kernel).
The syntax the FSF uses might be too subtle to convey the importance of the differences amongst GNU variants, but as variants of GNU become more numerous, we will need to clearly distinguish our choices. More importantly, we don't accurately convey how we got to where we are by allowing one contributor to get credit for all the major parts of the work. Hence the FSF asks that you give GNU a share of the credit, not just Linux.
If Real paid the US$60,000 one-time MP3 license fee and added the MP3 decoder to HelixPlayer, would HelixPlayer's MP3 decoder constitute a legal free software MP3 player for users in software patent-burdened countries like the US?
As it is, I don't see how this story is any more interesting than running Windows Media Player or WinAMP via WINE on an i386-based GNU/Linux system.
Trying to reduce the discussion of freedom to namecalling is unproductive. Trying to water down the acceptance of freedom to pragmatism (use the best tool for the job) misses the point which motivates some to choose nothing but free software. Giving GNU not even a share of the credit for the OS (or, conversely, giving the Linux kernel project all the credit) misunderstands history and any sense of fairness, particularly noticed because you're apparently trying to dissuade people from freedom talk (despite how you claim to respect people's freedom to choose, which is not what software freedom is about either).
I concur, please do consider donating the memory. I worked for a local place that refurbished donated computers and used them for a community networking initiative which provided poor people with:
All of this was provided at no cost to the recipient. As I understand the financing, the place is run on a combination of grant money, selling dialup accounts and hosting, and donations. After building and testing a bunch of low-end machines used for these classes, my work there ended. It was a good karma job with good people working there and I would work there again if the need arose.
As a former technician there, I would have been grateful to receive donated RAM for what is today considered old. I'm sure someone's machine would have used it (or some machine that will soon be donated there would use it).
I could respect what the AmigaOS folks were doing if the OS had something to offer me. As it is, the OS is proprietary and it doesn't come with programs to do some of the tasks I've come to expect from a modern OS (such as a modern GNU/Linux distribution): word processing, spreadsheet calculations, web browsing, and text editing all with best-of-breed programs from the free software world. So, it misses on both a software freedom scale and a functional scale.
The hardware is simply lacking. I can get a comparable used G3-based machine for less money (like a used Apple iBook for about US$300 on eBay) that will run a modern free software OS.
I don't care about AmigaOS being unpopular. I reject it because it is useless to me on grounds that I care about.