A) make the game primarily for the Revolution, but with a control scheme that can easily be ported (i.e. doesn't take full advantage of the revolution controller)
Look at how many FPS games are ported between console and PC. Yet the GUI interface of aiming a gun with a thumbstick versus a mouse is very different (much harder one way than the other). But developers manage to work through it. Indeed, one notable advantage of the Revolution controller is it can emulate a mouse well, something the thumbsticks on the other consoles can't really do. So maybe the Revolution will turn out to be the preferred port target for mouse-heavy PC games like RTS and drag&drop RPG controls.
Also, consider that one of Nintendo's goals with the Revolution controller is to prevent easy ports to other consoles. Either the PS3 or Xbox360 (or maybe both) will turn how to have a faster CPU and better graphics, so Nintendo needs something those guys can't easily surpass.
Of course, we may have to wait for an employee to be taken to court to get the final answer.
An interesting question is, has any big corporation made major internal use of an altered GPL program? I've never heard of one doing so, except when the alterations were too unimportant for the corp to worry about retaining as proprietary.
But that fact doesn't really prove anything. Even if I was wrong, and corps were allowed to give modified GPL code to their employees while prohibiting them from redistributing it, they still wouldn't really be able to use it "in-house".
That's because all non-trivial corporations include a decent number of non-employee workers. Temps, client liasons, and contractors of all sorts are helping you both on-site and in their remote offices. If a piece of software is important to the business, it will be awkward to have to constantly keep those quasi-employees segregated off, unable to touch the programs that everyone else in the building is installing arounding willy-nilly.
For practical "in-house" use, you've got to be able to send programs to the outsourcers who compose an ever-increasing portion of the IT department.
I'm just trying to work out if a clause in an employment contract saying 'You may not distribute software developed internally outside of the company
That would seem to be in violation of GPL part 6:
6. Each time you redistribute the Program (...), the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to these terms and conditions. You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein.
If two people invent the same thing in the space of a few months, how can you prove that the second person didn't copy from the first?
The exists a court system which is well practiced at coming to legally-binding conclusions of proof "beyond reasonable", even though their agents are non-omniscent and their evidence is necessarily incomplete.
On at least one occasion, an inventor has produced objectively monitored evidence of PRIOR invention, and been denied because although he invented it first, he didn't file first. (Nor did he file at all, or have any belief the concept was worthy of a patent)
but it's an intrinsic part of providing the reward to inventors and rarely crops up in practice.
Since the establishment of the USA's patent office, more than $6,000,000,000,000 is in different hands because of dubious patent grants. (Of course, that's including inflation and interest, which over 300 years makes the number look VERY big)
Yes, "recipients". Have you ever been a corporate employee, and sent an email to some other employee? You know the "To:" field in Outlook? That's where you list the recipients. If it weren't possible for other employees to be recipients, then email would not exist. "Recipient" does not imply "legally re-assigned ownership". All it means is that someone put data on the PC under your desk- whether the file is an email, or an altered GPL program. (If you don't agree with that, then you aren't speaking English)
For example, if you distribute copies of such a program,
Corporations are not alive. They are not human, they are not people. They have no ability to redistribute software (or do anything else). Employees of a corporation can redistribute software on its behalf, but that would be a copyright violation unless they comply with the GPL.
There are certain situations in which a corporation is legally equivalent to a person, but as the GPL doesn't contain any text giving additional rights to corporations, so it isn't one of those situations. When a software publisher wants to license a program so that corporations have special rights, they do so with a "site license" or "corporate license". (In general US law, corporations have special rights as holders of copyrighted works, but not as users of works copyrighted by others)
In the absense of a "corporate-size GPL", a corporations can use software with the aggregate rights of the individuals making it up.
Do Employees count as users?
That's almost too silly to bother answering. If they're people using the software, they are users. However, this isn't the clause you should be hanging on (as it's pretty weak, historically).
corporate shell games are not appreciated by the court systems.
Prehaps the courts don't enjoy it, but those games WORK. There's a reason we have "shell corporation" as a standard piece of business jargon: because they often stand up in court.
In general, if a person is allowed to do something of his own initiative, he's also allowed to do it when hired by someone else. (Of course there are thousands of laws barring specific acts from being performed for profit, notably sex, but I'm not aware of any that would apply in this GPL-redistribution case)
BTW, it's better to cite the law directly rather than use a wikipedia link.
Someone capable of comprehending legalese probably already knows what "first sale doctrine" is, or can find the Copyright Act on her own. Conversely, people not able to locate CA 109 will find Wikipedia's informal description easier to understand.
There are not many people that are willing to purchase defective or incomplete products - these are an exception rather than the rule.
The majority of computer software/hardware purchasers are accustomed to recieving binaries with no attached source code. (Indeed, they will probably be surprised and confused if source code is included). I can hardly anticipate a spontanteous consumer boycott of a DVD player which includes a Linux kernel, but not the patches to make it run on that specific hardware.
This is no different than unbundling the individual floppy disks in a copy of Dos 6.22
Well, no, but I would agree that DOS 6.22 was defective because the source wasn't included, although it seemed to do alright in the marketplace regardless.
It's entirely possible for two independent teams to come up with something innovative and non-obvious without working together. That doesn't mean that the person who gets there first isn't entitled to the reward.
Yes it does. More specifically, it means that the "reward" (monopoly) should be destroyed, so the second person is entitled to use his own invention (the production of 100% his own unassisted brain-power) without paying a license to some other guy across the planet in an earlier timezone.
Patents are intended to spur innovation by rewarding who gets there first.
They are intended to spur innovation by rewarding inventors. The "gets there first" part is a limitation of legistlative precision. It's a flaw in the implementation. Ideally, patents would reward inventors exactly proportionally to how much their idea benefitted society's progress, which means that untainted independent re-invention would be a sure sign that the original idea wasn't terribly special after all.
The patent law is a simple law, and like every simple law it can lead to major unfairness. Treating a person who's 10 minutes later the same as one 10 years later is unjust, similarly to equal application of statutory-rape laws to a man of 18 or 38.
(Of course, changing simple laws into complex ones can fix much of the unfairness, but also creates further opportunities for sneaky loopholes, which amounts to bias towards the rich and retainered)
A patent is meant to provide a short-term monopoly so that the patent holder can *PRODUCE* his invention without immediately losing out to competitors on publication of the details.
Well, not exactly. They are protected to either produce it themselves, or more likely pay someone to sell authorized implementations.
If, hypothetically Eolas had invented something worthwhile, then Microsoft would not have been able to to program the modern IE until the patent was explained to them, and it would be valid for Eolas to get a cut of every Windows sale.
But in reality, their invention was nothing great, and it was speedily rediscovered by every web browser team who found themselves facing the same problem. The idea was too obvious to deserve a patent at all (as most software patents are).
How come you got modded informative but every time I say this I get moderated a troll?
Yes, "informative" is really off-base here. I am asking a question; that means I am seeking information, not providing any.
The software would still be free as in beer, sort of.
Yes, the binaries are distributable, although I was imagining a scenario of embedded hardware-vendors, where end-user extraction of binaries is difficult and of little utility. (Especially difficult if a Trusted-style untamperable chip is used). For situations like a TiVo or Sony PSP, minor modifications to the source code could be very useful, but sharing unaltered binaries has no value.
Since it's only an offer, it can easily be prevented, by grinding the source code into powder.
Yes, prehaps PersonA could hire PersonB to eliminate all his copies of the source code. But that would dangerously undermine any future bugfixes or other needed changes. (Or it might even undermine PersonB's legal authorization to sell disc-packs at all, although the response of the GPL to totally destroyed source code is untested).
But, I suppose GPL part 6 only works in one direction, so PersonA could contractually bind PersonB not to give the code to anyone else, so long as PersonA was careful to never distribute the code back to B.
why don't you show us where the GPL compels a person to distribute the source to modified code which is only used internally?
I never said that, although I can see how a slightly innacurate interpretation of the word "release" might create that impression.
At its most literal interpretation this would mean that if I work at Bigcorp and place a program on all the BigCorp desktops, I should also give BigCorp's employees access to the source.
Absolutely right. At that point, the corp has given all of their employees permission to upload the code to random strangers on the Internet, which means it has been released.
Note that some people use "release" as a synonym for "publish", but that's not the only definition. The meaning that applies in this case is to "cease holding back".
I should also give BigCorp's employees access to the source.
Note that once BigCorp's employees have access to the source, GPL section 6 says that BigCorp cannot place any further restrictions on their use of the code, such as threatening to fire people who upload it to sourceforge.net.
Your point would be accurate if in fact the internal use of the modified software implied a "distribution" to the employees,
Once upon a time, my boss told me "Minna, I want you to type up this month's soup menu and distribute it to all your co-workers". So naturally I told him, "Sorry sir! I'd like to do it, but there is no way I can distribute a data file to employees of the same corporation. That's just theoretically impossible. It is inconsistent by definition."
So, he fired me, and since I was no longer an employee, I then was successful in distributing that menu. It was a really clever workaround my boss came up with, although I'm still waiting for the part where he hires me back...
but this is stretching the definition of "distribution" a bit too far.
Once again, I'd enjoy reading any definition of distribution that enables non-trivial "in house" use to an organization, without also enabling Microsoft to essentially sell proprietary forks of GPL code.
because the GPL explicitly allows you to circumvent copyright law for yourself (the corporation).
If and only if you follow certain requirements, including giving permission for anyone getting access to those other copies (including 3rd parties) authority to request the source code.
You can put it on as many of your own computers as you like
The GPL never says that.
When you distribute it to someone else (e.g. a customer)
That's not what the GPL says. It only uses the word "distribute", it doesn't require that the distribution go to someone else.
The kind of distribution that the license premits is logically the same kind that copyright law reserves for the author.
It is not logical for a license to use a definition that renders the entire philosophical goal of the license meaningless. But using distribution to mean "sell, lease, or assign" would enable any proprietary developer to stick GPL code into her own program, so long as they don't later "sell" or "assign" it to 3rd parties.
And coincidentally, many proprietary vendors already claim that they don't sell software, but instead sell "licenses to software".
I don't know why I registered just to have this conversation with you.
I'm hoping that you really registered to respond to my other post here. Come on, give it a try, it'll be much more fun!
The only reason that internal distribution doesn't count as distribution is because the corporation isn't a customer of itself.
You are exchanging the word "consumer" with "customer". The members of a corp are not its customers, but they are probably "consumers in the United States".
(6) "Distribute" means to sell, lease, or assign a product to consumers in the United States
If we use that definition of distribute, then the GPL is broken. Bill Gates can write "Microsoft KDE" and charge $200 for an indefinite license to use that software.
Indeed, looking at existing Microsoft EULAs, they already use the claim that the software is not "sold" or "assigned" to the consumer, but rather licensed for his limited use. If that's true, then Microsoft can infringe the GPL freely.
If, on the other hand, "distribute" means what it means in English, then Microsoft has no license to publish a proprietary fork of KDE, and corporations have no right to make thousands of employees use modded GPL code without access to that code.
This is why the GPL faq says that private modifications are ok
As shown by it's header, that FAQ is to reassure people who are afraid slightly editing a GPL program will oblige them to mail it out to the world at large. "Not obliged" != "able to prohibit".
Firstly, releasing code in-house is *not* "distribution". This has been covered pretty well by other posters, but anyway.
No, they haven't covered it well. Several of them have claimed that, but when asked to link to an authoritative source, they wind up undermining their position (read the response to that one).
Specificially, US copyright law contains text limiting to copyright holders the right to "distribute copies... to the public". Because they felt it necessary to append "to the public", we can see that legally, the word "distribute" does not automatically imply public reciept on its own.
and it places some specific restrictions on distributing only:-
Yes! The GPL places restrictions on "distributing" only. It doesn't qualify "distribute" with "to the public", meaning that it applies also to non-public distribution.
b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish
That line from the GPL is further proof that, for purposes of GPL compliance, "distribution" and "publication" are different things.
This shows that even if internal in-house use counted as "distribution" (which it doesn't),
It does.
all you would have to do to satisfy the GPL is place the modified code on the same internal server from which your employees install it. There is no requirement that the rest of the world be able to access that server. Or
True, that's all you have to do. And once you do that, your employees have freedom to upload that code to the Internet themselves. So unless your company has only a tiny number of employees, one of them will inevitably decide to do that. It has been effectively "released". In earlier postings, I already acknowledged that the dispute isn't about the corporation being obligated to put up the code on a public site, but whether they were allowed to block their own employees from redistributing that code.
(Note that the corporation cannot place the source code on some internal server, but then prohibit employees from copying that code to elsewhere. That would violate GPL item 6, "place no further restrictions")
Sorry, but you are wrong, in the copyright law they are the same thing.
No, they're not. Try and quote that law, if you like. The excerpt you already pasted implies exactly the opposite, as I explain below.
already has the right of making copies, modifying such copies, and installing them on all of its machines!
No, they don't have that right already. If the GPL wasn't there, they could only install the program once. They only gain the right to multiple installs if they obey the GPL, which means each time the software is distributed, it must be with the source code (or an "offer for the source code, valid for any third party, etc etc").
Come on, read 17USC106 -- those are the exclusive rights of the copyright owner (no ellipses here, this is an exaustive list):
Yes, of course I've read it many times. (Although that's not in the Friendly Article, but is a separate reference you brought up). Looking at it again, I am reminded that it's a very useful tool to reinforce my point.
There are two rights of interest here, #1 and #3. #1 is the right to reproduction, and #3 is the right to public distribution. Notice that the wording is "distribute copies... to the public", which should clue you in that "distribution" is not synonymous with "publication", or else "public" would be redundant. The use of "public distribution" is an acknowledgement that "private distribution" and "in-house distribution" are other possibilities.
So, we've seen that copyright holders have those two rights. Of them, the right to reproduction is more important than that of distribution, because distributing copies without first reproducing them is impossible. So the reproductive right has primacy over the distributive right. It is that right which is violated if a programmer modifies GPL source code without obeying the GPL's terms.
Now, I'll ask you to read a different FA: the GPL. Search for every occurence of the word-fragment "distribute" in the file. It occurs 53 times. Of those instances, zero of them are followed by a qualifier like "to the public", which a reading of the copyright law has already established is necessary to distinguish publich distribution from other kinds of distribution (such as in-house).
Furthermore, note that the GPL contains the text "distribute or publish", which further reinforces that, in the understanding of the GPL authors, "distribute" and "publish" are not synonyms.
Therefore, I have established that "distribute" is different from "publish", and "public distribution" is one sub-category of distribution. The implication is that "private", "in-house", and "corporate use" are other categories of "distribution".
So finally, back to the GPL. When does the GPL "attach" to software, meaning anyone who has access to the files has been given permission to redistribute both the binaries and source (or "an offer for the source code..." etc)? Any time you "distribute" the modified software.
When a corporation distributes a modified GPL program amoung it's employees, they are giving them permission to publish it whenever they like. If the corporation hadn't intended to give them that permission, then it couldn't have distributed the software at all.
(Note that this conclusion is consistent with the FSF's stated goal: that users of software have freedom to modify and re-distribute it. A million users unable to edit their desktop software because they are employed by a corp would be against RMS's ideals. In particular, it would allow China to pass out modified Linux to all their citizens, without any rights to the source code)
AC:"Distribute" means to sell, lease, or assign a product to consumers in the United States, or to sell, lease, or assign a product
Yes, that is a definition of "distribute", good job finding that. Using that definition, the GPL is entirely voluntary. Any programmer can request money to pass out copies of modified GPL code simply by declaring "I am not distributing this program to you, even though I am placing these CD-ROMs into your hands, because I am retaining ownership of them. Not only will you not get the source code, but also I can demand back the binaries at any future time."
That would be excellent! I can't wait for that to happen.
As a user I am interested in the license that grants me the most freedom
I'm a user too, and I'm interested in the license which provides me the most freedom. In particular, I want future programs I download to also include the source code, which is an obligation GPL puts on modifications, but BSD does not.
When I submit a patch to a project and hand out source code, I like to know that future people who use my code will share their code with me too.
No, it can't grab code from the old BSD license.
As you explicitly stated, we were talking about the "modern BSD", not the original one.
Except that there is no "automatic join organization".
Once more with the dubious definitions. Do you understand how nebulous and all-encompassing the word "organization" is, legally? It can mean almost anything.
"Corporation" is a more tightly defined word that "organization", but it's still fairly easy to create minimal "shell" corporations whose only purpose is to establish that some list of people are "corporatation members" for legal purposes.
that each "customer"/"partner" sign a legally-valid, notarized document
Notarized? You think new employees at Wal-Mart have their sign-up papers notarized?
that would make each customer/partner liable (up to his personal quota) for any of the organization's liabilities
No, absolutely not. An organzation can have almost any membership rules. In fact, there is a very popular kind of organization, known as the "corporation", that explicitly shields its members from liability!
As I am not renting the DVDs from the videoclub, the videoclub is not distributing the DVDs, so the videoclub does not need to buy the (more expensive sometimes) "for rent" version of the DVDs.
Ok, now you've lost all credibility on copyright. You think there is some law enforcing non-rentable DVDs?
The only way movie studios can keep "rental" DVDs from being sold to the general public is by pricing them at $100, which is more than any home viewer would sanely buy.
According to the well-established "Right of First Sale", the legal owner of a copy can rent it out if she wants.
Look retard, the FSF has stated time and time again that 'distribution' under the wording of the GPL does not refer to internal distribution within an organization.
One little FAQ entry is not "time and time again". What the FSF keeps repeating is "You are not obligated to publish", which is separate from "You may prohibit redistribution".
But if they did say that, then they are allowing any commercial publisher free reign to paste GPL code into their proprietary products. All they've got to do is glue on a sticker saying "When you buy this disc, you get free membership into the Microsoft KDE club. Then the software will be given to you for internal use as part of our organization"
But the license for Windows XP specifically limits the number of PCs you can use it on!
Well, no. Copyright law restricts you to running it on one PC, unless some other license relaxes that limitation. A license can only give you more rights, not take them away. If the Windows XP license had been forgotten from a particular box, I'd still be able to use it on one and only one PC.
I'm not a native speaker, but I suppose in this case "distribute" in legalspeak is meant as "distribute to some one outside the license holder"
If so, then the GPL has a giant loophole. I can put GPL code in proprietary software and then rent it out to customers for 200 year periods, and claim "Since they've got to give the programs back in 200 years, it's still corporate property and I haven't distributed anything"
No, not "aka publishing". "Distribution" and "publishing" are entirely different words. If the GPL really meant to say "publishing", they should fix that in the new version.
I'd still really like to see the definition of "distribute" you are using, because it's hard for me to imagine one that would both create an "in-house" exception to the GPL, but not also open a loophole permitting almost anyone to break the GPL by adding a little boilerplate ahead of every sale.
We are talking about copyright law here, so technically, ie, legally, this does not count as distribution...
You can't just keep asserting that. You've got to back it up, somehow. If you think that a non-English definition of "distribute" applies, then paste it. (I have found special meanings of "distribute" in some law dictionaries, but only for specific circumstances unlike this one)
You have noticed you were talking about a tangible good (aprons) instead of copiable, intellectual content?
It makes no difference regarding what "distribution" means. If you only want to think about it in terms of IP though, let's say Wal-Mart buys a single Mariah Carey music CD and
The copyright law.
Yes, and copyright law is on my side. It recognizes that if a big company buys a single copy of a book and hands out photocopies for all their employees to use on the job, they have infringed copyright by distributing unauthorized reproductions.
If you think copyright law says something else, and that corporations have a special exception to distribute internally, then go ahead and post your source.
3a. [*] even when acting against corp regulations,
If the corporation has a regulation against the redistribution of internally-modified GPL software, then they are in violation of GPL part 6 ("no further restrictions"), and all their use of the program (beyond the first) is illegal copyright infringement.
Enterprises do not have "personal" usage of nothing,
Yes, exactly. The GPL is not a "site license". It includes no text that applies specifically to a corporation or organization. Corporate licenses to software only happen when the license explicitly gives a corporate buyer more rights than an individual would have. The GPL doesn't do this.
Despite what you may think about Microsoft's business practices, they have got the scenarios down.
As an OS-vendor, Microsoft would provide better service to its Windows customers if those auto-update mechanisms were available for any application to use, not just ones written by the same company as the OS.
On Linux, for example, there is no need for each application to include separate code to update itself to newer version. The distro takes care of all that.
by so rudely thumbing their noses at admins with settings stored in text files in randomly-named directories.
Although I don't enjoy random directory-names either, the fact that Microsoft's IE settings are in predictable places has worsened security breaches in the past.
The microsoft 99% dominance on the browser market is broken,
Not quite. IE is unseated, but Windows is not. The browser itself becomes free, but the client-side OS isn't safe yet. Increasingly, websites are relying on Windows x86 binary plugins (or sometimes ActiveX) for important parts of their content, and equivalents for other OSes and CPUs aren't necessarily extant functional.
In terms of "the license with the most restrictive terms,"
And since a license is defined as a set of terms, that is the way to look at it.
One further way to express it is interesting: In terms of "open source software", GPL-compatible is the superset (most members), BSD-compat is a subset, and PD is a subset of that (least members).
Using GPL maximizes the availability of other projects you can grab code from. If your video-game is GPL, you can borrow image-processing code from The Gimp (GPL), but a BSD or PD game couldn't do that.
Slashdot Mirror
A) make the game primarily for the Revolution, but with a control scheme that can easily be ported (i.e. doesn't take full advantage of the revolution controller)
Look at how many FPS games are ported between console and PC. Yet the GUI interface of aiming a gun with a thumbstick versus a mouse is very different (much harder one way than the other). But developers manage to work through it. Indeed, one notable advantage of the Revolution controller is it can emulate a mouse well, something the thumbsticks on the other consoles can't really do. So maybe the Revolution will turn out to be the preferred port target for mouse-heavy PC games like RTS and drag&drop RPG controls.
Also, consider that one of Nintendo's goals with the Revolution controller is to prevent easy ports to other consoles. Either the PS3 or Xbox360 (or maybe both) will turn how to have a faster CPU and better graphics, so Nintendo needs something those guys can't easily surpass.
An interesting question is, has any big corporation made major internal use of an altered GPL program? I've never heard of one doing so, except when the alterations were too unimportant for the corp to worry about retaining as proprietary.
But that fact doesn't really prove anything. Even if I was wrong, and corps were allowed to give modified GPL code to their employees while prohibiting them from redistributing it, they still wouldn't really be able to use it "in-house".
That's because all non-trivial corporations include a decent number of non-employee workers. Temps, client liasons, and contractors of all sorts are helping you both on-site and in their remote offices. If a piece of software is important to the business, it will be awkward to have to constantly keep those quasi-employees segregated off, unable to touch the programs that everyone else in the building is installing arounding willy-nilly.
For practical "in-house" use, you've got to be able to send programs to the outsourcers who compose an ever-increasing portion of the IT department.
I'm just trying to work out if a clause in an employment contract saying 'You may not distribute software developed internally outside of the company
That would seem to be in violation of GPL part 6:
If two people invent the same thing in the space of a few months, how can you prove that the second person didn't copy from the first?
The exists a court system which is well practiced at coming to legally-binding conclusions of proof "beyond reasonable", even though their agents are non-omniscent and their evidence is necessarily incomplete.
On at least one occasion, an inventor has produced objectively monitored evidence of PRIOR invention, and been denied because although he invented it first, he didn't file first. (Nor did he file at all, or have any belief the concept was worthy of a patent)
but it's an intrinsic part of providing the reward to inventors and rarely crops up in practice.
Since the establishment of the USA's patent office, more than $6,000,000,000,000 is in different hands because of dubious patent grants. (Of course, that's including inflation and interest, which over 300 years makes the number look VERY big)
It mentions recipients in this regard. See below:
Yes, "recipients". Have you ever been a corporate employee, and sent an email to some other employee? You know the "To:" field in Outlook? That's where you list the recipients. If it weren't possible for other employees to be recipients, then email would not exist. "Recipient" does not imply "legally re-assigned ownership". All it means is that someone put data on the PC under your desk- whether the file is an email, or an altered GPL program. (If you don't agree with that, then you aren't speaking English)
For example, if you distribute copies of such a program,
Corporations are not alive. They are not human, they are not people. They have no ability to redistribute software (or do anything else). Employees of a corporation can redistribute software on its behalf, but that would be a copyright violation unless they comply with the GPL.
There are certain situations in which a corporation is legally equivalent to a person, but as the GPL doesn't contain any text giving additional rights to corporations, so it isn't one of those situations. When a software publisher wants to license a program so that corporations have special rights, they do so with a "site license" or "corporate license". (In general US law, corporations have special rights as holders of copyrighted works, but not as users of works copyrighted by others)
In the absense of a "corporate-size GPL", a corporations can use software with the aggregate rights of the individuals making it up.
Do Employees count as users?
That's almost too silly to bother answering. If they're people using the software, they are users. However, this isn't the clause you should be hanging on (as it's pretty weak, historically).
As the other poster just mentioned
Odd, I don't see that one.
corporate shell games are not appreciated by the court systems.
Prehaps the courts don't enjoy it, but those games WORK. There's a reason we have "shell corporation" as a standard piece of business jargon: because they often stand up in court.
In general, if a person is allowed to do something of his own initiative, he's also allowed to do it when hired by someone else. (Of course there are thousands of laws barring specific acts from being performed for profit, notably sex, but I'm not aware of any that would apply in this GPL-redistribution case)
BTW, it's better to cite the law directly rather than use a wikipedia link.
Someone capable of comprehending legalese probably already knows what "first sale doctrine" is, or can find the Copyright Act on her own. Conversely, people not able to locate CA 109 will find Wikipedia's informal description easier to understand.
There are not many people that are willing to purchase defective or incomplete products - these are an exception rather than the rule.
The majority of computer software/hardware purchasers are accustomed to recieving binaries with no attached source code. (Indeed, they will probably be surprised and confused if source code is included). I can hardly anticipate a spontanteous consumer boycott of a DVD player which includes a Linux kernel, but not the patches to make it run on that specific hardware.
This is no different than unbundling the individual floppy disks in a copy of Dos 6.22
Well, no, but I would agree that DOS 6.22 was defective because the source wasn't included, although it seemed to do alright in the marketplace regardless.
It's entirely possible for two independent teams to come up with something innovative and non-obvious without working together. That doesn't mean that the person who gets there first isn't entitled to the reward.
Yes it does. More specifically, it means that the "reward" (monopoly) should be destroyed, so the second person is entitled to use his own invention (the production of 100% his own unassisted brain-power) without paying a license to some other guy across the planet in an earlier timezone.
Patents are intended to spur innovation by rewarding who gets there first.
They are intended to spur innovation by rewarding inventors. The "gets there first" part is a limitation of legistlative precision. It's a flaw in the implementation. Ideally, patents would reward inventors exactly proportionally to how much their idea benefitted society's progress, which means that untainted independent re-invention would be a sure sign that the original idea wasn't terribly special after all.
The patent law is a simple law, and like every simple law it can lead to major unfairness. Treating a person who's 10 minutes later the same as one 10 years later is unjust, similarly to equal application of statutory-rape laws to a man of 18 or 38.
(Of course, changing simple laws into complex ones can fix much of the unfairness, but also creates further opportunities for sneaky loopholes, which amounts to bias towards the rich and retainered)
A patent is meant to provide a short-term monopoly so that the patent holder can *PRODUCE* his invention without immediately losing out to competitors on publication of the details.
Well, not exactly. They are protected to either produce it themselves, or more likely pay someone to sell authorized implementations.
If, hypothetically Eolas had invented something worthwhile, then Microsoft would not have been able to to program the modern IE until the patent was explained to them, and it would be valid for Eolas to get a cut of every Windows sale.
But in reality, their invention was nothing great, and it was speedily rediscovered by every web browser team who found themselves facing the same problem. The idea was too obvious to deserve a patent at all (as most software patents are).
How come you got modded informative but every time I say this I get moderated a troll?
Yes, "informative" is really off-base here. I am asking a question; that means I am seeking information, not providing any.
The software would still be free as in beer, sort of.
Yes, the binaries are distributable, although I was imagining a scenario of embedded hardware-vendors, where end-user extraction of binaries is difficult and of little utility. (Especially difficult if a Trusted-style untamperable chip is used). For situations like a TiVo or Sony PSP, minor modifications to the source code could be very useful, but sharing unaltered binaries has no value.
Since it's only an offer, it can easily be prevented, by grinding the source code into powder.
Yes, prehaps PersonA could hire PersonB to eliminate all his copies of the source code. But that would dangerously undermine any future bugfixes or other needed changes. (Or it might even undermine PersonB's legal authorization to sell disc-packs at all, although the response of the GPL to totally destroyed source code is untested).
But, I suppose GPL part 6 only works in one direction, so PersonA could contractually bind PersonB not to give the code to anyone else, so long as PersonA was careful to never distribute the code back to B.
why don't you show us where the GPL compels a person to distribute the source to modified code which is only used internally?
I never said that, although I can see how a slightly innacurate interpretation of the word "release" might create that impression.
At its most literal interpretation this would mean that if I work at Bigcorp and place a program on all the BigCorp desktops, I should also give BigCorp's employees access to the source.
Absolutely right. At that point, the corp has given all of their employees permission to upload the code to random strangers on the Internet, which means it has been released.
Note that some people use "release" as a synonym for "publish", but that's not the only definition. The meaning that applies in this case is to "cease holding back".
I should also give BigCorp's employees access to the source.
Note that once BigCorp's employees have access to the source, GPL section 6 says that BigCorp cannot place any further restrictions on their use of the code, such as threatening to fire people who upload it to sourceforge.net.
Your point would be accurate if in fact the internal use of the modified software implied a "distribution" to the employees,
Once upon a time, my boss told me "Minna, I want you to type up this month's soup menu and distribute it to all your co-workers". So naturally I told him, "Sorry sir! I'd like to do it, but there is no way I can distribute a data file to employees of the same corporation. That's just theoretically impossible. It is inconsistent by definition."
So, he fired me, and since I was no longer an employee, I then was successful in distributing that menu. It was a really clever workaround my boss came up with, although I'm still waiting for the part where he hires me back...
but this is stretching the definition of "distribution" a bit too far.
Once again, I'd enjoy reading any definition of distribution that enables non-trivial "in house" use to an organization, without also enabling Microsoft to essentially sell proprietary forks of GPL code.
because the GPL explicitly allows you to circumvent copyright law for yourself (the corporation).
If and only if you follow certain requirements, including giving permission for anyone getting access to those other copies (including 3rd parties) authority to request the source code.
You can put it on as many of your own computers as you like
The GPL never says that.
When you distribute it to someone else (e.g. a customer)
That's not what the GPL says. It only uses the word "distribute", it doesn't require that the distribution go to someone else.
The kind of distribution that the license premits is logically the same kind that copyright law reserves for the author.
It is not logical for a license to use a definition that renders the entire philosophical goal of the license meaningless. But using distribution to mean "sell, lease, or assign" would enable any proprietary developer to stick GPL code into her own program, so long as they don't later "sell" or "assign" it to 3rd parties.
And coincidentally, many proprietary vendors already claim that they don't sell software, but instead sell "licenses to software".
I don't know why I registered just to have this conversation with you.
I'm hoping that you really registered to respond to my other post here. Come on, give it a try, it'll be much more fun!
The only reason that internal distribution doesn't count as distribution is because the corporation isn't a customer of itself.
You are exchanging the word "consumer" with "customer". The members of a corp are not its customers, but they are probably "consumers in the United States".
(6) "Distribute" means to sell, lease, or assign a product to consumers in the United States
If we use that definition of distribute, then the GPL is broken. Bill Gates can write "Microsoft KDE" and charge $200 for an indefinite license to use that software.
Indeed, looking at existing Microsoft EULAs, they already use the claim that the software is not "sold" or "assigned" to the consumer, but rather licensed for his limited use. If that's true, then Microsoft can infringe the GPL freely.
If, on the other hand, "distribute" means what it means in English, then Microsoft has no license to publish a proprietary fork of KDE, and corporations have no right to make thousands of employees use modded GPL code without access to that code.
This is why the GPL faq says that private modifications are ok
As shown by it's header, that FAQ is to reassure people who are afraid slightly editing a GPL program will oblige them to mail it out to the world at large. "Not obliged" != "able to prohibit".
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=163860&cid=136 83050
I just wish my other GPL loophole topic had gotten 20% as many replies.
Firstly, releasing code in-house is *not* "distribution". This has been covered pretty well by other posters, but anyway.
... to the public". Because they felt it necessary to append "to the public", we can see that legally, the word "distribute" does not automatically imply public reciept on its own.
No, they haven't covered it well. Several of them have claimed that, but when asked to link to an authoritative source, they wind up undermining their position (read the response to that one).
Specificially, US copyright law contains text limiting to copyright holders the right to "distribute copies
and it places some specific restrictions on distributing only:-
Yes! The GPL places restrictions on "distributing" only. It doesn't qualify "distribute" with "to the public", meaning that it applies also to non-public distribution.
b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish
That line from the GPL is further proof that, for purposes of GPL compliance, "distribution" and "publication" are different things.
This shows that even if internal in-house use counted as "distribution" (which it doesn't),
It does.
all you would have to do to satisfy the GPL is place the modified code on the same internal server from which your employees install it. There is no requirement that the rest of the world be able to access that server. Or
True, that's all you have to do. And once you do that, your employees have freedom to upload that code to the Internet themselves. So unless your company has only a tiny number of employees, one of them will inevitably decide to do that. It has been effectively "released". In earlier postings, I already acknowledged that the dispute isn't about the corporation being obligated to put up the code on a public site, but whether they were allowed to block their own employees from redistributing that code.
(Note that the corporation cannot place the source code on some internal server, but then prohibit employees from copying that code to elsewhere. That would violate GPL item 6, "place no further restrictions")
Sorry, but you are wrong, in the copyright law they are the same thing.
... to the public", which should clue you in that "distribution" is not synonymous with "publication", or else "public" would be redundant. The use of "public distribution" is an acknowledgement that "private distribution" and "in-house distribution" are other possibilities.
No, they're not. Try and quote that law, if you like. The excerpt you already pasted implies exactly the opposite, as I explain below.
already has the right of making copies, modifying such copies, and installing them on all of its machines!
No, they don't have that right already. If the GPL wasn't there, they could only install the program once. They only gain the right to multiple installs if they obey the GPL, which means each time the software is distributed, it must be with the source code (or an "offer for the source code, valid for any third party, etc etc").
Come on, read 17USC106 -- those are the exclusive rights of the copyright owner (no ellipses here, this is an exaustive list):
Yes, of course I've read it many times. (Although that's not in the Friendly Article, but is a separate reference you brought up). Looking at it again, I am reminded that it's a very useful tool to reinforce my point.
There are two rights of interest here, #1 and #3. #1 is the right to reproduction, and #3 is the right to public distribution. Notice that the wording is "distribute copies
So, we've seen that copyright holders have those two rights. Of them, the right to reproduction is more important than that of distribution, because distributing copies without first reproducing them is impossible. So the reproductive right has primacy over the distributive right. It is that right which is violated if a programmer modifies GPL source code without obeying the GPL's terms.
Now, I'll ask you to read a different FA: the GPL. Search for every occurence of the word-fragment "distribute" in the file. It occurs 53 times. Of those instances, zero of them are followed by a qualifier like "to the public", which a reading of the copyright law has already established is necessary to distinguish publich distribution from other kinds of distribution (such as in-house).
Furthermore, note that the GPL contains the text "distribute or publish", which further reinforces that, in the understanding of the GPL authors, "distribute" and "publish" are not synonyms.
Therefore, I have established that "distribute" is different from "publish", and "public distribution" is one sub-category of distribution. The implication is that "private", "in-house", and "corporate use" are other categories of "distribution".
So finally, back to the GPL. When does the GPL "attach" to software, meaning anyone who has access to the files has been given permission to redistribute both the binaries and source (or "an offer for the source code..." etc)? Any time you "distribute" the modified software.
When a corporation distributes a modified GPL program amoung it's employees, they are giving them permission to publish it whenever they like. If the corporation hadn't intended to give them that permission, then it couldn't have distributed the software at all.
(Note that this conclusion is consistent with the FSF's stated goal: that users of software have freedom to modify and re-distribute it. A million users unable to edit their desktop software because they are employed by a corp would be against RMS's ideals. In particular, it would allow China to pass out modified Linux to all their citizens, without any rights to the source code)
AC: "Distribute" means to sell, lease, or assign a product to consumers in the United States, or to sell, lease, or assign a product
Yes, that is a definition of "distribute", good job finding that. Using that definition, the GPL is entirely voluntary. Any programmer can request money to pass out copies of modified GPL code simply by declaring "I am not distributing this program to you, even though I am placing these CD-ROMs into your hands, because I am retaining ownership of them. Not only will you not get the source code, but also I can demand back the binaries at any future time."
That would be excellent! I can't wait for that to happen.
As a user I am interested in the license that grants me the most freedom
I'm a user too, and I'm interested in the license which provides me the most freedom. In particular, I want future programs I download to also include the source code, which is an obligation GPL puts on modifications, but BSD does not.
When I submit a patch to a project and hand out source code, I like to know that future people who use my code will share their code with me too.
No, it can't grab code from the old BSD license.
As you explicitly stated, we were talking about the "modern BSD", not the original one.
Except that there is no "automatic join organization".
Once more with the dubious definitions. Do you understand how nebulous and all-encompassing the word "organization" is, legally? It can mean almost anything.
"Corporation" is a more tightly defined word that "organization", but it's still fairly easy to create minimal "shell" corporations whose only purpose is to establish that some list of people are "corporatation members" for legal purposes.
that each "customer"/"partner" sign a legally-valid, notarized document
Notarized? You think new employees at Wal-Mart have their sign-up papers notarized?
that would make each customer/partner liable (up to his personal quota) for any of the organization's liabilities
No, absolutely not. An organzation can have almost any membership rules. In fact, there is a very popular kind of organization, known as the "corporation", that explicitly shields its members from liability!
As I am not renting the DVDs from the videoclub, the videoclub is not distributing the DVDs, so the videoclub does not need to buy the (more expensive sometimes) "for rent" version of the DVDs.
Ok, now you've lost all credibility on copyright. You think there is some law enforcing non-rentable DVDs?
The only way movie studios can keep "rental" DVDs from being sold to the general public is by pricing them at $100, which is more than any home viewer would sanely buy.
According to the well-established "Right of First Sale", the legal owner of a copy can rent it out if she wants.
Look retard, the FSF has stated time and time again that 'distribution' under the wording of the GPL does not refer to internal distribution within an organization.
One little FAQ entry is not "time and time again". What the FSF keeps repeating is "You are not obligated to publish", which is separate from "You may prohibit redistribution".
But if they did say that, then they are allowing any commercial publisher free reign to paste GPL code into their proprietary products. All they've got to do is glue on a sticker saying "When you buy this disc, you get free membership into the Microsoft KDE club. Then the software will be given to you for internal use as part of our organization"
But the license for Windows XP specifically limits the number of PCs you can use it on!
Well, no. Copyright law restricts you to running it on one PC, unless some other license relaxes that limitation. A license can only give you more rights, not take them away. If the Windows XP license had been forgotten from a particular box, I'd still be able to use it on one and only one PC.
I'm not a native speaker, but I suppose in this case "distribute" in legalspeak is meant as "distribute to some one outside the license holder"
If so, then the GPL has a giant loophole. I can put GPL code in proprietary software and then rent it out to customers for 200 year periods, and claim "Since they've got to give the programs back in 200 years, it's still corporate property and I haven't distributed anything"
Distribution (aka publishing)
No, not "aka publishing". "Distribution" and "publishing" are entirely different words. If the GPL really meant to say "publishing", they should fix that in the new version.
I'd still really like to see the definition of "distribute" you are using, because it's hard for me to imagine one that would both create an "in-house" exception to the GPL, but not also open a loophole permitting almost anyone to break the GPL by adding a little boilerplate ahead of every sale.
We are talking about copyright law here, so technically, ie, legally, this does not count as distribution...
You can't just keep asserting that. You've got to back it up, somehow. If you think that a non-English definition of "distribute" applies, then paste it. (I have found special meanings of "distribute" in some law dictionaries, but only for specific circumstances unlike this one)
You have noticed you were talking about a tangible good (aprons) instead of copiable, intellectual content?
It makes no difference regarding what "distribution" means. If you only want to think about it in terms of IP though, let's say Wal-Mart buys a single Mariah Carey music CD and
The copyright law.
Yes, and copyright law is on my side. It recognizes that if a big company buys a single copy of a book and hands out photocopies for all their employees to use on the job, they have infringed copyright by distributing unauthorized reproductions.
If you think copyright law says something else, and that corporations have a special exception to distribute internally, then go ahead and post your source.
3a. [*] even when acting against corp regulations,
If the corporation has a regulation against the redistribution of internally-modified GPL software, then they are in violation of GPL part 6 ("no further restrictions"), and all their use of the program (beyond the first) is illegal copyright infringement.
Enterprises do not have "personal" usage of nothing,
Yes, exactly. The GPL is not a "site license". It includes no text that applies specifically to a corporation or organization. Corporate licenses to software only happen when the license explicitly gives a corporate buyer more rights than an individual would have. The GPL doesn't do this.
Despite what you may think about Microsoft's business practices, they have got the scenarios down.
As an OS-vendor, Microsoft would provide better service to its Windows customers if those auto-update mechanisms were available for any application to use, not just ones written by the same company as the OS.
On Linux, for example, there is no need for each application to include separate code to update itself to newer version. The distro takes care of all that.
by so rudely thumbing their noses at admins with settings stored in text files in randomly-named directories.
Although I don't enjoy random directory-names either, the fact that Microsoft's IE settings are in predictable places has worsened security breaches in the past.
The microsoft 99% dominance on the browser market is broken,
Not quite. IE is unseated, but Windows is not. The browser itself becomes free, but the client-side OS isn't safe yet. Increasingly, websites are relying on Windows x86 binary plugins (or sometimes ActiveX) for important parts of their content, and equivalents for other OSes and CPUs aren't necessarily extant functional.
In terms of "the license with the most restrictive terms,"
And since a license is defined as a set of terms, that is the way to look at it.
One further way to express it is interesting:
In terms of "open source software", GPL-compatible is the superset (most members), BSD-compat is a subset, and PD is a subset of that (least members).
Using GPL maximizes the availability of other projects you can grab code from. If your video-game is GPL, you can borrow image-processing code from The Gimp (GPL), but a BSD or PD game couldn't do that.