RE: Fwd: reiser4 non-free?
Hans Reiser wrote > > Dawson, Larry wrote: > > >Hans Reiser wrote > > > > > > > >>Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: > >> > >> > >> > >>>MJ Ray <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> > >You seem to understand the difference between credit and > >advertisement as advertisements are credits for those > you dislike. > > > > > > > > > You seem to understand the difference between modification and > plagiarism as plagiarism is a modification that you dislike > > > >>because it > >> > >> > doesn't praise you enough. > > > > > >>>To be fair, these credits really do seem to be for others. Some of > >>>them are credits *and* ads, and at least one is an ad for work for > >>>Hans Reiser and Namesys, but they are credits as well, and most of > >>>them for other people. > >>> > >>>-Brian > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>I could be talked into eliminating the one for me, though I > >>have always > >>found it a bit of a pain that people > >>are a bit eager to think that I am some sort of businessman > who hired > >>russians because he wasn't abstractly inclined himself. > They seem to > >>think I am some sort of businessman fool enough to invest into free > >>software, rather than a guy who wanted to build something and > >>couldn't > >>get anyone to fund it so he paid for reiserfs to come into > >>existence by > >>working a day job for 5.5 years. They often don't realize > that I am > >>responsible for basic architectural features, like the idea of > >>aggregating small files together rather than always page > >>aligning them, > >>or that the most controversial deep design changes of V4 > >>versus V3 were > >>mine. > >> > >> > > > >Personally, when I read the info on Namesys.com I assumed Hans > >had designed pretty much all of Reiser 4. > > > Most people don't read Namesys.com, they only know about the > name of the > filesystem, and the credits are very much needed in mkreiser4 > to inform > them. In those credits, I am just one of the randomly chosen > developers/sponsors. > > Probably I should put the developer credits somewhere on the namesys > main page rather than just under the developers button. Thanks for > pointing that out. > > > It was only later when I read (I can't remember precisely > where) a page where Hans credited members of his team that I > knew that others had contributed a lot. I will continue to > credit Hans with a massive contribution to filesystem theory > and practise. Credit for their work should be given freely :-) > >Looking at a couple of lines of information about > contributers each time I use ReiserFS progs is just not a > problem for me - but it also seems plain to me that > restricting changes to the source means that they cannot be > put in debian. The license restriction is not compatible with the GPL. > >Since the actual Reiser4 filesystem is fully free and GPL > licensed, can debian include it without the Reiser programs? > If some one wants to write GPL compatible reiserfs progs > later then all is available "free" - so this does not seem to > put the debian social contract in a complete bind. For now, > obviously, a user is going to have to use the > non-gpl-compatible (and hence non-debian) utilities to create > a filesystem, and contributers to it will be credited. > > > > > Do you really think that there exists some moron willing to spend 4-5 > man-years just so that debian can freely eliminate mention of > who built > reiser4? No I don't, and I agree it would be wasteful to do, (and of no useful value, to me). But it is possible, so I was hoping debian would see the possibility as freedom enough to include the reiser4 filesystem. I want them to include reiser 4, but it seems impossible to include the reiser progs given your licensing requirements. > > > > > > > > >>Pr > >> > > > > > >
Re: Fwd: reiser4 non-free?
Dawson, Larry wrote: Hans Reiser wrote Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: MJ Ray <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: You seem to understand the difference between credit and advertisement as advertisements are credits for those you dislike. You seem to understand the difference between modification and plagiarism as plagiarism is a modification that you dislike because it doesn't praise you enough. To be fair, these credits really do seem to be for others. Some of them are credits *and* ads, and at least one is an ad for work for Hans Reiser and Namesys, but they are credits as well, and most of them for other people. -Brian I could be talked into eliminating the one for me, though I have always found it a bit of a pain that people are a bit eager to think that I am some sort of businessman who hired russians because he wasn't abstractly inclined himself. They seem to think I am some sort of businessman fool enough to invest into free software, rather than a guy who wanted to build something and couldn't get anyone to fund it so he paid for reiserfs to come into existence by working a day job for 5.5 years. They often don't realize that I am responsible for basic architectural features, like the idea of aggregating small files together rather than always page aligning them, or that the most controversial deep design changes of V4 versus V3 were mine. Personally, when I read the info on Namesys.com I assumed Hans had designed pretty much all of Reiser 4. Most people don't read Namesys.com, they only know about the name of the filesystem, and the credits are very much needed in mkreiser4 to inform them. In those credits, I am just one of the randomly chosen developers/sponsors. Probably I should put the developer credits somewhere on the namesys main page rather than just under the developers button. Thanks for pointing that out. It was only later when I read (I can't remember precisely where) a page where Hans credited members of his team that I knew that others had contributed a lot. I will continue to credit Hans with a massive contribution to filesystem theory and practise. Credit for their work should be given freely :-) Looking at a couple of lines of information about contributers each time I use ReiserFS progs is just not a problem for me - but it also seems plain to me that restricting changes to the source means that they cannot be put in debian. The license restriction is not compatible with the GPL. Since the actual Reiser4 filesystem is fully free and GPL licensed, can debian include it without the Reiser programs? If some one wants to write GPL compatible reiserfs progs later then all is available "free" - so this does not seem to put the debian social contract in a complete bind. For now, obviously, a user is going to have to use the non-gpl-compatible (and hence non-debian) utilities to create a filesystem, and contributers to it will be credited. Do you really think that there exists some moron willing to spend 4-5 man-years just so that debian can freely eliminate mention of who built reiser4? Pr
RE: Fwd: reiser4 non-free?
Hans Reiser wrote > Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: > > >MJ Ray <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > > > > > >>>You seem to understand the difference between credit and > >>>advertisement as advertisements are credits for those you dislike. > >>> > >>> > >>You seem to understand the difference between modification and > >>plagiarism as plagiarism is a modification that you dislike > because it > >>doesn't praise you enough. > >> > >> > > > >To be fair, these credits really do seem to be for others. Some of > >them are credits *and* ads, and at least one is an ad for work for > >Hans Reiser and Namesys, but they are credits as well, and most of > >them for other people. > > > >-Brian > > > > > > > I could be talked into eliminating the one for me, though I > have always > found it a bit of a pain that people > are a bit eager to think that I am some sort of businessman who hired > russians because he wasn't abstractly inclined himself. They seem to > think I am some sort of businessman fool enough to invest into free > software, rather than a guy who wanted to build something and > couldn't > get anyone to fund it so he paid for reiserfs to come into > existence by > working a day job for 5.5 years. They often don't realize that I am > responsible for basic architectural features, like the idea of > aggregating small files together rather than always page > aligning them, > or that the most controversial deep design changes of V4 > versus V3 were > mine. Personally, when I read the info on Namesys.com I assumed Hans had designed pretty much all of Reiser 4. It was only later when I read (I can't remember precisely where) a page where Hans credited members of his team that I knew that others had contributed a lot. I will continue to credit Hans with a massive contribution to filesystem theory and practise. Credit for their work should be given freely :-) Looking at a couple of lines of information about contributers each time I use ReiserFS progs is just not a problem for me - but it also seems plain to me that restricting changes to the source means that they cannot be put in debian. The license restriction is not compatible with the GPL. Since the actual Reiser4 filesystem is fully free and GPL licensed, can debian include it without the Reiser programs? If some one wants to write GPL compatible reiserfs progs later then all is available "free" - so this does not seem to put the debian social contract in a complete bind. For now, obviously, a user is going to have to use the non-gpl-compatible (and hence non-debian) utilities to create a filesystem, and contributers to it will be credited. > Probably the current one mentioning me needs more work, as it doesn't > really say all this, sigh.
Re: Fwd: reiser4 non-free?
Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: MJ Ray <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: You seem to understand the difference between credit and advertisement as advertisements are credits for those you dislike. You seem to understand the difference between modification and plagiarism as plagiarism is a modification that you dislike because it doesn't praise you enough. To be fair, these credits really do seem to be for others. Some of them are credits *and* ads, and at least one is an ad for work for Hans Reiser and Namesys, but they are credits as well, and most of them for other people. -Brian I could be talked into eliminating the one for me, though I have always found it a bit of a pain that people are a bit eager to think that I am some sort of businessman who hired russians because he wasn't abstractly inclined himself. They seem to think I am some sort of businessman fool enough to invest into free software, rather than a guy who wanted to build something and couldn't get anyone to fund it so he paid for reiserfs to come into existence by working a day job for 5.5 years. They often don't realize that I am responsible for basic architectural features, like the idea of aggregating small files together rather than always page aligning them, or that the most controversial deep design changes of V4 versus V3 were mine. Probably the current one mentioning me needs more work, as it doesn't really say all this, sigh.
Re: Fwd: reiser4 non-free?
On Thu, May 06, 2004 at 12:34:46PM -0700, Hans Reiser wrote: > Please consider my distinction between a credit (public television in > the USA has them), and an ad (for profit broadcast television has them). Both are ads. One just makes a poor attempt at failing to mention an actual product making a credit on PBS nearly indistinguishable from most pharmeceutical commercials. > > I don't find the credits annoying, I don't like the ads. Maybe the > broadcasters could make more effort to make the ads less annoying and > more informative, but their sense of civic duty is too lacking. > > I do like well funded television shows. Maybe if you'd watch more television instead of trying to be a lawyer this thread could have died long ago. I'll be blunt. Your current shenanigans, including the misuse of the term plagiarism, discourage me from recommending reiserfs and to strongly contemplate removing it from systems I am responsible for. I suspect that others have well, they just haven't bothered to tell you. Your desire to advertise, advertise, and advertise runs contrary to the Unix philosophy of "Don't output a damn thing if it ran right, and frequently don't output a damn thing if it failed miserably." I don't want to see your parp. Your desire to tinker with the license flies in the face of the GPL. If you're so damned sure that your desire to put advertising in the code is right and won't alienate your users, get a lawyer that does software licenses to draw up one to your specifications and kindly shut up until you 1) Get the license drafted 2) Get all of the reiserfs copyright holders to sign off on using the license. As an alternative, perhaps you could talk with Theo DeRaadt about porting Reiserfs to OpenBSD. -- Chris Dukes Been there, done that, got the slightly-charred t-shirt. -- Crowder
Re: Fwd: reiser4 non-free?
Jeremy Hankins wrote: A couple comments (that I may not be remembering properly) seemed to imply that these credits are part of a revenue generating model. Folks who wish to require users to see their name in conjunction with ReiserFS may purchase this control over what ReiserFS users see (i.e., they can purchase an ad -- the first TV ads worked exactly like this, that's why the word "sponsor" is used to refer to ad purchasers). If this is the case, and you are using the license to implement this control (i.e., option three above), then I think it's clear that you intend your license to work exactly as it appears to, and restrict users' freedom. If this is your goal (or perhaps some other variant on item 3 above) I don't think you're going to have much luck convincing folks on d-l that your license is Free. Please consider my distinction between a credit (public television in the USA has them), and an ad (for profit broadcast television has them). I don't find the credits annoying, I don't like the ads. Maybe the broadcasters could make more effort to make the ads less annoying and more informative, but their sense of civic duty is too lacking. I do like well funded television shows.
Re: Fwd: reiser4 non-free?
Vitaly, change the paragraph Nikita complained of to: Continuing core development of ReiserFS is mostly paid for by Hans Reiser from money made selling licenses in addition to the GPL to companies who don't want it known that they use ReiserFS as a foundation for their proprietary product. We thank those anonymous companies. Hans Reiser and Namesys also perform consulting to companies who miscellaneous kernel work done, and we thank those companies also. Nikita Danilov wrote: Hans Reiser writes: > MJ Ray wrote: > > > On 2004-05-04 18:47:02 +0100 Hans Reiser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > >> Our licenses are free and not plagiarizable. GPL V2 is plagiarizable > >> in the view of folks at debian who felt free to remove the credits. > > > > > > Can someone give a conclusive statement of what actually happened? The > > bug report 152547 looks like someone moved an advert into the docs > > accompanying, rather than removed any attribution. Now, if you call > > that advert "the credits" then I think you have a different view to > > many people. > > Show me the line in those credits where it said "buy Coca-Cola cheaper > here". They were credits, not advertisements. -- ... And my lawyer asked 'People pay you money for this?'. Yup. Hee Hee. Life is good. If you buy ReiserFS, you can focus on your value add rather than reinventing an entire FS. You should buy some free software too -- If these are credits, then Coca-cola is gpled. This is just _noise_, spewed on each invocation. Those sales make it possible every once in a long while to pay salaries > > > > > Their new condition clause 4, which says you cannot use their name, > > even for accurate reporting. Normally, this would just be a false > > statement, but this licence makes it a condition of the grant. I've > > not seen that mistake committed by anyone else yet. > > Can you supply their full verbatim phrasing so that we can discuss it > accurately? I'd like to understand whether your characterization is correct. > > > > >> And call it a credit clause, not an advertising clause. > >> Advertisements sell products, credits describe who made the project > >> happen. > > > > > > No, it is advertising for the XFree86 Project, Inc. In addition to > > acknowledging their copyright (the credit), that advert may have to > > appear. > > > You seem to understand the difference between credit and advertisement > as advertisements are credits for those you dislike. If they are > putting their name on their software or its documentation, then surely > it is a credit not an advertisement. Nikita.
Re: Fwd: reiser4 non-free?
A typical example: /sbin/mkreiserfs -V mkreiserfs 3.6.9 (2003 www.namesys.com) A pair of credits: Alexander Zarochentcev (zam) wrote the high low priority locking code, online resizer for V3 and V4, online repacker for V4, block allocation code, and major parts of the flush code, and maintains the transaction manager code. We give him the stuff that we know will be hard to debug, or needs to be very cleanly structured. BigStorage (www.bigstorage.com) contributes to our general fund every month, and has done so for quite a long time. Nikita Danilov wrote: Hans Reiser writes: > MJ Ray wrote: > > > On 2004-05-04 18:47:02 +0100 Hans Reiser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > >> Our licenses are free and not plagiarizable. GPL V2 is plagiarizable > >> in the view of folks at debian who felt free to remove the credits. > > > > > > Can someone give a conclusive statement of what actually happened? The > > bug report 152547 looks like someone moved an advert into the docs > > accompanying, rather than removed any attribution. Now, if you call > > that advert "the credits" then I think you have a different view to > > many people. > > Show me the line in those credits where it said "buy Coca-Cola cheaper > here". They were credits, not advertisements. -- ... And my lawyer asked 'People pay you money for this?'. Yup. Hee Hee. Life is good. If you buy ReiserFS, you can focus on your value add rather than reinventing an entire FS. You should buy some free software too -- If these are credits, then Coca-cola is gpled. This is just _noise_, spewed on each invocation. Hmmm. Ok, you are right, I should change the wording of that. > > > > > Their new condition clause 4, which says you cannot use their name, > > even for accurate reporting. Normally, this would just be a false > > statement, but this licence makes it a condition of the grant. I've > > not seen that mistake committed by anyone else yet. > > Can you supply their full verbatim phrasing so that we can discuss it > accurately? I'd like to understand whether your characterization is correct. > > > > >> And call it a credit clause, not an advertising clause. > >> Advertisements sell products, credits describe who made the project > >> happen. > > > > > > No, it is advertising for the XFree86 Project, Inc. In addition to > > acknowledging their copyright (the credit), that advert may have to > > appear. > > > You seem to understand the difference between credit and advertisement > as advertisements are credits for those you dislike. If they are > putting their name on their software or its documentation, then surely > it is a credit not an advertisement. Nikita.
Re: Fwd: reiser4 non-free?
Hans Reiser writes: > MJ Ray wrote: > > > On 2004-05-04 18:47:02 +0100 Hans Reiser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > >> Our licenses are free and not plagiarizable. GPL V2 is plagiarizable > >> in the view of folks at debian who felt free to remove the credits. > > > > > > Can someone give a conclusive statement of what actually happened? The > > bug report 152547 looks like someone moved an advert into the docs > > accompanying, rather than removed any attribution. Now, if you call > > that advert "the credits" then I think you have a different view to > > many people. > > Show me the line in those credits where it said "buy Coca-Cola cheaper > here". They were credits, not advertisements. -- ... And my lawyer asked 'People pay you money for this?'. Yup. Hee Hee. Life is good. If you buy ReiserFS, you can focus on your value add rather than reinventing an entire FS. You should buy some free software too -- If these are credits, then Coca-cola is gpled. This is just _noise_, spewed on each invocation. > > > > > Their new condition clause 4, which says you cannot use their name, > > even for accurate reporting. Normally, this would just be a false > > statement, but this licence makes it a condition of the grant. I've > > not seen that mistake committed by anyone else yet. > > Can you supply their full verbatim phrasing so that we can discuss it > accurately? I'd like to understand whether your characterization is correct. > > > > >> And call it a credit clause, not an advertising clause. > >> Advertisements sell products, credits describe who made the project > >> happen. > > > > > > No, it is advertising for the XFree86 Project, Inc. In addition to > > acknowledging their copyright (the credit), that advert may have to > > appear. > > > You seem to understand the difference between credit and advertisement > as advertisements are credits for those you dislike. If they are > putting their name on their software or its documentation, then surely > it is a credit not an advertisement. Nikita.
Re: Fwd: reiser4 non-free?
Joe Wreschnig wrote: On Tue, 2004-05-04 at 12:54, Hans Reiser wrote: When you go to the opera, they don't come on stage and say buy XYZ, but they do say something prominent on the brochure like "we thank the generous ABC corporation for making this evening happen". Debian should follow that model, it works and is morally right to do. This is a very good analogy. Debian will happily print your credits in our "brochure" (/usr/share/doc/*reiser*/copyright), which is an optional read for people who want to see the opera (use the ReiserFS software). We'll even do it prominently, all caps, whatever. But we will not walk out on stage (print messages during use of the software) to advertise your filesystem. Reiser4 prints them when you make a new filesystem, not when you use the filesystem. We are not as aggressive as you imagine. While I do personally think that boot time credits should be returned to existence, I am not asking for that. We do follow that model, it does work, and it is the right thing to do. Operas put the credits where they get seen. Where a contributor is really significant to it happening, a theater group (little league baseball game, etc.) will mention on stage sometimes.
Re: Fwd: reiser4 non-free?
MJ Ray wrote: On 2004-05-04 18:47:02 +0100 Hans Reiser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Our licenses are free and not plagiarizable. GPL V2 is plagiarizable in the view of folks at debian who felt free to remove the credits. Can someone give a conclusive statement of what actually happened? The bug report 152547 looks like someone moved an advert into the docs accompanying, rather than removed any attribution. Now, if you call that advert "the credits" then I think you have a different view to many people. Show me the line in those credits where it said "buy Coca-Cola cheaper here". They were credits, not advertisements. Their new condition clause 4, which says you cannot use their name, even for accurate reporting. Normally, this would just be a false statement, but this licence makes it a condition of the grant. I've not seen that mistake committed by anyone else yet. Can you supply their full verbatim phrasing so that we can discuss it accurately? I'd like to understand whether your characterization is correct. And call it a credit clause, not an advertising clause. Advertisements sell products, credits describe who made the project happen. No, it is advertising for the XFree86 Project, Inc. In addition to acknowledging their copyright (the credit), that advert may have to appear. You seem to understand the difference between credit and advertisement as advertisements are credits for those you dislike. If they are putting their name on their software or its documentation, then surely it is a credit not an advertisement.
Re: Fwd: reiser4 non-free?
On 2004-05-04 18:47:02 +0100 Hans Reiser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Our licenses are free and not plagiarizable. GPL V2 is plagiarizable in the view of folks at debian who felt free to remove the credits. Can someone give a conclusive statement of what actually happened? The bug report 152547 looks like someone moved an advert into the docs accompanying, rather than removed any attribution. Now, if you call that advert "the credits" then I think you have a different view to many people. Assault is the wrong analogy, lying is what plagiarism is. Sure, but you've not shown any of these by debian yet. Having a license that prevents lying about who did what is not a restriction on freedom any more than laws against fraud restrict freedom of speech. Yes, that seems true and saying "you must attribute this to me, not you" would be fine, if redundant. Putting in the licence "you must include this report of a conversation between Hans Reiser and his lawyer" would not really prevent lying about who did what. I agree. So support those who do something to stop plagiarism. I do. I also support those who do things to promote free software. In case you missed it, the problem which makes XFree86's latest licence definitely non-free (not just GPL-incompatible) is independent of their advertising clause. What problem do you speak of? Their new condition clause 4, which says you cannot use their name, even for accurate reporting. Normally, this would just be a false statement, but this licence makes it a condition of the grant. I've not seen that mistake committed by anyone else yet. And call it a credit clause, not an advertising clause. Advertisements sell products, credits describe who made the project happen. No, it is advertising for the XFree86 Project, Inc. In addition to acknowledging their copyright (the credit), that advert may have to appear. -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only and possibly not of any group I know. http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
Re: Fwd: reiser4 non-free?
Hans Reiser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > There is a difference between free software and plagiarizable > software. The two are orthogonal concepts. > > Debian wants software to be both free and plagiarizable. XFree86 and > I want our software to be free but not plagiarizable. In general, I > want software to not be plagiarizable, as I think it works against the > societal interest to not attribute accurately. Saying that plagiarism > is an important freedom is like saying assault is something you must > be allowed to do if you are to be considered free. No, it is exactly like saying plagiarism is something you must be allowed to do if you are to be considered free. If the law prevented me from making false statements, I would not be free. My nose is blue, for example, and frequently emits badgers. To make that statement illegal is to restrict my freedom. It is only a short step from there to restricting me from saying that two plus two equals four. Now, *fraud* is illegal -- so there is no need for a copyright license to inhibit fraud, because it's already a crime. But for me to have freedom with respect to an artifact, I must have freedom to change it in arbitrary ways. "All ways that do not remove the maker's mark" is not enough. Then it is a shared artifact, an open artifact even, but not a free artifact. Similarly, to have freedom with respect to a computer program, I must have freedom to change it. Required display of certain text is fine for a shared source program, or an open source program, but it is not a free program. -Brian > Hans > > MJ Ray wrote: > >> On 2004-05-04 17:20:56 +0100 Hans Reiser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> >>> I understand why they lost interest in talking to persons who >>> cannot grasp that distros removed mention of them from their man >>> pages and this was wrong. >> >> >> That's actually irrelevant in that case. Their advertising clause is >> actually not the reason for it being non-free, as I understand it, >> although it does make it GPL-incompatible, which is a bit irritating. >> >> Their licence requires extreme protection of their name as a >> condition, which seems unacceptable for free software. If I even >> mention in a factual review who holds the copyright to the software, >> I have probably failed the letter of the conditions. >> >> It seems a little cruel of you to punish all users by taking your >> code non-free because you are not happy with some distributor >> actions. You should work with the distributors instead of accusing >> them of immorality as an opening tactic. That should be the last >> resort, not the first. >> >>> I sent them a thanks for being brave enough to take on the task of >>> changing licensing mores and forcing distros to attribute, and I >>> got a response.;-) >> >> >> You seem to enjoy working against free software. I got some >> responses, too, as previously mentioned. >> -- Brian Sniffen [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Fwd: reiser4 non-free?
Hans Reiser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > You miss the point. I get plenty of credit because of the filesystem > name. It is everybody else who gets shortchanged unless we print a > randomly chosen 1 paragraph credit at mkreiser4 time. I'm not a Debian developer. But I don't understand your earlier comment about attribution in science in the light of this comment. A typical attribution in a peer reviewed scientific journal looks like, e.g., "B. Aubert et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 91, 121801 (2003)", where the "et al." represents 600+ people. Martin
Re: Fwd: reiser4 non-free?
When you go to the opera, they don't come on stage and say buy XYZ, but they do say something prominent on the brochure like "we thank the generous ABC corporation for making this evening happen". Debian should follow that model, it works and is morally right to do.
Re: Fwd: reiser4 non-free?
MJ Ray wrote: XFree86 and I want our software to be free but not plagiarizable. Great! I look forward to you both fixing your licences. Our licenses are free and not plagiarizable. GPL V2 is plagiarizable in the view of folks at debian who felt free to remove the credits. Assault is the wrong analogy, lying is what plagiarism is. Having a license that prevents lying about who did what is not a restriction on freedom any more than laws against fraud restrict freedom of speech. In general, I want software to not be plagiarizable, as I think it works against the societal interest to not attribute accurately. I agree. So support those who do something to stop plagiarism. Saying that plagiarism is an important freedom is like saying assault is something you must be allowed to do if you are to be considered free. No-one has said that. You seem to be constructing straw men. In case you missed it, the problem which makes XFree86's latest licence definitely non-free (not just GPL-incompatible) is independent of their advertising clause. What problem do you speak of? And call it a credit clause, not an advertising clause. Advertisements sell products, credits describe who made the project happen.
Re: Fwd: reiser4 non-free?
Martin Michlmayr wrote: * Hans Reiser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [2004-05-04 09:20]: I sent them a thanks for being brave enough to take on the task of changing licensing mores and forcing distros to attribute, and I got a response.;-) I wonder if you're aware that virtually every distro is moving away from XFree86. They don't want to attribute. It is contrary to the distro brand awareness monopilization interest.
Re: Fwd: reiser4 non-free?
On 2004-05-04 18:02:28 +0100 Hans Reiser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: There is a difference between free software and plagiarizable software. There is a difference between free software and forced-advert software, too. There is also the difference between a duck. Debian wants software to be both free and plagiarizable. Debian has not expressed that view, to the best of my knowledge. XFree86 and I want our software to be free but not plagiarizable. Great! I look forward to you both fixing your licences. In general, I want software to not be plagiarizable, as I think it works against the societal interest to not attribute accurately. I agree. Saying that plagiarism is an important freedom is like saying assault is something you must be allowed to do if you are to be considered free. No-one has said that. You seem to be constructing straw men. In case you missed it, the problem which makes XFree86's latest licence definitely non-free (not just GPL-incompatible) is independent of their advertising clause. -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only and possibly not of any group I know. http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
Re: Fwd: reiser4 non-free?
* Hans Reiser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [2004-05-04 09:20]: > I sent them a thanks for being brave enough to take on the task of > changing licensing mores and forcing distros to attribute, and I got > a response.;-) I wonder if you're aware that virtually every distro is moving away from XFree86. -- Martin Michlmayr [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Fwd: reiser4 non-free?
There is a difference between free software and plagiarizable software. The two are orthogonal concepts. Debian wants software to be both free and plagiarizable. XFree86 and I want our software to be free but not plagiarizable. In general, I want software to not be plagiarizable, as I think it works against the societal interest to not attribute accurately. Saying that plagiarism is an important freedom is like saying assault is something you must be allowed to do if you are to be considered free. Hans MJ Ray wrote: On 2004-05-04 17:20:56 +0100 Hans Reiser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: I understand why they lost interest in talking to persons who cannot grasp that distros removed mention of them from their man pages and this was wrong. That's actually irrelevant in that case. Their advertising clause is actually not the reason for it being non-free, as I understand it, although it does make it GPL-incompatible, which is a bit irritating. Their licence requires extreme protection of their name as a condition, which seems unacceptable for free software. If I even mention in a factual review who holds the copyright to the software, I have probably failed the letter of the conditions. It seems a little cruel of you to punish all users by taking your code non-free because you are not happy with some distributor actions. You should work with the distributors instead of accusing them of immorality as an opening tactic. That should be the last resort, not the first. I sent them a thanks for being brave enough to take on the task of changing licensing mores and forcing distros to attribute, and I got a response.;-) You seem to enjoy working against free software. I got some responses, too, as previously mentioned.
Re: Fwd: reiser4 non-free?
On 2004-05-04 17:20:56 +0100 Hans Reiser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: I understand why they lost interest in talking to persons who cannot grasp that distros removed mention of them from their man pages and this was wrong. That's actually irrelevant in that case. Their advertising clause is actually not the reason for it being non-free, as I understand it, although it does make it GPL-incompatible, which is a bit irritating. Their licence requires extreme protection of their name as a condition, which seems unacceptable for free software. If I even mention in a factual review who holds the copyright to the software, I have probably failed the letter of the conditions. It seems a little cruel of you to punish all users by taking your code non-free because you are not happy with some distributor actions. You should work with the distributors instead of accusing them of immorality as an opening tactic. That should be the last resort, not the first. I sent them a thanks for being brave enough to take on the task of changing licensing mores and forcing distros to attribute, and I got a response.;-) You seem to enjoy working against free software. I got some responses, too, as previously mentioned. -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only and possibly not of any group I know. http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
Re: Fwd: reiser4 non-free?
Carl-Daniel Hailfinger wrote: It seems an apt description of how some XFree86 developers reacted to questions. They went dumb. Other XFree86 developers were helpful, but they are not the reason I plan to stop using it, so I do not blame them. I understand why they lost interest in talking to persons who cannot grasp that distros removed mention of them from their man pages and this was wrong. I sent them a thanks for being brave enough to take on the task of changing licensing mores and forcing distros to attribute, and I got a response.;-) Hans
Re: Fwd: reiser4 non-free?
You miss the point. I get plenty of credit because of the filesystem name. It is everybody else who gets shortchanged unless we print a randomly chosen 1 paragraph credit at mkreiser4 time. Hans Chris Dukes wrote: On Mon, May 03, 2004 at 08:49:10PM +0300, Markus Törnqvist wrote: [SNEEPAGE] Perhaps this is overly cynical but... In this day and age people only seem to care about proper attribution when either 1) Looking for another garbage novel to read. 2) Looking for someone to sue. The former seems to be covered by having the author's name in bigger type than the title of the novel. The latter, it doesn't matter how well the credits are buried, the presumed targets will be served. So as a compromise can we have hansreiserfs* as the prefix on all packages. HANSREISER as the prefix on all executables, kernel symbols, fstypes... Frequent use of bold and blink for the text HANS REISER as well. I don't know about other folks, but the credits filling my terminal windows and logs get first dibs on catching the blame on whatever may be going wrong with my computer.
Re: Fwd: reiser4 non-free?
Markus Törnqvist wrote: On Mon, May 03, 2004 at 10:35:12AM -0700, Hans Reiser wrote: No, that certainly is an option. Relocating the credits to somewhere reasonable for a particular installer is just fine with me. Let's see what the Debian people say about showing the complete credits in the preinstall screen during interactive installation and scrolling through them automatically in a non-interactive one, for example. I think the response will be "but it's still non-free" :P Also, if every software showed their credits, there would easily be a ton of them. This is bad why? They could be interesting for users to read while the install proceeds. I wouldn't mind it. However, it could get out of hand if we had three-four-five screenfulls of credits during every boot. Then it's time to /dev/null again... Well, a really clever way of doing it would have a page describing what the program does with a little bit of credits at the bottom. As a user, I am usually disappointed by how operating systems fail to take the opportunity to educate me while I wait for them to install. Credits (as commercials and ads and stuff) should never defeat the purpose of the entity of which they are a part. I would really like Debian to understand the difference between credits and ads. Credits describe someone's contribution to the project. Ads describe some product for you to buy. Very different things.
Re: Fwd: reiser4 non-free?
On 2004-05-03 15:24:00 +0100 Claus FÃrber <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Rememer that an "ad-clause" usually does not render a work non-free, > just incompatible with the GPL. [...] An "ad-clause" usually applies to documentation or advertising supplied with the software, not the software package itself, and only requires attribution not a large advert. It sails very close to the wind, but doesn't quite fall over. -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only and possibly not of any group I know. http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
Re: Fwd: reiser4 non-free?
MJ Ray <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> schrieb/wrote: > Sadly, your "invariant section"-inspired changes to the GPL cause > other problems, which seem similar to combining an ad-clause licence > with the GPL. Rememer that an "ad-clause" usually does not render a work non-free, just incompatible with the GPL. Depending on the size of the ads, it can be a practical problem or a usability problem, however. Claus -- http://www.faerber.muc.de
Re: Fwd: reiser4 non-free?
On Sun, May 02, 2004 at 02:55:00PM -0700, Don Armstrong wrote: >shareware, or freeware. Debian has freely chosen not to be involved >with distributing such works for various reasons. It's really quite a shame that the best distro around is so rigid as to not allow Reiser's minor, and understandable, addition in his licensing. In case you (no-one personally) haven't noticed yet, developing free software isn't easy. No-one said it would be. It has never been. It's a tough business and unfortunately it has to be a business as well as "just for fun." >My place? I'm not the one who applied it. Presumably it was applied >because an end user requested that it be applied. Clearly it's >perfectly reasonable to have an option for a program that enables it >to be used in non-interactive ways. Would you object to us having a >shell that allows users to do the equivalent of "foo > /dev/null"? Wouldn't mkfs -f > /dev/null be adequate suppression? >Probably, but I fail to see how allowing the user to turn off the >DARPA message decreases the end user's knowledge of who funded it. Credits unread are credits unknown. Hopefully Reiser4 will reach the point of being an fs on which people will install their Linuxes and if the credits are completely suppressed, we'll have a situation with a bunch of Linux users sitting in a pub "You know, DARPA funded Reiser4" "What, you must be shitting me?" "No, honest to Bog" "That's so cool!" >> >Furthermore, the list of credits are still included (to my knowledge) >> >in /usr/share/doc/resierfsprogs/README.gz. Which should of course be read, but still not everyone reads the README. >The end user can choose to read it, or they can choose not >to. Regardless, they should not be assaulted by the credits or forced >to read them. Going back to journal articles, is the funding grant >number emblazoned in 24 point font above the article title?[1] What if there just were a compromise? Of course it sucks if Reiser4 gets only into non-free, because it would never then be in the official installer. Besides, from what I've understood, Debian developers spend quite some time bickering amongst themselves, causing the Sarge installer to be delayed by a year or so and having the possibility of completely detaching non-free from Debian. What this probably means is that the DDs will be fighting each other over stuff like this for eons and eons and if non-free is detached entirely it will be even more difficult to get a non-free installer with Reiser4 on it. At least now it could be downloadable from Debian, unless some policy forbids hosting of non-free installers but not non-free software. I know it's a tough bullet to bite for Hans if he just removed the addition to the license and formatted the credits so that no-one would even want to remove them. AFAIK the reason they were removed was that they were too big. Oh, and the funding grant thing, weren't the credits of mkfs.reiserfs in the end? Where else? It's not like they were flooded all the bloody time in 24-point font above the title... I should probably run an mkfs.reiser4 and see the notorious credits, because I can't remember anything offensive about them. -- mjt
Re: Fwd: reiser4 non-free?
On Sun, 2004-05-02 at 22:55, Don Armstrong wrote: > > >Furthermore, the list of credits are still included (to my knowledge) > > >in /usr/share/doc/resierfsprogs/README.gz. > > oh, well, that is almost as good as putting them on the dark side of > > the moon a credit read by no one has no meaning. I don't know what you are reading once you've installed a new program on your system, but the README, README.Debian and the man-pages are for me usually the FIRST place, since it might hold valuable information and safe me the trouble, which i may have, if i didn't had read it. So, if you know somebody (including yourself) that doesn't do it I'm really in doubt about the security of your system. There is actually useful information in there. /Martin -- The camel has a single hump; The dromedary two; Or else the other way around. I'm never sure. Are you? -- Ogden Nash
Re: Fwd: reiser4 non-free?
On Sun, 02 May 2004, Hans Reiser wrote: > Who the hell do you think you are to use market leveraging to force > developers to use licenses they don't want that leave them exposed > to dangers that endanger them not you? Could the personal attacks please be toned down? We aren't in the business of forcing developers to do anything. Developers make their own decisions on how their work is licensed, and are quite free to make their work available in a proprietary product, shareware, or freeware. Debian has freely chosen not to be involved with distributing such works for various reasons. > Don Armstrong wrote: > >The patch that you're refering to is currently not even > >applied. What it actually did was add a -quiet option to suppress > >the outputing of the DARPA sponsorship message. > > and what made you think it was your place to do that? My place? I'm not the one who applied it. Presumably it was applied because an end user requested that it be applied. Clearly it's perfectly reasonable to have an option for a program that enables it to be used in non-interactive ways. Would you object to us having a shell that allows users to do the equivalent of "foo > /dev/null"? > In a democracy, funding programs which are not known by the public > to have provided much benefit get their funding cut. Probably, but I fail to see how allowing the user to turn off the DARPA message decreases the end user's knowledge of who funded it. > >Furthermore, the list of credits are still included (to my knowledge) > >in /usr/share/doc/resierfsprogs/README.gz. > > oh, well, that is almost as good as putting them on the dark side of > the moon a credit read by no one has no meaning. The end user can choose to read it, or they can choose not to. Regardless, they should not be assaulted by the credits or forced to read them. Going back to journal articles, is the funding grant number emblazoned in 24 point font above the article title?[1] > >Copyright requires that appropriate attribution occurs. > > It requires not removing the copyright notice which usually mentions > the copyright holder is (me), and you know, I don't really fancy > changing the mount type to "mount -t > copyrighthansreiser2001200220032004 /dev/hda /home". Everyone else > but me gets completely shafted. Uh, that wouldn't be a proper copyright notice. Copyright notices have a specific place in Debian, and are always placed there. [They are also often included in the --version output for most programs.] Furthermore, we expect copyright notices to also indicate the terms under which they are (or are not) licensed. > >1: I personally have travelled to meet with individuals at FSF to > >work on bringing the GFDL issue to an amicable conclusion, > > It isn't your place to force a license on software you did not > write. I *CANNOT* force a license on software that I do not own the copyright to.[2] To claim that I am (or have) is reprehensible. This is in effect claiming that I (in my capacity as an individual!) have extorted (or blackmailed) the FSF. I have done no such thing, nor have any other members of the GFDL committee. Don Armstrong 1: For those of you unfamiliar with journal articles, the funding grant number is generally included at the very end of the article before the references in a normal font size. [This is also where acknowledgements (like my major professor's to Dr. Smirnoff) are generally placed.] 2: At least not without committing a felony and a extreme breech of my personal ethics. -- It seems intuitively obvious to me, which means that it might be wrong -- Chris Torek http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Fwd: reiser4 non-free?
On Sun, May 02, 2004 at 12:12:04PM -0700, Hans Reiser wrote: > the main killer for 8 of the 9 reviewers, at least one of whom seemed to > think that it would make the project unlikely to get anywhere in the > Linux community ) I spent weeks on that proposal ooops. Hans, don't get me wrong now. I really think that you have great visions and that you discovered the golden rule: "visions are useless if you can't transform them into reality". I do not know if there any discussions about getting reiser4 into the standard kernel but I guess some people are at least not amused to see a random syscall that has a version number in it's name to go into the standard kernel. I didn't care - until you declared reiserfs3 obsoleted by reiser4 in public. syscalls tend to have a longer expectation of life than filesystems - I'm very sure that fork(2) is older than ext2 - so please at least consider the removal of the version number and think about active long-term support. If the syntax of the reiser[4]()-syscall is really as desribed on http://namesys.com (reiser4() System Call Description) I do not expect that stuff will make it into the mainstream kernel. Please really don't get me wrong - I just remember EHASHCOLLISION which was simply unacceptable for the mainstream kernel - IIRC Chris patched it out not many seconds before Linus accepted reiserfs - after many discussions. -- ciao - Stefan
Re: Fwd: reiser4 non-free?
Who the hell do you think you are to use market leveraging to force developers to use licenses they don't want that leave them exposed to dangers that endanger them not you? Have you expended 2-3 million dollars and a decade of your life only to find yourself 100,000 dollars in debt and returned to having a day job to support the other programmers on the project? Without knowing you, somehow I doubt it. Who do you think you are to try to close me off from raising money by using the radical notion of publicly thanking those who give it? Frankly, I don't advise anyone to follow my path: sure the software works, and people know my name, but the economics are miserable and unsuitable for responsible family raising, and reputation does little for you if you never have time to socialize. You are trying to create a new rigid orthodoxy to close off license experimentation (long before we have licenses that work well), and like most groups who create such orthodoxies, you are eager to oppress those who do not conform to things you do not deeply understand. I hope the FSF sticks to the GFDL and eventually makes GPL V3 resemble it. As long as the FSF docs are debian non-free, debian non-free is not going to be something serious in the eyes of most. Don Armstrong wrote: It happens even in journals that are not peer reviewed, and merely editor reviewed, because it is the way that the broader scientific community expects people to behave. There is no such expectation of Linux distros. In free software there is no such social mechanism affecting RedHat and preventing them from removing the k from all the kde programs. Surely there is! If we (or RedHat) were to do such a thing, our very users and developers would be quite vocal about it, and rightly so. They did it and nothing happened to them (except of course that XFree86 4.0 changed its license, which is the only way developers can effectively respond to such conduct). The patch that you're refering to is currently not even applied. What it actually did was add a -quiet option to suppress the outputing of the DARPA sponsorship message. and what made you think it was your place to do that? In a democracy, funding programs which are not known by the public to have provided much benefit get their funding cut. (When the democracy works well, what happens when it does not is off-topic.) Furthermore, the list of credits are still included (to my knowledge) in /usr/share/doc/resierfsprogs/README.gz. oh, well, that is almost as good as putting them on the dark side of the moon a credit read by no one has no meaning. What alternative do you offer to ensure that attribution occurs? Copyright requires that appropriate attribution occurs. It requires not removing the copyright notice which usually mentions the copyright holder is (me), and you know, I don't really fancy changing the mount type to "mount -t copyrighthansreiser2001200220032004 /dev/hda /home". Everyone else but me gets completely shafted. We follow copyright, and almost always follow author and copyright holder requests with respect to their work. the end user is not the issue, I think the current phrasing even defines that the end user can remove them. Yes, but in order for the work to be free, the end user must also be capable of distributing his or her modifications. Don Armstrong 1: I personally have travelled to meet with individuals at FSF to work on bringing the GFDL issue to an amicable conclusion, It isn't your place to force a license on software you did not write. and Debian is itself comitted to doing it's utmost to bring works to a state where they can be freely included in Debian. Well, I hope that we can find some means for being well and effectively integrated into the non-free section. That would make me happy.
Re: Fwd: reiser4 non-free?
MJ Ray wrote: I don't know what RedHat and KDE have to do with Debian and ReiserFS. I can look at them and I see red headwear and a cogged letter. Not really informative. "Various startups" also has little to do with debian, although if you discriminate against them just because they are startups, that's probably going to be non-free too. I have to use one license that works for all users, and that means that I have to use the same license for people who don't want to attribute as I use for those who do.
Re: Fwd: reiser4 non-free?
On 2004-04-30 18:07:08 +0100 David Masover <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: | require attribution in a particular format and with a particular text, | that's fine, but non-free. This seems entirely too black-and-white to me. Fine, go debate it somewhere. This is off-topic for debian-legal and unwelcome because we have other work to do. You failed to attribute the previous author. I hope they take a liberal view of your copyright infringement, or that you acted within your state's "fair use" laws. I still think it's a bit rude of you. gentoo had no way to choose between licences beyond reading ebuilds, last I saw. A generally cavalier attitude to copyright means I no longer have any gentoo systems here. -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only and possibly not of any group I know. http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
Re: Fwd: reiser4 non-free?
On 2004-04-30 18:13:09 +0100 Hans Reiser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: MJ Ray wrote: You just ignored the bit where he forbids supression of the "credits" banner? I am flexible on the phrasing of this, and can allow some phrasing such as credits must be kept equally prominent and extensive. Whether this would help depends what you mean by "credits". Requiring particular wording and placement beyond what is required to attribute probably will be non-free. [...] This whole feud seems to have started because a debian package maintainer responded to a bug report Said maintainer added a bug in the process of removing credits, and thus we found out the credits were removed. Your phrasing was not a good description We can argue about who has the most diplomatic language all day, but it would be more fun to fix these bugs. from a debian user and then they were accused of plagiarism in a confrontational response. Not really a sinister plot to steal Hans Reiser's work. But others out there ARE willing to do so, look at RedHat and KDE or consider various startups I know of that are more than a bit slimy about things like squid. I don't know what RedHat and KDE have to do with Debian and ReiserFS. I can look at them and I see red headwear and a cogged letter. Not really informative. "Various startups" also has little to do with debian, although if you discriminate against them just because they are startups, that's probably going to be non-free too. Back to the topic: copyright infringement is copyright infringement. We don't want to infringe your copyright and if we do so, it is a serious bug to be fixed. See http://www.debian.org/Bugs/Developer#severities -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only and possibly not of any group I know. http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
Re: Fwd: reiser4 non-free?
Thanks much. This helps after getting a 1.8 million dollar ARDA Reiser6 proposal rejected because the reviewers thought that the GPL was some sort of proprietary license. (Really they did. They also thought there was no realistic chance of anyone using anything other than Windows in the government, but the proprosal using this proprietary GPL license was the main killer for 8 of the 9 reviewers, at least one of whom seemed to think that it would make the project unlikely to get anywhere in the Linux community ) I spent weeks on that proposal Michael Milverton wrote: On Sat, 1 May 2004 12:56 am, Hans Reiser wrote: Michael, you are much more eloquent than I am. Thanks for understanding. Hans No worries Hans, understanding, appreciation and acknowledgement are the underlying currency of free software. I think that this is often lost in these sorts of debates and I believe that if the concerns that you have were acknowledged and addressed then it would be easier to work through the technical issues that people have with them. I have been a little bit alarmed over the last month or so at some of the barbed comments that people have made in critisising your vision and the effort that you have made to create quite a revolutionary filesystem. I find it alarming because negative input really makes a large withdrawl from the only bank account that free software has, eg the good human interactions and the pleasure associated with developing free software, the emotional bank account as Steven Covey puts it. I also see the same issue with this credits and naming issue, it is withdrawing from this bank account because the underlying concerns are not always being heard and understood properly. At the end of the day I don't want to see this emotional bank account become overdrawn to the point where the negatives of releasing this software outway the benefits gained and this is what makes me alarmed and so I feel that something must be said. Therefore to make a deposit into this emotional bank account I would like to state that I really appreciate the vision and dedication that you and those that work with you have shown in bringing the reiser filesystems into the Free Software and I believe that many others feel the same, they just need to say it more often so we can balance the bank account :). Thankyou Michael Milverton
Re: Fwd: reiser4 non-free?
Steve Langasek wrote: It doesn't "add", it clarifies. i.e. if you build a clustered file system that does stuff specific to reiserfs (e.g. use the reiser4 syscall), then that will be considered a derived work, and must be distributable under the GPL. Sure, you could go to court and argue that it isn't - but namesys have a clear clarification of what they consider, so I hope your lawyer is good :) The term "derivative work" in the GPL is defined defined very loosely, as it indeed it must be, because it is inherently a loose concept. There is, for instance, nothing in copyright law about linking by copyright law and case law.
Re: Fwd: reiser4 non-free?
Jason Stubbs wrote: On Saturday 01 May 2004 01:26, Michael Milverton wrote: >I would seem to think that if you strip credits and rename the actual >product itself, eg NOT a derivitave work then you are taking the rights away >from the person who wrote it. While I agree with your interpretation, the strict *legal* interpretation differs to this statement. The GPL basically says that anything that was created by way of another's GPL'd code needs to be released under the GPL if released. There are no other restrictions regarding what specific parts were used to create the "new" product or anything with regards to attribution. It is my understanding that this is what will be addressed in "GPL v3". That had been my understanding until recently, and I was waiting for V3, but Stallman has backed away from that except for the GFDL. GFDL has been rejected by debian.. If you want it to be legally clear that you will to not be rebranded as RedHatFS, you must use something like my anti-plagiarism license or the XFree86 license. Stallman is not going to cure the problem for software, only for documentation, which makes no sense to me. I think he has trouble coping with the reality that people will eagerly and aggressively take away credit from others. Regardless of what the intent of the GPL is, (from what I've heard) Debian folk have always been about what's legally acceptable. It is a real shame that legalities are always open to such vast interpretation. I will find it very interesting to see if the alleged attribution-restricted "GPL v3" will be accepted as being free. Regards, Jason Stubbs
Re: Fwd: reiser4 non-free?
I just want to add that I am very grateful to Domenico for the work he has done in trying to aid integration. It is a pity that Debian and Suse historically silently cut the attributions (this was before Domenico got involved with us) rather than engaging us in a dialogue about them first, thus inspiring the current license. Once it was brought to our attention, we did reduce the size of the credits by using a random credit program instead of exhaustively crediting everyone. If I didn't see what RedHat was doing to KDE, and didn't see cutting of developer credits as a growing trend among distros, we probably would not be moving to an anti-plagiarism license. You the distros created the need for less free licensing by your behavior, frankly. Hans
Re: Fwd: reiser4 non-free?
Don Armstrong wrote: On Thu, 29 Apr 2004, Hans Reiser wrote: So hopefully, Debian can print out some nice warning that Reiser4 is not plagiarizable, and if the user indicates that they still want to use it anyway, they can go forward. We have to ascertain as well that we can even legally distribute it. Assuming reiser4 is not a derivative work of any other GPLed code, there shouldn't be a problem with it in non-free, but if it is, we cannot distribute it at all, as the extra clarifications clearly are not GPL compatible. I find Debian's aggressive behavior toward myself, and especially Richard Stallman and his GFDL, to be inappropriate and ungrateful, Just to clarify, what you are seeing is individuals who may (or may not) be associated with the Debian project, not Debian itself. [This is no less different than conflating yourself with the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg or Richard with the FSF.] Putting Stallman's (or FSF's) work in the non-free section of your distribution is the lack of respect and gratitude that I speak of. I also understand that Debian is striving to define its morality, and that much of the world shares its rather asian attitude towards whether it is acceptable to not credit others for their contributions to science. I do not. I think the western approach of rigor in attribution has been of great value in stimulating innovation over the centuries, and think it should be applied to free software as much as it was to free science research. I don't think anyone involved in Debian or in the larger Debian community feels that you or Richard, or any other contributor to the Free Software movement should fail to be properly recognized for their voluminous contributions to the movement. What I, and others who also have contributed to this movement object to is the abridging of freedoms to attain the secondary goal of rigorous attribution. I know in my own scientific work I expect that people who use the ideas that come from my work to cite and refer to the work which spawned their ideas in an appropriate manner. This happens due to peer reviewed journals in science. In free software there is no such social mechanism affecting RedHat and preventing them from removing the k from all the kde programs. In fact there is a tradition among marketeers to debrand all inclusions into a product which is the exact opposite of fairly attribute, and they act in accordance with that tradition. This is a real problem. However, I am loth to define exactly how they refer to my work, as this can be as stifling to their ability to build upon my work as me failing to publish or communicate it. Rest assured that many of us are practitioners of rigorous attribution and would not fail to attribute someone appropriately. Uh no, you already did, you removed the credits from ReiserFS (none of which are credits for me, please keep that in mind, I do not take this stand for my personal benefit, my name is on the filesystem and that is more than enough credit for me). However, we are also well aware that the nature of attribution changes from medium to medium, and that a form of attribution rigorously defined by license would necessarily interfere with the ability of the end user to modify the work in ways that are traditionally embraced by the Free Software community at large. What alternative do you offer to ensure that attribution occurs? None. There is no alternative actually. Also, the end user is not the issue, I think the current phrasing even defines that the end user can remove them. As always, if I can assist you in finding a method to bring your wishes in harmony with the DFSG and Debian, please don't hesitate to let me know. Don Armstrong
Re: Fwd: reiser4 non-free?
On Sun, 2004-04-25 at 05:32, Domenico Andreoli wrote: > > Also, a clustering file system built to work on top of this file > > system shall be considered a derivative work for the purposes of > > interpreting the GPL license granted herein. Plugins are also to be > > considered derivative works. Share code or pay money, we give you the > > choice. > > Surely a license cannot add anything to the set of derived works (if > the other work is not derived, the license obviously doesn't apply to > it and hence never gets to say it is derived; if it is, it is even > without the license saying so). However I believe -legal has not > considered text like this a problem before (I might be wrong though). It doesn't "add", it clarifies. i.e. if you build a clustered file system that does stuff specific to reiserfs (e.g. use the reiser4 syscall), then that will be considered a derived work, and must be distributable under the GPL. Sure, you could go to court and argue that it isn't - but namesys have a clear clarification of what they consider, so I hope your lawyer is good :) Think of it in the same light as the clarification in the kernel's copy of the GPL saying that userspace programs aren't derived. except here it's the other way around. -- Stewart Smith ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.flamingspork.com/ signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: Fwd: reiser4 non-free?
On Thu, 29 Apr 2004, Hans Reiser wrote: > So hopefully, Debian can print out some nice warning that Reiser4 is > not plagiarizable, and if the user indicates that they still want to > use it anyway, they can go forward. We have to ascertain as well that we can even legally distribute it. Assuming reiser4 is not a derivative work of any other GPLed code, there shouldn't be a problem with it in non-free, but if it is, we cannot distribute it at all, as the extra clarifications clearly are not GPL compatible. > I find Debian's aggressive behavior toward myself, and especially > Richard Stallman and his GFDL, to be inappropriate and ungrateful, Just to clarify, what you are seeing is individuals who may (or may not) be associated with the Debian project, not Debian itself. [This is no less different than conflating yourself with the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg or Richard with the FSF.] > I also understand that Debian is striving to define its morality, > and that much of the world shares its rather asian attitude towards > whether it is acceptable to not credit others for their > contributions to science. I do not. I think the western approach of > rigor in attribution has been of great value in stimulating > innovation over the centuries, and think it should be applied to > free software as much as it was to free science research. I don't think anyone involved in Debian or in the larger Debian community feels that you or Richard, or any other contributor to the Free Software movement should fail to be properly recognized for their voluminous contributions to the movement. What I, and others who also have contributed to this movement object to is the abridging of freedoms to attain the secondary goal of rigorous attribution. I know in my own scientific work I expect that people who use the ideas that come from my work to cite and refer to the work which spawned their ideas in an appropriate manner. However, I am loth to define exactly how they refer to my work, as this can be as stifling to their ability to build upon my work as me failing to publish or communicate it. Rest assured that many of us are practitioners of rigorous attribution and would not fail to attribute someone appropriately. However, we are also well aware that the nature of attribution changes from medium to medium, and that a form of attribution rigorously defined by license would necessarily interfere with the ability of the end user to modify the work in ways that are traditionally embraced by the Free Software community at large. As always, if I can assist you in finding a method to bring your wishes in harmony with the DFSG and Debian, please don't hesitate to let me know. Don Armstrong -- If you wish to strive for peace of soul, then believe; if you wish to be a devotee of truth, then inquire. -- Friedrich Nietzsche http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu
Re: Fwd: reiser4 non-free?
Someone posted the following on slashdot, presumably a debian someone: Nobody's saying that your proprietary hardware will cease to work in Debian. The packages will still exist; they'll just be in the "non-free" section, separated out so that people who don't want any non-free software can omit that section from their sources.list file. Non-free packages are technically not part of Debian, but if you have a non-free line in your sources.list, there's no difference whatsoever in how you use them. So hopefully, Debian can print out some nice warning that Reiser4 is not plagiarizable, and if the user indicates that they still want to use it anyway, they can go forward. I find Debian's aggressive behavior toward myself, and especially Richard Stallman and his GFDL, to be inappropriate and ungrateful, but I also understand that Debian is striving to define its morality, and that much of the world shares its rather asian attitude towards whether it is acceptable to not credit others for their contributions to science. I do not. I think the western approach of rigor in attribution has been of great value in stimulating innovation over the centuries, and think it should be applied to free software as much as it was to free science research. I don't expect to convince Debian of this, especially not after your vote that you recently had, but it would be pleasant if users who don't mind attribution are able to select reiser4 if they want it. Hans Domenico Andreoli wrote: hi Hans, we have bad news for your filesystems :(( it happens that some sections of the license are not compatible with Debian Free Software Guidelines [0]. Even more grave is that something makes them also not suited for debian's non-free archive. I'm sorry but if thing do not get fixed, this stuff won't ship with next distribution release. Here follows the message posted to debian-legal mailing list which starts the thread. cheers domenico [0] http://www.debian.org/social_contract - Forwarded message from Sami Liedes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> - Date: Sat, 24 Apr 2004 14:40:13 +0300 From: Sami Liedes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: reiser4 non-free? [Cc:'d to the reiser4progs maintainers. Please Cc: me when replying, I'm not subscribed to -legal.] There has previously been discussion at least in April 2003 on this list about the freeness of reiserfs. It seems a further "clarification" has been added to the license (GPL + clarifications) in both reiser4progs and kernel-patch-2.6-reiser4 since then. This is the section that has been modified: Finally, nothing in this license shall be interpreted to allow you to fail to fairly credit me, or to remove my credits such as by creating a front end that hides my credits from the user or renaming mkreiser4 to mkyourcompanyfs or even just make_filesystem, without my permission, unless you are an end user not redistributing to others. If you have doubts about how to properly do that, or about what is fair, ask. (Last I spoke with him Richard was contemplating how best to address the fair crediting issue in the next GPL version.) New here is the "such as by creating a front end that hides [...] or even just make_filesystem". The controversy last year was created by mkreiserfs printing an overly verbose (tens of lines of sponsor credits and other non-licensing information) advertisement when running from the command line and Mr. Reiser's assertion that removing it violates the GPL. To me, these new "clarifications" seem non-free. (IANADD, and I believe the other IANA* goes without saying. :-) Another section has been added after the above one: Also, a clustering file system built to work on top of this file system shall be considered a derivative work for the purposes of interpreting the GPL license granted herein. Plugins are also to be considered derivative works. Share code or pay money, we give you the choice. Surely a license cannot add anything to the set of derived works (if the other work is not derived, the license obviously doesn't apply to it and hence never gets to say it is derived; if it is, it is even without the license saying so). However I believe -legal has not considered text like this a problem before (I might be wrong though). Sami - End forwarded message - -[ Domenico Andreoli, aka cavok --[ http://people.debian.org/~cavok/gpgkey.asc ---[ 3A0F 2F80 F79C 678A 8936 4FEE 0677 9033 A20E BC50
