Firefox, again
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For me, freedom is when there's no restrictions on actions,
By that definition, freedom does not exist, never will and never has. You won't find anything without restrictions or limits of any kind.
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I meant restrictions by law.
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Imagine what would happen if <whoever it was to invent light bulb> prohibited anyone wanting to make money on it to use his invention.
I assume you are familiar with patents, correct? Most of the disputes about credit for inventions comes down to who has the legitimate patent claim, and this is true of the light bulb as well as the telephone, the airplane, the programmable computer, and just about any other disputed invention. Yet it is generally agreed - or was, until the USPO threw up their hands in defeat and started giving any paid software patent application precedence regardless of efficacy, prior art or even pre-existing patents - that patents encourage innovation rather than suppress it. The purpose of a patent, or a copyright, is to protect the rights of the creator from other people exploiting their creations. While the GPL tries to force the users hand in very heavy-handed manner, but the real goal is to prevent others from stealing something and claiming they deserve the profit from it.
To put it another way: if someone were to place some code of value in the public domain with no license, there would be nothing to prevent a dozen companies from selling identical programs using that code. How is that going to help innovation?
Not that it really matters, since a) 99% of all code, close or open, is of minimal commercial value, b) it is particularly difficult bordering on impossible to create anything innovative by open-source means, and c) none of these public licenses - or any other software user licenses in use - are ever going to withstand even a cursory legal challenge should one come up.
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I would call the latter a right rather than a freedom. For me, freedom is when there's no restrictions on actions, and right is when you're restricting others' actions via law (as opposed to physically) to make some person's life easier.
I would look at the two (English) words as being very intertwined and overlapping. Freedom may refer to your ability to exercise your rights or to those rights themselves.
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I assume you are familiar with patents, correct?
Patents are for making sure the right person gets paid. GPL is for making sure no one gets paid. And patents are limited in time, unlike software licenses.
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GPL is, yes, but the GPL is hardly the only public license. The main idea - which is only part of the goal of the GPL, admittedly - is to let developers provide a free service without someone else profiting from it unduly. In principle, it is not any different from other types of license except regarding the exchange of funds.
In actual fact, it is different, which is why they won't hold up in court, but that's neither here nor there. The shrink-wrap licenses most software firms use (e,g., the Microsoft EULA) won't either, though for different reasons, yet while they have been applied in courts many times, no one has challenged the legal validity of either type of license as a class of licenses. Yet. Both closed and open source OTS software are living on borrowed time.
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I wasn't criticizing open source in whole, but specifically GPL.
The main idea - which is only part of the goal of the GPL, admittedly - is to let developers provide a free service without someone else profiting from it unduly.
The downside is, if someone wants profit from his software, he's prohibited to use anything that even remotely touches GPL (it's less remote in case of LGPL, but there are still problems, real or imaginary, that prevent their usage). There is also a huge number of open source licenses that are incompatible with GPL, so even if you're willing to surrender to this copyleft bullshit, you're not always able to.
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I really need to restrain my tendency to make blanket statements on subjects I know nothing of based on vague or half-formed notions. I 'know what I meant', but explaining it is difficult.
So, I hereby retract my earlier statements about the validity of software licenses, at least until such time as I can marshal my thoughts into something coherent. Since I see this issue as being lower in priority to such tasks as washing my pet jackalope or counting the grains of sand at Myrtle Beach, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for it.
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An attitude I've seen a lot from commercial developers is this: “we will not work with GPL or LGPL software at all”. Fortunately for them, there's now pretty much everything they actually need under some other license.
And they probably use some GPL things anyway without realising it.
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And they probably use some GPL things anyway without realising it.
Using is fine, but depending is not. Besides, any self-respecting developer nowadays is using zsh (MIT) and clang (BSD), and almost no software directly depends on the kernel (most things go through POSIX API).
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The worst thing is I'm using the FF 64bit beta and Flash (oh shut it - it's useful every now and again)
You're right - Flash/Flex is incredibly useful if you're trying to write a highly complex desktop-app-like browser-based enterprise application. Particularly if you want data-driven UI layout. We are right now evaluating various JS-based solutions to replace Flex, since it's end-of-lifing, and so far, nothing provides the capabilities we need.
I'm thinking now that's why Chrome (64bit browser) develops their private version of flash JUST FOR CHROME.
Yeah, that sounds great on paper. Except that trying to connect a debugger to it crashes. /sigh.
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Patents last 20 years, copyright sadly lasts forever.
What if Windows 95 had gone into public domain this year?
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GPL is for making sure no one gets paid.
Red Hat and Canonical both seem to be doing quite nicely.
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Uhm, did they change the laws again? Last I checked, copyright had been raised up to '75 years after the death of the last surviving creator of the work', but still wasn't indefinite. Yet. The RIAA and MouseCorp are working on that, but I don't think they've quite gotten that far.
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Uhm, did they change the laws again? Last I checked, copyright had been raised up to '75 years after the death of the last surviving creator of the work', but still wasn't indefinite. Yet. The RIAA and MouseCorp are working on that, but I don't think they've quite gotten that far.
They have a de facto solution in place. The Supreme Court ruled the last time the copyright extension was challenged that Congress could keep extending it as often as they want as long as there was an actual limit.
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@ScholRLEA said:
Uhm, did they change the laws again? Last I checked, copyright had been raised up to '75 years after the death of the last surviving creator of the work', but still wasn't indefinite. Yet. The RIAA and MouseCorp are working on that, but I don't think they've quite gotten that far.
They have a de facto solution in place. The Supreme Court ruled the last time the copyright extension was challenged that Congress could keep extending it as often as they want as long as there was an actual limit.
facepalm I should have guessed...
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Red Hat and Canonical both seem to be doing quite nicely.
And neither's business model involves software development.
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But blanket slogan-based Freedom Good Restrictions Bad dismissal of the GPL and its creators and promoters is empty partisan barracking, not reasoned argument.
Maybe it's just people being pissed at their redefinition of words, 1984-style. We're not as stupid as toe jam sommelier Stallman thinks we are.
(Chrome's dictionary doesn't contain "sommelier", but tries to correct it to "isomerism". Uh. Pretty sure the correction there is the fake word, Chrome. Do I win your little quiz game?)
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Chrome's dictionary doesn't contain "sommelier", but tries to correct it to "isomerism". Uh. Pretty sure the correction there is the fake word, Chrome. Do I win your little quiz game?
Both are words.
Dictionary.com | Meanings & Definitions of English Words
The world's leading online dictionary: English definitions, synonyms, word origins, example sentences, word games, and more. A trusted authority for 25+ years!
Dictionary.com | Meanings & Definitions of English Words
The world's leading online dictionary: English definitions, synonyms, word origins, example sentences, word games, and more. A trusted authority for 25+ years!
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Besides, any self-respecting developer nowadays is using zsh (MIT) and clang (BSD),
So if I don't use those, it means I don't respect myself? WTF?
Clang? Wasn't he the villain from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?
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I meant restrictions by law.
There's no "freedom" that's not somehow restricted by laws (be they legal, social or scientific).
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There's no "freedom" that's not somehow restricted by laws (be they legal, social or scientific).
Not even a free variable in some expression? :(
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So if I don't use those, it means I don't respect myself?
You said it, not us.
Filed under: join the club; my self-respect has been hovering around -23 on a scale of 1 to 10 for years...
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There's no "freedom" that's not somehow restricted by laws (be they legal, social or scientific).
I meant the first definition, not the eighth - as you can clearly see since I used it as uncountable noun.
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Why do you think I included :
(be they legal, social or scientific).
?
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The new face of software development!
Also this Discourse server is running even shittier than usual. Someone go fix it. By formatting it and installing something better.
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Also this Discourse server is running even shittier than usual.
servercooties.com confirms this. @blakeyrat is right again!
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Why do you think I included :
(be they legal, social or scientific).
?
Because everything is somehow restrained by any of the three? In particular, scientific laws?
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But even if you take only laws (as in: Code of law), you'd be hard-pressed to find any unrestricted action.
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Breathe.
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You consciously need to decide to breathe? Oh well...
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You never said anything about consciousness or decision. I just provided example of, quote, unrestricted action, end quote.
BTW I can decide if I want to breathe this particular moment or not just fine.
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If that is your great idea of "freedom" then the word becomes pretty much both meaning- and useless.
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What's everyone's fucking problem with me running whatever I want in my computer?
All Microsoft, Google, et. al. had to claim was that they were doing it to make it a "safe space" for us. From there they had the SJWs hooked and no one argued for pc autonomy anymore.
Intersectionality sucks.
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If that is your great idea of "freedom" then the word becomes pretty much both meaning- and useless.
Imagine the world where people were prohibited to breathe...Joking aside, it's not about if I want to breathe or not. I just wanted you to acknowledge that there are indeed things that there are absolutely no legal regulations for. Now, we can move on to the more interesting discussion about the differences between rights (as in, regulations to enforce something) and freedoms (as in, unregulated things).
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In terms of software, 75 years = infinity.
I guess it will be nice to be able to disassemble Windows XP legally for the first time in 2076, when we literally have nanocomputers swimming in our blood stream.
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I guess it will be nice to be able to disassemble Windows XP legally for the first time in
2076about 2096
FTFY. Windows XP is what the US law describes as "work for hire", so the period is 95 years, not 75 as in case of regular works. On the plus side, it's counted from initial publication, not the author's death.
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Actually, it's more like "might makes free". You are only free to do something if no one can stop you from doing it. Which, well, yeah. But by that definition, "freedoms" don't exist. People may be free to do some things if they're strong enough to do them, but the "freedom" to do those things doesn't exist separate of the person.
In that example, one person is only free to imprison another if they are strong enough to force them into a cage, and the other person is free to walk around if they can prevent others from imprisoning them. Neither is "free", or technically both are but one can't use his "freedom".
GPL is for making sure no one gets paid.
This is false. As they say, they don't mean "free as in beer", but free in the sense of right to see, edit and redistribute the source. You can charge for software licensed under the GPL. You are simply required to disclose the source code. If you've ever tried to compile any open source projects, you might find that just paying for the binary may be more convenient than trying to build it yourself.You can also charge for related services (like RedHat does). You could build a software services company on top of GPL licensed code, by giving support to users. The only thing you can't do is hide the source.
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Actually, it's more like "might makes free". You are only free to do something if no one can stop you from doing it. Which, well, yeah. But by that definition, "freedoms" don't exist. People may be free to do some things if they're strong enough to do them, but the "freedom" to do those things doesn't exist separate of the person.
In that example, one person is only free to imprison another if they are strong enough to force them into a cage, and the other person is free to walk around if they can prevent others from imprisoning them. Neither is "free", or technically both are but one can't use his "freedom".
And that's exactly why I'm trying to constrain our discussion solely to legal aspect.free in the sense of right
I hope you read my earlier posts in the topic?This is false. As they say, they don't mean "free as in beer", but free in the sense of right to see, edit and redistribute the source. You can charge for software licensed under the GPL. You are simply required to disclose the source code.
One wonders why you never see GPL software being sold, then. Might it be that whoever bought your program can later resell it in unlimited copies without you being given even a penny for it?You can also charge for related services (like RedHat does). You could build a software services company on top of GPL licensed code, by giving support to users.
It's still not selling software.The only thing you can't do is hide the source.
And that's a problem particularly to companies who absolutely cannot disclose their codebase to protect their business secrets.
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You can charge for software licensed under the GPL. You are simply required to disclose the source code and give permission to redistribute for free.
Pretty fucking important detail here.
Selling GPL software is like selling water right next to a public fountain. You might get someone to pay, but it's not a business plan that any sane person would consider.
What if I could pay for something and get a copy of the source code, which I could freely modify and use but not redistribute?
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No need to make sure of that (trying to make sure of that is called legal hackery).
Let the technologies progress and succeed based on their merits, do not hinder their progress for one zealot's cause or another; if you think gcc needs restructuring and add-ons then add it, if an OSS projects starts to get successful let it flourish instead of scolding the owners for making money, also do not try to re-brand them for your liking, it is called Linux not GNU/Linux.
OSS is superior but slow, like evolution. I tried OpenOffice years ago and it was buggy and ugly, but LibreOffice nowadays is just better than MS Office at opening MS's own file formats, as well as the looks and feel. Gimp was a little curiosity, but now one really does not need Photoshop. MATLAB was a must, for their toolboxes and paper-quality graphs, but now Scipy/Numpy/iPython is all you need (frankly I think OSS scientific computing has already surpassed the proprietary counterparts).
The good thing is, OSS will just get better and better, and while the above examples are perfect for me today, other OSS software will reach a point that will satisfy 100% of the needs. Why? because OSS is like knowledge it progresses as long as human mind survives (forked and re-forked and change hands and forms and maintainers).
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Problem.
At which point is it no longer yours?
At the point where it has hundreds of your methods, or just one?
And if it had just one of your methods, can you really justify telling that person they can't redistribute?
Think about it, if the only thing in common between two vacuums was the fact that they both use a special screw that the first one designed, how can you say they stole your stuff?
They'd have to patent that screw individually.
It gets absurd at some point.
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Because at that point, you're patenting just an algorithm.
Can you imagine if math behaved that way?
"Hold on, the idea of derivatives is patented, please pay me a dollar to use it"
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Selling GPL software is like selling water right next to a public fountain. You might get someone to pay, but it's not a business plan that any sane person would consider.
Yep, just like how water is sold now. You find a way to add value to it, such as packaging it for convenience or maybe chilling it.
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Intellectual property rights is a dying concept.
For example, why can't I build an F-150 and sell it, as long as I label it differently?
It works that way with videocards. The specs are public.
3d printing shows that it's going to die quickly as people get access to methods of reproduction.
Soon the entire economy is going to have to learn what the music industry has not. Information is free, so services is the only way to make money.
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or make sure it is sanitized and is not heavy, important for most people who want best water but do not want to buy filters, nor have time for it.
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Intellectual property rights is a dying concept.
I don't think so. Plenty of ideas are able to make it to market purely because a company can rely on the ability to recoup development costs for a while before other companies are able to start reproducing their efforts.
For example, why can't I build an F-150 and sell it, as long as I label it differently?
Putting aside IP rights? There's issues like brand recognition, testing, etc. There are all sorts of regulations you would need to comply with if you were going to try something like that. You wouldn't be able to just rely on Ford's testing and compliance, you'd have to do your own. Not to mention that because of the volume Ford makes, they could seriously undercut your costs.
It works that way with videocards. The specs are public.
Not entirely. The main chipsets are still protected by IP, owned by NVidia and AMD. Good luck building and graphics card without access to those chipsets.
3d printing shows that it's going to die quickly as people get access to methods of reproduction.
3D printing is not a poison pill to IP. There are already license protected print files out there. If you want to print a given object, you have to pay for the file. Not only that, but some of the files are designed so that they can only be used a certain number of times. Bad print? Better call the IP owner's support line to have them unlock it for you. No to mention that 3D printers are still restricted in terms of what kinds of materials they can use and the durability of those materials. You won't be printing quality spark-plugs any time soon, for example.
Soon the entire economy is going to have to learn what the music industry has not. Information is free, so services is the only way to make money.
tl;dr: Your idea that we are destined to develop into a services based economy is
.
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none of these public licenses - or any other software user licenses in use - are ever going to withstand even a cursory legal challenge should one come up.
Wrong:
It is possible for at least an open source license to be enforceable through the courts (and the Artistic License is considered one of the weakest examples from a legal standpoint -- something like the GPLv2 or v3 would most definitely be upheld by the courts); proprietary EULAs are on shakier ground, though, as a little-known aspect of
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDY_Industries,_LLC_v._Blizzard_Entertainment,_Inc.
makes it so that the terms of an EULA must have a nexus with the licensor's exclusive rights under copyright in order to be enforceable under copyright law. (Terms that don't are at risk of being severed, depending on the stance the court takes on the negotiating power of the parties.)
OTOH, you do get this right:
Not that it really matters, since a) 99% of all code, close or open, is of minimal commercial value,
Most code is either custom-tailored to a (business/operational) environment, or is a piece of infrastructure that might as well be shared among many, or is simply "glue" -- there's very little "secret sauce" in any given codebase that's useful outside it.b) it is particularly difficult bordering on impossible to create anything innovative by open-source means,
There are reasons for research projects (e.g. the original Berkeley SPICE) and even company-developed infrastructure projects (CMake) to be open-sourced -- in the corporate case, it may even yield a better result than trying to support a piece of software well outside the core business line of the company "on their own."Also, distributing the source with the app isn't actually as onerous a condition in many custom software development efforts as one thinks...
In actual fact, it is different, which is why they won't hold up in court, but that's neither here nor there. The shrink-wrap licenses most software firms use (e,g., the Microsoft EULA) won't either, though for different reasons, yet while they have been applied in courts many times, no one has challenged the legal validity of either type of license as a class of licenses. Yet. Both closed and open source OTS software are living on borrowed time.
Still wrong -- see the first court case I linked above.An attitude I've seen a lot from commercial developers is this: “we will not work with GPL or LGPL software at all”. Fortunately for them, there's now pretty much everything they actually need under some other license.
For libraries, that can be reasonable -- for tooling though, there's no reason to avoid (L)GPL at all.And neither's business model involves software development.
They do finance a fair bit of contribution to the community -- it's more correct to say that neither's business model involves the selling of software as a product.This is false. As they say, they don't mean "free as in beer", but free in the sense of right to see, edit and redistribute the source. You can charge for software licensed under the GPL. You are simply required to disclose the source code. If you've ever tried to compile any open source projects, you might find that just paying for the binary may be more convenient than trying to build it yourself.
You can also charge for related services (like RedHat does). You could build a software services company on top of GPL licensed code, by giving support to users. The only thing you can't do is hide the source.
Yeah -- as I said, disclosing source code isn't as onerous a condition in quite a bit of commercial work as one would think; in fact, I'd call someone dumb to accept a custom software contract without receiving a copy of the source code, because you don't want to be held hostage by a program you can't reasonably modify or ask anyone else to modify for you because the original developers are gone.Selling GPL software is like selling water right next to a public fountain. You might get someone to pay, but it's not a business plan that any sane person would consider.
The point usually is selling support not a product -- RedHat provides that warm, fuzzy guarantee that there's someone who can be called, badgered, etal at 2AM when the sysadmin is out of ideas. A large shop might go with a non-commercial distro such as Debian, because they have enough in-house expertise to fix just about anything that can go wrong at 2AM, but that's more or less having to provide your own safety net instead of renting RedHat's much more battle-tested one.
Jacobsen v. Katzer - Wikipedia
