No, I'd expect him to be able to make any other deal he cared to, so long as the contract said that the copy he provided to X had no copyright, rather than no copies had copyright.
You might consider disclaiming copyright in a contract with the customer. The customer can then apply any license they choose to that copy, and all other copies remain under BSD.
This means you only need a lawyer to draft a very brief contract that says, in effect, "for consideration X, I agree to supply Y to Z without any warranty, expressed or implied".
And software used to all have copy protection. Vendors consistently found that when they removed it, sales *increased*, and as a result, only a few apps today incorporate any significant DRM.
Very true! One of my old employers decided to not use "copy protection", causing our ex-Lotus CEO to check the results rathercarefully. He was pleasantly surprised to find we were spending far less in customer support, since we didn't have to replace significant numbers of non-working copies, and the shrinkage ("piracy") rate was about the same.
Returns started reducing my profits about three years after publication, and never make a quarter go below zero. They only make the long tail take a downward step some years out.
And people rarely return books to bookstores: In a ten-year period I
personally returned one (it was deeply warped) and gave refunds to customers for perhaps two more.
The returns you see are bookstores sending books back that have been gathering dust.
Technical books are reasonably profitable to their authors: novels are substantially less so, modulo the occasional best-seller.
Actually I and O'Reilly profited from the physical-book sales of "Using Samba", which was shipped in electronic form with every copy of Samba.
Nerds, you see, buy physical books. They lose on searchability (unless the indexer actually does his job) but gain on size, weight, cost and readability-in-the-bathtub (;-))
Canada (currently*) has it better: if someone gives a legal notice to the ISP, the ISP passes it on to the customer to decide.
I think the notice required is whatever one typically gives in order to commence a lawsuit, but I haven't read all of Halsbury's yet, so I don't know (;-))
--dave
* This may change if the secret antipiracy treaty currently being debated worldwide passes.
Yes, I found that odd: the logical presumption was that he meant GPL v3, but that's not the language I'd expect if he did.
Ah well, letters written by committees (:-))
I rather suspect Larry's hoping to eat Microsoft SQL's lunch, which explains why he would buy InnoDB and them put a team on improving it's performance. Sun *always* like to compete with MS, which in part explains their performance work on MySQL proper...
Factually, Oracle bought InnoDB and improved it's performance, while Sun bought MySQL proper and improved it's performance. Not a rational use of their money if the aim was to kill the product. In fact, something of the opposite to what one would want to do to kill it.
According to Groklaw, the objectors to the deal were Microsoft, who competes with MySQL, SAP, who competes with Oracle, and Monty, who has some kind of relationship with Microsoft, albeit not one involving an explicit employer/employee relationship.
I smell a rat, arguably involving our favorite monopolist.
They are now questioning (with good reason) whether the number of major players in the Database market should be reduced as Oracle gain even more dominance.
Actually it turns out the complainants claiming that MySQL must be protected are Microsoft, who would love to see both Sun and MySQL die, and SAP, who just want anything that will hurt a competitor. Neither of them know or care that we're talking about:
free software, which can and has been forked, and
a company who bought a supposed competitor, InnoDB, and invested money improving it.
I think they're just astroturfing the EC for their own benefit.
--dave (I'm biased: I want the deal to go through so I can get some more capacity planning gigs) c-b
That's a fair criticism: there is a lovely set of additional problems opened up by this solution to a particular problem (;-))
However, the "Jack" series is written a bit tongue-in-cheek, in part to poke fun at the people who "know" that maintenance is an unsolvable problem. Ditto folks who "know" that bandwidth is the only network metric (;-))
We know (and appreciate hearing about!) the follow-on problems.
Actually there was one high-threat environment in the v6 days, PWB (Programmers WorkBench). It had competing contractors using it as a front end to a production G(E)COS system, and they exposed a number of silly security issues.
The other known objector is Microsoft, who arguably should want to kill Sun (and Scott in particular), as well as any competitor to MS SQL. Having Oracle more strongly supporting MySQL has got to be A
Bad Thing for them (;-))
Ellison publicly said that he wants to compete with MS SQL, and it turns out that MS is one of the objectors. Do you suppose Microsoft doesn't want to compete with Oracle? Say it isn't so!
There are also "brinch hansen" files, named after Per Brinch Hansen, who implemented them in (from memory) the R2000 OS. They were write-once, read-once, and they disappeared "soon" after the reader read the block.
They were used for large-scale intercommunication, rather like a pipe or queue, but larger and on-disk. That allowed one to pick up and continue from where you left off if your program or OS crashed, modulo some definition of "soon".
Groklaw also broke the story that MS is either one of or the complainant, that Monty is part of their (arguably bogus) open-source initiative, and that some of the legal arguing is explicitly anti-GPL.
As a business, MS has no real reason to complain that Oracle might hurt MySQL. They should be hoping that MySQL is hurt, to the advantage of the MS sql server.
I read it as an effort to distract the EC and get an easy "out" of some of the penalties that MS faces. Plus get back at Scott for all the unkind things he said about Microsoft (;-))
Sure: see the linked-to groklaw article, http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20091021164738392
I don't doubt they are legitimately concerned, but the discovery that MS is one of/the complainant suggests that there's more than legit concerns (;))
They didn't expect Microsoft to complain to the EC about a non-credible risk to a product that MS competes with...
After the fact, one can see why MS wanted the EC and Ms. Kroes to be distracted from enforcing their rulings against MS. Beforehand, though, one wouldn't really predict that MS would astroturf the EC over MySQL, of all things!
I see it as astroturfing the EU: dredging up simulated public support for
a bogus problem to distract the commission from it's own bad behavior. With luck, they can distract the EC until the current head leaves, then make a deal for reduced penalties...
And, of course, get back at Sun for all the uncomplimentary things Scott's said about them!
Me? I want the deal to go through, in part because Sun and Oracle customers
often hire capacity planners (;-))
And also because Microsoft doesn't deserve to get away with it.
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No, I'd expect him to be able to make any other deal he cared to, so long as the contract said that the copy he provided to X had no copyright, rather than no copies had copyright.
The latter would indeed cause problems!
--dave
You might consider disclaiming copyright in a contract with the customer. The customer can then apply any license they choose to that copy, and all other copies remain under BSD.
This means you only need a lawyer to draft a very brief contract that says, in effect, "for consideration X, I agree to supply Y to Z without any warranty, expressed or implied".
--dave
He's just pushing a straw-man argument, having unwisely made it for MySQL, and after embaressingly being caught twisting RMS's words (see groklaw, http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20100108114314405).
I fear he's strictly in this for himself and his friends, a certain well-know monopolist with a "Codeplex" Foundation...
Bother! I wanted this to be over months ago, so I could get more consulting from Sun's (Now Oracle's) customers.
--dave
Actually, the Mounties should have been given the responsibility, since the crime was committed over the village of Petrolia, Ontario (;-))
--dave
Relax, the posting is just a troll. Read the article.
--dave
Interestingly, this closely resembles the discussion of the system image used in Xerox PARC Smalltalk....
--dave
dgatwood said
And software used to all have copy protection. Vendors consistently found that when they removed it, sales *increased*, and as a result, only a few apps today incorporate any significant DRM.
Very true! One of my old employers decided to not use "copy protection", causing our ex-Lotus CEO to check the results rathercarefully. He was pleasantly surprised to find we were spending far less in customer support, since we didn't have to replace significant numbers of non-working copies, and the shrinkage ("piracy") rate was about the same.
--dave
Returns started reducing my profits about three years after publication, and never make a quarter go below zero. They only make the long tail take a downward step some years out.
And people rarely return books to bookstores: In a ten-year period I personally returned one (it was deeply warped) and gave refunds to customers for perhaps two more.
The returns you see are bookstores sending books back that have been gathering dust.
Technical books are reasonably profitable to their authors: novels are substantially less so, modulo the occasional best-seller.
--dave
Actually I and O'Reilly profited from the physical-book sales of "Using Samba", which was shipped in electronic form with every copy of Samba.
Nerds, you see, buy physical books. They lose on searchability (unless the indexer actually does his job) but gain on size, weight, cost and readability-in-the-bathtub (;-))
--dave
Canada (currently*) has it better: if someone gives a legal notice to the ISP, the ISP passes it on to the customer to decide.
I think the notice required is whatever one typically gives in order to commence a lawsuit, but I haven't read all of Halsbury's yet, so I don't know (;-))
--dave
* This may change if the secret antipiracy treaty currently being debated worldwide passes.
Yes, I found that odd: the logical presumption was that he meant GPL v3, but that's not the language I'd expect if he did. Ah well, letters written by committees (:-))
--dave
--dave
Factually, Oracle bought InnoDB and improved it's performance, while Sun bought MySQL proper and improved it's performance. Not a rational use of their money if the aim was to kill the product. In fact, something of the opposite to what one would want to do to kill it.
According to Groklaw, the objectors to the deal were Microsoft, who competes with MySQL, SAP, who competes with Oracle, and Monty, who has some kind of relationship with Microsoft, albeit not one involving an explicit employer/employee relationship.
I smell a rat, arguably involving our favorite monopolist.
--dave
They are now questioning (with good reason) whether the number of major players in the Database market should be reduced as Oracle gain even more dominance.
Actually it turns out the complainants claiming that MySQL must be protected are Microsoft, who would love to see both Sun and MySQL die, and SAP, who just want anything that will hurt a competitor. Neither of them know or care that we're talking about:
I think they're just astroturfing the EC for their own benefit.
--dave (I'm biased: I want the deal to go through so I can get some more capacity planning gigs) c-b
That's a fair criticism: there is a lovely set of additional problems opened up by this solution to a particular problem (;-))
However, the "Jack" series is written a bit tongue-in-cheek, in part to poke fun at the people who "know" that maintenance is an unsolvable problem. Ditto folks who "know" that bandwidth is the only network metric (;-))
We know (and appreciate hearing about!) the follow-on problems.
--dave
I quite agree: the untyped systems of the days were languages like B (predecessor to C) and BCPL.
--dave
Actually there was one high-threat environment in the v6 days, PWB (Programmers WorkBench). It had competing contractors using it as a front end to a production G(E)COS system, and they exposed a number of silly security issues.
--dave
Surely there is a suitable U.S. law to apply to someone who pulls a stunt like this? If it were done by a soldier, "treason" might just fit...
--dave
The other known objector is Microsoft, who arguably should want to kill Sun (and Scott in particular), as well as any competitor to MS SQL. Having Oracle more strongly supporting MySQL has got to be A Bad Thing for them (;-))
--dave
Ellison publicly said that he wants to compete with MS SQL, and it turns out that MS is one of the objectors. Do you suppose Microsoft doesn't want to compete with Oracle? Say it isn't so!
--dave
There are also "brinch hansen" files, named after Per Brinch Hansen, who implemented them in (from memory) the R2000 OS. They were write-once, read-once, and they disappeared "soon" after the reader read the block.
They were used for large-scale intercommunication, rather like a pipe or queue, but larger and on-disk. That allowed one to pick up and continue from where you left off if your program or OS crashed, modulo some definition of "soon".
--dave
Groklaw also broke the story that MS is either one of or the complainant, that Monty is part of their (arguably bogus) open-source initiative, and that some of the legal arguing is explicitly anti-GPL.
As a business, MS has no real reason to complain that Oracle might hurt MySQL. They should be hoping that MySQL is hurt, to the advantage of the MS sql server.
I read it as an effort to distract the EC and get an easy "out" of some of the penalties that MS faces. Plus get back at Scott for all the unkind things he said about Microsoft (;-))
--dave
--dave
They didn't expect Microsoft to complain to the EC about a non-credible risk to a product that MS competes with...
After the fact, one can see why MS wanted the EC and Ms. Kroes to be distracted from enforcing their rulings against MS. Beforehand, though, one wouldn't really predict that MS would astroturf the EC over MySQL, of all things!
--dave
Actually it's our favorite monopolist, who's been identified on Groklaw as one of the complainants.
And MS now employs Monty Widenius(sp?), and is making a push before the EC against the GPL: see http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20091021164738392
I see it as astroturfing the EU: dredging up simulated public support for a bogus problem to distract the commission from it's own bad behavior. With luck, they can distract the EC until the current head leaves, then make a deal for reduced penalties...
And, of course, get back at Sun for all the uncomplimentary things Scott's said about them!
Me? I want the deal to go through, in part because Sun and Oracle customers often hire capacity planners (;-))
And also because Microsoft doesn't deserve to get away with it.
--dave