A very good point. I think if you take government out of the equation, the companies themselves will effectively become governments. In countries lacking governance and infrastructure, companies already provide their own security and in some cases, health care for their workers.
The East India Company is an imperfect example, although it couldn't have originally started without governmental permission. I don't think we've ever had a proper example in recorded history since the distinction between company and government gets blurred.
It's true that I can't relicence the existing code unless I'm the author but there's no reason why I can't place my additions under a separate licence. In practice it's a nightmare when this happens which is why I'm glad that the OpenBSD devs try to avoid these situations, at least in the core OS.
As far as I'm aware, the GPL stops this from happening but the BSD licence doesn't.
The point is that Theo has had some outbursts against companies that are enjoying the benefits of BSD licenced code without giving back to the community. It's not like he's totally beholden to companies while being angry only with GPL users - he has quite a bit of anger there and is willing to spread it around when he wants to.
Yep, I think that clarifies things perfectly, very nice post. I suppose the moral of the story is that when you allow a lot of freedom, you can't be too surprised when your lawmower vanishes for weeks on end.
Although for legal purposes, a licence should clarify exactly how the authors intend it to work, there will always be a 'spirit'. That is a principle found in law. For example, financial legislation in the UK tends to differ from that of the US in that we rely more on the spirit of the law. It has downsides but there is one clear advantage. Strict rules invite people to search for loopholes. You can be in compliance with the law yet totally defeat the purpose of it, as we saw with GPLv2 and the Tivoisation situation. The FSF were quite rightly annoyed since a quick read of the GNU philosphy would make it clear how the GPL should be interpreted, however a philosophy won't stand up in court.
By attributing a spirit to a law, loopholes are more difficult to exploit if your intended behaviour clearly runs contrary to the aims of the law.
The BSD licence ulitmately relies on a certain amount of trust that people will do the right thing. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. Closing all loopholes will create a licence that will hurt user adoption of the product.
Bullshit. Read this comment regarding vendors using SSH that Theo posted on one of the OpenSSH mailing lists.
These vendors include:
Sun Apple IBM HP Cisco Netgear RedHat SuSe
most operating system vendors except Microsoft
nearly other major network equipment manufacturer
(but many other vendors too)
These vendors have never given us even a dime. (To put it more clearly, IBM loaned one developer a machine to make sure that OpenSSH would run better on it, but they INSISTED on it being a loan instead of just giving it to the developer).
I understand how this might upset him, however I don't see how this is any different then a company taking a portion of BSD licensed code and using it in their product without adding any contributions back to any community besides their own shareholders.
Technically there is no difference but you would hope that fellow free software writers would try to give something back. OpenSSH is an example of code that is incredibly widely used yet few comercial users contribute code or offer donations. The problem though is that OpenSSH would probably not be as ubiquitous if it had been released under a more restrictive licence. It all comes back to a question. Are you observing the strict letter of the law or are you behaving ethically? They are not always the same thing.
Perhaps, but it's more similar to the trust that we show each other every day. If you ask for me for help, I'll probably offer help. If you take my advice and don't even say thanks, I'll think that rude but I'll continue to offer to help people because sometimes people will appreciate the assistance and help me in future or even just say thanks. Even if I believe in the idea of helping people, there's nothing wrong with me getting angry if someone abuses that generosity, and yes, I am partially to blame for allowing someone to take advantage of me.
You hit the nail on the head. Most arguments made against Theo seem to be based on the fact that the dual-licence allowed this to happen. This ignores the idea of professional courtesy.
For example, I could invite you around my house and say "If you're hungry, grab something from the fridge". While it would be 'legal' for you to empty the entire contents of my fridge in to the back of your car and drive off with all my food, it's not exactly ethical.
The BSD licence is chosen to allow as much freedom as possible. Of course this comes with the risk that people will just plunder the code and never give anything back, or release additions under a more restrictive licence. The letter of the law shouldn't be the only thing that guides us though - we have to think of the spirit in which the licence was created. The Tivoisation controversy is a good example in which the GPL was technically observed yet the spirit, at least in the eyes of the FSF, was violated.
The BSD licence relies more on trust and good intentions than the GPL does. A BSD licence would be the take a penny leave a penny dish on the shop counter. I could drop a penny in there when I have a spare one or I could just empty the dish in to my pocket and not care. The GPL version would require you to repay the penny you took when you next return to the shop, I would not be able to simply take all the pennies.
Personally I think that anyone using code created by others should observe the spirit of the licence, not just the letter of the law - It's common courtesy. If I take GPLed code and make improvements, I'll contribute the code back even if I don't plan on distributing my new version. If I develop anything running on OpenBSD, where practical I'll release it under a BSD licence and likewise with GNU/Linux, I'll dual-licence it under both the BSD and GPL licences.
If something is dual-licenced, you're right that anyone can chose the licence that suits them best. The problem seems that not all the code was GPL'ed. He was taking stuff that was only released under a BSD licence. Either that or we're dealing with GPL'ed code that was really badly commented - i.e. the old BSD licence text wasn't removed. I think it's the former since the author was pretty quick to add the BSD licence text back to the code when the OpenBSD people raised the issue.
Since it would be impossible to comply with GPLv2 and the BSD licence, I've no idea how that would be dealt with. It would be a case of them saying "You must make the source code available but you don't have to make the source code available".
I think you may be suggesting that Slashdot go way beyond what it does best. In order for a forum to function and attract people with expertise, it has to have some kind of focus. The James Randi forum attracts scientifically minded sceptical people. The Why Won't God Heal Amputees forum attracts pretty much everyone from the atheist/religious spectrum. Slashdot attracts geeks an techies. All of those forums have a high level of expertise in them, something they could do, for example if the James Randi forum branched out in to discussing macro economics, tractor design and hair styling.
I think you'd be better off checking out a site that deals with human rights and general freedom issues. Reporters without borders and Amnesty Internation come to mind.
Cheers. Yeah, the error is certainly not of the magnitude of the GPL'ed code in OpenBSD, that went far deeper than this one. In this case, I think the guy who stripped the licence text has behaved quite honourably once he was made aware of the situation. I've seen malicious licence violation (BSD and GPL) in the past and this certainly wasn't it.
I'll concede that point, I think I was in a strangely mellow mood when I originally posted. I can understand Theo's frustration, consdidering how simple the BSD licence is, but I certainly don't see the "OMG" approach as anything but a last restort.
My mistake - bad wording. When I said author, I was referring to the guy who had made the modifications and removed the BSD licence text, not the original author/copyright holder.
That's a pretty interesting point, I've never thought of fair use in the context of code. In the case of the author who has borrowed some code, I wouldn't want to be in their shoes. Depending on the amount of code used, you may be at the mercy of the court since the whole fair use isn't that clear cut in this kind of situation.
And that relates to IT, geeks or geek culture how?
Last time I checked, Slashdot wasn't aimed at the betterment of Asian religions. Now, if China had banned their web-site, perhaps there would be a very vague link.
Yeah, that's exactly the impression I got from the response. Slashdot is a news site for a primarily geeky audience. I know they've stopped asking for proof of geekiness when you register but still, we need some standards. Had the Chinese edict been related to IT, geek culture or laws that affect geeks then it'd make sense to post it here. Since it had nothing to do with either of those areas, it's just another "OMG, LOOK WUT CHINA DONE!!" stories.
It's healthy to have a broad knowledge of the world but there's a time and a place. If I want to see what's happening in the world, I'll go to BBC News or pick up The Economist. If I want geeky news, I'll come to Slashdot.
It's a bit more than that. He removed the BSD licence text, thus illegally changing the licence.
It's no different to me taking a GPL'ed project and changing it to a BSD licence. My goal is noble in that I think everyone should have the right to steal but that doesn't change the fact that I'm going against the wishes of the author, and breaking the law in the process. It doesn't matter that the BSD version is still out there any more than it would if there was still a GPL'ed version of the Linux kernel floating around but HP decided to fork and relicence under a BSD licence.
OpenBSD developers have time and time again claimed "moral superiority" over GNU and Linux due to their adoption of a license that allows code to be used in closed projects. It always was a specious argument, but it's looking all the more absurd today.
Claiming any particular licence (BSD/GPL) to be superior is like asserting that cars are superior to helicopters. In far too many cases, the licences are dragged in to try to justify a bad argument, and the fault lies with both camps. GNU and BSD zealots alike adopt Talibanesque positions that do nothing but harm to the community.
This story should have been a simple clear-cut case it weren't for a small rabble-rousing group. Funnily enough, Theo posted a fairly decent and non-inflamatory respones in the early discussions. This is in stark contrast to the earlier GPL case (mentioned in your post) where his reaction was indefensible.
Incidentally, the BSD licence infringement has already taken place. That happened as soon as the author distributed the code with the licence stripped from it. Doesn't matter whether or not it hit a main-stream kernel. As soon as he made it available to others, distribution kicked-in. That said, the author has a case to answer for but certainly not the entire Linux community the "OMG LINUX STOLE OUR CODE!" crowd would have us think.
More like +20 Bloody Amazing. The story reminds me of what Slashdot used to be like before it descended in to a mess of trivia and knee-jerk scare stories. The decline began when BSD vanished from the front page.
Slashdot Mirror
A very good point. I think if you take government out of the equation, the companies themselves will effectively become governments. In countries lacking governance and infrastructure, companies already provide their own security and in some cases, health care for their workers.
The East India Company is an imperfect example, although it couldn't have originally started without governmental permission. I don't think we've ever had a proper example in recorded history since the distinction between company and government gets blurred.
It's true that I can't relicence the existing code unless I'm the author but there's no reason why I can't place my additions under a separate licence. In practice it's a nightmare when this happens which is why I'm glad that the OpenBSD devs try to avoid these situations, at least in the core OS.
As far as I'm aware, the GPL stops this from happening but the BSD licence doesn't.
The point is that Theo has had some outbursts against companies that are enjoying the benefits of BSD licenced code without giving back to the community. It's not like he's totally beholden to companies while being angry only with GPL users - he has quite a bit of anger there and is willing to spread it around when he wants to.
Yep, I think that clarifies things perfectly, very nice post. I suppose the moral of the story is that when you allow a lot of freedom, you can't be too surprised when your lawmower vanishes for weeks on end.
Although for legal purposes, a licence should clarify exactly how the authors intend it to work, there will always be a 'spirit'. That is a principle found in law. For example, financial legislation in the UK tends to differ from that of the US in that we rely more on the spirit of the law. It has downsides but there is one clear advantage. Strict rules invite people to search for loopholes. You can be in compliance with the law yet totally defeat the purpose of it, as we saw with GPLv2 and the Tivoisation situation. The FSF were quite rightly annoyed since a quick read of the GNU philosphy would make it clear how the GPL should be interpreted, however a philosophy won't stand up in court.
By attributing a spirit to a law, loopholes are more difficult to exploit if your intended behaviour clearly runs contrary to the aims of the law.
The BSD licence ulitmately relies on a certain amount of trust that people will do the right thing. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. Closing all loopholes will create a licence that will hurt user adoption of the product.
http://marc.info/?l=openssh-unix-dev&m=1143162246
You can't get much direct than that. I suggest you visit the link and read the rest of his mail.
I understand how this might upset him, however I don't see how this is any different then a company taking a portion of BSD licensed code and using it in their product without adding any contributions back to any community besides their own shareholders.
Technically there is no difference but you would hope that fellow free software writers would try to give something back. OpenSSH is an example of code that is incredibly widely used yet few comercial users contribute code or offer donations. The problem though is that OpenSSH would probably not be as ubiquitous if it had been released under a more restrictive licence. It all comes back to a question. Are you observing the strict letter of the law or are you behaving ethically? They are not always the same thing.
Perhaps, but it's more similar to the trust that we show each other every day. If you ask for me for help, I'll probably offer help. If you take my advice and don't even say thanks, I'll think that rude but I'll continue to offer to help people because sometimes people will appreciate the assistance and help me in future or even just say thanks. Even if I believe in the idea of helping people, there's nothing wrong with me getting angry if someone abuses that generosity, and yes, I am partially to blame for allowing someone to take advantage of me.
You hit the nail on the head. Most arguments made against Theo seem to be based on the fact that the dual-licence allowed this to happen. This ignores the idea of professional courtesy.
For example, I could invite you around my house and say "If you're hungry, grab something from the fridge". While it would be 'legal' for you to empty the entire contents of my fridge in to the back of your car and drive off with all my food, it's not exactly ethical.
The BSD licence is chosen to allow as much freedom as possible. Of course this comes with the risk that people will just plunder the code and never give anything back, or release additions under a more restrictive licence. The letter of the law shouldn't be the only thing that guides us though - we have to think of the spirit in which the licence was created. The Tivoisation controversy is a good example in which the GPL was technically observed yet the spirit, at least in the eyes of the FSF, was violated.
The BSD licence relies more on trust and good intentions than the GPL does. A BSD licence would be the take a penny leave a penny dish on the shop counter. I could drop a penny in there when I have a spare one or I could just empty the dish in to my pocket and not care. The GPL version would require you to repay the penny you took when you next return to the shop, I would not be able to simply take all the pennies.
Personally I think that anyone using code created by others should observe the spirit of the licence, not just the letter of the law - It's common courtesy. If I take GPLed code and make improvements, I'll contribute the code back even if I don't plan on distributing my new version. If I develop anything running on OpenBSD, where practical I'll release it under a BSD licence and likewise with GNU/Linux, I'll dual-licence it under both the BSD and GPL licences.
If something is dual-licenced, you're right that anyone can chose the licence that suits them best. The problem seems that not all the code was GPL'ed. He was taking stuff that was only released under a BSD licence. Either that or we're dealing with GPL'ed code that was really badly commented - i.e. the old BSD licence text wasn't removed. I think it's the former since the author was pretty quick to add the BSD licence text back to the code when the OpenBSD people raised the issue.
Since it would be impossible to comply with GPLv2 and the BSD licence, I've no idea how that would be dealt with. It would be a case of them saying "You must make the source code available but you don't have to make the source code available".
I think you may be suggesting that Slashdot go way beyond what it does best. In order for a forum to function and attract people with expertise, it has to have some kind of focus. The James Randi forum attracts scientifically minded sceptical people. The Why Won't God Heal Amputees forum attracts pretty much everyone from the atheist/religious spectrum. Slashdot attracts geeks an techies. All of those forums have a high level of expertise in them, something they could do, for example if the James Randi forum branched out in to discussing macro economics, tractor design and hair styling.
I think you'd be better off checking out a site that deals with human rights and general freedom issues. Reporters without borders and Amnesty Internation come to mind.
I'm handing in my geek badge right now, I can't believe I missed that one.
Cheers. Yeah, the error is certainly not of the magnitude of the GPL'ed code in OpenBSD, that went far deeper than this one. In this case, I think the guy who stripped the licence text has behaved quite honourably once he was made aware of the situation. I've seen malicious licence violation (BSD and GPL) in the past and this certainly wasn't it.
I'll concede that point, I think I was in a strangely mellow mood when I originally posted. I can understand Theo's frustration, consdidering how simple the BSD licence is, but I certainly don't see the "OMG" approach as anything but a last restort.
My mistake - bad wording. When I said author, I was referring to the guy who had made the modifications and removed the BSD licence text, not the original author/copyright holder.
That's a pretty interesting point, I've never thought of fair use in the context of code. In the case of the author who has borrowed some code, I wouldn't want to be in their shoes. Depending on the amount of code used, you may be at the mercy of the court since the whole fair use isn't that clear cut in this kind of situation.
And that relates to IT, geeks or geek culture how?
Last time I checked, Slashdot wasn't aimed at the betterment of Asian religions. Now, if China had banned their web-site, perhaps there would be a very vague link.
Yeah, that's exactly the impression I got from the response. Slashdot is a news site for a primarily geeky audience. I know they've stopped asking for proof of geekiness when you register but still, we need some standards. Had the Chinese edict been related to IT, geek culture or laws that affect geeks then it'd make sense to post it here. Since it had nothing to do with either of those areas, it's just another "OMG, LOOK WUT CHINA DONE!!" stories.
It's healthy to have a broad knowledge of the world but there's a time and a place. If I want to see what's happening in the world, I'll go to BBC News or pick up The Economist. If I want geeky news, I'll come to Slashdot.
It's a bit more than that. He removed the BSD licence text, thus illegally changing the licence.
It's no different to me taking a GPL'ed project and changing it to a BSD licence. My goal is noble in that I think everyone should have the right to steal but that doesn't change the fact that I'm going against the wishes of the author, and breaking the law in the process. It doesn't matter that the BSD version is still out there any more than it would if there was still a GPL'ed version of the Linux kernel floating around but HP decided to fork and relicence under a BSD licence.
OpenBSD developers have time and time again claimed "moral superiority" over GNU and Linux due to their adoption of a license that allows code to be used in closed projects. It always was a specious argument, but it's looking all the more absurd today.
Claiming any particular licence (BSD/GPL) to be superior is like asserting that cars are superior to helicopters. In far too many cases, the licences are dragged in to try to justify a bad argument, and the fault lies with both camps. GNU and BSD zealots alike adopt Talibanesque positions that do nothing but harm to the community.
This story should have been a simple clear-cut case it weren't for a small rabble-rousing group. Funnily enough, Theo posted a fairly decent and non-inflamatory respones in the early discussions. This is in stark contrast to the earlier GPL case (mentioned in your post) where his reaction was indefensible.
Incidentally, the BSD licence infringement has already taken place. That happened as soon as the author distributed the code with the licence stripped from it. Doesn't matter whether or not it hit a main-stream kernel. As soon as he made it available to others, distribution kicked-in. That said, the author has a case to answer for but certainly not the entire Linux community the "OMG LINUX STOLE OUR CODE!" crowd would have us think.
As I understand it, not all of the code was dual-licenced. That's where the problem lies.
In other news, Slashdot changes its slogan to "News for nerds, stuff that matters and anything that happens in China".
It's certainly a censorship issue but hardly related to the techie world, unless I missed the RFC on Buddhist reincarnation.
Fair points, let's hope they manage to get decent performance out of it then.
More like +20 Bloody Amazing. The story reminds me of what Slashdot used to be like before it descended in to a mess of trivia and knee-jerk scare stories. The decline began when BSD vanished from the front page.