Re: license v license v /license/
On 1/11/2011 5:41 PM, Alan Mackenzie wrote: Why do you think it is that BSD Unix has not held its own in competition with GNU/Linux? One acronym: IBM. IBM could not successfully compete with Windows NT with their AIX line running on the WinTel PC. Microsoft had screwed over IBM and their OS/2. IBM jumped on the Linux bandwagon big time during the SCO debacle with RCU, JFS, NUMA etc... This stimulated peripheral driver development for PC hardware. The GPL was good at suppressing new commercial competition which pleased both IBM and Microsoft. Apple, for example, went proprietary with the freedom provided by BSD contributions in XNU. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XNU Look at Apple now: And. . . Boom: Apple Worth More Than Microsoft. http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20100526/apple-worth-more-than-microsoft/ Sincerely, RJack :) Capitalism Always Wins ! ___ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list gnu-misc-discuss@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss
Re: license v license v /license/
RJack u...@example.net writes: On 1/11/2011 5:41 PM, Alan Mackenzie wrote: Why do you think it is that BSD Unix has not held its own in competition with GNU/Linux? One acronym: IBM. IBM could not successfully compete with Windows NT with their AIX line running on the WinTel PC. Microsoft had screwed over IBM and their OS/2. IBM jumped on the Linux bandwagon big time during the SCO debacle with RCU, JFS, NUMA etc... This stimulated peripheral driver development for PC hardware. The GPL was good at suppressing new commercial competition which pleased both IBM and Microsoft. So the GPL _did_ please commercial developers, to the degree where IBM chose to jump on the Linux bandwagon. As far as I can tell, the points you mention (RCU, JFS, NUMA etc) concern just the Linux kernel and not the GNU userland. So it is really the (GPLed) Linux kernel and not the GNU project that is the focus of IBM according to you. How does this jibe with the GPL supposedly scaring commercial developers? Apple, for example, went proprietary with the freedom provided by BSD contributions in XNU. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XNU Look at Apple now: And. . . Boom: Apple Worth More Than Microsoft. http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20100526/apple-worth-more-than-microsoft/ Uh, Microsoft is not really somebody promoting GNU or GPLed software. Apple is earning most of its income via gadgets with embedded operating systems (certainly not via MacOS). And IBM is doing better than ever. Capitalism Always Wins ! A loaded gun also always wins. -- David Kastrup ___ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list gnu-misc-discuss@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss
Re: license v license v /license/
In gnu.misc.discuss RJack u...@example.net wrote: On 1/11/2011 5:41 PM, Alan Mackenzie wrote: Why do you think it is that BSD Unix has not held its own in competition with GNU/Linux? One acronym: IBM. IBM could not successfully compete with Windows NT with their AIX line running on the WinTel PC. Microsoft had screwed over IBM and their OS/2. IBM jumped on the Linux bandwagon big time during the SCO debacle with RCU, JFS, NUMA etc... This stimulated peripheral driver development for PC hardware. Linux was steadily growing then even without IBM. I suspect RedHat and SuSE were more important than IBM. Why was Linux growing then, but not BSD? The GPL was good at suppressing new commercial competition which pleased both IBM and Microsoft. And Richard Stallman, of course. I suspect that it was MS rather than the GPL which suppressed OS competition, as you note above. Apple, for example, went proprietary with the freedom provided by BSD contributions in XNU. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XNU Look at Apple now: A niche player in computers, and highly successful with iPods, iPhones and the like. And. . . Boom: Apple Worth More Than Microsoft. http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20100526/apple-worth-more-than-microsoft/ Sincerely, RJack :) Capitalism Always Wins ! -- Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany). ___ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list gnu-misc-discuss@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss
Re: license v license v /license/
On 2011-01-12, David Kastrup d...@gnu.org wrote: RJack u...@example.net writes: On 1/11/2011 5:41 PM, Alan Mackenzie wrote: Why do you think it is that BSD Unix has not held its own in competition with GNU/Linux? One acronym: IBM. IBM could not successfully compete with Windows NT with their AIX line running on the WinTel PC. Microsoft had screwed over IBM and their OS/2. IBM jumped on the Linux bandwagon big time during the SCO debacle with RCU, JFS, NUMA etc... This stimulated peripheral driver development for PC hardware. The GPL was good at suppressing new commercial competition which pleased both IBM and Microsoft. So the GPL _did_ please commercial developers, to the degree where IBM The GPL is a great equalizer. A large company can appreciate this as much as some guy in his basement. IBM rightfully realizes that the efforts they put into Free Software can't be used against them in a way they cannot exploit themselves. [deletia] Apple, for example, went proprietary with the freedom provided by BSD contributions in XNU. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XNU Look at Apple now: BSD is not the Apple interface. Their variant of OpenStep is. So talking about how their kernel is libre or how the userland that no user ever sees is libre is a bit meaningless. No one at Apple tries to sell Macs or iPhones based on the fact that you can create shell scripts to get over the limitations of the built in PhoneOS SMS app. Infact, this situation is a great example of why a company like IBM might be loathe to contribute to something like FreeBSD. A company like Apple can come along afterwards and use it to the detriment of IBM. IBM could basically end up giving free labor to the enemy. [deletia] -- If it were really about being good, then Microsoft would ||| have been put out of business by Apple before the first line of / | \ the Linux kernel was ever written. ___ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list gnu-misc-discuss@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss
Re: license v license v /license/
On 1/12/2011 4:16 PM, Alan Mackenzie wrote: Apple, for example, went proprietary with the freedom provided by BSD contributions in XNU. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XNU Look at Apple now: A niche player in computers, and highly successful with iPods, iPhones and the like. We tend to minimize that with which we disagree. iOS is derived from Mac OS X, with which it shares the Darwin foundation, and is therefore a Unix-like operating system by nature. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOS_%28Apple%29 And. . . Boom: Apple Worth More Than Microsoft. http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20100526/apple-worth-more-than-microsoft/ Sincerely, RJack :) Capitalism Triumphs! ___ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list gnu-misc-discuss@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss
Re: license v license v /license/
On 1/11/2011 3:24 PM, Kari Laine wrote: Ok alexander, But without FSF we probably wouldn't have Linux. At least it won't be as functional as it is today. There are billions of dollars worth of GPLed software available to every one of us. Uhhh... ...probably wouldn't have Linux ? When Linus decided to license Linux under the GPL in 1991, ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/Historic/v0.99/linux-0.99.tar.Z 386BSD was already written along with complete standard C libraries and a compiler. Although not released until 1992, development of 386BSD predated that of Linux. Linus Torvalds has said that if 386BSD had been available at the time, he probably would not have created Linux.[see n.7] http://gondwanaland.com/meta/history/interview.html Sincerely, RJack :) ___ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list gnu-misc-discuss@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss
Re: license v license v /license/
Ok alexander, I bite, let's discuss about the FSF. I don't know enough about it. I know the good software they made possible. I gather I donated some money to them back in (don't remember the year). Do you mean they stole my money to get FAT. Or what exactly is your point of GNG Site? I find sharing quite a many viewpoints of Mr. RMS . There are some witch I don't. And there are some opinions he has told that have hurt the Open Source movement - my personal opinion. But without FSF we probably wouldn't have Linux. At least it won't be as functional as it is today. There are billions of dollars worth of GPLed software available to every one of us. Tell me how I have been screwed up? Best Regards Kari ___ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list gnu-misc-discuss@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss
Re: license v license v /license/
In comp.os.linux.advocacy Alexander Terekhov terek...@web.de wrote: Nice paper: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1586580download=yes (Why License Agreements Do Not Control Copy Ownership: First Sales and Essential Copies) I especially like this part: When license is used as a noun in the copyright context, it means something like, a grant by the holder of a copyright to another of any of the rights embodied in the copyright short of an assignment of all rights as in The agreement contained a license to reproduce 20 copies of the photograph. When license is used as a verb it typically means to give permission or consent as in The author licensed her publication right to the nation's largest distributor. These uses of the word relate only to the intangible copyright. The word license is also, unfortunately, used in conjunction with tangible things. First, as a noun it is often used synonymously with the terms agreement or contract when that underlying agreement contains grants of copyright permissions, as in Did she sign the license? This usage seems to lead to confusion less often and I will not address it further here. However, particularly in the software context, the word license is used as a verb in yet another way that I wish to focus on. Software distributors often say, We only license our software. We do not sell it. This is a difficult sentence to parse because of the layers of ambiguity involved, but particularly from reading the cases, one comes to understand that the intended definition is not just that described above of to give permission or consent with respect to some right of copyright, but instead is used in a way that means something more like: to transfer to another possession of a tangible object in which a copyrighted work is embodied, for a specified period of time or perpetually, without transferring title to the tangible object, and typically providing at least some copyright permission. It would be useful to have a different term to indicate this unique use of license. Something like no title to the copy license would perhaps convey the intended meaning, but would be exceedingly cumbersome. For purposes of clarity in this section, when I talk about this sense of license I will place the word in italics, like so: /license/.140 Usage of the word /license/ has caused rampant confusion. Before considering some examples of this confusion, it is worthwhile to provide some historical context on the development of this usage of the term /license/. The Third Circuit explained, in an opinion from 1991, that: When these form licenses were first developed for software, it was, in large part, to avoid the federal copyright law first sale doctrine... [Court describes software rental companies.] The first sale doctrine, though, stood as a substantial barrier to successful suit against these software rental companies, even under a theory of contributory infringement. By characterizing the original transaction between the software producer and the software rental company as a license, rather than a sale, and by making the license personal and non-transferable, software producers hoped to avoid the reach of the first sale doctrine and to establish a basis in state contract law for suing the software rental companies directly. Questions remained, however, as to whether the use of state contract law to avoid the first sale doctrine would be preempted either by the federal copyright statute (statutory preemption) or by the exclusive constitutional grant of authority over copyright issues to the federal government (constitutional preemption). (citations). Congress recognized the problem, and, in 1990, amended the first sale doctrine as it applies to computer programs and phonorecords... This amendment renders the need to characterize the original transaction as a license largely anachronistic.141 But the usage, even if anachronistic, has persisted, in part because software distributors wanted more than to defeat the first sale doctrine in the case of software rental companies. Even after Congress responded to that concern, software distributors were unwilling to give up the /licensing/ fiction because it appeared to provide a means to other desirable ends such as price discrimination, controlling ancillary markets, and preventing competition in related goods.142 The merits of permitting copyright owners these additional benefits are not my focus. I am concerned with how the ambiguous use of the word license has created a land mine for courts who end up speaking imprecisely or in the worst case scenarios, reaching erroneous conclusions. The Microsoft Corp. v. Software Wholesale Club, Inc. opinion provides one example. The court wrote, However, a party that licenses its products rather than selling them may avoid the application of the first-sale doctrine. See, e.g., Harmony
Re: license v license v /license/
Kari Laine klai...@gmail.com writes: Ok alexander, I bite, let's discuss about the FSF. I don't know enough about it. I know the good software they made possible. I gather I donated some money to them back in (don't remember the year). Do you mean they stole my money to get FAT. Or what exactly is your point of GNG Site? I find sharing quite a many viewpoints of Mr. RMS . There are some witch I don't. And there are some opinions he has told that have hurt the Open Source movement - my personal opinion. But without FSF we probably wouldn't have Linux. At least it won't be as functional as it is today. Hm? Linux is just a kernel. Granted, it has a compilation dependency on GCC, but other than that, its development has been largely independent of the FSF. But it's not really much fun if you try not running any GNU software on it. I've seen some server that has been built in that manner: Linux, but a BSD userland above it. Shows that Linux works without GNU just fine. But not my idea of the best I can get. -- David Kastrup ___ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list gnu-misc-discuss@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss
Re: license v license v /license/
In gnu.misc.discuss RJack u...@example.net wrote: On 1/11/2011 3:24 PM, Kari Laine wrote: Ok alexander, But without FSF we probably wouldn't have Linux. At least it won't be as functional as it is today. There are billions of dollars worth of GPLed software available to every one of us. Uhhh... ...probably wouldn't have Linux ? When Linus decided to license Linux under the GPL in 1991, ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/Historic/v0.99/linux-0.99.tar.Z 386BSD was already written along with complete standard C libraries and a compiler. Why do you think it is that BSD Unix has not held its own in competition with GNU/Linux? Although not released until 1992, development of 386BSD predated that of Linux. Linus Torvalds has said that if 386BSD had been available at the time, he probably would not have created Linux.[see n.7] http://gondwanaland.com/meta/history/interview.html Sincerely, RJack :) -- Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany). ___ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list gnu-misc-discuss@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss
