Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
On Thu, 2 Dec 1999, Caspian wrote: about the GPL. This is about the general trend of companies walking all over the spirit of free software. No one is interested in freedom talk, as RMS puts it. Everyone's interested in filling their own pockets. That's right. It's unfortunate, but I don't think it's critical. The thing is, the GPL isn't designed to prevent this. In fact it encourages it. And the evidence is that it doesn't really have any effect on the quality of the software or the distributions. So, to be blunt, I don't care. :} Crap like Corel's adults-only clause is only the tip of the iceberg. Corel claims they are merely following the law. The problem is the inconsistency in their application of it. It needs to be clarified. But it doesn't appear to be an attempt by Corel to get around the constraints of the GPL. Scratch a little deeper and you will discover a whole world of people who have bought Red Hat, Caldera OpenLinux, etc. in the stores and either A don't realize that most of it is redistributable, Do these people really exist? This is not a rhetorical question. I'm just wondering how you have gotten this impression. I haven't, from what I've seen of the redhat list (which, I admit, I haven't followed recently, but I did follow it last year, and never saw any of this sort of confusion). or B use a Red Hat variant (either made by RHAT or by someone else) that's so deeply mixed with non-free software that they'd be unable to determine what they can and cannot touch, even if they -wanted- to. Red Hat is pretty good about separating their free from their non-free software. Software that is free (not necessarily DFSG-free, but at least freely redistributable) is generally downloadable, and software that's not only comes on the CD. As of now, it is possible for anyone who wants to to mirror the entire RedHat FTP site and not violate any licensing. I don't see any evidence that Red Hat is trying to change that or even wants to. Their own utilities are all GPL, and they put money into GNOME because they found the licensing of KDE too restrictive. As far as modifying software, I think it's the responsibility of anyone that wants to do so to either contact the copyright owner or at least read the license themselves. Yes, it would be nice if the entire distribution were GPL from top to bottom, but I don't feel that it's necessary. commercial GNU/Linux dists (which are often laced with tons of non-free code, usually-- as in the case of Red Hat-- completely unsegregated from free code, and often part of the base system) assume that (just as with There is no part of Red Hat that is both non-free and required for the system to work. Caldera may be different, but Caldera has always been very commercial-software centric and in any case, they don't attempt to mislead the user into thinking the whole thing is proprietary. In any case, Caldera's target market doesn't really care. They probably should, but they don't. It's not Caldera's fault. Should Caldera shoot themself in the foot by refusing to provide software that their customers want, simply because it wasn't developed under the same premises as some other software that their customers want? Furthermore, I doubt that these freedoms will last. So few people know or care about them that what is free today probably won't be free in a few years. I disagree on that point. There are a lot of developers and users who care a very great deal. Are they in the minority? Perhaps, but it's a very significant minority. (i.e. the addition of non-free word processors and Web browsers, and Nobody can seem to make a free word processor or Web browser that anybody wants, so I can hardly fault the distributors for including non-free ones. RedHat would use a free one in preference to a non-free one (they have a strong preference for free software), but they are concerned with quality first and freedom second. don't give their friends copies, and I'd wager that the majorty, when asked for a copy of their GNU/Linux dist, would say Well, if you want a copy, you have to go to CompUSA and pay $59.95 for it like everyone else, you pirate. Again, it is not the responsibility of RedHat or the other distributors to educate their customers. RedHat specifically told me at one point that they absolutely do not mind people using their distribution for free. They are in the unique position of having a product that is a loss leader for itself. These effects are certainly not made any smaller by the proliferation of the term open source, rather than free software. I can't tell you how many times I've had to explain to people that NO, I am NOT an open source advocate. ESR has written very good essays on how Open Source is really a marketing program for free software. We want free software to reach as many people as possible and Open Source helps that happen. I use Open Source, the term, frequently myself simply because of
Re: Bruce Perens's Slashdot debacle
John Galt wrote: I'm sure everybody has seen what happened when a mailinglist post by Bruce Perens got leaked to Slashdot. I see part of the problem that the news people are seeing a dearth of news from the Debian Project, so are skimming the mailinglists as a substitute for timely information from the Debian Project. For example, both Potato's attempted freeze and its subsequent delay should've been released to various outlets while it was still possible to spin the story, for want of a better term. Instead, in both cases, the news got leaked out via the mailinglist posts, which were written in technicalese and in an informal style that is fine for mailinglists, but lousy for press releases. The next instance of the dearth of information from the Debian Project causing damage actually DID cause Bruce Perens possible legal damage and entirely too real damage to his Good Name. My suggestion is that the Debian Project nominates/elects (an) Official Spokesperson(s) to Slashdot, LWN, and all the geek news outlets, said spokesperson to maintain membership in all Debian mailinglists, and to provide timely, edited information about all topics that may interest the relevant communities (the Linux community most obviously, but the BSD community is saying many things about the Debian/FreeBSD project based again on the information from mailinglists as well, among others), and also tell the mailinglists affected what's going out under their AEgis. Another idea that may have merit is to subdivide the task either by interest group or list--a slashdot commentator, a LWN commentator, etc. The outlets are already looking at the mailinglists, the only thing we can do about it now is to provide a better alternative than publicly airing what were supposed to be semi-private messages. I think you're profoundly underestimating the influence of DWN. Nearly everything that appears in LWN about debian, and about 50% of what appears in slashdot about debian refers to DWN. So if you want something spun, you mostly just need to get DWN to spin it. Which might be difficult, as I dislike trying to put a spin on things and try to report objectively and factually. Like it or not, debian is an open project. -- see shy jo, editor, Debian Weekly News
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
William T Wilson writes: On Wed, 1 Dec 1999, Seth David Schoen wrote: Depends on how that's accomplished. If it's a license for the entire distribution as a whole, it should be possible. That's what I was assuming: a EULA for the distribution. In short, you can't do that. You can't circumvent the provisions of the GPL just by saying that your license applies to the distribution as a whole, rather than any specific part. Section 6 of the GPL overrides that, by specifying that you may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein. Preventing them from using or distributing the GPL software for any purpose, including that which you deem morally bankrupt, is against the rules. Section 6 also specifies that the recipient of a GPL program receives their license for that program from the original licensor. Unless that entity is willing to go along with your desire to restrict the use of the software, your restrictions would (again) be void. You can call your restrictions simply restrictions on the distribution as a whole, but the fact remains that they are also restrictions on the further redistribution of the GPL-covered software, which is expressly forbidden. The only thing you could do would be to restrict the use of the distribution as you have laid it out - for example the installer, by making it non-GPL. But the components that make up the system are untouchable. This is not at all obvious to me. Whether this is true depends on the interpretation of all this material: These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program, and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it. Thus, it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or contest your rights to work written entirely by you; rather, the intent is to exercise the right to control the distribution of derivative or collective works based on the Program. In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under the scope of this License. What is the difference between mere aggregation and a collective work based on the program? It's obviously possible to write a EULA for a distribution which is quite discriminatory and proprietary, but which guarantees the right to separate out the GPLed portions and distribute them to anybody under the terms of the GPL. -- Seth David Schoen [EMAIL PROTECTED] | And do not say, I will study when I Temp. http://www.loyalty.org/~schoen/ | have leisure; for perhaps you will down: http://www.loyalty.org/ (CAF) | not have leisure. -- Pirke Avot 2:5
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
On Thu, Dec 02, 1999 at 01:05:58PM -0800, Seth David Schoen wrote: Peter S Galbraith writes: (I'm not saying that slapping an EULA on top of GPL software is legal; I don't know that it is. If it's called a `license', it's different that saying you can have this GPL code for $1) Obviously _some_ EULAs on top of compilations containing GPLed software are legal. Presumably not all of them are. Eh? EULA, is an `End User License Agreement'. The `End User' part's fairly plausible: it applies to people downloading from the Corel website. `License agreement' is, according to dict: 1. Authority or liberty given to do or forbear any act; especially, a formal permission from the proper authorities to perform certain acts or to carry on a certain business, which without such permission would be illegal; a grant of permission; as, a license to preach, to practice medicine, to sell gunpowder or intoxicating liquors. . This isn't necessarily overriding anyone's copyright, it needn't be anything more than permission to use their ftp server. And sure, the whole ``INSTALLING OR OTHERWISE USING THIS PRODUCT INDICATES YOUR ACKNOWLEDGMENT THAT YOU HAVE READ THIS LICENSE'' reeks of shrink-wrap licensing and all the horrible things that go with it. It's directly followed by ``Many of the Software Programs included in Corel Linux ... permit You to copy, modify and redistribute [them].'' (Which, I might add, strikes me as a pretty adequate counter to the whole People who use RedHat and Corel will never guess they're allowed to give away copies and stuff! thing.) Then there's a warning that not all of it's free software, and some general `your actions are your responsibility', and the traditional `you can only sue us in Canada' note that's presumably required by the Canadian tourist board. And that's about it. IANAL, of course. Cheers, aj -- Anthony Towns [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/ I don't speak for anyone save myself. GPG encrypted mail preferred. ``The thing is: trying to be too generic is EVIL. It's stupid, it results in slower code, and it results in more bugs.'' -- Linus Torvalds pgpiAeljS1kg0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: From Corel on the EULA
In debian.devel.legal, you wrote: --=20 The address in the headers is not the poster's real email address. Do no= t send private mail to the poster using your mailer's reply feature. CC's of = mail=20 to mailing lists are OK. Problem reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED]= . =20 The poster's email address is [EMAIL PROTECTED]. Why are you using a fake email address in your headers? I wrote the gateway software in question, and that disclaimer. I'd welcome suggestions about better ways to express the situation, which I'll describe in some detail below. Erich's answer was...interesting...but as usual, not entirely complete or accurate. Ahem. I don't recall writing any thread reorganization software, for one thing. It's amazing how only a dozen lines of code with the simplest design I can think of is nearly impossible for people to understand... Corel has approximately 400 mailing lists subscribed to an internal news/mail gateway that I wrote (the NNTP server is 'sn' by Harold Sn, somewhere in Singapore IIRC, the SMTP server is 'exim', and the stuff that goes between the two and makes it into a gateway is mine). The header rewrite solves a number of problems: 1. Some of those mailing lists are technically incapable of transmitting email to email addresses with certain encoding characters (e.g. [EMAIL PROTECTED]). One degenerate case is unable to cope with non-alphanumerics at all (not even .). 2. Some mailing lists restrict posting privileges to email addresses that are subscribed or registered with the mailing list only. Most have restrictions about the sender's domain name--and those that don't have subscribers that do. 3. Some mailing lists generate traffic indistinguishable from normal email or other mailing lists. Mail that bounces upon delivery from certain broken mailing lists (ones that don't rewrite the sender header) also generates sorting problems. A solution to problem 1 and 3 is to subscribe each mailing list carried on the gateway to a unique email address. That solves the mail sorting issue because the mail can be sorted by envelope recipient address (as God herself intended it should be done, IMNSHO) with zero ambiguity. A solution to problem 2 is to simply masquerade every user of the gateway as the email address on the gateway that is subscribed to the mailing list, by rewriting the From address on all outgoing mail. The sum total of the mailing list/news gateway is three perl scripts: one to sort incoming mail according to envelope recipient address, one to rewrite mail headers on outgoing mail according to newsgroup name, and the third to set up the database of newsgroups and send subscribe messages. This effectively makes all posters through the gateway appear to be a single user with a single email address that has a short user ID field with no special characters and which is subscribed to the mailing list, which is just about the only situation that the lowest common denominator mailing list can cope with. One problem with these solutions is that they create a side-effect: the normal reply function of most mailers then sends off-list reply mail to the masqueraded From address instead of the poster's real email address. For me at umail.furryterror.org, this isn't a problem... [EMAIL PROTECTED] _is_ me (well, me and my SO), but at Corel it's a bit more complicated. You can actually reply to the email address in the From line, and Erich will be able read it (understanding it, or taking reasonable action based upon it, are totally different matters of course--I only do transport and delivery ;-). The difference between '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' and the fake address is that mail sent to the fake address is distributed to anyone in the company who wants to read it. Corel was starting to get questions about sales and co-marketing deals on the gateway meant for Erich and everyone in the company (including myself, who has nothing to do with Corel Linux) were able to read them. This is where the disclaimer came in. -- I don't speak for Corel. [EMAIL PROTECTED] at work, [EMAIL PROTECTED] at play. GPG-encrypted email preferred at [EMAIL PROTECTED] GPG fingerprint: 2B32 546D 21A5 0DB2 20C8 AF10 1D4A 610E 6972 2DEE GPG public key: http://www.hungrycats.org/~zblaxell/gpg-public.txt pgpEIdzCUc4FJ.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
Anthony Towns writes: On Thu, Dec 02, 1999 at 01:05:58PM -0800, Seth David Schoen wrote: Peter S Galbraith writes: (I'm not saying that slapping an EULA on top of GPL software is legal; I don't know that it is. If it's called a `license', it's different that saying you can have this GPL code for $1) Obviously _some_ EULAs on top of compilations containing GPLed software are legal. Presumably not all of them are. Eh? EULA, is an `End User License Agreement'. The `End User' part's fairly plausible: it applies to people downloading from the Corel website. `License agreement' is, according to dict: 1. Authority or liberty given to do or forbear any act; especially, a formal permission from the proper authorities to perform certain acts or to carry on a certain business, which without such permission would be illegal; a grant of permission; as, a license to preach, to practice medicine, to sell gunpowder or intoxicating liquors. . This isn't necessarily overriding anyone's copyright, it needn't be anything more than permission to use their ftp server. Sure, but _some_ EULAs are infringing: END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT By downloading or using the Software, you agree to be bound by the following: This software is Copyright (C) 1999 IlliberalSoft. All rights are reserved. This software is licensed, not sold. The following conditions apply to the software. YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO REDISTRIBUTE THE SOFTWARE. YOU MAY NOT DECOMPILE, DISASSEMBLE, OR OTHERWISE REVERSE ENGINEER THE SOFTWARE. YOU MAY NOT DISCLOSE THE SOFTWARE, OR ANY PORTION THEREOF, TO ANY THIRD PARTY WITHOUT EXPRESS WRITTEN PERMISSION OF ILLIBERALSOFT. NO ONE HAS AUTHORITY TO MODIFY THE TERMS OF THIS LICENSE AGREEMENT. ANY STATEMENTS TO THE CONTRARY BY ANY PARTY, OR IN ANY DOCUMENTATION ACCOMPANYING THE SOFTWARE, ARE VOID. YOU MAY INSTALL AND RUN ONE COPY OF THIS SOFTWARE FOR YOUR OWN PERSONAL NON-COMMERCIAL USE. Some EULAs are _not_ infringing: END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT You hereby acknowledge that this software is provided with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY. Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion or limitation of certain warranties, so the preceding limitation may not apply to you. Portions of this software were written by Friendly Partners LLP and other contributors. All of this software is licensed under various free software licenses, which permit you to use, modify, and redistribute the software. Please see /usr/doc/copyrights for the precise details of the license terms applicable to each component of the software. Friendly Partners LLP thanks you for using this software, and hopes that you have a great day. -- Seth David Schoen [EMAIL PROTECTED] | And do not say, I will study when I Temp. http://www.loyalty.org/~schoen/ | have leisure; for perhaps you will down: http://www.loyalty.org/ (CAF) | not have leisure. -- Pirke Avot 2:5
Re: Bruce Perens's Slashdot debacle
Like it or not, debian is an open project. In the conventional media, if the news doesn't come from a press release it's standard procedure for the person or organisation concerned to have the opportunity to comment before the story is published. I would argue that while a link to the DWN or similar doesn't really need us to comment further before somebody else publishes, would it be so hard for Slashdot (or anyone else) to at least ask for a comment (from the person concerned, or at least from Debian) before printing a link in a mailing list? Has anyone (other than Bruce) discussed this with the Slashdot crew? From my understanding of the situation, they are also anxious to avoid a repeat of this unfortunate incident. -- --- Robert Merkel [EMAIL PROTECTED] Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature. -- Tom Robbins ---
Re: Bruce Perens's Slashdot debacle
Robert Merkel wrote: Like it or not, debian is an open project. In the conventional media, if the news doesn't come from a press release it's standard procedure for the person or organisation concerned to have the opportunity to comment before the story is published. Slashdot ain't the media, conventional or otherwise. Nobody published a story. I would argue that while a link to the DWN or similar doesn't really need us to comment further before somebody else publishes, would it be so hard for Slashdot (or anyone else) to at least ask for a comment (from the person concerned, or at least from Debian) before printing a link in a mailing list? That's not the way Slashdot works. It's equivalent to an old-fashioned BBS, or a newsgroup or public mailing list (like this one). Anyone can post anything they like with no need to consult anyone first. And that's the way it should be. Has anyone (other than Bruce) discussed this with the Slashdot crew? From my understanding of the situation, they are also anxious to avoid a repeat of this unfortunate incident. I fail to see what they can do short of making Slashdot fully moderated, which would ruin the spontaneous element that is one of its few saving graces, and open up the moderators/editors to potentially massive liabilities to boot. If Bruce is interested in avoiding a repeat of this incident, he should in future avoid making inflammatory statements in open public forums. Frank
Re: Free Download End User License Agreement
On Thu, Dec 02, 1999 at 03:13:14AM -0600, Chris Lawrence wrote: On Dec 02, Anthony Towns wrote: They seem to be put off by liability issues, etc. And no doubt the risk of having their idle comments paraded about on slashdot isn't exactly an incentive. It seems to me, then, that we need a debian-legal-private list. I dunno how we'd handle subscription, etc., since obviously not all developers are interested in -legal issues. Then we can invite selected people from VA (if you want to call their disc with O'Reilly a separate distro), Corel, Stormix, whoever in to discuss these things, without creating slashdot headlines. You are closing development. I understand the need of a few registered-maintainers-only lists, but such Council-Of-Big-And-Important-Persons is completely against the spirit of free software. The next step will be making a corporation and monopolize GNU/Linux.
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
On Thu, Dec 02, 1999 at 09:41:30AM -0500, Caspian wrote: On Wed, 1 Dec 1999, Bruce Perens wrote: As much as anything with commercial in the name makes me feel saddened just to talk about it, something like this clearly needs to be done. Yes. This is definitely a good idea. Much as I sometimes wish to lash out at the proprietary world by making a license even stricter than the GPL, I know that I'd have to go such a route alone. Besides that, it might be overreacting... Perhaps efforts could be made to provide free alternates for all (or at least MOST) non-free packages... i.e. Mozilla for Netscape, my proposed PiClone/PINE-Clone for pico/PINE, yatadayatadayatada... and of course if it had a EULA, it wouldn't restrict the OS to adults only, nor would it make misleading statements about what copyrights protect about the dist... :) The highest priority task I see now is a web-browser deserving its name. This is neither non-free Netscape nor almost-free Mozilla, nor free Lynx, w3m, gzilla nor express It SHOULD NOT try to be free Netscape It SHOULD try to be free MSIE Because we should respect all good soft, no matter of their origin. Also having text-mode browser with capability of scanning many pages at a time a very big advantagement. The most commonly included non-free soft in Linux is Netscape. Then 100%-free povray and at least my computer will be free.
The end of GIF format [was : Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL ]
On Thu, Dec 02, 1999 at 09:42:09AM -0800, Don Marti wrote: On Wed, Dec 01, 1999 at 11:24:52PM -0700, Richard Stallman wrote: You are entirely right that programs prohibited by patents in some countries should not be treated like programs restricted by their authors. gimp-nonfree should be renamed and reclassified as a free non-us package. LZW is patented in countries other than the US -- United States Patent No. 4,558,302, Japanese Patent Numbers 2,123,602 and 2,610,084, and patents in Canada, France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom. according to http://corp2.unisys.com/LeadStory/lzwfaq.html The Debian policy -- http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch2.html -- says that non-us is for cryptography that can't legally be exported from the US. But there are countries from which you can export crypto in which the LZW patent is enforced. As a practical matter, I discourage anyone from distributing any GIF files or software to create them. I want GIF to join Betamax, DIVX, and SDMI on the junk pile of formats whose owners killed them by trying to keep them proprietary. It will help to make an argument for openness and interoperability that even the most clueless of managers can understand. But if you must have a category for free software to create a GIF, neither non-us nor non-free seems to apply. I know, this will be highly controversive : SERIOUS SUGGESTION FOR WOODY : we should get rid of all gif-making packages except 1 package a2gif in non-free, which will allow you to convert other images to gifs if you REALLY need it. In description of this package there should be : `using GIFs is HIGHLY discouraged due to patent problems. Consider chosing another format (ex. jpeg or png)' I have already made a little (ok, very little) effort in this way, and Ive sent patches to xearth 1.1 so the future version of xearth may be finaly free (+jpeg, +png, -gif) I hope maintainers and developers of other gif-making software will do sobme effort to use other formats and eventually will make GIFs thru pipes, so this soft will temportary be in contrib and will go main with a very little hacking
Re: Free Download End User License Agreement
On Wed, Dec 01, 1999 at 11:15:01PM -0800, Bruce Perens wrote: From: Anthony Towns aj@azure.humbug.org.au And nor does every other Canadian Debian distributor. And probably anyone distributing a fair number of other free or semi-free software collections, for Linux, *BSD, Mac, Windows or DOS. What's your point? You can't contract with a minor in the U.S. either. The point is that the software license is probably not a contract with the minor but with their parent or guardian. Does it mean : parent or guardian automagically gains all rights to the ``intelectual property'' made by minor in US ???
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
On Thu, Dec 02, 1999 at 11:48:21AM -0500, Caspian wrote: I'm afraid this isn't about advertisement, or about the DFSG, or even about the GPL. This is about the general trend of companies walking all over the spirit of free software. No one is interested in freedom talk, as RMS puts it. Everyone's interested in filling their own pockets. 2 hundred years ago someone said : No nation have ever gained any freedom except freedom they have gained with sword in hand This is still actual, no matter if you are talking about Free-Speech, Recruitment, Freedom-To-Use-Modify-And-Distribute-Code, War-On-Drugs or Right-To-Read [cut] Something-- SOMETHING-- must be done, or in five to ten years the Linux (and I do say Linux here, since it will no longer be GNU/Linux) community will more closely resemble the Microsoft/Adobe/Lotus world than anything RMS would be proud of. Look at Corel's EULA and think-- is this a step forwards for free software? Or is this a step AWAY FROM it? --Caspian You are right. This is some regress.
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
I think that this is an idea whose time has really come-- to make a 100% (TOTALLY) free distro _as good as the commercial/proprietaryish ones for end users_ and suitable for heavy use by true geeks as well. This is a project that I've wished to get involved in for quite some time now, and I have numerous ideas as to how it could be implemented. If anyone else is interested in doing such a thing-- probably deriving it from potato, once potato freezes (of course, work could be done on individual components -before- potato freezes)-- let me know. I can set up a mailing list or a Web discussion forum, and people can be gathered to plan the dist. --Caspian On Thu, 2 Dec 1999, Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote: On Thu, Dec 02, 1999 at 09:41:30AM -0500, Caspian wrote: On Wed, 1 Dec 1999, Bruce Perens wrote: As much as anything with commercial in the name makes me feel saddened just to talk about it, something like this clearly needs to be done. Yes. This is definitely a good idea. Much as I sometimes wish to lash out at the proprietary world by making a license even stricter than the GPL, I know that I'd have to go such a route alone. Besides that, it might be overreacting... Perhaps efforts could be made to provide free alternates for all (or at least MOST) non-free packages... i.e. Mozilla for Netscape, my proposed PiClone/PINE-Clone for pico/PINE, yatadayatadayatada... and of course if it had a EULA, it wouldn't restrict the OS to adults only, nor would it make misleading statements about what copyrights protect about the dist... :) The highest priority task I see now is a web-browser deserving its name. This is neither non-free Netscape nor almost-free Mozilla, nor free Lynx, w3m, gzilla nor express It SHOULD NOT try to be free Netscape It SHOULD try to be free MSIE Because we should respect all good soft, no matter of their origin. Also having text-mode browser with capability of scanning many pages at a time a very big advantagement. The most commonly included non-free soft in Linux is Netscape. Then 100%-free povray and at least my computer will be free. -- = Jon Caspian Blank, right-brained computer programmer at large = .. | Freelance coder and Unix geek / Founder, The Web Union (twu.net) | | Information wants to be free! Visit www.gnu.org. | | WANTED: Writers who share the GNU philosophy. www.forsmarties.net. | | - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - | | E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]Web: http://caspian.twu.net | | Send a short message to my cell phone: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | `'
Re: The end of GIF format [was : Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL ]
On Thu, Dec 02, 1999 at 09:21:51PM +0100, Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote: I know, this will be highly controversive : SERIOUS SUGGESTION FOR WOODY : we should get rid of all gif-making packages except 1 package a2gif in non-free, which will allow you to convert other images to gifs if you REALLY need it. In description of this package there should be : `using GIFs is HIGHLY discouraged due to patent problems. Consider chosing another format (ex. jpeg or png)' I disagree. By the time woody is released, it's likely the gif patent will have expired. -- Raul
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Bruce Perens) writes: If they want to restrict to over 18, There's still nothing in any of the relevant licenses that say that if you distribute to people over 18 (or people with large beards) you have to distribute to anyone. There's even nothing in most of the licenses that say that if you distribute to people over 18 with large beards, you have to distribute to the author on request. -- Henning MakholmJeg køber intet af Sulla, og selv om uordenen griber planmæssigt om sig, så er vi endnu ikke nået dertil hvor ordentlige mennesker kan tillade sig at stjæle slaver fra hinanden. Så er det ligegyldigt, hvor stærke, politiske modstandere vi er.
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
Seth David Schoen [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: What is the difference between mere aggregation and a collective work based on the program? Murky. However, *if* Caspian argues that his distribution is a collective work (which is necessary for him to make reservations about how it can be redistributed) *then* he'll have to apply the same definition to it when we are discussing the GPL. Which means that if he includes any GPLed software in something he thinks is a collective work, he has to license *all* of it under the GPL. Which means that Corel, or RedHat, or IBM, or Microsoft have the right to download it and make an FTP mirror available exclusively for people with large beards. -- Henning MakholmNej, hvor er vi altså heldige! Længe leve vor Buxgører Sansibar Bastelvel!
Re: Free Download End User License Agreement
Peter S Galbraith [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: FYI, I just got this (anonymous) reply from Corel. --- Forwarded Message Corel is merely satisfying a Canadian law (Corel is a Canadian company) that states that it is illegal for a company to enter into a contract with a minor. The open question is still why Corel think they have to enter a contract with people that merely want to download free software. (I've argued that they have a *right* to think so. I fail to see how they have a *reason* to think so). -- Henning Makholm Hi! I'm an Ellen Jamesian. Do you know what an Ellen Jamesian is?
Re: Free Download End User License Agreement
Erich Forler [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Given the slashdot effect and general flame wars which erupt, It seems to me that the general flame wars are fueled to a very large degree by the fact that the victim (here: Corel) seemlingly decides wierd things in private *without* entering a dialogoue in a public forum. As such, much of the incentive to flaming would disappear if some Corel lawyers were participaring in the discussions e.g. here. -- Henning MakholmI, madam, am the Archchancellor! And I happen to run this University!
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
From: Henning Makholm [EMAIL PROTECTED] There's still nothing in any of the relevant licenses that say that if you distribute to people over 18 (or people with large beards) you have to distribute to anyone. There doesn't have to be. Their premise is that they can not distribute to people under 18 because there is an implied contract, and Canadian law says you can't make a contract with minors. If so, they are _already_in_violation_ because they have accepted software from minors for distribution in their system. So, why is it that they can not distribute the software to minors but _can_ accept software from minors and redistribute it? Thanks Bruce
Re: ocaml_2.03-1_i386.changes is NEW
On Mon, 29 Nov 1999, Sven LUTHER wrote: is there any problem with this package ? It was moved from non-free to main because of licensing changes, (LGPL for runtime, and QPL for the compiler). I just received a bug report about there being a new version, ... :(((. Those three letters: QPL always make the ftpmasters cautious, and sometimes when we don't have time for further examination, we just pass on to other packages. My first question is: are the LGPL and QPL parts combined into a one piece of software, I mean into one executable ? If yes, are LGPL and QPL compatible enough for this, meaning may you link some QPLed objects to LGPLed objects ? I don't think there will be any problems here, but I just wanted to make sure... -- Madarasz Gergely [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] It's practically impossible to look at a penguin and feel angry. Egy pingvinre gyakorlatilag lehetetlen haragosan nezni. HuLUG: http://mlf.linux.rulez.org/
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Bruce Perens) writes: From: Henning Makholm [EMAIL PROTECTED] There's still nothing in any of the relevant licenses that say that if you distribute to people over 18 (or people with large beards) you have to distribute to anyone. There doesn't have to be. Then how come the title of this thread? -- Henning MakholmThey want to be natural, the anti-social little beasts. They just don't realize that everyone's good depends on everyone's cooperation.
Re: ocaml_2.03-1_i386.changes is NEW
Gergely Madarasz [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: If yes, are LGPL and QPL compatible enough for this, meaning may you link some QPLed objects to LGPLed objects ? Yes. The LGPL does not require any specific licensing agreement for executables, as long as the end user gets the source code for the LGPL'ed part and sufficient permissions and source or object code for the non-LGPL'ed part that he can rebuild the executable with changes to the LGPL'ed part. This basically means that the LGPL is compatible with anything that would not for other reasons have to go into non-free. -- Henning MakholmDet må være spændende at bo på en kugle. Har I nogen side besøgt de egne, hvor folk går rundt med hovedet nedad?
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
From: Henning Makholm [EMAIL PROTECTED] Then how come the title of this thread? That's how the thread started. If they believe so strongly that these licenses would be prohibited as illegal contracts with minors, then for every piece of IP in Debian that is written by minors, they have no rights. The GPL and other licenses don't apply. That sounds enough like a violation :-) Thanks Bruce
Re: Free Download End User License Agreement
From: Chris Lawrence [EMAIL PROTECTED] It seems to me, then, that we need a debian-legal-private list. I'd be more comfortable with that, yes. I have a little problem in that my company is investing in a Debian project (The details of that are _not_ yet public knowledge). We want to maintain the proper separation between our business and the private affairs of Debian the non-profit, and thus I am _not_ subscribing to debian-private. But it might make sense for a legal-private list to be something less than Debian's inner sanctum and allow participation by outsiders. Thanks Bruce
Re: Free Download End User License Agreement
On Dec 02, Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote: On Thu, Dec 02, 1999 at 03:13:14AM -0600, Chris Lawrence wrote: On Dec 02, Anthony Towns wrote: They seem to be put off by liability issues, etc. And no doubt the risk of having their idle comments paraded about on slashdot isn't exactly an incentive. It seems to me, then, that we need a debian-legal-private list. I dunno how we'd handle subscription, etc., since obviously not all developers are interested in -legal issues. Then we can invite selected people from VA (if you want to call their disc with O'Reilly a separate distro), Corel, Stormix, whoever in to discuss these things, without creating slashdot headlines. You are closing development. I understand the need of a few registered-maintainers-only lists, but such Council-Of-Big-And-Important-Persons is completely against the spirit of free software. The next step will be making a corporation and monopolize GNU/Linux. 1: This list has nothing to do with development; it deals with licensing issues of third-party software that we wish to incorporate into Debian. As such, it's not closing development. 2: The Council of Big and Important Persons would actually be more inclusive than a registered maintainers only list, because people proposing licenses, who are not Debian developers, would be allowed to participate as well as existing developers. It seems to me that such a list is a way to have a more inclusive review of licenses than simply having people email (say) Bruce or ESR privately, which is what happens now. Not that Bruce doesn't do a good job, but I think we (the free software community) need more pairs of eyes so he doesn't get fed up with doing the job. And it lets people like Corel or the KDE group float trial balloons that won't get posted to Slashdot. As for your next step, there's no way to monopolize GNU/Linux, because there are virtually zero barriers to entry in the Linux business. Chris -- = |Chris Lawrence| Get Debian GNU/Linux CDROMs| | [EMAIL PROTECTED] |http://www.lordsutch.com/cds/ | | || | Debian Developer | Visit the Lurker's Guide to Babylon 5: | |http://www.debian.org/| * http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/ * | =
Re: Bruce Perens's Slashdot debacle
On Dec 03, Frank Copeland wrote: Robert Merkel wrote: Like it or not, debian is an open project. In the conventional media, if the news doesn't come from a press release it's standard procedure for the person or organisation concerned to have the opportunity to comment before the story is published. Slashdot ain't the media, conventional or otherwise. Nobody published a story. This isn't a story? http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=99/11/26/1450245mode=thread Chris -- = |Chris Lawrence |Get Debian GNU/Linux CDROMs| | [EMAIL PROTECTED]| http://www.lordsutch.com/cds/ | | | | | Debian Developer|Join the party that opposed the CDA| |http://www.debian.org/ | http://www.lp.org/| =
Re: Bruce Perens's Slashdot debacle
Chris Lawrence wrote: On Dec 03, Frank Copeland wrote: Robert Merkel wrote: Like it or not, debian is an open project. In the conventional media, if the news doesn't come from a press release it's standard procedure for the person or organisation concerned to have the opportunity to comment before the story is published. Slashdot ain't the media, conventional or otherwise. Nobody published a story. This isn't a story? http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=99/11/26/1450245mode=thread Nope. It's someone starting a thread in a discussion group by forwarding a message from another discussion group. It happens all the time in newsgroups and mailing lists. Characterising Slashdot as the media and trying to put the blame on them for not applying irrelevant journalistic standards is an exercise in messenger-assassination. Frank
Re: Bruce Perens's Slashdot debacle
On Dec 04, Frank Copeland wrote: Chris Lawrence wrote: On Dec 03, Frank Copeland wrote: Robert Merkel wrote: Like it or not, debian is an open project. In the conventional media, if the news doesn't come from a press release it's standard procedure for the person or organisation concerned to have the opportunity to comment before the story is published. Slashdot ain't the media, conventional or otherwise. Nobody published a story. This isn't a story? http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=99/11/26/1450245mode=thread Nope. It's someone starting a thread in a discussion group by forwarding a message from another discussion group. It happens all the time in newsgroups and mailing lists. Characterising Slashdot as the media and trying to put the blame on them for not applying irrelevant journalistic standards is an exercise in messenger-assassination. Yes, but the top level of Slashdot isn't a thread; it's an article. And it is moderated, because only certain people can approve stories for the front page. This isn't the first time /. has gone off half-cocked, turning five lines of text into a flamefest. The people there need to start exercising some quality control on what they post, instead of jumping on the first message in a thread in a mailing list. Chris -- = |Chris Lawrence |Visit my home page!| | [EMAIL PROTECTED]| http://www.lordsutch.com/chris/ | | | | | Debian Developer|Are you tired of politics as usual?| |http://www.debian.org/ | http://www.lp.org/| =
