Re: [Samba] GPLv3 and Mac OS X
On Sat, Oct 30, 2010 at 08:48:19PM -0700, Jeremy Allison wrote: People only go to court if they think they can invalidate the license - it's a testiment to the GPL that so few actions actually make it that far. Eventually someone will make similar mistakes with GPLv3 that were made with GPLv3 and it'll end up being enforced by a court, just as GPLv2 was. But I hope that isn't with Samba - court cases are exhausting for everyone involved. If I may comment, this bit of the message seems a bit cavalier. Yes, it may be that someone goes to court if they think they can invalidate the license, but it is just as likely that a court case results when two parties disagree about what a particular license (or contract, or whatever) actually requires. In such cases, it can be stipulated that there is a misunderstaning on the part of at least one of the parties, but which of the parties is indeed 'misunderstanding' is for the court to decide. The goal of a legal action is to enforce one party's interpretation of the license; it the court that decides whether that interpretation actually -is- enforceable. And this is why some (people, companies, etc.) like to have a judgment by the courts: because there is then an official, legally correct and enforceable interpretation. -- greg byshenk - gbysh...@byshenk.net - Leiden, NL -- To unsubscribe from this list go to the following URL and read the instructions: https://lists.samba.org/mailman/options/samba
Re: [Samba] GPLv3 and Mac OS X
On 10/30/2010 02:48 AM, Stephen Norman wrote: This may have been raised before and if so I apologise for not being able to find it. No apology needed. We can discuss this topic on this list. I was wondering if someone on the list can please explain the relationship that GPLv3 has in preventing Apple from distributing updated builds with their operating systems. I've read over the GPLv3 (I'm not lawyer or anything) and I would guess it has something to do with the patent agreements? Why do you believe Apple cannot make use of Samba? That is a very different question from why they might refuse to use it. The word prevention implies a cannot element as opposed to a business decision not to use it. Objection for business reasons is like choosing not to purchase something as opposed to not being able to purchase it for one reason or another. Licensing terms form a contractual boundary to accepted use of a created work in order to preserve the intent (wishes) of those who labored to create it. Samba is the result of many hundreds of man-years of work that was freely contributed for the benefit of all, subject to the specific terms of use that are set out in the GPL. Even if every business on planet Earth should choose not to use it in their products what would be the loss to it creators? I'll admit that I'm not too happy with the GPLv3 and think that, ironically, it is in many ways as restrictive (and in some ways even more so) than closed source software. That's only my opinion though and I understand where it may be useful. Please help us to understand what changes to the licensing terms will cause more people to contribute their labors to its improvement and assure its wider use. What must the creators of Samba give up in order to be successful? What does success look like? How will Apple benefit from this change? How will these benefits help the creators of Samba to better achieve their goals and objectives? If you can convince the authors of Samba that the benefits of being more successful will outweigh what the world will lose you will get a certain hearing. In other words, what must the Samba developers give up and what will be their gain by doing this? Regardless of my opinion, I would like to know about GPLv3 vs. Apple Mac OS X and if there are any plans (i.e. Samba 4) that would allow the software to again be shipped with the operating system. Samba4 is part of the Samba3 code tree. All of Samba will continue to ship under the terms of the GPLv3 until such time as the authors see good reason for change. We respect the right of anyone (person or company) to use or not to use Samba. I would like to see more people benefit from our efforts and our labors. I believe that the GPLv3 is the best way that our users can continue to receive those benefits. The Samba team has chosen to license under the terms of the GPLv3. Cheers, John T. -- To unsubscribe from this list go to the following URL and read the instructions: https://lists.samba.org/mailman/options/samba
Re: [Samba] GPLv3 and Mac OS X
On 31/10/2010, at 1:03 AM, John H Terpstra j...@samba.org wrote: On 10/30/2010 02:48 AM, Stephen Norman wrote: This may have been raised before and if so I apologise for not being able to find it. No apology needed. We can discuss this topic on this list. I was wondering if someone on the list can please explain the relationship that GPLv3 has in preventing Apple from distributing updated builds with their operating systems. I've read over the GPLv3 (I'm not lawyer or anything) and I would guess it has something to do with the patent agreements? Why do you believe Apple cannot make use of Samba? That is a very different question from why they might refuse to use it. The word prevention implies a cannot element as opposed to a business decision not to use it. Objection for business reasons is like choosing not to purchase something as opposed to not being able to purchase it for one reason or another. Licensing terms form a contractual boundary to accepted use of a created work in order to preserve the intent (wishes) of those who labored to create it. Samba is the result of many hundreds of man-years of work that was freely contributed for the benefit of all, subject to the specific terms of use that are set out in the GPL. Even if every business on planet Earth should choose not to use it in their products what would be the loss to it creators? Prevention may have been a poor choice of words here. I guess what I'm asking is, if Apple was to ship Samba 3.2 or above with their OS, what other parts of the OS (if any) would need to be released under GPLv3? For instance, if Finder used some part of Samba in it would it too need to be made available as GPLv3? I'll admit that I'm not too happy with the GPLv3 and think that, ironically, it is in many ways as restrictive (and in some ways even more so) than closed source software. That's only my opinion though and I understand where it may be useful. Please help us to understand what changes to the licensing terms will cause more people to contribute their labors to its improvement and assure its wider use. What must the creators of Samba give up in order to be successful? What does success look like? How will Apple benefit from this change? How will these benefits help the creators of Samba to better achieve their goals and objectives? If you can convince the authors of Samba that the benefits of being more successful will outweigh what the world will lose you will get a certain hearing. In other words, what must the Samba developers give up and what will be their gain by doing this? I definitely see your point here so I'll try and explain. Apple is one of the largest users of open source software in the world, with over 50 million users each using open source software. By largest users, I mean the software is on people's machine (server side projects like Apache would have much greater numbers). That is a large number and second only to Microsoft Windows. They have been an advocate for open source software, shipping a number of technologies, including Samba in Mac OS X for almost a decade. They helped kickstart software technologies including Ruby on Rails by being the first to ship the software with the OS, something which continues to be the case today. I'm not sure how many users use Samba worldwide, but I'd think that the potential loss of such a number would have been considered during the license transition. After all, Apple aren't going to use code in their OS that might require them to open source some of their key technologies, such as the Finder or Workgroup Manager. Instead, Apple will be forced to either fork the old code base of Samba (something no one wants) or develop their own implementation of CIFS/SMB that isn't covered under the GPL. GCC's change to GPLv3 forced Apple to find an entirely new compiler infrastructure, Clang/LLVM, which arguably is actually an improvement over GCC in many ways. The problem for the GCC people is that their are now going to be 50 million of their users potentially moving to a new compiler and that isn't counting other projects such as FreeBSD and other BSD derivatives. The flow on affect could be quiet large, and while GCC isn't going away any time soon, the potential for it to be superseded by LLVM is certainly there. I'd hate to see the open source community end up being divided into a GPLv3 zone and one that has everyone else. It would then prove many anti open-source advocates (i am not one of them) a reason to show how open source doesn't always work. In relation to Samba (I'll play devils advocat here), the question on my mind woud be, how does using software that already exists in the community and is well liked and tested useful to my project if using that code actually results in me having restrictions placed on what I can do with my code, just because I linked to some pre-existing code? I realise a lot of
Re: [Samba] GPLv3 and Mac OS X
On Sun, Oct 31, 2010 at 04:00:21AM +1100, Stephen Norman wrote: Prevention may have been a poor choice of words here. I guess what I'm asking is, if Apple was to ship Samba 3.2 or above with their OS, what other parts of the OS (if any) would need to be released under GPLv3? For instance, if Finder used some part of Samba in it would it too need to be made available as GPLv3? If Finder became a derived work of Samba then yes it would need to be made available under GPLv3. Just as if Finder was a derived work of Samba in their current OS (where they use Samba 3.0.x) they would need to ship Finder under GPLv2. Lest anyone thing I'm making any claims, Finder is *NOT* a derived work of Samba under GPLv2, and neither would the same code be a derived work of Samba under GPLv3. So there really is no difference there to Apple at all. They don't like GPLv3, but that is their right. We *do* like GPLv3, and that is our right. I'm not sure how many users use Samba worldwide, but I'd think that the potential loss of such a number would have been considered during the license transition. After all, Apple aren't going to use code in their OS that might require them to open source some of their key technologies, such as the Finder or Workgroup Manager. Of course we didn't want to lose people. But this is Apple's decision not to ship, not ours. No other OEM's have had problems. These include IBM, HP, Google.. it's a large list. Instead, Apple will be forced to either fork the old code base of Samba (something no one wants) or develop their own implementation of CIFS/SMB that isn't covered under the GPL. Which is their choice. GCC's change to GPLv3 forced Apple to find an entirely new compiler infrastructure, Clang/LLVM, which arguably is actually an improvement over GCC in many ways. The problem for the GCC people is that their are now going to be 50 million of their users potentially moving to a new compiler and that isn't counting other projects such as FreeBSD and other BSD derivatives. The flow on affect could be quiet large, and while GCC isn't going away any time soon, the potential for it to be superseded by LLVM is certainly there. GCC's change to GPLv3 didn't *force* Apple to do anything. Apple *chose* do do it. Are you seeing a pattern here. I'd hate to see the open source community end up being divided into a GPLv3 zone and one that has everyone else. It would then prove many anti open-source advocates (i am not one of them) a reason to show how open source doesn't always work. Rubbish. GPLv2 used to have the same reaction. If you'd only release under BSD then you'd be more *popular* was always the whine. It's not a popularity contest, it's about philosophy. I realise a lot of the changes made in GPLv3 relate to patents, but I'd say that it would make better business sense to most companies to license a technology (such as SMB) from Microsoft and then be allowed to include it in my product, which they can then sell and support, rather than being forced to release their code for free. In other words, giving up the freedom for their users. This is the same with GPLv2 by the way. Look at section 7. If it's better business sense then companies will do it. Some do, some don't. So I'd disagree over that. Finally, companies such as Apple are going to have to deal with problems such as Windows 7 compatibilty in their products, something which the old version of Samba 3.0 seems to have trouble with, and if they find they are unwilling to update to a later version because of the requirements of the new license, then they may have to switch to a different technology or license it from Microsoft. That might make Microsoft happy but it would be a big blow for the Samba project, especially if it meant the loss of over 50 million potential users. What a shame - Apple will have to spend a lot of money to adopt to Windows 7 because they don't want the Free help. Their choice. 3.0.x has problems with Windows 7 as Win7 wasn't even a gleam in Microsoft's eye when 3.0.x was shipped. I think Samba is an amazing project and I don't want to detract from that at all. I personally think that compelling companies to release their code under the GPLv3 for using a small part of GPLv3 code is against the principals of open source software in general. After all, the original purpose (and I think the general public opinion) is that open source means I can take code, include it in my project and sell that project to customers as long as I give any changes I make to the source code of the project back to the community. What complete rubbish. People said *exactly* the same about GPLv2. GPLv3 Samba has pricisely the same effect on Apple as GPLv2 Samba - no more difficult to work with. Your summation of what Open Source means is I guess the biggest problem is that no one seems to be clear on some of the points of the GPLv3. Rubbish again.
Re: [Samba] GPLv3 and Mac OS X
Just to be clear, I'm not attempting to spread FUD about Samba or the GPL. I'm just trying to understand how the license changes may or may not effect the software I work with on a daily basis. On 31/10/2010, at 4:16 AM, Jeremy Allison j...@samba.org wrote: On Sun, Oct 31, 2010 at 04:00:21AM +1100, Stephen Norman wrote: Prevention may have been a poor choice of words here. I guess what I'm asking is, if Apple was to ship Samba 3.2 or above with their OS, what other parts of the OS (if any) would need to be released under GPLv3? For instance, if Finder used some part of Samba in it would it too need to be made available as GPLv3? If Finder became a derived work of Samba then yes it would need to be made available under GPLv3. Just as if Finder was a derived work of Samba in their current OS (where they use Samba 3.0.x) they would need to ship Finder under GPLv2. Lest anyone thing I'm making any claims, Finder is *NOT* a derived work of Samba under GPLv2, and neither would the same code be a derived work of Samba under GPLv3. So there really is no difference there to Apple at all. They don't like GPLv3, but that is their right. We *do* like GPLv3, and that is our right. I'm not sure that I'm not sure how many users use Samba worldwide, but I'd think that the potential loss of such a number would have been considered during the license transition. After all, Apple aren't going to use code in their OS that might require them to open source some of their key technologies, such as the Finder or Workgroup Manager. Of course we didn't want to lose people. But this is Apple's decision not to ship, not ours. No other OEM's have had problems. These include IBM, HP, Google.. it's a large list. Instead, Apple will be forced to either fork the old code base of Samba (something no one wants) or develop their own implementation of CIFS/SMB that isn't covered under the GPL. Which is their choice. GCC's change to GPLv3 forced Apple to find an entirely new compiler infrastructure, Clang/LLVM, which arguably is actually an improvement over GCC in many ways. The problem for the GCC people is that their are now going to be 50 million of their users potentially moving to a new compiler and that isn't counting other projects such as FreeBSD and other BSD derivatives. The flow on affect could be quiet large, and while GCC isn't going away any time soon, the potential for it to be superseded by LLVM is certainly there. GCC's change to GPLv3 didn't *force* Apple to do anything. Apple *chose* do do it. Are you seeing a pattern here. I'd hate to see the open source community end up being divided into a GPLv3 zone and one that has everyone else. It would then prove many anti open-source advocates (i am not one of them) a reason to show how open source doesn't always work. Rubbish. GPLv2 used to have the same reaction. If you'd only release under BSD then you'd be more *popular* was always the whine. It's not a popularity contest, it's about philosophy. I realise a lot of the changes made in GPLv3 relate to patents, but I'd say that it would make better business sense to most companies to license a technology (such as SMB) from Microsoft and then be allowed to include it in my product, which they can then sell and support, rather than being forced to release their code for free. In other words, giving up the freedom for their users. This is the same with GPLv2 by the way. Look at section 7. If it's better business sense then companies will do it. Some do, some don't. So I'd disagree over that. Finally, companies such as Apple are going to have to deal with problems such as Windows 7 compatibilty in their products, something which the old version of Samba 3.0 seems to have trouble with, and if they find they are unwilling to update to a later version because of the requirements of the new license, then they may have to switch to a different technology or license it from Microsoft. That might make Microsoft happy but it would be a big blow for the Samba project, especially if it meant the loss of over 50 million potential users. What a shame - Apple will have to spend a lot of money to adopt to Windows 7 because they don't want the Free help. Their choice. 3.0.x has problems with Windows 7 as Win7 wasn't even a gleam in Microsoft's eye when 3.0.x was shipped. I think Samba is an amazing project and I don't want to detract from that at all. I personally think that compelling companies to release their code under the GPLv3 for using a small part of GPLv3 code is against the principals of open source software in general. After all, the original purpose (and I think the general public opinion) is that open source means I can take code, include it in my project and sell that project to customers as long as I give any changes I make to the source code of the project back to the community.
Re: [Samba] GPLv3 and Mac OS X
Apologies for the previous message. Its what happens at 4 in the morning! On 31/10/2010, at 4:47 AM, Stephen Norman stenorman2...@me.com wrote: Just to be clear, I'm not attempting to spread FUD about Samba or the GPL. I'm just trying to understand how the license changes may or may not effect the software I work with on a daily basis. On 31/10/2010, at 4:16 AM, Jeremy Allison j...@samba.org wrote: On Sun, Oct 31, 2010 at 04:00:21AM +1100, Stephen Norman wrote: Prevention may have been a poor choice of words here. I guess what I'm asking is, if Apple was to ship Samba 3.2 or above with their OS, what other parts of the OS (if any) would need to be released under GPLv3? For instance, if Finder used some part of Samba in it would it too need to be made available as GPLv3? If Finder became a derived work of Samba then yes it would need to be made available under GPLv3. Just as if Finder was a derived work of Samba in their current OS (where they use Samba 3.0.x) they would need to ship Finder under GPLv2. Lest anyone thing I'm making any claims, Finder is *NOT* a derived work of Samba under GPLv2, and neither would the same code be a derived work of Samba under GPLv3. So there really is no difference there to Apple at all. They don't like GPLv3, but that is their right. We *do* like GPLv3, and that is our right. I'm not sure if you could say that Apple doesn't like GPLv3, so that is spreading FUD there as well. Regardless, my guess would be that their legal department has made a case that it might open them for some legal action somewhere. Derived work seems to be a bit of a grey area and opinions seem to be divided. The definition was also revised under GPLv3 so that may have something to do with it. I'm not sure how many users use Samba worldwide, but I'd think that the potential loss of such a number would have been considered during the license transition. After all, Apple aren't going to use code in their OS that might require them to open source some of their key technologies, such as the Finder or Workgroup Manager. Of course we didn't want to lose people. But this is Apple's decision not to ship, not ours. No other OEM's have had problems. These include IBM, HP, Google.. it's a large list. I wasn't aware of these companies shipping products that contained Samba or under what licenses those products are under. Instead, Apple will be forced to either fork the old code base of Samba (something no one wants) or develop their own implementation of CIFS/SMB that isn't covered under the GPL. Which is their choice. True, and it would be a bad choice in my opinion. GCC's change to GPLv3 forced Apple to find an entirely new compiler infrastructure, Clang/LLVM, which arguably is actually an improvement over GCC in many ways. The problem for the GCC people is that their are now going to be 50 million of their users potentially moving to a new compiler and that isn't counting other projects such as FreeBSD and other BSD derivatives. The flow on affect could be quiet large, and while GCC isn't going away any time soon, the potential for it to be superseded by LLVM is certainly there. GCC's change to GPLv3 didn't *force* Apple to do anything. Apple *chose* do do it. Are you seeing a pattern here. See above. I'd hate to see the open source community end up being divided into a GPLv3 zone and one that has everyone else. It would then prove many anti open-source advocates (i am not one of them) a reason to show how open source doesn't always work. Rubbish. GPLv2 used to have the same reaction. If you'd only release under BSD then you'd be more *popular* was always the whine. It's not a popularity contest, it's about philosophy. Having being at school during most of the time of GPLv2, and only having being born at the time of it's release, I can't say I have any knowledge of the issues encountered when GPLv2 was released. I realise a lot of the changes made in GPLv3 relate to patents, but I'd say that it would make better business sense to most companies to license a technology (such as SMB) from Microsoft and then be allowed to include it in my product, which they can then sell and support, rather than being forced to release their code for free. In other words, giving up the freedom for their users. This is the same with GPLv2 by the way. Look at section 7. If it's better business sense then companies will do it. Some do, some don't. So I'd disagree over that. Finally, companies such as Apple are going to have to deal with problems such as Windows 7 compatibilty in their products, something which the old version of Samba 3.0 seems to have trouble with, and if they find they are unwilling to update to a later version because of the requirements of the new license, then they may have to switch to a different technology or license it from Microsoft. That might make
Re: [Samba] GPLv3 and Mac OS X
On 10/30/2010 12:00 PM, Stephen Norman wrote: On 31/10/2010, at 1:03 AM, John H Terpstra j...@samba.org wrote: On 10/30/2010 02:48 AM, Stephen Norman wrote: This may have been raised before and if so I apologise for not being able to find it. No apology needed. We can discuss this topic on this list. I was wondering if someone on the list can please explain the relationship that GPLv3 has in preventing Apple from distributing updated builds with their operating systems. I've read over the GPLv3 (I'm not lawyer or anything) and I would guess it has something to do with the patent agreements? Why do you believe Apple cannot make use of Samba? That is a very different question from why they might refuse to use it. The word prevention implies a cannot element as opposed to a business decision not to use it. Objection for business reasons is like choosing not to purchase something as opposed to not being able to purchase it for one reason or another. Licensing terms form a contractual boundary to accepted use of a created work in order to preserve the intent (wishes) of those who labored to create it. Samba is the result of many hundreds of man-years of work that was freely contributed for the benefit of all, subject to the specific terms of use that are set out in the GPL. Even if every business on planet Earth should choose not to use it in their products what would be the loss to it creators? Prevention may have been a poor choice of words here. I guess what I'm asking is, if Apple was to ship Samba 3.2 or above with their OS, what other parts of the OS (if any) would need to be released under GPLv3? For instance, if Finder used some part of Samba in it would it too need to be made available as GPLv3? The Samba team does not force anyone to use samba. If someone chooses to use it they must comply with its licensing terms. All derivatives of Samba fall under the same license that samba is under - that is what the GPL seeks to achieve. The GPL seeks to prevent the misuse and misappropriation of software source code. Its that simple. You may not like that, and indeed Apple may not like that, but that's the way it is. Please keep in mind that to use or not to use is a choice! I'll admit that I'm not too happy with the GPLv3 and think that, ironically, it is in many ways as restrictive (and in some ways even more so) than closed source software. That's only my opinion though and I understand where it may be useful. Please help us to understand what changes to the licensing terms will cause more people to contribute their labors to its improvement and assure its wider use. What must the creators of Samba give up in order to be successful? What does success look like? How will Apple benefit from this change? How will these benefits help the creators of Samba to better achieve their goals and objectives? If you can convince the authors of Samba that the benefits of being more successful will outweigh what the world will lose you will get a certain hearing. In other words, what must the Samba developers give up and what will be their gain by doing this? I definitely see your point here so I'll try and explain. Apple is one of the largest users of open source software in the world, with over 50 million users each using open source software. By largest users, I mean the software is on people's machine (server side projects like Apache would have much greater numbers). That is a large number and second only to Microsoft Windows. They have been an advocate for open source software, shipping a number of technologies, including Samba in Mac OS X for almost a decade. They helped kickstart software technologies including Ruby on Rails by being the first to ship the software with the OS, something which continues to be the case today. Let's make sure that credit is given where it is due. For all the good things any corporation or individual does let's say thank you - AND - remember to comply with the license terms under which the contribution was made. If we do not like the license terms, ask for reconsideration by all means, but do not demand it. The author has rights of determination over his/her works. I'm not sure how many users use Samba worldwide, but I'd think that the potential loss of such a number would have been considered during the license transition. After all, Apple aren't going to use code in their OS that might require them to open source some of their key technologies, such as the Finder or Workgroup Manager. Please check your facts. Anyone who produces a derivative work from a licensed software application must comply with the original authors' or licensors' terms and conditions. Remember, noone forces anyone to create a derivative work! Only derivative works are affected. Instead, Apple will be forced to either fork the old code base of Samba (something no one wants) or develop their own
Re: [Samba] GPLv3 and Mac OS X
On Sat, Oct 30, 2010 at 2:16 PM, Stephen Norman stenorman2...@me.com wrote: Apologies for the previous message. Its what happens at 4 in the morning! On 31/10/2010, at 4:47 AM, Stephen Norman stenorman2...@me.com wrote: I've read and Googled quiet extensively regarding GPLv3 before posting and find it offensive for anyone to think I'd post the question otherwise. Most of the documentation provided around GPLv3 can only be truly understood by someone with an insight into the law covering such licenses. You do seem to be re-iterating what are common concerns about GPLv3, ones that are not borne out by other experience with open source licenses, especially GPL. versions. The GPLv3 is a logical extension of previous GPL's to prevent precisely the sort of sealed applicance and patent encumbered product riding on top of previous open source development. Tivo's are a great example of this, as are Netgear cable modems. Storage applicances using Samba are a very obvious candidate for similar abuses of GPL, using Samba's GPL code to build an appliance, and patent encumbering it to prevent access to the actual applicance software and to block development with it. Take a good look at those inexpensive Terabyte network storage devices. A lot of them are actually running Samba under the hood, and most of them are good about providing source code access. But without GPLv3, any software patents could encumber and prevent us, as owners of such a device, from rebuilding it. The two points I've seen repeated over and over again in my browsing is the confusion people have in what constitutes derivative work and the concern over the fact that there is yet to be (at least reported) of a legal case involving GPLv3. I believe they are legitimate concerns that anyone should be allowed to have and certainly shouldn't be considered FUD. In time, GPLv3 will probably become as widely accepted as GPLv2. I think everyone can agree that software freedom is important, even if the implementations often differ. And now you're re-iterating the FUD. The GPLv3 is not that hard to follow: it seems a clear statement of privileges already corroborated in copyright and patent law. It's being used in a fascinating judo way: to discredit it requires discrediting many millions of dollars of already existing patent property, and would effectively open up *other* people's previously protected, patented software to otherwise violating use. Samba seems a fabulous toolkit to apply it to: network storage appliances are precisely where encumbering patents could be easily inserted by the vendors to take advantage of Samba's free software development, but block access to their development work by others. -- To unsubscribe from this list go to the following URL and read the instructions: https://lists.samba.org/mailman/options/samba
Re: [Samba] GPLv3 and Mac OS X
Forget our war of words. It looks like Apple and the FSF can't get along at the moment. http://lwn.net/Articles/405417/ I apologise for my confusion as it does appear to be a problem between Apple and the FSF. Cheers, Stephen On 31/10/2010, at 5:29 AM, John H Terpstra j...@samba.org wrote: On 10/30/2010 12:00 PM, Stephen Norman wrote: On 31/10/2010, at 1:03 AM, John H Terpstra j...@samba.org wrote: On 10/30/2010 02:48 AM, Stephen Norman wrote: This may have been raised before and if so I apologise for not being able to find it. No apology needed. We can discuss this topic on this list. I was wondering if someone on the list can please explain the relationship that GPLv3 has in preventing Apple from distributing updated builds with their operating systems. I've read over the GPLv3 (I'm not lawyer or anything) and I would guess it has something to do with the patent agreements? Why do you believe Apple cannot make use of Samba? That is a very different question from why they might refuse to use it. The word prevention implies a cannot element as opposed to a business decision not to use it. Objection for business reasons is like choosing not to purchase something as opposed to not being able to purchase it for one reason or another. Licensing terms form a contractual boundary to accepted use of a created work in order to preserve the intent (wishes) of those who labored to create it. Samba is the result of many hundreds of man-years of work that was freely contributed for the benefit of all, subject to the specific terms of use that are set out in the GPL. Even if every business on planet Earth should choose not to use it in their products what would be the loss to it creators? Prevention may have been a poor choice of words here. I guess what I'm asking is, if Apple was to ship Samba 3.2 or above with their OS, what other parts of the OS (if any) would need to be released under GPLv3? For instance, if Finder used some part of Samba in it would it too need to be made available as GPLv3? The Samba team does not force anyone to use samba. If someone chooses to use it they must comply with its licensing terms. All derivatives of Samba fall under the same license that samba is under - that is what the GPL seeks to achieve. The GPL seeks to prevent the misuse and misappropriation of software source code. Its that simple. You may not like that, and indeed Apple may not like that, but that's the way it is. Please keep in mind that to use or not to use is a choice! I'll admit that I'm not too happy with the GPLv3 and think that, ironically, it is in many ways as restrictive (and in some ways even more so) than closed source software. That's only my opinion though and I understand where it may be useful. Please help us to understand what changes to the licensing terms will cause more people to contribute their labors to its improvement and assure its wider use. What must the creators of Samba give up in order to be successful? What does success look like? How will Apple benefit from this change? How will these benefits help the creators of Samba to better achieve their goals and objectives? If you can convince the authors of Samba that the benefits of being more successful will outweigh what the world will lose you will get a certain hearing. In other words, what must the Samba developers give up and what will be their gain by doing this? I definitely see your point here so I'll try and explain. Apple is one of the largest users of open source software in the world, with over 50 million users each using open source software. By largest users, I mean the software is on people's machine (server side projects like Apache would have much greater numbers). That is a large number and second only to Microsoft Windows. They have been an advocate for open source software, shipping a number of technologies, including Samba in Mac OS X for almost a decade. They helped kickstart software technologies including Ruby on Rails by being the first to ship the software with the OS, something which continues to be the case today. Let's make sure that credit is given where it is due. For all the good things any corporation or individual does let's say thank you - AND - remember to comply with the license terms under which the contribution was made. If we do not like the license terms, ask for reconsideration by all means, but do not demand it. The author has rights of determination over his/her works. I'm not sure how many users use Samba worldwide, but I'd think that the potential loss of such a number would have been considered during the license transition. After all, Apple aren't going to use code in their OS that might require them to open source some of their key technologies, such as the Finder or Workgroup Manager. Please check your facts. Anyone who produces a derivative work from a
Re: [Samba] GPLv3 and Mac OS X
On Sun, Oct 31, 2010 at 05:16:53AM +1100, Stephen Norman wrote: I'm not sure if you could say that Apple doesn't like GPLv3, so that is spreading FUD there as well. Regardless, my guess would be that their legal department has made a case that it might open them for some legal action somewhere. Derived work seems to be a bit of a grey area and opinions seem to be divided. The definition was also revised under GPLv3 so that may have something to do with it. I don't think it's spreading FUD about Apple to say they don't like the GPLv3. As you pointed out, they are spending large amounts of resources replaceing gcc with clang, simply because gcc is under GPLv3. I think saying Apple doesn't like the GPLv3 is stating a fact. Of course we didn't want to lose people. But this is Apple's decision not to ship, not ours. No other OEM's have had problems. These include IBM, HP, Google.. it's a large list. I wasn't aware of these companies shipping products that contained Samba or under what licenses those products are under. It's Samba, so they're under GPL v2 and v3, depending on the version being used. Most Samba vendors (other than Apple) have moved or are in the process of moving the 3.2.x or above, which means GPLv3. True, and it would be a bad choice in my opinion. I completely agree, and anything I can do to change their mind short of changing our license - the license that all other Samba vendors ship under, I will do. I've read and Googled quiet extensively regarding GPLv3 before posting and find it offensive for anyone to think I'd post the question otherwise. Most of the documentation provided around GPLv3 can only be truly understood by someone with an insight into the law covering such licenses. I'm sorry - I apologise for claiming you're spreading FUD about GPLv3 (I was in a hurry too when I wrote that email :-). I disagree about people needing an insight into the law to understang the meaning of GPLv3 - the FAQ does makes things very clear. But companies making decisions about licensing should be working with people who *do* have an insight into such law, and in my experience they do. Their legal Dept. usually, staffed with very capable lawyers :-). The two points I've seen repeated over and over again in my browsing is the confusion people have in what constitutes derivative work and the concern over the fact that there is yet to be (at least reported) of a legal case involving GPLv3. I believe they are legitimate concerns that anyone should be allowed to have and certainly shouldn't be considered FUD. In time, GPLv3 will probably become as widely accepted as GPLv2. I think everyone can agree that software freedom is important, even if the implementations often differ. Well people were confused over what a derivative work is when GPLv2 was all there was out there, so I don't think GPLv3 makes a difference here. As for no legal case involving GPLv3, that's a read herring. Remember, if an enforcement action makes it to a case, then it's a failure. The goal of enforcement actions isn't to make case law, it's to get people to quietly obey the license. We (Samba) have done many such enforcements over the years - for both GPLv2 and GPLv3 Samba. You don't hear about them because they are successful, and the license is upheld. People only go to court if they think they can invalidate the license - it's a testiment to the GPL that so few actions actually make it that far. Eventually someone will make similar mistakes with GPLv3 that were made with GPLv3 and it'll end up being enforced by a court, just as GPLv2 was. But I hope that isn't with Samba - court cases are exhausting for everyone involved. Jeremy. -- To unsubscribe from this list go to the following URL and read the instructions: https://lists.samba.org/mailman/options/samba
Re: [Samba] GPLv3 and Mac OS X
Hi Jermey, Thanks for helping me understand all the a bit better. According to discussions on the LLVM mailing list (sorry I don't have the link) when LLVM's libc++ was released, a number of people commented saying that Apple employees are currently unable to work on GPLv3 software, possibly due to some disagreement between Apple and the FSF. My best guess would be something to do with Section 11 of GPLv3 (patents), and that Apple may have made deals after the date specified (28 March 2007) that cannot be easily revoked or altered and would not allow them to meet the requirements of GPLv3. I don't think we'll ever know though. Thanks again, Stephen On 31/10/2010, at 2:48 PM, Jeremy Allison wrote: On Sun, Oct 31, 2010 at 05:16:53AM +1100, Stephen Norman wrote: I'm not sure if you could say that Apple doesn't like GPLv3, so that is spreading FUD there as well. Regardless, my guess would be that their legal department has made a case that it might open them for some legal action somewhere. Derived work seems to be a bit of a grey area and opinions seem to be divided. The definition was also revised under GPLv3 so that may have something to do with it. I don't think it's spreading FUD about Apple to say they don't like the GPLv3. As you pointed out, they are spending large amounts of resources replaceing gcc with clang, simply because gcc is under GPLv3. I think saying Apple doesn't like the GPLv3 is stating a fact. Of course we didn't want to lose people. But this is Apple's decision not to ship, not ours. No other OEM's have had problems. These include IBM, HP, Google.. it's a large list. I wasn't aware of these companies shipping products that contained Samba or under what licenses those products are under. It's Samba, so they're under GPL v2 and v3, depending on the version being used. Most Samba vendors (other than Apple) have moved or are in the process of moving the 3.2.x or above, which means GPLv3. True, and it would be a bad choice in my opinion. I completely agree, and anything I can do to change their mind short of changing our license - the license that all other Samba vendors ship under, I will do. I've read and Googled quiet extensively regarding GPLv3 before posting and find it offensive for anyone to think I'd post the question otherwise. Most of the documentation provided around GPLv3 can only be truly understood by someone with an insight into the law covering such licenses. I'm sorry - I apologise for claiming you're spreading FUD about GPLv3 (I was in a hurry too when I wrote that email :-). I disagree about people needing an insight into the law to understang the meaning of GPLv3 - the FAQ does makes things very clear. But companies making decisions about licensing should be working with people who *do* have an insight into such law, and in my experience they do. Their legal Dept. usually, staffed with very capable lawyers :-). The two points I've seen repeated over and over again in my browsing is the confusion people have in what constitutes derivative work and the concern over the fact that there is yet to be (at least reported) of a legal case involving GPLv3. I believe they are legitimate concerns that anyone should be allowed to have and certainly shouldn't be considered FUD. In time, GPLv3 will probably become as widely accepted as GPLv2. I think everyone can agree that software freedom is important, even if the implementations often differ. Well people were confused over what a derivative work is when GPLv2 was all there was out there, so I don't think GPLv3 makes a difference here. As for no legal case involving GPLv3, that's a read herring. Remember, if an enforcement action makes it to a case, then it's a failure. The goal of enforcement actions isn't to make case law, it's to get people to quietly obey the license. We (Samba) have done many such enforcements over the years - for both GPLv2 and GPLv3 Samba. You don't hear about them because they are successful, and the license is upheld. People only go to court if they think they can invalidate the license - it's a testiment to the GPL that so few actions actually make it that far. Eventually someone will make similar mistakes with GPLv3 that were made with GPLv3 and it'll end up being enforced by a court, just as GPLv2 was. But I hope that isn't with Samba - court cases are exhausting for everyone involved. Jeremy. -- To unsubscribe from this list go to the following URL and read the instructions: https://lists.samba.org/mailman/options/samba
