Even Richard Stallman, after writing the GPL, agreed the Public Domain software was also Free Software. The GPL was not the only codification of Free Software, even by RMS standards.
BTW, TRS-80s came out well after I started programming, thank you very much.:-)
Sure, that's right. Stallman burst into existence complete with a copy of the GPL in hand. All of the rumors about the tons of work that he did for free software development before starting the FSF are complete fabrications. The code that he worked on before the GPL simply doesn't exist.
Puhleeeze. The alternate (to you) universe to which you refer is "reality".
Scott Fahlman once told me that Richard Stallman convinced him to make CMU Common Lisp public domain . . . and then later decided that it would be better with restrictions (GPL).
It is simply wrong to state that prior to OSS, "Free Software" meant GPL. There were significant Public Domain projects, e. g. Fahlman's CMU Common Lisp, and code with what we would now call BSD-Style licenses, before the GPL ever existed.
Even Stallman admitted at the time that Public Domain was *also* Free Software though he debated with people like me who felt that if GPL is Free then Public Domain is Freer Than Free. CMUCL's decision to go Public Domain meant that it served as a Reference Implementation to foster a Lisp software industry while also providing all of the other benefits of Stallman's flavor of Free Software, without the restrictions.
He used to emacs (older open source, also largely due to rms' efforts) to begin that gcc project.
But many people would prefer that the GPL never existed, favoring less restriction, e. g. BSD style or outright Public Domain. Scott Fahlman, who's CMU Common Lisp was developed in the Public Domain said that it was RMS who convinced him to do it . . . and who later circled back to try to get CMUCL to use the restrictive GPL. Fortunately, saner heads prevailed and the vast majority of the CMUCL code base is in the Public Domain and still under active development today.
25 years ago, this issue of Computer Chronicle quoted Bill Joy (at the 13:53 mark) saying that "Open Source" is one reason reason that Unix "will be popular with scientists and engineer for some time."
I think that people read the article and found it lacking. If the article were entitled "The Open Source label after 12 years", or "12 years of rebranding Free Software", etc. you would see less reaction. This article attempts to promote the label to be the thing itself, but the thing itself is much more than 12 years old.
I would ask you -- and the authors of the article -- to focus more on the underlying issue and less on the superficial wording issues.
``If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place.''
What a great idea!
. . . said the teenage girl impregnated by her stepfather
. . . said everyone everywhere who has a disease that they want to keep secret
. . . said the Chinese dissident trying to communicate with her child
People use envelopes on their personal letters to be private, not criminal. People keep their medical, and other, records private because they're personal. ``None of your business'' does not mean ``I'm committing a crime.''
It is almost impossible to legally obtain a copy of the Eyes On The Prize video series.
Of course, it's available through various torrent sites in part through Downhill Battle's efforts and a protest called Eyes On The Screen.
Many, including creator Henry Hampton's family, argue against this form of protest and the Eyes On The Screen protest specifically.
Meanwhile, the Eyes on the Screen campaign was endorsed by groups such as the Bay Area Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement, who wrote: "Therefore, in the spirit of the Southern Freedom Movement, we who once defied the laws and customs that denied people of color their human rights and dignity, we whose faces are seen in "Eyes on the Prize," we who helped produce it, tonight defy the media giants who have buried our story in their vaults by publicly sharing episodes of this forbidden knowledge with all who wish to see it."
Your simple compelling reasons have to be balanced with some sense of likelihood. There's somebody mumbling on a street corner in the Bronx who wants to kill you because he knows that you secretly paint your belly button green. He's not a real threat. You need not deploy troops.
Another bit of balance to consider is effectiveness. Let's say you start with 100 people who want to kill you because your are heathen Christian who watches Hollywood films with American whores who show their facial skin even when non-related males are nearby. Now you choose Response X. After 5 years, you now have many thousands of people who want to kill you. Some because of the aforementioned reasons. Others because your spent 5 years killing their daughters, mothers, and other ``enemy combatants.''
How simple and compelling are your reasons after all? They can only be seen as compelling when one chooses to ignore most of the relevant bits.
``Anything under human control does not rate being called a robot.'' is not insightful (current rating) it's ridiculous.
Obviously, there are degrees to which we wish to automate our control over our tools, but, we definitely, absolutely, want our robots to be under human control. For example, the robotic arms and turntables in the CMU Robotics Institute when I worked there c. 1983 were, um, meant to be controlled. Also, that control, was meant to originate from humans.
People refer to bionics -- especially the Sci Fi versions, e. g. The Six Million Dollar Man -- using terms such as ``robotic limbs''. These also, not suprisingly, are meant to be controlled by humans.
Sorry, wrong sender. I confused you with the person that pushed *that* bad analogy.
If you think that not having the GPS somehow protects what you can express, please present that argument. Otherwise, you're just waving the First Amendment around because it sounds good and has something to do with someone's rights.
I apologize for confusing you with the anal-rape-analogy person, but your analogy is just as contrived. The things that someone can do with my Public Domain code and my GPL-instead-of-free code have nothing to do with my freedom of expression. The differences are purely limited to how I can restrict others from doing with the ideas that I've already chosen to share with the public at large.
And you can try to force the analogy all you want, but knowing that someone else might do something with my code that I didn't approve of is not the same as anal rape. The fact that you suggest otherwise speaks to the credibility of your `argument'.
You say: You don't get to tell everyone that derivative works are your own, it's as simple as that.
True. That is the restriction of the GPL, with perhaps a bit of spin. Spun the other way, I could say: You don't get credit for your new idea if it made use of any GPL-rather-than-Free ideas.
If the wheel were GPLed, then the Wright Brothers couldn't have called their derivative work (their plane included wheels) their own by your reasoning.
When an idea is Free, it is there for all to use, in free and non-free ways. GPL wants to make things Free-but-not-*too*-free. It's a restriction relying on copyright, and it's a restriction that's not necessary to Support Open Source.
What freedom of mine is enhanced by GPL? Only the `freedom' to know that someone else isn't doing something that I don't like with it. Does that actually hurt me? I don't think so.
In terms of actual freedom, Public Domain status is just as effective at supporting open source without relying on copyright.
I'm not at all opposed to the First Amendment or other restrictions on government action against citizens.
You draw a false comparison. We're talking about freedom to use code, specifically whether one can oppose copyright and support open source. I say that you can by using the Public Domain. The GPL does not create any additional free(dom) software over and above what can be done without copyright by using Public Domain status. Instead, the GPL merely restricts non-free usage. You might want to do that, but that's a separate question and none of it relates to the First Amendment in the way that you suggest.
I completely, 100% support your right to restrict your software. That's someone out of scope in a discussion of whether or not you can oppose copyright and support open source. If you prefer not to support open source, that's a valid choice. If you sometimes support and other times don't, that's fine too.
But if and when you are a advocating for Freedom, that is if you Support Open Source, and want your software to be Free, I would encourage you to avoid GPL and other restrictions. I would claim that You Can Oppose Copyright and Support Open Source. You might support copyright for other reasons, but it's not a necessary part of supporting open source.
I don't know whether your story is true or not. I've followed RMS's advocacy for free software and the GPL since the early 80s and debated Public Domain v. GPL in mailing lists / netnews a couple of times and he hasn't brought up any similar point.
Regardless of whether it is true, the story is more about documenting than copyrighting. What you describe is a bogus copyright claim that could be successfully defended with good documentation and without copyright.
That assumes that a lack of copyright implies that all is published. There are other ways to keep things from being publicly available. Trade Secret law exists because it Trade Secrets are a better way to go for many.
You can't disassemble the code that's running someone's service. If you can't get to at at all, it doesn't matter whether copyright exists.
GPL may be good and it may be bad. It is certainly restriction, but RMS et al pretend that it's about freedom. If you're restricting things to help MY freedom, I ask you to stop. Real freedom is far better than the Restriction Through Freedom nonsense. GPL is 1984, War Is Peace, etc.
As the parent article points out. GPL is about restricting what people can do with software. ``Oh, but only the bad people that want to bad things'' is a Richard Stallman whine. Do you want it free? Then let it be free. That means without restrictions. Without the restrictions that I want. Without the restrictions that you want. Without the restriction that Richard Stallman has blessed.
Freedom is more free than restriction. How difficult is that?!?!
Freedom also works. When you make something free, someone will do something with it that you will not like. Others will do things that are great. Trust freedom. Let your software be free using Public Domain and don't buy into the bulsh*t mealy mouthedness that is the GPL.
An Anonymous Coward wrote: ``All we ask is that you share with others as well.''
This is patently false.
The GPL is about restricting what you can do with software.
Public Domain is about not restricting what you can do with software.
A more accurate version of the Anonymous Coward's suggestion would be "All we ask is that you drink the Kool-Aid.":-) GPL says: We like Freedom, and we wish we could force you to like exactly our brand of freedom. Sounds a bit like US foreign policy:-)
Public Domain is not the only way, but perhaps the oldest way among those typically discussed, to truly encourage Free (liberty) Software. BSD licenses and the LGPL are other ways that encourage freedom. GPL encourages restriction, but they are restrictions that lots of people (not me) happen to like. These people are not altruistically giving away the fruits of their labors to benefit humanity. Instead they want to give away the fruits of their labors to people who think like they do while making sure that no part of humanity benefits in a way that they don't approve of, like making money. Of course, this is totally fine for them, up to the point where they try to pretend with absurd statements like ``All we ask is that you share with others as well.''
At it's most basic, the GPL is about restricting what you are allowed to do with the software. GPL is why I can't use GDBM at work. LGPL would allow it, but GPL restricts my freedom beyond the point where I can use it without having to give away my company's software as well. This is where ``GPL is a virus'' comes from.
If you care about freedom, you should fight the GPL. Place your Free (liberty) Software in the Public Domain.
If you want something to be free, then don't add restrictions. Period.
Since these guys are already doing bootable CDs, they could do one for a generic PC. Have it put up a VGA Blue Screen of Death mock-up as early as possible and then target machines that look out-of-the-way and/or unused, especially older looking machines.
Lots of places that I've been have these sorts of boxes sitting around because they become unused gradually. I've seen machines like this display BSoD for weeks on end before anyone bothered to either reboot them or turn them off.
With this approach, the total leave-behind hardware investment is $0.25 for the CD-R.
On VMS in the late 80s and early 90s, you could run a port of Gosling's Emacs. The most notable difference between it and other versions was that all of the commands that included kill in their names had been renamed because DEC didn't allow "kill" in their code.
I followed up on this a bit with a web search as well as some communication with OSI. Basically, no one else seems to know about the special hoops that you have to jump through to make something Public Domain. If you state that you are placing something in the Public Domain, it is in the Public Domain -- unless it turns out that someone else holds a prior copyright, i. e. it wasn't yours to give away. Also, OSI used to explicitly say that Public Domain counted, but they prefer not to include it in the definition anymore because ``too many people misunderstand the term.'' And of course, you can still disclaim liability without claiming copyright.
One problem with the house analogy is that most jurisdictions don't allow you to make your house unowned. Under some circumstances, the local government may be willing to accept your transfer of deed to it, but they try to avoid allowing any situation where there is no owner at all.
One claim made in the article seemed particularly erroneous to me: ``Blacklists are as old as the Internet.''
It wasn't until the late 80s, maybe even '90 or '91, that I got my first spam. I knew one person who was starting to get spammed somewhat regularly -- he ran a pretty large mailing list for a free software development project. Canter and Siegel -- the ``first spammers'' -- didn't start their Green Card Spam until 1994 -- not even 10 years ago!
MAPS RBL (started in 1997) is what I recall as being the first organized blacklist. Somewhere between my first spam and C&S I'd started my own personal list, as had lots of folks, but throughout the 80's I can't imagine that most internet users would have seen the point.
Slashdot Mirror
Public Domain. That's what those of us who argued against the GPL from the outset suggested.
Even Richard Stallman, after writing the GPL, agreed the Public Domain software was also Free Software. The GPL was not the only codification of Free Software, even by RMS standards.
BTW, TRS-80s came out well after I started programming, thank you very much. :-)
Sure, that's right. Stallman burst into existence complete with a copy of the GPL in hand. All of the rumors about the tons of work that he did for free software development before starting the FSF are complete fabrications. The code that he worked on before the GPL simply doesn't exist.
Puhleeeze. The alternate (to you) universe to which you refer is "reality".
Scott Fahlman once told me that Richard Stallman convinced him to make CMU Common Lisp public domain . . . and then later decided that it would be better with restrictions (GPL).
It is simply wrong to state that prior to OSS, "Free Software" meant GPL. There were significant Public Domain projects, e. g. Fahlman's CMU Common Lisp, and code with what we would now call BSD-Style licenses, before the GPL ever existed.
Even Stallman admitted at the time that Public Domain was *also* Free Software though he debated with people like me who felt that if GPL is Free then Public Domain is Freer Than Free. CMUCL's decision to go Public Domain meant that it served as a Reference Implementation to foster a Lisp software industry while also providing all of the other benefits of Stallman's flavor of Free Software, without the restrictions.
He used to emacs (older open source, also largely due to rms' efforts) to begin that gcc project.
But many people would prefer that the GPL never existed, favoring less restriction, e. g. BSD style or outright Public Domain. Scott Fahlman, who's CMU Common Lisp was developed in the Public Domain said that it was RMS who convinced him to do it . . . and who later circled back to try to get CMUCL to use the restrictive GPL. Fortunately, saner heads prevailed and the vast majority of the CMUCL code base is in the Public Domain and still under active development today.
25 years ago, this issue of Computer Chronicle quoted Bill Joy (at the 13:53 mark) saying that "Open Source" is one reason reason that Unix "will be popular with scientists and engineer for some time."
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-167233195342018803&q=computer+chronicles#
I think that people read the article and found it lacking. If the article were entitled "The Open Source label after 12 years", or "12 years of rebranding Free Software", etc. you would see less reaction. This article attempts to promote the label to be the thing itself, but the thing itself is much more than 12 years old.
I would ask you -- and the authors of the article -- to focus more on the underlying issue and less on the superficial wording issues.
``If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place.''
What a great idea!
. . . said the teenage girl impregnated by her stepfather
. . . said everyone everywhere who has a disease that they want to keep secret
. . . said the Chinese dissident trying to communicate with her child
People use envelopes on their personal letters to be private, not criminal. People keep their medical, and other, records private because they're personal. ``None of your business'' does not mean ``I'm committing a crime.''
Privacy is about being a human being.
It is almost impossible to legally obtain a copy of the Eyes On The Prize video series.
Of course, it's available through various torrent sites in part through Downhill Battle's efforts and a protest called Eyes On The Screen.
Many, including creator Henry Hampton's family, argue against this form of protest and the Eyes On The Screen protest specifically.
Meanwhile, the Eyes on the Screen campaign was endorsed by groups such as the Bay Area Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement, who wrote: "Therefore, in the spirit of the Southern Freedom Movement, we who once defied the laws and customs that denied people of color their human rights and dignity, we whose faces are seen in "Eyes on the Prize," we who helped produce it, tonight defy the media giants who have buried our story in their vaults by publicly sharing episodes of this forbidden knowledge with all who wish to see it."
Your simple compelling reasons have to be balanced with some sense of likelihood. There's somebody mumbling on a street corner in the Bronx who wants to kill you because he knows that you secretly paint your belly button green. He's not a real threat. You need not deploy troops.
Another bit of balance to consider is effectiveness. Let's say you start with 100 people who want to kill you because your are heathen Christian who watches Hollywood films with American whores who show their facial skin even when non-related males are nearby. Now you choose Response X. After 5 years, you now have many thousands of people who want to kill you. Some because of the aforementioned reasons. Others because your spent 5 years killing their daughters, mothers, and other ``enemy combatants.''
How simple and compelling are your reasons after all? They can only be seen as compelling when one chooses to ignore most of the relevant bits.
``Anything under human control does not rate being called a robot.'' is not insightful (current rating) it's ridiculous.
Obviously, there are degrees to which we wish to automate our control over our tools, but, we definitely, absolutely, want our robots to be under human control. For example, the robotic arms and turntables in the CMU Robotics Institute when I worked there c. 1983 were, um, meant to be controlled. Also, that control, was meant to originate from humans.
People refer to bionics -- especially the Sci Fi versions, e. g. The Six Million Dollar Man -- using terms such as ``robotic limbs''. These also, not suprisingly, are meant to be controlled by humans.
Sorry, wrong sender. I confused you with the person that pushed *that* bad analogy.
If you think that not having the GPS somehow protects what you can express, please present that argument. Otherwise, you're just waving the First Amendment around because it sounds good and has something to do with someone's rights.
I apologize for confusing you with the anal-rape-analogy person, but your analogy is just as contrived. The things that someone can do with my Public Domain code and my GPL-instead-of-free code have nothing to do with my freedom of expression. The differences are purely limited to how I can restrict others from doing with the ideas that I've already chosen to share with the public at large.
The First Amendment analogy is a bad one, period.
And you can try to force the analogy all you want, but knowing that someone else might do something with my code that I didn't approve of is not the same as anal rape. The fact that you suggest otherwise speaks to the credibility of your `argument'.
You say: You don't get to tell everyone that derivative works are your own, it's as simple as that.
True. That is the restriction of the GPL, with perhaps a bit of spin. Spun the other way, I could say: You don't get credit for your new idea if it made use of any GPL-rather-than-Free ideas.
If the wheel were GPLed, then the Wright Brothers couldn't have called their derivative work (their plane included wheels) their own by your reasoning.
When an idea is Free, it is there for all to use, in free and non-free ways. GPL wants to make things Free-but-not-*too*-free. It's a restriction relying on copyright, and it's a restriction that's not necessary to Support Open Source.
What freedom of mine is enhanced by GPL? Only the `freedom' to know that someone else isn't doing something that I don't like with it. Does that actually hurt me? I don't think so.
In terms of actual freedom, Public Domain status is just as effective at supporting open source without relying on copyright.
I'm not at all opposed to the First Amendment or other restrictions on government action against citizens.
You draw a false comparison. We're talking about freedom to use code, specifically whether one can oppose copyright and support open source. I say that you can by using the Public Domain. The GPL does not create any additional free(dom) software over and above what can be done without copyright by using Public Domain status. Instead, the GPL merely restricts non-free usage. You might want to do that, but that's a separate question and none of it relates to the First Amendment in the way that you suggest.
I completely, 100% support your right to restrict your software. That's someone out of scope in a discussion of whether or not you can oppose copyright and support open source. If you prefer not to support open source, that's a valid choice. If you sometimes support and other times don't, that's fine too.
But if and when you are a advocating for Freedom, that is if you Support Open Source, and want your software to be Free, I would encourage you to avoid GPL and other restrictions. I would claim that You Can Oppose Copyright and Support Open Source. You might support copyright for other reasons, but it's not a necessary part of supporting open source.
I don't know whether your story is true or not. I've followed RMS's advocacy for free software and the GPL since the early 80s and debated Public Domain v. GPL in mailing lists / netnews a couple of times and he hasn't brought up any similar point.
Regardless of whether it is true, the story is more about documenting than copyrighting. What you describe is a bogus copyright claim that could be successfully defended with good documentation and without copyright.
That assumes that a lack of copyright implies that all is published. There are other ways to keep things from being publicly available. Trade Secret law exists because it Trade Secrets are a better way to go for many.
You can't disassemble the code that's running someone's service. If you can't get to at at all, it doesn't matter whether copyright exists.
GPL may be good and it may be bad. It is certainly restriction, but RMS et al pretend that it's about freedom. If you're restricting things to help MY freedom, I ask you to stop. Real freedom is far better than the Restriction Through Freedom nonsense. GPL is 1984, War Is Peace, etc.
As the parent article points out. GPL is about restricting what people can do with software. ``Oh, but only the bad people that want to bad things'' is a Richard Stallman whine. Do you want it free? Then let it be free. That means without restrictions. Without the restrictions that I want. Without the restrictions that you want. Without the restriction that Richard Stallman has blessed.
Freedom is more free than restriction. How difficult is that?!?!
Freedom also works. When you make something free, someone will do something with it that you will not like. Others will do things that are great. Trust freedom. Let your software be free using Public Domain and don't buy into the bulsh*t mealy mouthedness that is the GPL.
An Anonymous Coward wrote: ``All we ask is that you share with others as well.''
:-) GPL says: We like Freedom, and we wish we could force you to like exactly our brand of freedom. Sounds a bit like US foreign policy :-)
This is patently false.
The GPL is about restricting what you can do with software.
Public Domain is about not restricting what you can do with software.
A more accurate version of the Anonymous Coward's suggestion would be "All we ask is that you drink the Kool-Aid."
Public Domain is not the only way, but perhaps the oldest way among those typically discussed, to truly encourage Free (liberty) Software. BSD licenses and the LGPL are other ways that encourage freedom. GPL encourages restriction, but they are restrictions that lots of people (not me) happen to like. These people are not altruistically giving away the fruits of their labors to benefit humanity. Instead they want to give away the fruits of their labors to people who think like they do while making sure that no part of humanity benefits in a way that they don't approve of, like making money. Of course, this is totally fine for them, up to the point where they try to pretend with absurd statements like ``All we ask is that you share with others as well.''
At it's most basic, the GPL is about restricting what you are allowed to do with the software. GPL is why I can't use GDBM at work. LGPL would allow it, but GPL restricts my freedom beyond the point where I can use it without having to give away my company's software as well. This is where ``GPL is a virus'' comes from.
If you care about freedom, you should fight the GPL. Place your Free (liberty) Software in the Public Domain.
If you want something to be free, then don't add restrictions. Period.
Since these guys are already doing bootable CDs, they could do one for a generic PC. Have it put up a VGA Blue Screen of Death mock-up as early as possible and then target machines that look out-of-the-way and/or unused, especially older looking machines.
Lots of places that I've been have these sorts of boxes sitting around because they become unused gradually. I've seen machines like this display BSoD for weeks on end before anyone bothered to either reboot them or turn them off.
With this approach, the total leave-behind hardware investment is $0.25 for the CD-R.
DEC had a similar policy, at least at some point.
On VMS in the late 80s and early 90s, you could run a port of Gosling's Emacs. The most notable difference between it and other versions was that all of the commands that included kill in their names had been renamed because DEC didn't allow "kill" in their code.
I followed up on this a bit with a web search as well as some communication with OSI. Basically, no one else seems to know about the special hoops that you have to jump through to make something Public Domain. If you state that you are placing something in the Public Domain, it is in the Public Domain -- unless it turns out that someone else holds a prior copyright, i. e. it wasn't yours to give away. Also, OSI used to explicitly say that Public Domain counted, but they prefer not to include it in the definition anymore because ``too many people misunderstand the term.'' And of course, you can still disclaim liability without claiming copyright.
One problem with the house analogy is that most jurisdictions don't allow you to make your house unowned. Under some circumstances, the local government may be willing to accept your transfer of deed to it, but they try to avoid allowing any situation where there is no owner at all.
One claim made in the article seemed particularly erroneous to me: ``Blacklists are as old as the Internet.''
It wasn't until the late 80s, maybe even '90 or '91, that I got my first spam. I knew one person who was starting to get spammed somewhat regularly -- he ran a pretty large mailing list for a free software development project. Canter and Siegel -- the ``first spammers'' -- didn't start their Green Card Spam until 1994 -- not even 10 years ago!
MAPS RBL (started in 1997) is what I recall as being the first organized blacklist. Somewhere between my first spam and C&S I'd started my own personal list, as had lots of folks, but throughout the 80's I can't imagine that most internet users would have seen the point.