Because with 36 passes of carfully designed noise, shred appears to be able to thwart even Group 3 attackers without you losing use of your drive. It's point is that there is no one pattern that can hide your old data, but with a properly chosen series of patterns, the data is completely unrecoverable.
And, it's GPL, so you can make sure your program is free of little routines to ship your data off to the NSA.
One of the points of the article is that even urandom isn't good enough./dev/urandom will cause high frequency static on the drive, when low frequency static is far more effective for wiping information.
Also, the impression I get is that shred will work on a file by file basis, not just on a partition scale.
* RedHat is NOT the easiest to install (maybe you want to look at EasyLinux)
I took a quick look at EasyLinux's webpage, and it looks like they just remove one step from the RedHat installation, the disk partitioning step. The price of this is it installs Linux in a huge file on a fat partition, within which it simulates an ext2 partition. This can lead to horrible fragmentation and stability problems if the FAT partition is used often. Why do you think nobody uses Doublespace anymore?
* not everything on their CD is GPL'ed, as well as in any other distribution (except Debian maybe). Or do you have a GPL'ed Netscape, xv, XFree86, Perl, Tcl... on your RedHat CD?
True, I'll assume the original poster just misspoke. On the other hand, over 90% of the programming that RedHat does is GPL'ed (the remaining bit being the XFree86 stuff, either under X-Consortium license or NDA).
* at least when it comes to buggy distribution, RedHat comes very close to Microsoft
While RedHat does ship with bugs (as does every distribution, but many have fewer than RedHat) the bugs are almost never as bad as the disasters I've seen coming out of Microsoft. They are also fixed more quickly, and they make finding the updates much easier than Microsoft does.
I see almost no legitimate comparisons between RedHat and Microsoft. If you don't like RedHat, talk about what you don't like, don't make pointless comparisons to a company that is completely different in size, organization, business practices, licensing practices, development practices, product offerings, support offerings, power, attitude, budget, revenue, platform, and so forth. There are only two similarities I see: they both distribute software, and both have CEO's with glasses.
RedHat cannot be the next Microsoft, because even if they do have over 50% of the Linux market (a number which I doubt, SuSE is huge in Europe, and there are more people running Linux in Europe Linux than in the US last I checked), they cannot hijack things the way Microsoft did.
Yes, RedHat has been lukewarm towards the LSB, but the LSB isn't even ready for a draft standard yet, there is no guarantee they will finish, much less be good. The other standard out there, the FHS, they have followed quite well (far better than the stranger than strange file locations you get with Slackware). I am sure that if the LSB is halfway decent when it is done, RedHat will follow it (I don't know about happily, but there will be lots of pressure for them to follow it).
Don't switch your boxes to RedHat for Oracle, upgrade your libraries, and force Oracle to work for you. Better yet, use PostgreSQL (it now has better row locking and better performance than Oracle on single processor machines).
Um, I fail to see how the jump is made between trainspotters and computer geeks. My understanding is the stereotypical trainspotter doesn't know enough to come in out of the rain. The stereotypical computer geek doesn't know enough to go out in the sun. The're kinda mutually exclusive hobbies.
A little bit of FUD in the article, but not as bad as many ZDNet articles. There's certainly more content in my compressed air duster than in that article, though.
I think Linux fragmentation isn't safe yet (not that that will stop people). Once the LSB gets finished and accepted, then fragmentation will be fine, since it won't cause as many problems for new developers.
Header was SUPPOSED to have OS <= Free
on
RMS on APSL
·
· Score: 1
Text.
Open Source = Free Software
on
RMS on APSL
·
· Score: 1
When Bruce Perens wrote the Debian Free Software Guidelines, the intent was to codify the idea of Free Software into rules that could be easily verified. This makes DFSG == Free Software
The rules for the Open Source trademark are essentially the same guidelines (I think they edited a couple of names). However, by endorsing non-Free licenses like the APSL, the OSI is forcing the concept of Open Source Software to deviate from the concept of Free Software. If they persist in supporting such licenses, they will be discarded by the Free Software Community, and be left with only the half-hearted support of the fickle "Free Enough" software "community". I don't think anybody but the proprietary software giants want to see that happen.
The advantage of NCL is that it spells out precisely when the software will become totally free (ie, two years after release).
That is only true if the program has been static for those two years. Let's say version 1 is released on January 1, 2000. Over the next two years a bunch of revisions, changes, new features and bug fixes occur, and a major security hole was fixed. January 1, 2002 roles around, the program is up to version 3.2, and version 1 finally gets GPLed.
In order to legally incorporate any of the advancements into the GPL version, you have to do a clean room version of all the fixes, so it isn't tainted with NCL code. I doubt you are going to see all that many people jumping on such newly freed code.
There are plenty of fiscal incentives to create new and better software out there without resorting to crashing the Free Software bandwagon by pretending a non-Free license is Free.
This doesn't miss the point of free software at all. I keep hearing that free software is not about "free beer", but that is the only type of freedom that is really limited by the NCL.
But that isn't the freedom limited by the NCL, the NCL encourages "free beer" at the expense of "free speech", all this while wrapping itself in the language of the Free Software Movement. The freedom to redistribute however one sees fit is one of the pillars of the whole Free Software concept. The NCL tries to damage that pillar. I would pass it off as just another non-free license if that's what they were marketing it as, but they are trying to say that it is for the Free Software community. It clearly is not.
The only new restriction is that you (being someone other than the author) can't sell the software for a profit.
I don't see how this violates the spirit of free software. If someone wants to make a profit by selling my software, I don't see why it is unreasonable for me to get a share of that profit.
That's not entirely true. It also prevents people from selling the software for cost. Even if you are carefully setting the price just so you aren't taking a loss on distribution, you can't distribute it without permission from (and probably reimbursement to) the author. For a derivative work, you might have to negotiate with dozens of partial authors just to distribute one program. This destroys the "free speech" aspect of Free Software, and leaves you with "free beer". That is how it violates the spirit of free software.
Your'e worried about Redhat & CheapBytes losing money...they didn't even write the software in the first place! Why should they get priority over profits from the sale of the software? Isn't the financial support of the original authors more important?
The financial strength of the entire community is important, the authors and the distributors. The author has every right to sell their software, under the GPL or whatever other license they use. Many authors (eg. the FSF and Cyclic) actively make money by selling copies of GPL software. Many other authors (eg. Cygnus and Alladin) actively make money by offering software under two licenses, the GPL and their own propriety for-fee license.
The NCL doesn't grant the authors the right to sell software, they've had that right all along. What it does is throw a monkey wrench in our existing distribution system, attempt to damage the "freely redistributable" pillar of the Free Software community, and ride on the coattails of the publicity the movement has been getting.
RedHat does not have to distribute any products, but if people embrace NCL software like I'm sure Bowerbird is hoping, then RedHat will feel pressure to include it. Balance this with the price pressure not to include it, and you get the problem I was describing.
Cheapbytes tries to distribute an exact copy of the RedHat CD. So they'd have the same pressure.
I'm not specifically sticking up for RedHat, they have no innate right to money from other people's work. I was pointing out the inherent lack of freedom in the NCL, a freedom that is part of every definition, from the FSF to the DFSG, to the Open Source organization.
The Free Software Foundation makes money from distributing GPL'ed software without restrictive terms such as the NCL introduces. Cygnus and Alladin make money from their software, while supporting Free Software, without blurring the distinction between Free and Proprietary licenses.
This is why I call the NCL dangerous, it blurs this distinction, not to protect authors right to make money, that right has been long established. It blurs the distinction so that authors can use it and pretend to be part of the Free software movement, and benefit from the publicity it has been getting, while in reality the license is far from Free.
I am not looking for a handout. I do not expect all software vendors to use Free Software licenses. I do think that all software developers should respect the Free Software movement, and not try to coopt the language of the Free Software movement in a blatant attempt at their own handout, free publicity.
There is no legal way I can see to prevent people from using this license. The only thing I can do is come out strongly and vocally against it, trying to discourage developers from using it, and people from supporting it.
You speak as if commercial software can't be Free software. RPM is commercial software, it is also Free software. The same goes for Netscape, VNC, Egcs, CygWin32, CVS, and many others.
There is a strong difference between proprietary software and free software, but keep in mind that proprietary software can be non-commercial just as Free software can be commercial.
Ease of use and ease of installation are very important, and commercial developers do seem to be a little more willing to put in the effort to polish the ease of use and installation of the software they make. The Free commercial software community shows that you don't need to sacrifice the Freedom of the package in order to get the polish.
I accidentally used NPL where I meant NCL in my post (the 'P' and 'C' keys are so close together?). I meant to refer to Bowerbird's New Copyleft License, not Netscape's Netscape Public License.
Anonymous Coward (why does it always seem to be AC's) wrote:
Interesting that the success of failure of the "free" software movement is being gauged by the profits of a commercial company...
Did you see the "a little" there. The success or failure of the Free Software movement is not dependant on companies like RedHat, but they help. Therefore, hurting RedHat Software hurts the Free Software Community (a little).
I notice you refrained from commenting on my point about CheapBytes, where I said that the harm to them will greatly harm the Free Software community. Companies like Cheapbytes allow anyone with access to a computer affordable access to Free software. Downloading hundreds of files over the internet is not affordable to most of the world, who pay per minute for connection time.
Face it! There is no sustainable, viable economic model under which a software industry can exist under the free software banner! You can't support a world economy with collegiate warez d00dz' pipe dreams!
You are stating opinion with neither evidence nor respect. I say there is, and I say companies like RedHat, Walnut Creek, Cygnus, VA Research and Cheapbytes prove it. They are all profitable. Whether or not they are sustainable has to pass the test of time, but I say they are.
Ah... that felt good.
Happy now? Try posting comments which you are proud to put your name on. That feels much better than anonymous flamage.
Anonymous Coward (but we know who you really are) wrote:
Maybe RMS should copyright the term "Copyleft" since it is his term,
I think you mean trademark, you can't copyright a single word. I think he can legitimately trademark the term as far as use in the computer industry goes.
Man, these licenses are doing my head in. Must be a corporate conspiracy like those guys in suits on the bus and the barcodes and the CONTRAILS... muttermuttermutter.
Try tinfoil around your head. I've found it works wonders. A real fashion statement:-).
The NCL is intended for programmers who wish to make a livingout of writing free software but have no desire (or ability) to offer consulting services.
To encourage cooperation between all free software developers however you should preface the GNU GPL by stating:
Under section 10 of the GNU GPL I hereby grant permission to use this code in works distributed under the terms of the New Copyleft License, as published by Bowerbird Computing, so long as the share of the royalties that would have been owing to me if this code were licensed under the NCL is donated to the Free Software Foundation instead.
The entire Section 5 is labeled Integrety of Free Software.
It is clear that they are trying to piggyback on the Free Software Community, while putting a monkey wrench in both the terminology and business plans of Free Software companies.
We are free to ignore software if we don't agree with how it is licensed. Software under the NCL deserves to be ignored, except to make sure that they haven't violated other people's licenses in making their program.
You can't ammend the GPL. The copyright on the GPL itself says:
Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
You can probably release a program with a license of "You must follow the GPL as given in the file COPYING with the following changes:", and have the terms of your license an ammended GPL. This will confuse people, and licenses are confusing enough. You're better off finding a license that suits you better, or writing your own.
You certainly cannot alter the terms of someone else's GPL software. Only the copyright holder can put a license on software. You can't add restrictions under the GPL, and you can't remove restrictions without relicensing.
It is fully buzzword compliant, that is it uses the terms "Copyleft" and "Free" (while avoiding the legally protected term "Open Source"), but this is a very dangerous license to the Free Software community. I urge you not to treat this license as "Copyleft" "Free" or "Open Source", and avoid software licensed under the NCL.
I call this license dangerous because, while it pretends to be a Free license, it deliberately interferes with the redistribution of its software, one of the three pillars of Free Software.
Here's a hypothetical example, lets say the NCL becomes popular. There are fourty commonly used NCL packages out there. None of the authors are greedy, they just want $1 per copy sold for their two years. If a company like RedHat were to include these popular packages, the cost of their distribution will have gone up from $50 to $90. This will hurt sales, with no increase in their profit, thus hurting the free software community (a little).
Worse, when CheapBytes goes to repackage this version of RedHat, they will have to make their own arrangement with each of the authors, and their distribution will have gone up from $2 to $42, probably heigher, because they will need to hire someone just to manage all these agreements. This will destroy them, companies like them, and seriously harm the entire free software community.
Unencumbered redistribution is part of what makes Free software Free. This license mocks the community while asking us to accept them. I say throw them on their ear.
As long as the NPL keeps being updated, the new code is newly released under the NPL. Thus the clock starts again for any of the updates. If you make a derivative work, it is considered newly released under the NPL, and the clock starts again.
Sure, the restriction is lifted for the original version that was released two years ago, but that code will be awfully stale after two years.
So basically you want the freedom to ignore other developers' intellectual property rights? Yet you demand that developers honor your pet license?
No, I want the definition of Open Source to include a carefully worded statement regarding Termination of Use. I think termination of use clauses are contrary to the spirit of Free Software, and I think the Open Source definition should reflect that.
I never asked for the freedom to ignore other's rights, that's not freedom at all. I asked that the license we call free be what I consider free, and the licenses that can terminate your use on a corporate whim not be called free. Currently, the Open Source definition is the yardstick we use, and I think it needs a mark for these clauses.
Somebody steals some code, adds it to Linux without permission of the author. You have no problems continuing to use that code?
Of course I have a problem with that. Unless the author assigns copyright to someone else, only the author has the right to copy or license their IP. What sideways reading of what I wrote made you think I was advocating plagarism?!?
Face it: If you expect people to honor the various free software licenses, you'd better be prepared to honor other licenses. Otherwise, you're a hypocrite.
I do honour other licenses, and you implying that my views are hypocritical without taking the time to understand them is very short sighted. If a program has a license that I find too objectionable, I honour it by not using the program. This is why I haven't purchased any proprietary software in three years.
Apple is probably not losing a customer by me disliking their license, I had no plans to get MacOS X. On the other hand the Open Source Initiative is potentially losing a supporter if they continue to encourage licenses like this.
if you continue to use GPL'd code that infringes on a patent, you are still not using the code legally
Whether or not you are using the code legally, you are not violating the GPL. If you make an agreement with the patenter, or if you use it in a country where the patent is invalid, you are using it legally.
If you continue to use APSL code where Apple invoked their right to terminate the license because of a patent conflict, you are violating the APSL. If you make an agreement with the patenter, or if you use it in a country where the patent is invalid, you are still using illegally, because the APSL was terminated.
although I would like the code to stick around for patents to expire, just not in use, that actually sounds somewhat dangerous, one of those things where we have #ifdef BREAK_UNISYS_PATENT /* do some shit fast*/ #else /*slow work around*/ #endif
I'm not sure if #ifdef'ing out patented code is sufficient. I think you need to physically remove it in order to distribute. Of course, there are many countries where the Unisys and RSA patents are invalid, and they can distribute the BreakUnisysPatent patch file.
Slashdot Mirror
Because with 36 passes of carfully designed noise, shred appears to be able to thwart even Group 3 attackers without you losing use of your drive. It's point is that there is no one pattern that can hide your old data, but with a properly chosen series of patterns, the data is completely unrecoverable.
And, it's GPL, so you can make sure your program is free of little routines to ship your data off to the NSA.
One of the points of the article is that even urandom isn't good enough. /dev/urandom will cause high frequency static on the drive, when low frequency static is far more effective for wiping information.
Also, the impression I get is that shred will work on a file by file basis, not just on a partition scale.
mw wrote:
... on your RedHat CD?
* RedHat is NOT the easiest to install (maybe you want to look at EasyLinux)
I took a quick look at EasyLinux's webpage, and it looks like they just remove one step from the RedHat installation, the disk partitioning step. The price of this is it installs Linux in a huge file on a fat partition, within which it simulates an ext2 partition. This can lead to horrible fragmentation and stability problems if the FAT partition is used often. Why do you think nobody uses Doublespace anymore?
* not everything on their CD is GPL'ed, as well as in any other distribution (except Debian maybe). Or do you have a GPL'ed Netscape, xv, XFree86, Perl, Tcl
True, I'll assume the original poster just misspoke. On the other hand, over 90% of the programming that RedHat does is GPL'ed (the remaining bit being the XFree86 stuff, either under X-Consortium license or NDA).
* at least when it comes to buggy distribution, RedHat comes very close to Microsoft
While RedHat does ship with bugs (as does every distribution, but many have fewer than RedHat) the bugs are almost never as bad as the disasters I've seen coming out of Microsoft. They are also fixed more quickly, and they make finding the updates much easier than Microsoft does.
I see almost no legitimate comparisons between RedHat and Microsoft. If you don't like RedHat, talk about what you don't like, don't make pointless comparisons to a company that is completely different in size, organization, business practices, licensing practices, development practices, product offerings, support offerings, power, attitude, budget, revenue, platform, and so forth. There are only two similarities I see: they both distribute software, and both have CEO's with glasses.
RedHat cannot be the next Microsoft, because even if they do have over 50% of the Linux market (a number which I doubt, SuSE is huge in Europe, and there are more people running Linux in Europe Linux than in the US last I checked), they cannot hijack things the way Microsoft did.
Yes, RedHat has been lukewarm towards the LSB, but the LSB isn't even ready for a draft standard yet, there is no guarantee they will finish, much less be good. The other standard out there, the FHS, they have followed quite well (far better than the stranger than strange file locations you get with Slackware). I am sure that if the LSB is halfway decent when it is done, RedHat will follow it (I don't know about happily, but there will be lots of pressure for them to follow it).
Don't switch your boxes to RedHat for Oracle, upgrade your libraries, and force Oracle to work for you. Better yet, use PostgreSQL (it now has better row locking and better performance than Oracle on single processor machines).
Um, I fail to see how the jump is made between trainspotters and computer geeks. My understanding is the stereotypical trainspotter doesn't know enough to come in out of the rain. The stereotypical computer geek doesn't know enough to go out in the sun. The're kinda mutually exclusive hobbies.
A little bit of FUD in the article, but not as bad as many ZDNet articles. There's certainly more content in my compressed air duster than in that article, though.
I think Linux fragmentation isn't safe yet (not that that will stop people). Once the LSB gets finished and accepted, then fragmentation will be fine, since it won't cause as many problems for new developers.
Text.
When Bruce Perens wrote the Debian Free Software Guidelines, the intent was to codify the idea of Free Software into rules that could be easily verified. This makes DFSG == Free Software
The rules for the Open Source trademark are essentially the same guidelines (I think they edited a couple of names). However, by endorsing non-Free licenses like the APSL, the OSI is forcing the concept of Open Source Software to deviate from the concept of Free Software. If they persist in supporting such licenses, they will be discarded by the Free Software Community, and be left with only the half-hearted support of the fickle "Free Enough" software "community". I don't think anybody but the proprietary software giants want to see that happen.
AJWM wrote:
The advantage of NCL is that it spells out precisely when the software will become totally free (ie, two years after release).
That is only true if the program has been static for those two years. Let's say version 1 is released on January 1, 2000. Over the next two years a bunch of revisions, changes, new features and bug fixes occur, and a major security hole was fixed. January 1, 2002 roles around, the program is up to version 3.2, and version 1 finally gets GPLed.
In order to legally incorporate any of the advancements into the GPL version, you have to do a clean room version of all the fixes, so it isn't tainted with NCL code. I doubt you are going to see all that many people jumping on such newly freed code.
There are plenty of fiscal incentives to create new and better software out there without resorting to crashing the Free Software bandwagon by pretending a non-Free license is Free.
Artemisia wrote:
This doesn't miss the point of free software at all. I keep hearing that free software is not about "free beer", but that is the only type of freedom that is really limited by the NCL.
But that isn't the freedom limited by the NCL, the NCL encourages "free beer" at the expense of "free speech", all this while wrapping itself in the language of the Free Software Movement. The freedom to redistribute however one sees fit is one of the pillars of the whole Free Software concept. The NCL tries to damage that pillar. I would pass it off as just another non-free license if that's what they were marketing it as, but they are trying to say that it is for the Free Software community. It clearly is not.
The only new restriction is that you (being someone other than the author) can't sell the software for a profit.
I don't see how this violates the spirit of free software. If someone wants to make a profit by selling my software, I don't see why it is unreasonable for me to get a share of that profit.
That's not entirely true. It also prevents people from selling the software for cost. Even if you are carefully setting the price just so you aren't taking a loss on distribution, you can't distribute it without permission from (and probably reimbursement to) the author. For a derivative work, you might have to negotiate with dozens of partial authors just to distribute one program. This destroys the "free speech" aspect of Free Software, and leaves you with "free beer". That is how it violates the spirit of free software.
Peter wrote:
Your'e worried about Redhat & CheapBytes losing money...they didn't even write the software in the first place! Why should they get priority over profits from the sale of the software? Isn't the financial support of the original authors more important?
The financial strength of the entire community is important, the authors and the distributors. The author has every right to sell their software, under the GPL or whatever other license they use. Many authors (eg. the FSF and Cyclic) actively make money by selling copies of GPL software. Many other authors (eg. Cygnus and Alladin) actively make money by offering software under two licenses, the GPL and their own propriety for-fee license.
The NCL doesn't grant the authors the right to sell software, they've had that right all along. What it does is throw a monkey wrench in our existing distribution system, attempt to damage the "freely redistributable" pillar of the Free Software community, and ride on the coattails of the publicity the movement has been getting.
RedHat does not have to distribute any products, but if people embrace NCL software like I'm sure Bowerbird is hoping, then RedHat will feel pressure to include it. Balance this with the price pressure not to include it, and you get the problem I was describing.
Cheapbytes tries to distribute an exact copy of the RedHat CD. So they'd have the same pressure.
I'm not specifically sticking up for RedHat, they have no innate right to money from other people's work. I was pointing out the inherent lack of freedom in the NCL, a freedom that is part of every definition, from the FSF to the DFSG, to the Open Source organization.
The Free Software Foundation makes money from distributing GPL'ed software without restrictive terms such as the NCL introduces. Cygnus and Alladin make money from their software, while supporting Free Software, without blurring the distinction between Free and Proprietary licenses.
This is why I call the NCL dangerous, it blurs this distinction, not to protect authors right to make money, that right has been long established. It blurs the distinction so that authors can use it and pretend to be part of the Free software movement, and benefit from the publicity it has been getting, while in reality the license is far from Free.
I am not looking for a handout. I do not expect all software vendors to use Free Software licenses. I do think that all software developers should respect the Free Software movement, and not try to coopt the language of the Free Software movement in a blatant attempt at their own handout, free publicity.
There is no legal way I can see to prevent people from using this license. The only thing I can do is come out strongly and vocally against it, trying to discourage developers from using it, and people from supporting it.
You speak as if commercial software can't be Free software. RPM is commercial software, it is also Free software. The same goes for Netscape, VNC, Egcs, CygWin32, CVS, and many others.
There is a strong difference between proprietary software and free software, but keep in mind that proprietary software can be non-commercial just as Free software can be commercial.
Ease of use and ease of installation are very important, and commercial developers do seem to be a little more willing to put in the effort to polish the ease of use and installation of the software they make. The Free commercial software community shows that you don't need to sacrifice the Freedom of the package in order to get the polish.
I accidentally used NPL where I meant NCL in my post (the 'P' and 'C' keys are so close together?). I meant to refer to Bowerbird's New Copyleft License, not Netscape's Netscape Public License.
That would have been perfect :-)
Anonymous Coward (why does it always seem to be AC's) wrote:
Interesting that the success of failure of the "free" software movement is being gauged by the profits of a commercial company...
Did you see the "a little" there. The success or failure of the Free Software movement is not dependant on companies like RedHat, but they help. Therefore, hurting RedHat Software hurts the Free Software Community (a little).
I notice you refrained from commenting on my point about CheapBytes, where I said that the harm to them will greatly harm the Free Software community. Companies like Cheapbytes allow anyone with access to a computer affordable access to Free software. Downloading hundreds of files over the internet is not affordable to most of the world, who pay per minute for connection time.
Face it! There is no sustainable, viable economic model under which a software industry can exist under the free software banner! You can't support a world economy with collegiate warez d00dz' pipe dreams!
You are stating opinion with neither evidence nor respect. I say there is, and I say companies like RedHat, Walnut Creek, Cygnus, VA Research and Cheapbytes prove it. They are all profitable. Whether or not they are sustainable has to pass the test of time, but I say they are.
Ah... that felt good.
Happy now? Try posting comments which you are proud to put your name on. That feels much better than anonymous flamage.
Anonymous Coward (but we know who you really are) wrote:
:-).
Maybe RMS should copyright the term "Copyleft" since it is his term,
I think you mean trademark, you can't copyright a single word. I think he can legitimately trademark the term as far as use in the computer industry goes.
Man, these licenses are doing my head in. Must be a corporate conspiracy like those guys in suits on the bus and the barcodes and the CONTRAILS... muttermuttermutter.
Try tinfoil around your head. I've found it works wonders. A real fashion statement
The NCL is intended for programmers who wish to make a livingout of writing free software but have no desire (or ability) to offer consulting services.
To encourage cooperation between all free software developers however you should preface the GNU GPL by stating:
The entire Section 5 is labeled Integrety of Free Software.
It is clear that they are trying to piggyback on the Free Software Community, while putting a monkey wrench in both the terminology and business plans of Free Software companies.
We are free to ignore software if we don't agree with how it is licensed. Software under the NCL deserves to be ignored, except to make sure that they haven't violated other people's licenses in making their program.
You can't ammend the GPL. The copyright on the GPL itself says:
Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
You can probably release a program with a license of "You must follow the GPL as given in the file COPYING with the following changes:", and have the terms of your license an ammended GPL. This will confuse people, and licenses are confusing enough. You're better off finding a license that suits you better, or writing your own.
You certainly cannot alter the terms of someone else's GPL software. Only the copyright holder can put a license on software. You can't add restrictions under the GPL, and you can't remove restrictions without relicensing.
It is fully buzzword compliant, that is it uses the terms "Copyleft" and "Free" (while avoiding the legally protected term "Open Source"), but this is a very dangerous license to the Free Software community. I urge you not to treat this license as "Copyleft" "Free" or "Open Source", and avoid software licensed under the NCL.
I call this license dangerous because, while it pretends to be a Free license, it deliberately interferes with the redistribution of its software, one of the three pillars of Free Software.
Here's a hypothetical example, lets say the NCL becomes popular. There are fourty commonly used NCL packages out there. None of the authors are greedy, they just want $1 per copy sold for their two years. If a company like RedHat were to include these popular packages, the cost of their distribution will have gone up from $50 to $90. This will hurt sales, with no increase in their profit, thus hurting the free software community (a little).
Worse, when CheapBytes goes to repackage this version of RedHat, they will have to make their own arrangement with each of the authors, and their distribution will have gone up from $2 to $42, probably heigher, because they will need to hire someone just to manage all these agreements. This will destroy them, companies like them, and seriously harm the entire free software community.
Unencumbered redistribution is part of what makes Free software Free. This license mocks the community while asking us to accept them. I say throw them on their ear.
As long as the NPL keeps being updated, the new code is newly released under the NPL. Thus the clock starts again for any of the updates. If you make a derivative work, it is considered newly released under the NPL, and the clock starts again.
Sure, the restriction is lifted for the original version that was released two years ago, but that code will be awfully stale after two years.
Anonymous Coward wrote:
So basically you want the freedom to ignore other developers' intellectual property rights? Yet you demand that developers honor your pet license?
No, I want the definition of Open Source to include a carefully worded statement regarding Termination of Use. I think termination of use clauses are contrary to the spirit of Free Software, and I think the Open Source definition should reflect that.
I never asked for the freedom to ignore other's rights, that's not freedom at all. I asked that the license we call free be what I consider free, and the licenses that can terminate your use on a corporate whim not be called free. Currently, the Open Source definition is the yardstick we use, and I think it needs a mark for these clauses.
Somebody steals some code, adds it to Linux without permission of the author. You have no problems continuing to use that code?
Of course I have a problem with that. Unless the author assigns copyright to someone else, only the author has the right to copy or license their IP. What sideways reading of what I wrote made you think I was advocating plagarism?!?
Face it: If you expect people to honor the various free software licenses, you'd better be prepared to honor other licenses. Otherwise, you're a hypocrite.
I do honour other licenses, and you implying that my views are hypocritical without taking the time to understand them is very short sighted. If a program has a license that I find too objectionable, I honour it by not using the program. This is why I haven't purchased any proprietary software in three years.
Apple is probably not losing a customer by me disliking their license, I had no plans to get MacOS X. On the other hand the Open Source Initiative is potentially losing a supporter if they continue to encourage licenses like this.
MushMouth wrote:
if you continue to use GPL'd code that infringes on a patent, you are still not using the code legally
Whether or not you are using the code legally, you are not violating the GPL. If you make an agreement with the patenter, or if you use it in a country where the patent is invalid, you are using it legally.
If you continue to use APSL code where Apple invoked their right to terminate the license because of a patent conflict, you are violating the APSL. If you make an agreement with the patenter, or if you use it in a country where the patent is invalid, you are still using illegally, because the APSL was terminated.
although I would like the code to stick around for patents to expire, just not in use, that actually sounds somewhat dangerous, one of those things where we have
#ifdef BREAK_UNISYS_PATENT
/* do some shit fast*/
#else
/*slow work around*/
#endif
I'm not sure if #ifdef'ing out patented code is sufficient. I think you need to physically remove it in order to distribute. Of course, there are many countries where the Unisys and RSA patents are invalid, and they can distribute the BreakUnisysPatent patch file.