I'm still not seeing the point.
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Linux and DRM?
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· Score: 1
I still don't see how a compiler that can compile a backdoor into a program and propagate its backdoor compilation code to compilers it compiles would be stopped if I had a DRM system in place--that seems to me to be passing the buck. Who's to say I can trust the DRM program? Why not distribute signed binaries of a compiler I can trust? Why would I want my entire free software operating system to contain a proprietary DRM program (it seems to me if the big media corporations are going to trust DRM, the DRM program would have to be proprietary)?
As for Microsoft Windows Rights Management Server, it seems useless to me without supporting programs--if I type something into a DRM-enabled Microsoft Word and tag my document so that the data within it can never be copied outside the application, I'm led to believe that it's okay to distribute copies of that file to my coworkers because the tagging will prevent the data from being copied outside the document (or perhaps prevent the data from being copied onto the clipboard at all). But what's to stop a coworker who has a copy of that file from using a different program to read the file, then copying the data as normal?
Why does one needs DRM (rather than a trusted copy of Linus Torvalds' public key) to make sure you've got a copy of the code signed by Linus Torvalds?
The way I figure it, cryptographic signatures don't inherently restrict me from doing things with the code (technologically speaking) but DRM is designed to make sure I can't do what I want with the code unless I'm granted permission to do so by the copyright holder.
I can see that someday someone might come up with a desirable application of DRM, but I don't see how signed code archives are that application. Therefore I'm not willing to support DRM in general just because someday there may be a good application for it. So far as I'm aware, it seems like we are trading away far too much benefit in exchange for something has yet to pan out well.
Just because it's commercial doesn't mean it isn't GPL'd. In fact, all free software licenses allow you to distribute works licensed under them for a fee. Perhaps you meant proprietary works being mislabeled as though they were GPL'd, thus attempting to deceive people into believing that the work is licensed under the GPL when it actually isn't.
I imagine this could be solved with a competitive set of organizations who compete on accuracy as well as speed and number of returned hits.
Copyright apologists often use words like ``stolen'' and ``theft'' to describe copyright infringement. At the same time, they ask us to treat the legal system as an authority on ethics: if copying is forbidden, it must be wrong.
So it is pertinent to mention that the legal system--at least in the US--rejects the idea that copyright infringement is ``theft.'' Copyright apologists are making an appeal to authority...and misrepresenting what the authority says.
The idea that laws decide what is right or wrong is mistaken in general. Laws are, at their best, an attempt to achieve justice; to say that laws define justice or ethical conduct is turning things upside down.
How are you arriving at the conclusion that the non-free software you're endorsing is much more trustworthy than the non-free software the article mentions?
Copyleft is what ensures and preserves freedom.
on
Darl Goes to Harvard
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· Score: 1
You're confusing Open Source with Free Software. Free Software licenses protects the code from being "stolen" and used in a non-Free product. Open Source licenses merely let users who have the source do what they will with it (with varying restrictions).
I appreciate that you're trying to distinguish between the two movements, as this is apparently very necessary (even for Slashdot readers). But what you're saying just isn't true.
The Open Source Initiative (OSI) has approved of the GNU General Public License (GPL). That is to say, the definition of "open source" was written sufficiently broadly as to allow the GPL to qualify. Of course, the GPL was written by the Free Software Foundatiy on well before the OSI began. The Free Software Foundation wrote the GPL for their own benefit and reading only the preface makes it clear which movement's philosophy are being described (hint: not the open source movement's philosophy). Thus, the distinction you're making is not accurate.
Enter RMS. Who advocates giving US IP to everyone who wants it. An event that would sink this country forever.
RMS has never "advocate[d] giving US IP to everyone who wants it". In fact he consistently explains why the term "intellectual property" (which is what you mean by "IP") hurts us and encourages muddled thinking. He has also said as much in his talks. If you have citations to the contrary, I'd like to read them or hear them.
As for "sinking this country forever", it's ironic that initially this country began its copyright policy by not honoring foreign copyright (much to some British authors' dislike, like Dickens) and with a far shorter term of copyright than we have today (without which, it's reasonable to estimate, some authors, including Mark Twain, wouldn't have written as much as they did). But again, RMS gives us some valuable insight on copyright policy.
It's also ironic that you get so much about RMS' views wrong and that he has already rebutted much of what you have to say.
No, it doesn't, but it's obvious that many are uncomfortable with anyone talking about ethics, freedom, and community without needing religious reference to make their point; RMS routinely makes his points without religious reference, he grounds his arguments on how he was able to get along with his community of hackers in the 1970's and what values society ought to teach children (sharing published information is good and a time-honored activity, for example). I'm sure if you ask any free software advocate for something they disagree with RMS on, they'll be happy to share that with you. The free software community is not based on faith that something good will somehow work itself out, there is real political understanding and strategy involved. There is also a conflict between deeply examining critical political issues of the day and an audience that is largely unaware and uninvolved in national and international politics. Lots of computer geeks who show up to RMS' talks and frequent websites like Slashdot are not politically astute enough to differentiate between religious followers and those who agree with RMS on issues of software freedom. This can change, but it takes time to discuss issues and educate people about the value of software freedom. One must be willing to engage with arguments on their merits and an examination of history, not glibly dismiss uncomfortable talk as "religion".
It begins with being uninformed on what RMS says.
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Stallman Goes to India
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· Score: 1
Lots of people on Slashdot who criticize RMS make the mistake of describing their critique such that it's clear they did not read or hear RMS' views. Then people who have read and heard him cite his words to correct the erroneous restatement. I play RMS' talks on the radio on my community radio station (Digital Citizen, alternate Wednesdays 8-10p WEFT 90.1 FM in Champaign, Illinois) and run-of-the-mill radio listeners do respond favorably to what he has to say. They call me on and off-air and tell me so (I just started taking on-air callers and will do more of this in the future). I'm hoping we'll get the equipment and mirroring to do webcasting soon because we have a number of programs of interest to a wide audience, not just my free software/copyright law/patent law public affairs show.
One of the things people most often misstate is the difference between the open source and free software movements. The FSF essay on this issue is excellent and widely underread. I think RMS gets a profoundly unfair shake on this and other websites.
I'm aware of that and have posted as much in this thread before you responded (including noting that the new Apache license still allows sublicensing). I was addressing the general point that merely being able to see source code is sufficient, which it clearly is not.
It need not be, but the new license does allow sublicensing. Very few people ask for XFree86 to be GPL-compatible. So long as XFree86 is free software, it will continue to be a valuable contribution to the free software community.
If the GPL is unwilling to be compatable with anyone else, why should anyone be too worried about being compatable with the GPL.
When the GPL was written, apparently nobody else had the idea of preserving the freedoms of free software for derivative works by leveraging the power of copyright. Copylefting was not as popular as it is now and plenty of developers were content to contribute to corporations as if they were charities. Simply not contributing code without analyzing why this occurs is a remarkably shallow examination of the situation.
Remember. Open source =\= GPL.
Actually, the GPL is the most popular so-called "open source" license. But it's still far better to credit the GPL as a free software license because the open source movement had nothing to do with the creation of the GPL and the open source movement's philosophy is not the same as the philosophy behind the GPL. Merely placing a license on an approved list of licenses does not compare with writing a license.
By the way, before the XFree86 license switch, RMS encouraged people to contribute to the XFree86 project under the previous XFree86 license. He explained why a GPL fork of XFree86 would not be beneficial for GNU. I believe that his opinion was based on XFree86 being free software, not GPL-compatibility, so I expect he will continue to tell people to contribute to the project under its license rather than making another fork, so long as XFree86 remains free:
QUESTION: Yes, my question was, considering free but not copylefted
software, since anybody can pick it up and make it proprietary, is it not
possible also for someone to pick it up and make some changes and release
the whole thing under the GPL?
STALLMAN: Yes, it is possible.
QUESTION: Then, that would make all future copies then be GPL'ed.
STALLMAN: From that branch. But here's why we don't do that.
QUESTION: Hmm?
STALLMAN: Here's why we don't generally do that. Let me explain.
QUESTION: OK, yes.
STALLMAN: We could, if we wanted to, take X Windows, and make a
GPL-covered copy and make changes in that. But there's a much larger
group of people working on improving X Windows and *not* GPL-ing it. So,
if we did that, we would be forking from them. And that's not very nice
treatment of them. And, they *are* a part of our community, contributing
to our community.
Second, it would backfire against us, because they're doing a lot more
work on X than we would be. So, our version would be inferior to theirs,
and people wouldn't use it, which means, why go to the trouble at all?
QUESTION: Mmm hmm.
STALLMAN: So when a person has written some improvement to X Windows,
what I say that person should do is cooperate with the X development
team. Send it to them and let them use it their way. Because they are
developing a very important piece of free software. It's good for us to
cooperate with them.
QUESTION: Except, considering X, in particular, about two years ago, the X
Consortium that was far into the nonfree open source...
STALLMAN: Well, actually it *wasn't* open sourced. It wasn't open
sourced, either. They may have said it was. I can't remember if they
said that or not. But it wasn't open source. It was restricted. You couldn't
commercially distribute, I think. Or you couldn't commercially distribute
a modified version, or something like that. There was a restriction that's
considered una
Which means nothing if you aren't licensed to share or modify it. Merely being able to see source code is insufficient. Fortunately the new XFree86 license doesn't restrict sharing or modification (it still allows sublicensing too).
I have seen 3D OpenGL screensavers on GNU/Linux work really well on an ATI Radeon 9000. XFree86 lists support for this card and I don't believe that depends on proprietary software. 3D on this card with XFree86 appears to me to work quite well. But that still doesn't address the issue of software freedom; you're essentially arguing that it's okay to push freedom aside for some jobs. This means you're prioritizing practical function over freedom.
I agree with you that we must have a system that works well for us, doing all the jobs we want the system to do. But I'm willing to delay gratification until we can do it in freedom.
If you comment to this guy, make sure that you emphasize the need for a Linux port of ForceWare. This is (IMHO) the closest thing to a TiVo competitor for the PC world. Right now, it is Windows-only.
If you're like the current pool of moderators and some of the posters on this thread, perhaps you'll give nVidia your money in the hopes that they'll do the right thing with it. Why not? It's just a small hop from giving your money to become dependent on them. Treating corporations like charities is a sure-fire way to make you their friend.
If it weren't for the GPL and the non-binary rule [...]
In other words, if the preeminent license of the free software community were rewritten to flush all our software freedom down the toilet, we would gain...what? What could possibly be so compelling that we should be willing to trash 20 years of giving all computer users software freedom?
NVIDIA is a 3D hardware company - they make their money by selling cards to run the latest whizz-bang games.
So does ATI but ATI apparently works with the free software community. Unlike nVidia, ATI chose to put themselves in a position where they could provide real support to the free software community; you can find drivers for some very impressive ATI cards in XFree86. Other manufacturers work with the free software community too by shipping specs or software we can use. I'd much rather buy from them and recommend that others buy from them.
NVIDIA could easily give up on Linux.
Considering that I don't think they're actually helping me at all right now, I won't miss them if they take their non-free software away. If they delivered free software drivers, this whole conversation would change. I'd not only thank them for supporting our community but I'd buy nVidia hardware and I would recommend nVidia hardware to my friends and clients. And then if nVidia stopped supporting the hardware I wouldn't be left with software I couldn't inspect or improve. I'd be left with software I could improve either by doing the work myself or hiring someone to do it for me. If my particular nVidia card was popular, there's a good chance someone else will improve the software and I could run their improved version if it was still free software.
Your comment is hardly insightful. There was plenty of free software available (including support for high-end video cards) before nVidia distributed their non-free software. There will be plenty if they leave. We owe nVidia nothing and we should reject their offer to push us into dependency.
To NVidia's credit, they seem to be somewhat serious about supporting Linux in a somewhat timely manner.
I'm reminded of the following FSF essay when I read your popularity-based definition of "support":
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.
This sort of allusion won't be a great incentive for other hardware vendors to support Linux at all, they'll just think "whatever we do to be nice to them, those Linux folks will always have something to complain about".
No they won't, they'll recognize that we're willing to stand up for ourselves and not capitulate to someone offering the latest temptation away from freedom. You don't bargain with someone by giving them everything they want on their terms. Since when is it our job to welcome any proprietor that comes down the block? When nVidia is willing to deal with me in terms of software freedom, I'll be happy to recommend their hardware. I'm sure lots of other free software users would too. We can have popularity too, but it's better to have popularity on the basis of software freedom.
Freedom-talk won't dissuade nVidia or any other proprietor. Software proprietors want your money and they want to control how you can use your computer. As long as you are willing to surrender these things you will be quite popular with them.
When Linux has 80% marketshare and is a true force to be reckoned with, then perhaps the community will be able to afford sarcasm and get away with it, but in the meantime, there must be other, more constructive ways to entice vendors to embrace open-source.
This is the real problem--you have hit the nail on the head here: you are chasing mere popularity. The GNU system was started in the pursuit of freedom. When you placate proprietors you might become more popular but you will never get freedom.
I could not care less if nVidia "embrace[s] open-source" because I want software freedom, something the open source movement doesn't value. Reading the next few paragraphs of that same FSF essay is instructive.
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.
You seem to be under the impression that I am somehow speaking for IBM.
Not at all, nor did I ever claim you were. In fact I have explicitly asked for you to back up your claim with words from someone at IBM. If I believed you spoke for IBM your words would have been enough and I never would have asked for support for your claim.
I am merely stating my opinion based on my experiences with software patents.
I know that you posted your opinion, in fact I said as much in my previous response (I called it "your interpretation"). I'm asking if you know whether your interpretation of IBM's patent is synonymous with how they state they will actually use it, and how you know this.
When I spoke about the real value of IBM's patent collection in another post on this thread, I provided a reference from someone at IBM to support my assertion.
I don't need another description on what this particular patent seeks to achieve or how this patent would be useful to them. As one of the few people to bring up the power of cross-licensing in this discussion and others, I understand what yet-another-patent really means to IBM. So I guess what I'm asking for isn't forthcoming.
You have twice now argued that the logic you describe is the salient argument behind IBM's acquisition of this patent. So where, exactly, can I find someone at IBM to confirm your interpretation? So far IBM's people appear to me to be content with "putting [their] energy" in a court battle "to get this over with".
Do you have any documentation to back that claim up?
Simply by obtaining the patent IBM prevents anyone else from hamstringing the development community.
Licensing the developers who would ostensibly gain from this funding to deal in the patent without restriction or fee would achieve the same thing, but I am not aware of IBM doing that.
Preventing OSD would be very much against IBM's best interests.
No it wouldn't, because "open source" was defined to work with business, giving businesses a great deal of what they want in order to champion their licenses and chase this movement's message of practical superiority. Fortunately, the most widely used license this movement gave a thumbs-up to--the GNU General Public License--was written by people with software freedom for all computer users at the heart of their movement.
According to Roger Smith, IBM Assistant General Counsel in "Think" magazine #5, 1990:
"You get value from patents in two ways," says Roger Smith, IBM Assistant General Counsel, intellectual property law. "Through fees, and through licensing negotiations that give IBM access to other patents.
"The IBM patent portfolio gains us the freedom to do what we need to do through cross-licensing--it gives us access to the inventions of others that are the key to rapid innovation. Access is far more valuable to IBM than the fees it receives from its 9,000 active patents. There's no direct calculation of this value, but it's many times larger than the fee income, perhaps an order of magnitude larger."
This article has the appropriate take on this point:
This article should dispell the idea that the patent system will "protect" a small software developer from competition from IBM. IBM can always find patents in its collection which the small developer is infringing, and thus obtain a cross-license.
The real value in patents isn't in collecting license fees, it's in cross-licensing. RMS has talked about this before with his usually astute analysis that is well worth hearing. He too explains, in detail, the real value of amassing a huge library of patents.
Intel's idea for this Centrino software and nVidia's binary-only driver delivers dependence, not software freedom. So long as you focus on "open source" you are choosing a philosophy that stresses picking technically better software and eschewing software freedom. This means when there is a proprietary program that is better than the "open source" equivalent, you have no reason to reject the proprietary program. So the open source movement actually does a good job of giving you reasons to reject the software they are endorsing. But don't take my word for it:
"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."
David Kastrup posted an insightful addition to this point--depending on the program we're talking about, there might not be an "open source" equivalent at all. In a recent thread on gnu.misc.discuss, I summarized some of the differences between the free software and open source movements and how the open source movement has a built-in problem that the free software movement doesn't have (namely, that pitching practical advantage isn't always telling the truth). Kastrup followed up to my post noting the following here:
"It [the Open Source movement's philosophy] also takes away initial motivation. Open Source touts the benefits of Free Software in the terms of technical superiority. But that
would give no motivation whatsoever to use or develop Free Software
when technically superior proprietary alternatives exist. The Open
Source philosophy offers little motivation for getting Free Software
off the ground."
I strongly encourage you to include support from free software as a criterion for choosing hardware. There are plenty of perfectly fine video cards and wireless devices that can be operated completely with free software. If you haven't already, I also encourage you to reevaluate siding with a movement that discourages paying attention to software freedom.
The GPL is a license that is commercially netural insofar as you can charge for work, but it is definitely not a commercial license. It is a constitution that clearly separates the interests of commercial software producers (who sell software and therefore rely on closed source) and the wide range of people who produce software for other reasons (hobby, indirect need, whatever).
Charging for distributing the program was the point of the second essay I pointed you to (not just charging for improving the program).
Your criteria doesn't describe the status quo. Right now, many corporate GNU/Linux distributors are selling GPL-covered software and they all depend on a community that produces GPL-covered software regardless of the reason why it was made. IBM, for example, is unquestionably a "commercial software [producer who] sell[s] software" but does not "rely on closed source" for everything they do. They advertise their commercially-available systems running their distribution of the Linux kernal.
What most people mean when they say "commercial license" is a software license involved in a commercial transaction. Thus the GPL is a commercial license. An unusual one, but still a commercial license.
A far more useful distinction is one that hinges on software freedom--does the license for a program give me the freedoms of free software? If so, that program is free software for me.
I'm also surprised you say it has nothing to do with the open source movement.
That movement's contribution to the GPL is remarkably trivial compared to the FSF's contribution to the GPL. Furthermore, the open source movement and the free software movement's philosophies are profoundly different. These two factors tell me it is a significant miscrediting of history to link together the open source movement and the GNU GPL.
Open source is about promoting the values of software as a medium of expression of common (shared) ideas. The GPL is also exactly about this. The GPL defines one particular open source model.
No, that description is no good because it does nothing to distinguish "open source" from "free software". That way of putting things does not distinguish either of these movements from proprietary software either (various proprietary software licenses "promot[e] the values of software as a medium of expression of common (shared) ideas").
You can better understand the open source movement by looking at how it came to be. The open source movement was started as a reaction to Netscape releasing the source code for their web browser (which Netscape did as a last-ditch effort to compete with Microsoft). The free software community members who formed the open source movement thought other businesses might be willing to do what Netscape did and they decided to talk to businesses by dropping any freedom talk and instead talk about a development methodology. The GNU GPL, on the other hand, explicitly and repeatedly mentions software freedom, targets all computer users with that message of software freedom, and the GPL was written by the FSF well before the "open source" name was coined or the open source movement began. The OSI merely defined their terms for license acceptance widely enough to include the GPL on their list of approved licenses.
Members of both movements work together on projects, and I'm glad the OSI and the open source movement brings people to license programs under the GPL. But the philosophies behind the two movements are significantly different as that first FSF essay I linked to points out quite clearly. I don't think it's at all fair to the FSF or to the different philosophical underpinnings of either movement to credit the GPL as "open source" because it is tying together a license that celebrates and preserves software freedom with a movement that played no role in writing the GPL which eschews software freedom.
Those who forget history are doomed to...something
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The Tyranny of Copyright?
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· Score: 4, Interesting
I appreciate the ideas the article is trying to raise in the public consciousness and I am grateful the NYT is helping to put these issues on the political map. Apparently Boynton agrees with RMS that it's important to "spread understanding of the value of freedom" although Boynton wasn't writing with regard to free software. I hope that in the next articles we can get more into specifics about how these ideas were formed because I think people have an easier time grasping useful abstractions when they are grounded in real-world events.
Giving credit where credit is due is intellectually honest. This article and Mark Webbink's recently praised article both chime in on copyleft or ideas built on copyleft without giving any credit to the person or the organization that brought it to our attention--Richard Stallman and the FSF.
Webbink goes so far as to reinvent copyleft without calling it such, thus confirming how valuable the concept is and what the open source movement is missing out on by rejecting software freedom in favor of practical concerns centered on their chief audience--businesses. The NYT article tells us "Copy Left[sic]" (spelled with a space probably to pigeon-hole the concept on the left side of the left-right false political dichotomy) is a borrowed term:
([...] originally used by software programmers to signal that their product bore fewer than the usual amount of copyright restrictions).
But that would come closer to describing free software. Copyleft is a way to secure the freedoms of free software for a program and its derivative works.
After something of the same journey with licenses for my own open source work, I finally came to the conclusion that Richard Stallman had seen the inevitable truth clearly when he designed the GPL, namely that free software thrives best when there is a definite barrier between it and commercial software.
Then your journey is not yet over because the GNU General Public License (GPL) is not a "barrier between [GPL-covered software] and commercial software" nor is it "open source". The GNU GPL was written by the Free Software Foundation for the free software movement years before the open source movement began. It is a profound mistake to call the GPL anything to do with the "open source" movement. Also, the GPL can be a commercial software license. Perhaps you meant "proprietary" instead of "commercial"?
Our software now uses a dual license model in which it's either licensed for free under the GPL, or licensed for a fee under a standard commercial license.
You appear to be using the word "free" to refer to price and not freedom. This is a side effect of paying attention to the open source movement where software freedom is eschewed instead of learning about the ideas in the license you're using. You could be distributing software in such a manner that your terms conflict with the GPL (because it is not allowed to "impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein" to quote the GPL section 6). There's nothing in the GPL that prohibits me from distributing covered software for a fee (this actually applies to all free software, not just the GPL). In fact, the FSF says I should make as much money as I can from distributing free software for a fee.
Slashdot Mirror
I still don't see how a compiler that can compile a backdoor into a program and propagate its backdoor compilation code to compilers it compiles would be stopped if I had a DRM system in place--that seems to me to be passing the buck. Who's to say I can trust the DRM program? Why not distribute signed binaries of a compiler I can trust? Why would I want my entire free software operating system to contain a proprietary DRM program (it seems to me if the big media corporations are going to trust DRM, the DRM program would have to be proprietary)?
As for Microsoft Windows Rights Management Server, it seems useless to me without supporting programs--if I type something into a DRM-enabled Microsoft Word and tag my document so that the data within it can never be copied outside the application, I'm led to believe that it's okay to distribute copies of that file to my coworkers because the tagging will prevent the data from being copied outside the document (or perhaps prevent the data from being copied onto the clipboard at all). But what's to stop a coworker who has a copy of that file from using a different program to read the file, then copying the data as normal?
Why does one needs DRM (rather than a trusted copy of Linus Torvalds' public key) to make sure you've got a copy of the code signed by Linus Torvalds?
The way I figure it, cryptographic signatures don't inherently restrict me from doing things with the code (technologically speaking) but DRM is designed to make sure I can't do what I want with the code unless I'm granted permission to do so by the copyright holder.
I can see that someday someone might come up with a desirable application of DRM, but I don't see how signed code archives are that application. Therefore I'm not willing to support DRM in general just because someday there may be a good application for it. So far as I'm aware, it seems like we are trading away far too much benefit in exchange for something has yet to pan out well.
Just because it's commercial doesn't mean it isn't GPL'd. In fact, all free software licenses allow you to distribute works licensed under them for a fee. Perhaps you meant proprietary works being mislabeled as though they were GPL'd, thus attempting to deceive people into believing that the work is licensed under the GPL when it actually isn't. I imagine this could be solved with a competitive set of organizations who compete on accuracy as well as speed and number of returned hits.
Of course, those who pay attention to the FSF will not find this to be news. The FSF has discussed this misframing of the debate for some time now:
RMS has also been clear about this issue in his talks. He also takes on the misframing of the issue in the phrase "intellectual property", giving credit to GNU when discussing the variant of the GNU OS featuring the Linux kernal, saying "commercial" software to refer to non-free software, and distinguishing between the open source and free software movements.
How are you arriving at the conclusion that the non-free software you're endorsing is much more trustworthy than the non-free software the article mentions?
I appreciate that you're trying to distinguish between the two movements, as this is apparently very necessary (even for Slashdot readers). But what you're saying just isn't true.
The Open Source Initiative (OSI) has approved of the GNU General Public License (GPL). That is to say, the definition of "open source" was written sufficiently broadly as to allow the GPL to qualify. Of course, the GPL was written by the Free Software Foundatiy on well before the OSI began. The Free Software Foundation wrote the GPL for their own benefit and reading only the preface makes it clear which movement's philosophy are being described (hint: not the open source movement's philosophy). Thus, the distinction you're making is not accurate.
What you're probably trying to describe is --how well are the freedoms of free software defended for the work and derivative works? The GPL has a strong copyleft, the new BSD license is a non-copyleft license; these two licenses are amongst the most widely used licenses that define the ends of the freedom-preserving spectrum. They are both free software licenses because they allow sharing and modification, but they don't preserve the right to share and modify to the same degree. Therefore they are not both copyleft licenses.
RMS has never "advocate[d] giving US IP to everyone who wants it". In fact he consistently explains why the term "intellectual property" (which is what you mean by "IP") hurts us and encourages muddled thinking. He has also said as much in his talks. If you have citations to the contrary, I'd like to read them or hear them.
As for "sinking this country forever", it's ironic that initially this country began its copyright policy by not honoring foreign copyright (much to some British authors' dislike, like Dickens) and with a far shorter term of copyright than we have today (without which, it's reasonable to estimate, some authors, including Mark Twain, wouldn't have written as much as they did). But again, RMS gives us some valuable insight on copyright policy.
It's also ironic that you get so much about RMS' views wrong and that he has already rebutted much of what you have to say.
No, it doesn't, but it's obvious that many are uncomfortable with anyone talking about ethics, freedom, and community without needing religious reference to make their point; RMS routinely makes his points without religious reference, he grounds his arguments on how he was able to get along with his community of hackers in the 1970's and what values society ought to teach children (sharing published information is good and a time-honored activity, for example). I'm sure if you ask any free software advocate for something they disagree with RMS on, they'll be happy to share that with you. The free software community is not based on faith that something good will somehow work itself out, there is real political understanding and strategy involved. There is also a conflict between deeply examining critical political issues of the day and an audience that is largely unaware and uninvolved in national and international politics. Lots of computer geeks who show up to RMS' talks and frequent websites like Slashdot are not politically astute enough to differentiate between religious followers and those who agree with RMS on issues of software freedom. This can change, but it takes time to discuss issues and educate people about the value of software freedom. One must be willing to engage with arguments on their merits and an examination of history, not glibly dismiss uncomfortable talk as "religion".
Lots of people on Slashdot who criticize RMS make the mistake of describing their critique such that it's clear they did not read or hear RMS' views. Then people who have read and heard him cite his words to correct the erroneous restatement. I play RMS' talks on the radio on my community radio station (Digital Citizen, alternate Wednesdays 8-10p WEFT 90.1 FM in Champaign, Illinois) and run-of-the-mill radio listeners do respond favorably to what he has to say. They call me on and off-air and tell me so (I just started taking on-air callers and will do more of this in the future). I'm hoping we'll get the equipment and mirroring to do webcasting soon because we have a number of programs of interest to a wide audience, not just my free software/copyright law/patent law public affairs show.
One of the things people most often misstate is the difference between the open source and free software movements. The FSF essay on this issue is excellent and widely underread. I think RMS gets a profoundly unfair shake on this and other websites.
I'm aware of that and have posted as much in this thread before you responded (including noting that the new Apache license still allows sublicensing). I was addressing the general point that merely being able to see source code is sufficient, which it clearly is not.
It need not be, but the new license does allow sublicensing. Very few people ask for XFree86 to be GPL-compatible. So long as XFree86 is free software, it will continue to be a valuable contribution to the free software community.
When the GPL was written, apparently nobody else had the idea of preserving the freedoms of free software for derivative works by leveraging the power of copyright. Copylefting was not as popular as it is now and plenty of developers were content to contribute to corporations as if they were charities. Simply not contributing code without analyzing why this occurs is a remarkably shallow examination of the situation.
Actually, the GPL is the most popular so-called "open source" license. But it's still far better to credit the GPL as a free software license because the open source movement had nothing to do with the creation of the GPL and the open source movement's philosophy is not the same as the philosophy behind the GPL. Merely placing a license on an approved list of licenses does not compare with writing a license.
By the way, before the XFree86 license switch, RMS encouraged people to contribute to the XFree86 project under the previous XFree86 license. He explained why a GPL fork of XFree86 would not be beneficial for GNU. I believe that his opinion was based on XFree86 being free software, not GPL-compatibility, so I expect he will continue to tell people to contribute to the project under its license rather than making another fork, so long as XFree86 remains free:
Which means nothing if you aren't licensed to share or modify it. Merely being able to see source code is insufficient. Fortunately the new XFree86 license doesn't restrict sharing or modification (it still allows sublicensing too).
I have seen 3D OpenGL screensavers on GNU/Linux work really well on an ATI Radeon 9000. XFree86 lists support for this card and I don't believe that depends on proprietary software. 3D on this card with XFree86 appears to me to work quite well. But that still doesn't address the issue of software freedom; you're essentially arguing that it's okay to push freedom aside for some jobs. This means you're prioritizing practical function over freedom.
I agree with you that we must have a system that works well for us, doing all the jobs we want the system to do. But I'm willing to delay gratification until we can do it in freedom.
If you're like the current pool of moderators and some of the posters on this thread, perhaps you'll give nVidia your money in the hopes that they'll do the right thing with it. Why not? It's just a small hop from giving your money to become dependent on them. Treating corporations like charities is a sure-fire way to make you their friend.
In other words, if the preeminent license of the free software community were rewritten to flush all our software freedom down the toilet, we would gain...what? What could possibly be so compelling that we should be willing to trash 20 years of giving all computer users software freedom?
So does ATI but ATI apparently works with the free software community. Unlike nVidia, ATI chose to put themselves in a position where they could provide real support to the free software community; you can find drivers for some very impressive ATI cards in XFree86. Other manufacturers work with the free software community too by shipping specs or software we can use. I'd much rather buy from them and recommend that others buy from them.
Considering that I don't think they're actually helping me at all right now, I won't miss them if they take their non-free software away. If they delivered free software drivers, this whole conversation would change. I'd not only thank them for supporting our community but I'd buy nVidia hardware and I would recommend nVidia hardware to my friends and clients. And then if nVidia stopped supporting the hardware I wouldn't be left with software I couldn't inspect or improve. I'd be left with software I could improve either by doing the work myself or hiring someone to do it for me. If my particular nVidia card was popular, there's a good chance someone else will improve the software and I could run their improved version if it was still free software.
Your comment is hardly insightful. There was plenty of free software available (including support for high-end video cards) before nVidia distributed their non-free software. There will be plenty if they leave. We owe nVidia nothing and we should reject their offer to push us into dependency.
I'm reminded of the following FSF essay when I read your popularity-based definition of "support":
No they won't, they'll recognize that we're willing to stand up for ourselves and not capitulate to someone offering the latest temptation away from freedom. You don't bargain with someone by giving them everything they want on their terms. Since when is it our job to welcome any proprietor that comes down the block? When nVidia is willing to deal with me in terms of software freedom, I'll be happy to recommend their hardware. I'm sure lots of other free software users would too. We can have popularity too, but it's better to have popularity on the basis of software freedom.
Freedom-talk won't dissuade nVidia or any other proprietor. Software proprietors want your money and they want to control how you can use your computer. As long as you are willing to surrender these things you will be quite popular with them.
This is the real problem--you have hit the nail on the head here: you are chasing mere popularity. The GNU system was started in the pursuit of freedom. When you placate proprietors you might become more popular but you will never get freedom.
I could not care less if nVidia "embrace[s] open-source" because I want software freedom, something the open source movement doesn't value. Reading the next few paragraphs of that same FSF essay is instructive.
Not at all, nor did I ever claim you were. In fact I have explicitly asked for you to back up your claim with words from someone at IBM. If I believed you spoke for IBM your words would have been enough and I never would have asked for support for your claim.
I know that you posted your opinion, in fact I said as much in my previous response (I called it "your interpretation"). I'm asking if you know whether your interpretation of IBM's patent is synonymous with how they state they will actually use it, and how you know this. When I spoke about the real value of IBM's patent collection in another post on this thread, I provided a reference from someone at IBM to support my assertion.
I don't need another description on what this particular patent seeks to achieve or how this patent would be useful to them. As one of the few people to bring up the power of cross-licensing in this discussion and others, I understand what yet-another-patent really means to IBM. So I guess what I'm asking for isn't forthcoming.
You have twice now argued that the logic you describe is the salient argument behind IBM's acquisition of this patent. So where, exactly, can I find someone at IBM to confirm your interpretation? So far IBM's people appear to me to be content with "putting [their] energy" in a court battle "to get this over with".
Do you have any documentation to back that claim up?
Licensing the developers who would ostensibly gain from this funding to deal in the patent without restriction or fee would achieve the same thing, but I am not aware of IBM doing that.
No it wouldn't, because "open source" was defined to work with business, giving businesses a great deal of what they want in order to champion their licenses and chase this movement's message of practical superiority. Fortunately, the most widely used license this movement gave a thumbs-up to--the GNU General Public License--was written by people with software freedom for all computer users at the heart of their movement.
According to Roger Smith, IBM Assistant General Counsel in "Think" magazine #5, 1990:
This article has the appropriate take on this point:
The real value in patents isn't in collecting license fees, it's in cross-licensing. RMS has talked about this before with his usually astute analysis that is well worth hearing. He too explains, in detail, the real value of amassing a huge library of patents.
Intel's idea for this Centrino software and nVidia's binary-only driver delivers dependence, not software freedom. So long as you focus on "open source" you are choosing a philosophy that stresses picking technically better software and eschewing software freedom. This means when there is a proprietary program that is better than the "open source" equivalent, you have no reason to reject the proprietary program. So the open source movement actually does a good job of giving you reasons to reject the software they are endorsing. But don't take my word for it:
David Kastrup posted an insightful addition to this point--depending on the program we're talking about, there might not be an "open source" equivalent at all. In a recent thread on gnu.misc.discuss, I summarized some of the differences between the free software and open source movements and how the open source movement has a built-in problem that the free software movement doesn't have (namely, that pitching practical advantage isn't always telling the truth). Kastrup followed up to my post noting the following here:
I strongly encourage you to include support from free software as a criterion for choosing hardware. There are plenty of perfectly fine video cards and wireless devices that can be operated completely with free software. If you haven't already, I also encourage you to reevaluate siding with a movement that discourages paying attention to software freedom.
Charging for distributing the program was the point of the second essay I pointed you to (not just charging for improving the program).
Your criteria doesn't describe the status quo. Right now, many corporate GNU/Linux distributors are selling GPL-covered software and they all depend on a community that produces GPL-covered software regardless of the reason why it was made. IBM, for example, is unquestionably a "commercial software [producer who] sell[s] software" but does not "rely on closed source" for everything they do. They advertise their commercially-available systems running their distribution of the Linux kernal.
What most people mean when they say "commercial license" is a software license involved in a commercial transaction. Thus the GPL is a commercial license. An unusual one, but still a commercial license.
A far more useful distinction is one that hinges on software freedom--does the license for a program give me the freedoms of free software? If so, that program is free software for me.
That movement's contribution to the GPL is remarkably trivial compared to the FSF's contribution to the GPL. Furthermore, the open source movement and the free software movement's philosophies are profoundly different. These two factors tell me it is a significant miscrediting of history to link together the open source movement and the GNU GPL.
No, that description is no good because it does nothing to distinguish "open source" from "free software". That way of putting things does not distinguish either of these movements from proprietary software either (various proprietary software licenses "promot[e] the values of software as a medium of expression of common (shared) ideas").
You can better understand the open source movement by looking at how it came to be. The open source movement was started as a reaction to Netscape releasing the source code for their web browser (which Netscape did as a last-ditch effort to compete with Microsoft). The free software community members who formed the open source movement thought other businesses might be willing to do what Netscape did and they decided to talk to businesses by dropping any freedom talk and instead talk about a development methodology. The GNU GPL, on the other hand, explicitly and repeatedly mentions software freedom, targets all computer users with that message of software freedom, and the GPL was written by the FSF well before the "open source" name was coined or the open source movement began. The OSI merely defined their terms for license acceptance widely enough to include the GPL on their list of approved licenses.
Members of both movements work together on projects, and I'm glad the OSI and the open source movement brings people to license programs under the GPL. But the philosophies behind the two movements are significantly different as that first FSF essay I linked to points out quite clearly. I don't think it's at all fair to the FSF or to the different philosophical underpinnings of either movement to credit the GPL as "open source" because it is tying together a license that celebrates and preserves software freedom with a movement that played no role in writing the GPL which eschews software freedom.
I appreciate the ideas the article is trying to raise in the public consciousness and I am grateful the NYT is helping to put these issues on the political map. Apparently Boynton agrees with RMS that it's important to "spread understanding of the value of freedom" although Boynton wasn't writing with regard to free software. I hope that in the next articles we can get more into specifics about how these ideas were formed because I think people have an easier time grasping useful abstractions when they are grounded in real-world events.
Giving credit where credit is due is intellectually honest. This article and Mark Webbink's recently praised article both chime in on copyleft or ideas built on copyleft without giving any credit to the person or the organization that brought it to our attention--Richard Stallman and the FSF.
Webbink goes so far as to reinvent copyleft without calling it such, thus confirming how valuable the concept is and what the open source movement is missing out on by rejecting software freedom in favor of practical concerns centered on their chief audience--businesses. The NYT article tells us "Copy Left[sic]" (spelled with a space probably to pigeon-hole the concept on the left side of the left-right false political dichotomy) is a borrowed term:
But that would come closer to describing free software. Copyleft is a way to secure the freedoms of free software for a program and its derivative works.
Then your journey is not yet over because the GNU General Public License (GPL) is not a "barrier between [GPL-covered software] and commercial software" nor is it "open source". The GNU GPL was written by the Free Software Foundation for the free software movement years before the open source movement began. It is a profound mistake to call the GPL anything to do with the "open source" movement. Also, the GPL can be a commercial software license. Perhaps you meant "proprietary" instead of "commercial"?
You appear to be using the word "free" to refer to price and not freedom. This is a side effect of paying attention to the open source movement where software freedom is eschewed instead of learning about the ideas in the license you're using. You could be distributing software in such a manner that your terms conflict with the GPL (because it is not allowed to "impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein" to quote the GPL section 6). There's nothing in the GPL that prohibits me from distributing covered software for a fee (this actually applies to all free software, not just the GPL). In fact, the FSF says I should make as much money as I can from distributing free software for a fee.