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| The Sustainable GPL |
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Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 02:01 AM EDT
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I know many of you have read the article by Professor Richard Epstein, "Why Open Source is Unsustainable". I know because so many of you sent it to me. I was not originally inclined to write a rebuttal, because I felt he was a perfectly fine gentleman who just doesn't quite get the GPL. This isn't a sin. And I wasn't inspired to do it. So I set it aside. Actually, there a teensy bit more to the story. I despaired of doing a good job. I sighed when I read "once someone incorporates open source software in his own programs, then any license that he issues cannot charge others for its use," because that isn't so, and my eyes got wide as I read on to learn he thinks open source development is like a workers' commune, but when I got to the question, "But how do the insiders, such as Linus Torvalds, cash out of the business that they built?" -- well, it was clear *I* couldn't write about it, because my pesky sense of humor started revving up, and it's like getting the giggles. Once you start to see a thing funny, you just make it can't stop, so obviously, this wasn't a job for me. But you know how the community works. If one person doesn't feel like doing something, or doesn't know how, someone else will, and somehow it all gets done.
And two readers have stepped up to the plate. They would like to explain to Professor Epstein a few things about the GPL and why it is so valuable to those who use it. So here are their replies to Professor Epstein, one by Mark Levitt on how the GPL works in his experience, followed by a response by Tim Legge, "Is Knowledge Creation Unsustainable?" Tim is a developer and speaks from that perspective on the real value proposition of the GPL, as the business types might say. He says this about himself: "I have been using GNU/Linux since 1996 when I downloaded Slackware (still
my favourite distro) over a 14.4 modem. I have been a developer on the
Etherboot project for two years. I live in Canada." And Mark is a technical author living in the UK, whose bio describes him like this: "He has been an enthusiastic Linux user ever since he carried a stack of thirteen floppies between his college computer lab and home to install Slackware." It sounds like I need to check out Slackware. I sincerely hope Mr. Epstein gets to read them both, because they are from the heart and respectfully present points of view he has not yet considered. For some other responses, here's Larry Lessig's one sentence reply, and Joe Gratz, a law student, who explains why he believes the GPL isn't a "workers' commune". To place this into perspective, and to explain why I finally decided to write about it, Mark brings this information to us:
"The Register has published a story that, I think, explains the behind-the-scenes reasons for the sudden anti-GPL in government article: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/10/28/ogc_oss_pilot_report/
"Basically, the UK Office of Government Commerce published a report yesterday that states open source is a 'viable and credible for infrastructure and for meeting the requirements of the majority of desktop users.' They apparently are reporting on a number of pilot projects in UK government. The actual report is published here: http://www.ogc.gov.uk/embedded_object.asp?docid=1002367 [PDF] There is a bit more on an earlier version of the study here and if you like, you can read Microsoft's reaction to the study. I did some checking and Mr. Epstein is affiliated with the Hoover Institution, a public policy research organization, and here is their mission statement.
*********************************
Professor Epstein,
I am writing in response to your article "Why Open Source is Unsustainable" that was published in the London Financial Times. I hope to explain a number of areas where, I believe, you have made serious errors in your analysis. I hope you will take this in the spirit of discourse it is intended.
There are two serious flaws in your analysis.
First, you are confusing the General Public License with a contract. The GPL is a copyright license, nothing more, nothing less. And, in fact, you are advocating the exact disregard for the intellectual property right of copyrights that you accuse the free and open source movement of.
Second, you are incorrect in your assertion that a contributor to a free software project receives no value in return. In fact, the entire point of the GPL is to ensure exactly that. The participation in free software does provide direct and indirect rewards that are capable of sustaining the free software activities of developers. In fact, it is exactly these rewards that drive companies such as IBM, RedHat, and HP to invest heavily in free and open source software.
First, let's clear up a few things:
You write: "In answering this question, first note that open source software relies on the very private property regime that its supporters, most noticeably Richard Stallman, disdain on moral grounds." The GPL relies on copyright, actually. Richard Stallman is against software patents, not copyright. To lump two very different things (copyrights and patents) into a single umbrella term (intellectual property), and then imply that this is a hypocritical position of Stallman and the rest of the free and open source software movement is unfair.
Furthermore, your assertion that the "critical provision of the GPL has not been tested," is hardly worth the effort to debunk, except to say that the general principle that a creator of a work has exclusive right to dictate the terms of the copying and distribution of that work is well-established.
You continue by writing: "It does not in so many words specify the appropriate remedy when some portion of the open source code is incorporated into an otherwise proprietary program." As the GPL is a license, not a contract, it does not need to specify a remedy. The law of the land already specifies a remedy for the violation of copyright law. If you take a portion of my work, and that work is found to be protected by copyright, you will be liable for damages for the infringement of my copyright.
You assert the claim that if a portion of code licensed under the terms of the GPL is incorporated into a proprietary software project, that project magically "becomes open source software subject to the GPL." That is clearly false. If Microsoft, to use your example, copies and distributes code without a license, then Microsoft can be held liable for copyright infringement.
They have two options:
1) Comply with the terms of the license for the code they are infringing or,
2) Stop infringing the license by removing the code licensed under the GPL.
To suggest that the authors of the code licensed under the GPL can force Microsoft to open source their code even after Microsoft removed the code licensed under the GPL is not accurate. No copyright owner can force you to comply with the terms of a license to copy and distribute their work after you've stopped copying and distributing it. They can go to court and the court can force you to pay damages. They can ask the government to file criminal charges, conceivably. In neither case would the end result be the forced open-sourcing of Microsoft's code.
Regarding the contract vs. copyright license nature of the GPL, you state that if a person doesn't know they are using code that is copyrighted, then they may not be bound by the terms of it's license. So, to carry on with your Microsoft example, suppose somebody gives me a copy of the recently leaked Windows 2000 source code. If I claim I "didn't know" what terms the code was licensed under, then I am legally allowed to use Windows 2000 source code all I want? Are the copyright laws somehow different for proprietary software than for free and open source software?
Regarding the argument that the GPL might not apply because of "restraint on alienation," then again, I ask you, I am free to ignore the license terms of Microsoft's Windows because they are "illegally" restricting what I can do with it? Is not the essence of copyright that the author can decide what happens to his or her work and under what terms?
Your statement that "Once the contract protection [of the GPL] lapses, then the open source movement is left only to its copyright remedies, which are likely to prove far weaker," seems to summarize the confusion. Of course, the GPL has no "remedy" beyond copyright law and nobody who understands the GPL thinks it does. It is a license to copy and distribute a work. If you don't have a license, copying that work is an infringement of the author's copyright. I'm not sure how those penalties are somehow "weak."
It seems that your attack on the GPL boils down to this: The GPL is likely to not be enforceable because copyright owners can't really force those who infringe their copyright to license their proprietary code under the GPL. This is, of course, a straw man argument. No copyright license has this power. It is not, as you imply, a fatal problem with the GPL. Nor does it change the fact that the penalties that do exist for infringing the copyright on GPL covered code are, nonetheless, fairly severe.
What all this has to do with whether the free and open source model is a viable economic model, I am not clear. You seem to be saying that since GPL-using copyright holders cannot force proprietary software companies to open source their code, there is a limit to the amount of open source code that can be created. You ignore completely the amount of free and open source code already running a large part of the IT infrastructure, including, I might add, the web server your publisher uses, created entirely without the use of proprietary code that was "forced open."
Your argument for why the free and open source movement cannot sustain itself likens open source to a workers' commune and asks the question, "Does that worker receive in cash or kind his share of the gain in value during the period of his employment?" The answer is, of course, yes. In fact, this is the primary purpose behind the GPL. The "worker" contributes a bit of his work. In return, all of the work that everyone else does on top of his work is available for his own use.
You are basically arguing that people who write free and open source software have no way of getting any value out of it at the end and, therefore, no lasting incentive. Indeed, you write: "But how do the insiders, such as Linus Torvalds, cash out of the business that they built?" Linus Torvalds made the initial effort to write a small UNIX-like operating system that ran on a single CPU model, only worked with a small amount of hardware, and didn't even do networking. Through the participation of many others, he now has the benefit of the use of one of the most stable, scalable, flexible operating systems on the planet, able to run on anything from tiny wristwatches to large mainframes, not to mention, of course, the fame and glory he has. You may not think these "non-monetary" awards are worth his investment but to say that he gets nothing out of it is not true.
Finally, in the last paragraph, you acknowledge that governments the world over are starting to realize that open source is a viable alternative. You attempt to characterize this as an attempt "to sway governments by a different" take, by which you seem to mean by something other than "cost." Furthermore, you seem to be arguing that cost should be the only consideration governments use to pick software. I wouldn't necessarily disagree with you. As I'm sure the governments who have adopted open source solutions can tell you, price is not the only measure of cost. There are many benefits of free and open source software beyond price, including the lack of vendor lock in, the existence of a free market for consulting, and the ability to upgrade software and systems when you want, rather than to meet the revenue needs of a foreign corporation.
So, in conclusion, I hope that you realize that the GPL is not, and not intended to be, a weapon to "trick" proprietary software companies into giving away code. It is intended to ensure that the work an author creates can be used by others but that the author gains from whatever work is added on to his own. Furthermore, it is exactly this characteristic of the GPL, along with the very human need for respect and recognition, that provides an incentive for individuals to contribute. And certainly, large corporations would not invest the money they do if they didn't think they get more out than they put in? I doubt that RedHat, HP, and IBM can be characterized as workers' communes.
Mark
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Is knowledge creation unsustainable?
I don't often take exception to some of the opinions people have. Well,
I guess I often take exception but I am rarely moved to write about it.
However, I read an article by on ft.com by Richard Epstein "Why open
source is unsustainable" that essentially equates working on open source
to a workers commune that produces some tangible goods.
I work on the free software Etherboot project and the code that I write
or borrow from other GPL developers cannot be equated to a sack of
potatoes.
Computer programming is essentially the creation of knowledge. Whether
it is the knowledge of how to interact with a network card or how to
download a file via tftp, it is documented in the source.
When I write an Etherboot driver for a network card I sometimes have
access to the often flawed technical specifications from a vendor.
However, I have written drivers with no technical reference other than
the knowledge contained in a Linux driver. The difference is that while
the knowledge contained in the driver C code may differ from the
technical specifications, I know that the Linux driver works.
People outside the computer industry have been adding to the sum total
of human knowledge for eons and I am doing my small part to help that.
The fact that the knowledge can be "compiled" into an application that
is useful to thousands of people is somewhat immaterial. The knowledge,
unlike a sack of potatoes, lasts far past supper.
The creation of knowledge may be unsustainable but I suspect we have not
yet reached that limit.
Tim Legge
Etherboot Developer
http://www.etherboot.org
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 02:58 PM EDT |
I stopped reading very shortly after the comment about Richard Stallman not
being against software copyright.... That is as misinformed a statement as the
ones that are being refuted.
See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-free.html for more on Richard Stallman's
position.[ Reply to This | # ]
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- Stallman is NOT against software copyright - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 03:09 PM EDT
- But all his later arguments were good.... - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 03:09 PM EDT
- The Sustainable GPL - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 03:14 PM EDT
- The Sustainable GPL - Authored by: k4_pacific on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 03:15 PM EDT
- The Sustainable GPL - Authored by: Avenger on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 03:43 PM EDT
- RMS' Copyleft - Authored by: rjamestaylor on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 03:49 PM EDT
- The Sustainable GPL - Authored by: PolR on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 04:08 PM EDT
- Correction - Authored by: PolR on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 04:30 PM EDT
- The Sustainable GPL - Authored by: Groklaw Lurker on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 04:18 PM EDT
- The creation of knowledge may be unsustainable but I suspect we have not yet reached that limit. - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 04:27 PM EDT
- It's kind of hard to tell from his pompous rambling style - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 05:03 PM EDT
- Stallman OK with *some* copyrights - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 05:47 PM EDT
- The Sustainable GPL - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 06:01 PM EDT
- Stallman wrong for the right reasons? - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 08:35 PM EDT
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| Authored by: xtifr on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 03:03 PM EDT |
This one may be more of a technical quibble than a correction, but
still...
They have two options:
1) Comply with the
terms of the license for the code they are infringing or,
2) Stop
infringing the license by removing the code licensed under the GPL.
It seems to me that the second point would be more clear as:
"stop infringing the copyright by removing the
code...." ---
Do not meddle in the affairs of Wizards, for it makes
them soggy and hard to light. [ Reply to This | # ]
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- Corrections, etc. - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 03:23 PM EDT
- Corrections, etc. - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 05:29 PM EDT
- Corrections, etc. - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 04:55 PM EDT
- Corrections, etc. - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 05:16 PM EDT
- make it can't stop, - Authored by: marbux on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 05:31 PM EDT
- the terms of it's license - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, October 29 2004 @ 10:40 AM EDT
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| Authored by: seanlynch on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 03:08 PM EDT |
| Thank you Tim and Mark. [ Reply to This | # ]
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- Ditto - Authored by: AntiFUD on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 03:52 PM EDT
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| Authored by: Nick_UK on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 03:09 PM EDT |
The really totally unreal Steve Ballmer mail (security, ha
ha) and also a lot of heavyweights producing FUD about the
GPL really does show the big boys that had it all their
own way are now really frightened...
... they cannot beat FOSS/OS on quality, security, price,
KNOWLEDGE!*, and goodwill - so try to take law (IP.
patents, suits etc.) and other suspect alternatives to
kill it.
They are scared. And thanks to the SCO farce, more people
know about about GNU/Linux now than if we all launched an
advertisement campaign.
Nick
* Knowledge in FOSS/OS is that if you get a problem you
can fix yourself (like me) or if not there are 10000's of
people on the web that can and will help to fix. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: inode_buddha on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 03:12 PM EDT |
Off-the-cuff respone of mine (I may regret this later):
1) What's wrong with worker's communes? Corrolary: Why is everyone so interested
in them all of a sudden?
2) If there are indeed workers communes, why were they perceived as necessary
enough to be created?
Further analysis later, I am seeing this argument as a very old form of
trolling.
---
"When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not price." --
Richard M. Stallman[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: raynfala on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 03:23 PM EDT |
The author seems to want to convince readers that the GPL was devised as some
sort of "stealth weapon" to crack open proprietary software
nuts:
"The apparent intention of the provision is to "infect" that
new program so that all of its content becomes open source software subject to
the GPL."
Quite the opposite. The purpose of the GPL is not to
transform proprietary source code into publicly available source code. Its
purpose is to block the transformation of publicly available source code
into proprietary source code. It "tags" source code with a non-monetary,
intrinsic value so that it can circulate in public without being automatically
relegated to the category of public domain, where it could be pillaged at
will.
The GPL is not about tricking proprietary software vendors into
opening their code vaults. The GPL is simply using existing copyright law as a
mechanism to enforce a "share-and-share-alike" policy, thereby preventing
proprietary vendors from unfairly enriching their code vaults at the expense of
others.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: paul_cooke on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 03:26 PM EDT |
please post OT stuff here so we can all enjoy it and PJ
can quickly find new stuff to analyse... :)
if possible, please do links properly as per this example:
<a href"www.example.com/example.html">example link</a>
with html mode turned on... of course.
Please preview your posts first and check your links
work :)
---
Use Linux - Computer power for the people: Down with cybercrud...[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Brent on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 03:32 PM EDT |
Number ONE - let me make it clear that I'm not trolling - I simply have a
question that I don't see adequetly (sp?) answered.
It seems to me the author of the article in question (and I've seen this same
type of statement/concern elsewhere) is saying that if I were to write a
proprietary program and used a single function/procedure from a GPL program,
that now my entire program must become GPL'd.
If that is true, how is that fair? 99% of the work I did was originally mine,
but because I used 1% open source, I know lose control over how *I* want *my*
source code to be copyrighted??
I think that's what a lot of them mean when they call the GPL 'viral'. I could
understand that the function/procedure that I use must be 'disclosed' and any
modifications to the single function/procedure. However, it makes no sense to
me that the rest of my work must now fall under the same rules.
That would be like writing a book, quoting a small passage from another book
within mine, and now the copyright belongs to the quoted books author because of
that. That doesn't make sense.
If I am wrong, please explain then how this works?
Thanks,
Brent
---
~Brent[ Reply to This | # ]
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- No need to release your code, if you code well. - Authored by: Adam B on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 03:40 PM EDT
- I don't understand. - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 03:44 PM EDT
- I don't understand. - Authored by: danb35 on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 03:47 PM EDT
- I don't understand. - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 03:48 PM EDT
- It's quite fair - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 03:49 PM EDT
- I don't understand. - Authored by: Philip Stephens on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 03:50 PM EDT
- I don't understand. - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 03:51 PM EDT
- I don't understand. - Authored by: pooky on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 03:51 PM EDT
- I don't understand. - Authored by: Reliant on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 03:57 PM EDT
- I don't understand. - Authored by: Avenger on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 03:57 PM EDT
- I don't understand. - Authored by: Mark Levitt on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 03:58 PM EDT
- I don't understand. - Authored by: Rascalson on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 04:00 PM EDT
- RE: I don't understand. - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 04:07 PM EDT
- How About A "Fair Use" Concept? - Authored by: llanitedave on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 04:07 PM EDT
- I don't understand. - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 04:12 PM EDT
- I don't understand. - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 04:16 PM EDT
- Your entire program doesn't need to be GPLed - Authored by: PolR on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 04:22 PM EDT
- I don't understand. - Authored by: cranesable on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 04:26 PM EDT
- I don't understand. - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 05:10 PM EDT
- If you really are using GPL code rewrite the 1% yourself - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 05:29 PM EDT
- Like all good trolls... - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 05:47 PM EDT
- From the looks of it, a lot of people don't understand. - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 05:58 PM EDT
- Your code, your license - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 06:23 PM EDT
- I don't understand. - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 06:32 PM EDT
- You are confusing copyrights and licenses - Authored by: Duster on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 06:59 PM EDT
- Why are you stealing other peoples code in the first place? - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 07:28 PM EDT
- I don't understand. - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 08:11 PM EDT
- I don't understand. - Authored by: ine on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 09:22 PM EDT
- I don't understand. - Authored by: tbogart on Friday, October 29 2004 @ 12:42 AM EDT
- I seriously doubt - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, October 29 2004 @ 01:00 AM EDT
- I don't understand. - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, October 29 2004 @ 12:20 PM EDT
- Mixing Licenses? - Authored by: jsedwards on Saturday, October 30 2004 @ 08:47 AM EDT
- I don't understand. - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, November 01 2004 @ 03:46 PM EST
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| Authored by: Adam B on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 03:33 PM EDT |
I'm surprised that no one has yet mentioned the Linksys situation, as it
illustrated both the strength and the compassion of the license.
A
company incorporated GPL code in their product, and they got called
out. They
got taken to court, and they had to release their GPL code, with
modifications,
to the community. Enforcement: check.
They did not have to
release the code for their own developed
programs, such as the drivers and
utility programs for their hardware, to the
public. Those remained total black
boxes. No cancerous GPL: it was proven a
myth. Lack of "forcing open"
anything: check.
And to go one better, a huge, huge community sprang up
around those
little wireless routers. Custom firmware, extensions to the
functionality, bug
fixes free of charge, and mega-goodwill resulted, as well as
everyone I know
dumping their router and going out to buy the cool new
"mod-able" Linksys
router. Business gains from using the GPL, both in terms of
relations and
even $$$ on the bottom line: check.
Check it
out. It's a model. A beautiful, shining example. This is how we
are going to
do business, gentlemen. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: xtifr on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 03:35 PM EDT |
One of these days I'm going to write a full essay debunking the notion that
the GPL is viral. I strongly suspect that this misconception is behind articles
such as Prof. Epstein's. This misconception seems held by advocates of the GPL
as well as its detractors, so it's not surprising that it's a persistant and
widespread notion. And in Prof. Epstein's defense, it looks as if part of his
article was intended to debunk this notion - except that he apparently didn't
realize it was a misconception, and assumed it was the actual intent of the
GPL.
The counter-meme to the "GPL is viral" meme is simply this: the GPL
is a defense! It provides a limited defense against charges
of copyright infringement. And, of course, it seems pretty silly to say, "oh
no, I've been infected with the ability to defend myself against charges of
copyright infringement under certain circumstances." Or worse yet, "I've been
infected with an ability to defend myself against charges of copyright
infringement that I don't want to take advantage of! Help, help!"
:) ---
Do not meddle in the affairs of Wizards, for it makes them soggy
and hard to light. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Toon Moene on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 03:39 PM EDT |
Sigh - how to get old quick.
My announcement of the release of GCC 3.0
to the newsgroup comp.compilers:
GCC 3.0
announcement
Choice quote:
Release information which
doesn't contain
the words "sustainable business model" is available
from: ---
Toon Moene (A GNU Fortran maintainer and physicist
at large) [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Groklaw Lurker on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 03:42 PM EDT |
I think Professor Epstein has fallen for Mr. Ballmer's 'the GPL is viral'
argument. The GPL is not viral at all, it merely ensures that subsequent
improvements to the project code base (whatever the project may be) are returned
to the community.
If someone violates the 'General Public LICENSE' by misappropriating copyrighted
source code licensed under the GPL they are subject to the same legal remedy
applied to such violations under other licenses, the injunctive removal of the
licensed code from its misappropriation. In other words, they have to remove the
code, just like anyone else would.
I swear, so many people in positions of influence purport to speak knowledgeably
about the GPL and yet so often appear to have never read it - or failed to grasp
it's meaning if they did read it. It isn't that difficult to comprehend, and if
after reading it, you still aren't sure you get it, google for any of the dozens
of fine documents on the Internet that explain it in detail.
---
(GL) Groklaw Lurker
End the tyranny, abolish software patents.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 03:44 PM EDT |
I find discussions such as these to be fascinating. You always learn interesting
things about the people involved. The issue of "attention to detail"
applies as much in a newspaper column (virtual or otherwise) as it does in the
courtroom, as Groklaw readers are well aware.
Whether the author is a professor at the University of Chicago or at Stanford --
or simply someone offering an informative service -- authors should be held to
the same expectation.
With that in mind, I couldn't resist posting this on Lessig's blog, in response
to his 'one sentence reply'.
Lessig: "How many mistakes can be made in 800 words?"
Comment: "If we’re talking about accuracy (and therefore mistakes) which
800 of the 1297 words in the essay should we be considering?"
And with that, we'll keep fighting the good fight.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: pooky on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 03:45 PM EDT |
Well written responses!
This is what I always find hard to grasp. Why is it that people simply can't
understand that the GPL is a license? It's not a contract, it's not viral, it's
not some weapon used to torpedo software companies and steal their code.
The GPL is used by *choice*. If you want to incorporate GPL'd code into your own
product, you have a choice to make. You can do this if you accept the license
and it's terms, which means your product must be released under the GPL and the
source code made available. Or, you can choose not to use the code. It's
ludicrous to argue that one of your developers might slip some GPL'd code in and
then the company is up a creek without a paddle. Wrong. You simply remove the
code, pay whatever penalty is handed down or agreed upon for violating a
copyright, and then deal with your employee appropriately. Same as if he took
code from anywhere else.
Clearly what bothers the likes of Microsoft and others about the GPL is not that
it's a choice, it's that SO MANY people are making the choice to use it and it
has produced an entire culture of services and software that are denting the
proprietary company's hold on everyone. Open Source is evolving the software
business all around these proprietary companies and they risk being left behind
to become unimportant unless they change.
-pooky
---
If at First You Don't Succeed, Skydiving Isn't for You.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 03:48 PM EDT |
from: www.gnu.org/philosophy/copyright-and-globalization.html
QUESTION: I see. So you're still imagining a world in which there is copyright?
STALLMAN: Yes. As I've said, for those kinds of works. I'm not saying that
everything should be permitted. I'm proposing to reduce copyright powers, not
abolish them.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: James on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 03:51 PM EDT |
but it is really not for the faint of heart. Maybe it has improved somewhat in
the past years, but it has always had a minimalist ideology to the point where
you are hand editing every config file with very little GUI support: the polar
opposite of Mandrake.
Like I said, I may be wrong, feel free to correct me. I have a lot of friends
who started on Slack and still swear by it. For the record I use Mandrake and
OpenBSD (which is probably the least user-friendly OS out there right now ;)[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 03:52 PM EDT |
| Epstein says "Does open source software represent a viable alternative to the
competing forms of proprietary software, which is licensed only for a
fee?"
Proprietary software is commonly offered "free", such as Internet
Explorer and Adobe Reader. The reason for this is to gain a competitive
advantage.
The only practical alternatives to Windows are open source
based because making a proprietary model work for something as complex as an
operating system, to compete with a $100 price tag, and a slim portion of
the market is not practical.
With open source, the cost can go as low as
$0, allowing any scale of usage to be practical and competitive.
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 04:12 PM EDT |
Those are very fine responses, they should get printed in the same paper the
original article appeared in so that people who read the first one would get a
chance to read the replies.
I hope the authors of the replies will be submitting there responses to the
newspaper in question.
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 04:16 PM EDT |
The flaw in his arguments comes much earlier, in the phrase "once someone
incorporates open source software in his own programs". As a software
developer, when I am writing new proprietary software, I know I CAN use:
- Software that I have paid for a licence to use, such as toolkits
- Software available under a truly free licences like BSD
I know I CAN'T use:
- Software written by Microsoft, or Sun, or whoever that I haven't acquired a
license for
- Software released under the GPL
So the question is, if you are writing proprietary software, why would you put
GPL'ed (or anyone else's proprietary code) into your software unless your
intention was to steal it?
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Brent on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 04:22 PM EDT |
"Effrontry", "freeload" - Folks - I *don't* write software
(unless you want to include some bash scripts I just recently learned how to
write).
I just had a question and used and example. I'd say more but I really don't
want anything near a flame war started here. I appreciate this site too much.
Next time I just won't bother asking a question.
---
~Brent[ Reply to This | # ]
|
- Flame War??? - Authored by: llanitedave on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 04:40 PM EDT
- On the contrary - this site is not about censorship - Authored by: Ed Freesmeyer on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 04:45 PM EDT
- Sorry - Authored by: Brent on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 04:50 PM EDT
- Sorry - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 05:35 PM EDT
- Sorry - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 05:37 PM EDT
- Dont think GPL, think Copyright - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 06:13 PM EDT
- Sorry - Authored by: Jude on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 06:52 PM EDT
- Sorry - Authored by: tknarr on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 07:44 PM EDT
- Sorry - Authored by: Philip Stephens on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 08:20 PM EDT
- Sorry - Authored by: vtleslie on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 10:01 PM EDT
- What's annoying - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, October 29 2004 @ 01:19 AM EDT
- They should be scared - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, October 29 2004 @ 12:36 PM EDT
- Sorry - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, October 29 2004 @ 02:12 PM EDT
- Sorry - Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, October 30 2004 @ 01:25 AM EDT
| |
| Authored by: MattZN on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 04:32 PM EDT |
| Well, I have to say that both the author and also PJ to some extent have missed
the point of open-source. The GPL has nothing at all to do with the
sustainability of open-source. Open source is and always has been a grand
Darwinistic experiment, where good code tends to propogate and obsolete or
unmaintained or even unwanted (despite being maintained) code falls by the way
side. Nearly all open-source projects are brainchilds of just one or two core
people who have a favorite license (be it GPL, BSD, or something else). But the
license is certainly not the driver of either the core people or the followons.
The primary driver of an open source project is the desire to write code and the
time to do so, and that's *IT*.
Frankly, I consider the GPL more of a
religion then anything else, one where most of the talkers are almost completely
wrong in their understanding of both the GPL and its side effects and
consequences, and where paranoia about 'stealing' code (Microsoft is often
brought up as the boogieman here) rules the day. It's really unfortunate,
because the vast majority of projects developed under the GPL are too simplistic
and short-lived to be worth the level of protection the GPL provides and would
actually be more useful to the world had they been simply given away free under
a more open license. Only a very few projects where the authors also have
personal commercial asperations, such as MySQL, or even IBM, have actually put
the GPL to good use. The only thing I've ever seen the GPL do is cause people
to not use code that they would have otherwised used if it had been under a more
open license, and a few legal cases here and there that have had no consequence
to the rest of the world or to the future open-source in general (even IBM's use
of the GPL against SCO is of no real consequence to the original authors of the
majority of the code SCO is using, only to IBM's own case). People forget that
even commercial interests intent on 'stealing' code are hard pressed to actually
be able to develop it beyond the original snapshot they started with.
Microsoft, for example, despite its best efforts, could only change a few
reserved fields in the Kerberos spec and pretty much used everything else
verbatim, making reverse engineering their changes utterly trivial. Their
efforts to create proprietary dns and other changes to open protocols have met
with similar failure.
And that is the real power of open-source... it
exploits the laziness of commercial interests and forces them into a mold that
results in their products conforming to or mostly conforming to open standards
whether they like the idea or not. Microsoft's IPX is dying not because of
Linux, but because of the BSD licensed TCP stack. Microsoft's proprietary WWW
server technologies are dying not because of Linux, but because of the BSD
licensed Apache web server. Linux certainly has a big effect, especially now as
a platform, but when all said and done it isn't Linux's GPLness that is the
driving force behind its popularity. It never was. To the paranoid the GPL is
the only thing that guarentees these ends, but to a lot of us the GPL doesn't
live up to the hype.
-Matt [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: blacklight on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 04:35 PM EDT |
My congratulations to Mark Levitt for his air-tight counter analysis. I will
make three points:
(1) Dr. Epstein sems to miss the fact that the building of civilizations is in
essence a collaborative effort, where members get the full benefit of the
blessings of the civilization in return for his or her contribution. And the
benefits accrue in equal measure to Linux Torvalds as well as to the most
anonymous member of the Open Source community. This in marked contrast to the
history of most if not all classical civilizations, where the benefits of these
civilizations flowed disproportiontely to the top - be he pharaoh, emperor,
king, or high priest.
(2) Dr. Epstein also misses the fact that the Open Source movement arose out of
the massive dissatisfaction with the behavior and conduct of the major purveyors
of commercial software. In other words, these purveyors were not meeting a key
need. I have yet to see for example Microsoft meet this need in any meaningful
way, and the Open Source community will have its justification for existence as
long as this need is not met by the commercial providers.
(3) The world of commercial software is controlled by a monopoly and at best an
oligopoly of vendors. Any quick scan of www.sourceforge.net for example is going
to yield a far wider choice of would be Open Source software suppliers. The
world of Open Source is a world of available choices, not of limited
alternatives. And it is the possibility of free and fair competition that drives
this availability of choices.
As an MBA, I believe that Dr. Epstein is misapplying his knowledge of economics.
In fact, I believe that much of the success of the Open Source movement can be
explained in terms of market economics.[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 04:39 PM EDT |
...is that GPLed code can be modified for use in an organization, as long as it
isn't distributed outside that organization, ie if MicroSoft's payroll
department wanted to use Open Office inhouse and tweaked it to more closely
resemble MSOffice, they could without license issues as long as they didn't
publish or distribute the resultant product.
Or do *I* have it wrong, too?[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 04:40 PM EDT |
While I agree with GPL-ing software, and I use GPL software all the time (I've
been Microsoft-free since sometime in 1995), I'd like to make the observation
that software is unlike most works (think of a book or musical recording) that
are copyrighted in one important respect:
You don't normally stop developing it - it's never finished.
Copyrights, like other protections for intellectual property grant a temporary
monopoly, in order to furnish an incentive to create something which is supposed
to eventually benefit everyone by passing into the public domain. (I KNOW that
GPLed code benefits everyone except proprietary software vendors immediately,
but that's beside the point!)
The length of that temporary monopoly keeps getting longer here in the USA, and
I don't know where it stands today. For argument's sake, let's assume that a
copyright lasts 50 years. So if I create a spiffy utility and GPL it, the
copyright clock would start running on Foo version 1.0. Next week, I (or
someone else) might make an improvement or fix a bug, resulting in Foo version
1.001, which would get it's own copyright. Even minor changes to a mature
program in order to make it useful on a newer OS (e.g., to use newer libraries),
result in a new copyright.
This makes GPLed code effectively unusable by proprietary software vendors,
because as long as a project is maintained it's copyright will continue to
extend into the future. Of course they could always use the 50 year-old
version. If they can find it. ;^P[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: UglyGreenTroll on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 04:47 PM EDT |
| The commune model is the wrong one. As stated in the Tim Legge's contribution,
people have been contributing to
humanities knowledge for millenia, often
without immediate commercial rewards.
So what drives people to contribute?
Curiousity, pride of accomplishment, esteem and recognization, tenure,
promotion, and so forth. And companies go along with it in order to reward
their researchers and developers, to enhance the companies' reputation, to
advance the science or technology upon which they depend, and sometimes because
the establishment of open de facto standards has direct commercial
advantage.
Contribution to open software is driven by the same things that
drive the scientific community. This should be recognized and exploited. We
could do more, for example, to recognize important contributors to open-source
software. [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 04:54 PM EDT |
This is real simple:
With ANY software simply read the licensing terms carefully.
If you agree to the terms then use it accordingly. If you disagree with the
terms simply don't use it at all. You are free to decide either way.
It is this freedom that has a lot of people like MS a bit upset. They should get
over it, improve their products, cut their costs, and compete.
Oh, I forgot, they can't or won't -- here come the lawyers instead....
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 04:57 PM EDT |
| ... here (sub req'd, unfortunately).
The thrust of the article, from March 2004,
is "SCO must not succeed". To give an idea of the flavor, a couple of quotes
:
The marriage of free software and big capitalism must be one of the
strangest unions of the information age: on the one side, an online commune of
geeks sharing love and code to create the world's fastest growing computer
operating system; on the other, big companies greedy for cheap software. A union
made in cyber heaven.
Free software is where the 60s met the 90s: a
fascinating artifact of an early internet age where everything was based on
trust. It can and should survive in a world where idealism is improbably allied
with profit. It is time to start figuring out how to make that happen. [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: mikehunt on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 05:13 PM EDT |
| Surprise, surprise! James DeLong turns out to be another troll. The PFF seems to
have some rather dubious allegiances...
Readers may enjoy the links below.
Wonder what's happened to the FT hacks? Too drunk/underpaid/inexperienced/.../
to check out things before printing them?
If James DeLong, with his
obviously biased, and maybe purchased opinion, is Richard Epstein's only "expert
analysis", then he is just as biased as DeLong and needs to pull himself
together.
The trail back to the money and power brokers is so clear here
that one has to wonder what influence Mr. Murdoch had in the publication of this
story.
Mike.
All about James DeLong -
alt.os.l
inux
Pictures of other interesting folks who speak at the PFF -
Declan
McCullagh
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 05:15 PM EDT |
Please, please give us your input regarding the 'viral' GPL, we so appreciate a
laugh!
Main posts in this thread may only be made by senior managers or attorneys for
"The SCO Group". Main posts must use the name and position of the
poster at "The SCO Group". Main posters must post in their official
capacity at "The SCO Group".
Sub-posts will also be allowed from non-"The SCO Group" employees or
attorneys. Sub-posts from persons not connected with "The SCO Group"
must be very polite, address other posters and the main poster with the
honorific "Mr." or "Mrs." or "Ms.", as
appropriate, use correct surnames, not call names or suggest or imply unethical
or illegal conduct by "The SCO Group" or its employees or attorneys.
This thread requires an extremely high standard of conduct and even slightly
marginal posts will be deleted.
P.J. says you must be on your very best behavior.
If you want to comment on this thread, please post under "O/T"
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: DebianUser on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 05:36 PM EDT |
The article that provoked the above responses represents but the latest in
a long line of willful misrepresentations of the GPL. I find it very hard to
see such articles as anything but the equivalent of advertising copy written
for hire, and wonder why they are not labeled as such in the publications in
which they appear.
It is not as though it is hard to find cogent, authoratative and totally
convincing expositions of the content and implications of the GPL. The off the
wall misreadings that appear in the cited article can only be the result of no
reading at all of the relevant sources. It is stunning that someone who
presumably vaules his reputation would lend his name to such a project.
The periodic appearance of such tripe can only suggest that the FUDmeisters
who solicit such items pay exceedingly well in the monetary sense. [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: ossworks on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 05:44 PM EDT |
This software contains the intellectual property of one or more developers who
have retained their copywrite to the program(s). Intellectual property is highly
valued in our society and, as such, one cannot reasonably expect to incorporate
the intellectual property of others into one's work without offering something
of value in exchange.
Many individuals and businesses offer their intellectual property for sale. The
developers of this software, however, are willing to trade the right to use
their intellectual property in exchange for your source code. The developers are
willing to give you the right to freely incorporate this source code into your
software in exchange for the right to freely incorporate your source code into
their software.
If you do not wish to share your source code with others, you still have the
right to freely incorporate this source code into your software as long as the
combined software remains in-house. You DO NOT have the right to distribute
binary only versions of this software. If you do decide to share your software,
you DO NOT have the right to patent your software. (Unless the patent gives
everyone access to your software.)
If you do not agree with these license terms, you will have to develop your own
source code from scratch or purchase it. Violation of this license removes your
right to use the software.
Not bad eh?
Ossworks[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 05:47 PM EDT |
Just for the fun of it, ok? Suppose that Company A has a proprietary software X
that needs badly a portion of GPL-ed software. This company desagrees to the GPL
licence because their software X would become automatically GPL-ed free to
distribute to others, including their competitors. My question is, can the GPL
make some sort of contract so that company A pays royalties for the use of the
GPL-ed piece, but without the obligation to give the code to the GPL? WOuldnt
that be fair enough for both parties? I mean, the royalties could be used for
improving many things, such as paying the developers or the GPL administrators,
perhaps the money could be used as a fund for in case of patent litigations.
What do you think guys? [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Duster on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 06:26 PM EDT |
Oddly enough, a British linux magazine (Linuxuser, no. 41) recently carried an
article, "Playing FTSE," discussing how the FTSE and many of the
larger banks in Britain use OS in their operations. The FTSE in particular is
very dependent on linux. Evidently not all laborers in the London financial
world seeing things the way the good professor does.
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: drh on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 07:03 PM EDT |
The author of the article has pretty much made clear the
mind set of the big business software companies. Quite
simply, they cannot understand how anybody can make a lot
of money out of open source in general, and Linux in
particular. The key is money, it is the only measure they
have, it is the only guide they know, and from their
perspective, open source cannot be measured because it is
free.
But I look at it this way:
I do not see Linux as free-as-in-money, I see it as a
barter. I can contribute either code to any project, or
purchase the distros to enable them to contribute more
code. In return for my contribution of a part, I am
allowed access to the whole. This assigns a value to Linux
that could possibly be measured either against my time or
my monetary contribution. My return is vastly greater than
my investment, so the value has gone up, and can be
measured by the time and money others have contributed.
Now add in the GPL, which allows me to access not only
todays Linux, but also any other version past present and
future that I may wish to utilize. Again the value
returned to me has increased.
By using this "barter" system, people can trade code
amongst themselves to further improve their offerings,
again increasing value. Or, like an artist who barters for
brushes, paint, and canvas they can then create a portrait
worth far more than the value of the components.
I think the problem with the mind set of the author is
that he cannot find the silver spoon. Of course, there is
no spoon. But while there may not be a gold mine, there is
money that can be made from this system, and it will
sustain not only A business, but ANY business that works
within the system. Instead of one company getting all the
cookies, many companies get some cookies.
---
Just another day...[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Ares_Man on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 07:12 PM EDT |
| Recently, in an effort to debunk common GPL myths such as believed by Prof.
Epstein, I posted an "
article" on Groklaw. I just noticed that my article was posted on another site. In
case Prof. Epstein does not know, I exercised my rights under copyright law for
redistribution of this essay, and I am quite satisfied with the reward (that
others could benefit). ---
The DMCA is a blueprint for turning business
models into law! [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 07:42 PM EDT |
To my mind, the fundamental basis of the success of open source and free
software is that enables people to control the tools they use in their work. The
GPL sustains this effort by ensuring that the controllable set of tools created
can not be appropriated, extended and further distributed. If you want your
software to be usable in commercial development, then you license under a BSD
style license (or dual license under both BSD and GPL). If you are a developer
or an end-user, this can be a very congenial environment to spend some or all of
your time in. You might even make a lot of money.
Regards,
Mark Wilson[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: darkonc on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 07:54 PM EDT |
| There's nothing wrong with taking a funny attack on something. I often use humor
as a way of exposing the error of a logic stream. It is far more functional than
some people seem to think.
If nothing else, it can provide some levity
(which is rarely a bad thing in and of itslelf).
.. And giving a rarely
esposed side of yourself the freedom to express is usually a good
thing. ---
Powerful, committed communication. Touching the jewel within
each person and bringing it to life.. [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, October 28 2004 @ 11:35 PM EDT |
| Clearly, a software movement centered around the GPL exists
and has managed to produce significant works.
Epstein's article and many other writings represent
attempts to
interprete
that movement, and that means the intention of
every freeware author, in political or economical
dimensions.
This might be an debate between people, who think
so, or
want to instrumentalize a now common behavior in one or
the other way.
Software authors
may have political, moral or theological
opinions, and some may have political, moral or theological
interpretation and intentions of
their doing, but this movement
is clearly not a
political, moral or theological movement.
It is mainly a wide
movement of technicians.
Some authors may make
a fortune from free software, most
don't, and for this majority money does not matter in this
respect. Software authors have their
income from other
sources
and do not depend on selling the particular software
they issue for free.
Therefore, demanding that
publishing software under the GPL
has to be "sustainable" in respect of flow of money, is
misleading.
If we just take things as they are, the free software movement is
simply a way to exchange program sources
from which no
direct
monetary revenue can be gained. This does not mean,
they are bad or weak - to the contrary, it often has a
very high
quality - it simply means, that exchanging
products using money does
not work well in this respect.
This is often
simply so because the product was made anyway,
but cannot be sold for one or the other reason. I assume,
Linus made his OS core simply to
learn and to train his skills
and started to exchange it with people, who had likely
interests.
Also, very often, software is made
for just one customer and
paid, but cannot be sold to another costumer for various
reasons. But software always contains reuseable core
components, say, mail transport
elements, coder-, decoder,
whatever technical stuff. There is not really a market for such
elements, but there is an enormous pool of
software written
and never
published nor sold (more but once). Each and
every programmer personally keeps such a pool of his works to
later derive other works from it.
When issued, it is often a
matter of taste and purpose of the
author and many particular
circumstances, whether to isolate
components or to keep a whole thing in one.
Perhaps to
the surprise and puzzlement of everyone, the
behavior of simply publishing such unsellables worked out
to be very, very sustainable.
By this, software authors simply
created a huge pool of highly reusable components and
sources. They (the software authors) benefit by
this from
gaining access
to other components, for their study or for their
practical "pool" use, i.e. for derivates or adjustments,
be it
commercial or not.
Now the early experience was, that releasing a work under the
public domain ended in turning the work
against the authors
themselves. This was the lesson learned from UNIX history. To
prevent future drain from that pool, namely
the exclusion
of the
authors from derivates of their own brain
children, the rules
of GPL
were more and more widely used as
the license terms. These
rules are,
what keeps the free software pool
together.
One may wonder, that no money is
necessary to create such a
huge, consistent collection. Normally, division of labor
requires the use of money as a glue between the
producers.
Complex
products, e.g. computers, can only be invented and
produced in the presence of that glue, since extreme
different
kinds of skills
and products have to brought together, which
cannot be exchanged directly. One would think, that this is
the case with software, too.
Surprisingly, no such glue was necessary for the creation and
the exchange of free
software products. This certainly has
something to do with the particular properties of the ware,
namely that it is an intellectual
product, it can be replicated to
neglectable costs, saves lots of replicated work when being
pooled, etc. Many compared the exchange of that
products therefore to the
exchange of knowledge in the
scientific community. To make up an anti-capitalistic intention
from that, as Epstein and some freeware
proponents do, is an
overinterpretation. One can state though, that money as a
social glue does not work here, properly, and is
not used,
therefore, for
plain pragmatical reasons. But this is not a defect
of how the
movement works,
as Mr. Epstein claims
contrary to the fact that the movement
is all about exchange, it's a defect of how money works. As
everything, money, the central mean of exchange, simply does
not apply everywhere equally
well, and there are many example of intense exchanges that do
not involve money. No conflict, here.
Clearly, free software exchange is an in-group behavior, and
it makes particular sense only between
software authors
themselves. If one wants to name the common experience
shared between all free software
authors, then that, that this behavior is very efficient,
highly
economical, plain
fun, and nothing but right, however one
turns
it. One may have to be a software author, though, to
gain
the full profit of this exchange, but perhaps not. To make
more from
it, and that is my opinion, is an interpretation
attempt on the
individually prefered ideological canvas with
the to expected results.
The in-group
profit is one of the reasons, by the way, why
"Linux" (i.e. GNU/Linux/*BSD/... to be more correct) still
misses many end-user
applications. They appear slower, as
software authors are end-users, too, but have slightly different
habits and demands.
And this is perhaps the
second great surprise of the
movement. It was able to create large and widely usable
end-products one would have thought can only be
created by
large companies
with an enormous investment of money.
This is clearly not true anymore, though one would have to
carefully differentiate between
different kinds of software and
their "compatibility" with freeware production. As a rule of
thumb, the more common and elementary a
particular
software is,
the more easier it can be produced an maintained
this way.
For me, another surprise is, that
this exchange draws
astonishing wide
circles. For instance, who would have
thought of web site like Groklaw only a few years ago?
And who would have expected
that this little exchange aside
attracts law
professors and Hoover fellows like Mr. Epstein to
ponder so deeply and so ignorant about it? I don't know
whether law science considers itself empirical, but certainly it
has something to do with facts and truth and
homework.
Where on earth did he pick up this
"commune" thingy, but
from his own
preconceptions?
Apparently, a massive non-monetary exchange of products
raises all kinds of deep rooted attitudes and so his article says
more about himself as about his object. The individual benefit
for those who participate in it, is not identfied, but it
is only
insinuated that it has to be directly
monetary. As such a direct
monetary benefit cannot be
found by Mr. Epstein, he
concludes, that it
must be driven by ideological forces, polically, morally or
religiously motivated. Thus his strange "commune" ideas.
That exchanging sources the way it is done by in the freeware
movement makes so much practical sense as selling and
buying makes in other contexts, does not come into his
mind.
As simple, harmless and pragmatical the free exchange
of
software is in itself, it is certainly not neutral to the rest of the
world. Not occasionally, this article appears on Groklaw,
which
is momentary dedicated to the SCO soap opera. Yes,
there
are people,
who not only do not benefit from that exchange,
but who have
disadvantages from it, but mainly for their own,
internal reasons. And these
are really the ones, who
have a problems, to make their money. And these
are really
the
ones who have a problem
to sustain. [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: lathama on Friday, October 29 2004 @ 01:02 AM EDT |
I am also a developer, managing a project, helping people. I have as of late
coined a phrase that sums up the GPL to new developers and translators that do
not understand the GPL.
The GPL does not let good ideas
go to waste.
Andrew Latham
OSRAIDS
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, October 29 2004 @ 01:08 AM EDT |
We will always have free, GPL and open source software. We will always have
closed commercial software. It is part of human nature to share knowledge or
keep secrets. The popularity and value of free software will always vary
depending on the ability of commercial software providers to deliver attractive
solutions. With inspired free software developers and effective leadership,
commercial software has to clear some impressive hurdles before it can hope to
marginalize free software. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, October 29 2004 @ 02:18 AM EDT |
It seems to me that this discussion misses an important idea, and
that
missing this idea is what causes both sides of this argument to
pass each other
endlessly in the night.
That idea is simply the idea that some (but not
all) kinds of
software represents a new kind of commodity where it simply does
not
work to analyze the situation in terms of conventional "market
force"
arguments. The "market driven" people fail because they fail to deal
with
the ways this new commodity differs from previous commodities.
Meanwhile, the
OSS/GPL community fails in two ways to communicate with
those who think in terms
of markets: (1) they fail to really identify
why this new commodity is
different, and (2) they somehow seem to need
to "overachieve," and they try to
apply an argument to "all software"
which really only applies to a limited
segment of the software
market.
An example of the "new commodity" is
operating systems. (The argument
goes beyond operating systems, but I will stick
just with OS's for
simplicity. The argument does not extend to all
software.)
Some ways in which this commodity differs from other commodities
are:
(1) the commodity is literally a "necessity of modern life" ("life" as
we
know it would virtually come to a stop of all OS software were to
somehow
disappear), (2) the commodity serves as a necessary "bridge" or
"foundation" for
realizing the value of many other commodities (e.g.,
your word processor and
many other programs have no value without the
underlying OS), and (3) the
commodity serves as a necessary bridge or
foundation for much which has great
value, but which is personal and
outside of the marketplace (i.e., an
individual's personal data), but
which still must be considered in the
arguments.
All of these properties give the "owner" of an operating
system's
"intellectual property" (IP) rights a good deal of leverage over
several
aspects of life, and hence give that owner price leverage over that
"IP"
in a way which is not a reflection of the value of the IP itself,
but
rather the value of all of the things that have been built upon
that
IP.
Add to the fact that this particular commodity is subject to a
large
number of "games" to manipulate consumer behavior and leverage
the
commodity's "market value." Games to be played include unnecessary
but
forced (upon the customer) premature obsolesce of the operating
system
through mechanisms such as "product activation" and manipulation
of
interfaces definitions.
All of these properties, combined with the
greed of mankind that the
"free market" system usually succeeds in
exploiting for the
common good in other market areas, have given rise to an
untenable
situation relative to this kind of commodity. The situation is
untenable
firstly because it creates a monopolist and allows that monopolist
to
leverage value of things (data) created by others (and which far exceed
the
value of the product itself) into what the monopolist charges for
his product.
And it is untenable secondly to put all of our data - from
the government
records which will determine our Social Security incomes
in 50 years to private
bank records which manage our wealth and payment
of our bills - under control of
a few corporations such as Microsoft,
which have shown every intent of doing
nothing less to use extortion of
the public at large, to whatever extent they
can manage, in order that
the government and the public can access and use their
own data. It is
these untenable conditions which have given rise to much of the
success
of OSS, Mr. Epstein does not acknowledge these conditions, or that
he
understands these conditions. Epstein can fret that "that temptation
[of
governments to chose OSS solutions] should be avoided. Governments are
bad
at forcing technology by playing favourites," but he should be more
concerned at
placing public data where access to that data can be
controlled by private
interests. (This point, of course, has been so
eloquently made by Peruvian
Congressman Edgar Villanueva Nu¤ez, whose
letter to Microsoft on this topic has
nearly become a object of
folklore.).
Mr. Epstein's arguments about
sustainability of the GPL and OSS
cannot be made in a vacuum - they are
implicitly comparisons with other
"environments" in which relevant products are
developed. Calling OSS a
"workers' commune" doesn't mean much until compared
with an alternative,
and whether OSS and the GPL will succeed in a given
circumstance is a
function of how well it competes (in all aspects, not just
price) with
the available alternatives. Epstein's argument doesn't fail because
it
mis-characterizes OSS and the GPL nearly as much as it fails because
it
mis-characterizes the available alternatives. What Epstein does is to
not
compare OSS to anything which is explicitly described, and hence he
implicitly
compares OSS to the "free market system," which is generally
known to work quite
well. The problem with that, for commodities such as
operating systems, is that
the current "free market" in area of
operating systems does not really resemble
the "free market" that we are
expected to visualize - the one that exists for
most other commodities.
(Judge Penfield Jackson "got that." No one in the
justice department
since that time seems to have gotten it.)
So, I think,
Mr. Epstein has his argument backwards. In operating
systems and for other
software categories which tend to have the
properties that I indicated several
paragraphs above, it is the free
market system which is not sustainable, unless
the "free market"
mechanisms are changed a great deal from what they are today.
In the
absense of a sustainable alternative, OSS can only win, and hence will
be
sustainable. It is the best alternative - literally the only viable
alternative
- that we have at this point.
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| Authored by: drh on Friday, October 29 2004 @ 03:09 AM EDT |
Yes, that's the idea!
---
Just another day...[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: taxman on Friday, October 29 2004 @ 06:34 AM EDT |
I've been reading Groklaw daily for what seems to be a
very long time, and I'm really thrilled by the level of
commitment demonstrated here.
As a government employee (the Norwegian government, that
is...) I think we do view this point from a slightly
different angle. We are NOT concerned about monetary
returns on our development investments. We concern
ourselves of how to get the best end results while
spending as little as possible. If other entities may
gain from our investment, it is entirely OK, because our
mission is to provide the best service to every person and
company around.
Now, the government her in Norway spends about 2 billion
USD every year on IT systems. And we are only a small
country. It is quite clear to me that if Linux provides
us with best and lowest cost solutions, then the mere
investments made by public institutions by itselves will
make Linux sustainable.
I do not think we will ever be directly contributing code
to the Linux kernel. But, by buying distributions from RH
and purchasing consulting services from various other
contributers in the open source world, we indirectly will
fund the community enough to make it sustainable.
PJ: Thanks for your efforts and your clear ethical
standars; I will certainly keep reading you for the
forseeable future! [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: billyskank on Friday, October 29 2004 @ 07:14 AM EDT |
I tried it a couple of months ago and I'm not going back.
---
It's not the software that's free; it's you.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, October 29 2004 @ 11:36 AM EDT |
Can someone make sure a well argued rebuttal makes it to the FT as well as just
ending up here please? [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, October 29 2004 @ 11:47 AM EDT |
You've done the crying part .... so maybe the laughing part is next.
http://www.hone.clara.net/arm_and_leg.html
Apologies to El Reg :-)
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, October 29 2004 @ 11:57 AM EDT |
Mark noted:
Regarding the contract vs. copyright license nature of the
GPL, you
state that if a person doesn't know they are using code that is
copyrighted, then they may not be bound by the terms of it's
license.
...and then continued with a very nice comparison to improper
disclosure of Windows 2000 code.
However, it should also be noted that if
someone has received a copy of
GPL software without recieving the License as
well, then whoever
provided them with the software has also violated the
GPL (Item 1) as well.... and
perhaps ultimately liable for any financial damages assesed against the
person
they distributed it to!
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, October 29 2004 @ 01:33 PM EDT |
| As I see it, the GPL has the effect of enforcing a service-based business model
on extenders/distributors. You cannot realistically charge for a GPLed product,
but you may charge whatever the market will bear for services rendered based on
said software.
As a talking point, consider the job of an Architect: would
anyone claim that the architect of a skyscraper should collect royalties in
perpetuity from everyone who uses the building she designs? OSS developers are
paid for effort not for product.
As an alternate perspective, GPL could be
viewed as a mechanism to facilitate no-fee cross-licenses and joint ventures.
Whereas these sorts of deals are almost always done in the proprietary world as
pairwise contract-based arrangements, in the FOSS space, GPL is an open
invitation for similar arrangements with a built-in defense against predation
from other parties. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, October 29 2004 @ 01:34 PM EDT |
I do some code, you do some code, we swap code. we are happy, Yes?.
However, the taxman (irs whatever) would prefer that...
I do some code, I sell you some code,
You do some code I buy your code.
Our incomes are then taxed to the hilt.
What worries me is this makes for a software black economy (nothing to do with
racism btw).
Scratching each others back is frowned upon as it cannot be monetized easily.
If 'Everyone' dumped the cash and bartered then what would happen??
Okay, so we are only talking Software Here!
But should a Product (Yes a product, or Applied Labor) be allowed to be traded
freely outside of tax controls??
Okay so Software is akin to Evolving Knowledge, but isnt Engineering, or
Publishing or a thousand other things?
Im laughing my pants off as I write this crap, but someone better knock this
down quick so I can sleep tight tonight.
:-)
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, October 29 2004 @ 02:57 PM EDT |
... your assertion that ... is hardly worth the effort to debunk
...
Can't we do a better job than this of talking down to
the
professor. What an incredible put down! Why not just
say "you are not worth
my time" and be done with
it.
And this in an article (not comments)
which is merely 4 articles
behind the "inspired" "human to human" article. I
guess that this does
meet the famous Groklaw "no profanity" test, though (as if
that ever
was the real "human to human" issue).
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| Authored by: nerpzilla on Friday, October 29 2004 @ 07:00 PM EDT |
I think this contract vs license thing needs to be cleared up. from the uniform
computer transactions act (UCITA), section 102(36)
36. "License."
A license is an agreement the terms of which entail a limited or conditional
transfer of information or a grant of limited or restricted contractual rights
or permissions to use information. A contract "right" is an affirmative
commitment that a licensee may engage in a specific use, while a contract
"permission" means simply that the licensor will not object to the use. Either
can be the basis of a license. No specific formality of language is required.
For purposes of this Act, the term includes consignments of copies of
information but does not otherwise alter the legal nature of a consignment. The
definition is solely for purposes of this Act and does not alter treatment under
other laws, such as tax law.
A transaction is not a license merely
because as a matter of law a transferor retains informational property rights
that restrict the transferee's ability to use the information. The term thus
does not include an unrestricted sale of a copy of a copyrighted work; an
unrestricted sale does not involve express contractual terms restricting use of
the information. Similarly, a "copyright notice" in a book that merely states
the restrictions on use that remain after a first sale under copyright law is
not a license. On the other hand, a software agreement whose terms expressly
govern use of the software is a license even if the agreement also gives the
licensee ownership of the copy. A license exists if a contract grants greater
rights or privileges than a first sale, if it restricts rights or privileges
that might otherwise exist, or if it deals with other issues of scope of
use.
Whether a contract is a license does not depend on who has title
to a copy. Title to a copy is distinct from questions about the extent to which
use of information is controlled by contract. DSC v. Pulse Communications, Inc.,
170 F.3d 1354 (Fed. Cir. 1999) indicates how the issues can be treated.
Restrictions in a license that are materially inconsistent with ownership of a
delivered copy may result in the holder of the copy not being its
owner.
Licenses are contracts. Whether the terms of a license are
enforceable is determined under this Act and other applicable law, including
copyright law. The requirements for an enforceable agreement must be met. The
term does not include the myriad non-commercial, casual or other exchanges of
information that occur in normal political or social discourse, even if there
may be incidental restrictions on use of the information because they do not
involve a contractual relationship or a computer information transaction.
UCITA, while not adopted as law, is like th eUniform Commercial
Code, which controls sales of goods, secured transactions (car loans and stuff
where there is collateral), almost like a treatise on the law, and is the
consensus of a lot of professors and legal practitioners on what things mean.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, October 29 2004 @ 11:44 PM EDT |
IANAL.
I understand the term "proprietary" to mean that it is owned property
(this is, in fact, what dictionary.law.com tells me too). Thus it seems to me
that all (or at least some) GNU software is proprietary software by this
definition: it is protected by copyright and is intellectual
"property".
Can someone with a deeper familiary with legal definitions help me out on that
point?
I realize that the term "proprietary" has also come to be associated
specifically with private/hoarded property, but it seems to me that this updated
definition is actually falsely restrictive. If I can have a proprietary drug
that is found on the shelves, I can have a proprietary Linux that is found on my
machine (and protected by both copyright and trademark).
And, in fact, this falsehood is not benign. Many people seem to have the
problem of thinking that GNU software isn't owned, and vaguely (or directly!)
associate it with the public domain. FOSS software definitely *isn't* public
domain. Its property, at least in the sense that it is protected by property
laws.
I think Proefssor Epstein is not being helped by this legal-linguistic laxity.
If he would have explicitly thought of GNU software as proprietary software,
then I suggest at least a few of his numerous errors and misunderstandings
might have been avoided.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, October 29 2004 @ 11:44 PM EDT |
IANAL.
I understand the term "proprietary" to mean that it is owned property
(this is, in fact, what dictionary.law.com tells me too). Thus it seems to me
that all (or at least some) GNU software is proprietary software by this
definition: it is protected by copyright and is intellectual
"property".
Can someone with a deeper familiary with legal definitions help me out on that
point?
I realize that the term "proprietary" has also come to be associated
specifically with private/hoarded property, but it seems to me that this updated
definition is actually falsely restrictive. If I can have a proprietary drug
that is found on the shelves, I can have a proprietary Linux that is found on my
machine (and protected by both copyright and trademark).
And, in fact, this falsehood is not benign. Many people seem to have the
problem of thinking that GNU software isn't owned, and vaguely (or directly!)
associate it with the public domain. FOSS software definitely *isn't* public
domain. Its property, at least in the sense that it is protected by property
laws.
I think Proefssor Epstein is not being helped by this legal-linguistic laxity.
If he would have explicitly thought of GNU software as proprietary software,
then I suggest at least a few of his numerous errors and misunderstandings
might have been avoided.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, October 30 2004 @ 08:46 AM EDT |
http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/~hal/Papers/2004/linux-adoption-in-the-public-secto
r.pdf
That could have helped fix some problems with Epstein's column.
cheers,
dalibor topic[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, October 30 2004 @ 09:59 AM EDT |
Can free sex be sustained. Experts say no!
"Without the profit motive, this whole sex thing will fade away." says
Professor McCash. "We have compiled extensive data showing that no human
endeavour can be sustained over the long haul where there is no profit motive
and really, where no money changes hands."
A Nony Mouse
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, October 31 2004 @ 02:51 PM EST |
Entities can choose to:
Remove the code
Release the bundle as GPL
Seek alternative licensing with the owners of the GPL code.
This third option is optional in that it depends on the owner, but one doesn't
get unless they ask right?
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