Felipe Contreras wrote:
On Wed, Feb 15, 2012 at 5:46 PM, Ralf Friedl <ralf.fri...@online.de> wrote:
Let's get some facts straight.
Sony wants to avoid the GPL busybox not because of busybox itself, but
because they fear that they can be forced to comply with the GPL on Linux,
and they want to avoid that. They know that they break the license, and they
want to replace busybox so that they can continue to break the kernel
license. There are different opinions about this behavior. You want to
defend Sony's god given right to violate the kernel license, I think it's a
shame that the kernel license isn't enforced by the developers themselves,
but the fact is that Sony intends to continue to violate the kernel license
and replacing busybox is just a means to the end.
I already explained why this view is wrong. I am not going to repeat it.
A view is not wrong because it is not yours.
And my point here was to check whether we agree on the fact that Sony
wants to violate the kernel license, which seems to be true, otherwise
you would have mentioned it. In fact, in another email you wrote very
clearly th
I already mentioned that it is not possible to enforce copyright without
consent from the copyright holders, and you repeat it here anyway, so it
seems that inconvenient facts don't influence your opinion.
Do you have explicit consent from Linux developers? No. Is enforcement
for their pursued despite this? Yes.
I already mentioned that I'm not from SFC.
And no, nobody except the copyright holder can enforce the license, or
we wouldn't have this discussion.
Again you imply that Sony might contribute something at some point, so I ask
you: why would Sony suddenly start to contribute to busybox or toybox on a
voluntary base, when they don't want to contribute to the kernel despite
their obligation to do so?
Why did any company did? Because new developers pushes for a culture change
Well, maybe some companies learned that they should avoid the GPL, others,
even those that were the targets of enforcement probably learned that it is
a license they have to comply with (gasp!), just like all their other
licenses and contracts.
Companies are not people.
Yes, you wrote that again and again. Companies consist of people. Some
of these people are in a position to make decisions for the company.
Those new developers pushing for the change are not in this position
most of the time.
You might consider the bare minimum to be be almost worthless, but without
enforcement the bare minimum is zero and therefor completely worthless.
I prefer my code being used by millions of users even if I get no
contributions, rather than few users, and a few lines contributed, or
a totally unusable patch dumped somewhere.
Your preferences are up to you. It just seems BSD would fit your
preferences better. Encouraging contributions under the pretense of
using the GPL is just dishonest.
If you say the the code is licensed under the GPL, but you promise to never
enforce the license, you might as well call it public domain.
I didn't tell you what to expect from a license, so please leave your straw
men at home.
You just said that if I don't expect the same as you do, I shouldn't
be using the license.
No, I didn't say that here. What I said was:
I said that there is in effect no difference between "public domain, please
please share your modification" and "GPL, but I won't do anything if you
violate it".
I just explained that there is.
No, you didn't.
What is the practical difference between public domain with a plea to
share and GPL with a promise to ignore violations?
By your own definition, Sony is not a good member of society. And please
provide examples where the bad publicity has resulted in code contributions.
Android.
By your own definition Android is not a contribution at all, so how is
it now an example for code contributions as a result of bad publicity?
I know of enough examples where vendors provide source for GPL programs
because they have to, and don't provide source for BSD programs because they
don't have to.
So? Who cares.
I care, obviously. More important, it shows that your theory that
companies will contribute code if left alone long enough is not
supported by the facts.
By the way, which code is it where it is up to you to decide which license
you want to use? You remember, you as in "we, the developers"?
My own.
I guessed so. The question was what your codes happens to be. As I
mentioned, I didn't find your name in the Busybox sources, and we are on
the Busybox list here,
Am I free to use any code you wrote for Nokia as I wish?
Of course it's up to you whether you care or not. But you are strongly
advocating that others shouldn't care.
I am not advocating anything, that is already the case, that's why you
don't have hordes of people saying "please, please, enforce my code!".
I am merely explaining why.
Strange. I had the impression that you don't want the Busybox developers
to enforce the license for their code.
Again, you don't seem to have an idea of what a company is. It's a
*collection* of people. And there's *plenty* of people that can write
good patches, and they are in many companies. You must not follow
Linux development, where *tons* of clean patches come from all kinds
of companies.
The reason Android changes are not in the kernel is that they are not
part of the community. They don't communicate what they are doing,
they don't communicate what they plan to do, they don't try to send
patches first, they don't know the culture, etc. Plenty of other
companies do. BTW Android is not a company, it's main a team within
Google, but there are many other companies involved, some which
contribute directly to the kernel. And and other teams within Google
also contribute.
Again, a company as a single entity is a myth.
Yes, by now we know that most companies consist of many people. In fact
I never claimed otherwise. I also never called Android a company.
I'm even sure that there are many good developers in many companies.
They just aren't in the position to define the culture of the company,
and most of the time their managers prefer the bare minimum over the
extra effort to do things right.
Another nice straw man.
Yes, companies typically consist of many people. Yet, most of the time they
can do what has to be done. It may not be as efficient as you would like,
but that is another point.
Suppose, Sony (or Nokia) had to license a patent where they have to pay a
certain amount for each device produced. At regular times they must report
"we produced X devices, at Y$/device this means Z$, here is your check". Now
suppose, instead of this report, they write "Companies are not single
entities, it is so difficult to count all these devices, let's just ignore
this license agreement". What do you think would happen?
So, somehow companies are able to write such reports and send the checks at
the right time. I'll also give you a hint why this is so: they dedicated
people to this task (whether full time or not). Yes, doing so costs money.
But it would cost them more to not comply with the license.
And again you show how you don't understand how big companies work.
The software on big companies is no different as the open source
software in how easily it can step unto a patent mine. They most
definitely don't pay *all* the patent royalties, and sometimes it's
even deliberate: we know there's patent X, but we would rather risk a
lawsuit than pay it; it's a simple game of chances and gain. Sometimes
they don't agree with the patents and are willing to fight in court.
There's many different scenarios.
And again you imply that everybody who doesn't share your view is just
too stupid or ignorant.
My point here was not about patents, but about contracts. But while you
once again sidestep my question, you prove my underlying point:
Companies deliberately ignore the GPL, because they know it's cheaper
for them.
Plus, open sourcing stuff is not that easy. The company would have to
check first that there's no IP been leaked by the released code, and
if they think there might be, there would need to be some effort to
rewrite some code. All this takes a lot of resources.
I never claimed that it doesn't take resources. Complying with other
contracts also takes resources. Does that mean that everybody should be
free to ignore contracts? I assume you expect to by paid by Nokia. Think
of all the resources they need to do the payroll processing. Not to
mention the money they spend on their employees. It's really unfair that
they have to do that.
You are supposing they *never* miss any patents, which is clearly not
true. Having so many moving parts is not an excuse, but it's one
reason for these mistakes, but missed patents are not difficult to
resolve; here's X amount of money. Done.
I'm not talking about mistakes here, and you know that. I'm talking
about deliberate contract violations.
Besides, GPL violations are also easy to resolve. Just comply the the
license.
The intent of the GPL (according to you) is X
It's the intent of the GPL according to the GPL itself.
No, it's not, because Sony (or rather some people inside Sony) knows
_exactly_ how to retaliate, and Microsoft knows that.
Now this is funny, even more so then "Sony the good corporate citizen".
Actually, it was (is?) common that OEMs must buy a Windows license for every
machine, whether they use it or not. And you want to tell me that people
inside Sony knew _exactly_ how to retaliate, but for some reasons didn't?
Ah, you mean for end-user software. I don't see what laws could
possibly allow Microsoft to force this, but most likely would only
apply in the U.S. which has crazy laws, and even there I don't think
that's possible.
If you seriously think that's more likely, I don't think you have a
good grip on reality.
If Microsoft could seriously do that, why don't they? More money is more money.
Are you serious with what you write? It is well known that Microsoft had
such contracts, it's not a hypothetical "if they could seriously do that".
There is no law that allows Microsoft to to that, it is probably against
the law. What allows them to do it is that they can get away with it,
and that is what makes your "Sony knows _exactly_ how to retaliate" so
funny.
By now, they probably have it no longer in the contracts because of the
anti trust cases, but Sony know what Microsoft wants, and if they don't
comply, maybe they don't get as good prices as their competitors, there
are unfortunate delays when they get updates so they are later to the
market and so on.
Ok, I'll qualify that statement. It is easy to comply for a company of any
size, if it is seen as important enough. That means, as long as the cost for
complying is lower then the cost of not complying. Note that this implies to
any license or contract. And the cost to comply with the GPL is less then
most other licenses. If their lawyers don't realize that, there is also a
cost associated with bad legal advice.
You are wrong. It's not easy. It takes resources,
Yes, I know that it takes resources. I think that it should be clear
from my statement "the cost to comply with the GPL" that there is a
cost. As you wrote yourself, they just deliberately ignore the license,
and the at is not because it is "too difficult" to comply, but because
you propose that the cost for not complying should be zero.
You do realize that you contradict yourself?
On the one hand you say that it takes resources or is a net loss to the
company to comply with the GPL.
On the other hand you say that they will eventually contribute because
it is a net win to comply with the GPL.
Did it occur to you that if SFC could enforce busybox compliance without
consent from the busybox develpers, they could also enforce Linux compliance
without consent from the Linux develpers?
You only need explicit request of *one* GPL component to use it as a
proxy for all the others without explicit request.
That is not true. SFC can't force anybody to comply with the kernel
license unless they act on behalf of the copyright holders of the kernel.
They can just convince the companies that it is cheaper for them to
comply with the kernel license.
I already mentioned one example: TI, and for that matter Nokia as
well, and the carrot is all the advantages that being a community
member brings; free top-notch code-review, easier maintenance, better
talent is attracted by the development model. I mean, this is obvious.
There's tons of people trying to convey these messages to people
working on companies, in conferences, documents, etc.
If the benefit of complying with the GPL is so obvious, you should be
glad that someone helps them to move in that direction.
Actually I know of TI kernel modules for which they don't provide
source, which crash when unloaded and so on. They could really use some
top-notch review.
Nobody relies on Stockholm syndrome. It's just that the companies realize
that it is cheaper to use Linux, even if they have to comply with the
license, then to use any of the BSD alternatives or develop something
themselves. And Linux is cheaper, even if they are not allowed to ignore the
license completely.
Bullshit. You have been explained the situation *over and over*, it
seems you are just not willing to listen; *nobody* is trying to ignore
the license completely. I'm not going to explain it again.
You have repeated your view, yes, it's a pity that others dare to disagree.
In fact, you have explained *over and over* that your view is that
everybody should be free to ignore the license completely. The strange
thing is that you now deny it.
On 22 Feb 2012 00:33:37 +0200, Felipe Contreras wrote:
thats very interesting... so i can use linux in my product and not
tell anyone about it?
Huh? It doesn't matter if people know that you are using Linux or not.
In order for a lawsuit to get started, I'd assume it has to be started
or blessed by the damaged parties; the copyright owners. Since the
copyright owners, Linux developers, have no interest in any of this,
you can't sue a company for not distributing Linux's sources, unless
you do it by proxy through some other component that is GPL, and that
the copyright owners explicitly blessed this legal proceeding; busybox
developers.
Just tell your ex-boss not to use busybox.
You just advise him that his ex-boss is free to do with Linux whatever
he wants, ignoring the license completely. And as you don't know who his
ex-boss is, this advice applies to everybody. He just should stay away
from developers who dare to wish that their license is respected.
You are of course entitled to your opinion, but it would be nice if you
didn't deny this opinion after you have expressed it so clearly.
The Busybox developers are also entitled to their opinion, and I'm glad
that their opinion is different from yours.
And as already mentioned, nobody can sue a company for not distributing
Linux's sources except for the Linux copyright owners, whether they use
Busybox or not.
What big companies will end up doing is _publish_ as much as it's
legally required, contribute as much as the internal culture has
managed to convey it's useful, and avoid legally troublesome
components (busybox) just to be safe.
If they do what is legally required, they are safe, whether they use
Busybox or not.
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