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Softpanorama
(slightly skeptical)
Open Source Software Educational Society |
May the
source be with you,
but remember the KISS principle ;-)
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Social aspects of the BSD vs. GPL debate
(Research notes to the e-book Labyrinth of Software Freedom )
Rui Miguel Seabra wrote:
> A copyright law violation is as severely pursued be it
> Free Software as proprietary software
"The church of GNU denounce copyright as an evil plot... unless this
is connected with the direct attacks of the legality of GPL. ;-)"
-- BezroukovLetter by Alexander Telehov
Re Use of GPL'd code with proprietary programs
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This page is a collection of my research notes to the ebook
Labyrinth of Software Freedom.
As any research collection it's mainly for the internal consumption and as such
is pretty raw. Still I think that software developers should be aware about misrepresentation
of copyright in GPL (and in general by RMS (aka FSF ;-) and here this page might
be somewhat useful.
GPL has problems typical for any utopia.
Still it does include some positive value. In
The Soul of Man Under Socialism, Oscar Wilde wrote that "a map of the
world which does not include Utopia is not worth looking at". As
Jon "Hannibal"
Stokes aptly noted:
Ars Technica Intellectual Property and the Good Society - Page 1 - (8-2001)
Each aspect of a structure--the choice of a foundation,
the materials, the location--reflects the values, interests, and goals of the
person or group who built it. This is nowhere more evident than in the international
intellectual property structures currently under construction by parties with
an interest in maintaining the status quo of the offline world into the
digital age. This global intellectual property regime is being developed
quite deliberately by a very select group of transnational corporations with
vast patent, copyright, and trademark holdings, holdings that are essential
to their survival. Furthermore, this group justifies their vision of
how this structure is turning out by using the language of rights--language
that works to this group's benefit in exactly the way I outlined above. By focusing
the debate on the "rights" of individual parties, this group has been able to
distract us from the construction work that's going on right under our noses.
Make no mistake, this group may talk "rights" to the public, but they're thinking
"structures," and even a cursory examination of the documents they produce will
bear this out.
The type of structures that this regime is developing
are outlined in a document typical of it: a product of the World Intellectual
Property Organization's (WIPO) Workshop on Implementation Issues of the WIPO
Copyright Treaty and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty, entitled,
"Technical Protection Measures: The Intersection of Technology, Law, and Commercial
Licenses." In this document, the authors outline a three-pronged strategy for
the "protection of intellectual property." Again, it is important to note that
this strategy was not developed by content producers "on the ground," but is
a product of transnational corporate interests whose overriding concern is the
maintenance of the status quo. I'll summarize this strategy briefly,
because it's important that each of its three components be understood if those
of us with an interest in the outcome of these developments are going to be
able to address them.
The first element in this strategy is the
most familiar to the technical crowd, as it involves the development of technological
protection measures aimed at "protecting" content from "unauthorized uses."
The current focus of the "content protection" industry is on the use
of encryption and steganography (i.e. information hiding techniques like digital
watermarking) to control access to digital works. The industry doesn't expect
encryption to completely prevent unauthorized copying, however. Rather, it is
felt that encryption will enable content owners to raise the level of difficulty
associated with unauthorized reproduction and distribution of copyrighted works.
If it is suitably difficult for a consumer to compromise the digital locks placed
on published content, the reasoning goes, then such "pirate" activity will be
limited to the few, the competent, and the dedicated. Content owners openly
admit that this is a direct attempt to artificially reproduce the constraints
on copying naturally inherent in analog media, thus doing away with the advantages
of digital media for everyone but the content owners themselves.
Open/free software licenses probably
are farther from the "traditional" copyright law than an approach discussed in the
quote above. To a certain extent they are connected to the political notions of
freedom and power (like in "Power without freedom is tyranny. Freedom without power
is impotent."). RMS chronic abuse of the word "freedom" and simplistic (anarchistic)
understanding of this complex issue is very symptomatic in this respect. That's
why www.gnu.org sometimes
reminds a web site of some obscure "software cult". In no way it can be considered
a software developers website despite the fact that RMS was in the past a programmer
himself.
It's important to understand that the
material presented covers a pretty limited spectrum of questions raised in my e-book
Labyrinth of Software Freedom.
My impression is that GPL outlived its
usefulness and that the Artistic license (Plan 9 license generally can be considered
as a longer and with more legalize derivative of the Artistic license designed for
corporate use) can serve as an alternative for GPL on early stages of software development
(especially if there is some public funding involved). Sun Community Software License
is probably another interesting underutilized license that can be used on early
stages of software development cycle. BSD license is better for mature software
and here GPL is simply inadequate.
It also has problems with enforcing zero
price (price fixing) that was first shown in two Wallace lawsuit that was dismissed
on technical grounds. In both cases the GPL was not upheld - Wallace's complaint
was dismissed without discussing its merits at the request of FSF (FSF
Tries Again To Get GPL Antitrust Suit Dismissed @ ENTERPRISE OPEN SOURCE MAGAZINE)
The Defendant FREE SOFTWARE FOUNDATION
INC. has entered into contracts and otherwise conspired and agreed with individual
software authors and commercial distributors of commodity software products
such as Red Hat Inc. and Novell Inc. to artificially fix the prices
charged for computer software programs through the promotion and use
of an adhesion contract that was created, used and promoted since at least the
year 1991 by the FREE SOFTWARE FOUNDATION INC. This license is known as the
GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE. The price fixing scheme implemented with the use
of the GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE substantially lessens the ability
of individual software authors to compete in a free market through
the creation, sale and distribution of computer software programs. [emphasis
mine]
The ruling was:
"First, while Mr. Wallace contends that the GPL is "foreclosing competition
in the market for computer operating systems" (id.), his problem appears to
be that GPL generates too much competition, free of charge. The court's understanding
from the GPL itself is that it is a software licensing agreement through which
the GNU/Linux operating system may be licensed and distributed to individual
users so long as those users "cause any work that [they] distribute or publish,
that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part
thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the
terms of this License." (GPL 3.) The GPL purportedly functions to "guarantee
[users'] freedom to share and change free software." (GPL Preamble.) As alleged,
the GPL in no way forecloses other operating systems from entering the market.
Instead, it merely acts as a means by which certain software may be copied,
modified and redistributed without violating the software's copyright protection.
As such, the GPL encourages, rather than discourages, free competition and the
distribution of computer operating systems, the benefits of which directly pass
to consumers. These benefits include lower prices, better access and more innovation.
See Jason B. Wacha, Taking the Case: Is the GPL Enforceable, 21 Santa Clara
Computer & High Tech L.J. 451, 487 (2005). And the Sherman Act "was enacted
to assure customers the benefits of price competition, and . . . prior cases
have emphasized the controlling interest in protecting the economic freedom
of participants in the relevant market." Assoc.'d Gen. Contractors v. Cal. State
Council of Carpenters, 459 U.S. 519, 528 (1983). Therefore, the court
finds that the Fourth Amended Complaint does not adequately set forth an injury
to competition as a whole."
- John Daniel Tinder, Judge, United States District Court,
Daniel Wallace
v. Free Software Foundation, Inc.
It looks like Wallace discovered in interesting property of GPL that previously
was never discussed: In the article of the
Stanford Center for Internet and Society "Court Finds No Antitrust Injury From
GNU General Public License (GPL)" the substance of Wallace claims was outlined as
follows:
This case involves the GNU
General Public License (GPL), which governs the use of many products sold
and distributed by the Free Software Foundation (FSF), including GNU/Linux operating
systems. The GPL requires, among another things, that users who distribute or
publish any work derived from GPL-covered software to license that work to under
the GPL to all third parties at no charge. The plaintiff, Daniel Wallace (Wallace),
was not a user of FSF software; rather, he was a competitor of FSF’s, trying
to sell his own operating system. Wallace brought an action pro se against FSF
claiming that it was conspiring with commercial distributors IBM, RedHat, Novell,
and others to fix prices for intellectual property in the market by attaching
the GPL to GNU/Linux operating system software. Wallace claimed, in essence,
that the GPL constituted a horizontal price-fixing scheme among competitors
in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act and sought to enjoin
FSF from developing and distributing Linux under the GPL. On motion
by FSF, Judge Tinder of the United States District Court for the Southern District
of Indiana dismissed the complaint for failure to show any “antitrust injury”
from FSF’s conduct, but held that Wallace had otherwise stated a claim upon
which relief could be granted.
In his third amended complaint, Wallace alleged that FSF was conspiring with
its competitors to fix prices for software via the GPL. The court determined
that Wallace was effectively claiming the existence of a horizontal price-fixing
agreement, which would be illegal per se under the Section 1 of the Sherman
Antitrust Act (prohibiting contracts and conspiracies in restraint of trade)
because such horizontal arrangements are perceived to have a “pernicious effect”
on competition. By comparison, vertical agreements (those between enterprises
at different levels within the same chain of distribution) are governed by a
“rule of reason” analysis because their effects will not always be anticompetitive.
The court determined that the GPL could not be reasonably characterized
as a horizontal agreement because it governs agreements between licensees and
licensors, who are users at different levels within the same chain of distribution.
Therefore, the court reasoned, the GPL is a vertical agreement, and it cannot
alone constitute a per se violation of the Sherman Act.
The court then analyzed the GPL under the rule of reason to determine whether
it might be an unreasonable restraint of trade. Under the rule of reason, a
vertical licensing agreement may violate the Sherman Act if it produces adverse,
anti-competitive effects such as a reduction in output, increase in price, or
deterioration in the quality of goods and services, among other factors. FSF
argued that its practice of allowing free access to software with the GPL aids
competition rather than hinders it. However, the court held that the GPL may
have an anticompetitive effect by discouraging software developers from creating
better programs for Linux (since they could not be adequately compensated) and
reducing the number of quality programs available to consumers. Thus, Wallace’s
complaint sufficiently alleged a violation of the Sherman Act.
However, the complaint ultimately failed because the court found that
Wallace had suffered no antitrust injury, i.e., injury of the sort that the
antitrust laws are designed to prevent. Examining Wallace’s complaint,
the court found that his only alleged injury was an inability or unwillingness
to enter into the software business because he could not compete with users
of Linux. Because this is an injury to a (potential) competitor rather than
an injury to consumers or to competition itself, the court found no antitrust
injury and dismissed the complaint.
Due the size of the page software licenses
catalog was moved to separate pages. There are two common misconceptions that
I would like to point out.
-
The first very common misconception that many people confuse
"GPL", and "Open Source". Open source is actually an umbrella term and it is
more correct to distinguish between OSS under particular licenses: Artistic
license, BSD, GPL, MPL and several other less popular licenses. GPLed software
represents less that 50% of "open source" code; the majority of "open source"
code is made up of BSD, Artistic license (and its derivatives) and the other
license types.
-
The second misconception is that open source is considered to
be mainly Linux-related. In reality BSD operating systems and BSD-licensed software
is older, in some areas more prominent and more technically advanced branch
of open software space. While Linux might be getting all the ink, at least in
ISP world BSD is doing most of the work (BTW Yahoo is running on BSD).
I actually like the 'you get something for free, you have to give
something back' idea, however, I like it from the point of view of academic ethics;
I don't like the GNU manifesto, I don't like Stallman's ideas about commercial software
(and yes, I mean Microsoft as a example of commercial software vendor ;-), and I
really don't like people who blindly follow software anarchists like Stallman.
Again, this is a "slightly skeptical" page. If someone decides
to license software under the GPL, that's fine, but that should be done by looking
at the license, reading relevant discussions, papers and historic cases and seeing
what it's all about (and what the consequences are). Most Linux programmers however,
blindly stamp GPL on their programs. Sometimes they are naively thinking that they
prevent companies to profit off their work, forgetting that companies like IBM,
RH, Suse (now Novell) are profiting from them already.
Finally, there are a some systemic things about the GPL/LGPL that
I don't like: they are too complex, too vague, contain too much irrelevant information,
and are too restrictive in case of object oriented programming (you might need a
new license to get the equivalent of what the LGPL is for non-OO languages).
The other interesting topic that I added recently is
abandonware.. This is a rapidly growing phenomenon
and it has some grass root support. It probably will need a separate page really
soon ;-). The term anbandonware is usually applied to commercial software (like
Norton Commander, DOS, MS Word for DOS, WordPerfect for Linux, etc). But we need
to understand that most open source projects listed say on Freshmeat are abandonware.
Few are actively maintained and of those even fewer are useful. Quantity does not
turn into quality automatically. See also the Usenet group
misc.int-property
for relevant discussions.
Dr. Nikolai Bezroukov
Notes:
- Those pages are written by people for whom English is not a
native language. Some amount of grammar and spelling errors
should be expected.
- This is a Spartan WHYFF (We Help You For Free) site. It
cannot replace the best teachers and
the
best books.
- The site contain some obsolete pages as it develops like a
living tree... Some links on older pages
are broken. Please
try to use Google, Open directory, etc. to find a replacement link
(see
HOWTO search the WEB for details).
We would appreciate if you can
mail us a correct link.
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Linus Torvalds, leader of the Linux
kernel project and a major figure in the
open-source programming movement, said
Wednesday he's "pretty pleased" with
changes in a
third draft of the General Public
License (GPL) released Wednesday.
The Linux kernel and many
higher-level software packages are
governed by the current GPL 2, and
Torvalds has expressed strong
displeasure with earlier version 3
drafts. After a preliminary analysis
of GPL 3, however, some of those
concerns are gone or moderated, he said.
"I'm
actually pretty pleased. Not because I
think it's perfect, but simply because I
think it's certainly a lot better than I
really expected from the previous
drafts," he said in an
interview. "Whether it's actually a
better license than the GPLv2, I'm still
a bit skeptical, but at least it's now
'I'm skeptical' rather than 'Hell no!'"
In particular, one provision against
digital rights management has been
narrowed, and another that Torvalds
feared could lead to multiple
incompatible versions of the GPL has
been removed or defanged.
"I'm much happier with many parts of
it. I think much of it reads better, and
some of the worst horrors have been
removed entirely," Torvalds said.
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) has been accused of working to prevent co-operation
between the free and proprietary software sectors, thanks to new terms in the latest
draft version of the GNU GPL.
Unsurprisingly, the speediest criticism came from Microsoft, whose deal with
Novell prompted the inclusion of the controversial clauses in the first place.
Horacio Gutierrez, Microsoft's vice president of intellectual property and licensing,
told eWeek: "We note that the draft of the GPLv3 does not tear down the bridge Microsoft
and Novell have built for their customers. It is unfortunate, however, that the
FSF is attempting to use the GPLv3 to prevent future collaboration among industry
leaders to benefit customers."
Microsoft holds that Linux infringes several of its patents and late last year
signed a deal with Novell, under which Novell's customers were indemnified against
legal action by Microsoft. Novell was roundly criticised at the time: the Open Source
sector felt that the deal was a tacit admission that Linux does infringe Redmond's
IP, something Novell has strenuously denied.
Many also felt the deal ran counter to the spirit of the GPL, even if it was
technically compliant. Jeremy Allison, now ex-head of Novell's Samba team, resigned
in protest. He said in a memo: "We can pledge patents all we wish, we can talk to
the press and 'community leaders', we can do all the right things w.r.t. all our
other interactions, but we will still be known as GPL violators and that's the end
of it."
Novell maintains that the agreement did comply with the terms of the GPL, specifically
the requirement that all recipients of the code should be treated equally, since
there was no agreement between Novell and Microsoft, just between Microsoft and
Novell's customers.
The new draft specifically prohibits deals like the one done by Microsoft and
Novell from now on.
Morgan Reed, executive director of The Association for Competitive Technology
said the new terms mean the GPL "no longer just defines freedom; it is designed
to punish companies and business models that Richard Stallman just doesn't like".
The FSF's Richard Stallman
believes
the foundation had to do something. He argues that there are four "defining freedoms"
to free software: the freedom to run the program as you see fit, study and adapt
it for your own purposes, redistribute copies to help your neighbour, and release
your improvements to the public.
"The recent patent agreement between Microsoft and Novell aims to undermine these
freedoms. In this draft, we have worked hard to prevent such deals from making a
mockery of free software," he said.
The second draft of GPLv.3 is just that, a draft. There is a 60 day period during
which suggestions can be submitted. You can comment on the draft
here.
Sun Sticks With Solaris CDDL (For Now)
By
Sean Michael Kerner
Whether or not Sun will migrate to the upcoming GPL version 3 license for
OpenSolaris
and Java is a question resulting in much speculation.
Currently OpenSolaris is licensed under Sun's Common Development and Distribution
License (CDDL)
license
and Java is
set to
be licensed under GPL v2. GPL v3 , which is currently still under
development
adds new terms for digital rights management (DRM) and patents that could have
wide ranging effects on licensees.
Sun Microsystems' Chief Open Source Officer, Simon Phipps, explained that
Sun is picking the best license on a case-by-case basis for its software and
will continue to use the license that is most appropriate for the community
involved.
That said, some things aren't going to change.
"I've got no intention of removing CDDL from OpenSolaris as it has been an
ideal license for OpenSolaris," Phipps told internetnews.com. "The CDDL
is doing a fine job with that community. The role of the license is to empower
the innovator and the CDDL is demonstrably doing a good job of empowering OpenSolaris."
Phipps noted that under CDDL, OpenSolaris has grown its user base and contributions.
At least five distributions are now available that are based on OpenSolaris,
which is facilitated by the CDDL.
Just because the CDDL is working doesn't necessarily mean that Phipps won't
consider adding another license to OpenSolaris. He commented that if the community
wants another license than he would consider it. In fact, Phipps noted that
he is just starting to see a debate in the OpenSolaris community on whether
to add GPL v3.
Currently Sun uses the
GPL v2 license
in some of its software applications, though Sun isn't automatically going to
migrate to v3 when it comes out.
Under the terms
of the GPL v2, licensees "have the option of following the terms and conditions
either of that version or of any later version published by the Free Software
Foundation."
However, if "the program does not specify a version number of this license,
you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software Foundation."
Some applications, notably the Linux
kernel
and MySQL
have included the language "GPLv2 only," as opposed to "GPLv2 or later," implying
that an automatic changeover will not occur.
"I look at the 'or any latter version clause' and think it's a really strange
thing for any responsible enterprise to use in its licensing," Phipps said.
"That's carte blanche to a successive body to act in a way that is against your
interests."
The fact that Sun is not using the "or any later version clause" does not
imply any sort of criticism or lack of confidence in the GPL v3 process. Rather,
it's a matter of responsibility, according to Phipps.
Phipps argued that with Java, for example, there are five million developers
that rely on Java for their livelihood. "It would be absolutely irresponsible
of me to license Java in a way that would endanger the livelihood of the developers
working on it," Phipps said.
Sun has been very active in the GPL v3 process since the beginning. Phipps
noted that he has every confidence that GPL v3 will be a license that will be
usable in some areas of Sun's software business.
In the case of both OpenSolaris and Java, the respective communities will
debate on whether or not GPL v3 is right for them, though, in the final analysis,
the decision to actually use GPL v3 is up to Sun.
"Ultimately in each of those cases, Sun is the copyright holder and it is
Sun that has to take the action," Phipps said. "So ultimately the decision is
mine."
"I'm not going to pick a license that is still not published," Phipps said.
"Licenses give freedom to developers and I need to know that the license chosen
gives the developers that I'm serving and protecting the freedoms that they
desire."
The Seventh Circuit affirmed the ruling of The U.S. District Court for the Southern
District of Indiana and dismissed the case, finding the plaintiff had suffered
no antitrust injury.
"Although antitrust law serves the interests of consumers rather than producers,
the Supreme Court has permitted producers to initiate predatory-pricing litigation,"
Judge Easterbrook wrote in the November 9 decision. "This does not assist Wallace,
however, because his legal theory is faulty substantively."
Perhaps most significantly, Wallace had not contended that software available
under the GPL would lead to monopoly prices in the future. The court observed
the anomalous thinking behind any conclusion that it would, "when the GPL keeps
price low forever and precludes the reduction of output that is essential to
monopoly."
The court cited the market domination of proprietary operating systems like
Windows, OS X and Solaris despite the fact that Linux is available for free
for 15 years. Similarly Photoshop is preferred in the market to Gimp, and Lexis
and Westlaw are preferred to free legal sources such as court websites.
The court ruled that Sherman Act didn't advance the plaintiff's case either.
Instead of being a restraint on trade, the court held that the GPL serves to
foster creativity, by enabling the free distribution and building of new derivative
works.
See [a
copy of the opinion. No. 06-2454 (7th Cir., November 9, 2006).]
The shadow of Anarchism and Father Machno hangs over Red Hat: Any company with
more resources, power, and money can come along and start re-selling your product
Slashdot Re:An old slogan comes to mind
by
Gulik (179693)
on Monday October 23, @03:50PM (#16550734)
"Live by the sword, die by the sword."
Of course, with IBM's patent portfolio, they can match you sword-for-sword
and still have fifteen thousand left to swing at you after you've run
out.
Which won't protect them from any of those patent litigation firms,
but then there's still the sheer megatonnage of IBM's legal department
to contend with.
by Anonymous Coward
on Monday October 23, @04:12PM
(#16551042)
A couple years ago in a thread surrounding the SCO vc IBM case, I made
a reply to the background chorus of /.'s that were
singing IBM's praises: i.e. how lucky FOSS was to have IBM's support.
I was jumped when I suggested to hold back a little- I worked for IBM
for a number of years, and stated that if mgmt thought it was in their
interests, they would skin us all alive & sell the result in China as
customized wetsuits.
Man, I am absolutely telling you all again that IBM's "partnership"
with FOSS is one of convenience only- if and when the time comes, IBM
will without a doubt or a regret bend each and every one of us associated
with FOSS over a chair ... smiling the whole time
& telling us "we were asking for it".
is a counter-argument
to the position of the Maintainers (and others). It makes cogent points, which
is why I think the FOSS movement must split. There has never been a
good fit between the FSFers, who believe that software really should be free,
and the corporate types, who want to commodify operating systems as a way of
providing a platform on which to hang money-making aps and services. And these
are conflicts of moral principle on the FSF side versus huge financial stakes
on the corporatist side. The latter cannot give way -- it would cost too much
and render the whole enterprise pointless. And the FSFers can't give way because
it would make the enterprise pointless from their perspective.
Personally, I am happy to see it, of course, because the conflict highlights
the unworkability of the Free Culture Movement's models of peer-based production
without regard for payment. Since the FCM regards open source software as a
pilot program for all other creative products, ranging from music to movies,
the quicker its weaknesses as a mode of production are rendered obvious, the
sooner the debate can shift to real issues of how to define and protect IP rights
in a time of great technological change. Where should they shrink, and
where should they expand?
posted by James
DeLong @ 9:06 AM |
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Comments
The goose has laid enough golden eggs, time to kill it and cook it for dinner?
Posted by: John Smith at September 30, 2006 04:13 PM
So let's say you just released some commercial software. Would you ever
allow for a compromise in the associated license? Would you ever allow somebody
to "mostly" comply to your terms?
If you don't like our terms of use,
don't use our software. We're not trying to "fit" with anyone. We're writing
software for our own needs. This is what drives us to write code and, in
turn, what drives the Free software movement. The GPL works to help ensure
the code we write remains Free - not just "mostly" free.
Free software may be "unworkable" for you. That's fine. By the same token,
many commercial solutions on the market are worthless to us, either due
to the financial cost or the closed nature of development. For example,
if I need a feature tweaked somewhat, I'm at your mercy. This is unacceptable
for a lot of people.
Rather than just assuming that your position is correct, perhaps you
should take a look around. Do you realize just how huge the Free software
movement has become? Can you comprehend the fact that there might be a reason
for it?
Posted by:
Tom
at October 17, 2006 01:42 AM
Have a look at www.Joomla.org or many similar free software projects that
continue to grow exponentially. Why? Because thousands of people like me
(independent consultants and small companies) charge good money to customize
and maintain installations for our clients, and we also contribute contribute
back to Joomla and others, knowing it will grow our core profitable platform.
It's a new ecosystem, and it's entirely economically sustainable.
Posted by: Dan
at October 17, 2006 03:45 AM
September 29, 2006
(Red Herring) Exclusive Q&A: Linux kernel creator speaks out about the current
controversy over an update to the key open-source license.
A new version of a license for open-source Linux has caused a storm among the
community of open-source developers. Known as GNU General Public License, or
simply GPL, it is the most widely used license for distributing free software.
The current version of the license, GNU GPLv2, was released in 1991. The first
version of the license was written by open-source proponent Richard Stallman,
who founded the Free Software Foundation that administers the license. The GPL
license also covers the Linux kernel whose creation was led by Linus Torvalds.
Now 10 kernel developers have rallied against the Free Software Foundation’s
efforts to update the license. They have signed a “position paper” against the
new version known as GPLv3.
The kernel developers contend that the Free Software Foundation’s plan to promote
GPLv3 has “the potential to inflict massive collateral damage upon our entire
ecosystem and jeopardize the very utility and survival of open source.”
Though Mr. Torvalds supports them, his name has been absent from that position
paper.
Now, in an email interview
with Red Herring, he puts his thoughts on the record. Mr. Torvalds says
this is not as much a “debate” between the kernel developers and the Free Software
Foundation “as it is a declaration of different positions.”
Q: Ten key kernel developers
have signed a "position paper" on the new draft of the GNU GPL license. Why
did you not join them in signing the paper?
A:
I wrote a separate email to the kernel mailing list about that. It’s easiest
to just point you at it:
http://lkml.org/lkml/2006/9/24/246. It wasn’t the only reason. The actual
letter was mostly penned by James Bottomley, and I just don’t much like the
“open letter” kind of things, so if I didn’t write it or add to it, I generally
try to keep my name off it.
Finally, I actually wanted
to make clear that I wasn’t the only one who felt that way, so I didn’t feel
like my name needed to be on everything.
Q: Do you even believe
there is a need to update the GPL license and have a version 3 put out? Do you
think that GPLv2 is not serving the purpose adequately?
A:
I think the GPLv2 is stronger today than it was 15 years ago. It’s been upheld
in court both in the U.S. and abroad, and obviously it’s gathered a much larger
community around it. So no, I don’t see the need.
Q: What is your position
on the draft version of the GNU General Public License Version 3?
A:
One of my major gripes with it is that it extends the GPLv2 so much that it’s
not at all the same license. If it had been developed as a totally new license,
that would be fine, but since the FSF [Free Software Foundation] has been asking
people to release their code compatible with “any future versions,” I think
it’s a bit inappropriate to add totally new issues to the license.
FSF promised that any such
future versions would be “similar in spirit,” but it’s apparently their stance
on the spirit that matters, not the stance of the people who they tried to actually
reassure with the language—which makes the whole thing rather pointless.
Q: If the GNU GPLv3 proceeds
in its current form, what do you fear?
A:
Well, “fear” may be too strong a word. What I think the GPLv2 has been good
at is that it was so widely acceptable that it acted as a common thing for people
to get together around. The GPLv3 imposes a number of new rules that aren’t
really acceptable to many people, and as such it just means that rather than
have one common license, we’ll have two.
Now, multiple licenses
isn’t really necessarily a huge deal in practice, since even before, we’ve had
lots of different non-GPL open-source licenses that have had reasonably wide
use. But I happen to think it’s a loss, and also confusing to have different
versions of the “same” license basically say different things.
Q: The Free Software Foundation
has issued a clarification on its web site that developers will have the right
to use GPLv2 even after GPLv3 is published. In light of that, do you think that
the GPLv3 in its current form is not as dangerous?
A:
That’s just silly. Of course people have the “right” to continue to use
the GPLv2. That’s like clarifying that the Earth will still retain its gravity
and we won’t all fly out into space when the GPLv3 is released. That was never
a worry. The FSF can release new versions of the GPL, but they can’t force people
to use them.
Q: How do you think that
the current impasse around GPLv3 can be solved? What are your recommendations
to move ahead?
A:
Personally, I think the FSF should either just really try to keep to the same
rules as the GPLv2, or just rename the new license, so that there is no confusion.
People are used to just saying “GPL,” without the ambiguity of which GPL we’re
talking abut.
Q: Who do you think needs
to negotiate with the Free Software Foundation to make the changes happen?
A:
They’ve been at it for
a year and a half now. I’m not sure this is about negotiation anymore. They
certainly knew that they were the radical fringes of the bigger community, and
they certainly knew my standpoint on the things they added to the GPL. I think
the thing they didn’t expect was just that while I’m a moderate, I’m passionate
about being moderate.
I asked Torvalds, via email, if he was likely to take Moglen up on his offer
to participate in the process. Torvalds' reply, which was cc:ed to Moglen, was
less than enthusiastic:
I wonder why everybody but the FSF seems to know my email address, but
the FSF can't find it.
If it has an anti-Tivo clause, I think it's bad. I've tried to explain
it to some people (the freedom of the _project_ is much too important to
let any license clause limit how you can use it), but when other people
did that, the FSF just explained how they had mis-used the word "use".
But I'm so fed up with the FSF right now that I'm not in the least interested.
There's no way in _hell_ they can claim that they don't know my standpoint,
so what are they even asking for?
The
FSF's response to the kernel developers on Monday took issue with the characterization
of the anti-DRM clause as an "end use restriction," but didn't address the developers'
other arguments about the anti-DRM clauses in the GPLv3 draft.
In fact, the FSF's response largely failed to address any of the concerns
put forward by kernel developers and instead focused on correcting a few minor
factual errors in the position paper. The FSF has declined several requests
for interviews to answer questions about the developers' position paper. Moglen,
through the SFLC, has also declined to answer any questions.
Stopping TiVo is worse than TiVo itself
Torvalds says that he has cc:ed Moglen in the past regarding his position
on the GPLv3 drafts, and that his position on the license should be clear already.
Torvalds also writes that removing the anti-DRM clause would go a long way toward
addressing his concerns:
Eben, I think the whole anti-Tivo crusade is _wrong_. If you can get
rid of the language that says that you cannot use a project any way you
want to (and I don't care if it legally is about "distribution" or "use",
I just want it to be _practically_ about the usage standpoint), just about
all my very fundamental concerns go away.
Other people might worry about the patent language, but at least I _personally_
really only dislike the whole term "Tivoization", and all the new language
to try to "stop" it. I think stopping Tivo is a much bigger problem than
Tivo itself ever was.
But that [removing the anti-DRM language] would require a public statement
that things like Tivo trying to control _which_ particular version of a
program they run on hardware _they_ control is actually ok, and that you
can actually use a GPLv3'd project in all the same situations you could
use a GPLv2 one.
(It's not just Tivo, either. Medical supplies, cellphones with restricted
updaters, you name it. Cryptography is a fundamental technology, and should
not be disallowed).
It's their hardware. I do _not_ want to ask for control of the "environment"
back in a license. I want the improvement to the _software_, not the keys
to the kingdom. The "environment" a program runs in (or the medium it is
distributed on) doesn't have to be open. Just the program itself.
As it is, the GPLv3 limits a program that uses it very fundamentally
more than Tivo _ever_ limited Linux. Tivo never limited the way Linux could
be used by others. The GPLv3 tries to limit how a project can be used. The
GPLv3 is the one that really limits your freedoms, not the other way around.
Since Torvalds seems to object primarily to the anti-DRM provisions, I asked
if he'd consider moving to the GPLv3 if the FSF removed those provisions from
the final license. Even if that happened, Torvalds says that he's not "not going
to single-handedly try to relicense" the kernel out of respect for past authors
of kernel code.
"Any concern by an author of the _current_ work against the switch
does weigh very much more than any voice for the switch talking about potential
future work.... However, without the anti-Tivoization clauses, I won't fight
it rabidly."
eWEEK: “The DRM provisions are designed to go after companies like TiVo,
which uses Linux but collects information on consumers’ actions. While TiVo
complies with GPL 2.0, it may have more difficulty complying with GPLv3’s anti-DRM
provisions.”
Not true. As far as I know (I’m not an insider), TiVo is not a derivative
work of Linux in the legal sense—it’s simply a Linux application that happens
to ship with a Linux distribution bundled as a complete package.
Given that it’s not a derivative work, the anti-DRM provisions (or anything
else for that matter) in GPLv3 can’t affect TiVo at all, nor can they affect
similar products that simply bundle a Linux application with Linux itself (i.e.,
pretty much any Linux-based server appliance, etc.).
Now, my first assumption was that this was yet another case of misunderstanding
the GPL and/or how Linux-based products such as TiVo work. However, Eben Moglen
himself appears to sow the seeds of confusion this time:
Asked if TiVo could avoid using GPL 3.0 when that license is released
next year, Moglen said, “Once a GPL’d work has been relicensed under GPLv3,
although a party having a copy under GPLv2 could continue to distribute
it under that license, any further maintenance from upstream would force
the license upgrade.” TiVo could avoid using GPL 3.0 even if, say, the Linux
kernel were to change licenses, but only by freezing itself at the last
version of the kernel that was licensed under GPL 2. “That will prove to
be impracticable in almost every real commercial setting,” Moglen said.
I assume Eben isn’t misunderstanding the GPL, so perhaps he’s misunderstanding
how TiVo works. Or, perhaps he made some comments that were taken out of context
(the above isn’t an exact quote, after all, and goodness knows, I’ve been misquoted
enough times I take such attributed statements with a grain of salt). I do hope,
though, it’s not the FSF
overplaying its hand
on what constitutes a derivative work.
Tivoization is the creation of a system that incorporates
software
under the terms of a
copyleft
software license, but uses hardware to prevent users from running modified
versions of the software on that hardware.
Richard Stallman, creator of the copyleft
GNU General Public License (GPL), coined the term and believes this practice
denies users some of the freedom that the GPL was designed to protect.[1]
The term came about because of how
TiVo uses GPL software
on TiVo brand
digital video recorders (DVR). TiVo's software incorporates the
Linux
kernel and parts of
GNU, both of which
are licensed under the GPL Version 2 (GPL v.2). The GPL v.2 requires TiVo to
release the associated
source
code for others to use and modify. One of the goals of this GPL requirement
is to allow others to modify the software to better suit their purposes.[2]
However, Stallman believes TiVo circumvented this goal by making
their products run programs only if the program's
digital signature matches those authorised by the manufacturer
of the TiVo. So while TiVo has complied with the GPL v.2 requirement
to release the source code for others to modify, any modified
software will not run on TiVo's hardware. Many of the authors
of the code that TiVo used complain that their work has thus
been misappropriated
[citation
needed]. As a result, one of the goals of the
proposed
GPL Version 3 is to prevent "Tivoization"; according to
Eben Moglen, "the licence should prohibit technical means
of evasion of its rules, with the same clarity that it prohibits
legal evasion of its rules."
[3]On the other hand,
Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, has argued that it
is appropriate for TiVo to use digital signatures to limit what
software may run on their systems. In explaining his opposition
to the GPLv3's attempts to protect freedom from tivoisation,
he has stated that he believes the use of private digital signatures
on software are a beneficial security tool. However, no draft
of GPLv3 prohibits using private digital signatures as a security
tool[citation
needed]. Torvalds also believes that software
licenses should only attempt to control software, not the hardware
on which it runs. So long as one has access to the software,
and can modify it to run on some other hardware, Torvalds believes
there is nothing unethical about using digital signatures to
prevent running modified copies of Linux.[4]
There is also the interpretation that the "complete source
code" in the GPL v.2 already implies that TiVo has to offer
the private keys required for enabling modified software to
run on their hardware.
Gpl-violations.org has already successfully enforced this
interpretation in Germany against
Siemens and
TomTom.
From: Linus Torvalds
Date: Sun Sep 24 2006 - 22:45:59 EST
One of the reasons I didn't end up signing the GPLv3 position statement
that James posted (and others had signed up for), was that a few weeks ago
I had signed up for writing another kind of statement entirely: not so
much about why I dislike the GPLv3, but why I think the GPLv2 is so great.
(There were other reasons too, but never mind that.)
I didn't get my fat arse off the ground on that, partly exactly because
the developer poll of "which is better" which was related to that issue
distracted me, but mostly because I just seldom write that kind of text -
one thing the kernel work has conditioned me for is that I write _replies_
to email, I seldom start threads myself (I suspect most of my emails on
linux-kernel that aren't replies are just release announcements).
However, since there was a sub-thread on groklaw about the kernel
developers opinions on the GPLv3, and since I did try to explain it there
(as a reply to postings by PJ and others), and since some of those
explanations ended up being exactly the "why the GPLv2 is so insanely
great" that I never wrote otherwise, I thought I'd just repost that
explanation as an alternative view.
So this post is kind of another way to look at the whole GPLv3 issues: not
caring so much about why the GPLv3 is worse, but a much more positive "Why
the GPLv2 is _better_". I suspect some people may have an easier time
seeing and reading that argument, since it's not as contentious.
A lot of people seem to think that the GPLv2 is showing its age, but I
would argue otherwise. Yes, the GPLv2 is "old" for being a copyright
license, but it's not even that you don't want to mess with something that
works - it's that it very fundamentally is such a good license that
there's not a whole lot of room for fixing aside from pure wording issues.
So without further ado, here's my personal "reply" to the the GPLv3
position statement. It's obviously not meant to repudiate James' text in
any way, it's just an alternate view on the same questions..
I made other posts in the same thread on Groklaw thread, not as positive,
and not perhaps as worthy and quotable. This one may be a bit out of
context, but I do think it stands on its own, and you can see the full
thread in the "GPL Upheld in Germany Against D-Link" discussions on
Groklaw. The particular sub-thread was on what happens since we can't
easily change update the license, called "So What is the Future Then?"
(I'd like to point to the groklaw posts, but there doesn't seem to be any
way to point to a particular comment without getting "The URL from Hell",
so it's easier to just duplicate it here).
Linus
---
And thus spake PJ in response:
"GPLv2 is not compatible with the Apache license. It doesn't cover
Bitstream. It is ambiguous about web downloads. It allows Tivo to
forbid modification. It has no patent protection clause. It isn't
internationally useful everywhere, due to not matching the terms of
art used elsewhere. It has no DMCA workaround or solution. It is
silent about DRM."
Exactly!
That's why the GPLv2 is so great. Exactly because it doesn't bother or
talk about anything else than the very generic issue of "tit-for-tat".
You see it as a failure. I see it as a huge advantage. The GPLv2 covers
the only thing that really matters, and the only thing that everybody can
agree on ("tit-for-tat" is really something everybody understands, and
sees the same way - it's totally independent of any moral judgement and
any philosophical, cultural or economic background).
The thing is, exactly because the GPLv2 is not talking about the details,
but instead talks entirely about just a very simple issue, people can get
together around it. You don't have to believe in the FSF or the tooth
fairy to see the point of the GPLv2. It doesn't matter if you're black or
white, commercial or non-commercial, man or woman, an individual or a
corporation - you understand tit-or-tat.
And that's also why legal details don't matter. Changes in law won't
change the notion of "same for same". A change of language doesn't change
"Quid pro quo". We can still say "quid pro quo" two thousand years later,
in a language that has been dead for centuries, and the saying is still
known by any half-educated person in the world.
And that's exactly because the concept is so universal, and so
fundamental, and so basic.
And that is why the GPLv2 is a great license.
I can't stress that enough. Sure, other licenses can say the same thing,
but what the GPLv2 did was to be the first open-source license that made
that "tit-for-tat" a legal license that was widely deployed. That's
something that the FSF and rms should be proud of, rather than trying to
ruin by adding all these totally unnecessary things that are ephemeral,
and depend on some random worry of the day.
That's also why I ended up changing the kernel license to the GPLv2. The
original Linux source license said basically: "Give all source back, and
never charge any money". It took me a few months, but I realized that the
"never charge any money" part was just asinine. It wasn't the point.
The point was always "give back in kind".
Btw, on a personal note, I can even tell you where that "never charge any
money" requirement came from. It came from my own frustrations with Minix
as a poor student, where the cost of getting the system ($169 USD back
then) was just absolutely prohibitive. I really disliked having to spend
a huge amount of money (to me) for something that I just needed to make my
machine useful.
In other words, my original license very much had a "fear and loathing"
component to it. It was exactly that "never charge any money" part. But I
realized that in the end, it was never really about the money, and that
what I really looked for in a license was the "fairness" thing.
And that's what the GPLv2 is. It's "fair". It asks everybody -
regardless of circumstance - for the same thing. It asks for the effort
that was put into improving the software to be given back to the common
good. You can use the end result any way you want (and if you want to use
it for "bad" things, be my guest), but we ask the same exact thing of
everybody - give your modifications back.
That's true grace. Realizing that the petty concerns don't matter,
whether they are money or DRM, or patents, or anything else.
And that's why I chose the GPLv2. I did it back when the $169 I paid for
Minix still stung me, because I just decided that that wasn't what it was
all about.
And I look at the additions to the GPLv3, and I still say: "That's not
what it's all about".
My original license was petty and into details. I don't need to go back
to those days. I found a better license. And it's the GPLv2.
Linus
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[Sep 15,2006] LWN Kernel developers' position on GPLv3
The Dangers and Problems with GPLv3 by James E.J. Bottomley, Mauro
Carvalho Chehab, Thomas Gleixner, Christoph Hellwig, Dave Jones, Greg Kroah-Hartman,
Tony Luck, Andrew Morton, Trond Myklebust, David Woodhouse
This document is a position statement on the GNU General Public License version
3 (in its current Draft 2 form) and its surrounding process issued by some of
the Maintainers of the Linux Kernel speaking purely in their role as kernel
maintainers. In no regard should any opinion expressed herein be construed to
represent the views of any entities employing or being associated with any of
the authors.
1 Linux and GPLv2
Over the past decade, the Linux Operating System has shown itself to be far
and away the most successful Open Source operating system in history. However,
it certainly wasn't the first such open source operating system and neither
is it currently the only such operating system. We believe that the pre-eminent
success of Linux owes a great part to the dynamism and diversity of its community
of contributors, and that one of the catalysts for creating and maintaining
this community is the development contract as expressed by GPLv2.
Since GPLv2 has served us so well for so long, and since it is the foundation
of our developer contract which has helped propel Linux to the successes it
enjoys today, we are extremely reluctant to contemplate tampering with that
licence except as bug fixes to correct exposed problems or updates counter imminent
dangers. So far, in the whole history of GPLv2, including notable successes
both injunctively and at trial, we have not found any bugs significant enough
to warrant such corrections.
2 Linux, the Kernel and the Open Source Universe
Linux Distributions, as the Free Software Foundation (FSF) has often observed,
don't only contain the kernel; they are composed of a distribution of disparate
open source components of which the kernel is only a part (albeit a significant
and indispensable part) which collectively make up a useful and usable system.
Thus, Linux as installed by the end user, is critically dependent on entities,
known as distributions, who collect all of the necessary components together
and deliver them in a tested, stable form. The vast proliferation of Open Source
Licences complicates the job of these distributions and forces them to spend
time checking and assessing the ramifications of combining software packages
distributed under different (and often mutually incompatible) licences--indeed,
sometimes licensing consideration will be sufficient to exclude a potential
package from a distribution altogether.
In deference to the critical role of distributions, we regard reducing the
Open Source licensing profusion as a primary objective. GPLv2 has played an
important role in moving towards this objective by becoming the dominant Licence
in the space today, making it possible to put together a Linux Distribution
from entirely GPLv2 components and thus simplify the life of a distributor.
Therefore, we believe that any update to GPLv2 must be so compelling as to cause
all projects currently licensed under it to switch as expediently as possible
and thus not fragment the currently unified GPLv2 licensed ecosystem.
3 Linux and Freedom
Another of the planks of Linux's success rests squarely on the breadth and
diversity of its community of contributors and users, without whom we wouldn't
have the steady stream of innovation which drives our movement forward. However,
an essential element of this is the fact that individuals with disparate (and
sometimes even competing) objectives can still march together a considerable
distance to their mutual benefit. This synergy of effort, while not compromising
dissimilar aims, is one of the reasons Linux manages to harness the efforts
of not only motivated developers but also corporate and commercial interests.
This in turn is brought about by a peculiar freedom enshrined in the developer
contract as represented by GPLv2, namely the freedom from binding the end use
of the project. Without this freedom, it would be much more difficult to satisfy
the objectives of the contributors, since those objectives often have expression
in terms of the end use to which they wish to put the particular project. Therefore,
in order to maintain the essential development synergy and consequent innovation
stream it provides to Linux, we could not countenance any change to the GPL
which would jeopardise this fundamental freedom.
4 Pivotal Role of the Free Software Foundation
We have acknowledged before, projects controlled by the FSF (especially gcc,
binutils and glibc) are essential components of every shipping Linux distribution.
However, we also take note of the fact that the FSF operates very differently
from Linux in that it requires assignment of copyright from each and every one
of the thousands of contributors to its code base. These contributions have
been given to the FSF not as a tribute to do with as it will but under a solemn
trust, as stated in article 9 of GPLv2, only to licence the code under versions
of the GPL that "... will be similar in spirit to the present version". We,
like all the individual contributors to GNU projects, have taken that trust
at face value and accorded the FSF a special role in the Open Source Universe
because of it. It goes without saying that any updates to GPLv2 must be completely
in accord with the execution of that trust.
5 GPLv3 and the Process to Date
The current version (Discussion Draft 2) of GPLv3 on first reading fails
the necessity test of section 1 on the grounds that there's no substantial and
identified problem with GPLv2 that it is trying to solve.
However, a deeper reading reveals several other problems with the current
FSF draft:
5.1 DRM Clauses
Also referred to as the "Tivoisation" clauses.
While we find the use of DRM by media companies in their attempts to reach
into user owned devices to control content deeply disturbing, our belief in
the essential freedoms of section 3 forbids us from ever accepting any licence
which contains end use restrictions. The existence of DRM abuse is no excuse
for curtailing freedoms.
Further, the FSF's attempts at drafting and re-drafting these provisions
have shown them to be a nasty minefield which keeps ensnaring innocent and beneficial
uses of encryption and DRM technologies so, on such demonstrated pragmatic ground,
these clauses are likewise dangerous and difficult to get right and should have
no place in a well drafted update to GPLv2.
Finally, we recognise that defining what constitutes DRM abuse is essentially
political in nature and as such, while we may argue forcefully for our political
opinions, we may not suborn or coerce others to go along with them. Therefore,
attempting to write these type of restrictions into GPLv3 and then relicense
all FSF code under it is tantamount to co-opting the work of all prior contributions
into the service of the FSF's political ends, and thus represents a fundamental
violation of the trust outlined in section 4.
5.2 Additional Restrictions Clause
As we stated in section 2 one of the serious issues in Open Source is too
many licences. The additional restrictions section in the current draft makes
GPLv3 a pick and choose soup of possible restrictions which is going to be a
nightmare for our distributions to sort out legally and get right. Thus, it
represents a significant and unacceptable retrograde step over GPLv2 and its
no additional restrictions clause.
Further, the additional restrictions create the possibility of fragmentation
of the licensing universes among particular chosen restrictions, which then
become difficult to combine and distribute (because of the need for keeping
track of the separate restrictions). Thus, we think this potential for fragmentation
will completely eliminate the needed compulsion to move quickly to a new licence
as outlined in section 2
5.3 Patents Provisions
As drafted, this currently looks like it would potentially jeopardise the
entire patent portfolio of a company simply by the act of placing a GPLv3 licensed
programme on their website. Since the Linux software ecosystem relies on these
type of contributions from companies who have lawyers who will take the broadest
possible interpretation when assessing liability, we find this clause unacceptable
because of the chilling effect it will have on the necessary corporate input
to our innovation stream.
Further, some companies who also act as current distributors of Linux have
significant patent portfolios; thus this clause represents another barrier to
their distributing Linux and as such is unacceptable under section 2 because
of the critical reliance our ecosystem has on these distributions.
6 Conclusions
The three key objections noted in section 5 are individually and collectively
sufficient reason for us to reject the current licence proposal. However, we
also note that the current draft with each of the unacceptable provisions stripped
out completely represents at best marginal value over the tested and proven
GPLv2. Therefore, as far as we are concerned (and insofar as we control subsystems
of the kernel) we cannot foresee any drafts of GPLv3 coming out of the current
drafting process that would prove acceptable to us as a licence to move the
current Linux Kernel to.
Further, since the FSF is proposing to shift all of its projects to GPLv3
and apply pressure to every other GPL licensed project to move, we foresee the
release of GPLv3 portends the Balkanisation of the entire Open Source Universe
upon which we rely. This Balkanisation, which will be manifested by distributions
being forced to fork various packages in order to get consistent licences, has
the potential to inflict massive collateral damage upon our entire ecosystem
and jeopardise the very utility and survival of Open Source. Since we can see
nothing of sufficient value in the current drafts of the GPLv3 to justify this
terrible cost, we can only assume the FSF is unaware of the current potential
for disaster of the course on which is has embarked. Therefore, we implore the
FSF to re-examine the consequences of its actions and to abandon the current
GPLv3 process before it becomes too late.
Such as the "Matrix House" described in our last article: A DRM-encumbered
booby trap not unlike the malfunctioning inventions which feature so regularly
in our Rise Of The Machines™ series.
Don't use the GPL to fight these battles, you reckon.
But as we suggested at the outset this is a very nuanced postbag. First of
all, we need to outline the problem. When TiVo used Linux, which is based on
GPL version 2.0 code, added a proprietary front-end, and turned it into a DRM
device, many people were upset.
Asks Matthew Barratt:
There are any number of well developed OSs that people like TiVo and the
like could choose. VxWorks, Symbian would do nicely, QNX, embedded XP (eeeeeek!)
even? VxWorks is POSIX compliant, so largely familiar to a Linux developer.
TiVo picked Linux because it was free. If they didn't like the look of linux
in future, maybe because of GPL 3, they could very easily switch to something
like VxWorks and it'd make 50pence difference to the unit cost.
Indeed, wouldn't life have been simpler if TiVo had chosen a non-free embedded
OS? But the objection to TiVo is that they were breaking the spirit, if not
the letter of the GPL. Software libre advocates can't prevent such appropriations
by invoking the Law of Good Taste, but they can prevent misuse under the GPL.
So TiVo is seen to be exploiting a loophole in GPL version 2.0, and so GPL 3.0
is designed to stop TiVOs of the future by blocking this loophole.
But that's not our problem, says Matthew, who sees DRM as an unavoidable
part of the world:
I get the impression that this is all muddled up with the wider DRM debate.
Is GPL 3 is being leveraged by some as a means to overcome DRM (which is
here to stay like it or not) mechanisms? If so they are living in cloud
coockoo land and it sounds like they are assuming that there's no other
choice out there for Tivo et al.
With the scene set, Bill Hufmann gets to the problem with admirable succinctness:
I can sympathize with both sides of this argument, but it does seem to me
that GPL 3.0 extends the free (freedom) software concept to cover free (freedom)
entertainment content as well. The constituencies of the two concepts overlap
considerably but forcing equivalence seems unnecessary and could destroy
one or both movements.
As Kym Farnick points out, Linus rejection of GPL 3.0 doesn't imperil Linux,
it imperils the GPL 3.0 draft as it's currently drafted.
- Torvalds can happily continue using GPL v2 for the Linux Kernel,
and there's no reason to go to v3.0, whatever that turns out to be.
- Torvalds could (with difficulty) move to another OSS license or
even create a new Linux Open License (LOL) ;-) Maybe one similar to
the Mozilla license.
- Moglen can make parts of the V3 license optional.
Carsten's email here sums up the tone of many defending the GPL 2.0 kernel
position.
Linus didn't create Linux as something to fit the (L)GPL. He had already
started on the Linux project, *then* decided that he needed a formal license,
came across the GPL v2 and decided that that fit his needs. End of story,
really.
I can see why the Open Source "advocates" (be they programmers or journalists)
would want to use Linux as the vehicle for their moral crusade. It was succesful,
and as Torvalds has always tried to stay away from the political discussions,
they pretty much had a free run.
Blaming Linus for not carrying *your* banner in your personal fight for
"freedom" is insane. Fight it yourself if you must, but don't start dragging
someone into it who just wants time to plug away at his OS.
Ah, but if it was simply a case of few journalists or detached advocates
berating Torvalds for rejecting some fancy new license, then it wouldn't merit
many column inches. But the license he's being urged to adopt is the officially
designated successor to the one he's already using.
Leaving us with the question, does the GPL need Torvalds more than Torvalds
needs the GPL?
And if that isn't enough indigestible thoughts before breakfast - how about
this thought from Justin Davidow:
Linux is not a magical moral crusade that people undertake to compete with
Bill, nor is it a "free" alternative.
Er. It isn't?
"'Linux' is only a name," writes Paul Meekin hopefully, carrying on the spirit.
He continues:
It is like the value of a company in the stock market in that it only has
meaning while everyone believes in it. If enough people decide they don't
like Linus's ethical rule, a spin-off would soon occur which would be subject
to the new rule. The old GPL ensures that the genie is well and truly out
of the bottle for good.
But no Register mailbag would be complete without a few unexpected
Scuds making their way across the ether and exploding in a zone heavily defended
by posturing and hypocrisy. We'll end with these three gems.
Thanks for the Article. What amuses me most is your quote from Linus:
" ... we do not - as software developers - have the moral right to
enforce our rules on hardware manufacturers. We are not crusaders, trying
to force people to bow to our superior God."
Since when has he felt like that. Last time I remembered, the kernel
people (including Linus) were real big on being the superior software Gods.
Isn't that why we can't have binary modules loaded into the kernel to support
hardware? One recent example would be the following:
http://www.smcc.demon.nl/webcam/
And that whole fiasco. Anyways, just amusing to see Linus flip flopping
around and sticking to what is convienent to him. I am a big fan of Linux/OpenSource
and use it extensively for work and play, but I wish some of the public
figures would get a clue and get off their high horses some time.
[name with held by request]
Kevin Hall does a great job of stripping away the posturing that goes on
in the holy FOSS crusades, here -
You did hit the nail on the head: if OSS isn't about some kind of moral
or ethical shift then what is it exactly? I do get the feeling that Linus
has identified that far from being a moral crusade in the tradition of the
enlightenment, a crusade set around reason, logic and compromise, the whole
OSS/Linux push has been propagated with the kind of zealously that would
put the Spanish Inquisition to shame.
The thing is, apart from the obvious weaknesses about making a lot of
ballyhoo about a clanking Unix clone, it's a complete work of hypocrisy.
Lots of huge corporations pour fortunes into OSS development like Oracle
and HP into software like Apache and Linux. They get their development done
at bargain basement prices and OSS gets a fat subsidy from select sugar
daddies. Together your moral foundations are being built on quicksand. You
can't fight your number one enemy (Microsoft as has been clearly stated)
without making its competitors fatter in the process.
There's also two bigger problems: first no one ever elected Linus to
be in charge of Linux and if it is really "free" then he shouldn't have
any casting vote over it or own any of the trademarks. The weaknesses (and
conversely its strengths) of Linux will stand or fall by its creator who
probably shouldn't be able to operate with impunity. I think I also get
a sense of impending failure: as Linux matures there is really a creeping
sense of failure around the project. It hasn't blew Windows off the desktop,
has made modest gains into servers and commercially has only really blossomed
where cheapest is key. Much of its surrounding software is either poor quality,
arcane in design and administration, outdated or a weak imitation of something
commercial.
And the last word goes to reader Chad Walstrom, who's bemused by all the
talk of 'moral responsibility' from the FOSS camp:
You left out the part that he believes developers have a moral obligation
to make sure the software works, which would fit beautifully with your house
analogy.
Ouch.
So the issue seems straightforward. There are several ways of ensuring DRM
is not part of our future: it can be legislated out of existence, or compensation
frameworks can (and surely will) be agreed which make it unnecessary. Don't,
say the Torvalds camp, bork our favorite license. Related stories
OSDL accepts GPL proliferation (18 August 2006)
Lessig, Stallman on 'Open Source' DRM (15 April 2006)
Mozilla's Google millions - a tax dodge? (14 March 2006)
Linus, GPL 3.0 and sharks with lasers on their heads (10 March 2006)
Linus: read-up on your GPL 3.0 (15 February 2006)
GPL v3.0: Linus replies (8 February 2006)
If Linus snubs new GPL, is that it for 'open source'? (6 February
2006)
No GPL 3.0 for Linux - Torvalds (26 January 2006)
Linux zealots proud to be as miserable as planes (12 December 2005)
TiVo uses the open source Linux operating system in its digital video
recorders and gets a lot of heat from people in the Free and Open Source Software
(FOSS) community because those boxes aren't as open as hackers would like them
to be.
Oddly enough, however, Linus Torvalds, who created Linux and oversees its
development, isn't among the complainers. In an e-mail interview with Forbes,
he explains his position.
Forbes: TiVo is criticized for placing digital rights management
restrictions on content. What is your take on this?
Torvalds: TiVo has the DRM issue (media companies have strong-armed
them into not being as useful as they could be), but the thing that clashes
with some in the FOSS community is that they make it hard to upgrade their box
with another version of Linux. Which I personally think is OK--they made the
box, they choose how to upgrade it. I only care that they give the source code
back, not that they make it easy, or necessarily even possible, to play with
their hardware. Again, it's the "reciprocity of source code" versus the "freedom
of software" thing.
Does TiVo make it difficult to upgrade their box, or impossible?
And how do they do this?
Nothing is ever "impossible." But what you can do is, for example, build
a small piece of your hardware that refuses to even start up unless another
(big piece) can authenticate itself properly to the small piece. The easiest
way to do that is to simply cryptographically sign a binary that you're running
and refuse to run it unless the cryptographic signature matches the vendor's
signature. So you may have the full source code for the box, and you can build
your own binary, but unless you have the vendor's private key, you're going
to have a really hard time signing your new binary as being "trusted" by the
hardware. Now, this is a bit offensive, isn't it? You bought the hardware. It's
in your living room. And even if you knew how to fix some problem, the hardware
is literally built to not allow you to.
You say what TiVo is doing is "a bit offensive." So why not use GPLv3
[GNU General Public License] to make them stop doing it?
In my worldview, it's OK for other people to do stupid things. I can complain
about it, but in the end, it's their choice. If somebody offends me too much,
I'll stop dealing with them. Now, I've had to limit my choice of long-distance
phone companies because of this practice of mine, but I think it's more productive
in the long run than trying to be "activist" with software licensing. Activism
and technical decisions just don't mix well.
Why does TiVo get singled out? Aren't there other companies who do
the same thing TiVo does with Linux?
I think TiVo gets singled out just because it's an example that a lot of
people can relate to. It's something people understand and often interact with
themselves (or know people who do). The same kind of thing happens in other
embedded Linux uses too: cell phones, network routers, you name it. It's just
that they don't have the name and usage recognition that TiVo has.
Part of the complaint involves the inability to upgrade Linux. But
isn't DRM an issue too?
Yes. A large part of why they [TiVo] don't want people to upgrade seems to
be that they're afraid of the backlash from media companies when people make
a TiVo box into a streaming media server. You do realize that the TiVo hardware
could easily just connect to the network (it already does), and you could watch
your TiVo'ed TV shows from your computer or recode them to take them on the
road with a video iPod? These things you could do if you just upgraded it yourself.
If you were to adopt GPLv3 as it is written to today, would TiVo
be unable to use future versions of Linux if it also continued imposing DRM
restrictions on content? Isn't that rule part of the GPLv3 draft?
That part is a bit muddled and unclear. There's a "DRM" section in the GPLv3,
but the way I read it, it doesn't seem to actually say very much. More of a
statement of intent than any legal argument. So I would leave arguing against
that part to others.
If you did adopt GPLv3 as it is written today, how would this affect
TiVo? Couldn't they just keep using and modifying old versions of Linux that
were shipped before you adopted GPLv3?
Indeed, they could do that, and probably it wouldn't be a problem for TiVo.
I think it would be more of an issue for the next mad scientist that comes along
and wants to use Linux for something new and revolutionary, and then starts
worrying about the usage restrictions. That's part of why I don't like to restrict
usage. Most crazy people are just crazy, but sometimes you have somebody coming
up with an odd new idea that actually turns out to be great. By not having restrictions
on usage, GPLv2 doesn't restrict anything like that--it just asks for the source
code.
Do you not have any desire to hack your own TiVo box?
I actually might hack it. I'm just not that interested in TV, and I'm busy
enough as it is. The sad part is that people playing with your hardware is actually
a good thing. Companies that make it difficult either do it because they are
stupid (that certainly happens) or because they have external forces pressuring
them to do so (e.g., media companies and TiVo). I could set up a totally open
source PVR [personal video recorder] on one of my computers. I actually did
that once, just for the heck of it. In the end, I use TiVo because it's convenient
for me, and I don't care that deeply.
[Jul 3, 2006]
GROKLAW Part of SCO claims were dismissed. They were punished for unprofessionalism.
Judge Brooke Wells issued
Order Granting
in Part IBM's Motion to Limit SCO's Claims [PDF]. There were 294 original claims.
198 objected to of which 11 denied 187 granted.
III. Willfulness
A willful failure has been defined as "any intentional failure as distinguished
from involuntary noncompliance. No wrongful intent need be shown." In contrast,
"The courts that have concluded that the failure to comply with a discovery
order was not willful have emphasized the inability of the party to comply with
the order."
There is no evidence before the court to indicate that SCO lacked the ability
to comply with the court's orders. In fact, given SCO's own public statements
outlined in part supra, it would appear that SCO had more than enough
evidence to comply with the court's orders.
In December 2003, near the beginning of this case, the court ordered SCO
to, "identify and state with specificity the source code(s) that SCO is claiming
form the basis of their action against IBM." Even if SCO lacked the code behind
methods and concepts at this early stage, SCO could have and should have, at
least articulated which methods and concepts formed "the basis of their action
against IBM." At a minimum, SCO should have identified the code behind their
methods and concepts in the final submission pursuant to this original order
entered in December 2003 ane Judge Kimball's order entered in July 2005.
| Authored by:
ChasF on Wednesday, June 28 2006 @ 06:23 PM EDT |
| "IBM seeks to limit items numbers 3-112, 143-149, 165-182,
186-193, 232-271, 279-293." Here are the ones left:
- 23
- 43
- 90
- 94
- 186
- 187
- 188
- 189
- 190
- 191
- 192
|
Re:Why does everyone think RedHat will die?
(Score:2)Oracle is doing exactly that. "Open source intellectual property is available to all of us. What that means is that any company can take the Red Hat version of Linux and use it at no cost so long as they're willing to support themselves. Well, that actually includes us. We could take the Red Hat Linux as long as we're willing to support it. In fact, we can redistribute it to others and provide support. So why would we buy Red Hat Linux, when we can just take it for nothing?"
"Each time Red Hat comes out with new code we'll synchronize with that version. We will add our bug fixes to current, future and back releases. Your application will run unchanged. We are going to stay synchronized with the Red Hat version. We are not trying to fragment the Linux market."
That's what Ellison, the Oracle CEO, said in the announcement. They think that they're clever than anyone, that they can just copy the source code and make money at the expense of others. Red Hat bought Jboss and oracle thinks they can knock down any open source bussiness (they've warned that they may release support for suse as well) just to avoid Red Hat & cia selling competitors for their Oracle closed product. I hope they fail.