Ahh! but if we weren't exporting the procuduction of the CDs to the forgein countries in the first place it wouldnt' be a problem! The problem is that our customs officals can't tell "offical" forgien made windows discs from pirated ones! Or if our "designer labels" didn't contract all the work to poor countries where they don't enforce OUR WORKER laws. Funny how that all works out.. we like the fact we can exploit their workers, but not the fact that their workers exploit our IP... Darn it!
in reality this is about bigger IP than just entertainment. Things like patents for drought resistant crops, AIDS medicines, electrical generators, machine tools, etc. and other techonolgy we take for granted in our day-to-day life. The chief export of the US is techinolgy tools.. extermely high-end stuff you can't get anywhere else. Of course once you send one of something out of the country, there's notthing stopping them from reverse engineering it and makimg more for their country.
Remember, the "suits" in govt see foreign aid as an "investment" to get the countries paying royalties to our mega corps and providing cheap workers. It's not "fair" to them that they use the money to make their countries self-sufficent.
DRM is a necessary evil. After all, that's why Linus doesn't have a problem with it. To have a secure system it must do what it's told. If a program requests it's information encrypted the OS it runs on should respect that.
On the other hand TC is a power play.. DRM doesn't [like the media providers want] doesn't work unless you have complete control of the hardware. Look how hard MS tried to lock out arbitrary software running on the Xbox... imagine what will happen when they REALLY want to stick it to users!!
For starts It's not the GNU that's causing the problems... it's lawyers... they're just trying to fix um.
Let's start, they MUST include something about DRM. It's becomming certian all next-gen PC hardware will include some form of hardware level DRM. How will open source run on hardware that expects an encrypted key? RMS only additon on that front is to require those providing binaries to include means with the source to compile the program and have it run. It's a bit pre-emptive, but definately in-line... other wise we'll have OSS, but nothing legal to run it on!! The solution is a "poison pill" so that a large company like say MS can't include binaries of GPL'd stuff but not allow you the user to compile it!
The restrictions on patents are necessary too. Patents aren't like copyright... software patents are even worse than normal patents. Patent legal cases include no provision for "fair use" like copyright. If you accididentaly use somebody's patent, they can sue you... even for your own use. Some unscruplulous company could release a GPL'd program everybody wants then come back next year and sue them all for not being licensed to use their patents. RMS doesn't have any say in why this is happening but would be foolish for GPL 3 not to address it. This way, anybody who distributes a GPL'd program will have given you permission to use their patents in that program. it's not accross the board rights, but at least anybody using that code under GPL won't be sued!!!
Like I said, It's not RMS that's making this stuff up, that would be the lawyers!! But he has to include this stuffin the next GPL or he's doing us all a disservice.
The issue is with their provided connector. If you set up their database and use the APIs to connect to the DB they're demanding GPL. Of course the issue is moot if you use generic ODBC SQL to connect but then you may have performance problems in large installations.
In many ways this is SIMPLE!! There are issues now that weren't around in '91. RMS is attempting to address some of them with GPL3. It's always better to have this stuff in writing than trying to Ask Slashdot to figure it out!!!
what about PHP pages. You are serving the PHP, which gets it's information displayed from your private database, and then is translated and doled to the user by apache. HTML on webpages is copyrightable. People that release javascript and icons use copyright's protection all the time.
If you change the PHP that creates the web page, did you distribute a copy of that file? To date, the issue hasn't been answered well. Judging from normal copyright cases, you may be held as infringing for distributing the script... like it or not doesn't matter, the courts have already decided in favor of copyright owners. [example: if you got CNNs source for their site, you'd be sued in a hot minute!]
I do see your point, if I break MS rules and have 100 copies of server 2003 when I only paid for one, they can nail me for lots of money, but don't have any right to the information or content of those machines.
So far this looks like an optional requirement. If I put a link to source in my "ABOUT" screen that provides the source code, that feature must be reproduced in any successive version. [much like invariant sections in GFDL documentation] I don't think it's entirely enforceable on it's own, you may be right, but legally is is REASONABLE. In other words, part of the license that grants you the right to modify the code asks you to respect this provision. If you don't want to respect it, don't use it. And again, it only applies in the narrow case where you modify the code. If you just set up a vanilla version from sourceforge, providing a link back or hosting the file you downloaded would fufill the requirements well enough. I suppose with something like the Linux(TM) kernel you might need a command line option to display the "about" information.. but you can't remove the feature from your binary distribution. Legally, thought it's a fair request.
RMS response was that the programmer would have the right to decide that. He seems very intent on keeping GPL 3.0 as compliant with 2 as possible. The way he explained it, a program would stay GPL 2 until somebody modified it, then they would have the choice to move THEIR copy up a version or not. Similarly, large projects like the Linux(TM) Kernel would have the CHOICE to accept patches under the old version or rev their project to the new version and then accept patches under that.
After reading the interview, I'm much less worried about RMS including anything that breaks the current GPL 2 too much. It's a really good interview, everybody should read it!!!
I'm glad to see RMS's approach to this REALLY tough issue.
This is a novel and reasonable answer to the question of how to handle GPL in web based applications... it should make A LOT of business users happy.. It's the one question I've been holding out on "evangalizing" OSS to my bosses. What this will allow is a "download source" feature to be included in your GPL'd programs [like in Help or About] and part of the license will be that future people can't remove it. This is a good thing.
It's a bit of an intrusive thing, but at least in the case RMS used in the article, the maintainer of the site would be able to control the version they put up. A company may want to strip important data from the files or protect trademarks/config files... any hardcoded passwords or other sensitive info... but most web programs are alredy pretty good about data seperation. You can point management to this requirement [rather than just ignore it and hope nobody notices] then get their support for what should be downloaded. In the legal aspet this fixes a big, gaping hole. It takes a lot of the "pain" of liability because if you tried to comply to the requirement. The FSF would be more than willing to send somebody over privately if the app was particularly sensitive [say hacking or IP issues] where to put stuff you LEGALLY need to be private versus you not posting anything at all.
At least this will provide a "positive" guidance and a legal opinion rather than mearly the opinions of slashdotters on a very important OSS legal issue!!!
His responce was about Trecheurous comupting.... imagine a big company like IBM wrighting something GPL, but without the key from IBM, your windows Vista PC won't run your modified version... It's a great question in the article because it's basic to keeping free software alive. The time is comming very soon now when the shrinkwrap license on your dell will apply to the HARDWARE as well as the software. How can we use GPL to twist this next perversion?
people like that have company-provided assistants to keep just that stuff In order so they don't miss big stories. Papers "in order" is a job requirement for people that have to rush off to hostile areas to report news on an hour's notice... if his paper's weren't in order he wouldn't have gotten into Canada.
That would actually be a really good argument against this stuff!!! As a progressive thinking christian slashdotter, I'd believe that "god" would have nothing wrong with married people "remembering" their experiences together. Thank you AC, you've found the perfect legal argument AGAINST such outlandish and uptight authorities.
the whole point of the thing is that OpenDocument IS the future!!! the only mainline office programs that DON'T have current support or plans for support are WordPerfect and MS office... just about all the OSS solutions are moving that way eventually.
The whole point is that he wants to learn to be the expert! If everybody on slashdot knows so much why is this such a difficult question? This is where the rubber-meets-the-road folks... if you want to use Linux and OSS professionally these are the questions that need answered by the community.
you have to remember, MS gets rich by selling "MS" to businesses that install their products not by selling to consumers. They throw all their profits back into the pool to crank out more hype.
The great fear and lothing in MS is that they'll be held to standards like Procter & Gamble or GM... who pay vast sums of real money to their stockholders EVERY quarter... like clockwork. MS is a VERY profitable company.. but they should be paying dividends about $1 per QUARTER, not the piddly $3 over 3 years???
If MS was after JUST profit, they would scale back about 50% of the staff, and focus on making a few good products... rather than bombing the market for mindshare with crappy stuff..
the current DVD CSS uses one encryption to many manufacturer keys... the encryption was broken by finding one key which allowed the algorithm to be broken for all discs.
Blue ray/HD DVD will have methods in place to reject certian keys right on the disk! There will be a Phony '07 & a Phony '08 hardware key.. if one gets compromised the publisher will be able to reject that key in the next rev of the discs. That's a double incentive... first a major picture like star wars 12 could ban 75% of players because George didn't like those guys... more than that, it puts the manufacteurs in position to protect their keys lest entire model lines become unusable with the latest movie!!!
MS is a software company.. they know windows monopoly is in trouble, but if they can get an "industry standard" for the media companies they will be set for 100 years. nobody will press a disc or sell a player that they don't get a dime for... that's the REAL motivation for MS to get everybody on the DRM track...
The culture and ideas are ALREADY the rights of the people. The constitiution mearly grants the govt the ability to restrict us from using certian publications to allow the authors of them to reap a reward.
all the people talking about "fair" in capitalism miss on thing... MS should have offered the guy more money to stay with them! that or presented a better offer to this guy... frankly throwing a chair at him is illegal...it's called ASSULT!
To all the people that want to believe "capitalism" is some kind of "life-or-death" thing need to cool down... It should be more like a sport. We all dicsourage "unsportsman" like conduct in sports... that's why the games have rules! Imagine if batters in baseball took a swing at the ump when the call was bad!!! This is no different than coaches that expect their players to "take out" the other teams stars by injuring them and causing them to miss time. We all know it's unfair... it would be illegal if somebody could prove the "accidents" were deliberate.
A core "conservative" value is that everybody should "play fair" and that everybody should work for their food... Why when it comes to business does fairness go out the window? Could the real reason that MS is loosing employees that even the employees realize google is on the "fair play" side of the curve... that's who to work for!!! MS has always played unfairly, but the only reason they attract talent is because they paid really well!!
frankly, the message is clear! get out of MS NOW!! When the bosses are so unrestrained that they thow chairs at VP level people it's time to go. This should put a world of hurt in their HR department!!!
the ESRB found the mod data in ALL the versions of GTA:SA.. even the console ones. It was "possible" to access the gamelet in any of the versions... people just haden't figured it out yet.
Actually, you are correct, they aren't releasing the Quake 3 GAME GPL'd just the source code of the game. It won't be playable without maps, artwork, models, etc.. that is under normal copyright in the game.
Sounds funny, but that's been MS tactic for BC all along with windows. When they introduce a new OS, they just throw in the binaries from all the old ones... XP was the first OS they put out trying to fix the problem with so much cruft buildup... it was success, but only with large amounts of work.
That's true, they "bought" the XBox core from NVidia.. but turned tail and used ATI for the 360... I'd bet NVidia is less than helpful with the porting!
That said, they bought the people that built the x86 -> PPC emulator Macs have been using for years now... you'd think they'd be able to do much better at this. If anything, this proves MS has offically "jumped the shark". dirty laundry like this shouldn't even be out in the open. emulation SHOULD be perfect given that MS OWNS the original XBox outright... MS may hire Brilliant employees, but as a company they just can't compete in the innovation front anymore. It's really true, their own company and products are their own worst ememy!!!
our subways were the demos for this.. they have been having better sales lately though... It's not really "unfair" for them to discontinue something free if people start abusing it.
I noticed my local Quiznos simply went to monthly pre-printed, dated cards.. with fewer stamps... A fair compromise at least.
Cisco had a 4 months since he reported it to THEM!!! They made a "token" fix but in a normal patch release but didn't notify their customers of how extensive the flaw really was...
If their "secret sauce" runs the internet to the extent everyone is crying about, then it's their DUTY to admit they have long-standing issues they need to fix. After all, Cisco is the company making Billions selling a flawed product here.. this guy's just pointing that out.
Slashdot Mirror
in reality this is about bigger IP than just entertainment. Things like patents for drought resistant crops, AIDS medicines, electrical generators, machine tools, etc. and other techonolgy we take for granted in our day-to-day life. The chief export of the US is techinolgy tools.. extermely high-end stuff you can't get anywhere else. Of course once you send one of something out of the country, there's notthing stopping them from reverse engineering it and makimg more for their country.
Remember, the "suits" in govt see foreign aid as an "investment" to get the countries paying royalties to our mega corps and providing cheap workers. It's not "fair" to them that they use the money to make their countries self-sufficent.
On the other hand TC is a power play.. DRM doesn't [like the media providers want] doesn't work unless you have complete control of the hardware. Look how hard MS tried to lock out arbitrary software running on the Xbox... imagine what will happen when they REALLY want to stick it to users!!
Let's start, they MUST include something about DRM. It's becomming certian all next-gen PC hardware will include some form of hardware level DRM. How will open source run on hardware that expects an encrypted key? RMS only additon on that front is to require those providing binaries to include means with the source to compile the program and have it run. It's a bit pre-emptive, but definately in-line... other wise we'll have OSS, but nothing legal to run it on!! The solution is a "poison pill" so that a large company like say MS can't include binaries of GPL'd stuff but not allow you the user to compile it!
The restrictions on patents are necessary too. Patents aren't like copyright... software patents are even worse than normal patents. Patent legal cases include no provision for "fair use" like copyright. If you accididentaly use somebody's patent, they can sue you... even for your own use. Some unscruplulous company could release a GPL'd program everybody wants then come back next year and sue them all for not being licensed to use their patents. RMS doesn't have any say in why this is happening but would be foolish for GPL 3 not to address it. This way, anybody who distributes a GPL'd program will have given you permission to use their patents in that program. it's not accross the board rights, but at least anybody using that code under GPL won't be sued!!!
Like I said, It's not RMS that's making this stuff up, that would be the lawyers!! But he has to include this stuffin the next GPL or he's doing us all a disservice.
The issue is with their provided connector. If you set up their database and use the APIs to connect to the DB they're demanding GPL. Of course the issue is moot if you use generic ODBC SQL to connect but then you may have performance problems in large installations.
In many ways this is SIMPLE!! There are issues now that weren't around in '91. RMS is attempting to address some of them with GPL3. It's always better to have this stuff in writing than trying to Ask Slashdot to figure it out!!!
If you change the PHP that creates the web page, did you distribute a copy of that file? To date, the issue hasn't been answered well. Judging from normal copyright cases, you may be held as infringing for distributing the script... like it or not doesn't matter, the courts have already decided in favor of copyright owners. [example: if you got CNNs source for their site, you'd be sued in a hot minute!]
I do see your point, if I break MS rules and have 100 copies of server 2003 when I only paid for one, they can nail me for lots of money, but don't have any right to the information or content of those machines.
So far this looks like an optional requirement. If I put a link to source in my "ABOUT" screen that provides the source code, that feature must be reproduced in any successive version. [much like invariant sections in GFDL documentation] I don't think it's entirely enforceable on it's own, you may be right, but legally is is REASONABLE. In other words, part of the license that grants you the right to modify the code asks you to respect this provision. If you don't want to respect it, don't use it. And again, it only applies in the narrow case where you modify the code. If you just set up a vanilla version from sourceforge, providing a link back or hosting the file you downloaded would fufill the requirements well enough. I suppose with something like the Linux(TM) kernel you might need a command line option to display the "about" information.. but you can't remove the feature from your binary distribution. Legally, thought it's a fair request.
RMS response was that the programmer would have the right to decide that. He seems very intent on keeping GPL 3.0 as compliant with 2 as possible. The way he explained it, a program would stay GPL 2 until somebody modified it, then they would have the choice to move THEIR copy up a version or not. Similarly, large projects like the Linux(TM) Kernel would have the CHOICE to accept patches under the old version or rev their project to the new version and then accept patches under that.
After reading the interview, I'm much less worried about RMS including anything that breaks the current GPL 2 too much. It's a really good interview, everybody should read it!!!
This is a novel and reasonable answer to the question of how to handle GPL in web based applications... it should make A LOT of business users happy.. It's the one question I've been holding out on "evangalizing" OSS to my bosses. What this will allow is a "download source" feature to be included in your GPL'd programs [like in Help or About] and part of the license will be that future people can't remove it. This is a good thing.
It's a bit of an intrusive thing, but at least in the case RMS used in the article, the maintainer of the site would be able to control the version they put up. A company may want to strip important data from the files or protect trademarks/config files ... any hardcoded passwords or other sensitive info... but most web programs are alredy pretty good about data seperation. You can point management to this requirement [rather than just ignore it and hope nobody notices] then get their support for what should be downloaded. In the legal aspet this fixes a big, gaping hole. It takes a lot of the "pain" of liability because if you tried to comply to the requirement. The FSF would be more than willing to send somebody over privately if the app was particularly sensitive [say hacking or IP issues] where to put stuff you LEGALLY need to be private versus you not posting anything at all.
At least this will provide a "positive" guidance and a legal opinion rather than mearly the opinions of slashdotters on a very important OSS legal issue!!!
His responce was about Trecheurous comupting.... imagine a big company like IBM wrighting something GPL, but without the key from IBM, your windows Vista PC won't run your modified version... It's a great question in the article because it's basic to keeping free software alive. The time is comming very soon now when the shrinkwrap license on your dell will apply to the HARDWARE as well as the software. How can we use GPL to twist this next perversion?
people like that have company-provided assistants to keep just that stuff In order so they don't miss big stories. Papers "in order" is a job requirement for people that have to rush off to hostile areas to report news on an hour's notice... if his paper's weren't in order he wouldn't have gotten into Canada.
That would actually be a really good argument against this stuff!!! As a progressive thinking christian slashdotter, I'd believe that "god" would have nothing wrong with married people "remembering" their experiences together. Thank you AC, you've found the perfect legal argument AGAINST such outlandish and uptight authorities.
Great way to fight the FUD!!!
The whole point is that he wants to learn to be the expert! If everybody on slashdot knows so much why is this such a difficult question? This is where the rubber-meets-the-road folks... if you want to use Linux and OSS professionally these are the questions that need answered by the community.
you have to remember, MS gets rich by selling "MS" to businesses that install their products not by selling to consumers. They throw all their profits back into the pool to crank out more hype.
The great fear and lothing in MS is that they'll be held to standards like Procter & Gamble or GM... who pay vast sums of real money to their stockholders EVERY quarter... like clockwork. MS is a VERY profitable company.. but they should be paying dividends about $1 per QUARTER, not the piddly $3 over 3 years???
If MS was after JUST profit, they would scale back about 50% of the staff, and focus on making a few good products... rather than bombing the market for mindshare with crappy stuff..
Blue ray/HD DVD will have methods in place to reject certian keys right on the disk! There will be a Phony '07 & a Phony '08 hardware key.. if one gets compromised the publisher will be able to reject that key in the next rev of the discs. That's a double incentive... first a major picture like star wars 12 could ban 75% of players because George didn't like those guys... more than that, it puts the manufacteurs in position to protect their keys lest entire model lines become unusable with the latest movie!!!
MS is a software company.. they know windows monopoly is in trouble, but if they can get an "industry standard" for the media companies they will be set for 100 years. nobody will press a disc or sell a player that they don't get a dime for... that's the REAL motivation for MS to get everybody on the DRM track...
The culture and ideas are ALREADY the rights of the people. The constitiution mearly grants the govt the ability to restrict us from using certian publications to allow the authors of them to reap a reward.
To all the people that want to believe "capitalism" is some kind of "life-or-death" thing need to cool down... It should be more like a sport. We all dicsourage "unsportsman" like conduct in sports... that's why the games have rules! Imagine if batters in baseball took a swing at the ump when the call was bad!!! This is no different than coaches that expect their players to "take out" the other teams stars by injuring them and causing them to miss time. We all know it's unfair... it would be illegal if somebody could prove the "accidents" were deliberate.
A core "conservative" value is that everybody should "play fair" and that everybody should work for their food... Why when it comes to business does fairness go out the window? Could the real reason that MS is loosing employees that even the employees realize google is on the "fair play" side of the curve... that's who to work for!!! MS has always played unfairly, but the only reason they attract talent is because they paid really well!!
frankly, the message is clear! get out of MS NOW!! When the bosses are so unrestrained that they thow chairs at VP level people it's time to go. This should put a world of hurt in their HR department!!!
the ESRB found the mod data in ALL the versions of GTA:SA.. even the console ones. It was "possible" to access the gamelet in any of the versions... people just haden't figured it out yet.
Sounds terrible, but it makes maintaining very old code easier... and almost totally eliminates the "hazards" of programer style.
Actually, you are correct, they aren't releasing the Quake 3 GAME GPL'd just the source code of the game. It won't be playable without maps, artwork, models, etc.. that is under normal copyright in the game.
Sounds funny, but that's been MS tactic for BC all along with windows. When they introduce a new OS, they just throw in the binaries from all the old ones... XP was the first OS they put out trying to fix the problem with so much cruft buildup... it was success, but only with large amounts of work.
That said, they bought the people that built the x86 -> PPC emulator Macs have been using for years now... you'd think they'd be able to do much better at this. If anything, this proves MS has offically "jumped the shark". dirty laundry like this shouldn't even be out in the open. emulation SHOULD be perfect given that MS OWNS the original XBox outright... MS may hire Brilliant employees, but as a company they just can't compete in the innovation front anymore. It's really true, their own company and products are their own worst ememy!!!
I noticed my local Quiznos simply went to monthly pre-printed, dated cards.. with fewer stamps... A fair compromise at least.
If their "secret sauce" runs the internet to the extent everyone is crying about, then it's their DUTY to admit they have long-standing issues they need to fix. After all, Cisco is the company making Billions selling a flawed product here .. this guy's just pointing that out.