Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
On Mon, Dec 06, 1999 at 02:37:35AM +0100, Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote: 2. Debian's packages quality is very inequal. We cant force Debian to make Quality Standards, and if maintainer of some package dont think this is a bug, we can do nothing. you've got to be joking! one of the best things about debian is the consistently high quality of packages, which is a result of our having technical standards and policies (and a bunch of people with a very high CQ - clue quotient). sure, there are occasional problems...but bug reports get filed and they get fixed pretty quickly. if you can't deal with occasional packaging problems then stick to the 'stable' release, don't use the 'unstable' development version. you want to see what inconsistent quality really looks like? take a look at RedHat's contrib packages. some are high quality, as good as official redhat packages or even debian packages. some are of average quality. most are dangerous garbage. no standards, no policies, no overall design. in short, no *system* - just a huge pile of randomly assembled ill-fitting cruft. craig ps: this is not to say that we're perfect and couldn't do better. we're not and we can. even so, we're still pretty good. -- craig sanders
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
On Mon, Dec 06, 1999 at 01:56:31AM -0500, Caspian wrote: I'd just like to add my two cents (they're rather big...perhaps they're two dollars?) to this little discussion. [342 line rant deleted] i think you exaggerate just a little :) some points that need to be made in response (in random order, as i thought of them): 1a. free software survived - flourished, even - long before your Joe WinIdiot even noticed that it existed. there is no reason at all that it will not continue to do so. 1b. Joe WinIdiot is irrelevant to the success of free software because Joe Winidiot will *never* contribute a single line of code to any free software project. success for free software depends on developers, not users. 1c. free software is getting better every day. more programs, better programs. things that nobody would have even considered doing as a free software project a few years ago are now being done. we've got the operating system, and the tools...now the apps. 1d. critical mass. see points 1a and 1c. there's no way of stopping the chain reaction now. 2. you are confusing pretty and easy to learn with easy to use. i've ranted about this before, so i'll spare you now. suffice it to say that you shouldn't believe what marketing types want you to believe. 3. we *are* doing this for ourselves. if others benefit too, that's great, but not essential. IMO the heart and soul goes out of free software if your primary motivation is to scratch someone else's itch rather than your own. 4. the ratio of free software developers to free software users may be shrinking, but the total number is increasing. in more concrete (but only example) figures: 5% of 100,000 is a whole lot less than 2% of 1,000,000. 5. who gives a damn if redhat, or corel, or whoever makes money from free software? money's not the issue. as long as the software remains free, it doesn't matter what they do. even better, some of them even contribute a lot of free software back to the community (RH may have their faults, but they *have* contributed a lot of software, and they have paid for a lot of programming hours on free software projects...overall, they have been a force for good in the free software world - although this will undoubtedly change within 3-5 years as they turn into just another amoral corporation) 6. there are sometimes extreme contradictions between what clueful geeks want from a system and what your Joe Winidiot might want from a system. these contradictions are often mutually exclusive. simplicity (aka easy to learn) is most often achieved by sacrificing flexibility and power (aka easy to use). just slapping on a GUI will not and can not solve this inherent conflict. A GUI is NOT a magic wand. software is NOT one size fits all. that's one of the reasons why free software is essential. if it doesn't suit you, hack it until it does. 7. error messages are primarily for the programmer, not the user. their main purpose is to provide enough diagnostic information so the programmer can figure out what/where the bug is. 8. we *have* good GUIs. the fact that they may not be the same kind of GUI that your Joe Winidiot might choose to use is irrelevant. our needs are different to Mr JW. Hell, our needs are different from each others which is why we have dozens of window managers and several GUIs to choose from. 9. we don't need visual C++ or anything like it. we really don't want the illiterate barbarian hordes of windows programmers filling the free software archives with incomprehensible cargo-cult programming crap. if someone can't program without such tools then they have no business calling themselves a programmer and they should start studying for a more appropriate career (practicing would you like fries with that, sir? would be about right) 10. build a system so simple that even a moron can use it and only a moron will want to use it. cf. Microsoft Windows. 11. i'm frankly sick of the whole damn world focusing on the lowest fucking common denominator! why not expend some energy on smart people for a change? that's why i'm in debian, that's why i'm involved in free software - because it's mostly smart people doing clever things for our own benefit. i don't write or contribute to free software because i want to make yet another meaningless toy for the morons in consumerland to waste their lives with. i do it because it solves some problem for myself and also so that i can share my ideas and code with my peers - hopefully they can learn from and be impressed or amused by what i do, just as i can learn from and be impressed or amused by what they do. i.e. it's about community, not product. participation, not consumption. 12. there's no way that you can simplify complex tools for Joe Winidiot without losing the value of those tools. complex tools require knowledge, and they require intelligence to operate. e.g. you need to know certain things, like what is a string? or what does case sensitivity mean? in order to get
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
On Tue, Dec 07, 1999 at 08:23:35PM -0600, Philip Thiem wrote: My 2 cents: If you want it easier for newibes or you want a nice GUI. Consider the following This is very wrong to think that what all newbies want is GUI for everything. They want browser, they want word processor, they want spreadsheet, picture viewer and many other things in GUI, but most of them dont feel a big need of such Control Panel as in MacOS or MSWin. Ncurses interface for it would be much more convienient for most of them. Of these positions browser is the most problematic now. 1.) Find people argee about having newbie utils and have time. Debian may be hard, but I am certain that most of the people the work on it have lives and work as much as they can you need more people that aren't already working on something. Let debian create most of the substance, and keep things going. 2.) Create a new set of projects to solve the problems. You don't have to fork, except if some won't let you become developer and they won't let you take up space with a experimental destribution. 3.) Write interfaces for utilities -- good back end programmers are not necessarily good GUI people. visa versa. Plus some people like command prompts. e.g: Apt still needs a good X gui right? Apt still needs a good console ui either. 4.) If you want a new help system, make one that will interpret (or compile) the help from info files. The completely new help system would be nice idea. In all Linuces there are plenty of places where you can find info. Why to know all of them. 5.) For a GUI download the gnome source code. You do want a GUI environment right? See how it does things and come up with something new, or get your optimization people on it and fix it. Bit by bit. I'd say let GTK and GNOME worry about designing it on large scale, and then someone can go back through just looking at code and tweak it like hell. GTK+ is good, but when I tried to start GNOME Session I had to slay(1) myself after 10 minutes of waiting. 6.) Release it as GPL Quite obvious. As long as you don't heavily get into replacing base utilities with a 'without choice' vastly different program, but instead add to them, there shouldn't be any reason why the changes won't be incorporated back into Debian. The most promising base packages to replace are: - dpkg ( this packager is a joke !!! ) - help system - to have all info about every package stored in one place The only problem I see is getting offically recognized by Debian since new-maintainer appears SCREWED. Also, if there is some unforseen political reason within Debian you may have to creat a patch distribution for debian. If you didn't change the operating dynamics in adding to debian. You will only have to store your new programs and add a couple lines to apt-source. If you want to require packages and create defaults, use a meta package of many depends. If you think I'm being anal, feel free to enlist my help, I not starting any projects right now because I don't have enough time, but to looking at code, or writing a bit here and there is do-able. Im not going to start any project nor fork Debian right now. This may happen someday in mid-future, but surely not before potato.
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
On Thu, 9 Dec 1999, Craig Sanders wrote: On Mon, Dec 06, 1999 at 01:56:31AM -0500, Caspian wrote: I'd just like to add my two cents (they're rather big...perhaps they're two dollars?) to this little discussion. [342 line rant deleted] i think you exaggerate just a little :) I think you're not paranoid enough. some points that need to be made in response (in random order, as i thought of them): 1a. free software survived - flourished, even - long before your Joe WinIdiot even noticed that it existed. there is no reason at all that it will not continue to do so. Sure there is. That reason is called the Open Source Initiative. See my further comments below. 1b. Joe WinIdiot is irrelevant to the success of free software because Joe Winidiot will *never* contribute a single line of code to any free software project. success for free software depends on developers, not users. When Joe WinIdiot starts adopting the latest offerings from the Open Source community, and when those offerings start depending on proprietary libraries, apps, etc. from said community and the traditional proprietary software community-- which I feel that they -will- -- we will suddenly find that we cannot work for Joe WinIdiot, we cannot write software for Joe WinIdiot, we cannot help Joe WinIdiot with his problems... and since software (e.g. Winders) spreads upwards from the Joe WinIdiots to the PHBs, pretty soon that will go for the PHBs too. Eventually, we'll all be forced to use the 75% proprietary Corel Linux 3.0 at work, even if we're still stalwartly running free software at home. We will be made incompatible as soon as they replace libc, the kernel, X or some other major component with a proprietary product veiled in secrecy. Which they will, for the sake of product integrity. 1c. free software is getting better every day. more programs, better programs. things that nobody would have even considered doing as a free software project a few years ago are now being done. we've got the operating system, and the tools...now the apps. The sucky apps, most of which are being released for use under KDE, which I don't trust... the rest of which are being released for use under GNOME, which sucks even more than KDE does. 1d. critical mass. see points 1a and 1c. there's no way of stopping the chain reaction now. The chain reaction is going on in the Open Source world, not the free software world. We are being left behind. 2. you are confusing pretty and easy to learn with easy to use. i've ranted about this before, so i'll spare you now. suffice it to say that you shouldn't believe what marketing types want you to believe. Joe WinIdiot-- on whom the future of the computer world hinges, unfortunately-- wants (and thinks he NEEDS) all three-- pretty, easy to learn -and- easy to use. 3. we *are* doing this for ourselves. if others benefit too, that's great, but not essential. IMO the heart and soul goes out of free software if your primary motivation is to scratch someone else's itch rather than your own. Excuse me? My standards are based on a quest to be as altruistic as I can be; are you telling me that altruism is somehow un-free-software-ish? What the hell about generously writing a software package that you know you won't use, but thousands or millions of others will love, lacks heart and soul? 4. the ratio of free software developers to free software users may be shrinking, but the total number is increasing. in more concrete (but only example) figures: 5% of 100,000 is a whole lot less than 2% of 1,000,000. Let's run with those hypothetical figures for a moment. 1990: 5% of 100,000, of whom 100% are free software developers 2000: 2% of 1,000,000, of whom 80% are open source developers and 20% are free software developers. Why am I stressing the whole open source/free software dichotomy? Simple. Open source people care more about money than about freedom -or- quality, and they are willing to sacrifice _both_ freedom and quality for the sake of money. They are the same sorts of minds who would have signed on with Microsoft in the early '80s-- it's just that they're emerging into a community where things, at least at this moment in time, are more open...so, for the moment, they can't get away with all the dirty tricks they would otherwise pull. 5. who gives a damn if redhat, or corel, or whoever makes money from free software? money's not the issue. as long as the software remains free, it doesn't matter what they do. even better, some of them even Money is not the issue. The software -isn't- remaining free and it -won't- remain free. The only thing about 'money' that is important to my case is the fact that all of these nasty things are being done to various GNU/Linux distributions because of moneylust. contribute a lot of free software back to the community (RH may have their faults, but they *have* contributed a lot of software, and they have
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
On Tue, Dec 07, 1999 at 12:56:58PM -0700, Richard Stallman wrote:
I thought rather about a set of tools that put together will make
a web browser. This will be :
That sounds like the Unix design approach. I tend to think that this
approach would be more work, and would result in something not as easy
to use.
Will be surely very easy. User wont even notice how it is built.
Only internal design will be completely against Netscape's.
Even MS went in direction Im suggesting, so the have better browser than
Netscape has.
Modulization means:
(obvious ones)
spellchecking utility wont be part of browser ( it is in NSC, not in IE )
MTA wont be part of browser ( it is in NSC, not in IE )
MUA wont be part of browser ( it is in NSC, not in IE )
(not obvious ones)
html preprocessor wont be part of browser ( it is in both NSC and IE )
{http,ftp,whatever}-requester wont be part of browser ( it is in both NSC and
IE )
web cache wont be part of browser ( it is in both NSC and IE )
etc.
anything controversive ?
all will be user-transparent
developing modular browser is easier cause most parts are already done
and lie somewhere.
Part I dont know how will be done is java script. Anyone has some ideas ?
Netscape has released a Javascript interpreter under a license
which is the disjunction of NPL and GNU GPL. We can use that.
will be checked when browser will mature
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
On Tue, Dec 07, 1999 at 03:34:22PM -0500, Caspian wrote: I think that FUD is deserved, [...] I'm sure Microsoft think the FUD they spread against Linux is deserved too. After all, those little upstarts are taking well deserved money away from all the hardworking people at Microsoft. And that's hardly fair. Take your anti-RedHat rants elsewhere. At the very least they're off topic here. Cheers, aj, who personally thinks they're also misguided, baseless, offensive, destructive and generally obnoxious. -- 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 pgpJfQtlLPvjX.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
[Do we really have to spam everyone like this? Does everyone interested read the lists?] On Mon, Dec 06, 1999 at 01:56:51AM -0500, Caspian wrote: On Mon, 6 Dec 1999, Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote: On Sun, Dec 05, 1999 at 09:13:17AM -0700, Richard Stallman wrote: What does it mean to make a new GNU/Linux distro that is more user-friendly and entirely free? How would it differ from Debian? [...] I see three other reasons to eventually fork : [...] I'd just like to add my two cents (they're rather big...perhaps they're two dollars?) to this little discussion. [very long and gloomy diatribe deleted] Imminent death of Linux predicted, film at 11. :-) Having seen Linux since the earliest days (my first look was in the 0.1x series), and having used GNU software since before that, I'd have to say that things are looking pretty good. Sure, we've got work to do yet, and sure, we're still behind. But let's not allow ourselves to put down our accomplishments up till now. There seems to be this persistent myth that Windows is so much better than the Linuxes in the ease-of-use department. As a person who supports an NT network at the day job, I can tell you that Windows is equally bewildering to the computer-illiterate (not to mention the computer-phobic). Windows is better than the current crop of Linux desktops at some things; Linux, on the other hand, is better at others. No one seems to be willing to recognize this, because we all seem to have been raised on something else, and anything new still has that foreign and unfamiliar ring to it. We grok Windows, if you will. Because of this, we believe the lie that Windows sets the standard for ease of use. I've heard several stories about people who have given their computer-illiterate parents a computer with KDE or GNOME, and found that they took to it quite well, and still prefer it to Windows. Properly set up, Linux can be quite easy. And it's only getting easier. I'm setting up a new computer for my mom. I'm going to give her Debian, with a nice GNOME desktop, the right applets and icons in easy-to-click places, and that legendary stability and ease of remote administration. This year, that will likely have to include a few proprietary apps (Netscape, StarOffice/WP/Applix). By next year, maybe Mozilla, AbiWord, and Gnumeric will be up to the level where they can replace their closed cousins. But even now, she's a lot more free than she would be with Windows and Word, and she'll likely be happier, too, about doing without the glitches and inconsistencies in Windows. Ultimately, Linux and GNU survived and thrived without Joe Sixpack. If we fail in providing a good GUI for him, I'm sure we'll continue the same way we always have. But we've been doing good so far. Why give up now?
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
Folks, I don't think we have to evaluate Linux _relative_to_windows_ when we talk about user-friendliness. It is sufficient to look at Linux and realize that there is much that could be improved and would make the naive' user's life easier without making life more difficult for the rest of us. Thanks Bruce
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
On Tue, 7 Dec 1999, Jeff Licquia wrote: [Do we really have to spam everyone like this? Does everyone interested read the lists?] I fear that the free software movement is doomed if people don't carefully consider the things which I've brought up. Don't shoot the messenger. There seems to be this persistent myth that Windows is so much better than the Linuxes in the ease-of-use department. As a person who People are -afraid- of Linux. Not Joe Sixpack. Highly intelligent people. Two of my closest friends are both National Merit Scholars with off-the-charts IQs-- one is majoring in the hard sciences and the other-- well, he changes majors approximately every other week. These are _NOT_ dumb people. They get frustrated with Linux. _VERY_ frustrated. Winduh comes preloaded on virtually every x86 box out there, and certainly every x86 box that the Joe Sixpacks of the world have. Read carefully: UNLESS WE MAKE IT POSSIBLE FOR THESE PEOPLE TO INSTALL AND RUN LINUX *ON THEIR OWN*, they will never switch. And as long as they refuse to switch, the open source people will continue to worm their way into GNU/Linux turf-- both traditional turf, e.g. servers and hard-core hackers' machines, and potential turf, e.g. the desktop world. They will continue, year after year, to push ideas and companies that stray further and further from the core beliefs of the free software movement. Pretty soon, Corel will buy Red Hat will buy Caldera will buy Mandrake, and we'll be facing a mighty Linuxsoft Corporation. They may still be calling what they do Open Source(TM) by that point, but it will be clear to all observers with more than six brain cells to rub together that the Linux (GNU may or may not be a part of the picture) world has magically morphed, over the course of three or five or seven or ten or even twenty years, into something exactly like that which preceded it-- the proprietary software world. And then, we will know that the war has been lost. We need a better GUI. We need a better installer. We need a 100% free distribution. We need this done right, and we need this -now-. Or pretty soon, Linus Torvalds and Richard Stallman will be historical footnotes, while CEOs who've never in their lives written a line of code will be the major names in the (no longer GNU/)Linux arena. Just look at the current trends, and apply simple extrapolation. The tide is turning against us. The entire GNU/Linux world is falling prey to the same exacty sort of commercial greed that so infuriated RMS several decades ago in the mainstream software world. Now it's starting to infuriate me. --Caspian -- = 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: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
On Tue, 7 Dec 1999, Bruce Perens wrote: Folks, I don't think we have to evaluate Linux _relative_to_windows_ when we talk about user-friendliness. It is sufficient to look at Linux and realize that there is much that could be improved and would make the naive' user's life easier without making life more difficult for the rest of us. The relative to Windows bit isn't the important part, but it does matter. The important thing is merely to get a system that Joe Sixpack can use. However, the sad truth is that at this point in time, Joe Sixpack is also Joe WinIdiot. Unless something looks like an attractive __alternative to Windows__-- for that is precisely how Joe WinIdiot will view anything !Windows-- he will not switch. So, in this particular world that we live in, the only way GNU/Linux will even -get- into the naive users' lives is by using Windows as a yardstick. That's just the way things go. (As a side-note-- look at what the commercial GNU/Linux dists that are targeted at desktop users are doing. They're impersonating Windows! There's a reason.) I don't like Windows and I don't like using it as a yardstick. But unless we want to lose the war to the profiteers, we're going to have to act now to create a 100% (or as -damned- close as humanly possible) free-software GNU/Linux dist that WinIdiots will like. As for the help naive users without hurting the rest of us bit-- yeah, of course. We should look for ways to accommodate all. But there are always ways to add user-friendliness without screwing real hackers if one's clever enough, so that doesn't negate the very real need to take immediate action towards making 100% free GNU/Linux systems feasible for Joe Sixpack, as well as J. Random Hacker. Thanks Bruce -- = 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 ]
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) You can read gifs freely. Writing them is claimed to violate a patent which is held by two seperate companies (an impossibility supposedly..) -- - Joseph Carter GnuPG public key: 1024D/DCF9DAB3, 2048g/3F9C2A43 - [EMAIL PROTECTED] 20F6 2261 F185 7A3E 79FC 44F9 8FF7 D7A3 DCF9 DAB3 -- MFGolfBal rit/ara: There's something really demented about UNIX underwear... pgp6ZMASsgvLQ.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
On Wed, 8 Dec 1999, Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote: On Tue, Dec 07, 1999 at 12:56:58PM -0700, Richard Stallman wrote: I thought rather about a set of tools that put together will make a web browser. This will be : That sounds like the Unix design approach. I tend to think that this approach would be more work, and would result in something not as easy to use. Will be surely very easy. User wont even notice how it is built. Only internal design will be completely against Netscape's. Even MS went in direction Im suggesting, so the have better browser than Netscape has. Modulization means: I'm sorry to burst a bubble, but I don't think you've done much research, Tomasz. There are many (more than a dozen) browser projects out there. Almost all of them are based on the principle you outline; which is no surprise, what you're saying is just common sense, especially since we're in the position to learn from netscape's mistakes. Even mozilla is modular. Check out mnemonic, for example. www.mnemonic.org. Jules /+---+-\ | Jelibean aka | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | 6 Evelyn Rd| | Jules aka | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | Richmond, Surrey | | Julian Bean | [EMAIL PROTECTED]| TW9 2TF *UK* | ++---+-+ | War doesn't demonstrate who's right... just who's left. | | When privacy is outlawed... only the outlaws have privacy. | \--/
Re: The end of GIF format [was : Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL ]
On Fri, Dec 03, 1999 at 09:50:43AM -0800, Joseph Carter wrote: 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) You can read gifs freely. Writing them is claimed to violate a patent which is held by two seperate companies (an impossibility supposedly..) This program generates pictures. Current version : X, ppm, gif Patched: X, ppm, png, jpeg Author told me it is for non-com-use-only due to Uninys patent only.
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
My 2 cents: If you want it easier for newibes or you want a nice GUI. Consider the following 1.) Find people argee about having newbie utils and have time. Debian may be hard, but I am certain that most of the people the work on it have lives and work as much as they can you need more people that aren't already working on something. Let debian create most of the substance, and keep things going. 2.) Create a new set of projects to solve the problems. You don't have to fork, except if some won't let you become developer and they won't let you take up space with a experimental destribution. 3.) Write interfaces for utilities -- good back end programmers are not necessarily good GUI people. visa versa. Plus some people like command prompts. e.g: Apt still needs a good X gui right? 4.) If you want a new help system, make one that will interpret (or compile) the help from info files. 5.) For a GUI download the gnome source code. You do want a GUI environment right? See how it does things and come up with something new, or get your optimization people on it and fix it. Bit by bit. I'd say let GTK and GNOME worry about designing it on large scale, and then someone can go back through just looking at code and tweak it like hell. 6.) Release it as GPL As long as you don't heavily get into replacing base utilities with a 'without choice' vastly different program, but instead add to them, there shouldn't be any reason why the changes won't be incorporated back into Debian. The only problem I see is getting offically recognized by Debian since new-maintainer appears SCREWED. Also, if there is some unforseen political reason within Debian you may have to creat a patch distribution for debian. If you didn't change the operating dynamics in adding to debian. You will only have to store your new programs and add a couple lines to apt-source. If you want to require packages and create defaults, use a meta package of many depends. If you think I'm being anal, feel free to enlist my help, I not starting any projects right now because I don't have enough time, but to looking at code, or writing a bit here and there is do-able. -- Philip Thiem /---/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] /---/ Pass on the GAS get NASM instead Computer Science Mathematics Undergraduate @ UM-Rolla Interests: Security, Operating Systems, Numerical Computing, Algorithm Analysis, Discrete/Linear/Modern Algebra,
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
I thought rather about a set of tools that put together will make a web browser. This will be : That sounds like the Unix design approach. I tend to think that this approach would be more work, and would result in something not as easy to use. Part I dont know how will be done is java script. Anyone has some ideas ? Netscape has released a Javascript interpreter under a license which is the disjunction of NPL and GNU GPL. We can use that.
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
On Tue, 7 Dec 1999, Joey Hess wrote: Caspian wrote: In most cases, I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that those who buy modern 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) 99.9% FUD. Red Hat includes exactly one non-free component that I know of: I think that FUD is deserved, when directed against those who have been-- and will continue to be-- leading the GNU/Linux world away from a priority on freedom and quality, and towards a priority on money... netscape. They're doing a lot better now than they were 2 years ago. (Though I still don't condone them weaseling netscape in there.) Red Hat Linux: * Sells Red Hat Motif (non-free-- in fact, binary only) * Sells multiple Red Hat variants with various secure programs (e.g. SSL Web servers) included-- almost all of which are almost certainly non-free (can someone confirm this?) * Does not segregate free from non-free (as Debian does) * Has ads for non-free, highly proprietary, *expensive* binary-only programs on its site (e.g. Code Warrior for Red Hat Linux) * Does not discourage people from naming their programs X for Red Hat Linux, showing that they are going to do nothing to convince people that no, Red Hat is -not- the only GNU/Linux dist out there, and no, you shouldn't target your programs -only- at Red Hat (I've seen many programs nowadays that will work just fine with the versions of libs-- particularly glib and gtk+-- included with the latest version of Red Hat, but CHOKE on slink, which, while it's not the newest thing in the world, should certainly be able to run any new program out there. However, there's a growing attitude that well, if you don't have the latest Red Hat, too bad. Red Hat is not seeking to educate their customers on this issue-- showing that their priority is not to make the GNU/Linux world a better and more open place, but to make their pockets fuller. -- see shy jo -- = 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: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
Caspian wrote: In most cases, I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that those who buy modern 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) 99.9% FUD. Red Hat includes exactly one non-free component that I know of: netscape. They're doing a lot better now than they were 2 years ago. (Though I still don't condone them weaseling netscape in there.) -- see shy jo
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
*** REPLY SEPARATOR *** On 99-12-05 at 20:46 Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote: On Sat, Dec 04, 1999 at 10:18:33PM -0500, Jeff Teunissen wrote: Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote: Are licenses where reverse engeneering is prohibiten invalid ? Yes, because reverse-engineering is strictly legal. Yes, even in the USA. It's an interesting situation, because in countries like Poland you are explicitly granted with the right to deasemble the program, even if ELA states the opposite - the Polish law overrules it.
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
On Sat, Dec 04, 1999 at 10:18:33PM -0500, Jeff Teunissen wrote: Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote: Are licenses where reverse engeneering is prohibiten invalid ? Yes, because reverse-engineering is strictly legal. Yes, even in the USA. And does it make the whole license void ? part of license where they say you cant r/eng ? doesnt change anything else in the license ? can some lawer confirm it ?
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
On Sun, Dec 05, 1999 at 09:13:17AM -0700, Richard Stallman wrote: What does it mean to make a new GNU/Linux distro that is more user-friendly and entirely free? How would it differ from Debian? It seems to me it would differ in two ways: 1. It is entirely free. You could achieve this starting with Debian by eliminating the non-free and contrib categories (the definitions may need a little adjustment), getting rid of some links to them, changing some HOWTOs, and a few other things. 2. It has some additional software for user-friendliness. If you think about it, #1 is basically equivalent to what I've been asking people to do since about a year ago: to make *in effect* a version of Debian which has only the free software (main and non-us). But instead of forking the whole distro, I've proposed doing this by making some structural and configuration changes to make it possible for these two versions of GNU/Linux to share almost everything. That seems both more efficient and more friendly. As for #2, that software needs to be written, but Debian would gladly accept it I am sure. So there is no need to fork, no need to make a separate project--not for reason #1 and not for reason #2. I see three other reasons to eventually fork : 1. I cant recommond Debian to GNU/Linux newbies. So I have to reccomend them some not-100% free distro. The whole Debian is too difficult to change. It *may* be easier to fork. 2. Debian's packages quality is very inequal. We cant force Debian to make Quality Standards, and if maintainer of some package dont think this is a bug, we can do nothing. 3. Debian is going out very rarely. Potato and half is very good idea (is anyone sure woody will be in 2000 ? Im not) Our possible distro have to be .deb compatible. And will probably share also most of base and many other packages.
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote: On Sat, Dec 04, 1999 at 10:18:33PM -0500, Jeff Teunissen wrote: Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote: Are licenses where reverse engeneering is prohibiten invalid ? Yes, because reverse-engineering is strictly legal. Yes, even in the USA. And does it make the whole license void ? part of license where they say you cant r/eng ? doesnt change anything else in the license ? can some lawer confirm it ? Only the portions of a contract (what a license is considered) that are not legally permitted are not binding. Even if a portion of a contract is invalid, the rest of the contract still applies. This is why it is very difficult to destroy an agreement in a civil matter, but it is a simpler thing to _weaken_ it. Also note, reverse-engineering is only reverse-engineering if you don't violate copyright law to do it. You can't simply copy something wholesale and call it reverse-engineering. You can study an implementation and use what you learned from that study to create something that does the same thing in a different way, but you may not outright steal the implementation for your own ends and call it your own. An example case would be the patent on the MP3 compression algorithm. If there is only one way to create an MP3 stream, then there's no way around it. If, however, there is another way to create an MP3 that does not use the patented algorithm (not even an obfuscated or modified version of it), then you have found a legal way around it through reverse-engineering. -- | Jeff Teunissen -=- Pres., Dusk To Dawn Computing -- d2deek at pmail.net | Disclaimer: I am my employer, so anything I say goes for me too. :) | dusknet.dhis.net is a black hole for email.Use my Reply-To address. | Specializing in Debian GNU/Linux http://dusknet.dhis.net/~deek/
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
On Mon, 6 Dec 1999, Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote: On Sun, Dec 05, 1999 at 09:13:17AM -0700, Richard Stallman wrote: What does it mean to make a new GNU/Linux distro that is more user-friendly and entirely free? How would it differ from Debian? It seems to me it would differ in two ways: 1. It is entirely free. You could achieve this starting with Debian by eliminating the non-free and contrib categories (the definitions may need a little adjustment), getting rid of some links to them, changing some HOWTOs, and a few other things. 2. It has some additional software for user-friendliness. If you think about it, #1 is basically equivalent to what I've been asking people to do since about a year ago: to make *in effect* a version of Debian which has only the free software (main and non-us). But instead of forking the whole distro, I've proposed doing this by making some structural and configuration changes to make it possible for these two versions of GNU/Linux to share almost everything. That seems both more efficient and more friendly. As for #2, that software needs to be written, but Debian would gladly accept it I am sure. So there is no need to fork, no need to make a separate project--not for reason #1 and not for reason #2. I see three other reasons to eventually fork : 1. I cant recommond Debian to GNU/Linux newbies. So I have to reccomend them some not-100% free distro. The whole Debian is too difficult to change. It *may* be easier to fork. Yes. See my comments below. 2. Debian's packages quality is very inequal. We cant force Debian to make Quality Standards, and if maintainer of some package dont think this is a bug, we can do nothing. 3. Debian is going out very rarely. Potato and half is very good idea (is anyone sure woody will be in 2000 ? Im not) Our possible distro have to be .deb compatible. And will probably share also most of base and many other packages. I'd just like to add my two cents (they're rather big...perhaps they're two dollars?) to this little discussion. There's a problem with the GNU/Linux world. Namely-- I can grok it. You guys can grok it. Most people with a brain and enough time on their hands-- and the desire to a learn a better way of computing-- can grok it. However, the vast majority of people out there either CAN'T (for lack of intelligence) or WON'T (for lack of desire to expend the requisite energy, -which is significant-) grok it. Many people simply feel paralyzed when they're not in front of a GUI. Not even just a windowing system like X-- but a _GUI_. They _need_ a desktop metaphor. They _need_ drag 'n' drop. They _need_, in short, a perfect little Mac-ish WIMP interface-- or they can't use the computer. It's not user-friendly. It's too hard. It's scary. It's ugly. And they don't touch it. What we have in the GNU/Linux world is a phenomenal set of tools, available to be freely used and modified. But, as of just yet, there is really no way to convince Joe Average to use the stuff. Most people can't simply go from a Windows/MacOS world to the Unix world without extreme, trying efforts. There's just no way to wean themselves slowly off of the GUIish monolithic thought patterns (as opposed to modular thought, as things are in Unix-- whereas Windows people expect OSes to be made up of a few HUGE monolithic apps that each perform a billion functions, and if you can't find the function you want on the menus, well, it's just not there, Unix people expect OSes to be like pails of Legos out of which you can build anything-- the shell script/Perl or even C metaphor, in other words) and onto Unix's more console-oriented, modular thought. Perhaps even more importantly, while free software has created programs -better- than the equivalent proprietary software in many areas of the hacker-oriented world of programming languages, compilers, OS kernels and the like, there is no free software GUI system that's better than the drek they put out in the Windoze or MacOS worlds. It's a sad fact, and one that doesn't bode well for the future of the free software philosophy. Like it or not-- and I know I don't-- most people are not only selfish, but lazy. They will only switch to-- and advocate-- free software if they are shown that it's not just something that a bunch of hackers (which many of them think means computer criminal) can benefit from, but them-- the Joe WinIdiots of the world-- as well, and (and this part is critical!) without a massive learning curve involved. User-friendliness is NOT something that can be merely grafted onto an existing system through the addition of a few programs. It's something that must be worked into every package in the system. Why should only geeks be able to even FATHOM something like grep? Where is the _Grep for Smarties_-- the guide that explains things like grep in no-nonsense language to anyone with a brain, but little to no knowledge of computer terminology like
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
On Fri, Dec 03, 1999 at 07:41:47AM -0500, Caspian wrote: 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. Set a mailing list. Now it is good time for it.
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
On Sat, Dec 04, 1999 at 03:29:29AM -0500, Caspian wrote: I'm a crack Perl and PHP hacker. I can do the various things on the Web that are necessary. I can also host the domain if necessary. :) As perl hacker you should make free replacements of all these little non-free tools that still exists somehow in centre of free world ps: Im making replacemnts of html2latex and wwwtable now They are both in beta state now. Still searching for testers
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
On Sat, Dec 04, 1999 at 09:08:21PM -0500, Caspian wrote: On Sun, 5 Dec 1999, Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote: On Sat, Dec 04, 1999 at 03:29:29AM -0500, Caspian wrote: I'm a crack Perl and PHP hacker. I can do the various things on the Web that are necessary. I can also host the domain if necessary. :) As perl hacker you should make free replacements of all these little non-free tools that still exists somehow in centre of free world Such as? :) A list of such things (things that would be feasible to replace with clever Perl work) would be much appreciated.. I take all these ideas from /var/state/apt/lists/ftp*non-free* :) There might be some bugs on this task list, this is only fast look-thru Marked positions are the most prpmising The task list (not all for you, for anyone who wants and can) : CKJV: (CKJV is all very non-free, should be changed) a2ps-perl-ja *tex extensions: (some will be simple, others not) abc2mtex ( !!! ) arabtex lgrind opustex musixtex (+ -doc) tools/frontends : (the main work) archie xarchie btoa ( !!! ) calctool - not certainly perl but should be simple chktex ( !!! ) need investigation : clustalw frotz imgstar lclint (+ -doc) mmm rman treetool not-in-perl : mp3asm tgif editors : (someone should make free similar ones, not-in-perl) axe nedit patent problems (not-in-perl) : whirlgif - make other-format-servicing alternative semi-done : html2latex wwwtable xearth important mistake of packages' author : xevil changed license and is not free. it was. we should back to last free version ps: Im making replacemnts of html2latex and wwwtable now They are both in beta state now. Still searching for testers What does wwwtable do? :) Makes tables of something? you give some html with tag wwwtable inside and it converts it to html with normal html table, not touch the rest of file: ex: ... wwwtable border (1,1) bgcolor=red foo (1,2) bgcolor=blue bar (1,3) bgcolor=green baz (2,*) quux (3,1) colspan=2 muux /wwtable ... to exactly what it should nice thing the only problem I had with html was guessing which in cell this text will be placed
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
What does it mean to make a new GNU/Linux distro that is more user-friendly and entirely free? How would it differ from Debian? It seems to me it would differ in two ways: 1. It is entirely free. You could achieve this starting with Debian by eliminating the non-free and contrib categories (the definitions may need a little adjustment), getting rid of some links to them, changing some HOWTOs, and a few other things. 2. It has some additional software for user-friendliness. If you think about it, #1 is basically equivalent to what I've been asking people to do since about a year ago: to make *in effect* a version of Debian which has only the free software (main and non-us). But instead of forking the whole distro, I've proposed doing this by making some structural and configuration changes to make it possible for these two versions of GNU/Linux to share almost everything. That seems both more efficient and more friendly. As for #2, that software needs to be written, but Debian would gladly accept it I am sure. So there is no need to fork, no need to make a separate project--not for reason #1 and not for reason #2.
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
You may license what end-user will do with the code however you want. I think you have been misinformed. This cannot legally be done in the US under copyright law (except, since one year ago, in programs with license managers whose source is not available). If you could do impose such restrictions, they would make the program non-free.
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
I like it ! OK ! First thread : I started to make debian more free I made today wwwtable-compatibile program (freetable) so one program less will be in non-free. Does anyone want to try it ? Its perl, 6kB, GPL, 90%-wwwtable-compatibile, and when it will be able to embed one table into other we can package it and have debian a little more free To everyone: Now I need some testers If you use wwwtable, please contact me. [this cc to -devel is due to this thread dont continue it when you will be talking about some other thread of this mail] Second thread : xearth will be probably 100%-free when author will have time to apply my patches (he promised) And the third thread : we need a very good task list for our highest-quality-ever 100%-free distro who wants to start it ? On Fri, Dec 03, 1999 at 07:41:47AM -0500, Caspian wrote: 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.
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
you can not sublicense, mix with non-free code neither by libs nor corba If copyright does consider this a single combined work, then the GPL itself has this consequence. If copyright law does not consider combining with CORBA to make a single combined work, then a copyright-based license cannot validly contain this criterion. Either way, there is no need to add this condition. you have to include the note `This distro is partially made of free software' in all ads of distros mixed from either free and non-free code Since the required sentence does not contain the author's name, this does not cause the same practical problems as the BSD advertising clause. However, it shares with the BSD advertising clause the characteristic of being probably unenforcible under US law (though it may be enforcible in some countries). Also, it would be incompatible with the GPL.
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
On Fri, Dec 03, 1999 at 11:21:54AM -0800, Bruce Perens wrote: So, why is it that they can not distribute the software to minors but _can_ accept software from minors and redistribute it? Because their hypocrites. Because they don't understand the law. Because they understand the law better than you do. Because they have other reasons that they haven't explained. Pick one. Make up your own. Whatever. Unless you really want to insist that no one can distribute software written by minors, they're not doing anything remotely illegal or in violation of the GPL or whatever here. Give it a rest. 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 pgpmQFbo6zAby.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
Richard Stallman [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: you have to include the note `This distro is partially made of free software' in all ads of distros mixed from either free and non-free code Since the required sentence does not contain the author's name, this does not cause the same practical problems as the BSD advertising clause. I think the basic practical problem remains: if I make a cdrom with a gazillion different tarballs, most of which are free except that they require some specific language to be included in all marketing of my disk---but DIFFERENT language for each package---it might be difficult for me to market that cdrom at all, because 3 square feet of those blurbs in 5-point print end up being rather expensive in most newspapers and magazines. And my potential customers would probably not bother reading my ad at all if it looks like that. -- Henning Makholm Guldnålen er hvis man har en *bror* som er *datalog*.
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
On Sat, Dec 04, 1999 at 02:40:28AM +0100, Henning Makholm wrote: Richard Stallman [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: you have to include the note `This distro is partially made of free software' in all ads of distros mixed from either free and non-free code Since the required sentence does not contain the author's name, this does not cause the same practical problems as the BSD advertising clause. I think the basic practical problem remains: if I make a cdrom with a gazillion different tarballs, most of which are free except that they require some specific language to be included in all marketing of my disk---but DIFFERENT language for each package---it might be difficult for me to market that cdrom at all, because 3 square feet of those blurbs in 5-point print end up being rather expensive in most newspapers and magazines. And my potential customers would probably not bother reading my ad at all if it looks like that. And that is why I made dfsg changing proposal and reported policy wishlist bug But nobody's interested
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
On Fri, Dec 03, 1999 at 06:21:54PM -0700, Richard Stallman wrote: you can not sublicense, mix with non-free code neither by libs nor corba If copyright does consider this a single combined work, then the GPL itself has this consequence. If copyright law does not consider combining with CORBA to make a single combined work, then a copyright-based license cannot validly contain this criterion. You may license what end-user will do with the code however you want. You may license that this code cant be used on Fridays for example. Either way, there is no need to add this condition. you have to include the note `This distro is partially made of free software' in all ads of distros mixed from either free and non-free code Since the required sentence does not contain the author's name, this does not cause the same practical problems as the BSD advertising clause. This is only to be sure that they will tell their users about that some of it is really free, its not next MS-Windows, nor MacOS However, it shares with the BSD advertising clause the characteristic of being probably unenforcible under US law (though it may be enforcible in some countries). Also, it would be incompatible with the GPL. I only want this EXAMPLE to be the-most aggresively-free DFSG-compatibile license I DO NOT like this license Evyrything I have ever written was GPL, Artistic or pd The biggest problem with GPL is that it is completely unreadable ;)
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
Hi, Tomasz == Tomasz Wegrzanowski [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Tomasz And that is why I made dfsg changing proposal and reported Tomasz policy wishlist bug But nobody's interested Possibly because the policy list is the wrong forum for this proposal. Any such effort needs involve the full constitutional process. Mind you, I would oppose any effort to change the DFSG without considerably more justification than I have seen so far in the -policy list. manoj -- It is the creationists who blasphemously are claiming that God is cheating us in a stupid way. Nienhuys Manoj Srivastava [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/ 1024R/C7261095 fingerprint = CB D9 F4 12 68 07 E4 05 CC 2D 27 12 1D F5 E8 6E 1024D/BF24424C fingerprint = 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B 924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C
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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
On Wed, 1 Dec 1999, Joseph Carter wrote: I think imposing additional conditions on the use of software downloaded from Corel in fact contaminates EVERY license. And while some of the It does, but Corel isn't following the DFSG, so I don't think it matters. by Corel to their licenses, I am quite convinced that the GPL forbids additional restrictions placed on how GPL'd software may be used and by whom. It does, but that isn't what Corel is doing. The GPL forbids you from preventing *others* from distributing the software. It does not require you to distribute the software to whoever wants it. If I have GPL software in my possession and I don't want to give it to you, fine. The reason doesn't matter - either you won't pay the fee, you're under 18, you don't want the software bundled with it, you don't have a beard, whatever. That is what Corel is doing, and it's allowable under the GPL. It's not traditional behavior, but it's within the terms of the license. Corel just can't tell their customers what they can do with the GPL software once they have a copy. And they haven't. Whether they have an ethical responsibility to tell their customers about this, and whether they have fulfilled that, if applicable, is subject to debate.
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
AJ: If you want to download something from their site, you have to do what they tell you to. They're not adding restrictions on what you can do with Don't forget that they still have obligations to us, regarding our software licenses. It's still not clear to me that one isn't being broken here. Bruce
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
infolved did bring up my original objection---that removing the suggests will make it harder for people to find things like gimp-nonfree (which is IMO badly named considering that the contents of the package are completely free--unless you live in the drain-bamaged US where LZW is patented and Unisys wants to make a fast buck off GIF files..) 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.
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
On Wed, Dec 01, 1999 at 11:24:52PM -0700, Richard Stallman wrote: infolved did bring up my original objection---that removing the suggests will make it harder for people to find things like gimp-nonfree (which is IMO badly named considering that the contents of the package are completely free--unless you live in the drain-bamaged US where LZW is patented and Unisys wants to make a fast buck off GIF files..) 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. I think such a change in classification would require a change in Debian policy. I, for one, endorse such a change. However, I can't speak for all of Debian. -- Brian Ristuccia [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
On Wed, Dec 01, 1999 at 10:33:16PM -0800, Bruce Perens wrote: AJ: If you want to download something from their site, you have to do what they tell you to. They're not adding restrictions on what you can do with Don't forget that they still have obligations to us, regarding our software licenses. It's still not clear to me that one isn't being broken here. What sort of obligation? It'd be nice if they distributed it to everyone, regardless of age, yes. They're not required to, though, because that'd be a bit obnoxious on our parts. It'd be nice if they'd get around to contributing all their enhancements back to Debian. That's a bit tricky since new-maintainers doesn't seem to have reopened yet, and it requires doing stuff that's not going to help their bottomline in any particularly obvious way. It'd be nice if they'd send their lawyers to this list so that they can explain wtf is going on, and give us some helpful comments without having to add `IANAL' or `I am a lawyer, but this isn't legal advice' like the rest of us do. It'd be nice if they'd read some of the posts to make sure their in touch with what they're meant to be doing too, considering this is probably just as new and weird from a legal perspective as from a software engineering or economical perspective. Which is to say that for sure, they could be more chummy with us. But I for one can't see anything even remotely wrong with what they're actually doing. But all this talk of how much Corel sucks and how they're conspiring amongst themselves to destroy us is just getting a bit ridiculous. BTW, ``It's still not clear to me that one isn't being broken here.'' and the other similar sentiments elsewhere from this thread just smacks of some weird `guilty until proven innocent' postulate for big companies. Sure, I can't prove them innocent, because I'm not an IP law expert. But that ain't my job, either. 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 pgp7Z7SLMPpQd.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
From: Anthony Towns aj@azure.humbug.org.au What sort of obligation? To comply with the licenses of our software. It'd be nice if they'd get around to contributing all their enhancements back to Debian. That's a bit tricky since new-maintainers doesn't seem to have reopened yet, and it requires doing stuff that's not going to help their bottomline in any particularly obvious way. Actually, I think all of their source code is on their FTP site. I don't think it's necessary for them to become Debian maintainers, they only need to make the code available. It'd be nice if they'd send their lawyers to this list so that they can explain wtf is going on It's called too much CYA. I discussed the CYA issue with attorneys today at a licensing meeting. The problem is that there is no case law concerning Open Source licensing, and everybody has their own concept of CYA because they have no idea what _will_ happen. But this one is going over the top. If they want to restrict to over 18, they should remove all of the code written by minors from Debian before they distribute it. Bruce
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
On Wed, 1 Dec 1999, Bruce Perens wrote: From: Caspian [EMAIL PROTECTED] I'd just like to state that if anyone out there is interested in making a completely, utterly free software GNU/Linux dist, with a license that prohibits putzen like those at Corel from pulling the sort of nonsense they've been pulling, (i.e. a license even stricter than Debian's) I'd love to help out. OBLIGATORY THIS IS NOT FOR SLASHDOT NOTICE. Hee! Mr. Caspian, I have an even better idea. Let's do a commercial Debian distribution the right way. We can show them by example. Bruce 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... :) -- = 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: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
In reference to: I'd just like to state that if anyone out there is interested in making a completely, utterly free software GNU/Linux dist, with a license that prohibits putzen like those at Corel from pulling the sort of nonsense they've been pulling, I wrote: If you don't own the code that is GPLed, you can't relicense it under a different license. How could you then use `a license that prohibits putzen like those at Corel from pulling the sort of nonsense they've been pulling' if the GPL allows it? 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. If it's a matter of relicensing GPLed code to forbid the use of EULAs, at all, then no, it's presumably not allowed. :-) You misunderstand what I meant. Even if your `EULA for the distribution' said corporations weren't allowed to download it, nothing could prevent a company from obtaining the GPL components of the distribution from a third party and then `pulling the sort of nonsense they've been pulling' (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) Peter
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
On Wed, Dec 01, 1999 at 07:28:06AM -0500, Caspian wrote: Maybe at this point, what's really needed is something -stricter- than the GPL. Companies are already starting to walk all over the spirit-- if not the letter-- of the GPL...just one idea, eh? The strictiest still-DFSG-compatible licence I can invent is : 0: you can use, modify, sell and redistribute both code and binary in both modified and original form you can not sublicense, mix with non-free code neither by libs nor corba you have to preserve this note on all copies of package you have to include the note `This distro is partially made of free software' in all ads of distros mixed from either free and non-free code 7: line 3 : closes corba hole line 5-6 : old-BSD is DFSG-ok so it is either Do you like it ? ( I dont ) counterproposal : --- policy.sgml.old Fri Nov 5 00:46:28 1999 +++ policy.sgml Thu Dec 2 15:22:47 1999 @@ -228,6 +228,16 @@ other fee for such sale. /p /item + tagFree Advertising + /tag + item + p + The license of a Debian component may restrict some + kind of advertisement ( references to author ) + but can not force inclusion of any text nor any + other element in it's advertisement. + /p + /item tagSource Code /tag item
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
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. Crap like Corel's adults-only clause is only the tip of the iceberg. 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, 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. In most cases, I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that those who buy modern 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 the Microsoft OSes they were buying a year ago) they have no freedom to alter or redistribute any parts of their OS, so they don't even try. Right now, the end-users have significant freedoms with regard to the software they are running-- the various commercial GNU/Linux dists-- and I doubt that even more than 5% of them can even identify those freedoms. 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. In short, this is what I see happening. Companies who care about money a lot, and about freedom not at all, are taking free software and making OSes out of it. As time goes on, they are replacing bits and pieces of it with non-free code, (i.e. fdisk and FIPS with Partition Magic in Caldera's case) and/or supplementing the free stuff with non-free stuff (i.e. the addition of non-free word processors and Web browsers, and the inclusion of such programs in the base/default installation, without even clearly marking them as non-free.) The crowd that these people are selling to are completely unaware of what free software is-- so they 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. 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. By the time anyone outside the ivory tower of computer geekdom realizes what's going on, I'd wager that these companies will have replaced numerous core elements of their OSes with non-free code. At this rate, I'm fully expecting a vast network of licensing agreements to spring up. Some commercial entity will come out with a nice GCC replacement that's completely non-free, then every commercial Linux dist will license it... and this process will repeat for other pieces of the GNU/Linux system until virtually every major component of the canonical GNU/Linux dist is no longer GNU at all. Or, put another way, I don't trust the commercial software world. I fear that either they're going to contaminate the freedom of free software packages, or they're going to replace them wholesale, but either way, the way in which companies have been handling their move to Linux has demonstrated that they're in the free software world only because they feel that it might make them money. Their true preference is for software to be non-free, their sole interest is money, and antics like Corel's make both of these facts abundantly clear. Or, put more simply still-- the GPL acted as a deterrant only until the commercial world finally was pressured to enter the GNU world. Now that they have done so, they're finding ever more clever ways to create less- and less-free distributions from mostly GPLd code. The GPL is no longer serving as a convenient deterrent to keep money-loving hoarders out of the community formerly occupied chiefly by computer-loving hackers and free software coders. Now, they're invading our turf. The GPL is no longer stopping them. They're ignoring it in some cases and avoiding it in others, but in any case significant inroads have been made to eradicate the free software world, and those creating those inroads have come from two sides-- namely, from the ESR-esque Open Source people, who are willing to sell out on one, many or all of the principles behind free software in the interest of money (ESR even -admits- on opensource.org that what the Open Source Initiative is is a marketing campaign for free software. He literally admits this! It's not a philosophical movement at all, but a marketing campaign.), on one side, and from the traditional post-PDP-era, pre-GNU/Linux-era proprietary software world on the
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
On Dec 02, Caspian wrote: 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) The GNU/Linux term has relatively little currency outside Debian. It never has been GNU/Linux to more than a few people. I doubt you see it much except self-consciously or in the phrase Debian GNU/Linux (which gets butchered as Debian/GNU Linux half the time anyway...) In any event, my personal opinion is that Corel has the right to decide who to sell or give their software to, and who not to. They may have phrased it badly, but that's what their intent is. In any event, that decision disproves your assertion that all Corel cares about is money, since obviously they'd make more money if they were selling to minors. Under the GPL, they are only obligated not to make the you can't sell to minors restriction viral. It also seems we're venturing into debian-project territory here 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: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
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. -- Don Marti | Free the web. Burn all GIFs. [EMAIL PROTECTED] | You can't spell software patent reform http://zgp.org/~dmarti | without U. whois DM683 | http://burnallgifs.org/
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
On Thu, 2 Dec 1999, Don Marti wrote: But if you must have a category for free software to create a GIF, neither non-us nor non-free seems to apply. What of the sort of thing that was used in the older (pre-PNG) releases of GD? I.e. code that generates GIF files that an ordinary GIF viewer can read, without using the LZW algorithm itself? -- Don Marti | Free the web. Burn all GIFs. [EMAIL PROTECTED] | You can't spell software patent reform http://zgp.org/~dmarti | without U. whois DM683 | http://burnallgifs.org/ -- = 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: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
It'd be nice if they'd send their lawyers to this list so that they can explain wtf is going on, and give us some helpful comments without having to add `IANAL' or `I am a lawyer, but this isn't legal advice' like the rest of us do. I'll be posting a note from our legal department here in a little while. But all this talk of how much Corel sucks and how they're conspiring amongst themselves to destroy us is just getting a bit ridiculous. It would hardly be in our best interest to destroy Debian and if we were anti-Open Source, we wouldn't have released all our distro additions as LGPL, GPL, and CPL. Erich Forler Product Development Manager Corel Linux -- The address in the headers is not the poster's real email address. Do not send private mail to the poster using your mailer's reply feature. CC's of mail to mailing lists are OK. Problem reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED]. The poster's email address is [EMAIL PROTECTED].
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
While we clearly won't agree on philosophical grounds, perhaps we're not as far apart as you might think. Your philosophical concerns are well stated here and I'd like to respond to some of your concerns as they pertain to Corel. Everyone's interested in filling their own pockets. As a publicly traded corporation and not a charity, we of course have to be profitable, but that doesn't mean we can't support the ideals of free software. These ideas don't have to be mutually exclusive. In most cases, I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that those who buy modern 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 the Microsoft OSes they were buying a year ago) they have no freedom to alter or redistribute any parts of their OS, so they don't even try. Right now, the end-users have significant freedoms with regard to the software they are running-- the various commercial GNU/Linux dists-- and I doubt that even more than 5% of them can even identify those freedoms. 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. Or in the case of Corel Linux, the download version includes one application which is non-free: Netscape. If Mozilla was up to speed in functionality and stability, which it will be hopefully soon, then this last piece could be removed. We specifically addressed this issue in our retail versions of Corel Linux. In the retail product, we include several discs. The first disc includes a mix of free and non-free applications like many other commercial distros. Since we're based on Debian, the non-free components are appropriately segregated. A second disc includes the same image as the download, is labeled Open Circulation, and a card in the box identifies what you can do with that disc. We did this so users had a disc that could be easily installed on multiple machines. As time goes on, they are replacing bits and pieces of it with non-free code, (i.e. fdisk and FIPS with Partition Magic in Caldera's case) and/or supplementing the free stuff with non-free stuff (i.e. the addition of non-free word processors and Web browsers, and the inclusion of such programs in the base/default installation, without even clearly marking them as non-free.) I think you're actually combining two issues here. Replacing free code with non free is one issue and adding in non-free applications is another. Replacing free code with non-free code is not something Corel has any interest in doing unless the free code somehow prohibited us from moving a technology forward. So far this has not happened and I don't expect it to. Adding non-free applications is a place where we'll clearly disagree. Applications like Netscape or WP get included because there are no comparable equivalents available in the free realm. Told you we wouldn't agree. ;- By the time anyone outside the ivory tower of computer geekdom realizes what's going on, I'd wager that these companies will have replaced numerous core elements of their OSes with non-free code. I can't speak for other distros but Corel has no interest in recreating functionality if it is already perfectly effective. If you look at the enhancements we've made, they are generally all focussed primarily on the user interface level and supporting that level. We aren't spending time re-building sections of low level code that already work well. This is one of the greatest synergistic effects of free software development. At this rate, I'm fully expecting a vast network of licensing agreements to spring up. Some commercial entity will come out with a nice GCC replacement that's completely non-free, then every commercial Linux dist will license it... Unless the replacement is better, there is no reason for distros to do this. Every piece that is licensed into the box costs us money. If GCC continues to be the technology leader it should face no threat from proprietary technology. One of the most basic beliefs is that the free software development produces better products. Or, put more simply still-- the GPL acted as a deterrant only until the commercial world finally was pressured to enter the GNU world. Now that they have done so, they're finding ever more clever ways to create less- and less-free distributions from mostly GPLd code. From my earlier comments in this post and an explanation I'll be posting later about the minor agreement, I don't believe Corel Linux to be less free. Replace Navigator with Mozilla and it's all free. The GPL is no longer serving as a convenient deterrent to keep money-loving hoarders out of the community formerly occupied chiefly by computer-loving hackers and free software coders. My understanding of the GPL was that is was designed to make code
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
Peter S Galbraith writes: I wrote: If you don't own the code that is GPLed, you can't relicense it under a different license. How could you then use `a license that prohibits putzen like those at Corel from pulling the sort of nonsense they've been pulling' if the GPL allows it? 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. If it's a matter of relicensing GPLed code to forbid the use of EULAs, at all, then no, it's presumably not allowed. :-) You misunderstand what I meant. Even if your `EULA for the distribution' said corporations weren't allowed to download it, nothing could prevent a company from obtaining the GPL components of the distribution from a third party and then `pulling the sort of nonsense they've been pulling' I'm sorry for the misunderstanding; that's absolutely correct. I was thinking that you were talking about a different issue. (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. -- 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
From: Joseph Carter [EMAIL PROTECTED] 9. License Must Not Contaminate Other Software You may have a point. If you have to click something that says you are 18 _before_ you download the GPL part, that's probably part of a contaminating license. But please note that my original criticism never even got to whether or not it was Open Source, I was considering whether or not other software licenses in the distribution were being violated. Note that the conflict-of-interest alert I previously sent applies to this message. And I feel like appending this isn't for slashdot to everything I write here. Thanks Bruce
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
I'd just like to state that if anyone out there is interested in making a completely, utterly free software GNU/Linux dist, with a license that prohibits putzen like those at Corel from pulling the sort of nonsense they've been pulling, (i.e. a license even stricter than Debian's) I'd love to help out. One thing I want to code is a pico clone called PiClone, and a PINE clone called (oh so creatively) PINE-Clone. I know a lot of newbies favor this software (I myself got hopelessly addicted to it way back when), and I'd love to contribute it towards the cause of an (as) un-corporate-corruptable (as possible) OS... --Caspian -- = 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: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
Caspian [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I'd just like to state that if anyone out there is interested in making a completely, utterly free software GNU/Linux dist, with a license that prohibits putzen like those at Corel from pulling the sort of nonsense they've been pulling, Note that you won't be able to include any GPLed software in your distribution if you want to make restrictions about how and when other people or corporations are allowed to redistribute it. -- Henning Makholm Hør, hvad er det egentlig der ikke kan blive ved med at gå?
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
Maybe at this point, what's really needed is something -stricter- than the GPL. Companies are already starting to walk all over the spirit-- if not the letter-- of the GPL...just one idea, eh? On 1 Dec 1999, Henning Makholm wrote: Caspian [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I'd just like to state that if anyone out there is interested in making a completely, utterly free software GNU/Linux dist, with a license that prohibits putzen like those at Corel from pulling the sort of nonsense they've been pulling, Note that you won't be able to include any GPLed software in your distribution if you want to make restrictions about how and when other people or corporations are allowed to redistribute it. -- Henning Makholm Hør, hvad er det egentlig der ikke kan blive ved med at gå? -- = 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: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Bruce Perens) writes: You may have a point. If you have to click something that says you are 18 _before_ you download the GPL part, that's probably part of a contaminating license. No, they are just selecting who *they* want to distribute the software to. You don't have to agree to not giving the copy you downloaded to a minor. There's no general rule of if you distribute to anyone you must distribute to everyone. (Personally I'd call such a rule non-free, too). -- Henning Makholm*Vi vil ha wienerbrød!*
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
On Wed, 1 Dec 1999, Joseph Carter wrote: Perhaps before suggesting that the DFSG is too lenient you should actually read it first and second figure out what exactly it allows that is too lenient. I admit I'm curious, however I'm more or less convinced by the tone of your message (and all of your messages in this thread) that what you really want is to make your distribution completely non-free by the standards set by the DFSG (and consiquently those set by the FSF too..) I'm merely suggesting that people with money (and little to nothing else) in mind are using GPLd software to do all sorts of exceedingly nasty things. Things that violate, IMHO, the spirit of the GPL, while they may not at all violate the letter. The GPL is all about openness; Corel's actions here show quite clearly that they are all about money, and openness seems to be added only as an afterthought, and perhaps not as fully as it ought to be. The fact that there's a very Microsoftian EULA to agree to, complete with age-based restriction and lots of nice legalbabble about people holding all rights to everything involved, and the fact that many other people are using free software to make things which, while they might not be non-free, are designed craftily to give the impression that they -are- non-free (witness how few people download Red Hat as opposed to buying it in a store-- I'd wager that would you take a poll of any 25,000 of 'em, at least half would believe that giving a copy of Red Hat to their friends would be 'piracy', and perhaps even more would be unable to tell the free software from the non-free software... I suppose that what I wish to see is more than just free software-- it's EXPLOITATION-free software. Software whose license is designed in such a way that makes it impossible-- or as damned difficult as possible-- to use for advancing the cause of proprietary information, and equally difficult/impossible to masquerade as proprietary information. (I.e. it would be required that all of the users' rights by the terms of said license, unaltered and unamended, be placed atop the documentation for any software derived from the original sources...) Or-- I'll be quite blunt. The free software world was gaining ground until a certain band of business-centric individuals, led by a certain man named Eric, started shifting the focus from freedom to marketing. The resulting movement, the Open Source Initiative, opened the floodgates of a new wave of company who smell money in the ever-growing ranks of GNU/Linux users, and are ready, willing, able and enthusiastic to rape the free software community for its monetary worth. Meanwhile, while Red Hat installations indiscriminately mix free and non-free software and vie with Win98 for the biggest minimum install, crashiest OS and biggest minimum RAM requirements, Corel starts disallowing kids from downloading its hot new OS, and countless other companies leech off of the work of the great free software luminaries like RMS, the ranks of those who actually care about free software's core principle-- FREEDOM-- are dwindling ever smaller, if not by raw numbers then by percentages. They are getting drowned out by a massive tidal wave of commercialism that is threatening to destroy the GNU dream and bring us to a world where rather than being overtly proprietary, a la Microsoft's software, the software that most people uses will be pseudo-open/free, but in reality have just as many (or at least -almost- as many) restrictions on its use, downloading and redistribution as traditional proprietary software. People like Corel are nibbling at the edges of what it takes to be free software, and crap like this EULA serve as wonderful examples of where their intentions lie. Thus, I am wondering if anything can be done. Can there not be a license made so that a given piece of software cannot be used to fill the pockets of greedy people-- or at least so that it would be exceedingly difficult to do so? --Caspian -- - Joseph Carter GnuPG public key: 1024D/DCF9DAB3, 2048g/3F9C2A43 - [EMAIL PROTECTED] 20F6 2261 F185 7A3E 79FC 44F9 8FF7 D7A3 DCF9 DAB3 -- RoboHak hmm, lunch does sound like a good idea Knghtbrd would taste like a good idea too -- = 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: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
On Wed, Dec 01, 1999 at 04:33:58AM -0800, Joseph Carter wrote: On Wed, Dec 01, 1999 at 02:21:08AM -0800, Bruce Perens wrote: If there is _ANY_ EULA that you must agree to before you can have the GPL code it's forcing you to agree to their proprietary software terms. This is just plain wrong. If you want to download something from their site, you have to do what they tell you to. They're not adding restrictions on what you can do with the GPLed software, they're just ensuring they don't give the software to some people, and giving you every opportunity to be aware of the terms you're getting the software. The only difference between this and `you must pay us $5 before you get a CD' is that it's more explicit. Cheers, aj, who's getting a little sick of this anti-Corel FUD. -- 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 pgpyQyy7UVrTv.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
On Wed, Dec 01, 1999 at 01:28:52PM +0100, Henning Makholm wrote: You may have a point. If you have to click something that says you are 18 _before_ you download the GPL part, that's probably part of a contaminating license. No, they are just selecting who *they* want to distribute the software to. You don't have to agree to not giving the copy you downloaded to a minor. There's no general rule of if you distribute to anyone you must distribute to everyone. (Personally I'd call such a rule non-free, too). As I read it (possibly incorrectly, I guess I'll wait for RIchard's lawyer on that one) your use of the entire dist is conditionally based upon your acceptance and following of the license. In fact, it explicitly tells you that you're not downloading a COPY of the software, but rather a LICENSE to access a copy as they allow. That in and of itself is an attempt to circumvent the Fair Use provision of Copyright law and is offensive. As I've already said, I believe it's also a GPL violation, but we'll see. -- - Joseph Carter GnuPG public key: 1024D/DCF9DAB3, 2048g/3F9C2A43 - [EMAIL PROTECTED] 20F6 2261 F185 7A3E 79FC 44F9 8FF7 D7A3 DCF9 DAB3 -- I'm sorry if the following sounds combative and excessively personal, but that's my general style.-- Ian Jackson pgpKL2cWJssx0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
On Wed, Dec 01, 1999 at 08:08:25AM -0500, Caspian wrote: Thus, I am wondering if anything can be done. Can there not be a license made so that a given piece of software cannot be used to fill the pockets of greedy people-- or at least so that it would be exceedingly difficult to do so? Sure---but the result wouldn't be free software by any stretch of the imagination. Freedom for anyone to use and modify means exactly that. This latest YACF will be fixed as soon as the exact nature of the problem is. That takes a lawyer or two's opinions. Once that's done we can begin to address the problem. It's not a static process and it does take a little time--especially when the other end of the process (Corel) is dense enough to have their own noticable gravitational pull. -- - Joseph Carter GnuPG public key: 1024D/DCF9DAB3, 2048g/3F9C2A43 - [EMAIL PROTECTED] 20F6 2261 F185 7A3E 79FC 44F9 8FF7 D7A3 DCF9 DAB3 -- * BenC wonders why he has upgraded to 3.3.5-1 before teh X maintainer pgpQeC0EJ8msG.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
Seth David Schoen wrote: Henning Makholm writes: Caspian [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I'd just like to state that if anyone out there is interested in making a completely, utterly free software GNU/Linux dist, with a license that prohibits putzen like those at Corel from pulling the sort of nonsense they've been pulling, Note that you won't be able to include any GPLed software in your distribution if you want to make restrictions about how and when other people or corporations are allowed to redistribute it. Where does the GPL say that? I can give you several examples of distributors who have made this their regular practice. ? If you don't own the code that is GPLed, you can't relicense it under a different license. How could you then use `a license that prohibits putzen like those at Corel from pulling the sort of nonsense they've been pulling' if the GPL allows it? Peter
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
Joseph Carter writes: On Wed, Dec 01, 1999 at 02:21:08AM -0800, Bruce Perens wrote: 9. License Must Not Contaminate Other Software You may have a point. If you have to click something that says you are 18 _before_ you download the GPL part, that's probably part of a contaminating license. But please note that my original criticism never even got to whether or not it was Open Source, I was considering whether or not other software licenses in the distribution were being violated. If there is _ANY_ EULA that you must agree to before you can have the GPL code it's forcing you to agree to their proprietary software terms. Having to be 18 has nothing to do with it (other than that it's a OK, you leave me no choice: http://ishmael.geecs.org/~sigma/reductiones-ab-absurda/big-beard-software/ -- 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
Peter S Galbraith writes: Seth David Schoen wrote: Henning Makholm writes: Caspian [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I'd just like to state that if anyone out there is interested in making a completely, utterly free software GNU/Linux dist, with a license that prohibits putzen like those at Corel from pulling the sort of nonsense they've been pulling, Note that you won't be able to include any GPLed software in your distribution if you want to make restrictions about how and when other people or corporations are allowed to redistribute it. Where does the GPL say that? I can give you several examples of distributors who have made this their regular practice. ? If you don't own the code that is GPLed, you can't relicense it under a different license. How could you then use `a license that prohibits putzen like those at Corel from pulling the sort of nonsense they've been pulling' if the GPL allows it? 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. If it's a matter of relicensing GPLed code to forbid the use of EULAs, at all, then no, it's presumably not allowed. :-) -- 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 Wed, 1 Dec 1999, Seth David Schoen wrote: Henning Makholm writes: Note that you won't be able to include any GPLed software in your distribution if you want to make restrictions about how and when other people or corporations are allowed to redistribute it. Where does the GPL say that? I can give you several examples of distributors who have made this their regular practice. Please do. Lynn
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
On Wed, Dec 01, 1999 at 02:21:08AM -0800, Bruce Perens wrote: From: Joseph Carter [EMAIL PROTECTED] 9. License Must Not Contaminate Other Software You may have a point. If you have to click something that says you are 18 _before_ you download the GPL part, that's probably part of a contaminating license. But please note that my original criticism never even got to whether or not it was Open Source, I was considering whether or not other software licenses in the distribution were being violated. That is an essential distinction. The Corel EULA is clearly _not_ itself an open source license. But that doesn't mean that it conflicts with the open source licenses of components of the system. -- 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
Oops, my example is less useful than it should have been because of a DNS problem. My Big Beard Agreement distribution of GCC may be found at http://ishmael.loyalty.org/~sigma/reductiones-ab-absurda/big-beard-software/ -- 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 Mon, Nov 29, 1999 at 10:54:42AM -0700, Richard Stallman wrote: I looked at the web page you sent me. It does not seem to violate the GPL as regards the GPL-covered programs included in it, although there are some subtle issues I haven't yet figured out. It does say that some non-free programs are included in the system. Given that Corel is in the business of selling proprietary apps such as their WordPerfect program, this should come as very little surprise. I can't think of a single distribution advertising ease of use (referring to use by newbies of course) shipping without Netscape. In fact, I think Debian is the only major dist not to include it on the CDs (and as I discovered today far too many other things in main tell you that you should consider installing netscape... This discovery came as part of the discussion related to removing packages' Suggests which go into contrib and non-free (netscape is certainly non-free)) Since doing this reached a consensus already, I doubt there will be many major objections now to it. The same discussion of individual packages infolved did bring up my original objection---that removing the suggests will make it harder for people to find things like gimp-nonfree (which is IMO badly named considering that the contents of the package are completely free--unless you live in the drain-bamaged US where LZW is patented and Unisys wants to make a fast buck off GIF files..) Hopefully however I can convince people *finds a fresh cluebat* that free code doesn't belong in non-free because the USPTO is run by a bunch of Clueless Morons(tm)... Such packages IMO rightly belong in non-US/main along with crypto code and anything else we can put there that is free and people should have access to. The tendency (which did not start here) to increasingly accept non-free software as part of the Linux system is very dangerous. I don't think that the term precedent is appropriate for instances of this, but the overall tendency could negate the good that we have done. I'm more concerned with the idea of having to agree to be bound by a web form license (which is IMO not much better than shrinkwrap licenses that proprietary software dealers have tried for a couple of decades now to cram down our throats and convince us are legal contracts!) in order to download free software. And then there is this in the DFSG: 9. License Must Not Contaminate Other Software The license must not place restrictions on other software that is distributed along with the licensed software. For example, the license must not insist that all other programs distributed on the same medium must be free software. I think imposing additional conditions on the use of software downloaded from Corel in fact contaminates EVERY license. And while some of the software in their distribution may allow such a restrictions to be added by Corel to their licenses, I am quite convinced that the GPL forbids additional restrictions placed on how GPL'd software may be used and by whom. Further I believe that requiring you to agree to these terms before you may download any of the distribution is the same as adding restrictions to the GPL'd software (you must agree to their proprietary software terms before you can have the free software) whether they wish to claim those restrictions only apply to their proprietary software or not. I'm not a lawyer. If I were I probably wouldn't be an IP lawyer, I'd have too little respect for myself and might do something I might not live to regret. I'm just a developer with a big mouth (nobody will argue with that I'm certain) and hopefully with at least half a clue as to what the hell I'm talking about. YMMV, slippery when wet, objects in mirror may be closer than they appear, if this message breaks you can keep both pieces, if you manage to break something else with this message you're probably crazier than I am, no left turn, caution: contents under pressure. (yes I got bored toward the end there..) -- - Joseph Carter GnuPG public key: 1024D/DCF9DAB3, 2048g/3F9C2A43 - [EMAIL PROTECTED] 20F6 2261 F185 7A3E 79FC 44F9 8FF7 D7A3 DCF9 DAB3 -- Techical solutions are not a matter of voting. Two legislations in the US states almost decided that the value of Pi be 3.14, exactly. Popular vote does not make for a correct solution. -- Manoj Srivastava pgpo4cKXlfzWa.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
Putting GPL-covered programs together with non-free programs in a collection such as an operating system does not violate the GPL, and Corel is not the first to do this. I think this is a harmful practice, and that even Debian goes too far in this direction, but there is no use singling out Corel for criticism. Making people agree to a license with conditions about the use of the non-free programs, as part of obtaining the GPL-covered programs, might be a violation, but I am not sure. **As long as the license imposes no conditions on the use of the GPL-covered programs, other than the GPL,** one can argue that this is simply a way of choosing to distribute the GPL-covered programs only to those who are customers for the others. That is legitimate. I think the crucial question here is, has Corel written significant new free software? And what license(s) are they using for it?
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
I'm including the full text below. What I find particularly odious is not the exclusion of minors (though it is odious), but the contention (as usual in purported EULAs) that Corel still retains title to the copy of the software downloaded, whether it's under GPL or not. That could be a violation of the GPL. I will ask our lawyer's opinion.
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
Richard Stallman writes: Putting GPL-covered programs together with non-free programs in a collection such as an operating system does not violate the GPL, and Corel is not the first to do this. I think this is a harmful practice, and that even Debian goes too far in this direction, but there is no use singling out Corel for criticism. Yes, the criticism seems to come mainly from particular phrases in the license, and not from the general practice of mixing free and non-free software in a collection. Making people agree to a license with conditions about the use of the non-free programs, as part of obtaining the GPL-covered programs, might be a violation, but I am not sure. **As long as the license imposes no conditions on the use of the GPL-covered programs, other than the GPL,** one can argue that this is simply a way of choosing to distribute the GPL-covered programs only to those who are customers for the others. That is legitimate. That makes sense. There seems to be a lot of disagreement about whether or not Corel's license, as written, imposes new conditions on the GPLed packages. I thought that it didn't, but many people seem to think that it does. I suggested that Corel might just wish to resolve the confusion by adding a disclaimer which states unambiguously that their license does not attempt to restrict licensees' exercise of their rights under the GPL or other free software licenses. I wondered if the FSF had a recommended form for such a clarifying statement, or whether you think one is useful. Obviously, the GPL does not require the use of such a statement, but it might be useful to authors of license terms for aggregate works containing packages licensed under a variety of licenses. I think the crucial question here is, has Corel written significant new free software? And what license(s) are they using for it? I have yet to try their distribution, so I don't know whether the software is significant, but they've said that they have written new free software under the GPL, LGPL, and MPL. Whether Corel might have violated the GPL is also a fairly important question, since some people in this discussion initially proposed suing Corel for alleged copyright infringement. -- 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
Richard Stallman wrote: I'm including the full text below. What I find particularly odious is not the exclusion of minors (though it is odious), but the contention (as usual in purported EULAs) that Corel still retains title to the copy of the software downloaded, whether it's under GPL or not. That could be a violation of the GPL. I will ask our lawyer's opinion. As has been mentioned elsewhere in this thread, Corel is *NOT* attempting to retain title to GPLed software. The exact text is: All right, title and interest in the Software Programs, including source code, documentation, appearance, structure and organization, are held by Corel Corporation, Corel Corporation Limited, and others and are protected by copyright and other laws. ^^ -Gav -- Gavriel State Engineering Architect - Linux Development Corel Corp [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- The address in the headers is not the poster's real email address. Do not send private mail to the poster using your mailer's reply feature. CC's of mail to mailing lists are OK. Problem reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED]. The poster's email address is [EMAIL PROTECTED].
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
Caspian wrote: So let's see what happens if we create a Corel Linux workalike by: A: Downloading Corel Linux B: Ripping out all the non-free software parts and C: Replacing them. then... D: Publicizing this heavily. This would be fun. And it would be a free easy Redistribution of Debian for newbies, given that the installation routine indeed is free and we get a hold of the source, as well as some other install tool. Regards, Joey -- No question is too silly to ask, but, of course, some are too silly to answer. -- Perl book
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
On Sun, Nov 28, 1999 at 01:57:24AM -0500, Lynn Winebarger wrote: I'm including the full text below. What I find particularly odious is not the exclusion of minors (though it is odious), but the contention (as usual in purported EULAs) that Corel still retains title to the copy of the software downloaded, whether it's under GPL or not. The problem is, that if they retain ownership, they (or someone else later down the road) may attempt to circumvent the GPL by claiming the downloaders never owned a copy, and therefore the license does not apply to them. That doesn't matter unless the license says it matters. -- Raul
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
I'm including the full text below. What I find particularly odious is not the exclusion of minors (though it is odious), but the contention (as usual in purported EULAs) that Corel still retains title to the copy of the software downloaded, whether it's under GPL or not. If you're referring to the following section, All right, title and interest in the Software Programs, including source code, documentation, appearance, structure and organization, are held by Corel Corporation, Corel Corporation Limited, and others and are protected by copyright and other laws. the and others covers everyone who already has title to the included software. It doesn't extend Corel's title over the existing software it simply puts title over the components that are created by Corel. Essentially, it enforces the ownership of the original creators. Erich Forler Product Development Manager Corel Linux -- The address in the headers is not the poster's real email address. Do not send private mail to the poster using your mailer's reply feature. CC's of mail to mailing lists are OK. Problem reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED]. The poster's email address is [EMAIL PROTECTED].
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
Then let's try an experiment-- let's make a nice Corel Linux mirror site, and publicize it well (read: on Slashdot), and see if they object. Anyone with me? As long as you respect all included licenses, and don't attempt to use our trademarks, there's no reason for Corel to object. Redistributing the download version of Corel Linux is no different than any other distribution and restriction on the use of Corel trademarks would be similar to what you'd encounter with any other company including Red Hat. Erich Forler Product Development Manager Corel Linux On Sun, 28 Nov 1999, William T Wilson wrote: On Sun, 28 Nov 1999, Caspian wrote: However, I am under the -distinct- impression that Corel would consider anyone obtaining their distribution without agreeing to their EULA 'illegal'/'immoral', or in other words against their rules. So sad. Corel has no choice in the matter. They are stuck with it because of the GPL, which does not give them the ability to object. -- = 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] | `' -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- The free Corel® LINUX® OS Download is NOW available! Check it out at http://linux.corel.com -- The address in the headers is not the poster's real email address. Do not send private mail to the poster using your mailer's reply feature. CC's of mail to mailing lists are OK. Problem reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED]. The poster's email address is [EMAIL PROTECTED].
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
On Mon, 29 Nov 1999, Erich Forler wrote: If you're referring to the following section, All right, title and interest in the Software Programs, including source code, documentation, appearance, structure and organization, are held by Corel Corporation, Corel Corporation Limited, and others and are protected by copyright and other laws. the and others covers everyone who already has title to the included software. It doesn't extend Corel's title over the existing software it simply puts title over the components that are created by Corel. Essentially, it enforces the ownership of the original creators. You'll note I said title to the copy, not title to the copyright. I am referring to: ATTENTION:THIS IS A LICENSE, NOT A SALE. THIS PRODUCT IS PROVIDED UNDER THE FOLLOWING AGREEMENT WHICH DEFINES WHAT YOU (HEREAFTER REFERRED TO AS YOU OR YOUR) MAY DO WITH THE PRODUCT AND CONTAINS LIMITATIONS ON WARRANTIES AND/OR REMEDIES. You know, the typical EULA claptrap that attempts to circumvent the first sale doctrine and subsequent fair use. There's no reason to make this pretense with the free software portion of the distribution. The way I see it (and IANAL), the GPL (and other free software licenses) are copyright licenses that accompany copies of software. If I never receive actual ownership of the copy, it's not clear that I would receive the accompanying license, or that the license would require my receipt of it. In the case of the GPL, I don't think this would be a problem (since public distribution has occured even without transfer of ownership - I _think_). Nonetheless, I'd rather not anyone view this as a potential way to circumvent free licenses, if it is, in fact, not. I am not claiming this is Corel's intent. I am more worried about the precedent it creates. Consider the current industry desire to push software rental from the internet. Or consider me excessively paranoid. Lynn
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
You know, the typical EULA claptrap that attempts to circumvent the first sale doctrine and subsequent fair use. There's no reason to make this pretense with the free software portion of the distribution. I'm not a lawyer either and generally I don't like to wade into the specifics of such issues so I'll forward this on to one. As a guess, perhaps the distinction is raised to differentiate between the Product - Corel Linux and the programs included on the disc. In some circumstances, there is a differentiation. Erich Forler Product Development Manager Corel Linux -- The address in the headers is not the poster's real email address. Do not send private mail to the poster using your mailer's reply feature. CC's of mail to mailing lists are OK. Problem reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED]. The poster's email address is [EMAIL PROTECTED].
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
I looked at the web page you sent me. It does not seem to violate the GPL as regards the GPL-covered programs included in it, although there are some subtle issues I haven't yet figured out. It does say that some non-free programs are included in the system. The tendency (which did not start here) to increasingly accept non-free software as part of the Linux system is very dangerous. I don't think that the term precedent is appropriate for instances of this, but the overall tendency could negate the good that we have done.
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
Lynn Winebarger writes: You'll note I said title to the copy, not title to the copyright. Interesting point. I am referring to: ATTENTION:THIS IS A LICENSE, NOT A SALE. THIS PRODUCT IS PROVIDED UNDER THE FOLLOWING AGREEMENT WHICH DEFINES WHAT YOU (HEREAFTER REFERRED TO AS YOU OR YOUR) MAY DO WITH THE PRODUCT AND CONTAINS LIMITATIONS ON WARRANTIES AND/OR REMEDIES. You know, the typical EULA claptrap that attempts to circumvent the first sale doctrine and subsequent fair use. There's no reason to make this pretense with the free software portion of the distribution. The way I see it (and IANAL), the GPL (and other free software licenses) are copyright licenses that accompany copies of software. If I never receive actual ownership of the copy, it's not clear that I would receive the accompanying license, or that the license would require my receipt of it. In the case of the GPL, I don't think this would be a problem (since public distribution has occured even without transfer of ownership - I _think_). Nonetheless, I'd rather not anyone view this as a potential way to circumvent free licenses, if it is, in fact, not. This is why the GPL, at least, says 4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance. In other words, they can't add new restrictions, and, if they do, it doesn't count. (Cf. GPL section 6.) This is one reason that I am skeptical that the Corel Linux EULA is actually harmful, at least in regard to GPLed programs: with the possible exception of the export restrictions clause (depending on the legal meaning of responsibility in that context), I don't see where the EULA actually attempts to restrict the exercise of any rights under the GPL. (If it did, then, according to the GPL, it would be void, a copyright infringement, and irrelevant. Whether that provision of the GPL is actually enforceable is anybody's guess -- preferably a lawyer's.) Some other free software licenses do not contain this restriction; the MIT license explicitly permits sublicensing. I don't know or even have a guess about the situation of public licenses which don't make any statement about sublicensing or the incidental imposition of additional restrictions by some other means. (For instance, the GPL has been interpreted as forbidding binding NDAs that cover GPLed software; I don't see that other licenses even attempt to do that.) -- 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
Erich Forler writes: As a guess, perhaps the distinction is raised to differentiate between the Product - Corel Linux and the programs included on the disc. In some circumstances, there is a differentiation. This is a distinction which some people have seemed unwilling to acknowledge, but it is important. There is no reason that Corel is _not_ allowed to apply any EULA it chooses to the product as a whole, as long as that EULA does not prejudice users' rights under existing licenses. Since almost all of the people reading the EULA are not lawyers, they are not sure, offhand, whether or not the EULA has the effect of trying to impose any further restrictions upon or sublicense GPLed software. A lot of them seem to believe that is does. Since the EULA explicitly acknowledges the existence and applicability of a variety of license terms, including the GPL, for the various components of the system, I suspect that is does not -- but I'm not a lawyer. For the benefit of the general public, which is mostly neither lawyers nor specialists in this peculiar world of free software licensing, it would be very useful if the Corel Linux EULA contained an explicit, unambiguous statement about the status of the licenses of free software packages within the product. That statement could say that these licenses are public licenses, whose permissions are automatically granted to anyone receiving a copy; that they allow (use,) modification, and redistribution subject to certain terms; and that their grant of rights is not in any way restricted or modified by the EULA. This may already be the legal consequence of the EULA, but, for the benefit of people who are not familiar with all of the free software licenses, and not easily able to determine this for themselves, it would be helpful to have this clarified. I would also like to see something done about that export paragraph. :-) Corel should avoid any suggestion that its EULA makes illegal export of free software into a civil copyright violation, since that would certainly be resisted by many of the original package authors and contributors. -- 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
Lynn Winebarger [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: The way I see it (and IANAL), the GPL (and other free software licenses) are copyright licenses that accompany copies of software. If I never receive actual ownership of the copy, it's not clear that I would receive the accompanying license, IANAL either, but the way I've always seen it, the GPL is meant to be understood as the copyright holder's legally binding promise to enter the contract it describes with *anyone*. I can not find anywhere in the GPL where it is stated that the licensee has to own a copy. Og course you need *access* to a copy if you are to do anything sensible with the rights the license gives you, but I fail to see the need to own that physical copy. -- Henning Makholm Han råber og skriger, vakler ud på kørebanen og ind på fortorvet igen, hæver knytnæven mod en bil, hilser overmådigt venligt på en mor med barn, bryder ud i sang og stiller sig til sidst op og pisser i en port.
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
It does say that some non-free programs are included in the system. If my memory serves me correctly, this is because Netscape Navigator is included in the downloadable version of the distribution. Since Navigator isn't Free software the EULA has to allow for such software. It's a much ignored fact that while Netscape Communicator and Navigator are freely downloadable, users don't automatically have the rights to redistribute them to others. Erich Forler Product Development Manager Corel Linux -- The address in the headers is not the poster's real email address. Do not send private mail to the poster using your mailer's reply feature. CC's of mail to mailing lists are OK. Problem reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED]. The poster's email address is [EMAIL PROTECTED].
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
IMPORTANT: READ CAREFULLY THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THE FOLLOWING AGREEMENT (LICENSE) BEFORE DOWNLOADING THE PRODUCT. BY CLICKING ACCEPT BELOW: 1.YOU CERTIFY THAT YOU ARE NOT A MINOR AND THAT YOU AGREE TO BE BOUND BY ALL OF THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS SET OUT IN THE LICENSE BELOW. DOWNLOADING AND/OR USING THE PRODUCT WILL BE AN IRREVOCABLE ACCEPTANCE OF THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THE LICENSE. This in itself is does not make the software non-free, and if GPL-covered code is included, this in itself does not violate the GPL. They (like you) are free to distribute copies or decline to distribute copies, when and as they wish. If they want to distribute copies only to adults, or only people with red hair, that is ok. Asking people to agree that they will use the software only in accord with the license is ok, provided the license is a free software license. If the license is a free software license, then it permits you to put the software on your own ftp site and allow anyone to copy it. So that is a thing you could do about the situation. You sent me only part of the page. The rest of the page may have some sort of problem. For instance, the license may not qualify as a free software license. Alternatively, if this text refers to a specific license, and if the software it purports to cover is GPL-covered, and if the specific license contradicts the GPL, that would be a violation of the GPL. I have, at present, insufficient evidence to know whether either of these is the case. I will send mail now to fetch the URL you mentioned. Meanwhile, could you or someone determine for me whether specific GNU packages such as GCC and GNU Emacs are included in the software that this question applies to?
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
On Sat, 27 Nov 1999, Richard Stallman wrote: agree that they will use the software only in accord with the license is ok, provided the license is a free software license. I doubt that it will be. Corel Linux is based heavily on Debian, which of course is (almost?) all free software... (Hell, it's the only well-known GNU/Linux dist that specifically calls itself GNU/Linux and not just Linux)... but something tells me that this license won't be a free software license. Check it out... If the license is a free software license, then it permits you to put the software on your own ftp site and allow anyone to copy it. So that is a thing you could do about the situation. Provided that that is allowed by Corel... I do not have a site with such bandwidth to spare. :/ Perhaps someone out there would be willing to put up their dist for download, for the sole purpose of bypassing that EULA. However, I am under the -distinct- impression that Corel would consider anyone obtaining their distribution without agreeing to their EULA 'illegal'/'immoral', or in other words against their rules. I will send mail now to fetch the URL you mentioned. Meanwhile, could you or someone determine for me whether specific GNU packages such as GCC and GNU Emacs are included in the software that this question applies to? I was not able to find Emacs at all; it does, however, include this: -rw-r--r-- 1 3100 3100 722218 Jan 2 1999 gcc_2.7.2.3-7.deb It may contain Emacs, but I didn't find it. -- = 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: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
On Sun, 28 Nov 1999, Caspian wrote: However, I am under the -distinct- impression that Corel would consider anyone obtaining their distribution without agreeing to their EULA 'illegal'/'immoral', or in other words against their rules. So sad. Corel has no choice in the matter. They are stuck with it because of the GPL, which does not give them the ability to object.
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
On Sat, 27 Nov 1999, Richard Stallman wrote: to adults, or only people with red hair, that is ok. Asking people to agree that they will use the software only in accord with the license is ok, provided the license is a free software license. If the license is a free software license, then it permits you to put the software on your own ftp site and allow anyone to copy it. So that is a thing you could do about the situation. You sent me only part of the page. The rest of the page may have some sort of problem. For instance, the license may not qualify as a free software license. Alternatively, if this text refers to a specific license, and if the software it purports to cover is GPL-covered, and if the specific license contradicts the GPL, that would be a violation of the GPL. I have, at present, insufficient evidence to know whether either of these is the case. I'm including the full text below. What I find particularly odious is not the exclusion of minors (though it is odious), but the contention (as usual in purported EULAs) that Corel still retains title to the copy of the software downloaded, whether it's under GPL or not. The problem is, that if they retain ownership, they (or someone else later down the road) may attempt to circumvent the GPL by claiming the downloaders never owned a copy, and therefore the license does not apply to them. I, for one, would like to see some kind of formal (and if necessary legal) opposition to this pretense (for I do see it as a pretense and neither legal nor enforceable - IANAL, YMMV) to clarify this problem for the future and any opportunists who think they may have a loophole to exploit. The difference between this license and the GPL or other free software licenses, is that the latter is a copyright license, and the former is not (or, rather, is a license for permitting what is fair use of one's copy anyway). Corel should segregate all non-free software in their distribution and then limit the pretense to that software, leaving only the warranty/liability disclaimers intact for the free part. End User License Agreement IMPORTANT: READ CAREFULLY THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THE FOLLOWING AGREEMENT (LICENSE) BEFORE DOWNLOADING THE PRODUCT. BY CLICKING ACCEPT BELOW: 1.YOU CERTIFY THAT YOU ARE NOT A MINOR AND THAT YOU AGREE TO BE BOUND BY ALL OF THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS SET OUT IN THE LICENSE BELOW. DOWNLOADING AND/OR USING THE PRODUCT WILL BE AN IRREVOCABLE ACCEPTANCE OF THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THE LICENSE. 2.YOU AGREE TO BE RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY AND ALL INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDER FEES, TELECOMMUNICATION AND OTHER CHARGES THAT MAY APPLY AS A RESULT OF YOUR DOWNLOAD OF THE PRODUCT; 3.IF YOU ARE ACCEPTING ON BEHALF OF A COMPANY, OR OTHER LEGAL ENTITY, YOU REPRESENT AND WARRANT TO COREL THAT YOU HAVE FULL AUTHORITY TO BIND SUCH ENTITY. ATTENTION:THIS IS A LICENSE, NOT A SALE. THIS PRODUCT IS PROVIDED UNDER THE FOLLOWING AGREEMENT WHICH DEFINES WHAT YOU (HEREAFTER REFERRED TO AS YOU OR YOUR) MAY DO WITH THE PRODUCT AND CONTAINS LIMITATIONS ON WARRANTIES AND/OR REMEDIES. COREL LINUX LICENSE AGREEMENT IMPORTANT: CAREFULLY READ THIS AGREEMENT BEFORE USING THIS PRODUCT. INSTALLING OR OTHERWISE USING THIS PRODUCT INDICATES YOUR ACKNOWLEDGMENT THAT YOU HAVE READ THIS LICENSE AND AGREE TO BE BOUND BY AND COMPLY WITH ITS TERMS. A. LICENSE: 1. Corel LINUX is a modular operating system made up of individual software components that were created by various individuals and entities (Software Programs). Many of the Software Programs included in Corel LINUX are distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL) and other similar license agreements which permit You to copy, modify and redistribute the Software Programs. Please review the terms and conditions of the license agreement that accompanies each of the Software Programs included in Corel LINUX. You can also visit linux.corel.com/products/linux_os/licensing.htm for additional licensing information. 2. In addition to the freely distributable Software Programs, some versions of Corel LINUX may also include certain Software Programs, such as Corel WordPerfect 8 for Linux and Bitstream fonts included with Corel LINUX, that are distributed under the terms of the GPL or similar licenses that permit modification and redistribution. Generally, each of these Software Programs is distributed under the terms of a license agreement that grants You a license to install each of the Software Programs on a single computer for Your own individual use. Copying (other than for archival purposes), redistribution, reverse engineering, decompiling and/or modification of these Software Programs is prohibited. Any violation by You of the applicable license terms shall immediately terminate Your license to use the Software Program. In order to view the complete terms and conditions which govern Your use of these Software Programs, please consult
Re: Dangerous precedent being set - possible serious violation of the GPL
Richard, What bothers me is that you have to click yes on that license to get access to my GPL software, even though my software isn't covered by the license. Now, if the agreement was for use of their FTP site, that would be OK. But it's a software license, and it is being used with my GPL work in a way that would confuse most people who download the program regarding whether or not that license applies to my program. Thanks Bruce
