subject:"Rchard Stallman vs Darl McBride"

On Tue, Jul 20, 2010 at 5:02 PM, Richard Esplin
richard-li...@esplins.org wrote:
I want to respond to two different, related posts.

One of the roles of an open source software users group is to educate users
on the rights open source gives them, thereby helping them to value those
rights. An open license has value that can be compelling even when the
software is not necessarily the best technical fit.

At my current job, our marketing team recently surveyed our customers to
determine why they selected our open source software over proprietary
alternatives. More than half of our customers listed the open source license
as a major reason they selected our product. Many customers reported that the
license played a bigger role than the technical fit of the product.

Licenses matter, especially to an open source users group.

Yes, they do matter, and information about how to select an
appropriate license for your needs is actually a valid technical
topic. Licenses are legal tools to specific ends, and knowing how to
use those tools and what their usage implies is important whether you
subscribe to a particular social view or not.

However, advocating social views, which is RMS's modus operandi these
days, is not the same thing as giving technical instruction/advice on
selecting a license. Yes, there's an argument that the GPL is an
important license now and thus getting a treatise on the philosophy
behind it and a call to follow that philosophy is appropriate, and
I'll have to concede that it's a somewhat reasonable one that might
appeal to a good portion of the group. I just don't think it's very
useful, myself. I'd rather hear a less biased overview.

On Saturday, July 17, 2010 15:56:31 Levi Pearson levipear...@gmail.com
wrote:
snip
What's the big deal about 'getting hijacked by powerful corporate
interests', anyway? It was clearly possible to write significant
software to be released under a BSD license, because BSD did it.
Certainly lots of noise and many heated arguments were created by the
GPL, but I'm not convinced that it was a major factor in getting stuff
written.
snip

I have often been involved in deciding what license a business should use for
a new software project. There are trade-offs to each license, and I like
Bruce Peren's advice here:

http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/osrc/article.php/3803101/Bruce-Perens-How-Many-Open-Source-Licenses-Do-You-Need.htm

The GPL provides some strong protections for code creators.

* Reciprocity plays to a sense of justice

I am not going to use my free time working on a project which will
primarily enrich Bill Gates and his share-holders (or any other
company).

If you're using your free time to work on a project, presumably you're
primarily enriching yourself. If it's not personally enriching, you
probably shouldn't be doing it in your free time! If you don't want
someone else to make money from your efforts, either don't release it,
or release it with a no-commercial-use license. The GPL doesn't
prohibit selling software, it just obliges people who distribute
modified versions to make source available. If you're worried about
them taking credit for your work, there are licenses that require that
credit/attribution be given to you. In other words, I don't see how
the above description of motivations is related to a sense of justice
as much as it is related to compelling other people to do what you
want them to do with their efforts.

* Reciprocity provides the hope of additional contributions

When I select the GPL, I am optimistic that someone else will likeIf
my code enough to contribute to it, and respect the license enough
that I will benefit from their additions. The BSD provides a warm-
fuzzy feeling that my code might help someone else, but I have no
legal expectation that I will benefit in return.

GPL provides no expectation of benefit, only an expectation of access
to source code of changes. There's no reason that the GPL would
compel someone to make changes that would be useful to you or in a
form you would like. Cooperation can't be compelled by license, and
it makes business sense to cooperate outside of license compulsion. I
don't think the GPL was required to bring about this understanding,
but that's certainly debatable.

* Share-alike creates more open code

The legal obligation of reciprocity can act as a multiplier on hobby
code contributions, because corporations that want to improve the code
have additional reasons to persuade management to

Re: Rchard Stallman vs Darl McBride

On Tue, 20 Jul 2010, Levi Pearson wrote:

 Giving up the right to not distribute parts of your source code is a 
 pretty significant right to give up for some pretty dubious 'protection' 
 offered by the GPL.

It's not clear to me what you're saying here. What about the GPL would 
cause one to give up the right to not distribute parts of your source 
code?

Jon

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End Point Corporation
http://www.endpoint.com/

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Re: Rchard Stallman vs Darl McBride

2010-07-20 Thread Tod Hansmann



On 7/20/2010 7:23 PM, Jon Jensen wrote:
 On Tue, 20 Jul 2010, Levi Pearson wrote:


 Giving up the right to not distribute parts of your source code is a
 pretty significant right to give up for some pretty dubious 'protection'
 offered by the GPL.
  
 It's not clear to me what you're saying here. What about the GPL would
 cause one to give up the right to not distribute parts of your source
 code?

 Jon


You can't release part of a project under GPL, and if you do release it 
under GPL, you give up the right to keep some of your code to yourself.  
At least, I believe that's what he's saying.

-Tod Hansmann

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GPL worldview WAS Re: Rchard Stallman vs Darl McBride

2010-07-20 Thread Richard Esplin

Responses are inline.

On Tuesday, July 20, 2010 19:14:43 Levi Pearson levipear...@gmail.com wrote:
snip
  The GPL provides some strong protections for code creators.
 
  * Reciprocity plays to a sense of justice
 
 I am not going to use my free time working on a project which will
 primarily enrich Bill Gates and his share-holders (or any other
 company).
 
 
 If you're using your free time to work on a project, presumably you're
 primarily enriching yourself.  If it's not personally enriching, you
 probably shouldn't be doing it in your free time!  If you don't want
 someone else to make money from your efforts, either don't release it,
 or release it with a no-commercial-use license.  The GPL doesn't
 prohibit selling software, it just obliges people who distribute
 modified versions to make source available.  If you're worried about
 them taking credit for your work, there are licenses that require that
 credit/attribution be given to you.  In other words, I don't see how
 the above description of motivations is related to a sense of justice
 as much as it is related to compelling other people to do what you
 want them to do with their efforts.

Personal enrichment is only one motivation for contributing to a software 
project. From the perspective of what is best for the open source ecosystem, it 
is perhaps one of the less valuable motivations.

You are miss-characterizing the primary motivation. For people like me, the 
point is to maximize social good. The worry is not commercial use or 
miss-attribution. The point is to build something that would have economic 
value, and give it away for free because it will benefit others. Asking those 
who want to benefit from my work to contribute back their changes seems like a 
just request. Letting others leverage the economic value of my contribution 
without giving anything in return appears unjust.

  * Reciprocity provides the hope of additional contributions
 
 When I select the GPL, I am optimistic that someone else will likeIf
 my code enough to contribute to it, and respect the license enough
 that I will benefit from their additions. The BSD provides a warm-
 fuzzy feeling that my code might help someone else, but I have no
 legal expectation that I will benefit in return.
 
 GPL provides no expectation of benefit, only an expectation of access
 to source code of changes.  There's no reason that the GPL would
 compel someone to make changes that would be useful to you or in a
 form you would like.  Cooperation can't be compelled by license, and
 it makes business sense to cooperate outside of license compulsion.  I
 don't think the GPL was required to bring about this understanding,
 but that's certainly debatable.

In legal terms, having an expectation of access to source code of derived works 
is a benefit with economic value.

Though not preferable, cooperation can be compelled by license. Look at the 
Linksys WRT54G experience. It is true that it is preferable to cooperate 
outside of license compulsion, but the GPL encourages such cooperation by 
creating a level playing field with clearly defined legal expectations. This 
allows competitors to cooperate while avoiding the free-rider problem.

In a competitive free-market economy, it is too risky to cooperate without some 
legal agreement. The Apache Project and the Eclipse Foundation provide the 
legal basis of cooperation through the legal agreements of their governing 
boards. I personally think the software license is a lower bandwidth way of 
defining the terms of the cooperation.

  * Share-alike creates more open code
 
 The legal obligation of reciprocity can act as a multiplier on hobby
 code contributions, because corporations that want to improve the code
 have additional reasons to persuade management to release their
 improvements.
 
 At two different companies, I have been able to release improvements
 to open source code because the project we wanted to use was licensed
 under the GPL. If it had been BSD licensed, that code would be rotting
 on some small team within the companies.
 
 The programmers who produced that code were not paid to create it,
 but they benefit from my team being paid to improve it.
 
 I have worked with companies that were extremely hesitant to touch
 anything GPL-related due to worries about license contamination of
 important IP.  They would not release source related to that IP under
 a free license under any circumstance, though they might find it
 useful to cooperate with others on non-core software.  GPL would
 prevent that non-core cooperation due to the worry of being forced to
 release core IP.  The open source projects I have contributed to are
 things that we would have contributed to regardless of license,
 because cooperation was one of the goals from the beginning.

Companies who do not want to disclose their improvements to GPL code should not 
be using that code.

Re: Rchard Stallman vs Darl McBride

On Tue, 20 Jul 2010, Tod Hansmann wrote:

 You can't release part of a project under GPL, and if you do release it 
 under GPL, you give up the right to keep some of your code to yourself. 
 At least, I believe that's what he's saying.

There is nothing in the GPL that says you must distribute any code you 
write that is derivative of GPL'd code, if you don't distribute it.

If you distribute code derivative of GPL'd code, then it must be licensed 
under the GPL. But you don't have to distribute it.

For example, a company can make internal modifications to Linux and is 
under no obligation to distribute them or tell anyone anywhere about it. I 
believe internal copying within a company is not considered distribution 
under copyright law due to the idea of corporate personhood.

However, if they do distribute the code to others, whether in exchange for 
money or not, it must be licensed under the GPL to comply with the GPL 
license of the code they're building upon. Otherwise, they have no license 
to use that copyrighted original code.

One option that occasionally is used: You can get permission from the 
original copyright holder to use their code under another license than the 
GPL, maybe for free because they like you, or in exchange for money or 
other valuables.

This is all just a reflection of the fact that under current copyright 
law, all creative works are presumed copyrighted by their creator by 
default, and the only thing that makes it legal for another party to copy 
the copyrighted work (except for fair use etc.) is permission, whether 
through a stock license like the GPL, or personal permission.

Jon

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End Point Corporation
http://www.endpoint.com/

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Re: Rchard Stallman vs Darl McBride

On Tue, Jul 20, 2010 at 7:32 PM, Tod Hansmann t...@todandlorna.com wrote:
 On 7/20/2010 7:23 PM, Jon Jensen wrote:
 On Tue, 20 Jul 2010, Levi Pearson wrote:


 Giving up the right to not distribute parts of your source code is a
 pretty significant right to give up for some pretty dubious 'protection'
 offered by the GPL.

 It's not clear to me what you're saying here. What about the GPL would
 cause one to give up the right to not distribute parts of your source
 code?

 Jon


 You can't release part of a project under GPL, and if you do release it
 under GPL, you give up the right to keep some of your code to yourself.
 At least, I believe that's what he's saying.

Yes, that's it.  If there's a chunk of your code that's linked to the
rest that you want to keep private, for whatever reason, you cannot
use the GPL with the rest of your code.

--Levi

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Re: Rchard Stallman vs Darl McBride

On Tue, 2010-07-20 at 20:35 -0600, Levi Pearson wrote:
 Yes, that's it.  If there's a chunk of your code that's linked to the
 rest that you want to keep private, for whatever reason, you cannot
 use the GPL with the rest of your code.

Not entirely true. If you control the copyright on all of the code, you
can do whatever you want. That's what makes dual licensing possible, and
one of the reason some companies insist on copyright assignment before
accepting contributions. Of course, if you depend on someone else's
GPL'd code, you don't control the copyright of all the code and are
therefore subject to the GPL.

You'd get PR flack for releasing a crippled project, but you can do it.
The GPL can't dictate terms to the copyright holder.


-- 
Stuart Jansen sjan...@buscaluz.org


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Re: Rchard Stallman vs Darl McBride

On Tue, Jul 20, 2010 at 8:34 PM, Jon Jensen j...@endpoint.com wrote:
 On Tue, 20 Jul 2010, Tod Hansmann wrote:

 You can't release part of a project under GPL, and if you do release it
 under GPL, you give up the right to keep some of your code to yourself.
 At least, I believe that's what he's saying.

 There is nothing in the GPL that says you must distribute any code you
 write that is derivative of GPL'd code, if you don't distribute it.

 If you distribute code derivative of GPL'd code, then it must be licensed
 under the GPL. But you don't have to distribute it.

This is true, though you might make the GPL software's authors mad if
they find out about it.  I was assuming that we were talking about
code that was to be distributed, since otherwise you don't have to
license your code at all.

 This is all just a reflection of the fact that under current copyright
 law, all creative works are presumed copyrighted by their creator by
 default, and the only thing that makes it legal for another party to copy
 the copyrighted work (except for fair use etc.) is permission, whether
 through a stock license like the GPL, or personal permission.

Yes, but you can license your software to grant permission to use,
copy, modify, and redistribute it without preaching to people about
rights and freedoms and whatnot, and without forcing them to open any
software they might link with yours.

--Levi

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GPL does not tie your hands necessarily - Re: Rchard Stallman vs Darl McBride

2010-07-20 Thread Michael Torrie

On 07/20/2010 08:35 PM, Levi Pearson wrote:
 Yes, that's it.  If there's a chunk of your code that's linked to the
 rest that you want to keep private, for whatever reason, you cannot
 use the GPL with the rest of your code.

It pains me to see misunderstanding of the GPL and how it works.

If your wrote *all* the code yourself, you absolutely can release only
part of it under the GPL.  Most projects tend to have a written
exception clause to the GPL, but that is not strictly required.  It's
your code; you can license it anyway you want.  So I could write a
program with a closed-source plugin, and release everything but the
plugin under the GPL.  Any derivatives of my code must be GPL, since
that's the license I specified.  My having a closed module in no way
changes that.  Derivatives of your program (the GPL'd part) could or
could not ship a closed module, depending on exceptions that you as the
copyright holder make and append to your license.  See the Linux
Kernel's license, or GCC's license for exceptions to the GPL that are
allowed for.

On the other hand, if I made a derivative of some GPL's project and then
wanted to also ship a closed module for use with that, then you
obviously cannot, because that would violate the terms that someone else
(who owns the copyright on the code) dictated.  You could, of course,
get the copyright owner to grant an exception for your closed module.
In this case, if the GPL doesn't work for you, write your own code,
negotiate a different license with the copyright holder, or find some
other code whose license works for you.

I hope that makes sense.  Copyright and licenses are not magical.
Nothing is *automatic*.  Certainly in the case of the GPL, the license
is there to ensure the freedom of the *developer* first.  The end user
is of course always free, provided he does not distribute, as the GPL
does not require the end user to agree to anything to use GPL'd
software.  Just try to use Java on a nuclear submarine...

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Re: Rchard Stallman vs Darl McBride

On Tue, 2010-07-20 at 20:50 -0600, Levi Pearson wrote:
 Yes, but you can license your software to grant permission to use,
 copy, modify, and redistribute it without preaching to people about
 rights and freedoms and whatnot, and without forcing them to open any
 software they might link with yours.

Clearly you need a short, overweight, bearded, unwashed man to visit you
at 5am and discuss software licensing in depth.

My co-workers probably won't be happy to discover I've decided to stop
showering, but... we all have to make sacrifices. See you in a week.

-- 
Stuart Jansen sjan...@buscaluz.org

P.S. Will you supply the donuts or should I?


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Re: Rchard Stallman vs Darl McBride

On Tue, Jul 20, 2010 at 8:49 PM, Stuart Jansen sjan...@buscaluz.org wrote:
 On Tue, 2010-07-20 at 20:35 -0600, Levi Pearson wrote:
 Yes, that's it.  If there's a chunk of your code that's linked to the
 rest that you want to keep private, for whatever reason, you cannot
 use the GPL with the rest of your code.

 Not entirely true. If you control the copyright on all of the code, you
 can do whatever you want. That's what makes dual licensing possible, and
 one of the reason some companies insist on copyright assignment before
 accepting contributions. Of course, if you depend on someone else's
 GPL'd code, you don't control the copyright of all the code and are
 therefore subject to the GPL.

That's a good point, and a valid way to work around the problem if you
don't want/need to take advantage of any GPL libraries you don't own
the copyright to in the non-private portions.  The GPL just creates
what seems sometimes like a minefield for those who want to keep some
things private.  That's the intention of it, really.  I think it makes
more sense in this case to just use a permissive license.

--Levi

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Re: Rchard Stallman vs Darl McBride

On Tue, 2010-07-20 at 21:11 -0600, Levi Pearson wrote:
 The GPL just creates what seems sometimes like a minefield for those
 who want to keep some things private.  That's the intention of it,
 really.  I think it makes more sense in this case to just use a
 permissive license.

Dude, that's like arguing: The DMZ is preventing the reintegration of
Korea, we should just let the North invade the South and the conflict
will be ended.




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Re: Rchard Stallman vs Darl McBride

2010-07-20 Thread Michael Torrie

On 07/20/2010 09:11 PM, Levi Pearson wrote:
 The GPL just creates what seems sometimes like a minefield for those
 who want to keep some things private.  That's the intention of it,
 really.  I think it makes more sense in this case to just use a
 permissive license.

*Any* third-party code license can lead to a minefield for developers.
In short, if you don't know how each and every pieces of third party
code you are using is licensed and how it affects how you intend to
license your code, you are in trouble. This is true in the regular,
proprietary world, or in the open source world.

Course if everyone used the GPL there'd be no problem. :)

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Re: GPL worldview WAS Re: Rchard Stallman vs Darl McBride

2010-07-20 Thread Michael Torrie

On 07/20/2010 08:21 PM, Richard Esplin wrote:
 Personal enrichment is only one motivation for contributing to a
 software project. From the perspective of what is best for the open
 source ecosystem, it is perhaps one of the less valuable
 motivations.

In fact, IBM contributes to GPL'd software precisely for *commercial*
reasons.  In IBM's mind, contributing to GPLd software like the Linux
kernel helps them make money by having a stronger, more viable platform.
 The GPL levels the playing field.  IBM's contributions can't be used
against them, as they could be with a BSD license.  Linux gets better
for everyone.

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Re: Rchard Stallman vs Darl McBride

On Tue, 20 Jul 2010, Levi Pearson wrote:

 Yes, but you can license your software to grant permission to use, copy, 
 modify, and redistribute it without preaching to people about rights and 
 freedoms and whatnot, and without forcing them to open any software they 
 might link with yours.

Yes, that's certainly an option.

We should just remember that everyone whether they go out of their way to 
assert it or not denies the freedom to use, copy, modify, and redistribute 
anything they write unless they go out of their way to grant those 
permissions to others.

So the GPL may seem draconian, but if you had to specifically claim all 
the rights that copyright law gives you, you'd sound pretty preachy and 
fussy about rights and whatnot. I think in light of the new default 
everything is copyrighted by default legal situation (only since 1976 in 
the U.S.) the GPL is still pretty friendly.

In other words, I don't see the more liberal licenses such as BSD or MIT 
being on any higher moral ground, or freer, than the GPL. They just have 
different tradeoffs.

Jon

-- 
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End Point Corporation
http://www.endpoint.com/

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Re: Rchard Stallman vs Darl McBride

On Tue, 2010-07-20 at 21:35 -0600, Michael Torrie wrote:
 Course if everyone used the GPL there'd be no problem. :)

By that logic, the DBADL is also a viable option.

http://philsturgeon.co.uk/code/dbad-license


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Re: GPL does not tie your hands necessarily - Re: Rchard Stallman vs Darl McBride

On Tue, Jul 20, 2010 at 8:53 PM, Michael Torrie torr...@gmail.com wrote:
 On 07/20/2010 08:35 PM, Levi Pearson wrote:
 Yes, that's it.  If there's a chunk of your code that's linked to the
 rest that you want to keep private, for whatever reason, you cannot
 use the GPL with the rest of your code.

 It pains me to see misunderstanding of the GPL and how it works.

It was not so much a misunderstanding as an oversimplification with
hidden assumptions, but your clarification is good information.

 If your wrote *all* the code yourself, you absolutely can release only
 part of it under the GPL.

Yes, but that negates the power of using open source building blocks.
I assumed some other copyright holders in the mix, either from the
beginning or from accepting contributions under the GPL without
copyright reassignment.

 Most projects tend to have a written
 exception clause to the GPL, but that is not strictly required.  It's
 your code; you can license it anyway you want.  So I could write a
 program with a closed-source plugin, and release everything but the
 plugin under the GPL.  Any derivatives of my code must be GPL, since
 that's the license I specified.  My having a closed module in no way
 changes that.  Derivatives of your program (the GPL'd part) could or
 could not ship a closed module, depending on exceptions that you as the
 copyright holder make and append to your license.  See the Linux
 Kernel's license, or GCC's license for exceptions to the GPL that are
 allowed for.

Yes, but that's GPL-with-exceptions, not vanilla GPL.  Structuring
things correctly and coming up with the necessary exceptions and all
that seem needlessly complicated to me.

 On the other hand, if I made a derivative of some GPL's project and then
 wanted to also ship a closed module for use with that, then you
 obviously cannot, because that would violate the terms that someone else
 (who owns the copyright on the code) dictated.  You could, of course,
 get the copyright owner to grant an exception for your closed module.
 In this case, if the GPL doesn't work for you, write your own code,
 negotiate a different license with the copyright holder, or find some
 other code whose license works for you.

I don't think most sizeable GPL works have a single copyright holder,
unless they were set up in advance with the intention of providing
alternate licenses as well.  This makes a vast amount of otherwise
useful software not very useful at all in some situations, even if
you're willing to pay.

 I hope that makes sense.  Copyright and licenses are not magical.
 Nothing is *automatic*.  Certainly in the case of the GPL, the license
 is there to ensure the freedom of the *developer* first.  The end user
 is of course always free, provided he does not distribute, as the GPL
 does not require the end user to agree to anything to use GPL'd
 software.  Just try to use Java on a nuclear submarine...

It doesn't seem to me that the GPL is about ensuring the freedom of
the developer, unless of course you mean contributors other than the
initial author.  Indeed, the preamble states that the purpose is to
allow people who receive the program to access the source code, make
modifications, and re-distribute it.  The initial author already has
the freedom to do these things.  You could say it grants the freedom
to not have the code incorporated into a non-free system, but that's a
pretty odd way to frame what it does.

--Levi

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Re: Rchard Stallman vs Darl McBride

On Tue, Jul 20, 2010 at 9:41 PM, Jon Jensen j...@endpoint.com wrote:
 On Tue, 20 Jul 2010, Levi Pearson wrote:

 So the GPL may seem draconian, but if you had to specifically claim all
 the rights that copyright law gives you, you'd sound pretty preachy and
 fussy about rights and whatnot. I think in light of the new default
 everything is copyrighted by default legal situation (only since 1976 in
 the U.S.) the GPL is still pretty friendly.

 In other words, I don't see the more liberal licenses such as BSD or MIT
 being on any higher moral ground, or freer, than the GPL. They just have
 different tradeoffs.

Except that 'more liberal' literally means more free. :)  I get your
point, though, and that's what I said at the beginning of this.  I
don't care for the social movement surrounding the GPL, and I would
rather attend a presentation on technical topics than on Free Software
evangelism.

As a document granting specific rights, the GPL is a useful tool in
some circumstances.  As a literary work, it reads like the love child
of a missionary tract and a regular software license.  I don't
generally like its tradeoffs or its style, though I will concede that
it has served a useful purpose.

--Levi

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Re: Rchard Stallman vs Darl McBride

2010-07-20 Thread Tod Hansmann

On 7/20/2010 9:42 PM, Stuart Jansen wrote:
 On Tue, 2010-07-20 at 21:35 -0600, Michael Torrie wrote:

 Course if everyone used the GPL there'd be no problem. :)
  
 By that logic, the DBADL is also a viable option.

 http://philsturgeon.co.uk/code/dbad-license



I wrote this license once, and have some code under it.  I like it 
better than the GPL.  YMMV (It's essentially the WTF license, but more 
professional, no swearing).  It works for art and other content as well!

-Tod Hansmann

Any entity is permitted to copy, redistribute, or modify the accompanying
work for any reason whatsoever with no conditions except the condition
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Re: Rchard Stallman vs Darl McBride

On Tue, 20 Jul 2010, Levi Pearson wrote:

 In other words, I don't see the more liberal licenses such as BSD or 
 MIT being on any higher moral ground, or freer, than the GPL. They just 
 have different tradeoffs.

 Except that 'more liberal' literally means more free. :)

Yes, the BSD and MIT licenses are more liberal about what they allow the 
end user to do.

But the GPL is counterintuitively more liberal about what it gives the 
community, using copyright law in a nontraditional way.

If the law itself were more liberal, there'd be no need for either.

 I get your point, though, and that's what I said at the beginning of 
 this.  I don't care for the social movement surrounding the GPL, and I 
 would rather attend a presentation on technical topics than on Free 
 Software evangelism.

Sure. Point taken.

I think many of us see value in discussing the freedom aspect of the free 
software movement, and consider it irresponsible not to expose newcomers 
to the community about it. Many of us have been on this list for a very 
long time, and to us the topics are well-worn and mostly understood 
(though not entirely, as tonight's discussion shows). But to newcomers, 
they deserve to hear it from the FSF perspective as well as the Open 
Source crowd and wherever else. If you already know that, of course it 
makes sense to have less interest.

The Business Software Alliance, the MPAA, the RIAA, and others make sure 
the proprietary mindset is widely preached, so I see no need to give them 
an additional venue to spread their doctrine. (In which class I presume 
some of the people who don't want to hear from Darl McBride are putting 
him.)

Jon

-- 
Jon Jensen
End Point Corporation
http://www.endpoint.com/

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Re: Rchard Stallman vs Darl McBride

2010-07-20 Thread Aaron Toponce

On 07/20/2010 08:34 PM, Jon Jensen wrote:
 There is nothing in the GPL that says you must distribute any code you 
 write that is derivative of GPL'd code, if you don't distribute it.
 
 If you distribute code derivative of GPL'd code, then it must be licensed 
 under the GPL. But you don't have to distribute it.
 
 For example, a company can make internal modifications to Linux and is 
 under no obligation to distribute them or tell anyone anywhere about it. I 
 believe internal copying within a company is not considered distribution 
 under copyright law due to the idea of corporate personhood.

I'm surprised this hasn't been brought up, so I'll mention it.

Google keeps an internal proprietary derivative of Ubuntu on their
employee workstations. They have never released this Goobuntu to the
wild, and as such are under no obligation to release their changes. Even
if the code is GPL.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goobuntu

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Re: Rchard Stallman vs Darl McBride