Re:Inside RDF is a smaller language...
on
Practical RDF
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Ahem. Could you please elaborate more on this? If I am not mistaken RDF is good for creating links to physical resources with a certain kind of criteria that can be shared between different kind of applications.
What you are describing is the most common and original application of RDF--streaming content. RDF itself is also an XML-compatible syntax and a schema (box and arrow diagram) for that syntax. The intended interpretation of the syntax is the description of "models". That is, the RDF is a metamodel and its schema is a meta-metamodel.
Think of it like a for layer model. You have your message (data), the structure of your message (metadata), the structure of your metadata (RDF), and the structure of RDF (RDF schema). Why 4 layers? Because everyone gets tired after 3--you don't need more than pointer to pointer to void in C: **mydata. Data plus two levels of abstraction is enough--you reach closure since a pointer to a pointer is still a pointer.
Of course data describing data is also data, so you could stop at three levels. But everyone likes to think about models, not data, so you get three levels of models. RDF Schema is just a model for describing metamodels. Nothing to do with content at all, except as an application.
=googol=
Re:Inside RDF is a smaller language...
on
Practical RDF
·
· Score: 1
Angle brackets? I was just looking up DSSSL and it all looks like Scheme to me. What has become of DSSSL? it looks very cool.
DSSSL got replaced by XSL/XSLT, which does have angle brackets. DSSSL works with SGML, and can be made to work on XML.
=googol=
Inside RDF is a smaller language...
on
Practical RDF
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
RDF is a great idea. But it needs to loose the java and the XML. People who are attracted to those have no use for RDF--they want messages they can read without documentation. I know XML is more than that, but in the corporate world its attraction is "configuration files I can read after the author was outsourced".
There are two XML movements--one creating a kludgy layer of application bureaucracy and the other visionary. RDF presently combines the worst of both. Neither "side" really wants it. AI is happy with ontologies and the corporate world is happy with messages 100 times larger than the underlying network protocol. (Could be worse: ASN.1 anyone?)
*BUT* the underlying idea to RDF (ontologies for your metadata). RDF schema is really more important than RDF syntax. The idea is a simple model for describing metamodels. This fits in the same space as UML metamodels, and the Common Warehouse metamodels, only it is much more light weight and you can implement it with existing tools (you do have to use XML--eeeewww).
XML serves one good perpose--it makes s-expressions socially respectable in corporate world and for that I am greatful. They almost got Scheme in too (DSSSL), but the angle-bracket police got them. Too bad.
They're not suing people for damages, they're charging royalties. They could make minor changes then put a click through license on the website. "Non-commercial use free; commercial have your credit card ready" is the usual scam. Royalties are charged on standards all the time, unfortunately. Most of the defunct "wireless" standards from the tail end of the dot-com bust were this way. ISO gets karma points for nostalgia.
I agree it's silly. Standards are easily avoided. If not covered by a freely distributable license, never use someone else's standard. Don't even read it. Don't visit their website. Soon we will all learn to do this. It will be as reflexive as "never use code of unknown origin without a free software or open source license".
The words "intellectual property" seduce enough people into thinking it is fair to collect money for these things. In the long run we have to treat "standards" (not the ISO's but the worthwhile ones) just like programs. They are part of the public domain and they have to be defended.
And yes, this means silly things like ISO country codes and the Dewey Decimal System (you saw the prediction here, despite Melvile being dead these 100 years....)
"IP" is like tollbooths on highways. Start paying and they will never take them away. Building roads without them takes planning, maybe regime change too (see France, 1789; U.S.A., 1776).
=googol=
Intellecutal property in two easy lessons:
Theft by value: you have something and I take it.
Theft by reference: you think of something and I
think of the same thing.
Sure. In the paragraph above it they talk about the same customer getting 210,000 warrants, not just 12,500. The name "Sun" doesn't occur in the text but is an inference from other things. The text you are quoting has mutated from the original to "clarify" its meaning.
You have one cow, which is dying.
You borrow a second cow, genetically engineered under the GPL.
You try to join the GPL herd, then leave, claiming they stole parts of your dead cow.
Eric Raymond hires the Cows with Guns.
Just a Million Good things?
on
Public Net-work
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Why not billions and billions of good things? How about Trillions? The Government should only do one thing well, you know, like good Unix design philosophy.
This was known in the 19th century:
Bastiat pans Socialism
The "new SCO" (formerly Caldera) is not the only member of the Canopy group (http://www.canopy.com) still distributing the Linux kernel. Canopy group member Linux Networx, depite the name incorporating alleged software pirate Linus Torvald's notorious trademark, has distributed the latest Linux kernel but one, even after SCO made its allegations, aggregates the kernel with the work of others, and continues distributing the source and binaries for that derived work today.
Now you might think that as a member of the Canopy Portfolio, Linux Networx would respect the claimed intellectual property of another Canopy Portfolio member. However, not even the Canopy group itself takes SCO/Caldera's claims seriously. As recently as May 1st, 2003, Linux Networx was uploading Linux source and binaries to the FTP site, ftp://ftp.lnxi.com. Linux is still distributed from that venue today. Their customers are referred to this site in the white paper for their Linux BIOS product,
http://www.linuxnetworx.com/products/linuxbios_w hi te_paper.pdf
There, under the linuxbios directory (ftp://ftp.lnxi.com/pub/linuxbios/kerne l) we find
linux-2.4.20.tgz 5/1/2003 3:24:00 PM
Suprisingly, however, this file is not actually the Linux 2.4.20 kernel.
It turns out to be based on linux-2.4.20.tar.gz, a pristine kernel as downloaded from the kernel.org distribution site, with two patches applied. Both patches are included in the toplevel directory of the new aggregate distribution being distributed by Linux Networx. They are:
patch-2.4.21-pre4
and
linux-2.4.21-pre4.mtd-thayne_rc1.patch
Both patches seem to be commonly available on the net. In addition, it contains the vmlinux binary and many build artifacts, mostly ".o" files.
Linux 2.4.21 pre4 puts this kernel on the development branch immediately preceding today's stable Linux kernel, 2.4.22. In addition, by aggregating this allegedly infringing kernel with two other derivative works, created by others, Linux Networx is itself creating and distributing a derivative work, both binary and source. They are doing this, however, without any notation of the changes they have made in so doing as required by the GPL--though it is easy enough to infer from the included patch files. They are (1) calling their aggregate distribution Linux, and (2) distributing it under the same version as a commonly available Linux kernel.
Now, naming and distributing a Linux 2.4.21pre4 kernel with the title "2.4.20" is a bit sloppy. It also violates the GPL provision that your changes must be noted and clearly labelled. So, in addition to using Linus Torvald's trademark, violating the GPL, *and* tresspassing egregiously on SCO's alleged copyright claims, all at the same time, Canopy group members are distributing falsely labelled kernels.
As a respected and active member of the Linux community, the Canopy group should disavow all association with SCO's actions. Or, if they prefer not to be respected, they should unlink alleged software pirates like TrollTech and Linux Networx from their own homepage. Or maybe they should just go and f^Hsue themselves.
Now that end users are involved, we should consider a class action suit against Linux booksellers--here's why:
-- the weak point of the GPL will probably prove to be the disclaimer of warranty. A court might hold that unconscionable as an industry practice.
-- this could drive a wedge between Linux distribution commercially (by XXX XXX [tm], say) and non commercial. A court might hold, for example, that XXX XXX or IBM really must warrant their distribution.
-- even if SCO loses, dredging this up could be a problem.
-- we need to mobilize more than just software distributors. Right now, McBride is saying his actions are pro-business. Actually, he is for some businesses (SCO, proprietary model software distribution) against other business segments and models. O'Reilly, McGraw-Hill and friends make more money off of Linux than SCO ever dreamed of.
-- one way to mobilize an industry segment is to scare it with legal risk. If Linux violates copyright, so do the booksellers who distribute it. Part of the reason I pay $40 for a Linux book is the convenience of not downloading Linux (or paying XXX XXX [tm] prices).
-- the business press will wake up if it looks like a software publisher vs. book publisher fight. Especially the part of the press that is owned by book publishers.... Suddenly McBride won't be a business hero. He'll be a threat.
-- how to enlist the booksellers? Sue 'em. Class action. They're exposing us to risk, selling us copyrighted material they have no right to distribute, and disclaiming all warranty too.
The idea is to end the regime of "perpetual copyright" by ensuring at least some works, which should by rights already be in the PD, get there. Right now, none do.
This is about 50 years in the past, not 50 years in the future.
=googol=
IP Law in two easy lessons
Theft by value: I take something that is yours. Theft by reference: you think of something; I think of the same thing.
The article wasn't clear whether *freely redistributable* copyrighted material was also to be outlawed. Linux is copyrighted. Is it illegal to download it? How do you determine, then what is legal and illegal to download. Isn't everything copyrighted, more or less?
=googol=
IP Law in two easy lessons
Theft by value: I take something that is yours.
Theft by reference: you think of something; I think of the same thing.
There is an American legal theory called "legal realism" that says a law isn't a law unless people think it is and calculate their actions based on that assumption. If corporations shy away from the GPL, it doesn't matter who's right and wrong.
Anyway, a while back there was someone arguing that the GPL *won't* hold up as a license, but that it will perhaps be accepted as an industry practice.
The courts that supported shrinkwrap EULAs didn't establish a new legal principle that you could give someone an agreement under other circumstances (in junk mail envelope, say) and establish a contract by the mere act of opening it. But they upheld the software industry's customary practice.
We won't know the law until the court makes it. That's the thing about novel situations--there's no "custom" to fall back on.
A more alarming possibility is that the courts will decline to rule on the GPL because we have this or that international treaty
International treaties rank with constitutional amendments on the legal food chain, except they *aren't* reviewed by the Supreme court. They are "legislation" + "executive action" and outside court competencies--except for the World Court which we don't recognize.
So 67 men in the Senate (and maybe a woman or two) can end the GPL with one vote and no judicial review.
The future of Linux will be decided in Europe and an American treaty with the EU, not in American courts, my friend, and maybe the GPL too.**
=googol=
** The European Charter has "IP rights" written in as a fundamental property right. All it takes is one treaty where we ack the EU charter and promise conformant legislation and the FSF gets on the "xenophobic terrorists who use military grade weapons" list (xenophobia is an extraditable EU crime, IP is an inalienable property right, and encryption is a military weapon. Also, War is Peace and Ignorace is Slavery).
The trust issue is more complicated than "users perception of Linux".
Free software and the GPL in particular haven't been thoroughly tested in court. This is a position similar to "shrink-wrapped licenses" a few years ago. How can I "agree" to a contract I can't see until I open the package? Courts are sticking with the idea because it is established industry practice. Like free software licenses.
Mostly, free software depends on custom and trust, not law, despite the legal-sounding language of the GPL. We *hope* the courts won't destroy our community, just as we *hope* congress won't. But they can and might. The price of freedom....
In any event, sure, trust is and will be harmed. So how are we going to keep the trust levels up, in the face of concerted, co-ordinated attack?
The marketplace is already doing that--look at revenues.
In any event, if attacking the worldwide community of developers, users, plus their own customers *and* big corporations can't do it, I don't know what will.
Trust me. They're going down. Only problem right now is that trapped, dying animals are dangerous. They can and will do some damage.
IBM won't buy SCO because that is not how billion dollar corporations deal with IP terrorism. You don't appease small terrorists.
Why is SCO's action "IP terrorism"? Because its fundamental purpose is to destroy the remarkable social capital that the GNU license and Linux have created--the trust and co-operation of a global collaboration.
The fact SCO claims economic motives rather than ideological ones or corporate bloodlust or something doesn't matter. They are *trying* to make people suspicisous of sharing source. (AOL is doing the same thing with Nullsoft).
We will see increasing attempts to make people suspicious of "counterfeit GPLs" because terrorism pays right now.
In the long run, the social capital and trust our community has invested in Linux and GNU will have to be divided up in order to survive this sort of attack. Information may want to be free, but having a critical amount of it invested in one place invites attack. Like Napster.
The correct communal resopnse on *our* part (not to this particular attack, which is bogus, but to the swarm of them we will now get) is a more defensive posture in which the "web of trust" established.
Think of Linux and the GPL as the "gold standard" of the free software community (the thing everyone trusts). SCO and AOL are trying to panic us into thinking it is counterfeit, and engineer a corporate "bank panic" so they can mop up. They won't succeed, but they *will* decrease peoples trust in gold and drive its price down a little bit.
One response--the wrong one--would be to create a central repository of "valid GNU software" with a central agency, which would indemnify users of free software. This is the wrong approach because it makes free software quasi-proprietary--takes out the viral component of the model.
Another wrong solution is to try to make code use traceable by requiring the developer to publish deltas, not just source. This is wrong because it creates a high transaction cost (not viral, because it is not free).
The right response is to create numerous, smaller, "webs of trust" so that the whole interlocking structure is harder to attack. This is what modular kernels like the GNU/Hurd or Flux project do. Distributions will have many components, mixed and matched, pulling from the same communal pool. By spreading the IP over many projects and users, we can create the same P2P defence that is being used for the same problem in the music arena. There is no central server or even large server (Linus, IBM) to attack.
One way to solve the problem of counterfeit money is to eliminate the central authority. If everyone prints money (it's all counterfeit), then there is no one to attack. In the long run, the answer to terrorism is diversity (along with a solid defence of the "big" communal targets like Linux and the GPL).
This pushes the question of how you can trust money (software licenses) into the P2P area. You build small webs of trust that leverage the "gold standard" but in the long run do not depend on it at all. Probably, we will go through a "Bretton-Woods" stage of managed trust, before going for the free-for-all.
But. We *must* get to the free-for-all stage, or in the long run we will be hostages.
"I'd still be very hesitant to publish the files until someone with the standing to do so weighs in on the issue (Any FSF lawyers reading this?)."
IANAL, much less an FSF one. You comment applies to anything in the "free" domain--the public domain (a legal concept), and the GPL domain (a presumed legal concept that hasn't been tested), and all the other domains that try to implement a public commons and sharing.
If I find a quarter on the street, it's mine. But what if I find $5.8 million dollars. Free software is like everyone sharing and tossing money on the street. We can all take millions and millions of dollars of cool stuff and it's still there after we take it (it's not tangible).
Creating "intellectual property" as a category inherently sets up the conflict--dangerous use--you now claim this software has. Some of the free money is really free, and some of it belongs to someone. Who's to say which is which? This is the essence of the legal gambit:
Intellectual Property + FUD = no free software at all.
This has nothing to do with GPL. Neither the GPL nor any other licence can "guarantee" you won't be sued by someone for some reason. The UCC has provisions for protecting you with commercial transactions (credit card purchases--what happens if you use a check to buy something stolen at a store? Who gets to sue whom?).
Once you invent a theory ("intellectual property) of two kinds of money you find on the street--the free untainted kind and the tainted kind, you have a recognition problem. Just because something is free and has GNU stamped on it, doesn't mean it isn't "counterfeit".
Voila--we remove the viral property (people's willingness to accept genuine GNU software at face value).
This is like England fighting Louis XIV by destabilizing French currency by printing fake Francs. (Did they ever do that?). It will work where it counts--it will scare people away from sharing.
The problem is restoring confidence in the shared domain where some corporations are actively poisoning the well. (Or simply miffed their "IP" is leaking).
We need to do more than say "they can't do that". We need to find a way to fight back.
It is easy to make GPL not work, by the way--a constitutional amendment against Free Software would would. They won't call it that, of course, they will write it into a treaty provision where it has the force of constitutional law but can't be reviewed by the Supreme Court (Treaties aren't).
The Freedom to share only exists if people stand up for it. Passively counting on the GPL won't work. The GPL is a strategy, not a weapon.
It will be interesting to see if the courts buy the idea that you can put GPL'd software on your website and within some reasonable time (48 hours, 1 week, 1 year?) say "I didn't mean to do that".
Slashdot Mirror
What you are describing is the most common and original application of RDF--streaming content. RDF itself is also an XML-compatible syntax and a schema (box and arrow diagram) for that syntax. The intended interpretation of the syntax is the description of "models". That is, the RDF is a metamodel and its schema is a meta-metamodel.
Think of it like a for layer model. You have your message (data), the structure of your message (metadata), the structure of your metadata (RDF), and the structure of RDF (RDF schema). Why 4 layers? Because everyone gets tired after 3--you don't need more than pointer to pointer to void in C: **mydata. Data plus two levels of abstraction is enough--you reach closure since a pointer to a pointer is still a pointer.
Of course data describing data is also data, so you could stop at three levels. But everyone likes to think about models, not data, so you get three levels of models. RDF Schema is just a model for describing metamodels. Nothing to do with content at all, except as an application.
=googol=DSSSL got replaced by XSL/XSLT, which does have angle brackets. DSSSL works with SGML, and can be made to work on XML.
=googol=
RDF is a great idea. But it needs to loose the java and the XML. People who are attracted to those have no use for RDF--they want messages they can read without documentation. I know XML is more than that, but in the corporate world its attraction is "configuration files I can read after the author was outsourced".
There are two XML movements--one creating a kludgy layer of application bureaucracy and the other visionary. RDF presently combines the worst of both. Neither "side" really wants it. AI is happy with ontologies and the corporate world is happy with messages 100 times larger than the underlying network protocol. (Could be worse: ASN.1 anyone?)
*BUT* the underlying idea to RDF (ontologies for your metadata). RDF schema is really more important than RDF syntax. The idea is a simple model for describing metamodels. This fits in the same space as UML metamodels, and the Common Warehouse metamodels, only it is much more light weight and you can implement it with existing tools (you do have to use XML--eeeewww).
XML serves one good perpose--it makes s-expressions socially respectable in corporate world and for that I am greatful. They almost got Scheme in too (DSSSL), but the angle-bracket police got them. Too bad.
RDF can sneak in metaprogramming if you let it.
=googol=
They're not suing people for damages, they're
charging royalties. They could make minor changes then put a click through license on the website. "Non-commercial use free; commercial have your credit card ready" is the usual scam. Royalties are charged on standards all the time, unfortunately. Most of the defunct "wireless" standards from the tail end of the dot-com bust were this way. ISO gets karma points for nostalgia.
I agree it's silly. Standards are easily avoided. If not covered by a freely distributable license, never use someone else's standard. Don't even read it. Don't visit their website. Soon we will all learn to do this. It will be as reflexive as "never use code of unknown origin without a free software or open source license".
=googol=
The words "intellectual property" seduce enough people into thinking it is fair to collect money for these things. In the long run we have to treat "standards" (not the ISO's but the worthwhile ones) just like programs. They are part of the public domain and they have to be defended.
And yes, this means silly things like ISO country codes and the Dewey Decimal System (you saw the prediction here, despite Melvile being dead these 100 years....)
"IP" is like tollbooths on highways. Start paying and they will never take them away. Building roads without them takes planning, maybe regime change too (see France, 1789; U.S.A., 1776).
=googol=
Intellecutal property in two easy lessons:
Theft by value: you have something and I take it.
Theft by reference: you think of something and I
think of the same thing.
Will help you find terrorists?
*shudders*
Not quite. "et" can mean "even". I fear Greeks, even those who are bringing gifts.
=googol=
Heh.
Haven't you heard? Software is Law.
Sure. In the paragraph above it they talk about the same customer getting 210,000 warrants, not just 12,500. The name "Sun" doesn't occur in the text but is an inference from other things. The text you are quoting has mutated from the original to "clarify" its meaning.
They got 210,000 stock warrants, now worth about $3 mil, but only carried on the SCO books as $500,000. Is it really income if its equity?
SCO Corporation Cow Joke
You have one cow, which is dying.
You borrow a second cow, genetically engineered under the GPL.
You try to join the GPL herd, then leave, claiming they stole parts of your dead cow.
Eric Raymond hires the Cows with Guns.
=googol=
We do not love thee, Darl McBride,
I do not love thee, Dr. FellThe reason why we cannot grok;
But this we now, you really suck,
You cannot hide, you little f*ck.
Why not billions and billions of good things? How about Trillions? The Government should only do one thing well, you know, like good Unix design philosophy. This was known in the 19th century: Bastiat pans Socialism
HEY, LINUX! WORK HARD AND YOU WILL BE SCO'D
w hi te_paper.pdf
e l) we find
The "new SCO" (formerly Caldera) is not the only member of the Canopy
group (http://www.canopy.com) still distributing the Linux kernel.
Canopy group member Linux Networx, depite the name incorporating
alleged software pirate Linus Torvald's notorious trademark, has
distributed the latest Linux kernel but one, even after SCO made
its allegations, aggregates the kernel with the work of others,
and continues distributing the source and binaries for
that derived work today.
Now you might think that as a member of the Canopy Portfolio, Linux
Networx would respect the claimed intellectual property of another
Canopy Portfolio member. However, not even the Canopy group itself takes
SCO/Caldera's claims seriously. As recently as May 1st, 2003, Linux
Networx was uploading Linux source and binaries to the FTP site,
ftp://ftp.lnxi.com. Linux is still distributed from that venue today.
Their customers are referred to this site in the white paper for their
Linux BIOS product,
http://www.linuxnetworx.com/products/linuxbios_
There, under the linuxbios directory
(ftp://ftp.lnxi.com/pub/linuxbios/kern
linux-2.4.20.tgz 5/1/2003 3:24:00 PM
Suprisingly, however, this file is not actually the Linux 2.4.20
kernel.
4ef3a43d8fa4d8166a8bdcadd4285f80 *linux-2.4.20.tgz
It turns out to be based on linux-2.4.20.tar.gz, a pristine kernel as
downloaded from the kernel.org distribution site, with two patches
applied. Both patches are included in the toplevel directory of the
new aggregate distribution being distributed by Linux Networx. They
are:
patch-2.4.21-pre4
and
linux-2.4.21-pre4.mtd-thayne_rc1.patch
Both patches seem to be commonly available on the net.
In addition, it contains the vmlinux binary and many build artifacts,
mostly ".o" files.
Linux 2.4.21 pre4 puts this kernel on the development branch
immediately preceding today's stable Linux kernel, 2.4.22. In
addition, by aggregating this allegedly infringing kernel with two
other derivative works, created by others, Linux Networx is itself
creating and distributing a derivative work, both binary and source.
They are doing this, however, without any notation of the changes they
have made in so doing as required by the GPL--though it is easy enough
to infer from the included patch files. They are (1) calling their
aggregate distribution Linux, and (2) distributing it under the same
version as a commonly available Linux kernel.
Now, naming and distributing a Linux 2.4.21pre4 kernel with the title
"2.4.20" is a bit sloppy. It also violates the GPL provision that
your changes must be noted and clearly labelled. So, in addition to
using Linus Torvald's trademark, violating the GPL, *and* tresspassing
egregiously on SCO's alleged copyright claims, all at the same time,
Canopy group members are distributing falsely labelled kernels.
As a respected and active member of the Linux community, the Canopy
group should disavow all association with SCO's actions. Or, if they
prefer not to be respected, they should unlink alleged software pirates
like TrollTech and Linux Networx from their own homepage. Or maybe they
should just go and f^Hsue themselves.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/136646_minkweb .html
Trust me. The stock rise and the missing minks are connected. Do minks hunt penguins?
=googol=
Now that end users are involved, we should consider a class action suit against Linux booksellers--here's why:
-- the weak point of the GPL will probably prove to be the disclaimer of warranty. A court might hold that unconscionable as an industry practice.
-- this could drive a wedge between Linux distribution commercially (by XXX XXX [tm], say) and non commercial. A court might hold, for example, that XXX XXX or IBM really must warrant their distribution.
-- even if SCO loses, dredging this up could be a problem.
-- we need to mobilize more than just software distributors. Right now, McBride is saying his actions are pro-business. Actually, he is for some businesses (SCO, proprietary model software distribution) against other business segments and models. O'Reilly, McGraw-Hill and friends make more money off of Linux than SCO ever dreamed of.
-- one way to mobilize an industry segment is to scare it with legal risk. If Linux violates copyright, so do the booksellers who distribute it. Part of the reason I pay $40 for a Linux book is the convenience of not downloading Linux (or paying XXX XXX [tm] prices).
-- the business press will wake up if it looks like a software publisher vs. book publisher fight. Especially the part of the press that is owned by book publishers.... Suddenly McBride won't be a business hero. He'll be a threat.
-- how to enlist the booksellers? Sue 'em. Class action. They're exposing us to risk, selling us copyrighted material they have no right to distribute, and disclaiming all warranty too.
The idea is to end the regime of "perpetual copyright" by ensuring at least some works, which should by rights already be in the PD, get there. Right now, none do.
This is about 50 years in the past, not 50 years in the future.
=googol=
IP Law in two easy lessons
Theft by value: I take something that is yours.
Theft by reference: you think of something; I think of the same thing.
The article wasn't clear whether *freely redistributable* copyrighted material was also to be outlawed. Linux is copyrighted. Is it illegal to download it? How do you determine, then what is legal and illegal to download. Isn't everything copyrighted, more or less?
=googol=
IP Law in two easy lessons
Theft by value: I take something that is yours.
Theft by reference: you think of something; I think of the same thing.
There is an American legal theory called "legal realism" that says a law isn't a law unless people think it is and calculate their actions based on that assumption. If corporations shy away from the GPL, it doesn't matter who's right and wrong.
Anyway, a while back there was someone arguing that the GPL *won't* hold up as a license, but that it will perhaps be accepted as an industry practice.
The courts that supported shrinkwrap EULAs didn't establish a new legal principle that you could give someone an agreement under other circumstances (in junk mail envelope, say) and establish a contract by the mere act of opening it. But they upheld the software industry's customary practice.
We won't know the law until the court makes it. That's the thing about novel situations--there's no "custom" to fall back on.
A more alarming possibility is that the courts will decline to rule on the GPL because we have this or that international treaty
International treaties rank with constitutional amendments on the legal food chain, except they *aren't* reviewed by the Supreme court. They are "legislation" + "executive action" and outside court competencies--except for the World Court which we don't recognize.
So 67 men in the Senate (and maybe a woman or two) can end the GPL with one vote and no judicial review.
The future of Linux will be decided in Europe and an American treaty with the EU, not in American courts, my friend, and maybe the GPL too.**
=googol=
** The European Charter has "IP rights" written in as a fundamental property right. All it takes is one treaty where we ack the EU charter and promise conformant legislation and the FSF gets on the "xenophobic terrorists who use military grade weapons" list (xenophobia is an extraditable EU crime, IP is an inalienable property right, and encryption is a military weapon. Also, War is Peace and Ignorace is Slavery).
The trust issue is more complicated than "users perception of Linux".
Free software and the GPL in particular haven't been thoroughly tested in court. This is a position similar to "shrink-wrapped licenses" a few years ago. How can I "agree" to a contract I can't see until I open the package? Courts are sticking with the idea because it is established industry practice. Like free software licenses.
Mostly, free software depends on custom and trust, not law, despite the legal-sounding language of the GPL. We *hope* the courts won't destroy our community, just as we *hope* congress won't. But they can and might. The price of freedom....
In any event, sure, trust is and will be harmed. So how are we going to keep the trust levels up, in the face of concerted, co-ordinated attack?
The marketplace is already doing that--look at revenues.
In any event, if attacking the worldwide community of developers, users, plus their own customers *and* big corporations can't do it, I don't know what will.
Trust me. They're going down. Only problem right now is that trapped, dying animals are dangerous. They can and will do some damage.
IBM won't buy SCO because that is not how billion dollar corporations deal with IP terrorism. You don't appease small terrorists.
Why is SCO's action "IP terrorism"? Because its fundamental purpose is to destroy the remarkable social capital that the GNU license and Linux have created--the trust and co-operation of a global collaboration.
The fact SCO claims economic motives rather than ideological ones or corporate bloodlust or something doesn't matter. They are *trying* to make people suspicisous of sharing source. (AOL is doing the same thing with Nullsoft).
We will see increasing attempts to make people suspicious of "counterfeit GPLs" because terrorism pays right now.
In the long run, the social capital and trust our community has invested in Linux and GNU will have to be divided up in order to survive this sort of attack. Information may want to be free, but having a critical amount of it invested in one place invites attack. Like Napster.
The correct communal resopnse on *our* part (not to this particular attack, which is bogus, but to the swarm of them we will now get) is a more defensive posture in which the "web of trust" established.
Think of Linux and the GPL as the "gold standard" of the free software community (the thing everyone trusts). SCO and AOL are trying to panic us into thinking it is counterfeit, and engineer a corporate "bank panic" so they can mop up. They won't succeed, but they *will* decrease peoples trust in gold and drive its price down a little bit.
One response--the wrong one--would be to create a central repository of "valid GNU software" with a central agency, which would indemnify users of free software. This is the wrong approach because it makes free software quasi-proprietary--takes out the viral component of the model.
Another wrong solution is to try to make code use traceable by requiring the developer to publish deltas, not just source. This is wrong because it creates a high transaction cost (not viral, because it is not free).
The right response is to create numerous, smaller, "webs of trust" so that the whole interlocking structure is harder to attack. This is what modular kernels like the GNU/Hurd or Flux project do. Distributions will have many components, mixed and matched, pulling from the same communal pool. By spreading the IP over many projects and users, we can create the same P2P defence that is being used for the same problem in the music arena. There is no central server or even large server (Linus, IBM) to attack.
One way to solve the problem of counterfeit money is to eliminate the central authority. If everyone prints money (it's all counterfeit), then there is no one to attack. In the long run, the answer to terrorism is diversity (along with a solid defence of the "big" communal targets like Linux and the GPL).
This pushes the question of how you can trust money (software licenses) into the P2P area. You build small webs of trust that leverage the "gold standard" but in the long run do not depend on it at all. Probably, we will go through a "Bretton-Woods" stage of managed trust, before going for the free-for-all.
But. We *must* get to the free-for-all stage, or in the long run we will be hostages.
"I'd still be very hesitant to publish the files until someone with the standing to do so weighs in on the issue (Any FSF lawyers reading this?)."
IANAL, much less an FSF one. You comment applies to anything in the "free" domain--the public domain (a legal concept), and the GPL domain (a presumed legal concept that hasn't been tested), and all the other domains that try to implement a public commons and sharing.
If I find a quarter on the street, it's mine. But what if I find $5.8 million dollars. Free software is like everyone sharing and tossing money on the street. We can all take millions and millions of dollars of cool stuff and it's still there after we take it (it's not tangible).
Creating "intellectual property" as a category inherently sets up the conflict--dangerous use--you now claim this software has. Some of the free money is really free, and some of it belongs to someone. Who's to say which is which? This is the essence of the legal gambit:
Intellectual Property + FUD = no free software at all.
This has nothing to do with GPL. Neither the GPL nor any other licence can "guarantee" you won't be sued by someone for some reason. The UCC has provisions for protecting you with commercial transactions (credit card purchases--what happens if you use a check to buy something stolen at a store? Who gets to sue whom?).
Once you invent a theory ("intellectual property) of two kinds of money you find on the street--the free untainted kind and the tainted kind, you have a recognition problem. Just because something is free and has GNU stamped on it, doesn't mean it isn't "counterfeit".
Voila--we remove the viral property (people's willingness to accept genuine GNU software at face value).
This is like England fighting Louis XIV by destabilizing French currency by printing fake Francs. (Did they ever do that?). It will work where it counts--it will scare people away from sharing.
The problem is restoring confidence in the shared domain where some corporations are actively poisoning the well. (Or simply miffed their "IP" is leaking).
We need to do more than say "they can't do that". We need to find a way to fight back.
It is easy to make GPL not work, by the way--a constitutional amendment against Free Software would would. They won't call it that, of course, they will write it into a treaty provision where it has the force of constitutional law but can't be reviewed by the Supreme Court (Treaties aren't).
The Freedom to share only exists if people stand up for it. Passively counting on the GPL won't work. The GPL is a strategy, not a weapon.
It will be interesting to see if the courts buy the idea that you can put GPL'd software on your website and within some reasonable time (48 hours, 1 week, 1 year?) say "I didn't mean to do that".