Errors like this are pardon parcel with someone having learned the language from speaking and not from reading. This is slashdot, after all, and we're not looking for people to post pullet surprise quality comments, but it is discouraging to see people make mistakes like using the wrong word. The original poster could of used a dictionary or thesaurus to avoid that mistake. For all intensive purposes your words are the only measure that others can use to judge your credibility. You loose credibility if you can't form a coherent and compelling argument. This is the affect of writing poorly.
So, to the original poster I say this: "Your a idiot."
The GPL is quite usable for making money. Consider TrollTech, the providers of QT. . . . the fact that proprietary developers don't like the GPL means that Troll Tech can sell developer licenses at significant cost.
The fact that developers will pay a lot of money for the ability to avoid the GPL isn't really helping your case. In fact, I'd say it does a great job demonstrating that the GPL is unusable for making money.
Although, to be fair, a more precise phrase would be that the GPL does a great job making it impossible to make money by selling software. It isn't a hinderance for people who want to carve out a living doing other, quasi-related things like support or making cardboard boxes to put CDs in.
Your statement is flawed. It is impossible to take BSD licensed code and "turn it into" proprietary code. Any subsequent derivative secret code is entirely the product of the person who developed it, and does not affect the original code intended to be freely available.
FreeBSD did not "turn into" MacOS X. It's still just as available as it is supposed to be, and will always be available.
I prefer having both kinds of freedom, personally, which is exactly what the BSD and other defensive opensource licenses provide.
There is no such thing as a "GPL Compatible" license in the sense that you are trying to use it, and the people telling you that you cannot link to GPL code with anything but other GPL code are correct.
This confusion stems from the unique usage of the word "compatible" that is used by the FSF. When the FSF talks about "compatible" licenses, they mean licenses which allow the covered code to be re-licensed as GPL'd code.
Sure, if you can devise a way to do so which doesn't lessen the park at all (as would be the case of taking public domain code and "turning it into" a proprietary product).
This is the fallacy of your analogy, since public domain code, even without the GPL's far-reaching limitations, can't be "turned into" anything. It will remain available as a work of the public commons and available to all regardless of the ways which it may be used by individual or industry.
The restrictions of the GPL are not necessary to protect the availability of the original code, they are designed to hinder the ability of others to use the code in ways which the FSF disagrees.
It is absurd that you equate not supporting linux with burning to death.
It is also very myopic that you seem oblivious to the fact that not supporting linux is the option Microsoft has chosen. To prevent them from being able to retain this choice denies them "the control over their own fate" that you claim to want them to have.
Our customers rely upon us for SMTP/POP3. When ISP's kill outbound 25 - it makes it difficult.............however, when MSN decides that they will ONLY allow HTTP traffic on their network, and block ALL POP3/SMTP traffic - that makes it impossible to compete doesn't it?
What do you mean? Do you mean that you'll be hindered if you are no longer able to connect to a dialup user's port 25? Why on earth would you need to do that?
Or do you mean that you're trying to run an smtp server on an MSN account? That just makes it impossible to run a business off a residential class internet connection? Why is that a bad thing?
Why should I be scared or offended? If someone's distributing copyrighted materials without permission then I think it's a perfectly fine thing for the copyright holder to pursue legal avenues to get them to stop.
I only get scared and offended when a copyright holder attempts to ban entire technologies, or attempts to bypass the existing and sufficient legal options which are currently in place.
Do you get scared and offended when the FSF attempts to enforce the GPL when someone violates it? How is this any different?
The GPL is restrictive in only one sense. It restricts your ability to impose further restrictions on others.
This is flawed in many respects. Firstly, the GPL does nothing of the sort. I can take GPL'd code, change it, and refuse to share my changes with anyone. In a sense, I am then imposing a further restriction on others.
More importantly and less pedantic, however, is that the GPL is restrictive in many senses with far-reaching and complicated impact.
The GPL, for instance, restricts your ability to take GPL'd code and make it less restricted. You cannot, for instance, take GPL'd code and turn it into public domain code.
It is also at the expense of people who want to produce BSD licensed, or Apache licensed, or XFree86 licensed, or public domain software and give it to the world.
It might also be at the expense of entities who wish to produce proprietary software which is compatible with or interfaces effectively with the government-sponsored code, depending on the nature of that government-sponsored code.
He does understand. Like anyone who prefers a license other than the GPL (this includes all the fine folks working on XFree86, the BSDs, Apache, and even public domain works) any code which is GPL'd is completely useless to him.
As a coder who prefers the BSD license, I am not able to use, copy, or modify GPL'd code.
This is only true if you are willing to pretend that "use" doesn't mean what it really means and that "using source code" doesn't include using the source code.
GPL'd apps can be used, but the source code is completely inaccessable to anyone who prefers a license which isn't the GPL.
For a great deal of research software development, the "product" of the development is the code and not just the utility one expects to get from running the code.
No, this is in fact one of the worst possible situations to use GPL'd code. A GPL implementation of an open file format creates a disincentive for a company to embrace that file format in their software. Imagine if TCP/IP were originally implemented as GPL'd code. No commercial vendor in the world would have been able to touch the code, slowing or even thwarting adoption.
If a company has to re-create the code themselves in order to maintain their ability to choose their own licensing, then there's no real benefit to adhering to the open file format. And even if they did choose to embrace the open file format, it's possible that their attempt to reverse-engineer or re-implement the format would turn out to be faulty which would introduce incompatibilities also harming the utility of the format.
For code you hope will achieve widespread adoption you want the least encumbered license possible, not the GPL. The GPL is just too much of an impediment since it's only useful to other people who also choose to use the GPL.
No, it's not really. The "trying to use" portion of your analogy is not an element of the licensing incompatibility. The licenses are at odds even if the user makes no attempt to fraudulently obtain service/support on an installation.
If you don't want the services, you can still use the software.
The EULA specifically says that this is not the case. You are not permitted to use the software in the absence of a paid service agreement. The documents quoted are not specific to only the RHN and support channels, but rather cover the software itself.
No, you cannot. Red Hat AS is not available for download, and its EULA prohibits you from installing it without having purchased a support agreement. This despite the fact that it is GPL'd software. This is the crux of the matter.
You are free to run the software, but if you haven't signed the support contract, it's not "Advanced Server"
If this is what the license actually said then there wouldn't be a problem. However, this is not at all what the license says. Rather, the license says you are not free to run the software in the absence of a paid support contract.
RH doesn't impose conditions on the downloading or installation or usage of "their" GPL software.
I don't believe this is correct. I read the exact opposite in fact:
If Customer wishes to increase the number of Installed Servers, then Customer will purchase from Red Hat additional Services for each additional Installed Server.
and
The term âoeInstalled Serversâ means the number of servers on which Customer installs Red Hat Linux Advanced Server
Doesn't this bind me into purchasing services if I choose to install their GPLd software on a machine? Isn't that an imposed condition on usage of their GPL software?
It's impossible for this condition to only exist if I purchase the services, since it disallows the notion that I can avoid purchasing the services. It forbids a condition of non-subscription.
Red Hat appears to be telling me that I am not allowed to use this GPLd software in the way I would prefer and this is at odds with my understanding of my rights as granted by the GPL itself.
I fail to see the relevance of your hypothetical scenario involving GNOME. It is a poor analogy.
A closer analogy would be if GNOME required me to donate money to their favorite charity for each machine I installed their software on. Would this be an acceptable restriction on usage?
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Damn moderators. There all dicks. :)
Errors like this are pardon parcel with someone having learned the language from speaking and not from reading. This is slashdot, after all, and we're not looking for people to post pullet surprise quality comments, but it is discouraging to see people make mistakes like using the wrong word. The original poster could of used a dictionary or thesaurus to avoid that mistake. For all intensive purposes your words are the only measure that others can use to judge your credibility. You loose credibility if you can't form a coherent and compelling argument. This is the affect of writing poorly.
So, to the original poster I say this: "Your a idiot."
Read.
The fact that developers will pay a lot of money for the ability to avoid the GPL isn't really helping your case. In fact, I'd say it does a great job demonstrating that the GPL is unusable for making money.
Although, to be fair, a more precise phrase would be that the GPL does a great job making it impossible to make money by selling software. It isn't a hinderance for people who want to carve out a living doing other, quasi-related things like support or making cardboard boxes to put CDs in.
Your statement is flawed. It is impossible to take BSD licensed code and "turn it into" proprietary code. Any subsequent derivative secret code is entirely the product of the person who developed it, and does not affect the original code intended to be freely available.
FreeBSD did not "turn into" MacOS X. It's still just as available as it is supposed to be, and will always be available.
I prefer having both kinds of freedom, personally, which is exactly what the BSD and other defensive opensource licenses provide.
There is no such thing as a "GPL Compatible" license in the sense that you are trying to use it, and the people telling you that you cannot link to GPL code with anything but other GPL code are correct.
This confusion stems from the unique usage of the word "compatible" that is used by the FSF. When the FSF talks about "compatible" licenses, they mean licenses which allow the covered code to be re-licensed as GPL'd code.
If property prices colapse, I'm buying the goddamn hills.
Sure, if you can devise a way to do so which doesn't lessen the park at all (as would be the case of taking public domain code and "turning it into" a proprietary product).
This is the fallacy of your analogy, since public domain code, even without the GPL's far-reaching limitations, can't be "turned into" anything. It will remain available as a work of the public commons and available to all regardless of the ways which it may be used by individual or industry.
The restrictions of the GPL are not necessary to protect the availability of the original code, they are designed to hinder the ability of others to use the code in ways which the FSF disagrees.
*much* better! This one actually seems to convey the crux of the issue.
It is also very myopic that you seem oblivious to the fact that not supporting linux is the option Microsoft has chosen. To prevent them from being able to retain this choice denies them "the control over their own fate" that you claim to want them to have.
Ahhh. I see now. Yes, you are correct.
Our customers rely upon us for SMTP/POP3. When ISP's kill outbound 25 - it makes it difficult....... ......however, when MSN decides that they will ONLY allow HTTP traffic on their network, and block ALL POP3/SMTP traffic - that makes it impossible to compete doesn't it?
What do you mean? Do you mean that you'll be hindered if you are no longer able to connect to a dialup user's port 25? Why on earth would you need to do that?
Or do you mean that you're trying to run an smtp server on an MSN account? That just makes it impossible to run a business off a residential class internet connection? Why is that a bad thing?
Why should I be scared or offended? If someone's distributing copyrighted materials without permission then I think it's a perfectly fine thing for the copyright holder to pursue legal avenues to get them to stop.
I only get scared and offended when a copyright holder attempts to ban entire technologies, or attempts to bypass the existing and sufficient legal options which are currently in place.
Do you get scared and offended when the FSF attempts to enforce the GPL when someone violates it? How is this any different?
This is, in short, saying:
"You are being unreasonable. We wouldn't be having this disagreement if you'd just agree with me."
The GPL is restrictive in only one sense. It restricts your ability to impose further restrictions on others.
This is flawed in many respects. Firstly, the GPL does nothing of the sort. I can take GPL'd code, change it, and refuse to share my changes with anyone. In a sense, I am then imposing a further restriction on others.
More importantly and less pedantic, however, is that the GPL is restrictive in many senses with far-reaching and complicated impact.
The GPL, for instance, restricts your ability to take GPL'd code and make it less restricted. You cannot, for instance, take GPL'd code and turn it into public domain code.
It is also at the expense of people who want to produce BSD licensed, or Apache licensed, or XFree86 licensed, or public domain software and give it to the world.
It might also be at the expense of entities who wish to produce proprietary software which is compatible with or interfaces effectively with the government-sponsored code, depending on the nature of that government-sponsored code.
He does understand. Like anyone who prefers a license other than the GPL (this includes all the fine folks working on XFree86, the BSDs, Apache, and even public domain works) any code which is GPL'd is completely useless to him.
As a coder who prefers the BSD license, I am not able to use, copy, or modify GPL'd code.
This is not a difficult thing to understand.
This is only true if you are willing to pretend that "use" doesn't mean what it really means and that "using source code" doesn't include using the source code.
GPL'd apps can be used, but the source code is completely inaccessable to anyone who prefers a license which isn't the GPL.
For a great deal of research software development, the "product" of the development is the code and not just the utility one expects to get from running the code.
No, this is in fact one of the worst possible situations to use GPL'd code. A GPL implementation of an open file format creates a disincentive for a company to embrace that file format in their software. Imagine if TCP/IP were originally implemented as GPL'd code. No commercial vendor in the world would have been able to touch the code, slowing or even thwarting adoption.
If a company has to re-create the code themselves in order to maintain their ability to choose their own licensing, then there's no real benefit to adhering to the open file format. And even if they did choose to embrace the open file format, it's possible that their attempt to reverse-engineer or re-implement the format would turn out to be faulty which would introduce incompatibilities also harming the utility of the format.
For code you hope will achieve widespread adoption you want the least encumbered license possible, not the GPL. The GPL is just too much of an impediment since it's only useful to other people who also choose to use the GPL.
No, but I never see janitors or bathrooms in Star Trek either. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.
No, it's not really. The "trying to use" portion of your analogy is not an element of the licensing incompatibility. The licenses are at odds even if the user makes no attempt to fraudulently obtain service/support on an installation.
If you don't want the services, you can still use the software.
The EULA specifically says that this is not the case. You are not permitted to use the software in the absence of a paid service agreement. The documents quoted are not specific to only the RHN and support channels, but rather cover the software itself.
No, you cannot. Red Hat AS is not available for download, and its EULA prohibits you from installing it without having purchased a support agreement. This despite the fact that it is GPL'd software. This is the crux of the matter.
If this is what the license actually said then there wouldn't be a problem. However, this is not at all what the license says. Rather, the license says you are not free to run the software in the absence of a paid support contract.
I don't believe this is correct. I read the exact opposite in fact:
Doesn't this bind me into purchasing services if I choose to install their GPLd software on a machine? Isn't that an imposed condition on usage of their GPL software?It's impossible for this condition to only exist if I purchase the services, since it disallows the notion that I can avoid purchasing the services. It forbids a condition of non-subscription.
Red Hat appears to be telling me that I am not allowed to use this GPLd software in the way I would prefer and this is at odds with my understanding of my rights as granted by the GPL itself.
I fail to see the relevance of your hypothetical scenario involving GNOME. It is a poor analogy. A closer analogy would be if GNOME required me to donate money to their favorite charity for each machine I installed their software on. Would this be an acceptable restriction on usage?