There's a difference between being secure in your possessions (and/or guaranteed from unreasonable searches, etc.), than going around shooting people. I do hope you can see that.
Note that, by the USSC's logic, you're not guaranteed Freedom of Speech offshore either. So the Coast Guard can apparently do what they want should you simply decide to heckle them.
"Right or wrong, the US does claim the power of law over its citizens when they are not in the country. "
To add to this, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled (decades ago) that the power of the Constition stops at the border. Not the sea-boundary, but at the shore. This is why the Coast Guard doesn't need any warrant to search a boat.
So, not only are you subjected to U.S. laws when you travel, but the U.S. doesn't recognize any of your Constitutional rights when you are overseas. It's only when you get back on land (not sea) that these things kick in.
"it's good OSS PR, but not a huge deal. Though of course, I could be wrong.
I'd say the fact that Microsoft is pouring a lot of money and effort into stopping this proves that they think it's a huge deal. They've spared no effort, from heavy lobbying of politicians, to generating a smear campaign via the Boston Globe, to get this stopped. Is there anything which they haven't done?
They well realize that once one state falls, others will go along. And they will start to lose their exclusive vendor tie-in for their core Office business.
I salute Governor Romney and his efforts here. May this new CIO continue this effort, and not end up side-tracking it.
I just wanted to say that I appreciate the intelligent discussion here. Yours and ultranova's comments (on a different thread above) have helped clairify the arguments here for me; as well as making it more clear to me that a process can indeed be set up to convert to a different license; and that it's not the bug-a-boo that the original poster (like many others) are making.
"If you need to use a lot of pieces of code under some other license than it currently is
licensed under, you need to contact each copyright holder and convince them to relicense;
you cannot simply assume that you got the license because contacting them all is too hard.
That was my point."
Thank you for clarifying that. On this point, we're mostly in agreement.
"Defended... Are sure you are not confusing copyright with trademark ? Copyrights don't need to be defended to stay valid."
Yes, I'm quite sure. And I agree, they don't need to be defended to stay valid.
And I agree that they are still valid even in the case where infringement has taken place.
My point is about legal defense in case someone decides to sue for damages after a
different license is being used. That is the greatest risk that I see.
"Why would a "reasonable attempt" to contact the copyright holder matter ? "
Because it can basis for a valid legal defense, if the copyright holder decides to sue
for damages. If it can be shown that the copyright holder knew about (or should have known
about) the license change, and raised no objections, the copyright holder is then
forced to explain why they willingly permitted the alledged infringement to proceed.
Well, we seem to have a disagreement about the nature of copyright. I'm writing under
the impression that you don't lose your copyright just because you don't defend it, and
you seem to be arguing otherwise.
My apologies for the confusion. I agree that you don't lose your copyright, regardless
of whether or not you take action. My argument is about your options becoming more
limited if you decide to pursue damages.
I think we're in agreement that it is easy for a copyright holder to come forth,
(via email or an injunction), to revert the file back to GPL 2 status.
Btw, thank you for the discussion. Yours and JanneM's have helped to clarify matters
in my mind.
IMO, the current way things are done with the Linux kernel are exposing it to considerable
risk. It is only a matter of time before someone comes up with something useful,
and starts a patent on it at the same time that it is submitted to the community.
I.e. a submarine patent.
Such a tactic strikes me as being far more effective (and certainly much cheaper) than
the current SCO nonsense in stirring up FUD, if not far worse. Put yourself in
Microsofts' shoes for a moment. What would you do if presented with this option?
I really think the Linux community as a whole has little choice but to protect themselves
in this regard; and GPL 2 just won't cut it.
In which case, the only options are to either go with GPL 3, or to craft something
different.
The main point that I'm trying to make is that the change to GPL 3 is quite doable.
It could either be done as I've suggested; or a more conservative approach could be
taken by distinctly marking each file as being "GPL 3 clean" or not. And working
towards full GPL 3 status for all files.
The fact that some copyright holders are not reachable, or unwilling to change,
shouldn't be a hinderance to the only really feasible solution that I see to keep
the Linux kernel clear of any submarine patents, or other nonsense that Microsoft
(or others) may stir up.
I think you mean misappropriating their work. Keep in mind that we're talking about going
from GPL 2 to GPL 3 here; and proving damages from such a change is going to be a bit
difficult, don't you think?
As for winning hands down, I respectfully disagree. If the defense can should that the copyright holder
knew (or should have known) about the use of the code in the new, changed license, and took
no action, then yes, their lack of such action is usually viewed as consent.
That's assuming that someone does actually wish to go the SCO route in terms of
reputation capital. But, let's assume that, with enough of Microsofts' money, another
such person, or company, can be found.
In which case, a more prudent approach would be to explicitly call out which files were
not GPL 3 clean, and still covered by GPL 2.
This is all still quite doable; and not the impossible task which some are claiming.
"My point was that if it is possible for Linus to relicense code copyrighted to someone else under a new license without the permission of the copyright holder, it should also be possible for anyone else to do this. Please explain how this is either silly or a strawman ?"
To be precise, your point was about relicensing XP, not Linux. There are two key differences
between the copyrights. XP is covered under a single copyright, actively owned and
defended by a single organization. Secondly, there can be clear monetary damages
established on the infringement of XP's copyright.
In contrast, the copyrights to the Linux source code are held in a distributed fashion,
not by one single organization. It may not even be possible to contact some of the copyright
holders at this point.
Your point is a strawman, because of the differences in how the copyright to the
source code is held.
And your point about XP is just plain silly (with all due respect), because Microsoft has
actively shown that they will defend their copyright, and they have no interest in changing
the licensing except under duress (witness the recent EU action).
Now, if you are (or were) making the claim that anyone besides Linus could make a similar
claim to the Linux kernel, that's different than the example with XP. And a fair point.
Yes, anyone can try. The question then becomes how successful they would be. The clear
answer is not very likely. Anyone without positive recognition would likely be responded
to with a definitive "no"; including by Linus himself, who has had copyright claim to
many of the kernel files from day 1.
In short, without Linus' approval, so many files would be contested, that it would probably
be less effort to do a rewrite from scratch. Especially when you add in the effect of his
viewpoint on the matter towards influencing other people.
"Please explain why [a judge] would view Microsofts code any differently than Joe Hackers
code ? Or IBM's code..."
Again, the distinction lies in how reasonable it is to contact the copyright holder.
For Microsoft, it's simple. For all the copyright holders to all of the files within
Linux, it may not be possible to contact everyone, including Joe Hacker. IBM, of course,
is quite simple to contact.
In which case, it becomes a question of how reasonable the effort was made to make contact,
should the matter go to court. The point here is to establish that a reasonable attempt
was made to contact all of the copyright holders.
In reality, it's unlikely the matter would go to court, beyond getting an injunction
against using the contested code, IMHO. And even that expense could be spared by a
simple email to Linus saying not to use your own code.
"Either lack of objection is implied consent or it is not. Please explain why it would be
implied consent in Linux's case and not be implied consent in Windows's case ?"
There is no implied consent in Microsofts' case. You can go ahead and write that letter
to Ballmer. You will get a letter back from their legal team, if not an investigation
by the BSA and/or a search warrent from the police.
The point is, you can't be assured of similar contact from every person who has a
contribution in the Linux kernel. The best way you can protect yourself from an injunction
and/or monetary damages to make as reasonable effort as possible to abide by the law.
The Courts take these matters very seriously, and are very good at distinguishing between
a reasonable effort, and an attempt of copyright infringement.
Really, though, the bottom line is that any owner who truly objects can get an
injunction quite easily, and relatvely cheaply. But they can spare themselves even
that expense by a simple request.
I hope I've answered all of your questions, and done so thoroughly. If not, please
let me know.
Every one is saying that you have to go out and get explicit permission from each
and every copyright holder before you begin the work. And that's difficult or impossible.
What I'm saying is that it is much simpler than that. If you give enough public notice
where it can be assumed that each copyright holder (or their heirs) should have known
about the relicensing, then you can place the onus upon the copyright holder.
Or, in short, silence implies consent.
That removes a major part of the effort right there.
And if Linus is backing this change, it is quite likely that most people will follow.
I suspect most people would want the code that they have gone to the trouble to get
included in the kernel to remain so. I don't think this uncertainty is more than
a bogeyman that some fear.
Nor is it nearly the bogeyman that you're trying to raise, with all due respect.
The effort is indeed effort. I know quite well what that takes. And I also know quite
well how far Linux has come in such a relatively short time (compared to the other OS's
out there). The rewrites can likely be done within a year, once the actual scope of
the work involved is defined.
And no, you don't have to have "never seen the code". Good lord, even IBM, with AIX,
allows limited access to their code for someone wishing to apply similar functionality
on a different product, if it's in IBMs' interest.
Granted, you have to be escorted by an IBM employee, with him watching. And granted,
it is for limited review. But the point that you "never have had seen the code" is
quite wrong.
What the proceedures for commericial closed-source rewrites are in place for is in
setting up a legal defense in the court room; and helping to establish that the
code in question was not copied. If reasonable efforts are made to make certain that the code wasn't simply copied, then you are fine. That's assuming that the code is similar enough in the first place.
Your point is just a silly strawman. There's a big difference between Windows and Linux
in terms of the copyrights. The question is how would a judge view the situation, and
decide?
As I mentioned in a previous reply, if the judge viewed that reasonable notice was
given to the copyright holder, and the holder didn't object, his/her lack of objection,
given the intent to relicense, is implied consent.
In reality, how likely do you think someone is going to sue Linus? And for what
damages, exactly? Not very likely.
While I appreciate the discussion, if you want a serious reply please don't
use something I didn't say as a silly strawman. This doesn't advance the discussion
whatsoever.
And no, it doesn't take concrete action to relicense it. The key point that you're
missing is that the final arbitrer of copyright is a judge. If a judge finds that
the copyright holder either was aware, or should have been aware of, the intention
of relicensing, and that silence implied consent, then there are indeed reasonable
grounds for acceptance of the relicensing.
That presumes in the first place that it ever gets to court. Far more likely is
that people would accept the relicensing; and those who didn't could well simply
voice their objection, and their code would be excluded.
The number of people who don't want their code in the Linux kernel, and who are
willing to sue for damages (and explain what those damages are), are pretty minimal.
Would you care to explain exactly who has their code in the kernel and is willing
to go the SCO death route by suing Linus? If not, then I think we've well established
that your point is rather moot, and my original point stands.
" This comes as no great surprise. How could Linus convert it to v3, even if he wanted to?"
Personally, I always find people spouting this myth amusing. Linus can do nearly anything he darn well pleases. Why don't you come out and explicitly tell Linus that he can't do something. Now THAT would be amusing.:)
Linus can quite easily convert over to GPLv3, or any other type of license if he wanted to. At any time.
He doesn't have to have to go out and contact every single developer at all. All he has to do is to make a reasonable attempt to contact developers, and to put up a public notice of his intentions. An announcement on the LKML ought to do, as well as a press release. Perhaps an announcement on a few key web sites as well. One could dig up the email addresses from what is actually there in the kernel; that's not to hard to do.
But the point is Linus DOESN'T HAVE TO contact every single developer who has code in the kernel. All he has to do is make a reasonable attempt, and a public notice.
Ever see legal notices in the paper? The same principle applies.
Anyone who wishes to not have their code relicensed can contact Linus; and that portion of the code will have to be rewritten. It's that simple. Rewriting such portions will involve some work; but it certainly can be done.
Unless that code is now patented; in which case we're all screwed. Which is why he ought to cut over. Now. You can well bet money that someone, somewhere, is at least thinking about how to shake down the Linux community this way. Heck, if SCO was smart, they'd be preparing a submarine attack this way right now.
While someone could sue to have their code not relicensed (as if that's going to happen), they would then face an uphill battle in court if the court deemed that sufficient public notice was given. In all probability, they would lose.
So yes, Linus can change to a different license any time he wishes. And this myth borders on pure FUD. IMHO, repeating this myth is detrimental to the Linux community as a whole.
No, my words are quite accurate. The definition of "terrorist" is an arbitrary and vague one. And it's up to Federal officials to decide that when if they elect to haul you away.
Please prove me wrong by citing the legal sources to which you base your claim.
And please also cite the legal restraints and recourses which are in place against such arbitrary detainment.
From all I've read, such defendants don't have any.
"if you're innocent, you shouldn't have to worry..."
That's the logical fallacy of the sheep. Why is it so many people prefer to bury
their heads in the sand, and refuse to learn?
Sir, please open your eyes. Millions of innocent people have been slaughtered
throughout human history (often within their own laws) by various governments. As shocking and
frightening as it must seem to you, being innocent is no safeguard. Indeed, innocence
has nothing to do with it when government officials are granted vast, unchecked power.
The only safeguard between yourself and unjustified prosecution and imprisonment
(or even death) is a thin, old piece of paper. And people's willingness to uphold
the words written on it.
I suggest you acquaint yourself with it.
Or perhaps I should make it more simple. The Bush administration has shown itself
willing to abuse the power it had before the Patriot Act was passed. The question now
before us is what are the limits to its current power?
You may not like the answer. Your "rights" have been redefined, and so has the
definition of "abuse".
Innocence isn't going to save you if you are currently viewed
as the wrong type of person. Indeed, in such cases you no longer have a right to
legal counsel, or to let other people know you have been detained. Or the right to
a speedy trial.
Welcome the new world that your elected representatives have given you. But please don't
be under the mistaken assumption that innocence will protect you, or that the government
isn't abusing your legally defined rights.
Yes; the old passive-agressive approach to CYA is how this appears. Especially given the facts that:
1. It happened suddenly, with no advance notice.
2. Mr. Quinn has been extremely quiet about the matter (making one wonder if there are other reasons for the sudden resignation).
3. His boss has been rather quiet about the issue as well.
It will be extremely interesting to see who gets Quinn's old job. I'm sure MS is in the process of pushing heavily people who are in their pocket. It would be the cheapest and easiest way putting the fix in here.
I'm sorry, but there's nothing good to see here. If Microsoft can get Peter Quinn to resign, what makes you think for a moment that "what makes sense" is going to happen? Do you really believe that what some State Official is saying right now is going to be what really happens?
Mr. Quinn resigned because he had "become a lightning rod", and that was getting in the way of his work. Anyone who fills his shoes is going to be a similar lightning rod, and that is one thing successful bureaucrats don't like being. Far more likely is that the next person will attempt compromise in order to smooth things over. And that compromise will end up being far more (if not completely) Microsoft centric, unless people stand up and make their voices heard.
This battle is far, far from over, despite what State Officials are now saying. It kind of reminds me of the claims made by Saddams' Minister of Information in the closing days of the Iraq invasion. Personally, I'll believe what I see when this battle has ended.
And IMHO, the odds went way up that closed formats are going to end up ruling here. What was indeed needed was a lightning rod. A pity that Mr. Quinn found the presure to be too onerous.
This is pure nonsense; GRUB works fine. I have a number of VMWare installations which use GRUB. In fact, I avoid LILO like the plague, as GRUB has a lot more capability and is IMHO easier to maintain.
Now, you might well be having some problems; I won't dispute that. But it seems like it's more specific to your own configuration.
VMWare has an excellent support message board; I suggest you raise this issue over at vmware.com, and be sure to include the specifics of your configuration.
Or just install any of the more recent RedHat distros. I've done that from Fedora Core to RH 6, and haven't seen any problems.
The modern image of Santa Claus is, I'm afraid, a sad one.
Santa would HAVE to shop on-line this year. It would be the only way that
he could legally get the toys.
The old way of doing things, by having his elves make the toys, is now illegal.
It constitutes "Intellectual Property theft". And WIPO, the RIAA and MPAA
all joined forces to force Saint Nick to adhere to the New World Order.
Our now less jolly old Saint Nick has had to negotiate Patent Cross-licensing,
Manufacturing, Trademark and Copyright agreements with all of the major
corporate entities this year. This left little time to build toys; hence
the need for Santa's web shopping spree.
Consequently, the Elves have had their prior work outsourced to the Elves
in India, China, and elsewhere. Fortunately, they are still gainfully
employed, as they have now become either high-powered Lawyers or PEB's
(Pointy-eared bosses). This was a bit hard on the Elves, as they are
normally good, by nature.
Santa's visits have also had to come to a stop. The delivery by flying
Reindeer constituted illegal border crossings and smuggling, as well as
breaking and entering via the Chimney. Now he has to use UPS.
The various State Attorneys General
are also looking into the issue of whether Interstate taxes have to be
paid, from previous years.
Somehow, I liked the old way of doing things (before this ad-hoc notion of
"Intellectual Property" was created) much better.
I'm not sure if that's exactly what Transmeta proved. But I'll address your last question.
What SOC's do is to simplify the bringup time of new boards. A SOC without a reference port of some software (System Initialization, IRQ handling, device drivers) is almost useless. Without that, the customer has to do the work, which adds time. It's almost always far better to go with a different SOC that has this done, rather than develop it from scratch. Especially if a Linux port is available.
On the hardware side of things, a hardware engineer doesn't have to go through the issue of selecting which Ethernet chip to use (say), and then running the hardware connections to it; nor worry about debugging these connections (including problems here with the manufacturing of the board). Multiply this by the number of devices used on the SOC, and you can see the big timesaver. So much so, that you need a really good reason not to do things this way - because your competition almost certainly will.
So, in short, it simplifies a lot of the development time.
I can't speak for what's taught in the Universities nowadays, but I can tell you that the decreased development time in industry is relatively new. So much so, that I've seen a number of companies fall down when trying to figure out what to do. I've also seen a number of successes when they get things right. But people who understand the entire modern cycle (theory AND practice) seem to be the exception, and not the norm.
So it's nice having these kinds of articles around, as they tend to reinforce the obvious about current practices. You'd be surprised how many companies don't understand these things.
Two of the most important things (on TFA's list of recommendations) are, IMO:
"1. Identify hardware and firmware module owners to take responsibility through entire life cycle."
"2. Adopt configuration management version control (CMVC) tools that allow for feature addition branches and version tagging."
The other items are important. But these two stand out, as their impact has ramifications in the other areas.
For #1, this can be characterized as "Avoid the Netscape Development Model". That is, there is no single owner, and everyone gets to make whatever mods they want. This leads to excessive code bloat, broken API's, and no one single person responsible for fixing a specific section. It's typically brought about by total mis-management of the project, by MBAs. It's truly amazing that the majority of managers out there simply don't understand this.
And sorry to pick on Netscape, but the stories involved with their engineering mismanagement here are rather noteworthy.
For #2, the right SCM selection is critical; and the wrong one ends up costing not only money, but even worse, time. While branching and tagging is important (does any modern SCM not have this?), there are a lot of subtle issues which you can't see based upon the marketing blurbs.
A superb example of the hidden costs is ClearCase. Regardless of whether you love CC or hate it, it ALWAYS soaks up a lot of resources. Aside from the servers required (assuming they don't go down at critical times), I have yet to see a ClearCase project which didn't have an absymally low ratio of developers to SCM engineers.
Modern SCM systems (like bitkeeper) should have one SCM engineer per hundreds of developers (at least). With ClearCase, it seems like the ratio is in the tens (or perhaps a hundred if you're lucky).
Finally, what IS somewhat new (and not mentioned really in the article), is the incredible speed in development by using Open Source. There is no faster development model with the Closed Source approaches, because you ALWAYS run into things that you didn't foresee; and you either cannot solve them with Closed Source, or it will end up costing you significant money (and additional time) to surmount the issue.
But with Open Source code, you can either solve the problem immmediately; or, someone else has come across the problem, and has a solution already in place.
I pity (and avoid) the companies which don't understand all of the above points. I also prefer to work with their competitors, as I like having successes on my Resume, and not also-rans.
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks for setting it up and mentioning it.
Note that, by the USSC's logic, you're not guaranteed Freedom of Speech offshore either. So the Coast Guard can apparently do what they want should you simply decide to heckle them.
To add to this, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled (decades ago) that the power of the Constition stops at the border. Not the sea-boundary, but at the shore. This is why the Coast Guard doesn't need any warrant to search a boat.
So, not only are you subjected to U.S. laws when you travel, but the U.S. doesn't recognize any of your Constitutional rights when you are overseas. It's only when you get back on land (not sea) that these things kick in.
That's a superb example, indeed.
I'd say the fact that Microsoft is pouring a lot of money and effort into stopping this proves that they think it's a huge deal. They've spared no effort, from heavy lobbying of politicians, to generating a smear campaign via the Boston Globe, to get this stopped. Is there anything which they haven't done?
They well realize that once one state falls, others will go along. And they will start to lose their exclusive vendor tie-in for their core Office business.
I salute Governor Romney and his efforts here. May this new CIO continue this effort, and not end up side-tracking it.
I just wanted to say that I appreciate the intelligent discussion here. Yours and ultranova's comments (on a different thread above) have helped clairify the arguments here for me; as well as making it more clear to me that a process can indeed be set up to convert to a different license; and that it's not the bug-a-boo that the original poster (like many others) are making.
Thank you for clarifying that. On this point, we're mostly in agreement.
"Defended... Are sure you are not confusing copyright with trademark ? Copyrights don't need to be defended to stay valid."
Yes, I'm quite sure. And I agree, they don't need to be defended to stay valid. And I agree that they are still valid even in the case where infringement has taken place. My point is about legal defense in case someone decides to sue for damages after a different license is being used. That is the greatest risk that I see.
"Why would a "reasonable attempt" to contact the copyright holder matter ? "
Because it can basis for a valid legal defense, if the copyright holder decides to sue for damages. If it can be shown that the copyright holder knew about (or should have known about) the license change, and raised no objections, the copyright holder is then forced to explain why they willingly permitted the alledged infringement to proceed.
Well, we seem to have a disagreement about the nature of copyright. I'm writing under the impression that you don't lose your copyright just because you don't defend it, and you seem to be arguing otherwise.
My apologies for the confusion. I agree that you don't lose your copyright, regardless of whether or not you take action. My argument is about your options becoming more limited if you decide to pursue damages.
I think we're in agreement that it is easy for a copyright holder to come forth, (via email or an injunction), to revert the file back to GPL 2 status.
Btw, thank you for the discussion. Yours and JanneM's have helped to clarify matters in my mind.
IMO, the current way things are done with the Linux kernel are exposing it to considerable risk. It is only a matter of time before someone comes up with something useful, and starts a patent on it at the same time that it is submitted to the community. I.e. a submarine patent.
Such a tactic strikes me as being far more effective (and certainly much cheaper) than the current SCO nonsense in stirring up FUD, if not far worse. Put yourself in Microsofts' shoes for a moment. What would you do if presented with this option?
I really think the Linux community as a whole has little choice but to protect themselves in this regard; and GPL 2 just won't cut it.
In which case, the only options are to either go with GPL 3, or to craft something different.
The main point that I'm trying to make is that the change to GPL 3 is quite doable. It could either be done as I've suggested; or a more conservative approach could be taken by distinctly marking each file as being "GPL 3 clean" or not. And working towards full GPL 3 status for all files.
The fact that some copyright holders are not reachable, or unwilling to change, shouldn't be a hinderance to the only really feasible solution that I see to keep the Linux kernel clear of any submarine patents, or other nonsense that Microsoft (or others) may stir up.
As for winning hands down, I respectfully disagree. If the defense can should that the copyright holder knew (or should have known) about the use of the code in the new, changed license, and took no action, then yes, their lack of such action is usually viewed as consent.
That's assuming that someone does actually wish to go the SCO route in terms of reputation capital. But, let's assume that, with enough of Microsofts' money, another such person, or company, can be found.
In which case, a more prudent approach would be to explicitly call out which files were not GPL 3 clean, and still covered by GPL 2.
This is all still quite doable; and not the impossible task which some are claiming.
To be precise, your point was about relicensing XP, not Linux. There are two key differences between the copyrights. XP is covered under a single copyright, actively owned and defended by a single organization. Secondly, there can be clear monetary damages established on the infringement of XP's copyright.
In contrast, the copyrights to the Linux source code are held in a distributed fashion, not by one single organization. It may not even be possible to contact some of the copyright holders at this point.
Your point is a strawman, because of the differences in how the copyright to the source code is held.
And your point about XP is just plain silly (with all due respect), because Microsoft has actively shown that they will defend their copyright, and they have no interest in changing the licensing except under duress (witness the recent EU action).
Now, if you are (or were) making the claim that anyone besides Linus could make a similar claim to the Linux kernel, that's different than the example with XP. And a fair point. Yes, anyone can try. The question then becomes how successful they would be. The clear answer is not very likely. Anyone without positive recognition would likely be responded to with a definitive "no"; including by Linus himself, who has had copyright claim to many of the kernel files from day 1.
In short, without Linus' approval, so many files would be contested, that it would probably be less effort to do a rewrite from scratch. Especially when you add in the effect of his viewpoint on the matter towards influencing other people.
"Please explain why [a judge] would view Microsofts code any differently than Joe Hackers code ? Or IBM's code..."
Again, the distinction lies in how reasonable it is to contact the copyright holder.
For Microsoft, it's simple. For all the copyright holders to all of the files within Linux, it may not be possible to contact everyone, including Joe Hacker. IBM, of course, is quite simple to contact.
In which case, it becomes a question of how reasonable the effort was made to make contact, should the matter go to court. The point here is to establish that a reasonable attempt was made to contact all of the copyright holders.
In reality, it's unlikely the matter would go to court, beyond getting an injunction against using the contested code, IMHO. And even that expense could be spared by a simple email to Linus saying not to use your own code.
"Either lack of objection is implied consent or it is not. Please explain why it would be implied consent in Linux's case and not be implied consent in Windows's case ?"
There is no implied consent in Microsofts' case. You can go ahead and write that letter to Ballmer. You will get a letter back from their legal team, if not an investigation by the BSA and/or a search warrent from the police.
The point is, you can't be assured of similar contact from every person who has a contribution in the Linux kernel. The best way you can protect yourself from an injunction and/or monetary damages to make as reasonable effort as possible to abide by the law.
The Courts take these matters very seriously, and are very good at distinguishing between a reasonable effort, and an attempt of copyright infringement.
Really, though, the bottom line is that any owner who truly objects can get an injunction quite easily, and relatvely cheaply. But they can spare themselves even that expense by a simple request. I hope I've answered all of your questions, and done so thoroughly. If not, please let me know.
What I'm saying is that it is much simpler than that. If you give enough public notice where it can be assumed that each copyright holder (or their heirs) should have known about the relicensing, then you can place the onus upon the copyright holder.
Or, in short, silence implies consent.
That removes a major part of the effort right there.
And if Linus is backing this change, it is quite likely that most people will follow.
I suspect most people would want the code that they have gone to the trouble to get included in the kernel to remain so. I don't think this uncertainty is more than a bogeyman that some fear.
The effort is indeed effort. I know quite well what that takes. And I also know quite well how far Linux has come in such a relatively short time (compared to the other OS's out there). The rewrites can likely be done within a year, once the actual scope of the work involved is defined.
And no, you don't have to have "never seen the code". Good lord, even IBM, with AIX, allows limited access to their code for someone wishing to apply similar functionality on a different product, if it's in IBMs' interest.
Granted, you have to be escorted by an IBM employee, with him watching. And granted, it is for limited review. But the point that you "never have had seen the code" is quite wrong.
What the proceedures for commericial closed-source rewrites are in place for is in setting up a legal defense in the court room; and helping to establish that the code in question was not copied. If reasonable efforts are made to make certain that the code wasn't simply copied, then you are fine. That's assuming that the code is similar enough in the first place.
As I mentioned in a previous reply, if the judge viewed that reasonable notice was given to the copyright holder, and the holder didn't object, his/her lack of objection, given the intent to relicense, is implied consent.
In reality, how likely do you think someone is going to sue Linus? And for what damages, exactly? Not very likely.
And no, it doesn't take concrete action to relicense it. The key point that you're missing is that the final arbitrer of copyright is a judge. If a judge finds that the copyright holder either was aware, or should have been aware of, the intention of relicensing, and that silence implied consent, then there are indeed reasonable grounds for acceptance of the relicensing.
That presumes in the first place that it ever gets to court. Far more likely is that people would accept the relicensing; and those who didn't could well simply voice their objection, and their code would be excluded.
The number of people who don't want their code in the Linux kernel, and who are willing to sue for damages (and explain what those damages are), are pretty minimal.
Would you care to explain exactly who has their code in the kernel and is willing to go the SCO death route by suing Linus? If not, then I think we've well established that your point is rather moot, and my original point stands.
Personally, I always find people spouting this myth amusing. Linus can do nearly anything he darn well pleases. Why don't you come out and explicitly tell Linus that he can't do something. Now THAT would be amusing. :)
Linus can quite easily convert over to GPLv3, or any other type of license if he wanted to. At any time.
He doesn't have to have to go out and contact every single developer at all. All he has to do is to make a reasonable attempt to contact developers, and to put up a public notice of his intentions. An announcement on the LKML ought to do, as well as a press release. Perhaps an announcement on a few key web sites as well. One could dig up the email addresses from what is actually there in the kernel; that's not to hard to do.
But the point is Linus DOESN'T HAVE TO contact every single developer who has code in the kernel. All he has to do is make a reasonable attempt, and a public notice.
Ever see legal notices in the paper? The same principle applies.
Anyone who wishes to not have their code relicensed can contact Linus; and that portion of the code will have to be rewritten. It's that simple. Rewriting such portions will involve some work; but it certainly can be done.
Unless that code is now patented; in which case we're all screwed. Which is why he ought to cut over. Now. You can well bet money that someone, somewhere, is at least thinking about how to shake down the Linux community this way. Heck, if SCO was smart, they'd be preparing a submarine attack this way right now.
While someone could sue to have their code not relicensed (as if that's going to happen), they would then face an uphill battle in court if the court deemed that sufficient public notice was given. In all probability, they would lose.
So yes, Linus can change to a different license any time he wishes. And this myth borders on pure FUD. IMHO, repeating this myth is detrimental to the Linux community as a whole.
So, I'd like to ask: How can citizens of non-European nations help support the efforts to fight Software Patents there?
Please prove me wrong by citing the legal sources to which you base your claim.
And please also cite the legal restraints and recourses which are in place against such arbitrary detainment.
From all I've read, such defendants don't have any.
I look forward to your illuminating answer.
That's the logical fallacy of the sheep. Why is it so many people prefer to bury their heads in the sand, and refuse to learn?
Sir, please open your eyes. Millions of innocent people have been slaughtered throughout human history (often within their own laws) by various governments. As shocking and frightening as it must seem to you, being innocent is no safeguard. Indeed, innocence has nothing to do with it when government officials are granted vast, unchecked power.
The only safeguard between yourself and unjustified prosecution and imprisonment (or even death) is a thin, old piece of paper. And people's willingness to uphold the words written on it.
I suggest you acquaint yourself with it.
Or perhaps I should make it more simple. The Bush administration has shown itself willing to abuse the power it had before the Patriot Act was passed. The question now before us is what are the limits to its current power?
You may not like the answer. Your "rights" have been redefined, and so has the definition of "abuse".
Innocence isn't going to save you if you are currently viewed as the wrong type of person. Indeed, in such cases you no longer have a right to legal counsel, or to let other people know you have been detained. Or the right to a speedy trial.
Welcome the new world that your elected representatives have given you. But please don't be under the mistaken assumption that innocence will protect you, or that the government isn't abusing your legally defined rights.
1. It happened suddenly, with no advance notice.
2. Mr. Quinn has been extremely quiet about the matter (making one wonder if there are other reasons for the sudden resignation).
3. His boss has been rather quiet about the issue as well.
It will be extremely interesting to see who gets Quinn's old job. I'm sure MS is in the process of pushing heavily people who are in their pocket. It would be the cheapest and easiest way putting the fix in here.
You get credit for calling the first such prediction that I've seen posted here, if it happens. :)
Mr. Quinn resigned because he had "become a lightning rod", and that was getting in the way of his work. Anyone who fills his shoes is going to be a similar lightning rod, and that is one thing successful bureaucrats don't like being. Far more likely is that the next person will attempt compromise in order to smooth things over. And that compromise will end up being far more (if not completely) Microsoft centric, unless people stand up and make their voices heard.
This battle is far, far from over, despite what State Officials are now saying. It kind of reminds me of the claims made by Saddams' Minister of Information in the closing days of the Iraq invasion. Personally, I'll believe what I see when this battle has ended.
And IMHO, the odds went way up that closed formats are going to end up ruling here. What was indeed needed was a lightning rod. A pity that Mr. Quinn found the presure to be too onerous.
Now, you might well be having some problems; I won't dispute that. But it seems like it's more specific to your own configuration.
VMWare has an excellent support message board; I suggest you raise this issue over at vmware.com, and be sure to include the specifics of your configuration.
Or just install any of the more recent RedHat distros. I've done that from Fedora Core to RH 6, and haven't seen any problems.
Santa would HAVE to shop on-line this year. It would be the only way that he could legally get the toys.
The old way of doing things, by having his elves make the toys, is now illegal. It constitutes "Intellectual Property theft". And WIPO, the RIAA and MPAA all joined forces to force Saint Nick to adhere to the New World Order.
Our now less jolly old Saint Nick has had to negotiate Patent Cross-licensing, Manufacturing, Trademark and Copyright agreements with all of the major corporate entities this year. This left little time to build toys; hence the need for Santa's web shopping spree.
Consequently, the Elves have had their prior work outsourced to the Elves in India, China, and elsewhere. Fortunately, they are still gainfully employed, as they have now become either high-powered Lawyers or PEB's (Pointy-eared bosses). This was a bit hard on the Elves, as they are normally good, by nature.
Santa's visits have also had to come to a stop. The delivery by flying Reindeer constituted illegal border crossings and smuggling, as well as breaking and entering via the Chimney. Now he has to use UPS.
The various State Attorneys General are also looking into the issue of whether Interstate taxes have to be paid, from previous years.
Somehow, I liked the old way of doing things (before this ad-hoc notion of "Intellectual Property" was created) much better.
The pragmatist however, always finds out first what's in the glass before giving an answer!
What SOC's do is to simplify the bringup time of new boards. A SOC without a reference port of some software (System Initialization, IRQ handling, device drivers) is almost useless. Without that, the customer has to do the work, which adds time. It's almost always far better to go with a different SOC that has this done, rather than develop it from scratch. Especially if a Linux port is available.
On the hardware side of things, a hardware engineer doesn't have to go through the issue of selecting which Ethernet chip to use (say), and then running the hardware connections to it; nor worry about debugging these connections (including problems here with the manufacturing of the board). Multiply this by the number of devices used on the SOC, and you can see the big timesaver. So much so, that you need a really good reason not to do things this way - because your competition almost certainly will.
So, in short, it simplifies a lot of the development time.
So it's nice having these kinds of articles around, as they tend to reinforce the obvious about current practices. You'd be surprised how many companies don't understand these things.
Two of the most important things (on TFA's list of recommendations) are, IMO:
"1. Identify hardware and firmware module owners to take responsibility through entire life cycle."
"2. Adopt configuration management version control (CMVC) tools that allow for feature addition branches and version tagging."
The other items are important. But these two stand out, as their impact has ramifications in the other areas.
For #1, this can be characterized as "Avoid the Netscape Development Model". That is, there is no single owner, and everyone gets to make whatever mods they want. This leads to excessive code bloat, broken API's, and no one single person responsible for fixing a specific section. It's typically brought about by total mis-management of the project, by MBAs. It's truly amazing that the majority of managers out there simply don't understand this.
And sorry to pick on Netscape, but the stories involved with their engineering mismanagement here are rather noteworthy.
For #2, the right SCM selection is critical; and the wrong one ends up costing not only money, but even worse, time. While branching and tagging is important (does any modern SCM not have this?), there are a lot of subtle issues which you can't see based upon the marketing blurbs.
A superb example of the hidden costs is ClearCase. Regardless of whether you love CC or hate it, it ALWAYS soaks up a lot of resources. Aside from the servers required (assuming they don't go down at critical times), I have yet to see a ClearCase project which didn't have an absymally low ratio of developers to SCM engineers.
Modern SCM systems (like bitkeeper) should have one SCM engineer per hundreds of developers (at least). With ClearCase, it seems like the ratio is in the tens (or perhaps a hundred if you're lucky).
Finally, what IS somewhat new (and not mentioned really in the article), is the incredible speed in development by using Open Source. There is no faster development model with the Closed Source approaches, because you ALWAYS run into things that you didn't foresee; and you either cannot solve them with Closed Source, or it will end up costing you significant money (and additional time) to surmount the issue.
But with Open Source code, you can either solve the problem immmediately; or, someone else has come across the problem, and has a solution already in place.
I pity (and avoid) the companies which don't understand all of the above points. I also prefer to work with their competitors, as I like having successes on my Resume, and not also-rans.