Interestingly, the FSF demands that all contributors to "GNU" projects sign over the rights to their work to the FSF. The FSF thus accumulates the rights to code in a way which it would deride if any other organization were to do so.
Of course, it's just holding the code "in trust" for the proletariat until it has reached the proper level of "political consciousness...." NOT. It has no plans to do any such thing. Rather, it seems inclined to gain complete control of as much software as possible.
The point -- and I'm not Senator McCarthy -- is that the principles upon which the FSF was founded were similar to those of Communism. The name was toned down to obscure this fact. Stallman does advocate the confiscation of programmers' intellectual property via the GPL. Whatever you think of Communism, this is simply the truth.
Brett, your whole argument relies on a a completely unsubstantiated premise, namely that you can't make money with GPLed code. Unfortunately - for your argument - Red Hat is making a fortune
Not so. Red Hat has never made a dime and has in fact lost millions of dollars per employee. What's more, it does not own Linux -- the product it sells -- so it also has virtually no assets other than computers, desks, chairs, etc. No profits? No assets? Doesn't sound like a strong business proposition to me.
Red Hat's own Form 10-Q, filed with the SEC, states:
RISKS RELATED TO OUR LINUX-BASED OPEN SOURCE BUSINESS MODEL
OUR BUSINESS MAY NOT SUCCEED BECAUSE OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE BUSINESS MODELS ARE UNPROVEN
We have not demonstrated the success of our open source business model, which gives our customers the right freely to copy and distribute our software. No other company has built a successful open source business. Few open source software products have gained widespread commercial acceptance partly due to the lack of viable open source industry participants to offer adequate service and support on a long term basis. In addition, open source vendors are not able to provide industry standard warranties and indemnities for their products, since these products have been developed largely by independent parties over whom open source vendors exercise no control or supervision. If open source software should fail to gain widespread commercial acceptance, we would not be able to sustain our revenue growth and our business could fail.
I'm interested... what do you think of typical proprietory [sic] EULAs?
I think that companies should stand behind their products. Unfortunately, a company that does stand behind its products will not do as well as one that doesn't. Therefore, consumer laws which already require merchantability and fitness for use should be extended to software, so that the playing field is level and the standards are higher. Unfortunately, UCITA -- unless it is rejected in all 50 states -- will move things in the wrong direction.
The GPL isn't a fair contract; it's a Faustian bargain. Its "preamble" is intended to mislead about its true intentions, and its terms are designed to come back to haunt the programmer who uses it.
What's more, it discriminates -- specifically against programmers. Anyone can use the code in the way that benefits him or her most, except the programmer who seeks to make a reasonable living by licensing his or her code. Shades of Animal Farm: "Some users are more equal than others."
Why do you insist on holding GNU software to such vastly higher standards of selflessness than commercial software?
Because it claims to have "such vastly high standards of unselfishness."
Yes, I do advocate a legal system which invalidates certain contract terms. (In legal parlance, these terms are called "unenforceable" or "unconscionable.") A license which required someone to turn over his or her firstborn children would be a good (if a bit extreme) example.
"Copyleft" is legally suspect for a number of reasons, and I frankly believe that it is unenforceable.
Then why begrudge others the chance to make money? Especially since anything they make, if they start with your publicly available code, will be the result of their improvements. (After all, they can get the original for free, so if people pay money for the improved version the programmer must have added plenty of value.)
The founding of the FSF was bankrolled by John Gilmore, who was (and is!) seriously in favor of strong crypto. This may have something to do with the FSF's tolerance of passwords, etc.
RMS believes people should be able to keep their code private. (And also other knowledge)
This is not so. At the MIT AI Lab, Stallman -- who served as a system administrator and system programmer -- even refused to let users put passwords on their accounts!
Yes, 'tis true, and it's documented. People who were at MIT at the time report that Stallman decrypted password files and sent messages to users saying, "I see your password is X. I suggest that you switch to the password [carriage return]. It's much easier to type, and also stands up to the principle that there should be no passwords."
He also modified the system code so that it would echo users' passwords to a public system console and system log as they logged in -- perhaps the first documented case of "password sniffing."
Steven Levy's book "Hackers" describes other ways in which Stallman fought security measures. Levy writes:
Stallman kept fighting, trying, he said, "to delay the fascist advances with every method I could." Though his official systems programming duties were equally divided between the computer science department and the AI Lab, he went "on strike" against the Lab for Computer Science because of their security policy. When he came out with a new version of his EMACS editor, he refused to let the computer science lab use it. He realizes that, in a sense, he was punishing users of that machine rather than the people who made policy. "But what could I do?" he later said. "People who used that machine went along with the policy. They weren't fighting. A lot of people were angry with me, saying I was trying to hold them hostage or blackmail them, which in a sense I was. I was engaging in violence against them because I thought that they were engaging in violence to [sic] everyone at large."
And all because the system -- which was on the rapidly expanding Net and therefore subject to cracking -- required passwords! To him, these simple provisions to prevent tampering and to keep information private were "fascism."
Stallman has also come out strongly against the notion of artists' rights. He believes that all intelletual property should be abolished and that authors of books and music not be able to hold copyrights.
It's only other people's code where you have to obey the sharing rules.
Not true, Bruce, and it's disingenuous for you to say so. When you add one line of other people's GPLed code to you work, you must give away all of your own code in that product. Not share proportionately or fairly with the author who wrote that one other line, but give it all away, to the entire world, forever.
It's the GPL that "takes, takes, takes." And that's its purpose.
Maybe there's a "camp" (as you call it) because there's a consensus that it's so.
You, Tom, and Bob Metcalfe.
And many more already. There will be more still, as people begin to recognize the true origins and motivations of the GPL.
The GPL was born of spite and malice. It was written by a man who harbored such a grudge -- such bitter anger -- against commercial software developers that he succumbed to carpal tunnel syndrome in an obsessive effort to sabotage them. This is all well-documented.
Wrong. Their competitors are not forced to do anything unless those competitors choose to be partners on the same piece of code. Don't use the code, you don't have to obey the license. Together, the collaborators on an open source project are a bigger and better competitor.
In other words, what you are encouraging is collusion among some vendors to destroy others. This is anti-competitive behavior, Bruce, and is highly illegal as well as unethical.
Actually, that's not true. You can add value to your own GPL code and put it out with a commercial license.
This doesn't work, Bruce, and I happen to have a tape of you saying so yourself at the Fall 1999 LinuxWorld.
The promise of being able to "dual license" is, alas, a trap which the GPL sets for unwary developers. It seduces developers into stamping the GPL onto their code.... But then, once they do so, they discover that it is virtually impossible to license their work for money. Here's why.
First, when the GPLed code is released, the author will doubtless receive suggested changes and improvements -- often in the form of code. The problem is that, since the initial code was licensed under the GPL, the code which is contributed back is licensed exclusively under the GPL because that's the license under which the contributor got it.
Thus, if the original author accepts a single contribution, his whole work is irrevocably licensed ONLY under the GPL and his ability to legally dual-license goes away.
What if the author refuses to accept the changes to avoid this? In this case, a second mechanism kicks in. The contributor -- or anyone else -- can fork the project to create a GPL-only work that competes directly with the author's and drives him out of business.
Finally, dual licensing does not work because only a very un-savvy businessman would license code for money when there's a GPLed version available. This is true for two reasons. First, the existence of the GPLed version effectively reduces the market value of its functionality to zero; anyone can get that functionality for free! Thus, if one pays money to license GPLed code, one is paying for something which has no market value to end users. This puts the commercial developer "in the hole" from the start. Second, the GPL often allows the author's potential licensees to use the code without licensing it. (For example, some vendors of print drivers for UNIX invoke GNU Ghostscript but then post-process the output through their own software after that. They don't change GhostScript itself.) So, in many cases, they have no need to license the GPLed code, and the author loses.
You've almost got that right. When I give you GPL code, you must share that with me and everyone else equally.
Translation: I must give everything away to the whole wide world. Which means that I must give away the farm. In short, what the GPL really obliges the programmer to do is not to pay back other developers; it's to forfeit any opportunity to make money from his work.
He may well choose to give some things to the world, and in practice that happens frequently. That's what the BSD and MIT X license are about. But he should not be forced to do that. Forced "giving" isn't giving; it's confiscation.
Here you go accusing me of being unethical again, Brett. It doesn't shed a good light on you.
The first rule of any code of ethics is, and must be, "Do no harm." The GPL is intended to do harm (Stallman explicitly said so in his "GNU Manifesto") and as such is per se unethical.
I think that to recognize this, and reject the GPL, sheds a very good light on anyone. To use, promote, or further the ends of the GPL is to intentionally hurt others by perpetuating an agenda of spite and malice. That's not ethical, Bruce.
The GPL doesn't just require the programmer to "return" value to another programmer. It requires him or her to give away his or her work to the entire world for free. It's a Faustian bargain which asks too much and therefore should not be accepted.
Oops, here comes another representative of the bitter and hurtful camp!
Maybe there's a "camp" (as you call it) because there's a consensus that it's so.
You got it backwards, Brett. Can you guess why I am working on the problem of modifying a license (not necessarily the GPL) for the situation of ASPs? Because some ASPs asked me to. Why did they ask me? To protect their work and their competetiveness. They want to put out Open Source software and benefit from the collaboration of other ASPs and the community. They want to create a commons in which no one party to has an unfair advantage over the other in this collaboration.
Translation: They really don't want to be competitive. Rather, they want to force their competitors to reveal the technology which might keep them ahead of the game. This is anti-competitive, not competitive.
But then, the GPL is, too. The GPL is intended to undermine programmers and hurt their livelihoods by giving away equivalents of their products for free and denying them access to that code so they can't add value.
So, they will put their own code behind whatever license I come up with.
Hmmm. Since when did you become "King Bruce?" It seems that, by attempting to dictate terms and restrict access to code, you are in fact becoming the very thing that open source was originally designed to avoid. The parallels to "Animal Farm" are obvious.
The GPL treats commercial software developers the same way as everyone else. In fact, only paragraph 3(c) of the GPL even has a reference to commercial vs. non-commercial distribution, and not in a way that would impair commercial distribution.
No, the GPL specifically targets commercial software developers by attempting to force them to give away the fruits of their labor. Distributors might be able to make a living (if they're lucky!) by pressing disks. But the programmers themselves -- whom Richard Stallman wished to reduce to the level of starving graduate students -- get nothing.
You can't understand this sharing thing, can you?
I understand it better than you do, Bruce. The GPL is not "sharing;" it's a variation on the old-fashioned, cruel playground game of "keep-away." True sharing means sharing with everyone.
Want to use my GPL code? Fine! Share it with this excellent set of sharing rules we've cooked up called the GPL. Return value equal to the value I put in, and treat me as I treat you.
No, this is not what the GPL says -- nor what it does. It says, "Some people can share the code for free, while others have to pay a price that's so steep that it will destroy their livelihoods." Again, "Some users are more equal than others."
But you're saying no share! gimmie!
No, that's what you're saying -- to one specific group. Programmers. This discrimination violates the very "Open Source Definition" that you wrote, since it discriminates against a field of endeavor.
There are indeed licenses that truly share. They're called the MIT X and BSD licenses. They don't discriminate against a field of endeavor. The GPL does.
Go over to freshmeat.net and look at all the GPLs on new code. Every one is offering you partnership in that code, if you can just learn to share.
What this shows, Bruce, is that the GPL has successfully pulled the wool over the eyes of many people. If you are ethical, you will fix this. If you merely want to ride the GPL to wealth, and are as greedy as those you revile, you will show this by continuing on your current course.
And it happens that yes, I am on some corporate boards. I'd rather have me there than someone who doesn't believe in Open Source,
From the above, Bruce, it appears that you yourself do not believe in open source. You believe in source that's open to some people, but not to others. And you want to get to do the choosing, according to who strokes you, pays you, or otherwise happens to get on your good side. You're a sellout, Bruce, and this shows it.
Bob's made Billions on 3com and the Ethernet and should not have reason to feel bitter. But he keeps putting out this bitter, hurtful, and poorly informed stuff.
Actually, Bruce, Bob is responding to your bitterness, and that of others who advocate the use of open source as a weapon.
In your talk at LinuxWorld Expo this year, you labeled anyone who didn't give away the farm to the open source community as a "parasite." You even advocated changing the GPL -- which is already designed to undermine programmers' livelihoods -- so that ISPs and ASPs would be forced to forfeit the value they had created.
In the same talk, you mentioned that you yourself had become wealthy and were drawing handsome paychecks as a result of serving on the boards of several corporations. In short, you, even though you were now wealthy, could make demands on struggling new companies -- most of them much poorer than Transmeta. But if they wanted to use GPLed code, you begrudged them their futures.
Metcalfe writes:
Orwell's farmhouse is full of open-source pigs, which are now almost indistinguishable from the humans they once overthrew.
Metcalfe is correct, for many reasons. The GPL, and its "copyleft" provision, are a good case in point. It allows anyone to use GPLed code in the way that benefits him or her most -- except for commercial software developers. Why? Because "some users are more equal than others."
The truth may sting, but Metcalfe is right, Bruce. You're being hypocritical. And you have no right to demand access to Transmeta's intellectual property.
I declined to buy a Vaio, and am not so sure I want to buy an Inspiron, due to the lack of audio support in operating systems other than Windows. The sound chip in the Vaio is only partially supported by OSS; likewise, the OSS drivers for the one in the Inspiron are only beta quality. As an electronic musician and MIDI enthusiast, the last thing I want is a laptop without sound. So, I'm biding my time until a complete solution is available.
I'm sure that all of these companies which are now cash-heavy from IPOs can arrange to get hardware support for these chips, or to get the laptop vendors to use chips which are documented and supported. Let's hope they do so.
By my estimates, this should be the best Microsoft product to date.
Might be. It can't get much worse.... Right now, my machines running Windows 98 are as unresponsive as if I'd already poured hot grits down the keyboards. And... darn... I have to run it because I support so many poor schlubs who do not have a choice. If I had my druthers, I'd put them all on one of the BSDs. My BSD systems never go down.
Or has Open Source gone "Four legs good/Two legs bad" already?
Seriously, I am afraid that some in the open source community have gone that route.
In fact, about a week ago, a fellow on a different mailing list who knew Stallman well recently wrote:
I was taught "GPL good, commercial software bad" by Stallman in person.
In short, he'd spoken with Stallman at length, face to face, and this is what he retained a few years after that conversation.
It's sad. I really wish we could go back to the days of true open source software -- such as BIND and Sendmail -- which was created for all to share. Including commercial programmers. The GPL and Linux zealotry seems to have spoiled that -- I hope not irreparably.
A general purpose computer operating system is run using a real time operating system. A real time operating system is provided for running real time tasks. A general purpose operating system is provided as one of the real time tasks. The general purpose operating system is preempted as needed for the real time tasks and is prevented from blocking preemption of the non-real time tasks.
Funny: Intel did this with Windows 3.1 quite a few years ago. It provided a real-time operating system kernel which ran beneath Windows and treated Windows as a task. It demonstrated it at the Embedded Systems Conference for a few years running and licensed it to embedded systems vendors.
Interesting. An open source "advocate" gets a patent, and the first thing he does is threaten to lock the patented technology away from others. Not particularly "open," is it?
Just so everyone knows where I stand: I personnally respect Richard Stallman wholeheartedly,
Perhaps you haven't met Richard personally. Have you seen the way he leers at every passing female?
Recently, a female acquaintance told me that she and other women had specifically asked that Richard not be invited to a party they planned to attend. They further noted that, if he was present, they would stay in a different room to avoid being stared at, slobbered at, and bluntly propositioned -- as they had been at previous gatherings where Richard was present.
At the Fall 1999 LinuxWorld Expo, I watched as Richard, having just stepped off the dais after a panel discussion, ostentatiously scanned each woman in the group from head to toe as if he was mentally undressing her.
This is not exactly what I'd call behavior worthy of respect.
and morally support the FSF in most all of its activities.
The FSF is neither moral nor ethical. Attacking people out of spite never is.
However, I can understand someone disagreeing with Stallman. But to disagree with someone, you first have to understand what they are seeing. You, obviously, do not.
I've talked with Stallman at length and have reviewed his writings, speeches, and activities. I have also interviewed others about his behavior. I probably don't know more about him than his closest friends, but I daresay I know exactly what his views and aims are.
You say Richard Stallman created the FSF and the GNU GPL out of anger. I think you are probably partly right.
His writings, his speeches, and accounts of his behavior at the time fully support the notion that the FSF and the GPL were created entirely out of anger and spite.
You say it was out of spite towards some ex-colleagues, or the typical programmer. There, you are wrong.
Not so. Read Stallman's GNU Manifesto, where he explicitly states his aim: to ensure that no programmer can ever make more for his work than a starving graduate student.
Richard Stallman was screwed, and screwed good by proprietary software companies.
Not true at all. All of the work which was used by the spinoffs of the MIT AI lab was bought and paid for by grants from government and industry. It was the express intent that the concepts developed at the Lab be incorporated into government and commercial projects. Richard, unable to see the big picture, resented this -- even though this process was the entire reason he could live in an academic playground in the first place!
Of course, when the commercial spinoffs did happen, Richard couldn't go himself; he was a creature of academia and not one who "played well with others." In a fit of rage, So, he vowed vengeance on those who would threaten his small, cozy academic nirvana by leaving.
If you have read the GNU Manifesto, you know this. And the truth is, we all have. Yes, he was angry. But all I can say about that is "How could I be so comatose as to have not been angered by it?"
I think you might want to reread the document from a broader and more informed perspective. Again, this was Richard's perception -- warped, as it was, by horrible rage, anger, and spite.
Today, I am angry when I have to click "I agree" to some outrageous claims just so I can play a game. I'm glad I get angry. It shows me I've woken up. And Richard Stallman is one of the people who did that.
Actually, the GPL itself is a "shrink-wrap" (or "click-wrap") license, with terms every bit as onerous to developers as the ones to which you refer. The GPL, as a cure, is worse than the disease.
Richard Stallman does not wish for free software programmers to be poor.
He desires all programmers to be put "on a treadmill" (to borrow a phrase from a Microsoft executive) so that they cannot prosper. This intent is explicitly stated in The GNU Manifesto and in other documents and speeches.
He does wish for proprietary software manufacturers to make less money.
If software vendors charge too much, others who charge less will come along and compete with them. It's a self-correcting process.
Is he wrong?
It is always unethical and wrong to attack anyone's livelihood out of spite.
Exploitation will make you rich. Slave traders (they still exist) have never been poor.
Commercial software developers are, by and large, neither exploitative nor rich. And to label them as "slave traders" is a deceptive and nasty slur. Most software companies fail, and the ones that do succeed often barely manage to remain profitable. Only a few, such as Microsoft, have done inordinately well. These can be counted on the fingers of one hand -- and you won't use up all the fingers.
Richard Stallman believes proprietary software to be exploitation.
By this logic, owning my own house or car and not letting anyone use it at any time would also be exploitation. "Exploitation" is a loaded and pejorative word. There's nothing wrong with owning property -- intellectual or physical. Unless you're just plain spiteful about the other guy having it.
Looking at how much money Microsoft is worth, I'd agree.
That's paper worth. Red Hat is worth billions on paper too, incidentally, though it has never made a dime and in fact has lost millions of dollars per employee. Want to talk about exploitation? I think enticing them to buy stock in a company that has always lost money and has virtually no assets (Red Hat doesn't even own what it sells) is exploitation.
RMS would like software making to no longer exploit the end user.
He clearly wants to exploit programmers instead.;-) Seriously, though, "exploitation" is an unjustified pejorative. Asking people to pay to license the intellectual property you produced via your own hard work is perfectly reasonable and fair. If you created something good, you deserve to be rewarded. Stallman wants to deny programmers a just reward for their work.
That will undoubtedly mean less money for those who try to exploit. All the better.
Again, the pejorative. By this logic, the person who asks you to pay for your food at a restaurant or supermarket is also "exploiting" you.
A few months ago, it was reported that Linus Torvalds had already cost Bill Gates several billions in shares value. I, for one, cheered.
It sounds as if you are spiteful.
Many others did as well. Yet when you quote Richard Stallman as having done the same to proprietary Unix companies, he is somehow evil.
It is never ethical to hurt anyone else out of spite or malice.
When people are free, the slave traders go bankrupt. That does not mean the the liberators were the bad guys to begin with.
"Slave traders?" "Liberators?" Sorry, but it's code, not people, that we're talking about here. One of the most misleading (and, at times, silly) parts of Stallman's rhetoric is his anthropomorpism of code. He talks about software as being "free" -- and uses the word "free" in multiple senses, that is, as a "pivot word," in an attempt to lead the reader to fallacious conclusions.
Richard Stallman paid the rent for many years by selling tapes with GNU Emacs on it.
Good for him. Why, then, does he begrudge other programmers a livelihood?
So stop the "He's a commie!" lingo already.
If you look at any of my postings, you'll see that I've never called Stallman a communist. However, his propaganda does borrow heavily from that of communism. And, alas, it is intended to mislead.
Slashdot Mirror
--Brett
Of course, it's just holding the code "in trust" for the proletariat until it has reached the proper level of "political consciousness...." NOT. It has no plans to do any such thing. Rather, it seems inclined to gain complete control of as much software as possible.
--Brett Glass
--Brett
Not so. Red Hat has never made a dime and has in fact lost millions of dollars per employee. What's more, it does not own Linux -- the product it sells -- so it also has virtually no assets other than computers, desks, chairs, etc. No profits? No assets? Doesn't sound like a strong business proposition to me.
Red Hat's own Form 10-Q, filed with the SEC, states:
--Brett Glass
I think that companies should stand behind their products. Unfortunately, a company that does stand behind its products will not do as well as one that doesn't. Therefore, consumer laws which already require merchantability and fitness for use should be extended to software, so that the playing field is level and the standards are higher. Unfortunately, UCITA -- unless it is rejected in all 50 states -- will move things in the wrong direction.
--Brett Glass
What's more, it discriminates -- specifically against programmers. Anyone can use the code in the way that benefits him or her most, except the programmer who seeks to make a reasonable living by licensing his or her code. Shades of Animal Farm: "Some users are more equal than others."
Why do you insist on holding GNU software to such vastly higher standards of selflessness than commercial software?
Because it claims to have "such vastly high standards of unselfishness."
--Brett
"Copyleft" is legally suspect for a number of reasons, and I frankly believe that it is unenforceable.
--Brett Glass
--Brett
--Brett Glass
This is not so. At the MIT AI Lab, Stallman -- who served as a system administrator and system programmer -- even refused to let users put passwords on their accounts!
Yes, 'tis true, and it's documented. People who were at MIT at the time report that Stallman decrypted password files and sent messages to users saying, "I see your password is X. I suggest that you switch to the password [carriage return]. It's much easier to type, and also stands up to the principle that there should be no passwords."
He also modified the system code so that it would echo users' passwords to a public system console and system log as they logged in -- perhaps the first documented case of "password sniffing."
Steven Levy's book "Hackers" describes other ways in which Stallman fought security measures. Levy writes:
And all because the system -- which was on the rapidly expanding Net and therefore subject to cracking -- required passwords! To him, these simple provisions to prevent tampering and to keep information private were "fascism."
Stallman has also come out strongly against the notion of artists' rights. He believes that all intelletual property should be abolished and that authors of books and music not be able to hold copyrights.
--Brett Glass
Not true, Bruce, and it's disingenuous for you to say so. When you add one line of other people's GPLed code to you work, you must give away all of your own code in that product. Not share proportionately or fairly with the author who wrote that one other line, but give it all away, to the entire world, forever.
It's the GPL that "takes, takes, takes." And that's its purpose.
--Brett Glass
--Brett
You, Tom, and Bob Metcalfe.
And many more already. There will be more still, as people begin to recognize the true origins and motivations of the GPL.
The GPL was born of spite and malice. It was written by a man who harbored such a grudge -- such bitter anger -- against commercial software developers that he succumbed to carpal tunnel syndrome in an obsessive effort to sabotage them. This is all well-documented.
Wrong. Their competitors are not forced to do anything unless those competitors choose to be partners on the same piece of code. Don't use the code, you don't have to obey the license. Together, the collaborators on an open source project are a bigger and better competitor.
In other words, what you are encouraging is collusion among some vendors to destroy others. This is anti-competitive behavior, Bruce, and is highly illegal as well as unethical.
Actually, that's not true. You can add value to your own GPL code and put it out with a commercial license.
This doesn't work, Bruce, and I happen to have a tape of you saying so yourself at the Fall 1999 LinuxWorld.
The promise of being able to "dual license" is, alas, a trap which the GPL sets for unwary developers. It seduces developers into stamping the GPL onto their code.... But then, once they do so, they discover that it is virtually impossible to license their work for money. Here's why.
First, when the GPLed code is released, the author will doubtless receive suggested changes and improvements -- often in the form of code. The problem is that, since the initial code was licensed under the GPL, the code which is contributed back is licensed exclusively under the GPL because that's the license under which the contributor got it.
Thus, if the original author accepts a single contribution, his whole work is irrevocably licensed ONLY under the GPL and his ability to legally dual-license goes away.
What if the author refuses to accept the changes to avoid this? In this case, a second mechanism kicks in. The contributor -- or anyone else -- can fork the project to create a GPL-only work that competes directly with the author's and drives him out of business.
Finally, dual licensing does not work because only a very un-savvy businessman would license code for money when there's a GPLed version available. This is true for two reasons. First, the existence of the GPLed version effectively reduces the market value of its functionality to zero; anyone can get that functionality for free! Thus, if one pays money to license GPLed code, one is paying for something which has no market value to end users. This puts the commercial developer "in the hole" from the start. Second, the GPL often allows the author's potential licensees to use the code without licensing it. (For example, some vendors of print drivers for UNIX invoke GNU Ghostscript but then post-process the output through their own software after that. They don't change GhostScript itself.) So, in many cases, they have no need to license the GPLed code, and the author loses.
You've almost got that right. When I give you GPL code, you must share that with me and everyone else equally.
Translation: I must give everything away to the whole wide world. Which means that I must give away the farm. In short, what the GPL really obliges the programmer to do is not to pay back other developers; it's to forfeit any opportunity to make money from his work.
He may well choose to give some things to the world, and in practice that happens frequently. That's what the BSD and MIT X license are about. But he should not be forced to do that. Forced "giving" isn't giving; it's confiscation.
Here you go accusing me of being unethical again, Brett. It doesn't shed a good light on you.
The first rule of any code of ethics is, and must be, "Do no harm." The GPL is intended to do harm (Stallman explicitly said so in his "GNU Manifesto") and as such is per se unethical.
I think that to recognize this, and reject the GPL, sheds a very good light on anyone. To use, promote, or further the ends of the GPL is to intentionally hurt others by perpetuating an agenda of spite and malice. That's not ethical, Bruce.
--Brett
--Brett Glass
Maybe there's a "camp" (as you call it) because there's a consensus that it's so.
You got it backwards, Brett. Can you guess why I am working on the problem of modifying a license (not necessarily the GPL) for the situation of ASPs? Because some ASPs asked me to. Why did they ask me? To protect their work and their competetiveness. They want to put out Open Source software and benefit from the collaboration of other ASPs and the community. They want to create a commons in which no one party to has an unfair advantage over the other in this collaboration.
Translation: They really don't want to be competitive. Rather, they want to force their competitors to reveal the technology which might keep them ahead of the game. This is anti-competitive, not competitive.
But then, the GPL is, too. The GPL is intended to undermine programmers and hurt their livelihoods by giving away equivalents of their products for free and denying them access to that code so they can't add value.
So, they will put their own code behind whatever license I come up with.
Hmmm. Since when did you become "King Bruce?" It seems that, by attempting to dictate terms and restrict access to code, you are in fact becoming the very thing that open source was originally designed to avoid. The parallels to "Animal Farm" are obvious.
The GPL treats commercial software developers the same way as everyone else. In fact, only paragraph 3(c) of the GPL even has a reference to commercial vs. non-commercial distribution, and not in a way that would impair commercial distribution.
No, the GPL specifically targets commercial software developers by attempting to force them to give away the fruits of their labor. Distributors might be able to make a living (if they're lucky!) by pressing disks. But the programmers themselves -- whom Richard Stallman wished to reduce to the level of starving graduate students -- get nothing.
You can't understand this sharing thing, can you?
I understand it better than you do, Bruce. The GPL is not "sharing;" it's a variation on the old-fashioned, cruel playground game of "keep-away." True sharing means sharing with everyone.
Want to use my GPL code? Fine! Share it with this excellent set of sharing rules we've cooked up called the GPL. Return value equal to the value I put in, and treat me as I treat you.
No, this is not what the GPL says -- nor what it does. It says, "Some people can share the code for free, while others have to pay a price that's so steep that it will destroy their livelihoods." Again, "Some users are more equal than others."
But you're saying no share! gimmie!
No, that's what you're saying -- to one specific group. Programmers. This discrimination violates the very "Open Source Definition" that you wrote, since it discriminates against a field of endeavor.
There are indeed licenses that truly share. They're called the MIT X and BSD licenses. They don't discriminate against a field of endeavor. The GPL does.
Go over to freshmeat.net and look at all the GPLs on new code. Every one is offering you partnership in that code, if you can just learn to share.
What this shows, Bruce, is that the GPL has successfully pulled the wool over the eyes of many people. If you are ethical, you will fix this. If you merely want to ride the GPL to wealth, and are as greedy as those you revile, you will show this by continuing on your current course.
And it happens that yes, I am on some corporate boards. I'd rather have me there than someone who doesn't believe in Open Source,
From the above, Bruce, it appears that you yourself do not believe in open source. You believe in source that's open to some people, but not to others. And you want to get to do the choosing, according to who strokes you, pays you, or otherwise happens to get on your good side. You're a sellout, Bruce, and this shows it.
--Brett Glass
Actually, Bruce, Bob is responding to your bitterness, and that of others who advocate the use of open source as a weapon.
In your talk at LinuxWorld Expo this year, you labeled anyone who didn't give away the farm to the open source community as a "parasite." You even advocated changing the GPL -- which is already designed to undermine programmers' livelihoods -- so that ISPs and ASPs would be forced to forfeit the value they had created.
In the same talk, you mentioned that you yourself had become wealthy and were drawing handsome paychecks as a result of serving on the boards of several corporations. In short, you, even though you were now wealthy, could make demands on struggling new companies -- most of them much poorer than Transmeta. But if they wanted to use GPLed code, you begrudged them their futures.
Metcalfe writes:
Orwell's farmhouse is full of open-source pigs, which are now almost indistinguishable from the humans they once overthrew.
Metcalfe is correct, for many reasons. The GPL, and its "copyleft" provision, are a good case in point. It allows anyone to use GPLed code in the way that benefits him or her most -- except for commercial software developers. Why? Because "some users are more equal than others."
The truth may sting, but Metcalfe is right, Bruce. You're being hypocritical. And you have no right to demand access to Transmeta's intellectual property.
--Brett Glass
I'm sure that all of these companies which are now cash-heavy from IPOs can arrange to get hardware support for these chips, or to get the laptop vendors to use chips which are documented and supported. Let's hope they do so.
--Brett Glass
Might be. It can't get much worse.... Right now, my machines running Windows 98 are as unresponsive as if I'd already poured hot grits down the keyboards. And... darn... I have to run it because I support so many poor schlubs who do not have a choice. If I had my druthers, I'd put them all on one of the BSDs. My BSD systems never go down.
--Brett Glass
Patch it around
65,000... Hey! The keyboard isn't working! What's wrong with this darn....
--Brett Glass
--Brett Glass
Seriously, I am afraid that some in the open source community have gone that route.
In fact, about a week ago, a fellow on a different mailing list who knew Stallman well recently wrote:
I was taught "GPL good, commercial software bad" by Stallman in person.
In short, he'd spoken with Stallman at length, face to face, and this is what he retained a few years after that conversation.
It's sad. I really wish we could go back to the days of true open source software -- such as BIND and Sendmail -- which was created for all to share. Including commercial programmers. The GPL and Linux zealotry seems to have spoiled that -- I hope not irreparably.
--Brett Glass
Funny: Intel did this with Windows 3.1 quite a few years ago. It provided a real-time operating system kernel which ran beneath Windows and treated Windows as a task. It demonstrated it at the Embedded Systems Conference for a few years running and licensed it to embedded systems vendors.
IBM's VM/CMS is also prior art and is even older.
--Brett Glass
--Brett Glass
Perhaps you haven't met Richard personally. Have you seen the way he leers at every passing female?
Recently, a female acquaintance told me that she and other women had specifically asked that Richard not be invited to a party they planned to attend. They further noted that, if he was present, they would stay in a different room to avoid being stared at, slobbered at, and bluntly propositioned -- as they had been at previous gatherings where Richard was present.
At the Fall 1999 LinuxWorld Expo, I watched as Richard, having just stepped off the dais after a panel discussion, ostentatiously scanned each woman in the group from head to toe as if he was mentally undressing her.
This is not exactly what I'd call behavior worthy of respect.
and morally support the FSF in most all of its activities.
The FSF is neither moral nor ethical. Attacking people out of spite never is.
However, I can understand someone disagreeing with Stallman. But to disagree with someone, you first have to understand what they are seeing. You, obviously, do not.
I've talked with Stallman at length and have reviewed his writings, speeches, and activities. I have also interviewed others about his behavior. I probably don't know more about him than his closest friends, but I daresay I know exactly what his views and aims are.
You say Richard Stallman created the FSF and the GNU GPL out of anger. I think you are probably partly right.
His writings, his speeches, and accounts of his behavior at the time fully support the notion that the FSF and the GPL were created entirely out of anger and spite.
You say it was out of spite towards some ex-colleagues, or the typical programmer. There, you are wrong.
Not so. Read Stallman's GNU Manifesto, where he explicitly states his aim: to ensure that no programmer can ever make more for his work than a starving graduate student.
Richard Stallman was screwed, and screwed good by proprietary software companies.
Not true at all. All of the work which was used by the spinoffs of the MIT AI lab was bought and paid for by grants from government and industry. It was the express intent that the concepts developed at the Lab be incorporated into government and commercial projects. Richard, unable to see the big picture, resented this -- even though this process was the entire reason he could live in an academic playground in the first place!
Of course, when the commercial spinoffs did happen, Richard couldn't go himself; he was a creature of academia and not one who "played well with others." In a fit of rage, So, he vowed vengeance on those who would threaten his small, cozy academic nirvana by leaving.
If you have read the GNU Manifesto, you know this. And the truth is, we all have. Yes, he was angry. But all I can say about that is "How could I be so comatose as to have not been angered by it?"
I think you might want to reread the document from a broader and more informed perspective. Again, this was Richard's perception -- warped, as it was, by horrible rage, anger, and spite.
Today, I am angry when I have to click "I agree" to some outrageous claims just so I can play a game. I'm glad I get angry. It shows me I've woken up. And Richard Stallman is one of the people who did that.
Actually, the GPL itself is a "shrink-wrap" (or "click-wrap") license, with terms every bit as onerous to developers as the ones to which you refer. The GPL, as a cure, is worse than the disease.
Richard Stallman does not wish for free software programmers to be poor.
He desires all programmers to be put "on a treadmill" (to borrow a phrase from a Microsoft executive) so that they cannot prosper. This intent is explicitly stated in The GNU Manifesto and in other documents and speeches.
He does wish for proprietary software manufacturers to make less money.
If software vendors charge too much, others who charge less will come along and compete with them. It's a self-correcting process.
Is he wrong?
It is always unethical and wrong to attack anyone's livelihood out of spite.
Exploitation will make you rich. Slave traders (they still exist) have never been poor.
Commercial software developers are, by and large, neither exploitative nor rich. And to label them as "slave traders" is a deceptive and nasty slur. Most software companies fail, and the ones that do succeed often barely manage to remain profitable. Only a few, such as Microsoft, have done inordinately well. These can be counted on the fingers of one hand -- and you won't use up all the fingers.
Richard Stallman believes proprietary software to be exploitation.
By this logic, owning my own house or car and not letting anyone use it at any time would also be exploitation. "Exploitation" is a loaded and pejorative word. There's nothing wrong with owning property -- intellectual or physical. Unless you're just plain spiteful about the other guy having it.
Looking at how much money Microsoft is worth, I'd agree.
That's paper worth. Red Hat is worth billions on paper too, incidentally, though it has never made a dime and in fact has lost millions of dollars per employee. Want to talk about exploitation? I think enticing them to buy stock in a company that has always lost money and has virtually no assets (Red Hat doesn't even own what it sells) is exploitation.
RMS would like software making to no longer exploit the end user.
He clearly wants to exploit programmers instead. ;-) Seriously, though, "exploitation" is an unjustified pejorative. Asking people to pay to license the intellectual property you produced via your own hard work is perfectly reasonable and fair. If you created something good, you deserve to be rewarded. Stallman wants to deny programmers a just reward for their work.
That will undoubtedly mean less money for those who try to exploit. All the better.
Again, the pejorative. By this logic, the person who asks you to pay for your food at a restaurant or supermarket is also "exploiting" you.
A few months ago, it was reported that Linus Torvalds had already cost Bill Gates several billions in shares value. I, for one, cheered.
It sounds as if you are spiteful.
Many others did as well. Yet when you quote Richard Stallman as having done the same to proprietary Unix companies, he is somehow evil.
It is never ethical to hurt anyone else out of spite or malice.
When people are free, the slave traders go bankrupt. That does not mean the the liberators were the bad guys to begin with.
"Slave traders?" "Liberators?" Sorry, but it's code, not people, that we're talking about here. One of the most misleading (and, at times, silly) parts of Stallman's rhetoric is his anthropomorpism of code. He talks about software as being "free" -- and uses the word "free" in multiple senses, that is, as a "pivot word," in an attempt to lead the reader to fallacious conclusions.
Richard Stallman paid the rent for many years by selling tapes with GNU Emacs on it.
Good for him. Why, then, does he begrudge other programmers a livelihood?
So stop the "He's a commie!" lingo already.
If you look at any of my postings, you'll see that I've never called Stallman a communist. However, his propaganda does borrow heavily from that of communism. And, alas, it is intended to mislead.
--Brett Glass