As you know, SCO are claiming copyright infringement, no patent infringement. They claim that code has been copied verbatim into Linux. This tool is very usefull to decide on this claims.
I understand your point. The problem is wether a judge will understand that. He will tend to view the kernel as a single product, and thus will try to demand responsabilities from a single entity. He will have a hard time understanding that any copyright infringements must be tracked to the offending source.
The legal system is clearly not prepared for the distributed mechanisms that the internet allows.
The Open Source development method has indeed a weakness: it is open. That means any company can see if their copyrights are being infringed, and can act accordingly.
This also opens up the possibility of people maliciously including code in an open source project, hoping to beneffit from litigation at some point.
This weakness can be turned into a great strength: with some many eyes looking, some with good intentions, others only looking for personal and immediate beneffit, the process will assure that the code present in open source projects is the most clean code in the industry.
Seriously, does anybody believe that Microsoft, SCO and other propietary companies do not have *any* copyright infringment in their code base?
Following the big acceptance of its DRM features, MS has announced Office 2007 will only support DRM protected documents.
Claims from non Office users have been dismissed in a court last month, since the obvious beneffit these features are bringing to customers heavily offset any competition claims. "Microsoft has been doing a great job during the past years, and has shown that this technology can only be implemented if a company controls it, in order to avoid security leaks"
Microsoft has also announced that the new Office product will be a required component by the end of 2008: previous versions will stop working on 31. December 2008. "We are really concerned about some security and interoperation issues of our previous Office version" a Microsoft speaker told this newspaper.
The new Office 2008 will ship at a 30% price increase compared to the latest Office 2006: "Pushing forward this technology has meant a huge investment effort for Microsoft, but we are sure our customers will clearly see the beneffits"
When asked about the possible complaints from open source supporters, the same representant stated "Well, they have had a chance to bring a valuable product to the market, and they have failed. We are showing that out model is solid, and our customers seem to agree". Asked about the possible anticompetitive tactics that Micrsoft has been using: "we have never pushed anticompetitive tactics: we have tried to protect our investment and deliver added value to our customers."
What about charging for e-mail message sent to a hotmail address? What about charging for web page accessed which is hosted on a microsoft server?
First, this does not correspond to the costs involved: it is overpriced. The internet makes all these things cheap, and easy to manage, remember? You do not need to artificially complicate things. It is enough to charge for access to the internet - based on volume or on access time, as service providers do. I do not want to have thirty different bills for http access, e-mail, instant messaging, ftp, etc etc.
Second, it goes against the spirit of the internet: allow seamless communication in any form people want, using any client they want; make it open, make it transparent, make it easy and make it free.
Microsoft is effectively taking, step by step, control over the internet: it is splitting users into 'normal internet users' and 'msn users'. The problem is that they have a very strong monopoly in OSs which they can use to push this despicable tactics.
The only hope we have is by getting the market to operate efficiently (without the interference of MS through its monopolistic tactics): users will refuse this kind of service, if given a chance.
The problem with your suggestion is the following: a company with the necessary cash takes a product from the public domain, improves it (not necessarily a lot) and markets it. With their economic muscle they can destroy the alternatives: the public domain version will very quickly lack behind in acceptance, which means less revenue for the people basing their business model on the public domain version. The big injustice here is that the company running a successfull and private version of the product has been able to do it following the next three criteria:
- No initial investment. The product was already available. They have not created value, only marketing noise. - No credit. Because the product is public domain, they can legally use it without mentioning thay their product is based on (or maybe plainly is) another product. This is specially bad since it indirectly destroys competition. Somebody is marketing with big dollars a product which is basically the same as another one (cheaper or not, this is not the issue), but you are not aware of it, and thus are denied the choice. - No contribution. They are taking and not giving.
You can choose what you do with your code, but I do not want parasites (200 tones heavy parasites at that) to live on my effort. If they appreciate my contributions, they might as well show it. Since they will not do it willingly, I'll have to force them. The way to force them is to GPL my code.
Regarding the improved value that you mention, what makes you think that GPLing code will not allow your company to provide an added value? A product is not just code, and the way you handle your customers is something that deserves to be rewarded. Offering timely upgrades, good support, security patches, good prices is just a small number of things that your company can do to differentiate from the rest.
But the laws are not made to beneffit a company or an individual: the laws are made to beneffit society as a whole. And here comes the beauty of free sw: since the product is free (belongs to everybody), your company can not start annoying customers. If your company does not stand to a quality level, customers take the product and develop it themselves (or look for somebody to do it). Magic! No vendor lock in! Can you tell me how can this be bad? If a company wants to stay in the game, they have to keep a quality standard. No more "I will keep that file format secret so that my 4 zillions of customers will not dare changing provider". This is the reason why I think government SW should be GPLd. Tax money is for the people.
I'm quite familiar with the differences between the GPL and public domain, and the implications of those differences, thanks. No slow explanation is required.
Sorry. I understood you had not given a second thought to the issue.
What you're missing is that not all code is written by someone wanting recognition and/or profit. Some people might give things away generously, not feeling the need for credit; this has happened for years, hence the amount of public domain software available. (I'm not sure I'd count "giving credit" as a serious restriction of the freedom, either; it's nothing like as restrictive as the GPL, etc.) Other times, perhaps the work was publicly funded and carried out at a university, in which case surely the public is entitled to benefit from it as they see fit.
I understand what you are saying here, and I agree with you. Public domain offers a wider immediate freedom. Companies and individuals can use public domain software in any way they like.
You're just not thinking wide enough here. I've seen people actually propose on/. that it should be a legal requirement for all publicly funded code to be specifically GPL'd. Why? It's just another licence agreement, which restricts what I can do with the fruits of my tax money. Unsurprisingly, that post was followed by numerous replies from people who'd thought about it, pointing this out.
Well, I think you are the one not thinking widely enough here. I see it as perfectly reasonable premise that code developed with tax dollars should be guaranteed to satisfy two rules, in this order:
The code and improvements based on the code will be kept accessible for the community. Why should we allow a company to proffit from the effort of others without giving anything back? Can you give me a valid point to support this? And let me again stress the generosity of the GPL: you are not forced to release improvements if they are for your internal use. Isn't this enough?
The companies/individuals will do anything they want with the code, provided they satisfy the previous requirement.
The same argument still holds here. If the GPL matches your wishes for your code, then by all means use it; you wrote the code, you should have the right to choose.
I agree with you: if you are an individual/company investing your own money in the development of the code, release it under the license that better pleases you. Make it public domain, or attach an EULA a hundred pages long. As long as your conditions are legal, you are entitled to do anything you want: it's your money. BUT if you are using tax dollars for that, you should be concerned about making sure that the code you develop satisfies the previous two rules. GPL is one way. There are probably others. Public Domain is not a valid way to guarantee this.
Just please don't try to force it on anyone else who doesn't want to be involved in a GPL project, or represent it as something it's not (free software).
Our open society is also not free: you can not do anything you want, like walking to your neighbours' house and taking his TV set, or beating up your collegues, or... well, you get my point. But it is the society with the least amount of restrictions so that it is stable. You can do most of the things you want, but to be able to have this amount of freedom, you have been forced to give away a reduced set of rights. The same holds for the GPL, in my view.
I do not know if you thought about what you said. Anyway, I will explain it to you, very slooowly: if you develop something, spending hours, days, months at home, in a dark room, alone, no drinking, no eating, no having fun... well, you know what I mean. If, after all those months, you release your code, and it is successfull, and people use it... life is fun!
But then comes that little nice company, takes your code, and starts selling it, without even saying that it is yours, without publishing your code. They make tones of money out of it, and you do not get a cent, you do not even know it!!! With this money they develop further your project. How can you compete with these people? Your version is lacking in features, has bugs, and needs a lot of work, which means needs money that you do not have. You can not compete, because it is an unfair relationship: they proffit from your work, but they do not give anything back.
The end of this story is the following: your project turns into a money-maker for a company, and the public domain version dissappears because of technological disadvantages.
With the GPL this can not happen, because as soon as the company starts selling their version of your project (which they can do, of course), the distribution rules of the GPL force them to release the code as GPLd. So you can add the new features/bugfixes to your project, and then your project keeps pace.
If the company does not want to do this, they have two options: - do not distribute the SW. Use it internally. - do not use my SW if you do not want to give anything back!
As you can see, the GPL is extremely generous. You can use any GPLd SW without being forced to contribute anything back. Just take it and use it. But if you want to make money DISTRIBUTING GPLd SW, you have to contribute back. It's simple. It's fair.
And if you have understood this story, you will now see that the solution to "The restriction problem" is not "Public Domain".
This will not be the last time a company launches this kind of attack. We are seeing that the Open Source process has weaknesses which can be used by individuals/companies to try to assess control on a specific product. We need to address these weeknesses.
I will concentrate on the GPL, since this is the license I know best. They are looking at the GPL weak points. Let's point them out an evaluate them:
No guarantees: GPL SW offers offers no fitness for a particular purpose. I do not know what chances does this have to stand in court in case damages are caused by the software. Anyway, this does not seem to be an exclusive problem of GPLed SW, nor Open Source SW in general. Propietary SW (at least general purpose SW) offers also no guarantees, so this is a non-issue.
Liability for infringement of intellectual property: SCO said: "There is no warranty for infringement of intellectual property [in the GPL], so all of the liability ends up with end users": That means that whenever a manufacturer thinks his copyrighted code has found its way into the GPLed product, then it can start suing end users. I do not know if this makes legal sense, but we should provide a way for end users to be protected against this danger. The fund set by Red Hat seems like a good idea. It gives time for the developers to remove the infringing code and for the end users to replace the software with a clean version. In the light of this issue, I consider two points worth of mentioning:
Intentionate inclussion of code: of course, the previous problem looks more dangerous if we realize that the code in question can intentionally be included by the manufacturer, hoping to take beneffit from it in the future by suing. How can we identify this situation? The only way to do this is by accessing the SW repository of the suing part, and comparing the evolution of both codes, the open source and the propietary one, and this can only be legally enforced.
Identification of the infringing code: how can we in the future quickly identify infringing sections? How can we force the owner of the copyrighted code to show the code? This requires again a legal answer.
I think the current case is a very important opportunity for the Open Source community to build up defenses against attacks like the one we are seeing; we knew this was going to happen sooner or later, so let's embrace this opportunity and take the best out of it. Thanks to this experience, we will have a legal/economic infrastructure set in place to protect ourselfs. And the legal precedents that this case will set will have also an enourmous importance.
The problem can be pseudo-mathematically formulated:
The restriction problem
Design a SW license with the smallest amount of restrictions in order to assure that time will not cause the set of initial restrictions to increase.
The answer is GPL. This solution was found by Mr. Stallman when nobody was even aware that the problem existed. Usually, a genius solves a problem which has been well defined for decades/centuries. The fact that only now we start appreciating the dangers imposed by propietary SW make his contribution, done 2 decades ago, all the more valuable.
Anyway, you will agree that we would respect you more if you could show us an alternative way of doing things; I mean, ranting is a very funny activity, but constructive collaboration is better.
I do not think that technical superiority is the point here. If people wanted the right tool for the job, back in 1994 nobody would have used GNU/Linux, having the choice between Windows, Apple, or comercial Unixes. But some people - including myself - think that a certain technical level is something that can be reached both in the propietary and in the Free SW camp; the differences between both solutions are not technical, but ethical and political.
It's good that a SW package is supported by its users because it improves with every new release. The problem is that propietary SW, eventually will be forced on its users because of format lock-up. There is nothing you can do to prevent it - sooner or later they will lock their users up. The company managers are obliged to maximize profit, and once the SW has reached a critical mass, the way to do this is by locking users up: they are forced by the shareholders to do this. The only thing we can do to prevent this is to make this lock-up technically impossible; that can only be achieved with free SW.
You raised a valid point, which can be very easily refutted:
The GPL is what guarantees non-discrimination; that means, any recipient of the SW can do anything they want with it (as long as they comply with the distribution terms), including adding SCO support.
The fact that the developpers and maintainers of GCC remove SCO support does not in any way limit the freedom of any group. If SCO zealots want GCC to support it, they can keep a branch for that purpose. That will not be the official GCC version, but they can do it nevertheless. They will have to publish the changes if they want to distribute the version, though.
This is the same problem arising when your SW is used for purposes which you do not desire (terrorism comes to my mind). Although you are not allowed - under the terms of the the GPL - to forbid the use of your SW for a specific purpose, this does of course not imply that you have to actively provide support for terrorists. If they want your SW to do specific things, they will have to fork.
To avoid trolling: and then justice comes to put those in persons in prision.
There is a difference between what a program does and what the documentation says the program does. This mismatch can be intentional or a mistake. The only way to know it is to have access to the source code. The "black box" approach can be enough to test functionality, but is not enough for stress test.
Security problems are often inteoperation issues. You can make sure a program is bug free, but this will not guarantee that your program is not going to fail if the rest of the pieces are not functionning properly. To analyze the interconnections, Open Source is required.
I see - as usual - a lot of criticism towards RMS. And I deeply feel this criticism is profoundly unjustified.
Most of it is directed to his insistence on calling the system GNU/Linux, and not just Linux, as the media does. Let's analyze objectively this issue: we all know what the GNU project stands for, and why it was released under the GPL license: to guarantee the freedom of computer users. That is the goal, a goal which requires a huge effort. The GNU project provided most of the utilities and subsystems needed; Linus provided an esencial and complex component. It seems to me completely logical to call it GNU/Linux.
And I think it is not only logical: it is important. GNU/Linux is not a better OS because it is cheaper; it is not better because it is faster; it is not better because it runs on more hardware or because it is configurable; it could even be that any or all of those characteristics are not true. It is better because it gives us back the freedom that we had lost. And the best way to recognize this fact is by calling it by its name: GNU/Linux.
The problem is that laying technologically 14 years behind could mean that free software would effectively be relegated to a niche and that the momentum that it is gathering would be significantly stopped.
I wouldn't be so sure... This, combined with Palladium, could effectively lock out certain software from running. The trend here is to build a product which is not a combination of HW and SW, but which must be seen as a complete system which can not be changed. This is not inherently bad if it weren't for two important factors:
- will other products have the possibility to compete? - will it be possible to interconnect other computers with this one, share information,... ?
I think it is very clear on which track MS is here: it will try to wipe out competition on the OS market, and then it will try to get control of file formats and transfer protocols/interfaces. This has already been done in some areas; it is just trying to increase the pressure.
I think is is possible for them to technically lock out certain SW: I fear the only way to stop them is to further increase the legal pressure and force them to open the market to competition. Exactly the opposite than what is actually happening. Very sad...
He may be an idealist but this does not mean that what he advocates can not be done.
It is a nice idea that we do not have to continuously reinvent the wheel each time we create a car. This way we can concentrate on improving the car or adding new gadgets. Besides, each improvement belongs automatically to humankind. Economically makes sense, and morally it is correct.
Can our representatives understand this? Who can explain this to them? I think RMS is quite capable of doing so.
7 to 14 years of protection means that Free Software projects cease to exist, because they are technologically far behind - or they have to pay license fees, which is impossible. This is the only way Free Software can be stopped, and it is the way proprietary software companies are going.
That said, I insist I have the same OPPORTUNITIES that President Bush has or had. No, I don't have the same wealth. But wealth != opportunity. I have the same *opportunity* to run for governor, president, etc. as he did. Society can't stop me. Sure, I might have to work harder than he did but the same opportunities exist. The fact that he has/had it easier doesn't mean he has opportunities I don't, it was just easier for him to take advantage of them.
I think it is highly understimated how important are environmental conditions for people to succeed in life. I'll give you a stupid example: a monkey, a panther and a fish are on the ground, right under a tree; somebody says: "the first to get to the top will get the prize". Obviously, everybody has the same opportunities. Nobody is going to stop the fish from climbing to the top. It just can't do it.
your starting point in life is extremely different.
So what? I'm sorry, but that's a fact of life. You might not think it's fair (and perhaps it isn't), but it's a fact of life. It's not going to change. Any theory--economic or political--has to be based on realities, and the reality is that we are all born into different families which give us different starting points in life.
All society can do is make sure those that start at zero aren't automatically and legally out of luck. Through hard work I feel I could achieve the same thing as President Bush has, if that were my desire. He had it easier, so what. Basically "baseline" should be that "If you want to be successful in live, it requires a lot of hard work." If certain people are lucky and born into rich families that doesn't mean the general expectation should change. To succeed in life is hard and I don't have a problem with that.
An advanced society characterizes itself by the way it handles their weakest members. Eventually, an advanced society should be such that guarantees success (happinness) to all its members.
If we accept that charities must help the poor, we accept that this is a voluntary act. If we accept that it is a voluntary act, we must accept that nobody will want to voluntarily help, and that those people in need will starve.
Your assertions are wrong in so many ways.
Many people already donate to charities even though this is a voluntary act and even though they are already paying 15-30% of their income to the federal government. The fact that donating to them is voluntary does NOT mean that no-one will want to help. In fact, I'd be inclined to donate MORE to my local church that I can see is using the money effectively to help the local homeless or hungry than I'd be asked to pay into the black void of the federal budget.
My statement was a logical one, with practical implications: if helping others is voluntary, we accept that eventually nobody will help (this is the logical part) Practically, this will not happen: somebody will try to help others, that is, those people who think human suffering should be avoided. The rest of the people - eventually most of the people - will go on living, caring only about their personal problems. In a system like this, it could *theoretically* happen that the people who most beneffit from society - those with a big wealth - are those who are contributing least to guarantee the standard of living. Please note that I am saying *theoretically*; that is, the system is flawed because it allows for this possibility - I do not suggest that this will be like this, but it could happen. A system which does not allow for this possibility is based on taxation, and more taxation for those who have most.
You also assume that the people of the country are too bad and selfish to help their neighbors but that the good, pure, unselfish and helpful people who are our politicians in Washington are needed to make us do the right thing.
I completely agree with you that political activity must be closely audited.
I see no logical contradiction in having a strong state which at the same time respects freedom of the individual. The key issue here is identifying in which areas must the state strongly intervene and in which areas must the individual left to his/her own devices. In my opinion, one area where the state does not intervene strongly enough is in the distribution of wealthness.
It is very difficult to guarantee equal opportunity when you have widely differing social backgrounds.
The opportunities should be the same for everyone. That doesn't mean that everyone can or will take advantage of those opportunities, but the opportunities aren't made unavailable to them due to the nature of their social background.
I think you did not get the main point here. Of course in the Constitution of the US and in any constitution in any democratic country, there are explicit statements about equality of rights. That does not mean that people actually are able to exercise those rights, because their environment is such that they are concerned about a dozen other things (like trying to eat tonight) that prevent them to do so. That is, theory and practice diverge a lot here. For people to be able to exercise their rights, they need a minimum standard of living, standard that is guaranteed by social policies.
Did you have the same opportunities as Mr G.W. Bush?
I feel I do. He decided he wanted to be president. Great. I'm a software engineer. But the opportunity to become president is available to me, too, if I'm willing to put up with all the BS that is required of everyone to get there.
I am sure you didn't. While you spent some years of your life trying to save to buy a house, he was free to do whatever it pleased him, because he had that necessity already covered. My point here is that although you have teorethically the same rights and the same oportunities, your starting point in life is extremely different. I grant that in most cases those "different starting points" are a by-product of the system and probably should not be eliminated. In some cases though, that requieres intervention.
It should not be a 'right' to help people from starving, but an obligation.
Hmmm, I think you are probably morally right--but the government isn't the organization that should make that moral decision for me and isn't the organization that should forcefully take my money to pay for what someone else has decided is the morally correct thing to do.
Charities should do this. Charities should feed the poor, and help the homeless. If you have food on the table and a place to sleep you shouldn't be on the government tit, period.
If we accept that charities must help the poor, we accept that this is a voluntary act. If we accept that it is a voluntary act, we must accept that nobody will want to voluntarily help, and that those people in need will starve. By putting the burden on the government, you prevent that a few number of people - those very little people who can not accept human suffering - are put up with the task of helping those who are in need.
It happens to be called socialism, but that is not very important.
Wrong-o. Socialism failed because it is a dream, a utopia. Even though YOU might think it's the "right" thing to do or just because its GOALS might seem morally right, in reality it doesn't work, is not in-line with real human nature, and comes down to someone else (the government) deciding how others (the people) MUST spend THEIR money. That's wrong.
Human nature has plenty of horrible twists. The goal of an organized society is not to accept those defects, but to correct and limit them, all the while preserving the freedom of the individual.
Slashdot Mirror
As you know, SCO are claiming copyright infringement, no patent infringement. They claim that code has been copied verbatim into Linux. This tool is very usefull to decide on this claims.
I understand your point. The problem is wether a judge will understand that. He will tend to view the kernel as a single product, and thus will try to demand responsabilities from a single entity. He will have a hard time understanding that any copyright infringements must be tracked to the offending source.
The legal system is clearly not prepared for the distributed mechanisms that the internet allows.
The Open Source development method has indeed a weakness: it is open. That means any company can see if their copyrights are being infringed, and can act accordingly.
This also opens up the possibility of people maliciously including code in an open source project, hoping to beneffit from litigation at some point.
This weakness can be turned into a great strength: with some many eyes looking, some with good intentions, others only looking for personal and immediate beneffit, the process will assure that the code present in open source projects is the most clean code in the industry.
Seriously, does anybody believe that Microsoft, SCO and other propietary companies do not have *any* copyright infringment in their code base?
10 October 2005
Following the big acceptance of its DRM features, MS has announced Office 2007 will only support DRM protected documents.
Claims from non Office users have been dismissed in a court last month, since the obvious beneffit these features are bringing to customers heavily offset any competition claims. "Microsoft has been doing a great job during the past years, and has shown that this technology can only be implemented if a company controls it, in order to avoid security leaks"
Microsoft has also announced that the new Office product will be a required component by the end of 2008: previous versions will stop working on 31. December 2008. "We are really concerned about some security and interoperation issues of our previous Office version" a Microsoft speaker told this newspaper.
The new Office 2008 will ship at a 30% price increase compared to the latest Office 2006: "Pushing forward this technology has meant a huge investment effort for Microsoft, but we are sure our customers will clearly see the beneffits"
When asked about the possible complaints from open source supporters, the same representant stated "Well, they have had a chance to bring a valuable product to the market, and they have failed. We are showing that out model is solid, and our customers seem to agree". Asked about the possible anticompetitive tactics that Micrsoft has been using: "we have never pushed anticompetitive tactics: we have tried to protect our investment and deliver added value to our customers."
What about charging for e-mail message sent to a hotmail address? What about charging for web page accessed which is hosted on a microsoft server?
First, this does not correspond to the costs involved: it is overpriced. The internet makes all these things cheap, and easy to manage, remember? You do not need to artificially complicate things. It is enough to charge for access to the internet - based on volume or on access time, as service providers do. I do not want to have thirty different bills for http access, e-mail, instant messaging, ftp, etc etc.
Second, it goes against the spirit of the internet: allow seamless communication in any form people want, using any client they want; make it open, make it transparent, make it easy and make it free.
Microsoft is effectively taking, step by step, control over the internet: it is splitting users into 'normal internet users' and 'msn users'. The problem is that they have a very strong monopoly in OSs which they can use to push this despicable tactics.
The only hope we have is by getting the market to operate efficiently (without the interference of MS through its monopolistic tactics): users will refuse this kind of service, if given a chance.
The problem with your suggestion is the following: a company with the necessary cash takes a product from the public domain, improves it (not necessarily a lot) and markets it. With their economic muscle they can destroy the alternatives: the public domain version will very quickly lack behind in acceptance, which means less revenue for the people basing their business model on the public domain version. The big injustice here is that the company running a successfull and private version of the product has been able to do it following the next three criteria:
- No initial investment. The product was already available. They have not created value, only marketing noise.
- No credit. Because the product is public domain, they can legally use it without mentioning thay their product is based on (or maybe plainly is) another product. This is specially bad since it indirectly destroys competition. Somebody is marketing with big dollars a product which is basically the same as another one (cheaper or not, this is not the issue), but you are not aware of it, and thus are denied the choice.
- No contribution. They are taking and not giving.
You can choose what you do with your code, but I do not want parasites (200 tones heavy parasites at that) to live on my effort. If they appreciate my contributions, they might as well show it. Since they will not do it willingly, I'll have to force them. The way to force them is to GPL my code.
Regarding the improved value that you mention, what makes you think that GPLing code will not allow your company to provide an added value? A product is not just code, and the way you handle your customers is something that deserves to be rewarded. Offering timely upgrades, good support, security patches, good prices is just a small number of things that your company can do to differentiate from the rest.
But the laws are not made to beneffit a company or an individual: the laws are made to beneffit society as a whole. And here comes the beauty of free sw: since the product is free (belongs to everybody), your company can not start annoying customers. If your company does not stand to a quality level, customers take the product and develop it themselves (or look for somebody to do it). Magic! No vendor lock in! Can you tell me how can this be bad? If a company wants to stay in the game, they have to keep a quality standard. No more "I will keep that file format secret so that my 4 zillions of customers will not dare changing provider". This is the reason why I think government SW should be GPLd. Tax money is for the people.
I'm quite familiar with the differences between the GPL and public domain, and the implications of those differences, thanks. No slow explanation is required.
Sorry. I understood you had not given a second thought to the issue.
What you're missing is that not all code is written by someone wanting recognition and/or profit. Some people might give things away generously, not feeling the need for credit; this has happened for years, hence the amount of public domain software available. (I'm not sure I'd count "giving credit" as a serious restriction of the freedom, either; it's nothing like as restrictive as the GPL, etc.) Other times, perhaps the work was publicly funded and carried out at a university, in which case surely the public is entitled to benefit from it as they see fit.
I understand what you are saying here, and I agree with you. Public domain offers a wider immediate freedom. Companies and individuals can use public domain software in any way they like.
You're just not thinking wide enough here. I've seen people actually propose on /. that it should be a legal requirement for all publicly funded code to be specifically GPL'd. Why? It's just another licence agreement, which restricts what I can do with the fruits of my tax money. Unsurprisingly, that post was followed by numerous replies from people who'd thought about it, pointing this out.
Well, I think you are the one not thinking widely enough here. I see it as perfectly reasonable premise that code developed with tax dollars should be guaranteed to satisfy two rules, in this order:
The same argument still holds here. If the GPL matches your wishes for your code, then by all means use it; you wrote the code, you should have the right to choose.
I agree with you: if you are an individual/company investing your own money in the development of the code, release it under the license that better pleases you. Make it public domain, or attach an EULA a hundred pages long. As long as your conditions are legal, you are entitled to do anything you want: it's your money. BUT if you are using tax dollars for that, you should be concerned about making sure that the code you develop satisfies the previous two rules. GPL is one way. There are probably others. Public Domain is not a valid way to guarantee this.
Just please don't try to force it on anyone else who doesn't want to be involved in a GPL project, or represent it as something it's not (free software).
Our open society is also not free: you can not do anything you want, like walking to your neighbours' house and taking his TV set, or beating up your collegues, or ... well, you get my point. But it is the society with the least amount of restrictions so that it is stable . You can do most of the things you want, but to be able to have this amount of freedom, you have been forced to give away a reduced set of rights. The same holds for the GPL, in my view.
I do not know if you thought about what you said. Anyway, I will explain it to you, very slooowly: if you develop something, spending hours, days, months at home, in a dark room, alone, no drinking, no eating, no having fun ... well, you know what I mean. If, after all those months, you release your code, and it is successfull, and people use it ... life is fun!
But then comes that little nice company, takes your code, and starts selling it, without even saying that it is yours, without publishing your code. They make tones of money out of it, and you do not get a cent, you do not even know it!!! With this money they develop further your project. How can you compete with these people? Your version is lacking in features, has bugs, and needs a lot of work, which means needs money that you do not have. You can not compete, because it is an unfair relationship: they proffit from your work, but they do not give anything back.
The end of this story is the following: your project turns into a money-maker for a company, and the public domain version dissappears because of technological disadvantages.
With the GPL this can not happen, because as soon as the company starts selling their version of your project (which they can do, of course), the distribution rules of the GPL force them to release the code as GPLd. So you can add the new features/bugfixes to your project, and then your project keeps pace.
If the company does not want to do this, they have two options:
- do not distribute the SW. Use it internally.
- do not use my SW if you do not want to give anything back!
As you can see, the GPL is extremely generous. You can use any GPLd SW without being forced to contribute anything back. Just take it and use it. But if you want to make money DISTRIBUTING GPLd SW, you have to contribute back. It's simple. It's fair.
And if you have understood this story, you will now see that the solution to "The restriction problem" is not "Public Domain".
This will not be the last time a company launches this kind of attack. We are seeing that the Open Source process has weaknesses which can be used by individuals/companies to try to assess control on a specific product. We need to address these weeknesses.
I will concentrate on the GPL, since this is the license I know best. They are looking at the GPL weak points. Let's point them out an evaluate them:
I think the current case is a very important opportunity for the Open Source community to build up defenses against attacks like the one we are seeing; we knew this was going to happen sooner or later, so let's embrace this opportunity and take the best out of it. Thanks to this experience, we will have a legal/economic infrastructure set in place to protect ourselfs. And the legal precedents that this case will set will have also an enourmous importance.
The problem can be pseudo-mathematically formulated:
The restriction problem
Design a SW license with the smallest amount of restrictions in order to assure that time will not cause the set of initial restrictions to increase.
The answer is GPL. This solution was found by Mr. Stallman when nobody was even aware that the problem existed. Usually, a genius solves a problem which has been well defined for decades/centuries. The fact that only now we start appreciating the dangers imposed by propietary SW make his contribution, done 2 decades ago, all the more valuable.
Anyway, you will agree that we would respect you more if you could show us an alternative way of doing things; I mean, ranting is a very funny activity, but constructive collaboration is better.
I do not think that technical superiority is the point here. If people wanted the right tool for the job, back in 1994 nobody would have used GNU/Linux, having the choice between Windows, Apple, or comercial Unixes. But some people - including myself - think that a certain technical level is something that can be reached both in the propietary and in the Free SW camp; the differences between both solutions are not technical, but ethical and political.
It's good that a SW package is supported by its users because it improves with every new release. The problem is that propietary SW, eventually will be forced on its users because of format lock-up. There is nothing you can do to prevent it - sooner or later they will lock their users up. The company managers are obliged to maximize profit, and once the SW has reached a critical mass, the way to do this is by locking users up: they are forced by the shareholders to do this. The only thing we can do to prevent this is to make this lock-up technically impossible; that can only be achieved with free SW.
You raised a valid point, which can be very easily refutted: The GPL is what guarantees non-discrimination; that means, any recipient of the SW can do anything they want with it (as long as they comply with the distribution terms), including adding SCO support. The fact that the developpers and maintainers of GCC remove SCO support does not in any way limit the freedom of any group. If SCO zealots want GCC to support it, they can keep a branch for that purpose. That will not be the official GCC version, but they can do it nevertheless. They will have to publish the changes if they want to distribute the version, though. This is the same problem arising when your SW is used for purposes which you do not desire (terrorism comes to my mind). Although you are not allowed - under the terms of the the GPL - to forbid the use of your SW for a specific purpose, this does of course not imply that you have to actively provide support for terrorists. If they want your SW to do specific things, they will have to fork. To avoid trolling: and then justice comes to put those in persons in prision.
There is a difference between what a program does and what the documentation says the program does. This mismatch can be intentional or a mistake. The only way to know it is to have access to the source code. The "black box" approach can be enough to test functionality, but is not enough for stress test.
Security problems are often inteoperation issues. You can make sure a program is bug free, but this will not guarantee that your program is not going to fail if the rest of the pieces are not functionning properly. To analyze the interconnections, Open Source is required.
I see - as usual - a lot of criticism towards RMS. And I deeply feel this criticism is profoundly unjustified.
Most of it is directed to his insistence on calling the system GNU/Linux, and not just Linux, as the media does. Let's analyze objectively this issue: we all know what the GNU project stands for, and why it was released under the GPL license: to guarantee the freedom of computer users. That is the goal, a goal which requires a huge effort. The GNU project provided most of the utilities and subsystems needed; Linus provided an esencial and complex component. It seems to me completely logical to call it GNU/Linux.
And I think it is not only logical: it is important. GNU/Linux is not a better OS because it is cheaper; it is not better because it is faster; it is not better because it runs on more hardware or because it is configurable; it could even be that any or all of those characteristics are not true. It is better because it gives us back the freedom that we had lost. And the best way to recognize this fact is by calling it by its name: GNU/Linux.
The problem is that laying technologically 14 years behind could mean that free software would effectively be relegated to a niche and that the momentum that it is gathering would be significantly stopped.
I wouldn't be so sure ... This, combined with Palladium, could effectively lock out certain software from running. The trend here is to build a product which is not a combination of HW and SW, but which must be seen as a complete system which can not be changed. This is not inherently bad if it weren't for two important factors:
... ?
...
- will other products have the possibility to compete?
- will it be possible to interconnect other computers with this one, share information,
I think it is very clear on which track MS is here: it will try to wipe out competition on the OS market, and then it will try to get control of file formats and transfer protocols/interfaces. This has already been done in some areas; it is just trying to increase the pressure.
I think is is possible for them to technically lock out certain SW: I fear the only way to stop them is to further increase the legal pressure and force them to open the market to competition. Exactly the opposite than what is actually happening. Very sad
He may be an idealist but this does not mean that what he advocates can not be done.
It is a nice idea that we do not have to continuously reinvent the wheel each time we create a car. This way we can concentrate on improving the car or adding new gadgets. Besides, each improvement belongs automatically to humankind. Economically makes sense, and morally it is correct.
Can our representatives understand this? Who can explain this to them? I think RMS is quite capable of doing so.
7 to 14 years of protection means that Free Software projects cease to exist, because they are technologically far behind - or they have to pay license fees, which is impossible. This is the only way Free Software can be stopped, and it is the way proprietary software companies are going.
That said, I insist I have the same OPPORTUNITIES that President Bush has or had. No, I don't have the same wealth. But wealth != opportunity. I have the same *opportunity* to run for governor, president, etc. as he did. Society can't stop me. Sure, I might have to work harder than he did but the same opportunities exist. The fact that he has/had it easier doesn't mean he has opportunities I don't, it was just easier for him to take advantage of them.
I think it is highly understimated how important are environmental conditions for people to succeed in life. I'll give you a stupid example: a monkey, a panther and a fish are on the ground, right under a tree; somebody says: "the first to get to the top will get the prize". Obviously, everybody has the same opportunities. Nobody is going to stop the fish from climbing to the top. It just can't do it.
your starting point in life is extremely different.
So what? I'm sorry, but that's a fact of life. You might not think it's fair (and perhaps it isn't), but it's a fact of life. It's not going to change. Any theory--economic or political--has to be based on realities, and the reality is that we are all born into different families which give us different starting points in life.
All society can do is make sure those that start at zero aren't automatically and legally out of luck. Through hard work I feel I could achieve the same thing as President Bush has, if that were my desire. He had it easier, so what. Basically "baseline" should be that "If you want to be successful in live, it requires a lot of hard work." If certain people are lucky and born into rich families that doesn't mean the general expectation should change. To succeed in life is hard and I don't have a problem with that.
An advanced society characterizes itself by the way it handles their weakest members. Eventually, an advanced society should be such that guarantees success (happinness) to all its members.
If we accept that charities must help the poor, we accept that this is a voluntary act. If we accept that it is a voluntary act, we must accept that nobody will want to voluntarily help, and that those people in need will starve.
Your assertions are wrong in so many ways.
Many people already donate to charities even though this is a voluntary act and even though they are already paying 15-30% of their income to the federal government. The fact that donating to them is voluntary does NOT mean that no-one will want to help. In fact, I'd be inclined to donate MORE to my local church that I can see is using the money effectively to help the local homeless or hungry than I'd be asked to pay into the black void of the federal budget.
My statement was a logical one, with practical implications: if helping others is voluntary, we accept that eventually nobody will help (this is the logical part) Practically, this will not happen: somebody will try to help others, that is, those people who think human suffering should be avoided. The rest of the people - eventually most of the people - will go on living, caring only about their personal problems. In a system like this, it could *theoretically* happen that the people who most beneffit from society - those with a big wealth - are those who are contributing least to guarantee the standard of living. Please note that I am saying *theoretically*; that is, the system is flawed because it allows for this possibility - I do not suggest that this will be like this, but it could happen. A system which does not allow for this possibility is based on taxation, and more taxation for those who have most.
You also assume that the people of the country are too bad and selfish to help their neighbors but that the good, pure, unselfish and helpful people who are our politicians in Washington are needed to make us do the right thing.
I completely agree with you that political activity must be closely audited.
I see no logical contradiction in having a strong state which at the same time respects freedom of the individual. The key issue here is identifying in which areas must the state strongly intervene and in which areas must the individual left to his/her own devices. In my opinion, one area where the state does not intervene strongly enough is in the distribution of wealthness.
It is very difficult to guarantee equal opportunity when you have widely differing social backgrounds.
The opportunities should be the same for everyone. That doesn't mean that everyone can or will take advantage of those opportunities, but the opportunities aren't made unavailable to them due to the nature of their social background.
I think you did not get the main point here. Of course in the Constitution of the US and in any constitution in any democratic country, there are explicit statements about equality of rights. That does not mean that people actually are able to exercise those rights, because their environment is such that they are concerned about a dozen other things (like trying to eat tonight) that prevent them to do so. That is, theory and practice diverge a lot here. For people to be able to exercise their rights, they need a minimum standard of living, standard that is guaranteed by social policies.
Did you have the same opportunities as Mr G.W. Bush?
I feel I do. He decided he wanted to be president. Great. I'm a software engineer. But the opportunity to become president is available to me, too, if I'm willing to put up with all the BS that is required of everyone to get there.
I am sure you didn't. While you spent some years of your life trying to save to buy a house, he was free to do whatever it pleased him, because he had that necessity already covered. My point here is that although you have teorethically the same rights and the same oportunities, your starting point in life is extremely different. I grant that in most cases those "different starting points" are a by-product of the system and probably should not be eliminated. In some cases though, that requieres intervention.
It should not be a 'right' to help people from starving, but an obligation.
Hmmm, I think you are probably morally right--but the government isn't the organization that should make that moral decision for me and isn't the organization that should forcefully take my money to pay for what someone else has decided is the morally correct thing to do.
Charities should do this. Charities should feed the poor, and help the homeless. If you have food on the table and a place to sleep you shouldn't be on the government tit, period.
If we accept that charities must help the poor, we accept that this is a voluntary act. If we accept that it is a voluntary act, we must accept that nobody will want to voluntarily help, and that those people in need will starve. By putting the burden on the government, you prevent that a few number of people - those very little people who can not accept human suffering - are put up with the task of helping those who are in need.
It happens to be called socialism, but that is not very important.
Wrong-o. Socialism failed because it is a dream, a utopia. Even though YOU might think it's the "right" thing to do or just because its GOALS might seem morally right, in reality it doesn't work, is not in-line with real human nature, and comes down to someone else (the government) deciding how others (the people) MUST spend THEIR money. That's wrong.
Human nature has plenty of horrible twists. The goal of an organized society is not to accept those defects, but to correct and limit them, all the while preserving the freedom of the individual.
I am sorry, but I do not understand your comment. Could you clarify?