Re: license questions.
hello, Hi. i'm writing some software for linux and right now fighting with what license i should use. I have to tell you straight away; can't help you there. I do, however, wish to give you some general feedback on your thoughts. we all know what happened with KDE recently in redhat's new distro. the programmers are not really happy with what happened there. somehow i can understand their situation. they work hard on such a project try following their ideas and visions and some big company came up heavily changed things that doesn't fit the visions of kde anymore and try selling it to their customers. Personally I see nothing wrong with the RedHat/KDE incident. I mean; freedom is not just for individuals, but also for corporations. In my opinion, the KDE developers are NOT unaware of the inner workings of the GPL. These people are not newbies to the free software scene, so to speak. Forks happen every day, this one just happened to get a lot of media attention and the KDE people just happened to be very childish about it. i am still a beliver in opensource, having the code is a good and necessary idea. to learn from it, to help the developer fixing the software and make a better product out of it. generally to have the possibility to compile that software on all kind of systems. This will make me sound like a brainwashed RMS drone, but WTF, I agree with the guy. You DO seem to believe in open source. You don't, howver, seem to believe in free software. There is a difference. You consider just the practical benefits from sharing the blueprints for your software. You do not consider the benefits from the freedom that comes with the GPL, but instead view these benefits as drawbacks. i know myself good enough and i respect the original author for his work (or the maintainer of it). but i know also that i don't really like the idea to allow other people to make forks from my works. This is really the problem, isn't it? Not to be mean or anything, but I actually think you'll be better off simply going traditional. Don't open source at all. You seem to like the idea that people can help you debug by sharing the source, but you don't want those people to have the basic freedoms advocated by the FSF (among others). I'm afraid that you can't have both, really. If you try to get the benefints from freeing your sources (bugfixes and so on) without actually allowing people to fork your work, you'll just end up with bad press really. Sort of like the Microsoft Shared Source stuff. it would drive me nuts and at the final end it will result in a never ending flame and offending of the person who forked my work. This happens. It's natural. In the end, I think it's a good thing. Heated flamewars stirs up things and the software can benefit from it. The bottom line is really that if you want to be in the free software world, you'll have to learn to live with this. Linus Torvalds certainly did, and he did pretty good, don't you think? for sure this may not happen but it could happen one day. i also don't like the idea of companies making the big money with my work. Why not? If they do, they're likely to hire you at a good salary. personally i get more and more the impression that the 'opensource' community is the best thing that happened to many companies. to say it in harsh words from a companies view: there are a lot of stupid people outside, that work for free. we let them work and sell their stuff. we get the big cash. Hehe, so be it. I don't mind. As long as they play by the rules that is. A real problem is when free software is used in proprietary products. That's license violations and should be dealt with appropriately. i want to avoid this situation. i don't like the idea to work for free knowing in the back that some companies can take the stuff and sell it for their own profit. Generally they can't, you know. Since the software is also available for free. What they can do is package it nicely and print some manuals, and then sell it. But hey, packaging and printing is also a legitimite business and everyone's happy. things heavily changed in the past few years. the vision and idea of opensource and real freedom heavily changed and bigger companies starts to behave without moral on other people's work. Example? /Fredrik Persson
Re: Re: license questions.
well it was just an example from me. same situation happened earlier on other products. iirc that i read someone's reply on /. describing that there was an equal situation after someone started to fork emacs. Correct; Emacs was forked into XEmacs and there were flamewars. I'm not familiar with the details. well i don't have any problems releasing the sourcecode. thats not what i am concerned of. i only search for a suitable license NOW to protect myself for the future. it's better to search NOW for a correct solution than having to deal with the consequencies afterwards. Good. why not ? i mean i don't like GNU/GPL much because it is too free. Fair enough, don't use it. No hard feelings. allowing everyone to do whatever they like. Not really true, of course. It does not allow someone to distribute derivative works under anything BUT the GNU GPL. why should i follow it because someone told me to do so? You shouldn't, of course. http://opensource.org is full of different OSI aproved licenses. not necessarily GNU/GPL. at the very final end its the users problem if he/she wants to use the software or not. i only want to make sure he/she is able to get the source and compile it. This is why I hesitated to respond; I don't know of any such license exists within the class of OSI approved ones. If I knew about one, I'd tell you, of course. yeah but i am not linus torvalds. personally i see the kernel situation losing it's focus and bounds. everyone is forking its own kernel now and at the very end we deal with 10 derivates of it which none of them is really perfect. And yet, as a whole, the Linux kernel is spreading like wildfire. Something must be right about it. yeah like redhat hired all main developers of gtk and gnome and made a pile of well... MACOS clone out of it. losing the focus of what it was meant to be 4-5 years ago. to say it with other words: 'if we cant own or direct the software for our own profit, then we can hire their developers and force those to make it the way we want.' many people think this sentence sounds insane and trollish but looking behind the border this sounds really true. I have no problem accepting that this may very well be the case. I also don't see a problem with it. The pool of free software has been extended with a great desktop system. It may not be what the original developers had in mind, but then again, this is the organic nature of free software. there are a lot of stupid people outside, that work for free. we let them work and sell their stuff. we get the big cash. Hehe, so be it. I don't mind. As long as they play by the rules that is. A real problem is when free software is used in proprietary products. That's license violations and should be dealt with appropriately. do you belive this ? Yes. i don't exactly know how FSF is funding themselves but if you violate GPL then i doubt that anything big will happen on the long term. I can tell you that things will. The FSF has a very competent departement that deals with licens violations and they work hard. I have personally been involved in helping them out in one of those cases. Or perhaps they helped me, depending on how you look at it. At least one of these guys subscribe to this list and he may be able to tell you more. if 10 different companies are going to violate the license then FSF will become really poor in a short time because of paying their lawyers... As I said, at least one of the guys who work with this subscribes to this list and I hope he can enlighten us. thank you for the fast reply. You're welcome. Beeing european I'm up. The americans are probably still asleep. hope i didnt sound trollish or offensive with my reply but since you replied to my previous mail you deserve an openhearted reply from me. I'm not offended at all. These issues interest me. And I need the practice. I'm preparing a speech on free software to be held internally on my company. The questions that you bring may very well be asked. /Fredrik Persson
Re: Re: license questions.
This is really the problem, isn't it? Not to be mean or anything, but I actually think you'll be better off simply going traditional. Don't opensource at all. well i don't have any problems releasing the sourcecode. That shows that you have not understood Open Source. Open source is not just about releasing source code. It's also about allowing forks. If you don't allow forks, you're not open-source. That's a matter of definition. It doesn't get much simpler than that. The problem that Ali seems to be facing is not, I think, that he is not aware of what is considered Open Source/Free Software. He just wants to not have to deal with the facets of it that may feel less than fine. One common misconception, I think, is that free software and the people in that world, are considered nicer by some standard. That is; we're not just supposed to play by the rules, we are supposed to play extremely fair. Am I making sense? Ali seems to remember a time were this was actually the case, and feels that it is no longer so. I don't know if this is correct, but it really does not matter. Free software is by no means a nice world where we're all pals and so on. It may be a very cruel world where forks take your pride away from you. That may feel horrible. But it's a world that produces the best software known to man. I love to be a part of that and frankly Ali, I suggest you consider that too. /Fredrik Persson
Re: Re: license questions.
That shows that you have not understood Open Source. Open source is not just about releasing source code. It's also about allowing forks. If you don't allow forks, you're not open-source. That's a matter of definition. It doesn't get much simpler than that. it's your definition isn't it ? Now really, Ali, that's not just his definition. To allow forks IS a fundamental part of Open Source/Free Software. a) somehow everyone has a slightly different understanding of 'opensource' and the terms of 'free software'. We may all express them differently, but I'm pretty sure that RMS's four freedoms are the foundation on which we all base our conception of Free software. There is, especially in places like this list, a very clear conception of what properties software must have ot be considered free. b) everyone who replied me only spoke about GNU/GPL as it's a must to have every software participate to it. I didn't. i know many replies i got are tied to the terminology and philosophy of the FSF. their way describing 'opensource' their way describing 'free software'. That's not very strange, is it? After all, this is the debian-legal list. but as i initially mentioned there are other licenses that are OSI aproved. many of them are not related to FSF and probably describe their own philosophy of 'opensource' and 'free software'. Example of a license that does not adhere to the four freedoms and an explanation on how it differs, if I may be so bold? my initial point wasn't necessarily tied to GNU/GPL. no offense but i think that it's a bit of a short sight to only speak about GNU/GPL and about FSF's way of everything. In my case, I've considered a lot of ways of looking at things and I've come to the conclusion that the FSF philosophy is a good one, that I like. I assure you that I've looked nigh and far, so short-sighted is not something I can agree with you on. the BSD license for example is also OPENSOURCE aproved and REAL opensource as in terminology to have the sourcecode. but they are allowed to change the code and spread the binaries too. it would sound halfhearted and not true to say that this is not real opensource (this was just an example). How does the latest version of the BSD license not adhere to the four freedoms? (I'm not making rhetoric here, I really don't know.) Nobody says you must. You're perfectly free to release software you wrote under a non-free license. Just don't claim that it's free. your understanding of opensource is probably not tad better than mine. I'd have to say that I think it is. Not allowing forks definately makes software a) non-free b) not open source (maybe shared source :) ) /Fredrik Persson
Re: license questions.
wow wow wow oki sorry for the offense and that i pissed on your knee. You didn't piss on anyones knee. Oh, maybe in this mail you did. Not mine though. i just wanted to know about 'possible other solutions' and i was sent here by some debian people because they told me that i may find answers here. Don't say you didn't! :) I'm sure you know more about... well, you surely know more about the debial-legal list now than you used to! i just decided to release bins only or simply forget what i planned to do. it's better for your health, better for the health of the people here on the list and better for the masses outside. I don't know about the masses outside (can't see them from my window, you know) but my health is not really affected. If yours is, by all means, release bin only. at the final end it's not the matter of some opensource like licenses or freedom. at the final end it's the user himself. if you release some- thing for free you get a shitload of new friends if you don't they flame you until you get totally pissed off. i sometimes ask myself if it's all worth it sitting at home investigating into things for basically nothing because there are some suckers outside that have nothing better to do to force their shit on you. Wow. You've really had to deal with some ill-tempered users, haven't you? That's sad, really. However, if I may, I think that if you're looking for users that can provide constructive critisism and even patches, true open source/free software licensing is brilliant. Binary only, closed source or something else would not be as good. But alas, it's your call completely. Granted, proprietary software can have advantages for some folks. It made Bill Gates the richest man in the world. /Fredrik Persson
Re: Debian logo and TM logos
- The Riverrock logo: http://www.w5online.co.uk/files/links2.htm - Elektrostore http://www.elektrostore.se/ The debian logo has been a bit 'streched' during reswirl, but it is still ou logo. Please forgive me if I add unneccesary noise to this, but I absolutely feel that this use of the Debian logo should not be forgotten. It may very well be that the Debian project does NOT want ot be mixed up with Talibans. - Some Taliban news site http://www.taliban-news.com/topics.php /Fredrik Persson
A GNU GPL question (might be slightly OT)
Hello! This may be slightly OT, but I have really looked around for a better place to ask this question, and failed. I'm in a situation where I am trying to get the source code for a program from the company that distributed that program, and this has turned out to be really difficult. Currently, I'm preparing a reply to their lawyer (I have no legal training myself, so this is really difficult) where he talks to me about a three year rule within the GPL. Here's how I understand this issue: (Correct me if I'm wrong.) Jim gives Joe a program licensed under the GPL. Jim does not provide Joe with the source code, but with a written offer to provide that source code upon request. He can do this, according to section 3b in the GPL. However, that only requires Jim to comply with that offer for a period of three years, which is also stated in section 3b. Two years later, Joe re-distributes the program to Jill, and he includes the written offer from Jim. Joe is required to do so, according to section 3c. Two more years pass and Jill decides that she wants that source code. Here's where my question comes: Since FOUR years has passed since Jim originally distributed the program, he feels that he is no longer obliged to comply with his written offer. However, Jill feels that since she got the program only TWO years ago, the offer is still something that Jim is required to comply with. In her timeline, the three-year limit is not passed yet. That is my question. Who is right, Jim or Jill? I think it's a really important question, too. I shall explain why. Consider this: Jim downloads the source code for the gcc compiler. He then modifies that source and creates jimsgcc. But Jim doesn't really want to share the source with anyone. He is evil and he is also smart. So he finds section 3b in the GPL and he contacs Joe, who is also evil and ready to help Jim out when it comes to completing the scheme. Jim distributes the program (jimsgcc) to Joe, with that valid-for-three years offer that section 3b speaks about. Joe then sits on his ass for three years, so that the offer is no longer valid. Joe now starts distributing the jimsgcc (here, working on orders from Jim of course) and if anyone (any third party) requests the source code from Jim according to that written offer, he denies and says that more than three years has passed since the offer was issued and voilá, Jim has managed to short-circuit the GPL. (Yes, three years is a long time for a computer program and jimsgcc not likely to be very attractive by the time it actually is available, but the principle still holds.) Is this a loophole in the GPL? If my question above is answered with Jim, I think it is. If the answer is Jill, it most likely is not. So... What do you all say about this? /Fredrik Persson
