Re: boomberg bloopers
On Thu, 15 Feb 2001, Ralf Schwoebel wrote: We still wait for comments from the board on our license, but meanwhile please comment on that: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-4833927.html?tag=mn_hd Heh, I wish they had included the part where I said if MS really said that Open Source was a threat to "innovation" and inellectual property, then MS doesn't understand copyright laws OR open source. I'm glad the opposing viewpoint made it in there, it was actually an IDC analyst I talked with. My comment about "fascist" was in the context of explaining that most companies who are involved in open source development do so because it can enhance their revenues elsewhere - in hardware, services, or even other proprietary software. I gave the example of Linus and Transmeta as one where there is a mixed model of closed and open. Note of course, Ralf, that Linus has a very clear notion about what is Open Source, and what is not, and don't try to claim otherwise. This is the start of a concerted effort by MS to attack Linux on non-technical fronts. I can see them aiming to compare the effect of Open Source on the software industry to be equivalent to the effect of Napster on the music industry. Bullocks - you may agree or disagree with the contention that swapping someone else's IP against their will is theft, but you can't claim that someone who writes software and *intentionally* gives it away for free is a threat to anyone. This is a pile of manure so silly that even the press won't buy it. Next they'll attack it on patent, trademark, and labor law bases. I think, "FREE does not mean GRATIS" is totally stated wrong and some native speakers should write to Bloomberg to get their head into the right place, and I guess they left half of the statement of Brian out. I do not have the perception of Collab.net to put that incomplete... Does Microsoft own Bloomberg? Or do they invite journalists to cruiseship trips to the carribean sea? Uh, Bloomburg isn't giving an editorial in this article, they're reporting what people said. Brian
Wording in Open Source Definition
This will appear to be an extremely pedantic email, but it arises from a discussion with a corporate lawyer who I believe was genuinely confused by some of the wording in the Open Source Definition. The discussion focussed around the intent of clause 1, Free Redistribution, in particular "The license may not require a royalty or other fee for such sale." The lawyer believed that this should be read equivalently to "The license may not require a royalty, but it could do" whereas I believe that this should be read equivalently to "The license must not require a royalty..." He pointed to the use of the word "must" elsewhere in the document as evidence that the distinction between may and must was understood by the writers of the document. Also, looking at the Rationale for clause 1, he claimed that the word "free" should be considered to be the "freedom" sense of free, rather than "free-of-cost". We were unable to come to a satisfactory agreement, so I am asking this list: "Is it permissible in any circumstances for an Open Source license to require a royalty or other fee for sale of the software?" If the answer is no, I humbly suggest that the "may not" be changed to "must not" where it appears in clause 1, and that "free" be changed to "free-of-cost" in the rationale for clause 1, to avoid others falling into this same argument. I understand that the Open Source Definition is not meant to be a legally secure document, but rather a guide to what an Open Source license should be, but it would be helpful to me if this point could be cleared up. Yours, -- Richard Boulton
Re: boomberg bloopers
Brian Behlendorf writes: Bullocks - you may agree or disagree with the contention that swapping someone else's IP against their will is theft, but you can't claim that someone who writes software and *intentionally* gives it away for free is a threat to anyone. That person is a threat to the revenues of the people selling comparable software. That threat is real, even though it arises from totally legitimate activities (from the point of view of many different political philosophies and legal regimes). If there were a big market for some kind of labor and a lot of people began to do that same labor as volunteers, or as a hobby, the people who did it for a living would see their livelihood threatened, even though the activities of the volunteers or hobbyists are totally legitimate. Imagine for example that on a certain street there are two Internet cafes, run by starving entrepreneurs who think an Internet cafe is an honest business with some growth potential. Now along comes a retired hacker who made three million dollars from the exuberance of investors (I won't say whether it was rational or irrational) about a project to which he made major technical contributions. This retired hacker has _always_ wanted to have his very own Internet cafe, so he buys a warehouse, renovates it (sparing no expense), and opens it up. Possibly he doesn't have a huge amount of business sense, so his Internet cafe is not very profitable. In fact, maybe it loses money. But the retired hacker doesn't care -- he's got his own Internet cafe! And he doesn't feel a need to charge high prices, or to pay low wages; he's happy to offer reasonable prices to his customers, and reasonable wages and benefits to his employees. The customers are happy; they keep coming back. The employees are happy; they don't leave. Everybody enjoys the Internet cafe. Except the proprietors of the _other_ Internet cafes, which are rapidly losing business. Those Internet cafes are being run for profit; their owners need to make money! If they don't, they're going to go out of business, and lose their own investments of time and money. They can't afford to be unprofitable for more than a month or two; they wouldn't be able to pay their Internet service bills or order food and dozens of kinds of exotic coffee. But since customers are flocking to the retired hacker's Internet cafe, the for-profit cafe owners are starting to feel the pinch. They feel threatened because they realize that the retired hacker is free from the vagaries of market forces and competition; he's mostly doing it (as the autobiography of a certain famous non-retired hacker once suggested) "just for fun". And in the process, he's likely to bankrupt the cafe owners with traditional business models. If you look at bottom lines instead of ethical or legal principles, _any_ competition -- especially competition from competitors who experience fewer costs -- is undesirable and harmful. It doesn't matter to the bottom line whether the competitors are thieves, "dumpers", ideologues, hobbyists, or corporations. From a certain point of view, further, certain participants in a given market are likely to appear "subsidized" (they have a whole _category_ or a whole _level_ of resources completely unavailable to other participants), and so it will be hard for other participants to conceive of any kind of meaningful and "fair" competition. (The sense in which they say that the other participants' "subsidies" are "unfair" will depend on a lot of factors. You can see a few different examples reflecting very different perspectives. And consider how different firms would react to the idea "You must fundamentally and dramatically change your business practices or business model by in order to compete with ", depending on the nature of the change and of the competitor.) To be somewhat concrete, even if every single Linux company went out of business and you and I both lost our jobs, Microsoft would _still_ not "win"; they would still face very substantial competition from Linux and free software which would still undermine their revenues (relative to their early and mid-1990s market share). One reason for this is that the free software thus produced (as Martin Pool pointed out) will _still be available_ and _still be useful_ even if the companies which sponsored its development go out of business. This is almost always not true for proprietary software companies: if Corel goes broke, Microsoft has simply lost a competitor in the market for office suites. But if Sun drops out of that business, OpenOffice is still going to be around, still going to be just as available as before, and probably still as actively maintained. That gets into the second reason: many of us would keep producing free software or contributing to the maintenance of free software even if we were never paid to do it. So free software development can continue apace (for some values of "apace")
RE: Converting/Splitting Code - Open to Closed
Forutnately for us Europeans, that doesn't apply here - software and algorithms are, IIUC, non-patentable in Europe. IANAL [DJW:] The recent UK government consultation paper++ on the possibility of introducing US like software patents said that European law allowed software patents where the invention had "technical effect", but didn't define "technical effect". I'm not competent to interpret it and I'm sure the lawyers will not attempt to interpret except in the contezxt of a specific client relationship, so there has to be an element of FUD there. (I didn't get the impression that this was limited to "embeded *systems*".) ++ Unfortunately they didn't archive the URL, so it is now a dead link. However, I believe the EEC is still considering the issue of software patents and had had some advice against taking them to US levels: http://europa.eu.int/comm/internal_market/en/intprop/indprop/softpaten.htm One telling quote is: The current legal situation is unsatisfactory because it is lacking clarity and legal certainty. Computer programs "as such" are excluded from patentability. Yet, thousands of patents for technical inventions using a computer program have been granted by national patent offices and by the European Patent Office (EPO). -- --- DISCLAIMER - Any views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender, except where the sender specifically states them to be the views of BTS.
Re: Wording in Open Source Definition
Richard Boulton scripsit: We were unable to come to a satisfactory agreement, so I am asking this list: "Is it permissible in any circumstances for an Open Source license to require a royalty or other fee for sale of the software?" The answer is clearly "no". If the answer is no, I humbly suggest that the "may not" be changed to "must not" where it appears in clause 1, and that "free" be changed to "free-of-cost" in the rationale for clause 1, to avoid others falling into this same argument. I think you are absolutely right, and "may not" should be changed to "must not" everywhere. As evidence that "may not" means "must not" in this document, however, consider clause 6. The second sentence purports to be an example of the general principle given in the first sentence, yet the second sentence reads "may not" where the first reads "must not". -- John Cowan [EMAIL PROTECTED] One art/there is/no less/no more/All things/to do/with sparks/galore --Douglas Hofstadter
RE: Wording in Open Source Definition
From: Richard Boulton [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] We were unable to come to a satisfactory agreement, so I am asking this list: "Is it permissible in any circumstances for an Open Source license to require a royalty or other fee for sale of the software?" [DJW:] The GPL is Open Source and the answer for the GPL is, as I understand it: No licence fee may be charged for the use of any intellectual property in the software (i.e. copyright or patent licences). An indefinitely large fee may be charged for: - the media; - placing the software on the media; - warranties; - support; - etc. This fee is is between the immediate supplier and immediate recipient; a supplier cannot insist that the recipient charge anyone down stream, although, I would hope, that they could impose a restriction that they would not provide any support or any warranty to an indirect recipient, or allow the the immediate recipient to act as their agent in selling support and warranty downstream. I think you will find that RedHat is based on the ability to charge in this way. (The one restriction on supply charges in the GPL is that, once executables are supplied, charges for source must be based on true copying, handling and media costs, not on what the market will bear. One point of the GPL is that the market will not bear large prices when anyone can redistribute or support the software.) IANAL
Re: boomberg bloopers
Seth David Schoen wrote: Going out of business is a real, time-honored, traditional market response to changing conditions. Some people (Schumpeter?) have written entire books on how it's supposed to be a really good thing that firms can go out of business. But surely those firms would have to see that (by whatever means it might happen) as "a threat", surely they would have to feel threatened by that. I personally don't object to Microsoft publicly saying that open source threatens their business and is a threat to Microsoft itself. But recall the actual Allchin quote: "I worry if the government encourages open source, and I don't think we've done enough education of policymakers to understand the threat." What Allchin is in effect claiming is that open source is a "threat" to the public at large, and one serious enough to warrant government intervention to counter it. Not only is this a dubious proposition (at the very least), it is also IMO a grossly hypocritical statement, given the positions Microsoft has taken relative to the DOJ antitrust case and Microsoft's claimed freedom to conduct its business as it wishes, regardless of the effect on Microsoft's competitors. Frank -- Frank Heckerwork: http://www.collab.net/ [EMAIL PROTECTED]home: http://www.hecker.org/
Re: boomberg bloopers
On Friday 16 February 2001 02:20 am, Seth David Schoen wrote: If there were a big market for some kind of labor and a lot of people began to do that same labor as volunteers, or as a hobby, the people who did it for a living would see their livelihood threatened, even though the activities of the volunteers or hobbyists are totally legitimate. Bullocks! If I donate my time to a soup kitchen I am not threatening the sandwich shop. And my letters to the editors do not threaten the daily columnists. If you look at bottom lines instead of ethical or legal principles, _any_ competition -- especially competition from competitors who experience fewer costs -- is undesirable and harmful. Bullocks again! Competition is an aid to an industry. A monopolist, regardless of your moral position on the topic, is prone to poor quality and high prices, while even two competitors in an industry will at least "raise the bar". Given that the competition is voluntary, and not an artificial product of a court ruling, it can only be a benefit. Of course, most, if not all, Open Source is "free beer" and not sold as a product (although the shrink wrap, service or support is). It is not in competition with closed source software anymore. That Open Source has become a significant enough factor to make Jim Allchin sweat is an indicator that least certain sectors of the closed source market are obsolete. The profession of scribe used to be a lucrative trade. But the invention of the printing press vastly lowered the producing copies of books. The profession of scribe didn't go away, it just had to find new market niches. I'm sure the Jim Allchins of those times accused Gutenburg of Uneuropean activities. In the same way, digital meda and networks have vastly lowered the cost of producing copies of software. And the public is starting to find this out. It won't take the closed source industry out of business. But closed source will have to find new market niches besides the "one size fits all" niche they've been in. -- David Johnson ___ http://www.usermode.org
Re: Wording in Open Source Definition
On Friday 16 February 2001 01:49 am, Richard Boulton wrote: The discussion focussed around the intent of clause 1, Free Redistribution, in particular "The license may not require a royalty or other fee for such sale." As a child, when your lawyer's mother told him that he "may not have a cookie before dinner", take that to mean that he could? In the game of life, one mother always beats a pair of lawyers. -- David Johnson ___ http://www.usermode.org
Re: Wording in Open Source Definition
John Cowan writes: Richard Boulton scripsit: We were unable to come to a satisfactory agreement, so I am asking this list: "Is it permissible in any circumstances for an Open Source license to require a royalty or other fee for sale of the software?" The answer is clearly "no". If the answer is no, I humbly suggest that the "may not" be changed to "must not" where it appears in clause 1, and that "free" be changed to "free-of-cost" in the rationale for clause 1, to avoid others falling into this same argument. I think you are absolutely right, and "may not" should be changed to "must not" everywhere. As evidence that "may not" means "must not" in this document, however, consider clause 6. The second sentence purports to be an example of the general principle given in the first sentence, yet the second sentence reads "may not" where the first reads "must not". Maybe the OSD should be written to use terms like MAY, MUST, and SHOULD as defined by RFC 2119: http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2119.txt (And it could then say so.) -- 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: boomberg bloopers
From a public-policy perspective, the object should be that the public is well-served. In this sense, the criterion for judging the "threat" of free software is whether an economy that includes free software provides a public benefit equal to or better than an economy that doesn't include free software. If we were to assume that Allchin's worst fears come true and that all proprietary software is displaced by free software, the only public policy impact would be if this environment were to create a world that was worse-off. The fact that the domestic software industry would have to radically change is of secondary concern (albeit not inconsequential). So, would a world powered by Linux be worse-off than a world powered by Windows? J -Original Message- From: Seth David Schoen [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Seth David Schoen Sent: Friday, February 16, 2001 11:45 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: boomberg bloopers David Johnson writes: On Friday 16 February 2001 02:20 am, Seth David Schoen wrote: If there were a big market for some kind of labor and a lot of people began to do that same labor as volunteers, or as a hobby, the people who did it for a living would see their livelihood threatened, even though the activities of the volunteers or hobbyists are totally legitimate. Bullocks! If I donate my time to a soup kitchen I am not threatening the sandwich shop. And my letters to the editors do not threaten the daily columnists. I probably should have been more specific about "that same labor". The reason these things don't threaten the livelihoods of the other laborers is that they are not good substitutes for what they displace. (If you want to write a daily column for free, and donate it to a newspaper, you do threaten the daily columnists. If you want to run a sandwich shop as a hobby -- like the Internet cafe in my early example -- you do threaten the commercial sandwich shop.) Since I think free software is a good substitute for proprietary software most of the time, I think it is a threat to the livelihoods of many proprietary software developers, and the business of their employers. Maybe Allchin doesn't think free software is a good substitute for proprietary software, so he thinks it's not a threat. Except perhaps he's saying that the public hasn't yet noticed that open source software isn't as good as Microsoft software? It's difficult (as other people have pointed out) to understand the exact nature of Allchin's concern. If he doesn't think that the free software community produces a good rival product, he doesn't have a long-term reason to worry; but he is, he says, concerned. If you look at bottom lines instead of ethical or legal principles, _any_ competition -- especially competition from competitors who experience fewer costs -- is undesirable and harmful. Bullocks again! Competition is an aid to an industry. A monopolist, regardless of your moral position on the topic, is prone to poor quality and high prices, while even two competitors in an industry will at least "raise the bar". Given that the competition is voluntary, and not an artificial product of a court ruling, it can only be a benefit. The bottom line of a monopolist who can extract monopoly prices is still better than the bottom line of a competitor who produces a great product. There are some exceptions to that (where competition led to innovation and growth in a market), but in the short term being a monopolist is much better for bottom lines (not for "an industry"). Of course, most, if not all, Open Source is "free beer" and not sold as a product (although the shrink wrap, service or support is). It is not in competition with closed source software anymore. That Open Source has become a significant enough factor to make Jim Allchin sweat is an indicator that least certain sectors of the closed source market are obsolete. I don't understand how you can say both of those things. If those sectors are "obsolete" (because of open source software?), how is that open source software not competing with the proprietary software? The profession of scribe used to be a lucrative trade. But the invention of the printing press vastly lowered the producing copies of books. The profession of scribe didn't go away, it just had to find new market niches. I'm sure the Jim Allchins of those times accused Gutenburg of Uneuropean activities. In the same way, digital meda and networks have vastly lowered the cost of producing copies of software. And the public is starting to find this out. It won't take the closed source industry out of business. But closed source will have to find new market niches besides the "one size fits all" niche they've been in. I agree with this -- but I emphasize the part that any
Re: boomberg bloopers
On Friday 16 February 2001 11:00 am, Tom Hull wrote: 2) It pushes the argument that Microsoft is not a monpoloy, that Microsoft faces serious, threatening competition, and therefore that breakup is unnecessary and possibly counterproductive. Actually, it's a very good argument. This specific case started because of Internet Explorer. I now have before me the choice between Netscape, Opera, Konqueror and Mozilla. From my position, and perhaps I've led a sheltered life, Netscape lost market share solely because of Netscape. They spent far too long coming out with an HTML-4 compliant browser, and when they did they released it before it was ready (catch-22). Don't get me wrong, there's a ton of stuff that Microsoft should be held criminally and civilly liable for. But having too large of a market share does not qualify as a monopoly. And being a monopoly, by itself, is not a crime. I dislike Microsoft as much as the next guy, maybe even more so, but the Justice Department went about this all the wrong way. -- David Johnson ___ http://www.usermode.org
Re: boomberg bloopers
Of course, this is a blatant FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) strategy at work -- tossing out ridiculously muddled thoughts in hopes that they can cause IP anxieties surrounding Napster to be associated with the phrase "open source". No shame! QUOTE from the article: Microsoft has told U.S. lawmakers of its concern while discussing protection of intellectual property rights. Linux is developed in a so-called open-source environment in which the software code generally isn't owned by any one company. That, as well as programs such as music-sharing software from Napster, means the world's largest software maker has to do a better job of talking to policymakers, Allchin said. ''Open source is an intellectual-property destroyer,'' Allchin said. ''I can't imagine something that could be worse than this for the software business and the intellectual-property business.'' END QUOTE This is the start of a concerted effort by MS to attack Linux on non-technical fronts. I don't doubt that such a campaign is in the offing, but Microsoft's most pressing problem is their antitrust appeal. They're busy hiring political clout: http://www.salon.com/tech/wire/2001/02/16/big_guns/index.html Attacking open source does two things for them: 1) It provides cover for their political lobbying, and spin for people on their payroll. 2) It pushes the argument that Microsoft is not a monpoloy, that Microsoft faces serious, threatening competition, and therefore that breakup is unnecessary and possibly counterproductive. The latter point will, of course, be amplified by the inevitable response. Not that one should shy away from response: it seems like an excellent opportunity to point out the chilling effects that monopolistic business has on innovation. -- /* * Tom Hull * thull at kscable.com * http://www.ocston.org/~thull/ */
Re: boomberg bloopers
begin Jordan Logos Greenhall quotation: So, would a world powered by Linux be worse-off than a world powered by Windows? http://www.perlguy.net/images/opensource1.gif -- Cheers,Before enlightenment, caffeine. Rick Moen After enlightenment, caffeine. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: boomberg bloopers
--- Brian Behlendorf [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: when a group of entities get together and decide to "sell" a thing at a cost substantially lower than the cost of production, *with the intent to affect other parties who can not make a similar unreturned investment*, then that is usually called "price fixing", a category of antitrust. I believe the term dumping applies here as well. RAM pricing from Asia was the focus of an enormous amount of government attention, not that long ago, when U.S. firms were allegedly forced from the market. - Martin Zam __ Do You Yahoo!? Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail - only $35 a year! http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/
