Re: Bye
On Tue, 2002-02-19 at 18:57, Brett Glass wrote: > > "Copyleft," by its very definition, is intended to destroy the > benefits of copyright to authors. There is no "kind" of copyleft > that is ethical, because it is not ethical to confiscate authors' > work nor to discriminate against them in licensing. > > --Brett Uhm... how does the copyleft confiscate authors' work? How does it discriminate in licensing? Copyright gives certain rights to the *author* of a work. The author gets to choose how the work is to be used, within certain bounds. "Copyleft" is nothing more than a term applied to a certain application of copyright. That application of copyright is *still* within the rights of the original author. Now, I understand your beef with some of the terms of the *GPL licenses. I don't agree with you; but you are being rational (except for your vilification of RMS and the FSF-- with that, you sound a bit too strident). This isn't even rational. If you agree that copyright is a good thing (and it *sounds* like you do), then you agree that the author of a work has *every right* to determine how that work is used. In that case, no-one is confiscating anything, nor is there any discrimination. After all, the exact same terms apply to everyone uniformly. You've explained these points over and over again. I've heard your arguments. But if you agree the author of a work has jurisdiction over that work, than I cannot see how you can deny an author the right to maintain control over their work. That is all the GPL does: it ensures that an author will not lose complete control over their work, by ensuring derivitives of their work will remain open, as well. QED. - Tony
Re: Jeremy makes a persuasive argument for LGPL
On Mon, 2002-02-18 at 19:33, Roland wrote: > At 01:58 PM 2/18/02 -0600, Sean Farley wrote: > > >They have release Darwin as well as an NFS testing tool. FreeBSD did > >benefit a lot from that testing tool. > > Yes, I have read that by now. This is another point in favour of the BSD > license. No, that's a point in *Apples* favour. The BSD license did not make Apple give anything back; they were not required to participate. They could have taken, without ever contributing. But, Apple feels a sense of community. Hell, they are almost single-handedly responsible for the initial PC revolution (pre-IBM-pc days). Granted, they also have a sense of money, too. Take, for instance, Microsoft's attempted hijacking of the Kerberos protocol. MS almost took an accepted standard, and almost perverted it to their ends, by using free software that did not require anything of them. For those of you sleeping last year, the MIT license allowed Microsoft to use the Kerberos source code without any real requirements. Microsoft used the extension "feature" of Kerberos to enable MS operating systems to participate in a Kerberos domain, but a standard Kerberos system could not participate in a Microsoft Kerberos domain. > >Besides, as the owner of a company, he can always decide not to develop > >code for those potential customers who wish to keep the resulting code > >closed. > > Of course he can do that. But this means losing a lot of customers to other > companies. The xGPL would prevent this. > > Roland Okay, I'm a strong supporter of the GPL. But this is just selfish. - Tony
Re: Wine license change
On Thu, 2002-02-14 at 13:29, Brett Glass wrote: > At 05:33 PM 2/13/2002, Anthony Taylor wrote: > > >Currently, there are only a few software companies making huge amounts > >of money. It's not *just* Free Software-based software companies. > >Cygnus had problems making money; so is Borland. > > Ironically, Borland is having trouble because it made the mistake of > targeting the Linux platform. Many Linux users have "moral" objections > to paying for a product, and so either have not bought Kylix or have > pirated it. At the February 2000 LinuxWorld, Bradley Kuhn of the FSF > disparaged Borland's products in front of a large audience. He told > the group that Borland's products are "a proprietary threat to freedom," > and urged developers in the audience to write a GPLed clone and not to > buy Borland's tools. Borland was in trouble well before it ported its products to Linux. Now you're just rationalizing. Their port to Linux was an attempt to move into a potentially-unexploited development platform. And attributing Be's downfall to Linux is absurd; they addressed completely different OS spaces. Be targetted multimedia production, an area Linux in which Linux is not strong. Plus, Be had been around long before Linux became well-known. Also, you haven't addressed any of the failed software companies that had nothing to do with Linux, or GPLd code. > >Yes, it's easier to make money when you induce artificial scarcity in a > >product. > > Insisting that you be paid before giving someone your work is not > "inducing artificial scarcity" any more than my refusal to do, say, > unpaid plumbing work is doing so. It's simply necessary to earn a > living! ;-) Plumbing is done on a case-by-case basis. You are paid for the work you do when you do it; this is hardly "artificial scarcity." The same can happen in programming. I do that; I am paid as I do my work. I make good money. Others do the same thing. I do not feel cheated at all. The artificial scarcity comes when a proprietary software company released binary-only programs, charging an exorbitant sum for the privelege of using their software. If the software is buggy, there is no recall, there are rarely patches that fix any but the most serious bugs/security holes, and there is no chance to fix the software yourself. You cannot give the software to someone you know. Fine: this is copyright law, and is the perogotive of the publisher. Most coding is not done in a proprietary software house. Most is done internally, in banks and pizza parlors and museums and government labs. Most coders get paid for writing code that will never be sold. (It does, however, have intrinsic value to the company.) If these coders choose to code on the side, it is their perogotive to determine how their code is used. For my code, I place the same restrictions on proprietary software houses that they would place on me. This is the bronze rule: "Do unto others as they would do unto you." I'm damned spiteful, so that is what I do. Plus, it's my code, I can do whatever I please with it, for the *exact same* reason proprietary software houses can restrict their code however they wish. There's a certain symmetry here. Most programmers who get paid to produce proprietary software do not get rich off their work. The successful software companies do. I am paid about the same as most programmers working for Microsoft. I don't produce as much code(my duties are primarily database related, not code related). *I am not getting cheated by writing GPL code.* I am not cheating anyone else by writing GPLd code. - Tony PS: Sorry, I know I signed out of this discussion. I apologize for getting sucked back in; but my emotions are running hot over this issue.
Re: Wine license change
On Wed, 2002-02-13 at 15:42, Roger Fujii wrote: > > but I wouldn't use the word 'thrive' to describe a company that is barely > profitable (which is what the original poster used). It's not my opinion > (and probably not even Brent's) that it is *impossible* to eek out a living. > I think the point is that it is DIFFICULT to do so. I don't mind hearing > GPL advocates say that it is more socially desirable, equitable... (not > that I necessarily agree with it, but it is a valid point of view). But > I don't see any evidence that it is helpful to commerical entities (which is > some of the reasoning behind a license switch). Currently, there are only a few software companies making huge amounts of money. It's not *just* Free Software-based software companies. Cygnus had problems making money; so is Borland. Red Hat isn't terribly profitable yet; Be Corp. went belly-up. Fact is, it's hard for a start-up to make money at all in the current software industry. It's not the licensing model that is the problem; it's the industry itself. Yes, it's easier to make money when you induce artificial scarcity in a product. But as Word Perfect Corp, Ashton-Tate, Paperback Software, iCat Corp, Banyan, NeXT, and Digital Research will tell you, it ain't easy making money in the software world, no matter what. - Tony
Re: Wine license change
Brett Glass wrote: >At 12:09 PM 2/10/2002, Francois Gouget wrote: > >> As you yourself admitted you are not a Wine devlopper. You may pose >>yourself as a 'potential developper' to try to gain legitimacy, but the >>truth is you are nothing more than a third party, just like the FSF and >>Richard Stallman. This makes your comments no more relevant than those >>of any other third party, Richard Stallman and the FSF included. >> > >This is what's known as arguing ad hominem. The relevance of a comment >does not depend upon who makes it. > >--Brett Glass > Mr. Glass, Your explaination of your concerns with viewing GPL code was excellent. Although I do not completely share those concerns, I understand them. However, this comment clearly shows two things. First, you have used ad hominem attacks on RMS several times in this argument, making claims that have been refuted both here and by his own actions. In fact, the FSF itself sells software; they are not against commercialization of software, as you have claimed. Neither is Stallman. So your comment shows lack of understanding of yourself. Secondly, this demonstrates you do not grok the dynamics of Free software projects. Of *course* degree of involvement in a project directly affects the validity of one's opinion concerning that project. My degree of involvement is essentially zero; yours is apparently less than that. Our opinions count for nothing, other than as interested third parties. You have not just expressed an opinion; you have started (and fanned) a flame war concerning the validity of software licenses on a development list. I have contributed more than my share of flamage, so I too am guilty. Yes, you see your concerns as valid; from your philosophical and political bent, the *are* valid. But, as a mere user of Wine, your concerns have devolved into browbeating. If you were an active developer, your opinions would carry more weight; after all, the developers are the ones putting huge effort into this project. *They* are the ones who should decide how their labor of love can and cannot be used. If they decided to take the code private and turn it into a commercial project, no-one can stop them. It is *their* work. And if they don't want parasites making money off their hard work, it is *their* perogotive, not yours or mine. If they want to release it to the public domain (the only truly free, unencumbered "license" out there), that is their perogotive. If they want to add a clause that says, "This code is usable by everyone but Tony and Brett," that is also their perogotive. After all, it is *their* work, and they have every right to decide how it is to be used. You have made very good arguments. Let it stand, and abide their decision. As for me: I apologize to the dev team for my contributions to this flame war. I will now go back to lurking, and using Wine. Thank you all for your work on Wine. This is a monumental piece of software, and you deserve the right to decide how it is used. Sincerely, Tony
Re: Wine license change
Brett Glass wrote: > At 10:37 PM 2/9/2002, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > >> MANY of the best programmers on GPL or GPL-like projects are commercial >> programmers in real life. > > > This puts them at very serious risk. > Sir, You have made this claim many times, and asserted various lawyers have told you it is true. Please explain the details. The GPL and LGPL specifically cover source code, * not* algorithms. How can the act of reading *GPL source code expose you to liability, any more than reading a novel can prevent you from writing your own? - Tony
Re: Dr. Seuss, licensing, and WINE (and now biology, too)
Brett Glass wrote:
>
>Do these analogies make things clearer?
>
>--Brett
>
Disclaimer: I have not contributed to the wine project for several
years, and the contributions I did make were in the form of bug reports,
back before it could run Solitaire ('94, or thereabouts). So I have
very little say in much of anything Wine-related.
However, I can't sit by reading this drivel any longer without speaking
my mind.
Brett Glass has been a commercial coder, and a journalist, for quite a
few years. He is very opinionated on every subject he discusses. For
that, I respect him.
And because he refuses to use either facts or logic simultaneously, he
loses that respect. But beyond that, I see a core difference of
philosophy here.
First and foremost, this argument seems to divide people into two camps:
those that think money is the most important aspect of life, and those
that think that people are the most important. The former see no
problem with forcing developers to make their code accessible to
corporate exploitation. The latter sees no problem in forcing
corporations to play fairly by placing restrictions on the use of their
code.
This "zero cent" argument of his does not hold water. If a group builds
a cathedral, and a second group charges for tours of that cathedral
while never contributing back to the builders, how is the money made
*not* based *entirely* on the cathedral? You can say that people can
tour the cathedral on their own, without a guide, so what people are
paying for is the guide; but without the cathedral, *there would be no
guide.* The second group is making money off the hard work of the
first, with no requirement to provide any support.
In biology, we call this "parasitism."
Sometimes parasites turn out to be symbiotes. This is what Mr. Glass is
arguing-- it's good to put up with parasites, because they can make
money . . . and perhaps they will turn out to be symbiotes. But the
main goal is that the parasites make money, because projects are
worthless unless they can make money.
Mr. Glass, esteemed Wine developers: I submit that the GPL and LGPL are
merely resistance against parasites. Yes, it means the projects they
protect may also miss out on some symbiotes; but it isn't necessary.
Look at Red Hat, which is finally starting to look profitable. There
is no denying they have formed a successful symbiotic relationship with
a truly GPLd product; and before them, Cygnus (which did offer
proprietary *add-ons* to the GNU development suite) also had a
successful business model based on GPLd software.
These arguments will not sway Mr. Glass; he is immune to logic and
evidence that does not support his side. (I too am immune, and so he
and I are not much different. Keep that in mind when reading *both* of us.)
Every developer that writes Free (libre) software does so for a
different reason. Some wish protection against parasites, while others
do not care. Me, I'm of the former class. (Not that any of my code
could possibly be considered worthwhile.) But I respect the decisions
of the developers.
And if going to the LGPL means losing Brett Glass as a potential
contributer: Bonus!
- Tony
