"motion in limine" == a motion before a trial regarding what evidence is allowed to be shown to a jury
"equitable relief" == court-ordered restitution of property, as opposed to fines and punishments. Suing someone to enforce a contract they signed or pay back money they owe you is equitable relief, as opposed to suing them for punitive damages, which is a legal matter. The relevancy here is that equitable matters don't warrant a jury trial, whereas legal ones do.
"waiver" == A formal way of stating that you, or someone acting on your behalf, will not enforce one of your (or their) rights. In this case, Novell issued a waiver on behalf of SCO over whatever it was that SCO was suing IBM over (Normally you can't waive someone else's rights like this, but SCO signed a contract that allowed Novell to do just that)
"dismiss" == to throw a court claim out and not hear it.
"summary judgment" == A judgement on a claim instead of an actual trial, because there was no disputed evidence to hear, so the Judge could rule on it immediately.
It's bad for SCO, this ruling; it doesn't get to bamboozle a fresh naïve jury but instead gets one of the two judges they've been irritating for the past 4 years, so that's it's next-to-last hope for a favourable ruling out the window. The only ray of hope is that it might be able to use some new evidence out to show that whatever Microsoft and Sun paid for wasn't the stuff that Novell was recently ruled to have owned. But it'll be fighting against it's own public statements and anything it's said in other courtrooms, so it's chances are slimmer than slim...
"Isn't the point of open source to be able to use it?"
You only have to read the GPL preamble to find out what the point of the GPL is: "the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free software--to make sure the software is free for all its users." I think this particular case fails to do that, bigstyle.
"Are you seriously saying that if I bundle mkfsiso with my app and shell out to call it, I have to release my source code too?"
This isn't shelling out to a bundled copy of mkfsiso. This is a case where GPLed code has been lifted, without attribution and without attaching the GPL copyright notices and license document, and without the offer of source code, and placed into a proprietary DLL, so that it becomes part of a proprietary executable. Not the same thing at all. Whether these guys charge for their software is utterly besides the point.
"Prove the critics right, and that using GPL'ed software in your solutions is a legal nightmare."
Infringing someone else's copyright is a legal nightmare, GPL or not. Having a class action suit where open source constributors all batter the living shit out of a GPL violator in a courtroom would serve a salutary example to the many other GPL violators out there (the vast majority of whom settle at the slightest sign of trouble).
Your argument is basically some sort of 'oh noesss, we must let people attack the freedom of our software because otherwise people might not want to use it' type FUD. And after twenty years, and with millions upon millions of users, GPL software isn't going to go away anytime soon and the survival of the software is not an issue, putting the lie to everything you've just said. The freedom of the users IS under threat here, and elsewhere, and it's time to let the GPL do the job it was intended to do.
If they'd chosen the BSD route, Microsoft would already be selling a shinier version of it that beat it in every way and there would be no Novell to be in this mess at all.
Paradoxically, the GPL is GOOD for big tech business, in that it stops other companies taking your work and selling the embraced, extended and EULA-locked version. You're never likely to get more than one major corporate contributor for a major BSD project, for the simple reason that when there's two corporations using the same body of permissive-licensed code, the prisoner's dilemma kicks in, and the payoff from contributing code to the project is always less than the payoff from keeping your code proprietary and in-house, while using the free stuff donated by your competitor.
Why else do you think the likes of Novell and IBM and RedHat are all in the Linux game and not the BSD game? You've already disclaimed technical reasons, and the usual BSDer excuse is the USL/BSDi lawsuit, which has surely been eclipsed by the much more prominent SCO vs World kerfuffle. I reckon by a process of elimination, that leaves the GPL...
You missed my point entirely. I don't claim Microsoft is distributing GPLv3ed software at all. I'm pointing out that they are consciously aiding and abetting the distribution of GPLv3 software with the vouchers. That doesn't mean they're subject to copyright law or the GPL, but it does have other legal consequences, which I'm trying to discover and/or explain.
If anything, the first case is true, but that doesn't mean Microsoft escapes entirely from the consequences of what's in the GPL.
'First Sale' doesn't apply to Novell either, because Novell is modifying and copying SuSE, not just passing on copies they happen to have.
"You are wrong in both cases, IMO, about the leverage."
Moglen disagrees, particularly in the case of the vouchers, and he does have actual legal qualifications.
"They can wait and hope that Novell releases SUSE under the GPLv12, but there is nothing in the agreement that permits Novell to release SUSE under terms incompatible with Microsoft's patent pledge."
The pledge was a mutual agreement not to sue each other's customers for patent infringement. What makes you think that there was any restrictions on what license the software could be sold under? The SFLC (Eben again) saw the contract and then drafted the GPLv3 drafts with that document in mind. What gives you the impression that they made a mistake?
"There is no "helping you get it" provision of the GPL, and no legal basis for it being enforceable even if there was."
There are plenty of 'helping you get it' provisions in contract and criminal law. Estoppel. Unclean Hands. Waiver. Entrapment. Taking someone over something you helped them do, no matter what that is, is a bad plan since there's 69 varieties of law that deals with every eventuality regarding it. If Microsoft gives you a voucher for one copy of SuSE, then sues people who take the permissions therein at face value, do you really think that they're 100% in the clear?
"What is FUD is the suggestion by Moglen than Microsoft's patent pledge magically becomes universal if Novell chooses to violate the GPLv3 by distributing software for which it has received a limited patent pledge for its customers from Microsoft under the GPLv3 which prohibits distribution with such a limited pledge."
Again, what makes you think the pledge is limited? If this really is a case of 'We'll help you spread SuSE, and we promise not to sue your customers' then Novell's customers are safe, because of the patent pledge, and the downstream users of Novell's customers are safe, because of the estoppel-type clauses in law. What gives you the impression that Microsoft said 'We'll only distribute vouchers for GPLv2 software?' or 'We'll not distribute vouchers for software with patent pledges'. There's a multitude of licenses in the software that comes with SuSE, why is the GPLv3 software in there somehow exceptional?
Oh, and what you're talking about is surely the OPPOSITE of FUD. FUD is to spread Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt over someone else's product. Here, the FSF is spreading the word, true or not, that GPLed software is safe and sure and whatnot...
"Except that, well, they didn't. They issued vouchers when SUSE was (as it still is) distributed under GPLv2 terms, under an agreement with Novell, with very specific limitations on where the patent guarantee applies that are inconsistent with the GPLv3 (which didn't, IIRC, exist at the time the agreement was made.)"
Now there's two things here that give the FSF leverage. One is that Microsoft agreed that Novell should release software under a 'GPLv2 or later' license. The other is that the SuSE vouchers did NOT have an expiration date. Meaning if someone has one of those vouchers, they can wait until GPLv12 to cash it in. There's no way that Microsoft can plead ignorance of the 'GPLv2 or later' language in the code it was distributing, there's no way it can complain about the lack of the expiration date, since it clearly agreed to the voucher system, and Microsoft must surely have been aware that the GPLv3 was being drafted. How can Microsoft suddenly be surprised that it was going to help supply the world with GPLv3 software?
"ah, they do. And, under the terms of the GPLv3, Novell is not permitted to distribute software under the GPLv3 with only the guarantees Microsoft has provided, which are not as broad as the GPLv3 requires."
Except that Novell has confirmed that it's going to go ahead and distribute GPLv3 software anyway. If Alice comes along with a voucher, supplied to her by Microsoft, and gets GPLv3 software from SuSE, and then reads her GPL, happily offers that software to Bob, who gets sued by Microsoft for patent infringement, who is at fault? Bob isn't, he took his GPL at face value. Alice isn't, she took her GPL at face value AND Microsoft helped Alice get this software, with full knowledge that it was going to contain a GPL license. The answer is that both Novell and Microsoft are at fault. Microsoft can't sue Bob, because Microsoft helped Bob (via Alice) get his software with all the GPL guarantees and whatnot. And if Microsoft DOES have the right to sue, then Novell is guilty of copyright infringement for not providing a secure enough GPLv3 guarantee along with the code it supplied.
"Most likely, though, what it really means is that Novell doesn't move SUSE to GPLv3 until and unless the vouchers aren't a substantial issue"
Novell ARE distributing GPLv3 software. The FSF DOES believe the vouchers are a substantial issue, and made that clear as soon as they spotted that the SuSE vouchers had no expiration date. Your 'most likely' scenario is already in the bin.
"Because of the hippocraticy worded in it, For TiVo being a consumer product is Bad, IBM Being corporate product it is good.Free Software has a lot of advantages but if you try to get too academic with it it gets to a point where adoption of such products are impractical."
You seem to misunderstand. The whole purpose of the seperation between end user products and non-end-user products is purely a pragmatic one and not academic or ideological. The problem stemmed from embedded devices for safety critical applications - medical equipment or airlines or your nuclear power plants, or whatever, where for regulatory reasons the user did not want to have the ability to change the code. The distinction in the GPLv3 that you're talking about is the most practical one, which simultaneously tells TiVO to fuck off, while letting your hospital put Linux in it's life support machines...
"What actually happends is TiVo finds a backdoor to the license and uses it, or drops using open source and any stop to any shared contributions from TiVo and a move to a different platform."
But both are better than having TiVO rape our free software. If TiVO has to find a backdoor to a license, that's just because GPLv3 made it hard for them to get in by the front door. If TiVo wants to screw its users and has to end up blowing $100 on an embedded windows license to do it, that gives the non-evil manufacturers a competitive advantage, if they want to use GPLed software for free, cutting their costs by $100 per unit. TiVo needs free software far more than free software needs TiVo. We have MythTV and Freevo for one thing.
"The License for free software is the cost of using the software. (Except for trading money (and rules) for rights to use, you agree to follow these rules for rights to use) as more rules you add to the license the more expensive the free software becomes. So if you make FreeSoftware to strict on its use people won't use it."
Yet they use Windows and MacOS, with heinous and evil licensing conditions, much more draconian than GPLv3. And with hefty price tags to boot. The rules in the GPLv3 don't seem to be a big problem to it's uptake.
"Academically Free as in speech software sounds like a good plan but real life realizes there is information that you want to keep private."
Linux and GNU are thriving at the moment, far in excess of anyone's expectations. Real life seems to be telling you you're wrong.
First sale relates to the distribution of physical copies of copyrighted works. In this case, the physical copies are of vouchers, and nobody cares about the copyright status of what's printed on the vouchers. First sale doesn't cut it.
"Seems like a lost cause. If the FSF is violating a patent or two, chances are it is a violation that predates the GPL3."
How? If the supposed patent violation that predates the GPLv3, that makes safer, because there's no way that Microsoft can claim that it didn't know about that supposed infringement. If your hypothetical example is true, then Microsoft signed an agreement, AFTER that supposedly infringing code was placed in GNU, agreeing that Novell could distribute that code under GPL version 2 OR LATER, without Novell's customers (and in the case of GPLv3, anyone at all) being sued for patent infringement, and that Microsoft would help Novell distribute such software.
That takes away one of MS's possible rebuttals - Microsoft can't claim that it was ambushed by the FSF slapping code into GNU, in bad faith, after the Novell-MS deal in order to 'steal' their patented technology.
Don't think 'copyright violation'. Think along the lines of estoppel.
The threat here isn't that the FSF sues Microsoft for a GPLv3 breach; the FSF is making clear that there's a defence to a patent infringement lawsuit, namely that Microsoft aided and abetted the distribution of software under GPLv3 terms. If Microsoft sues RedHat over some FSF code, Eben puts on his cape, leaps into the courtroom and shouts "Aha! But you helped everyone distribute that code. Under the GPL. And because of the intricacies of the voucher system, under GPLv3. And the patent provisions of GPLv3 make clear under what conditions this software is allowed to be distributed. Novell gave EVERYONE permission to use every patentable idea in this software, and by helping Novell do that, you gave everyone permission too"
I reckon that's roughly the scenario that the FSF is hinting at here. It's obviously not a straightforward 'you distributed our software' copyright lawsuit.
I don't think this is a threat of a copyright violation suit. The FSF is setting themselves up for a defence of a patent infringement suit. If Microsoft tries to sue over a patent that's implemented in FSF software, the FSF can say that Microsoft actively aided and abetted the distribution of that software under GPLv3. It's basically a means of boostrapping a patent license out of the Novell-MS deal...
Free software supporters are in often in favour of the ethical right to share information.
Through that way of looking at things, copyright law is merely a tool that can be used for good or ill. Copyrights are bad when they're used to stop the sharing of information, but they're good when they're used to protect the right to share information. No hypocrisy there.
Your argument is a bit like accusing someone of hypocrisy on the subject of hammers, because he supports using hammers to build barns, but is against using hammers to bludgeon people to death.
I admit no such thing. I don't actually know exactly what the copyright status of rogue is. It's either FOSS or near-FOSS, in that the source code is freely available on the net and there's no problem with people making copies of it; I'm just not sure if there's any free software incompatible restrictions, such as a noncommercial one.
In fact, I'm also not sure which of the many games calling themselves "Rogue" out there are Rogue, ports of Rogue, versions of Rogue, ripoffs of Rogue, clones of Rogue or not-Rogue-at-all. Define "Rogue".
But one way of changing a law is to make it completely unenforceable by a mass civil disobedience campaign aimed at breaking that law, so that the authorities give up on the massive waste of resources needed to enforce it. For that, you'd probably want everyone and his dog to be using these censorship workarounds, rather than just the select elite cognoscenti, so finding some method of advertising the workarounds would be in order.
To answer the original query, though, I reckon that 'Spammers against censorship' is probably a bad idea. To attempt to counteract obnoxious behavior by a government with obnoxious behaviour aimed squarely at its victims seems to be both counterproductive (people will hate you for it and might oppose your cause) and unethical (you're doing a big pile of harm to the people you want to liberate). So no.
It's the inability to license the code under anything other than the MS-PL that's the incompatibility (while allowing it to be mixed with more or less any other permissive-licensed code). That's the clause that looks like it's aimed purely and squarely at the GPL.
The patent clause looks like it might be compatible with GPLv3.
Well it's clearly an open source license, and a fairly liberal one at that. No problems there, and it would be capricious and dishonest for the OSI to deny the MS-PL the OSI certification - and in a realm based mostly on 'shut up and show us the code', the OSI, with no code to show, is lucky to have what credibility it currently has, so it really shouldn't be blowing it on some anti-Microsoft stunt.
Then again, I take issue with your last statement in some ways, because my spider sense is tingling with this license, and I'm not sure I attribute this to an honestly pro-Open Source stance by Microsoft.
See, the license is GPL-incompatible. In fact it's about the most liberal GPL-incompatible license going, suggesting that the incompatibility is it's key feature. You can use this as part of a an attack strategy against the GPL. For instance, if Microsoft wanted to use this license against Linux, what they'd do is dump a huge pile of useful code onto one of the BSDs, using this MS-PL'ed license. Then the BSD community says 'thank you', fixes up their BSD operating system code to work with the big pile of MS code, and makes it go. Microsoft then takes their code plus all the BSD code proprietary, embraces and extends and DRMs it and makes an unfree sooper-dooper version, none of this can be used in any GPL project and even the BSD-licensed chunks written by the community won't fit in any GPLed project (i.e. Linux) for technical reasons.
Of course, it might be aimed at some other market where there's both GPLed and permissive-licensed competitors to Microsoft, but you get the idea. I think the license as it is now might be used to drive a wedge between factions of the movement...
Sure is. I take it you're being sarcastic, but you really are precluded from suing someone if they rely on your promise not to sue them. The legal doctrine is called 'promissory estoppel' and has been invoked by IBM in the SCO case already, IIRC.
Does it? I see no such exemption for gcc in my debian install, just good old GPL with some notes that some bits might be under other licenses. Nothing about how the output would be gpled, if it wasn't for an exemption. I take it as read that gcc doesn't embed bits of itself in it's output.
What you say IS the case for bison, however, but that's because it embeds a pile of parser code in there.
Oh, don't just stop there. The SCO connection to this article is MUCH more interesting than that.
From evidence collected by SCO-watchers, it's highly probable that Darl Mcbride, or his wife Andrea, or someone with access to their email address have, on numerous occasions, anonymously posted to Yahoo SCOX! in support of SCO.
The evidence? One of the accounts used to support SCO on the Yahoo SCOX board in 2003 and again in early 2006 was an account with the nym 'anmcride'. Since Yahoo message board nyms don't allow you to take the nym of an existing '@yahoo.com' email address, then it's fairly safe to say that this nickname must be tied to 'anmcbride@yahoo.com', if such an email address exists.
Now in January 2006, someone who styles themself 'stats_for_all' did a spot of googling and found that, in the google cache for brightonbaseball.com - a high school baseball team, listed 'anmcbride@yahoo.com' as the email address for the parents (Darl and Andrea Mcbride) of one Parker Vassau. Which means either that there's a very elaborate and patient hoaxer who has, over three years made these postings with the help of Darl's stepson's high school baseball team. Or Darl/Andrea did it. My money's on option 2.
Further investigation showed that two other nicknames, waytogoscox and bettingscox, belonged to the anmcbride@yahoo.com email account. Much amusement is to be had by seeing the vanity of Darl when pumping himself anonymously online in such posts as:
Post 61915 by waytogoscox
17-Nov-03 02:06 am
Subject:CRN top executives
Way to go Darl! Congratulations on making the top executive list of the year. #5 isn't too shabby. Keep up the great work! And then immediately replying to himself using a new nickname:
Post 61917 by bettinscox
17-Nov-03 02:18 am
Subject:Re: CRN top executives
not to mention, the keynote speaker at comdex! Go scox
No. The grandparent is right. Privacy is a relatively new phenomenon, though it certainly predates your Founding Fathers. History didn't begin in 1776, or even 1492 you know.
In Western Europe, it came about with the invention of the chimney. Before then, everyone in a large household, from the lords right down to the stablehands all slept together in one big hall, because that was where the fire and the heating was. When chimneys were invented, large dwellings could sustain multiple small fires and small rooms, and privacy suddenly became something that was possible.
Nowadays, technology is making it virtually impossible again, since getting rid of computer databases and camera surveillance (and stopping people using them) would probably be about as difficult as uninventing the wheel.
"Seriously though: If this OOXML system has so many holes in it, why haven't they just adapted the already-written Excel software that they have?"
Err, what makes you think the OOXML spec isn't just a backhand way of "documenting" whatever Microsoft Office does anyways? Some of the tags are dead giveaways: "autoSpaceLikeWord95", "useWord97LineBreakRules", "useWord2002TableStyleRules".
The spec often refers to what various versions of Office do, without stating what that is. Probably much the same way that when reading Word 95 documents, Word 2008 will no doubt just ask some legacy DLL that the installer threw into c:\windows\system32...
Here in the UK, each police force's budget has a large amount of taxpayer's money earmarked for 'we don't admit any liability' compensation settlements for the inevitable cases where the police have been caught wrongfully arresting or assaulting innocent people each year. If this ACLU initiative deters police wrongdoing, it could easily end up saving the US taxpayer money...
Just pick GPLv2, with the usual 'version 2 or later' language in it, for your own code.
That allows you to mix any variation of your code, GPLv2-or-later code and/or GPLv3 code in a GPLv3 project.
It also allows you to use your code with those relatively few projects that are 'GPLv2 only'(such as the Linux kernel) and/or GPLv2-or-later code in a GPLv2-only project.
That's about as compatible as you'll get with those three flavours of GPL. No license you pick will allow you to mix 'GPLv2 only' code with GPLv3 code.
Slashdot Mirror
"motion in limine" == a motion before a trial regarding what evidence is allowed to be shown to a jury
"equitable relief" == court-ordered restitution of property, as opposed to fines and punishments. Suing someone to enforce a contract they signed or pay back money they owe you is equitable relief, as opposed to suing them for punitive damages, which is a legal matter. The relevancy here is that equitable matters don't warrant a jury trial, whereas legal ones do.
"waiver" == A formal way of stating that you, or someone acting on your behalf, will not enforce one of your (or their) rights. In this case, Novell issued a waiver on behalf of SCO over whatever it was that SCO was suing IBM over (Normally you can't waive someone else's rights like this, but SCO signed a contract that allowed Novell to do just that)
"dismiss" == to throw a court claim out and not hear it.
"summary judgment" == A judgement on a claim instead of an actual trial, because there was no disputed evidence to hear, so the Judge could rule on it immediately.
It's bad for SCO, this ruling; it doesn't get to bamboozle a fresh naïve jury but instead gets one of the two judges they've been irritating for the past 4 years, so that's it's next-to-last hope for a favourable ruling out the window. The only ray of hope is that it might be able to use some new evidence out to show that whatever Microsoft and Sun paid for wasn't the stuff that Novell was recently ruled to have owned. But it'll be fighting against it's own public statements and anything it's said in other courtrooms, so it's chances are slimmer than slim...
"Isn't the point of open source to be able to use it?"
You only have to read the GPL preamble to find out what the point of the GPL is:
"the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free
software--to make sure the software is free for all its users."
I think this particular case fails to do that, bigstyle.
"Are you seriously saying that if I bundle mkfsiso with my app and shell out to call it, I have to release my source code too?"
This isn't shelling out to a bundled copy of mkfsiso. This is a case where GPLed code has been lifted, without attribution and without attaching the GPL copyright notices and license document, and without the offer of source code, and placed into a proprietary DLL, so that it becomes part of a proprietary executable. Not the same thing at all. Whether these guys charge for their software is utterly besides the point.
"Prove the critics right, and that using GPL'ed software in your solutions is a legal nightmare."
Infringing someone else's copyright is a legal nightmare, GPL or not. Having a class action suit where open source constributors all batter the living shit out of a GPL violator in a courtroom would serve a salutary example to the many other GPL violators out there (the vast majority of whom settle at the slightest sign of trouble).
Your argument is basically some sort of 'oh noesss, we must let people attack the freedom of our software because otherwise people might not want to use it' type FUD. And after twenty years, and with millions upon millions of users, GPL software isn't going to go away anytime soon and the survival of the software is not an issue, putting the lie to everything you've just said. The freedom of the users IS under threat here, and elsewhere, and it's time to let the GPL do the job it was intended to do.
If they'd chosen the BSD route, Microsoft would already be selling a shinier version of it that beat it in every way and there would be no Novell to be in this mess at all.
Paradoxically, the GPL is GOOD for big tech business, in that it stops other companies taking your work and selling the embraced, extended and EULA-locked version. You're never likely to get more than one major corporate contributor for a major BSD project, for the simple reason that when there's two corporations using the same body of permissive-licensed code, the prisoner's dilemma kicks in, and the payoff from contributing code to the project is always less than the payoff from keeping your code proprietary and in-house, while using the free stuff donated by your competitor.
Why else do you think the likes of Novell and IBM and RedHat are all in the Linux game and not the BSD game?
You've already disclaimed technical reasons, and the usual BSDer excuse is the USL/BSDi lawsuit, which has surely been eclipsed by the much more prominent SCO vs World kerfuffle. I reckon by a process of elimination, that leaves the GPL...
"There's really only two interpretations here:"
You missed my point entirely. I don't claim Microsoft is distributing GPLv3ed software at all. I'm pointing out that they are consciously aiding and abetting the distribution of GPLv3 software with the vouchers. That doesn't mean they're subject to copyright law or the GPL, but it does have other legal consequences, which I'm trying to discover and/or explain.
If anything, the first case is true, but that doesn't mean Microsoft escapes entirely from the consequences of what's in the GPL.
'First Sale' doesn't apply to Novell either, because Novell is modifying and copying SuSE, not just passing on copies they happen to have.
"You are wrong in both cases, IMO, about the leverage."
Moglen disagrees, particularly in the case of the vouchers, and he does have actual legal qualifications.
"They can wait and hope that Novell releases SUSE under the GPLv12, but there is nothing in the agreement that permits Novell to release SUSE under terms incompatible with Microsoft's patent pledge."
The pledge was a mutual agreement not to sue each other's customers for patent infringement. What makes you think that there was any restrictions on what license the software could be sold under? The SFLC (Eben again) saw the contract and then drafted the GPLv3 drafts with that document in mind. What gives you the impression that they made a mistake?
"There is no "helping you get it" provision of the GPL, and no legal basis for it being enforceable even if there was."
There are plenty of 'helping you get it' provisions in contract and criminal law. Estoppel. Unclean Hands. Waiver. Entrapment. Taking someone over something you helped them do, no matter what that is, is a bad plan since there's 69 varieties of law that deals with every eventuality regarding it. If Microsoft gives you a voucher for one copy of SuSE, then sues people who take the permissions therein at face value, do you really think that they're 100% in the clear?
"What is FUD is the suggestion by Moglen than Microsoft's patent pledge magically becomes universal if Novell chooses to violate the GPLv3 by distributing software for which it has received a limited patent pledge for its customers from Microsoft under the GPLv3 which prohibits distribution with such a limited pledge."
Again, what makes you think the pledge is limited? If this really is a case of 'We'll help you spread SuSE, and we promise not to sue your customers' then Novell's customers are safe, because of the patent pledge, and the downstream users of Novell's customers are safe, because of the estoppel-type clauses in law. What gives you the impression that Microsoft said 'We'll only distribute vouchers for GPLv2 software?' or 'We'll not distribute vouchers for software with patent pledges'. There's a multitude of licenses in the software that comes with SuSE, why is the GPLv3 software in there somehow exceptional?
Oh, and what you're talking about is surely the OPPOSITE of FUD. FUD is to spread Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt over someone else's product. Here, the FSF is spreading the word, true or not, that GPLed software is safe and sure and whatnot...
"Except that, well, they didn't. They issued vouchers when SUSE was (as it still is) distributed under GPLv2 terms, under an agreement with Novell, with very specific limitations on where the patent guarantee applies that are inconsistent with the GPLv3 (which didn't, IIRC, exist at the time the agreement was made.)"
Now there's two things here that give the FSF leverage. One is that Microsoft agreed that Novell should release software under a 'GPLv2 or later' license. The other is that the SuSE vouchers did NOT have an expiration date. Meaning if someone has one of those vouchers, they can wait until GPLv12 to cash it in. There's no way that Microsoft can plead ignorance of the 'GPLv2 or later' language in the code it was distributing, there's no way it can complain about the lack of the expiration date, since it clearly agreed to the voucher system, and Microsoft must surely have been aware that the GPLv3 was being drafted. How can Microsoft suddenly be surprised that it was going to help supply the world with GPLv3 software?
"ah, they do. And, under the terms of the GPLv3, Novell is not permitted to distribute software under the GPLv3 with only the guarantees Microsoft has provided, which are not as broad as the GPLv3 requires."
Except that Novell has confirmed that it's going to go ahead and distribute GPLv3 software anyway. If Alice comes along with a voucher, supplied to her by Microsoft, and gets GPLv3 software from SuSE, and then reads her GPL, happily offers that software to Bob, who gets sued by Microsoft for patent infringement, who is at fault? Bob isn't, he took his GPL at face value. Alice isn't, she took her GPL at face value AND Microsoft helped Alice get this software, with full knowledge that it was going to contain a GPL license. The answer is that both Novell and Microsoft are at fault. Microsoft can't sue Bob, because Microsoft helped Bob (via Alice) get his software with all the GPL guarantees and whatnot. And if Microsoft DOES have the right to sue, then Novell is guilty of copyright infringement for not providing a secure enough GPLv3 guarantee along with the code it supplied.
"Most likely, though, what it really means is that Novell doesn't move SUSE to GPLv3 until and unless the vouchers aren't a substantial issue"
Novell ARE distributing GPLv3 software. The FSF DOES believe the vouchers are a substantial issue, and made that clear as soon as they spotted that the SuSE vouchers had no expiration date. Your 'most likely' scenario is already in the bin.
"Because of the hippocraticy worded in it,
For TiVo being a consumer product is Bad, IBM Being corporate product it is good.Free Software has a lot of advantages but if you try to get too academic with it it gets to a point where adoption of such products are impractical."
You seem to misunderstand. The whole purpose of the seperation between end user products and non-end-user products is purely a pragmatic one and not academic or ideological. The problem stemmed from embedded devices for safety critical applications - medical equipment or airlines or your nuclear power plants, or whatever, where for regulatory reasons the user did not want to have the ability to change the code. The distinction in the GPLv3 that you're talking about is the most practical one, which simultaneously tells TiVO to fuck off, while letting your hospital put Linux in it's life support machines...
"What actually happends is TiVo finds a backdoor to the license and uses it, or drops using open source and any stop to any shared contributions from TiVo and a move to a different platform."
But both are better than having TiVO rape our free software. If TiVO has to find a backdoor to a license, that's just because GPLv3 made it hard for them to get in by the front door. If TiVo wants to screw its users and has to end up blowing $100 on an embedded windows license to do it, that gives the non-evil manufacturers a competitive advantage, if they want to use GPLed software for free, cutting their costs by $100 per unit. TiVo needs free software far more than free software needs TiVo. We have MythTV and Freevo for one thing.
"The License for free software is the cost of using the software. (Except for trading money (and rules) for rights to use, you agree to follow these rules for rights to use) as more rules you add to the license the more expensive the free software becomes. So if you make FreeSoftware to strict on its use people won't use it."
Yet they use Windows and MacOS, with heinous and evil licensing conditions, much more draconian than GPLv3. And with hefty price tags to boot. The rules in the GPLv3 don't seem to be a big problem to it's uptake.
"Academically Free as in speech software sounds like a good plan but real life realizes there is information that you want to keep private."
Linux and GNU are thriving at the moment, far in excess of anyone's expectations. Real life seems to be telling you you're wrong.
First sale?
No.
First sale relates to the distribution of physical copies of copyrighted works. In this case, the physical copies are of vouchers, and nobody cares about the copyright status of what's printed on the vouchers. First sale doesn't cut it.
"Seems like a lost cause. If the FSF is violating a patent or two, chances are it is a violation that predates the GPL3."
How? If the supposed patent violation that predates the GPLv3, that makes safer, because there's no way that Microsoft can claim that it didn't know about that supposed infringement. If your hypothetical example is true, then Microsoft signed an agreement, AFTER that supposedly infringing code was placed in GNU, agreeing that Novell could distribute that code under GPL version 2 OR LATER, without Novell's customers (and in the case of GPLv3, anyone at all) being sued for patent infringement, and that Microsoft would help Novell distribute such software.
That takes away one of MS's possible rebuttals - Microsoft can't claim that it was ambushed by the FSF slapping code into GNU, in bad faith, after the Novell-MS deal in order to 'steal' their patented technology.
Don't think 'copyright violation'. Think along the lines of estoppel.
The threat here isn't that the FSF sues Microsoft for a GPLv3 breach; the FSF is making clear that there's a defence to a patent infringement lawsuit, namely that Microsoft aided and abetted the distribution of software under GPLv3 terms. If Microsoft sues RedHat over some FSF code, Eben puts on his cape, leaps into the courtroom and shouts "Aha! But you helped everyone distribute that code. Under the GPL. And because of the intricacies of the voucher system, under GPLv3. And the patent provisions of GPLv3 make clear under what conditions this software is allowed to be distributed. Novell gave EVERYONE permission to use every patentable idea in this software, and by helping Novell do that, you gave everyone permission too"
I reckon that's roughly the scenario that the FSF is hinting at here. It's obviously not a straightforward 'you distributed our software' copyright lawsuit.
I don't think this is a threat of a copyright violation suit. The FSF is setting themselves up for a defence of a patent infringement suit. If Microsoft tries to sue over a patent that's implemented in FSF software, the FSF can say that Microsoft actively aided and abetted the distribution of that software under GPLv3. It's basically a means of boostrapping a patent license out of the Novell-MS deal...
Free software supporters are in often in favour of the ethical right to share information.
Through that way of looking at things, copyright law is merely a tool that can be used for good or ill. Copyrights are bad when they're used to stop the sharing of information, but they're good when they're used to protect the right to share information. No hypocrisy there.
Your argument is a bit like accusing someone of hypocrisy on the subject of hammers, because he supports using hammers to build barns, but is against using hammers to bludgeon people to death.
I admit no such thing. I don't actually know exactly what the copyright status of rogue is. It's either FOSS or near-FOSS, in that the source code is freely available on the net and there's no problem with people making copies of it; I'm just not sure if there's any free software incompatible restrictions, such as a noncommercial one.
In fact, I'm also not sure which of the many games calling themselves "Rogue" out there are Rogue, ports of Rogue, versions of Rogue, ripoffs of Rogue, clones of Rogue or not-Rogue-at-all. Define "Rogue".
Rogue's as near FOSS as makes no odds.
Rogue, some implementations of which are FOSS and/or public domain, is right there at number 18.
But one way of changing a law is to make it completely unenforceable by a mass civil disobedience campaign aimed at breaking that law, so that the authorities give up on the massive waste of resources needed to enforce it. For that, you'd probably want everyone and his dog to be using these censorship workarounds, rather than just the select elite cognoscenti, so finding some method of advertising the workarounds would be in order.
To answer the original query, though, I reckon that 'Spammers against censorship' is probably a bad idea. To attempt to counteract obnoxious behavior by a government with obnoxious behaviour aimed squarely at its victims seems to be both counterproductive (people will hate you for it and might oppose your cause) and unethical (you're doing a big pile of harm to the people you want to liberate). So no.
It's the inability to license the code under anything other than the MS-PL that's the incompatibility (while allowing it to be mixed with more or less any other permissive-licensed code). That's the clause that looks like it's aimed purely and squarely at the GPL.
The patent clause looks like it might be compatible with GPLv3.
Well it's clearly an open source license, and a fairly liberal one at that. No problems there, and it would be capricious and dishonest for the OSI to deny the MS-PL the OSI certification - and in a realm based mostly on 'shut up and show us the code', the OSI, with no code to show, is lucky to have what credibility it currently has, so it really shouldn't be blowing it on some anti-Microsoft stunt.
Then again, I take issue with your last statement in some ways, because my spider sense is tingling with this license, and I'm not sure I attribute this to an honestly pro-Open Source stance by Microsoft.
See, the license is GPL-incompatible. In fact it's about the most liberal GPL-incompatible license going, suggesting that the incompatibility is it's key feature. You can use this as part of a an attack strategy against the GPL. For instance, if Microsoft wanted to use this license against Linux, what they'd do is dump a huge pile of useful code onto one of the BSDs, using this MS-PL'ed license. Then the BSD community says 'thank you', fixes up their BSD operating system code to work with the big pile of MS code, and makes it go. Microsoft then takes their code plus all the BSD code proprietary, embraces and extends and DRMs it and makes an unfree sooper-dooper version, none of this can be used in any GPL project and even the BSD-licensed chunks written by the community won't fit in any GPLed project (i.e. Linux) for technical reasons.
Of course, it might be aimed at some other market where there's both GPLed and permissive-licensed competitors to Microsoft, but you get the idea. I think the license as it is now might be used to drive a wedge between factions of the movement...
Sure is. I take it you're being sarcastic, but you really are precluded from suing someone if they rely on your promise not to sue them. The legal doctrine is called 'promissory estoppel' and has been invoked by IBM in the SCO case already, IIRC.
Does it? I see no such exemption for gcc in my debian install, just good old GPL with some notes that some bits might be under other licenses. Nothing about how the output would be gpled, if it wasn't for an exemption. I take it as read that gcc doesn't embed bits of itself in it's output.
What you say IS the case for bison, however, but that's because it embeds a pile of parser code in there.
From evidence collected by SCO-watchers, it's highly probable that Darl Mcbride, or his wife Andrea, or someone with access to their email address have, on numerous occasions, anonymously posted to Yahoo SCOX! in support of SCO.
The evidence? One of the accounts used to support SCO on the Yahoo SCOX board in 2003 and again in early 2006 was an account with the nym 'anmcride'. Since Yahoo message board nyms don't allow you to take the nym of an existing '@yahoo.com' email address, then it's fairly safe to say that this nickname must be tied to 'anmcbride@yahoo.com', if such an email address exists.
Now in January 2006, someone who styles themself 'stats_for_all' did a spot of googling and found that, in the google cache for brightonbaseball.com - a high school baseball team, listed 'anmcbride@yahoo.com' as the email address for the parents (Darl and Andrea Mcbride) of one Parker Vassau. Which means either that there's a very elaborate and patient hoaxer who has, over three years made these postings with the help of Darl's stepson's high school baseball team. Or Darl/Andrea did it. My money's on option 2.
Further investigation showed that two other nicknames, waytogoscox and bettingscox, belonged to the anmcbride@yahoo.com email account. Much amusement is to be had by seeing the vanity of Darl when pumping himself anonymously online in such posts as:
Post 61915 by waytogoscox
17-Nov-03 02:06 am
Subject:CRN top executives
Way to go Darl! Congratulations on making the top executive list of the year. #5 isn't too shabby. Keep up the great work!
And then immediately replying to himself using a new nickname:
Post 61917 by bettinscox
17-Nov-03 02:18 am
Subject:Re: CRN top executives
not to mention, the keynote speaker at comdex! Go scox
No. The grandparent is right. Privacy is a relatively new phenomenon, though it certainly predates your Founding Fathers. History didn't begin in 1776, or even 1492 you know.
In Western Europe, it came about with the invention of the chimney. Before then, everyone in a large household, from the lords right down to the stablehands all slept together in one big hall, because that was where the fire and the heating was. When chimneys were invented, large dwellings could sustain multiple small fires and small rooms, and privacy suddenly became something that was possible.
Nowadays, technology is making it virtually impossible again, since getting rid of computer databases and camera surveillance (and stopping people using them) would probably be about as difficult as uninventing the wheel.
"Seriously though: If this OOXML system has so many holes in it, why haven't they just adapted the already-written Excel software that they have?"
Err, what makes you think the OOXML spec isn't just a backhand way of "documenting" whatever Microsoft Office does anyways? Some of the tags are dead giveaways: "autoSpaceLikeWord95", "useWord97LineBreakRules", "useWord2002TableStyleRules".
The spec often refers to what various versions of Office do, without stating what that is. Probably much the same way that when reading Word 95 documents, Word 2008 will no doubt just ask some legacy DLL that the installer threw into c:\windows\system32...
Reread the grandparent. You're accusing him of saying the exact opposite of what he actually said.
He DOES understand it's a freedom of speech issue. He's just criticising the game, which is perfectly fine.
Here in the UK, each police force's budget has a large amount of taxpayer's money earmarked for 'we don't admit any liability' compensation settlements for the inevitable cases where the police have been caught wrongfully arresting or assaulting innocent people each year. If this ACLU initiative deters police wrongdoing, it could easily end up saving the US taxpayer money...
Just pick GPLv2, with the usual 'version 2 or later' language in it, for your own code.
That allows you to mix any variation of your code, GPLv2-or-later code and/or GPLv3 code in a GPLv3 project.
It also allows you to use your code with those relatively few projects that are 'GPLv2 only'(such as the Linux kernel) and/or GPLv2-or-later code in a GPLv2-only project.
That's about as compatible as you'll get with those three flavours of GPL. No license you pick will allow you to mix 'GPLv2 only' code with GPLv3 code.