* Re: Bitkeeper outrage, old and new
2002-10-19 23:12 ` Larry McVoy
@ 2002-10-19 23:28 ` Jeff Garzik
2002-10-20 15:46 ` Ben Collins
2002-10-19 23:48 ` Roman Zippel
` (3 subsequent siblings)
4 siblings, 1 reply; 84+ messages in thread
From: Jeff Garzik @ 2002-10-19 23:28 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Larry McVoy; +Cc: Richard Stallman, hch, linux-kernel
Larry McVoy wrote:
> I have no problem with the GPL, I think it's a fine license if your
> goal is to have things done out in the open with no hoarding. A great
> license, in fact. But I have a big problem with this constant harping
> on the term "freedom". The GPL absolutely positively does not grant me
> all the rights I want, it took substantial portions of my freedom away.
> I am not free to use GPL source in any way I wish and neither is anyone
> else.
>
> I'm OK with you having a free license, go make one. I'm OK with you
> sticking with the GPL, but then you get admit that it is not a free
> license and stop kidding yourself and others.
At the potential cost of getting flamed, I think it is worth pointing
out that the FSF's copyright assignment policy on several of their
projects is _very_ anti-freedom. You are required to relinquish all
your rights to your contributions, in exchange for the hope that the FSF
will protect them.
So, like the GPL, you are really _giving up_ rights and freedoms for the
overall cause of software freedom.
Jeff, who GPLs all the software he writes...
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 84+ messages in thread
* Re: Bitkeeper outrage, old and new
2002-10-19 23:28 ` Jeff Garzik
@ 2002-10-20 15:46 ` Ben Collins
2002-10-20 17:22 ` Jeff Garzik
2002-10-20 19:06 ` Daniel Berlin
0 siblings, 2 replies; 84+ messages in thread
From: Ben Collins @ 2002-10-20 15:46 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Jeff Garzik; +Cc: Richard Stallman, linux-kernel
On Sat, Oct 19, 2002 at 07:28:43PM -0400, Jeff Garzik wrote:
> Larry McVoy wrote:
> >I have no problem with the GPL, I think it's a fine license if your
> >goal is to have things done out in the open with no hoarding. A great
> >license, in fact. But I have a big problem with this constant harping
> >on the term "freedom". The GPL absolutely positively does not grant me
> >all the rights I want, it took substantial portions of my freedom away.
> >I am not free to use GPL source in any way I wish and neither is anyone
> >else.
> >
> >I'm OK with you having a free license, go make one. I'm OK with you
> >sticking with the GPL, but then you get admit that it is not a free
> >license and stop kidding yourself and others.
>
>
> At the potential cost of getting flamed, I think it is worth pointing
> out that the FSF's copyright assignment policy on several of their
> projects is _very_ anti-freedom. You are required to relinquish all
> your rights to your contributions, in exchange for the hope that the FSF
> will protect them.
Jeff, they don't force you, they require it to be turned over to them
for inclusion in the FSF proper upstream source. Also, it doesn't mean
that you lose your rights to the original piece. You can still reuse
your own source as the copyright owner.
That doesn't stop things like egcs from happening, does it? It's not
like Apple's old license that the mere releasing of your patches to the
source requires turning over non-exclusive rights.
I really hope I didn't help this thread diminish into a licensing
flamefest.
--
Debian - http://www.debian.org/
Linux 1394 - http://www.linux1394.org/
Subversion - http://subversion.tigris.org/
Deqo - http://www.deqo.com/
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 84+ messages in thread
* Re: Bitkeeper outrage, old and new
2002-10-20 15:46 ` Ben Collins
@ 2002-10-20 17:22 ` Jeff Garzik
2002-10-20 17:34 ` Ben Collins
2002-10-20 19:06 ` Daniel Berlin
1 sibling, 1 reply; 84+ messages in thread
From: Jeff Garzik @ 2002-10-20 17:22 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Ben Collins; +Cc: Richard Stallman, linux-kernel
Ben Collins wrote:
> On Sat, Oct 19, 2002 at 07:28:43PM -0400, Jeff Garzik wrote:
>
>>Larry McVoy wrote:
>>
>>>I have no problem with the GPL, I think it's a fine license if your
>>>goal is to have things done out in the open with no hoarding. A great
>>>license, in fact. But I have a big problem with this constant harping
>>>on the term "freedom". The GPL absolutely positively does not grant me
>>>all the rights I want, it took substantial portions of my freedom away.
>>>I am not free to use GPL source in any way I wish and neither is anyone
>>>else.
>>>
>>>I'm OK with you having a free license, go make one. I'm OK with you
>>>sticking with the GPL, but then you get admit that it is not a free
>>>license and stop kidding yourself and others.
>>
>>
>>At the potential cost of getting flamed, I think it is worth pointing
>>out that the FSF's copyright assignment policy on several of their
>>projects is _very_ anti-freedom. You are required to relinquish all
>>your rights to your contributions, in exchange for the hope that the FSF
>>will protect them.
>
>
> Jeff, they don't force you, they require it to be turned over to them
> for inclusion in the FSF proper upstream source. Also, it doesn't mean
> that you lose your rights to the original piece. You can still reuse
> your own source as the copyright owner.
The whole point of the copyright assignment is that FSF becomes
copyright owner.
This is so that Jeff Garzik cannot be strongarmed into changing the
license on his code, or some other anti-software-freedom tactic levied
against me in the future. In theory, the FSF as an organization will
protect the rights of the software when I might weaken and give in.
But in exchange for that protection, you are willingly giving up your
rights as copyright owner... Less freedom for [hopefully] better
protection. Just like everything in life, it's a tradeoff... :)
Jeff
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 84+ messages in thread
* Re: Bitkeeper outrage, old and new
2002-10-20 17:22 ` Jeff Garzik
@ 2002-10-20 17:34 ` Ben Collins
2002-10-20 17:45 ` Jeff Garzik
` (2 more replies)
0 siblings, 3 replies; 84+ messages in thread
From: Ben Collins @ 2002-10-20 17:34 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Jeff Garzik; +Cc: Richard Stallman, linux-kernel
>
> The whole point of the copyright assignment is that FSF becomes
> copyright owner.
>
> This is so that Jeff Garzik cannot be strongarmed into changing the
> license on his code, or some other anti-software-freedom tactic levied
> against me in the future. In theory, the FSF as an organization will
> protect the rights of the software when I might weaken and give in.
>
> But in exchange for that protection, you are willingly giving up your
> rights as copyright owner... Less freedom for [hopefully] better
> protection. Just like everything in life, it's a tradeoff... :)
>
I disagree. I don't see anything in the copyright assignment (and I have
signed a few for the FSF) that says I don't retain original copyright
for my work.
--
Debian - http://www.debian.org/
Linux 1394 - http://www.linux1394.org/
Subversion - http://subversion.tigris.org/
Deqo - http://www.deqo.com/
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 84+ messages in thread
* Re: Bitkeeper outrage, old and new
2002-10-20 17:34 ` Ben Collins
@ 2002-10-20 17:45 ` Jeff Garzik
2002-10-22 3:13 ` Richard Stallman
2002-10-20 19:15 ` Robert Love
2002-10-20 22:46 ` Rik van Riel
2 siblings, 1 reply; 84+ messages in thread
From: Jeff Garzik @ 2002-10-20 17:45 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Ben Collins; +Cc: Richard Stallman, linux-kernel
Ben Collins wrote:
>>The whole point of the copyright assignment is that FSF becomes
>>copyright owner.
>>
>>This is so that Jeff Garzik cannot be strongarmed into changing the
>>license on his code, or some other anti-software-freedom tactic levied
>>against me in the future. In theory, the FSF as an organization will
>>protect the rights of the software when I might weaken and give in.
>>
>>But in exchange for that protection, you are willingly giving up your
>>rights as copyright owner... Less freedom for [hopefully] better
>>protection. Just like everything in life, it's a tradeoff... :)
>>
>
>
> I disagree. I don't see anything in the copyright assignment (and I have
> signed a few for the FSF) that says I don't retain original copyright
> for my work.
If you keep a copy locally, sure. But the upstream sources, i.e. what's
important, you lose rights to even though you may have contributed
substantial amounts of code. IOW if binutils goes off in a direction
you don't like, for example the FSF changes the license from GPL to
Microsoft EULA, you don't have any say in the matter whatsoever. You're
left with a code fork based on the last GPL sources and/or the patches
you've kept locally.
With Linux, I have a say in what happens to the upstream sources -- the
thing most people care about :)
Jeff
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 84+ messages in thread
* Re: Bitkeeper outrage, old and new
2002-10-20 17:45 ` Jeff Garzik
@ 2002-10-22 3:13 ` Richard Stallman
2002-10-25 0:27 ` Andrew D Kirch
0 siblings, 1 reply; 84+ messages in thread
From: Richard Stallman @ 2002-10-22 3:13 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: jgarzik; +Cc: bcollins, linux-kernel
IOW if binutils goes off in a direction
you don't like, for example the FSF changes the license from GPL to
Microsoft EULA, you don't have any say in the matter whatsoever.
FSF copyright assignments place a number of limits on how the FSF can
use the code, including limits on what sort of licenses we can use.
If we did what you have in mind, we would be violating all these
contracts (as well as our charter). I wrote the contracts this way so
that contributors would not have to rely entirely on our good
intentions.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 84+ messages in thread
* Re: Bitkeeper outrage, old and new
2002-10-22 3:13 ` Richard Stallman
@ 2002-10-25 0:27 ` Andrew D Kirch
0 siblings, 0 replies; 84+ messages in thread
From: Andrew D Kirch @ 2002-10-25 0:27 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: linux-kernel
OK, time for me to weigh in, I agree with RMS that this must be both a technical and ethical board, and in fact moreso must encompass ALL aspects of the development of the kernel.
Next, I would like to apologize to Larry McVoy, you have given us your program, free of cost, you have allowed us to use your program, which was determined by Linus (and with the respect I have for this man, let alone his position, his determination is inarguable) to be the superior source management system. You sir have taken more (and pardon me here) shit than just about anyone I've ever seen on any mailing list. Quite honestly sir, I would have packed up my basketball and gone home. I thank you for staying and assure you that there are people on this list, and in the community that thank you for your efforts in making the linux kernel what it is.
To RMS, and the host of those in the world, I add one more freedom to those espoused in the GPL. The freedom to simply not use it when software released under it's terms aren't the best fit for what needs to be done. It's a license not a swiss army knife. Anyways I'm done ranting, regards to all who have had their time wasted in this fruitless argument, and thankyou again to larry for his tolerance of this.
Andrew D Kirch
On Mon, 21 Oct 2002 23:13:37 -0400
Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> wrote:
> IOW if binutils goes off in a direction
> you don't like, for example the FSF changes the license from GPL to
> Microsoft EULA, you don't have any say in the matter whatsoever.
>
> FSF copyright assignments place a number of limits on how the FSF can
> use the code, including limits on what sort of licenses we can use.
> If we did what you have in mind, we would be violating all these
> contracts (as well as our charter). I wrote the contracts this way so
> that contributors would not have to rely entirely on our good
> intentions.
>
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 84+ messages in thread
* Re: Bitkeeper outrage, old and new
2002-10-20 17:34 ` Ben Collins
2002-10-20 17:45 ` Jeff Garzik
@ 2002-10-20 19:15 ` Robert Love
2002-10-20 21:42 ` Xavier Bestel
2002-10-20 22:46 ` Rik van Riel
2 siblings, 1 reply; 84+ messages in thread
From: Robert Love @ 2002-10-20 19:15 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Ben Collins; +Cc: Jeff Garzik, Richard Stallman, linux-kernel
On Sun, 2002-10-20 at 13:34, Ben Collins wrote:
> I disagree. I don't see anything in the copyright assignment (and I have
> signed a few for the FSF) that says I don't retain original copyright
> for my work.
That is only because they relicense the work back to you (and its GPLed
you have a lot of freedom with it anyhow).
When you sign over your copyright, you relinquish it. The FSF now has
the copyright on your work and you do not.
Robert Love
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 84+ messages in thread
* Re: Bitkeeper outrage, old and new
2002-10-20 19:15 ` Robert Love
@ 2002-10-20 21:42 ` Xavier Bestel
2002-10-20 21:51 ` Robert Love
2002-10-20 22:47 ` Daniel Berlin
0 siblings, 2 replies; 84+ messages in thread
From: Xavier Bestel @ 2002-10-20 21:42 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Robert Love
Cc: Ben Collins, Jeff Garzik, Richard Stallman, Linux Kernel Mailing List
Le dim 20/10/2002 à 21:15, Robert Love a écrit :
> On Sun, 2002-10-20 at 13:34, Ben Collins wrote:
>
> > I disagree. I don't see anything in the copyright assignment (and I have
> > signed a few for the FSF) that says I don't retain original copyright
> > for my work.
>
> That is only because they relicense the work back to you (and its GPLed
> you have a lot of freedom with it anyhow).
>
> When you sign over your copyright, you relinquish it. The FSF now has
> the copyright on your work and you do not.
You're plain wrong.
You both have the copyright on your work.
Xav
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 84+ messages in thread
* Re: Bitkeeper outrage, old and new
2002-10-20 21:42 ` Xavier Bestel
@ 2002-10-20 21:51 ` Robert Love
2002-10-20 22:20 ` Xavier Bestel
2002-10-20 22:52 ` Daniel Berlin
2002-10-20 22:47 ` Daniel Berlin
1 sibling, 2 replies; 84+ messages in thread
From: Robert Love @ 2002-10-20 21:51 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Xavier Bestel; +Cc: Ben Collins, Jeff Garzik, Linux Kernel Mailing List
On Sun, 2002-10-20 at 17:42, Xavier Bestel wrote:
> You're plain wrong.
>
> You both have the copyright on your work.
It is called copyright _assignment_ for a reason. How the hell are two
people supposed to simultaneously own a copyright on the same work?
The assignment says (I quote) "I hereby transfer... my entire right,
title, and interest (including all rights under copyright)... in my
program".
Robert Love
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 84+ messages in thread
* Re: Bitkeeper outrage, old and new
2002-10-20 21:51 ` Robert Love
@ 2002-10-20 22:20 ` Xavier Bestel
2002-10-20 22:23 ` Robert Love
` (2 more replies)
2002-10-20 22:52 ` Daniel Berlin
1 sibling, 3 replies; 84+ messages in thread
From: Xavier Bestel @ 2002-10-20 22:20 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Robert Love; +Cc: Ben Collins, Jeff Garzik, Linux Kernel Mailing List
Le dim 20/10/2002 à 23:51, Robert Love a écrit :
> On Sun, 2002-10-20 at 17:42, Xavier Bestel wrote:
>
> > You're plain wrong.
> >
> > You both have the copyright on your work.
>
> It is called copyright _assignment_ for a reason. How the hell are two
> people supposed to simultaneously own a copyright on the same work?
>
> The assignment says (I quote) "I hereby transfer... my entire right,
> title, and interest (including all rights under copyright)... in my
> program".
Last time I looked, it wasn't possible to relinquish copyright on your
own work, no matter what you sign. Maybe it's not like that in all
countries, after all.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 84+ messages in thread
* Re: Bitkeeper outrage, old and new
2002-10-20 22:20 ` Xavier Bestel
@ 2002-10-20 22:23 ` Robert Love
2002-10-20 22:53 ` Rik van Riel
2002-10-22 11:06 ` Vojtech Pavlik
2 siblings, 0 replies; 84+ messages in thread
From: Robert Love @ 2002-10-20 22:23 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Xavier Bestel; +Cc: Ben Collins, Jeff Garzik, Linux Kernel Mailing List
On Sun, 2002-10-20 at 18:20, Xavier Bestel wrote:
> Last time I looked, it wasn't possible to relinquish copyright on your
> own work, no matter what you sign. Maybe it's not like that in all
> countries, after all.
It is certainly not like that in the United States and in most European
countries.
For example, think of software written for any commercial software
developer. Or, when you write a book, you sign the rights over to a
publisher.. etc. etc.
Copyright assignment is a normal part of the copyright process.
Robert Love
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 84+ messages in thread
* Re: Bitkeeper outrage, old and new
2002-10-20 22:20 ` Xavier Bestel
2002-10-20 22:23 ` Robert Love
@ 2002-10-20 22:53 ` Rik van Riel
2002-10-20 23:35 ` Roman Zippel
` (2 more replies)
2002-10-22 11:06 ` Vojtech Pavlik
2 siblings, 3 replies; 84+ messages in thread
From: Rik van Riel @ 2002-10-20 22:53 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Xavier Bestel
Cc: Robert Love, Ben Collins, Jeff Garzik, Linux Kernel Mailing List
On 21 Oct 2002, Xavier Bestel wrote:
> Le dim 20/10/2002 à 23:51, Robert Love a écrit :
> > The assignment says (I quote) "I hereby transfer... my entire right,
> > title, and interest (including all rights under copyright)... in my
> > program".
>
> Last time I looked, it wasn't possible to relinquish copyright on your
> own work, no matter what you sign. Maybe it's not like that in all
> countries, after all.
Germany (and France, judging from your words) have laws that
guarantee that the creator of a work keeps copyright on the
work. At least, part of the copyright cannot be signed over
to other people or organisations.
I wonder if this means the FSF can't accept contributions
from these countries, or if they've found some weasel-words
around the legislation of those countries...
Rik
--
Bravely reimplemented by the knights who say "NIH".
http://www.surriel.com/ http://distro.conectiva.com/
Current spamtrap: <a href=mailto:"october@surriel.com">october@surriel.com</a>
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 84+ messages in thread
* Re: Bitkeeper outrage, old and new
2002-10-20 22:53 ` Rik van Riel
@ 2002-10-20 23:35 ` Roman Zippel
2002-10-21 0:26 ` Rob Landley
2002-10-22 8:19 ` Kristian Koehntopp
2 siblings, 0 replies; 84+ messages in thread
From: Roman Zippel @ 2002-10-20 23:35 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Rik van Riel
Cc: Xavier Bestel, Robert Love, Ben Collins, Jeff Garzik,
Linux Kernel Mailing List
Hi,
On Sun, 20 Oct 2002, Rik van Riel wrote:
> I wonder if this means the FSF can't accept contributions
> from these countries, or if they've found some weasel-words
> around the legislation of those countries...
Do you have any specific reason to believe that the FSF needs to "weasel"
around something or do you badmouth and insult other people just for fun?
bye, Roman
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 84+ messages in thread
* Re: Bitkeeper outrage, old and new
2002-10-20 22:53 ` Rik van Riel
2002-10-20 23:35 ` Roman Zippel
@ 2002-10-21 0:26 ` Rob Landley
2002-10-21 14:33 ` Rik van Riel
2002-10-22 8:19 ` Kristian Koehntopp
2 siblings, 1 reply; 84+ messages in thread
From: Rob Landley @ 2002-10-21 0:26 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Rik van Riel, Xavier Bestel
Cc: Robert Love, Ben Collins, Jeff Garzik, Linux Kernel Mailing List
On Sunday 20 October 2002 17:53, Rik van Riel wrote:
> On 21 Oct 2002, Xavier Bestel wrote:
> > Le dim 20/10/2002 à 23:51, Robert Love a écrit :
> > > The assignment says (I quote) "I hereby transfer... my entire right,
> > > title, and interest (including all rights under copyright)... in my
> > > program".
> >
> > Last time I looked, it wasn't possible to relinquish copyright on your
> > own work, no matter what you sign. Maybe it's not like that in all
> > countries, after all.
>
> Germany (and France, judging from your words) have laws that
> guarantee that the creator of a work keeps copyright on the
> work. At least, part of the copyright cannot be signed over
> to other people or organisations.
>
> I wonder if this means the FSF can't accept contributions
> from these countries, or if they've found some weasel-words
> around the legislation of those countries...
>
> Rik
1) The reason the FSF wanted people to sign over their copyrights was so
they'd have unassailable standing in court to defend them if sued. (The
copyrightholder is the one who gets to sue to enforce the copyright.)
2) It's possible to have joint copyrights, or more than one copyright on a
work. Think a song written by one person, sung by another, with backup
vocals and session musicians, each of whom has a copyright on their
performance. (This is why movies get everybody to sign a release up front,
and why theatrical performances of things like "cats" where they don't do
this up-front are basically never videotaped and shown on television, no
matter successful they wind up being.)
3) The creator of a work doesn't always get the copyright, at least in the US.
There's something called "work for hire", which means if somebody else
commisioned the work (paid you to do it, and asked you to do it, and you were
acting as their employee, etc), they get the copyright rather than you.
(Usually your contract has some variant of copyright assignment anyway just
to be safe.)
4) A work can be dual licensed. A license is a grant of permission from the
copyright holder delegating the rights reserved by the copyright, such as the
ability to make copies. The person the law reserves those rights to can
grant permission multiple times, to different people or overlapping groups of
people, under different terms, etc...
Hit google and look for "copyright law faq", the first few hits are good.
Some are little out of date (the faqs.org one is from january 94, predating
the DMCA and such, but still a great primer on the basics).
Rob
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 84+ messages in thread
* Re: Bitkeeper outrage, old and new
2002-10-21 0:26 ` Rob Landley
@ 2002-10-21 14:33 ` Rik van Riel
2002-10-21 15:18 ` Daniel Berlin
2002-10-22 11:12 ` Vojtech Pavlik
0 siblings, 2 replies; 84+ messages in thread
From: Rik van Riel @ 2002-10-21 14:33 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Rob Landley
Cc: Xavier Bestel, Robert Love, Ben Collins, Jeff Garzik,
Linux Kernel Mailing List
On Sun, 20 Oct 2002, Rob Landley wrote:
> On Sunday 20 October 2002 17:53, Rik van Riel wrote:
> > Germany (and France, judging from your words) have laws that
> > guarantee that the creator of a work keeps copyright on the
> > work. At least, part of the copyright cannot be signed over
> > to other people or organisations.
> 3) The creator of a work doesn't always get the copyright, at least in
> the US.
Please see above. It's possible the FSF copyright assignment
just can't be legal in some countries.
Rik
--
Bravely reimplemented by the knights who say "NIH".
http://www.surriel.com/ http://distro.conectiva.com/
Current spamtrap: <a href=mailto:"october@surriel.com">october@surriel.com</a>
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 84+ messages in thread
* Re: Bitkeeper outrage, old and new
2002-10-21 14:33 ` Rik van Riel
@ 2002-10-21 15:18 ` Daniel Berlin
2002-10-22 11:12 ` Vojtech Pavlik
1 sibling, 0 replies; 84+ messages in thread
From: Daniel Berlin @ 2002-10-21 15:18 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Rik van Riel
Cc: Rob Landley, Xavier Bestel, Robert Love, Ben Collins,
Jeff Garzik, Linux Kernel Mailing List
On Monday, October 21, 2002, at 10:33 AM, Rik van Riel wrote:
> On Sun, 20 Oct 2002, Rob Landley wrote:
>> On Sunday 20 October 2002 17:53, Rik van Riel wrote:
>
>>> Germany (and France, judging from your words) have laws that
>>> guarantee that the creator of a work keeps copyright on the
>>> work. At least, part of the copyright cannot be signed over
>>> to other people or organisations.
>
>> 3) The creator of a work doesn't always get the copyright, at least in
>> the US.
>
> Please see above. It's possible the FSF copyright assignment
> just can't be legal in some countries.
>
Possibly, but as a contract, it doesn't matter (unless these other
countries don't do promissory estoppel. AFAIK from a google search,
they do).
Even if the contract is invalid, if the FSF relies on the promise of
rights in the contract to its detriment (IE are sued by the author for
infringement or something), the promise will be enforced (to avoid
injustice).
For an plain english description of what promissory estoppel is, see
http://facstaff.gallaudet.edu/marshall.wick/bus447/
promissory_estoppel.html
It's a bit more than that, but that's the general idea.
--Dan
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 84+ messages in thread
* Re: Bitkeeper outrage, old and new
2002-10-21 14:33 ` Rik van Riel
2002-10-21 15:18 ` Daniel Berlin
@ 2002-10-22 11:12 ` Vojtech Pavlik
1 sibling, 0 replies; 84+ messages in thread
From: Vojtech Pavlik @ 2002-10-22 11:12 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Rik van Riel
Cc: Rob Landley, Xavier Bestel, Robert Love, Ben Collins,
Jeff Garzik, Linux Kernel Mailing List
On Mon, Oct 21, 2002 at 12:33:54PM -0200, Rik van Riel wrote:
> On Sun, 20 Oct 2002, Rob Landley wrote:
> > On Sunday 20 October 2002 17:53, Rik van Riel wrote:
>
> > > Germany (and France, judging from your words) have laws that
> > > guarantee that the creator of a work keeps copyright on the
> > > work. At least, part of the copyright cannot be signed over
> > > to other people or organisations.
>
> > 3) The creator of a work doesn't always get the copyright, at least in
> > the US.
>
> Please see above. It's possible the FSF copyright assignment
> just can't be legal in some countries.
Even the GNU GPL isn't legally valid in some countries. Czech Republic,
where I'm from is an example - for a license agreement like this, both
parties (the author and the user) have to be at least notified, and if
they are not, the agreement is invalid. This is a quite understandable
law, but doesn't work with the GPL unless you always contact all the
authors.
--
Vojtech Pavlik
SuSE Labs
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 84+ messages in thread
* Re: Bitkeeper outrage, old and new
2002-10-20 22:53 ` Rik van Riel
2002-10-20 23:35 ` Roman Zippel
2002-10-21 0:26 ` Rob Landley
@ 2002-10-22 8:19 ` Kristian Koehntopp
2 siblings, 0 replies; 84+ messages in thread
From: Kristian Koehntopp @ 2002-10-22 8:19 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Rik van Riel
Cc: Xavier Bestel, Robert Love, Ben Collins, Jeff Garzik,
Linux Kernel Mailing List
On Sun, Oct 20, 2002 at 08:53:09PM -0200, Rik van Riel wrote:
> Germany (and France, judging from your words) have laws that
> guarantee that the creator of a work keeps copyright on the
> work.
What is called "copyright" in the US is Urheberrechte (authors
rights) in Germany. It conceptually differs from US copyright,
as it not only includes Vervielfaeltigungsrechte (copy and use
rights) but Autorpersoenlichkeitsrechte (author personality
rights) as well. German law allows the transfer of copy and use
rights, but it completely forbids to give up author personality
rights.
Author personality rights include rights to being named as an
author of a work, rights to forbid entstellende Modifikationen
(defacing modifications?) and for some types of work that cannot
be reproduced even the right of the author to access (visit) the
work.
German law also limits copy and use rights in certain more
esoteric cases.
Kristian
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 84+ messages in thread
* Re: Bitkeeper outrage, old and new
2002-10-20 22:20 ` Xavier Bestel
2002-10-20 22:23 ` Robert Love
2002-10-20 22:53 ` Rik van Riel
@ 2002-10-22 11:06 ` Vojtech Pavlik
2 siblings, 0 replies; 84+ messages in thread
From: Vojtech Pavlik @ 2002-10-22 11:06 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Xavier Bestel
Cc: Robert Love, Ben Collins, Jeff Garzik, Linux Kernel Mailing List
On Mon, Oct 21, 2002 at 12:20:07AM +0200, Xavier Bestel wrote:
> Le dim 20/10/2002 ŕ 23:51, Robert Love a écrit :
> > On Sun, 2002-10-20 at 17:42, Xavier Bestel wrote:
> >
> > > You're plain wrong.
> > >
> > > You both have the copyright on your work.
> >
> > It is called copyright _assignment_ for a reason. How the hell are two
> > people supposed to simultaneously own a copyright on the same work?
> >
> > The assignment says (I quote) "I hereby transfer... my entire right,
> > title, and interest (including all rights under copyright)... in my
> > program".
>
> Last time I looked, it wasn't possible to relinquish copyright on your
> own work, no matter what you sign. Maybe it's not like that in all
> countries, after all.
It's not possible in Europe (most of it), but easily possible in the US.
--
Vojtech Pavlik
SuSE Labs
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 84+ messages in thread
* Re: Bitkeeper outrage, old and new
2002-10-20 21:51 ` Robert Love
2002-10-20 22:20 ` Xavier Bestel
@ 2002-10-20 22:52 ` Daniel Berlin
2002-10-20 22:59 ` Robert Love
2002-10-20 22:59 ` Ben Collins
1 sibling, 2 replies; 84+ messages in thread
From: Daniel Berlin @ 2002-10-20 22:52 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Robert Love
Cc: Xavier Bestel, Ben Collins, Jeff Garzik, Linux Kernel Mailing List
On Sunday, October 20, 2002, at 05:51 PM, Robert Love wrote:
> On Sun, 2002-10-20 at 17:42, Xavier Bestel wrote:
>
>> You're plain wrong.
>>
>> You both have the copyright on your work.
>
> It is called copyright _assignment_ for a reason. How the hell are two
> people supposed to simultaneously own a copyright on the same work?
>
Joint authorship.
"The authors of a joint work are co-owners of copyright in the work"
(17 USC §201(a)).
IOW They each own a 100% copyright in the work.
Leads to odd situations of course, since one author can do whatever
they like with the work without any permission from the other authors,
etc.
--Dan
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 84+ messages in thread
* Re: Bitkeeper outrage, old and new
2002-10-20 22:52 ` Daniel Berlin
@ 2002-10-20 22:59 ` Robert Love
2002-10-20 23:04 ` Daniel Berlin
2002-10-20 22:59 ` Ben Collins
1 sibling, 1 reply; 84+ messages in thread
From: Robert Love @ 2002-10-20 22:59 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Daniel Berlin
Cc: Xavier Bestel, Ben Collins, Jeff Garzik, Linux Kernel Mailing List
On Sun, 2002-10-20 at 18:52, Daniel Berlin wrote:
> On Sunday, October 20, 2002, at 05:51 PM, Robert Love wrote:
>
> > It is called copyright _assignment_ for a reason. How the hell are two
> > people supposed to simultaneously own a copyright on the same work?
> >
> Joint authorship.
The FSF Copyright Assignment is not joint authorship, it is copyright
assignment. They alone possess the work's copyright.
Robert Love
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 84+ messages in thread
* Re: Bitkeeper outrage, old and new
2002-10-20 22:59 ` Robert Love
@ 2002-10-20 23:04 ` Daniel Berlin
2002-10-21 0:38 ` Rob Landley
0 siblings, 1 reply; 84+ messages in thread
From: Daniel Berlin @ 2002-10-20 23:04 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Robert Love
Cc: Xavier Bestel, Ben Collins, Jeff Garzik, Linux Kernel Mailing List
On 20 Oct 2002, Robert Love wrote:
> On Sun, 2002-10-20 at 18:52, Daniel Berlin wrote:
>
> > On Sunday, October 20, 2002, at 05:51 PM, Robert Love wrote:
> >
> > > It is called copyright _assignment_ for a reason. How the hell are two
> > > people supposed to simultaneously own a copyright on the same work?
> > >
> > Joint authorship.
>
> The FSF Copyright Assignment is not joint authorship, it is copyright
> assignment. They alone possess the work's copyright.
Of course.
But you asked "How the hell are two people supposed to simultaneously own
a copyright on the same work?"
The answer is "Joint authorship".
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 84+ messages in thread
* Re: Bitkeeper outrage, old and new
2002-10-20 23:04 ` Daniel Berlin
@ 2002-10-21 0:38 ` Rob Landley
0 siblings, 0 replies; 84+ messages in thread
From: Rob Landley @ 2002-10-21 0:38 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Daniel Berlin, Robert Love
Cc: Xavier Bestel, Ben Collins, Jeff Garzik, Linux Kernel Mailing List
On Sunday 20 October 2002 18:04, Daniel Berlin wrote:
> On 20 Oct 2002, Robert Love wrote:
> > On Sun, 2002-10-20 at 18:52, Daniel Berlin wrote:
> > > On Sunday, October 20, 2002, at 05:51 PM, Robert Love wrote:
> > > > It is called copyright _assignment_ for a reason. How the hell are
> > > > two people supposed to simultaneously own a copyright on the same
> > > > work?
> > >
> > > Joint authorship.
> >
> > The FSF Copyright Assignment is not joint authorship, it is copyright
> > assignment. They alone possess the work's copyright.
>
> Of course.
> But you asked "How the hell are two people supposed to simultaneously own
> a copyright on the same work?"
> The answer is "Joint authorship".
An analogous legal concept, for those of you who have taken a community
college business law course (and if you haven't, it might be a good idea), is
the partnership. See "joint and several liability". (There's a reason they
invented the corporation...)
As far as I understand, joint authorship does not apply to the linux kernel
because the contributors are operating under a license to an existing work
rather than an up-front collaboration between partners to produce a specific
good. (Joint authorship pretty much happens up-front.) The fact the
contributors largely don't know each other, and that patches are discrete
entities which may be individually tracked (and thus individually owned),
work in here too.
It's more like designing and manufacturing spider man collector cups. The
drawing on the cup is a new copyrightable item, but the character being
portrayed is a licensed entity. A license to put your own drawing of
spider-man on a plastic cup doesn't give you the right to turn around and
stick that drawing on pajamas and bath towels, even though it's your drawing
which you have a copyright on. In this kind of collaboration, you must have
compatable licenses for the components...
I am not, of course, a lawyer. :)
Rob
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 84+ messages in thread
* Re: Bitkeeper outrage, old and new
2002-10-20 22:52 ` Daniel Berlin
2002-10-20 22:59 ` Robert Love
@ 2002-10-20 22:59 ` Ben Collins
2002-10-20 23:04 ` Daniel Berlin
1 sibling, 1 reply; 84+ messages in thread
From: Ben Collins @ 2002-10-20 22:59 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Daniel Berlin; +Cc: Jeff Garzik, Linux Kernel Mailing List
On Sun, Oct 20, 2002 at 06:52:58PM -0400, Daniel Berlin wrote:
>
> On Sunday, October 20, 2002, at 05:51 PM, Robert Love wrote:
>
> >On Sun, 2002-10-20 at 17:42, Xavier Bestel wrote:
> >
> >>You're plain wrong.
> >>
> >>You both have the copyright on your work.
> >
> >It is called copyright _assignment_ for a reason. How the hell are two
> >people supposed to simultaneously own a copyright on the same work?
> >
> Joint authorship.
> "The authors of a joint work are co-owners of copyright in the work"
> (17 USC ?201(a)).
> IOW They each own a 100% copyright in the work.
> Leads to odd situations of course, since one author can do whatever
> they like with the work without any permission from the other authors,
> etc.
Think of this, if you pay $1,000,000 to the OpenGroup, you can purchase
the source to DCE/DFS and do whatever the hell you want with it.
That doesn't relinquish the OpenGroup's copyright, so they can sell as
many copies of the source as they want, nor would it relinquish IBM's
copyright to Transarc's source (who also purchased it from the
opengroup).
--
Debian - http://www.debian.org/
Linux 1394 - http://www.linux1394.org/
Subversion - http://subversion.tigris.org/
Deqo - http://www.deqo.com/
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 84+ messages in thread
* Re: Bitkeeper outrage, old and new
2002-10-20 22:59 ` Ben Collins
@ 2002-10-20 23:04 ` Daniel Berlin
0 siblings, 0 replies; 84+ messages in thread
From: Daniel Berlin @ 2002-10-20 23:04 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Ben Collins; +Cc: Jeff Garzik, Linux Kernel Mailing List
On Sun, 20 Oct 2002, Ben Collins wrote:
> On Sun, Oct 20, 2002 at 06:52:58PM -0400, Daniel Berlin wrote:
> >
> > On Sunday, October 20, 2002, at 05:51 PM, Robert Love wrote:
> >
> > >On Sun, 2002-10-20 at 17:42, Xavier Bestel wrote:
> > >
> > >>You're plain wrong.
> > >>
> > >>You both have the copyright on your work.
> > >
> > >It is called copyright _assignment_ for a reason. How the hell are two
> > >people supposed to simultaneously own a copyright on the same work?
> > >
> > Joint authorship.
> > "The authors of a joint work are co-owners of copyright in the work"
> > (17 USC ?201(a)).
> > IOW They each own a 100% copyright in the work.
> > Leads to odd situations of course, since one author can do whatever
> > they like with the work without any permission from the other authors,
> > etc.
>
> Think of this, if you pay $1,000,000 to the OpenGroup, you can purchase
> the source to DCE/DFS and do whatever the hell you want with it.
This is a license, not a transfer of copyright.
--Dan
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 84+ messages in thread
* Re: Bitkeeper outrage, old and new
2002-10-20 21:42 ` Xavier Bestel
2002-10-20 21:51 ` Robert Love
@ 2002-10-20 22:47 ` Daniel Berlin
2002-10-20 22:51 ` Brad Hards
1 sibling, 1 reply; 84+ messages in thread
From: Daniel Berlin @ 2002-10-20 22:47 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Xavier Bestel
Cc: Robert Love, Ben Collins, Jeff Garzik, Richard Stallman,
Linux Kernel Mailing List
On Sunday, October 20, 2002, at 05:42 PM, Xavier Bestel wrote:
> Le dim 20/10/2002 à 21:15, Robert Love a écrit :
>> On Sun, 2002-10-20 at 13:34, Ben Collins wrote:
>>
>>> I disagree. I don't see anything in the copyright assignment (and I
>>> have
>>> signed a few for the FSF) that says I don't retain original copyright
>>> for my work.
>>
>> That is only because they relicense the work back to you (and its
>> GPLed
>> you have a lot of freedom with it anyhow).
>>
>> When you sign over your copyright, you relinquish it. The FSF now has
>> the copyright on your work and you do not.
>
> You're plain wrong.
>
> You both have the copyright on your work.
No, you don't.
2+ people having copyrights on something only occurs when you have
joint authorship (or rare partial transfers).
In this case, what we have is the a transfer of copyright from you, to
the FSF ("my entire right, title, and interest (including all rights
under copyright))"
It's like transferring rights to real property (in most countries, you
can view copyright as an object of property in trying to determine what
you can do with it)
When rights are transferred to another party, the original author
doesn't get any residual rights unless these are expressly reserved as
a "grant back".
You are no longer the owner of the copy right.
--Dan
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 84+ messages in thread
* Re: Bitkeeper outrage, old and new
2002-10-20 22:47 ` Daniel Berlin
@ 2002-10-20 22:51 ` Brad Hards
2002-10-21 7:51 ` Xavier Bestel
0 siblings, 1 reply; 84+ messages in thread
From: Brad Hards @ 2002-10-20 22:51 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Daniel Berlin, Xavier Bestel
Cc: Robert Love, Ben Collins, Jeff Garzik, Richard Stallman,
Linux Kernel Mailing List
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1
On Mon, 21 Oct 2002 08:47, Daniel Berlin wrote:
> 2+ people having copyrights on something only occurs when you have
> joint authorship (or rare partial transfers).
> In this case, what we have is the a transfer of copyright from you, to
> the FSF ("my entire right, title, and interest (including all rights
> under copyright))"
> It's like transferring rights to real property (in most countries, you
> can view copyright as an object of property in trying to determine what
> you can do with it)
> When rights are transferred to another party, the original author
> doesn't get any residual rights unless these are expressly reserved as
> a "grant back".
> You are no longer the owner of the copy right.
Which is the whole point of the FSF copyright assignment. They don't want you
to relicense it under some other terms. Under the GPL it doesn't matter who
owns the copyright, so the only point of the copyright assignment is to
reduce _your_ rights.
I understand why the FSF want to do this (imagine a major free-software
producer in financial trouble, and a big product (eg GCC and binutils) that
they could sell to a closed-source vendor). I just don't plan to do this
myself.
Brad
- --
http://linux.conf.au. 22-25Jan2003. Perth, Aust. I'm registered. Are you?
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^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 84+ messages in thread
* Re: Bitkeeper outrage, old and new
2002-10-20 22:51 ` Brad Hards
@ 2002-10-21 7:51 ` Xavier Bestel
2002-10-21 15:04 ` Daniel Berlin
0 siblings, 1 reply; 84+ messages in thread
From: Xavier Bestel @ 2002-10-21 7:51 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Brad Hards
Cc: Daniel Berlin, Robert Love, Ben Collins, Jeff Garzik,
Richard Stallman, Linux Kernel Mailing List
Le lun 21/10/2002 à 00:51, Brad Hards a écrit :
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> On Mon, 21 Oct 2002 08:47, Daniel Berlin wrote:
>
> > 2+ people having copyrights on something only occurs when you have
> > joint authorship (or rare partial transfers).
> > In this case, what we have is the a transfer of copyright from you, to
> > the FSF ("my entire right, title, and interest (including all rights
> > under copyright))"
> > It's like transferring rights to real property (in most countries, you
> > can view copyright as an object of property in trying to determine what
> > you can do with it)
> > When rights are transferred to another party, the original author
> > doesn't get any residual rights unless these are expressly reserved as
> > a "grant back".
> > You are no longer the owner of the copy right.
> Which is the whole point of the FSF copyright assignment. They don't want you
> to relicense it under some other terms. Under the GPL it doesn't matter who
> owns the copyright, so the only point of the copyright assignment is to
> reduce _your_ rights.
But in the copyright assignment request, the FSF states:
" However, upon thirty days` prior written notice, the Foundation
agrees to grant me non-exclusive rights to use the program as I see
fit; (and the Foundation shall also own similar non-exclusive rights)."
Doesn't this mean that the author still has copyrights on his work,
provided he tells the FSF within one month ?
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 84+ messages in thread
* Re: Bitkeeper outrage, old and new
2002-10-21 7:51 ` Xavier Bestel
@ 2002-10-21 15:04 ` Daniel Berlin
0 siblings, 0 replies; 84+ messages in thread
From: Daniel Berlin @ 2002-10-21 15:04 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Xavier Bestel
Cc: Brad Hards, Robert Love, Ben Collins, Jeff Garzik,
Richard Stallman, Linux Kernel Mailing List
On Monday, October 21, 2002, at 03:51 AM, Xavier Bestel wrote:
> Le lun 21/10/2002 à 00:51, Brad Hards a écrit :
>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>> Hash: SHA1
>>
>> On Mon, 21 Oct 2002 08:47, Daniel Berlin wrote:
>>
>>> 2+ people having copyrights on something only occurs when you have
>>> joint authorship (or rare partial transfers).
>>> In this case, what we have is the a transfer of copyright from you,
>>> to
>>> the FSF ("my entire right, title, and interest (including all rights
>>> under copyright))"
>>> It's like transferring rights to real property (in most countries,
>>> you
>>> can view copyright as an object of property in trying to determine
>>> what
>>> you can do with it)
>>> When rights are transferred to another party, the original author
>>> doesn't get any residual rights unless these are expressly reserved
>>> as
>>> a "grant back".
>>> You are no longer the owner of the copy right.
>> Which is the whole point of the FSF copyright assignment. They don't
>> want you
>> to relicense it under some other terms. Under the GPL it doesn't
>> matter who
>> owns the copyright, so the only point of the copyright assignment is
>> to
>> reduce _your_ rights.
>
> But in the copyright assignment request, the FSF states:
>
> " However, upon thirty days` prior written notice, the Foundation
> agrees to grant me non-exclusive rights to use the program as I see
> fit; (and the Foundation shall also own similar non-exclusive rights)."
>
> Doesn't this mean that the author still has copyrights on his work,
> provided he tells the FSF within one month ?
Nope.
It means within 30 days of you giving them notice, they'll give you a
license to do whatever you want with your stuff in terms of *use*. They
aren't giving you back *ownership*.
It's not a copyright transfer, it's a license. It gives you much the
same rights, but you don't get the legal protection remedies and
whatnot that are in the copyright statute.
They'd have to reassign copyright back to you to get it.
Copyright transfers must be explicit, and in writing (mumble mumble as
with all of law, there are a few small exceptions mumble mumble).
So if it doesn't look like a copyright assignment, and you can't tell
if it is one or not, it's not one.
--Dan
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 84+ messages in thread
* Re: Bitkeeper outrage, old and new
2002-10-20 17:34 ` Ben Collins
2002-10-20 17:45 ` Jeff Garzik
2002-10-20 19:15 ` Robert Love
@ 2002-10-20 22:46 ` Rik van Riel
2 siblings, 0 replies; 84+ messages in thread
From: Rik van Riel @ 2002-10-20 22:46 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Ben Collins; +Cc: Jeff Garzik, Richard Stallman, linux-kernel
On Sun, 20 Oct 2002, Ben Collins wrote:
> > But in exchange for that protection, you are willingly giving up your
> > rights as copyright owner... Less freedom for [hopefully] better
> > protection. Just like everything in life, it's a tradeoff... :)
>
> I disagree. I don't see anything in the copyright assignment (and I have
> signed a few for the FSF) that says I don't retain original copyright
> for my work.
I've heard this argument about BSD-licensed software, too.
"So what if somebody makes a commercial version ?
The free version will still be available..."
Rik
--
Bravely reimplemented by the knights who say "NIH".
http://www.surriel.com/ http://distro.conectiva.com/
Current spamtrap: <a href=mailto:"october@surriel.com">october@surriel.com</a>
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 84+ messages in thread
* Re: Bitkeeper outrage, old and new
2002-10-20 15:46 ` Ben Collins
2002-10-20 17:22 ` Jeff Garzik
@ 2002-10-20 19:06 ` Daniel Berlin
1 sibling, 0 replies; 84+ messages in thread
From: Daniel Berlin @ 2002-10-20 19:06 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Ben Collins; +Cc: Jeff Garzik, Richard Stallman, linux-kernel
On Sun, 20 Oct 2002, Ben Collins wrote:
> On Sat, Oct 19, 2002 at 07:28:43PM -0400, Jeff Garzik wrote:
> >
> >
> > At the potential cost of getting flamed, I think it is worth pointing
> > out that the FSF's copyright assignment policy on several of their
> > projects is _very_ anti-freedom. You are required to relinquish all
> > your rights to your contributions, in exchange for the hope that the FSF
> > will protect them.
>
> Jeff, they don't force you, they require it to be turned over to them
> for inclusion in the FSF proper upstream source. Also, it doesn't mean
> that you lose your rights to the original piece. You can still reuse
> your own source as the copyright owner.
Not quite.
The reason you can reuse is only because they grant the right to use (and
sublicense, etc) back to you as part of the contract.
You are *not* the copyright owner anymore, however.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 84+ messages in thread
* Re: Bitkeeper outrage, old and new
2002-10-19 23:12 ` Larry McVoy
2002-10-19 23:28 ` Jeff Garzik
@ 2002-10-19 23:48 ` Roman Zippel
2002-10-20 8:37 ` Mark Mielke
2002-10-20 16:59 ` Richard Stallman
` (2 subsequent siblings)
4 siblings, 1 reply; 84+ messages in thread
From: Roman Zippel @ 2002-10-19 23:48 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Larry McVoy; +Cc: Richard Stallman, hch, linux-kernel
Hi,
On Sat, 19 Oct 2002, Larry McVoy wrote:
> > You are asking for the power to silence criticism. That is not
> > freedom, that is a power.
>
> [..]
> I am not free to use GPL source in any way I wish and neither is anyone
> else.
Now I'd really like to know, how Richard forces you to use GPL software...
bye, Roman
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 84+ messages in thread
* Re: Bitkeeper outrage, old and new
2002-10-19 23:48 ` Roman Zippel
@ 2002-10-20 8:37 ` Mark Mielke
0 siblings, 0 replies; 84+ messages in thread
From: Mark Mielke @ 2002-10-20 8:37 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Roman Zippel; +Cc: Larry McVoy, Richard Stallman, hch, linux-kernel
On Sun, Oct 20, 2002 at 01:48:34AM +0200, Roman Zippel wrote:
> On Sat, 19 Oct 2002, Larry McVoy wrote:
> > > You are asking for the power to silence criticism. That is not
> > > freedom, that is a power.
> > [..]
> > I am not free to use GPL source in any way I wish and neither is anyone
> > else.
> Now I'd really like to know, how Richard forces you to use GPL software...
Don't make it so easy. Look at what Richard wrote.
He thinks people are bad for using Bit Keeper, because the Bit Keeper
license disagrees with his personal persuasions. He leaves no option for
people to choose based on functionality. Instead, they must choose based
on the ideals of Richard Stallman.
mark
--
mark@mielke.cc/markm@ncf.ca/markm@nortelnetworks.com __________________________
. . _ ._ . . .__ . . ._. .__ . . . .__ | Neighbourhood Coder
|\/| |_| |_| |/ |_ |\/| | |_ | |/ |_ |
| | | | | \ | \ |__ . | | .|. |__ |__ | \ |__ | Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them, one ring to bring them all
and in the darkness bind them...
http://mark.mielke.cc/
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 84+ messages in thread
* Re: Bitkeeper outrage, old and new
2002-10-19 23:12 ` Larry McVoy
2002-10-19 23:28 ` Jeff Garzik
2002-10-19 23:48 ` Roman Zippel
@ 2002-10-20 16:59 ` Richard Stallman
2002-10-20 17:20 ` Jon Portnoy
2002-10-20 21:42 ` Eric W. Biederman
2002-10-21 9:39 ` jbradford
4 siblings, 1 reply; 84+ messages in thread
From: Richard Stallman @ 2002-10-20 16:59 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: lm; +Cc: hch, linux-kernel
> Freedom includes
> for me that I can use any software that I have legally licensed (or
> written myself) without people complaining about it publically.
>
> You are asking for the power to silence criticism. That is not
> freedom, that is a power.
You responded to this point by changing the subject completely, so it
looks like you have no argument against the point itself.
Richard, the day that the GPL doesn't use it's power to force people to
do things they may not want to do is the day that you get to make the
above statement in public without getting flamed.
Alas, by flaming me now you have made your own statement untrue.
The GPL protects the crucial freedoms for every user, which means that
middlemen cannot pass along our code but strip off the freedom. It
doesn't let Mr. Bill use our code in the way he would like to, and
perhaps it doesn't let you use our code in the way you would like to,
but it doesn't force you to do anything. The GPL, like other free
software licenses, respects for the users the essential freedoms that
all software users should have. This the crucial ethical difference
between the GPL (and other free software licenses) and a non-free
license.
If you really believed
in freedom then the GPL would just be the same as the public domain.
This is the old "We're not free unless we are `free' to deny freedom
to others" argument that some (not all) advocates of the BSD license
often make. It is a word game intended to render the concept of
freedom so confused that people can't think about it any more. Once
people see through this, it loses its effect.
I refer people to http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/x.html for more
discussion of this issue.
Your position seems to say "I, Richard Stallman, know what is the right
answer for the world. So the rights I took away in the GPL are OK but
the rights that other people take away in other licenses are not OK".
A tad hypocritical, wouldn't you say?
My position is rather different from that. What I say is that
computer users are entitled to the freedom to study, change, and
redistribute the software they use. See
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/shouldbefree.html for a discussion of
this issue.
The existing legal system for software is unjust because it is
designed to help developers to deny users those freedoms. However,
using it in turnabout, to protect those freedoms, is a proper response
to the situation as it exists. (This is the basic concept of
copyleft.) See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/pragmatic.html for
more explanation.
The GPL prohibits trampling the freedom of others. Those who wish to
make non-free software, those who would not respect the freedom of
others, often cry bloody murder about this "restriction". But even as
they complain that they cannot put our code into their non-free
products, they are refusing to let us put their code into our free
software packages. More than a tad hypocritical, I would say.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 84+ messages in thread
* Re: Bitkeeper outrage, old and new
2002-10-20 16:59 ` Richard Stallman
@ 2002-10-20 17:20 ` Jon Portnoy
2002-10-20 22:44 ` Rik van Riel
` (2 more replies)
0 siblings, 3 replies; 84+ messages in thread
From: Jon Portnoy @ 2002-10-20 17:20 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Richard Stallman; +Cc: linux-kernel
On Sun, 20 Oct 2002, Richard Stallman wrote:
[snip]
>
> This is the old "We're not free unless we are `free' to deny freedom
> to others" argument that some (not all) advocates of the BSD license
> often make. It is a word game intended to render the concept of
> freedom so confused that people can't think about it any more. Once
> people see through this, it loses its effect.
>
Agreed. To me, freedom absolutely does _not_ mean the freedom to deny
freedom. Freedom is something that _must_ be protected by any means
necessary.
Some people would like to think that it's possible to write code without
it being "politicized." This is, most certainly, not the case. Any project
as major as what the GNU project writes, what the kernel developers write,
or what proprietary developers such as Microsoft write are political
projects. When large companies develop proprietary software, that's making
a statement: "we believe it's okay to deny our users freedom."
When developers write free software, that's also making a statement: "we
believe users are just as deserving of rights as authors."
The issue here is using non-free software to develop free software. This,
too, makes a political statement: "we don't mind if freedom is being
denied as long as we're able to work efficiently."
Would it be okay to use Microsoft products to develop free software as
long as said products made development efficient? In my opinion, Bitkeeper
is no better than Microsoft due to the 'you may not use this if your
company develops competing software' issue. This is heavy-handed
authoritarianism.
I can understand denying those individuals who develop
competing software a free seat; I most certainly don't agree with it, but
I can understand it. What about people who work for large companies that
may, in fact, have a product that could compete with Bitkeeper?
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 84+ messages in thread
* Re: Bitkeeper outrage, old and new
2002-10-20 17:20 ` Jon Portnoy
@ 2002-10-20 22:44 ` Rik van Riel
2002-10-20 23:05 ` John Jasen
2002-10-21 0:13 ` Matt D. Robinson
2 siblings, 0 replies; 84+ messages in thread
From: Rik van Riel @ 2002-10-20 22:44 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Jon Portnoy; +Cc: Richard Stallman, linux-kernel
On Sun, 20 Oct 2002, Jon Portnoy wrote:
> The issue here is using non-free software to develop free software. This,
> too, makes a political statement: "we don't mind if freedom is being
> denied as long as we're able to work efficiently."
Or more accurately: "we're using a non-free piece of software
because none of the free software fanatics have gotten away
from their flame^Wmail reader for a moment to create a suitable
piece of free software."
If you _really_ care about the Linux developers using a non-free
piece of software and you want to change the situation, the only
thing you need to do is write a suitable replacement that is free.
cheers,
Rik
--
Bravely reimplemented by the knights who say "NIH".
http://www.surriel.com/ http://distro.conectiva.com/
Current spamtrap: <a href=mailto:"october@surriel.com">october@surriel.com</a>
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 84+ messages in thread
* Re: Bitkeeper outrage, old and new
2002-10-20 17:20 ` Jon Portnoy
2002-10-20 22:44 ` Rik van Riel
@ 2002-10-20 23:05 ` John Jasen
2002-10-21 0:13 ` Matt D. Robinson
2 siblings, 0 replies; 84+ messages in thread
From: John Jasen @ 2002-10-20 23:05 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Jon Portnoy; +Cc: Richard Stallman, linux-kernel
On Sun, 20 Oct 2002, Jon Portnoy wrote:
> Would it be okay to use Microsoft products to develop free software as
> long as said products made development efficient? In my opinion, Bitkeeper
> is no better than Microsoft due to the 'you may not use this if your
> company develops competing software' issue. This is heavy-handed
> authoritarianism.
As Larry McVoy said before, they may not use the free version. They can
buy the commercial version.
> I can understand denying those individuals who develop
> competing software a free seat; I most certainly don't agree with it, but
> I can understand it. What about people who work for large companies that
> may, in fact, have a product that could compete with Bitkeeper?
As Larry McVoy said before, they can apply for an exemption.
--
-- John E. Jasen (jjasen@realityfailure.org)
-- User Error #2361: Please insert coffee and try again.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 84+ messages in thread
* Re: Bitkeeper outrage, old and new
2002-10-20 17:20 ` Jon Portnoy
2002-10-20 22:44 ` Rik van Riel
2002-10-20 23:05 ` John Jasen
@ 2002-10-21 0:13 ` Matt D. Robinson
2002-10-22 3:12 ` Richard Stallman
2 siblings, 1 reply; 84+ messages in thread
From: Matt D. Robinson @ 2002-10-21 0:13 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Jon Portnoy; +Cc: Richard Stallman, linux-kernel
On Sun, 20 Oct 2002, Jon Portnoy wrote:
|>On Sun, 20 Oct 2002, Richard Stallman wrote:
|>> This is the old "We're not free unless we are `free' to deny freedom
|>> to others" argument that some (not all) advocates of the BSD license
|>> often make. It is a word game intended to render the concept of
|>> freedom so confused that people can't think about it any more. Once
|>> people see through this, it loses its effect.
It seems like people have lost their marbles on this issue.
Using the BSD license gives the receiver certain freedoms. I'm all
for that -- if someone takes my BSD licensed code and never releases
modifications back to me (or anyone else), that's okay. I chose
that license because that's what I intended and should even expect
to happen.
Using the GNU GPL means imposing your idea of freedom on others,
which in some cases I'm all for. Either it's required of me (because
I've modified GPL code and released it) or I think that people
will benefit from being able to use it and expand upon it openly.
There's plenty of cases where that's a good thing to do.
Using a proprietary license means protecting interests, regardless
of freedoms for anything. That's okay as well -- some people like
to earn a paycheck and/or preserve their investments. When it
comes down to putting food on your family's table, or putting a
roof over their heads, in those cases it's the right thing to do.
That applies to the mom and pop development companies all the way
up to a company the size of Microsoft. Sometimes it's a good thing
to be paid for you and your company's efforts.
I wish more people would stop and think about why they write code
in the first place. If you write code to make a living, or write
code to help others (like a volunteer might do), or if you write
code just because you feel like it, each may need a different
license. Nobody's wrong to use BSD, GNU GPL, or any other license.
Nobody's evil or stupid or naive just because they make a certain
licensing choice.
Back to writing code (which I'm "free" to do) ... :)
--Matt
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 84+ messages in thread
* Re: Bitkeeper outrage, old and new
2002-10-21 0:13 ` Matt D. Robinson
@ 2002-10-22 3:12 ` Richard Stallman
2002-10-22 3:18 ` Rik van Riel
2002-10-22 3:38 ` Murray J. Root
0 siblings, 2 replies; 84+ messages in thread
From: Richard Stallman @ 2002-10-22 3:12 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: yakker; +Cc: portnoy, linux-kernel
Nobody's evil or stupid or naive just because they make a certain
licensing choice.
It is a stretch to conclude anything about the general attitude or
character of a person from one action, so I would not say the people
who distribute non-free software are "evil people" in a general sense.
I will say they have done one thing that is evil: distributing a
non-free program.
Non-free software licenses are designed to divide and dominate the
users, denying them the basic freedoms for software users. That's
what makes them non-free, and that is what makes it wrong. Non-free
software is a social problem, one that we need to solve if computer
users are to have freedom.
There are many different ways people make money; some are ethical
while others involve mistreating others. If we accept "making a
living" as a valid excuse to mistreat people, we will be mistreated
constantly. There comes a time when we have to say that we are not
impressed by the argument that "We need to do this to people in order
to make a living."
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 84+ messages in thread
* Re: Bitkeeper outrage, old and new
2002-10-22 3:12 ` Richard Stallman
@ 2002-10-22 3:18 ` Rik van Riel
2002-10-22 3:38 ` Murray J. Root
1 sibling, 0 replies; 84+ messages in thread
From: Rik van Riel @ 2002-10-22 3:18 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Richard Stallman; +Cc: yakker, portnoy, linux-kernel
On Mon, 21 Oct 2002, Richard Stallman wrote:
> If we accept "making a living" as a valid excuse to mistreat people, we
> will be mistreated constantly.
How about "funding the implementation of the items on the TODO list" ?
Rik
--
Bravely reimplemented by the knights who say "NIH".
http://www.surriel.com/ http://distro.conectiva.com/
Current spamtrap: <a href=mailto:"october@surriel.com">october@surriel.com</a>
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 84+ messages in thread
* Re: Bitkeeper outrage, old and new
2002-10-22 3:12 ` Richard Stallman
2002-10-22 3:18 ` Rik van Riel
@ 2002-10-22 3:38 ` Murray J. Root
2002-10-22 13:30 ` Roman Zippel
1 sibling, 1 reply; 84+ messages in thread
From: Murray J. Root @ 2002-10-22 3:38 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: linux-kernel
On Mon, Oct 21, 2002 at 11:12:53PM -0400, Richard Stallman wrote:
> Nobody's evil or stupid or naive just because they make a certain
> licensing choice.
>
> It is a stretch to conclude anything about the general attitude or
> character of a person from one action, so I would not say the people
> who distribute non-free software are "evil people" in a general sense.
> I will say they have done one thing that is evil: distributing a
> non-free program.
>
> Non-free software licenses are designed to divide and dominate the
> users, denying them the basic freedoms for software users. That's
> what makes them non-free, and that is what makes it wrong. Non-free
> software is a social problem, one that we need to solve if computer
> users are to have freedom.
>
> There are many different ways people make money; some are ethical
> while others involve mistreating others. If we accept "making a
> living" as a valid excuse to mistreat people, we will be mistreated
> constantly. There comes a time when we have to say that we are not
> impressed by the argument that "We need to do this to people in order
> to make a living."
It's a simple concept. I produced it, it's mine until I say otherwise.
You grant other laborers the right to profit from their labors, do you
not? Setting standards the way you have is arbitrary and high-handed.
Calling people (or their actions) "evil" because they prefer to code
for a living rather than dig ditches or answer telephones is rather
arrogant and self-righteous. My charging for software *I* write is not
immoral or unethical - it is what I do and it is perfectly legitimate.
It is NOT the same as claiming a criminal/immoral/unethical act - you
still want me to produce software - you just want me to do it for free.
And no, I am not doing anything to people - they are free to not use my
software. The majority of the world gets along just fine without it.
--
Murray J. Root
------------------------------------------------
DISCLAIMER: http://www.goldmark.org/jeff/stupid-disclaimers/
------------------------------------------------
Mandrake on irc.freenode.net:
#mandrake & #mandrake-linux = help for newbies
#mdk-cooker = Mandrake Cooker
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 84+ messages in thread
* Re: Bitkeeper outrage, old and new
2002-10-22 3:38 ` Murray J. Root
@ 2002-10-22 13:30 ` Roman Zippel
2002-10-22 16:23 ` Rik van Riel
2002-10-22 20:24 ` Henning P. Schmiedehausen
0 siblings, 2 replies; 84+ messages in thread
From: Roman Zippel @ 2002-10-22 13:30 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Murray J. Root; +Cc: linux-kernel
Hi,
On Mon, 21 Oct 2002, Murray J. Root wrote:
> It's a simple concept. I produced it, it's mine until I say otherwise.
> You grant other laborers the right to profit from their labors, do you
> not?
Software isn't a product like others, once you've written it, you can
reproduce it indefinitely with almost no further costs. Profit is defined
as difference between the costs and the price you can realize on the
market. The market price is determined by supply and demand. What happens
now if a product is indefinitely available? The price drops until no
significant profit can be made anymore. (*)
So how is it possible to still make profit from an indefinitely available
product? The supply must be artifically limited by disallowing free trade
and withdrawing it from the free market. Whether this product is called
software, music, movie or information doesn't matter, they can only be
profitable, if access to it is limited.
The romantic picture of the kids one has to feed and which one wants to
take to the games is only useful to silence criticism. Larry should rather
be worried about their future, how will they access information? Can they
afford the in-depth information or has the base package to be enough, can
they easily share it with their friends?
We have to find ways now to keep information free and still allow the
people, who produce information (software, music or movies) to make a
living. Either that or we have to pay with our freedom.
bye, Roman
PS: (*) That's of course very simplified, in the short term these
mechanisms can be influenced, but hardly in the long term.
PPS: http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue7_3/soderberg/index.html
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 84+ messages in thread
* Re: Bitkeeper outrage, old and new
2002-10-22 13:30 ` Roman Zippel
@ 2002-10-22 16:23 ` Rik van Riel
2002-10-22 20:24 ` Henning P. Schmiedehausen
1 sibling, 0 replies; 84+ messages in thread
From: Rik van Riel @ 2002-10-22 16:23 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Roman Zippel; +Cc: Murray J. Root, linux-kernel
On Tue, 22 Oct 2002, Roman Zippel wrote:
> We have to find ways now to keep information free and still allow the
> people, who produce information (software, music or movies) to make a
> living. Either that or we have to pay with our freedom.
That tool is called copyright. The author releases the work
and in exchange for that a TEMPORARY government protected
monopoly on commercial replication of that work is granted.
The main problem nowadays seems to be that:
1) the "temporary" has been extended by politicians into
an effectively infinite time
2) the copyright holder has much more rights than those
granted by copyright legislation (due to eg. DMCA and
a on of other bought laws)
3) the work could be binary, it would be nice if the source
code would also have to be released into the public domain
after the copyright has expired
Rik
--
A: No.
Q: Should I include quotations after my reply?
http://www.surriel.com/ http://distro.conectiva.com/
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 84+ messages in thread
* Re: Bitkeeper outrage, old and new
2002-10-22 13:30 ` Roman Zippel
2002-10-22 16:23 ` Rik van Riel
@ 2002-10-22 20:24 ` Henning P. Schmiedehausen
1 sibling, 0 replies; 84+ messages in thread
From: Henning P. Schmiedehausen @ 2002-10-22 20:24 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: linux-kernel
Roman Zippel <zippel@linux-m68k.org> writes:
>Hi,
>On Mon, 21 Oct 2002, Murray J. Root wrote:
>> It's a simple concept. I produced it, it's mine until I say otherwise.
>> You grant other laborers the right to profit from their labors, do you
>> not?
>Software isn't a product like others, once you've written it, you can
>reproduce it indefinitely with almost no further costs. Profit is defined
Not if you can tie it to some "not indefinitely at no further costs
reproducable" item. E.g. Hardware. E.g. a serial number in hardware or
an encryption key.
<div sarcasm="true">
What? what? Sounds familiar? Maybe someone else came
to the same conclusions?
</div>
Regards
Henning
--
Dipl.-Inf. (Univ.) Henning P. Schmiedehausen -- Geschaeftsfuehrer
INTERMETA - Gesellschaft fuer Mehrwertdienste mbH hps@intermeta.de
Am Schwabachgrund 22 Fon.: 09131 / 50654-0 info@intermeta.de
D-91054 Buckenhof Fax.: 09131 / 50654-20
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 84+ messages in thread
* Re: Bitkeeper outrage, old and new
2002-10-19 23:12 ` Larry McVoy
` (2 preceding siblings ...)
2002-10-20 16:59 ` Richard Stallman
@ 2002-10-20 21:42 ` Eric W. Biederman
2002-10-21 2:42 ` Larry McVoy
2002-10-21 9:39 ` jbradford
4 siblings, 1 reply; 84+ messages in thread
From: Eric W. Biederman @ 2002-10-20 21:42 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Larry McVoy; +Cc: Richard Stallman, hch, linux-kernel
Larry McVoy <lm@bitmover.com> writes:
> > Freedom includes
> > for me that I can use any software that I have legally licensed (or
> > written myself) without people complaining about it publically.
> >
> > You are asking for the power to silence criticism. That is not
> > freedom, that is a power.
>
> Richard, the day that the GPL doesn't use it's power to force people to
> do things they may not want to do is the day that you get to make the
> above statement in public without getting flamed. Today is not that day.
Richard has seems not to have a precise edge in meaning, which makes his comments
rather inappropriate for a technical list, but otherwise he is not far
off the mark.. Implementing a system with freedom always means
finding a compromise between being able to do anything yourself, and
not allowing other people to do nasty things to you.
> Just admit that the GPL forces people to do things just the same as a
> traditional license forces people to do things. You speak of freedom
> yet you took that freedom away with the GPL. If you really believed
> in freedom then the GPL would just be the same as the public domain.
> *That's* freedom. The BSD license is far closer to a truly free license,
> the GPL isn't even remotely close to a free license.
Hogwash. The BSD license has not provisions to keep the source code
freely available. Consider what the world would be like if anyone was
allowed to do anything to you they wanted, if murder was legal.
The GPL forces people to respect others freedom to use a work so
covered. That is still a power, but used in a good way. The power
to silence criticism is definitely not a power that enhances anyones
freedom.
> I have no problem with the GPL, I think it's a fine license if your
> goal is to have things done out in the open with no hoarding. A great
> license, in fact. But I have a big problem with this constant harping
> on the term "freedom". The GPL absolutely positively does not grant me
> all the rights I want, it took substantial portions of my freedom away.
> I am not free to use GPL source in any way I wish and neither is anyone
> else.
I want the right to murder you can I have that?
Freedom is not about having the ability to do anything, without
punishment. Only about having that ability so long as it does not
restrict the freedom of others. Anti-hoarding seems to fit that
definition for me.
I do agree that the GPL is an imperfect enforcer of freedom. It makes
it hard to mix and match GPL'd code with code that comes from another
source.
> I'm OK with you having a free license, go make one. I'm OK with you
> sticking with the GPL, but then you get admit that it is not a free
> license and stop kidding yourself and others.
All that needs to be admitted is that freedom has teeth.
Eric
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 84+ messages in thread
* Re: Bitkeeper outrage, old and new
2002-10-20 21:42 ` Eric W. Biederman
@ 2002-10-21 2:42 ` Larry McVoy
2002-10-21 2:20 ` Rob Landley
2002-10-21 3:16 ` Eric W. Biederman
0 siblings, 2 replies; 84+ messages in thread
From: Larry McVoy @ 2002-10-21 2:42 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Eric W. Biederman; +Cc: Larry McVoy, Richard Stallman, hch, linux-kernel
> > Just admit that the GPL forces people to do things just the same as a
> > traditional license forces people to do things. You speak of freedom
> > yet you took that freedom away with the GPL. If you really believed
> > in freedom then the GPL would just be the same as the public domain.
> > *That's* freedom. The BSD license is far closer to a truly free license,
> > the GPL isn't even remotely close to a free license.
>
> Hogwash. The BSD license has not provisions to keep the source code
> freely available. Consider what the world would be like if anyone was
> allowed to do anything to you they wanted, if murder was legal.
>
> The GPL forces people to respect others freedom to use a work so
> covered. That is still a power, but used in a good way. The power
> to silence criticism is definitely not a power that enhances anyones
> freedom.
Hogwash indeed. Free means the freedom to do whatever you want.
Consider the US free speech. Nobody says "this sort of speech is good
for the world, therefor it is the sanctioned form of free speech and
all other forms are prohibited". That's not freedom, that's someone
playing God. The GPL is *not* about freedom it is about forcing the
source code to be freely available. And it does a fairly poor job of
that, if it really wanted to do so it would be far more simplistic about
it and say "any changes you make must be published within 24 hours or
your license is revoked".
All you are doing is saying that your goals are better than other goals.
That's not freedom, that is you deciding what is best for the world.
You may well be right, your goals may be what is best for the world.
None the less, that's not freedom. That's Big Brother making decisions
for all "the little people" in the world. And, surprise surprise, you
may not be right. Freedom is about everyone have equal rights to make
their own choices, nobody died and elected you God.
--
---
Larry McVoy lm at bitmover.com http://www.bitmover.com/lm
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 84+ messages in thread
* Re: Bitkeeper outrage, old and new
2002-10-21 2:42 ` Larry McVoy
@ 2002-10-21 2:20 ` Rob Landley
2002-10-21 3:16 ` Eric W. Biederman
1 sibling, 0 replies; 84+ messages in thread
From: Rob Landley @ 2002-10-21 2:20 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Larry McVoy; +Cc: Richard Stallman, linux-kernel
On Sunday 20 October 2002 21:42, Larry McVoy wrote:
> > The GPL forces people to respect others freedom to use a work so
> > covered. That is still a power, but used in a good way. The power
> > to silence criticism is definitely not a power that enhances anyones
> > freedom.
>
> Hogwash indeed. Free means the freedom to do whatever you want.
> Consider the US free speech. Nobody says "this sort of speech is good
> for the world, therefor it is the sanctioned form of free speech and
> all other forms are prohibited".
Actually, they do. Commercial speech can be more heavily regulated than
non-commercial speech, and then of course there's the old "obscenity" bit.
And of course the test of yelling "movie" in a crowed firehouse... :)
There are several important supreme court cases on this, attempting to
delineate the bounds of the first amendment.
> playing God. The GPL is *not* about freedom it is about forcing the
> source code to be freely available.
The GPL is about giving free software an immune system so that Forker du jour
can't hire all your developers away to work on a closed fork of the codebase
the way netscape gutted Mosaic, BSDi shredded the berkeley CSRG, and the two
Lisp companies drained the original MIT AI lab.
Technically speaking, the bill of rights is a list of restrictions. Can't
shut people up, can't take the guns away, can't impose a religion on
people...
> And it does a fairly poor job of that
Seems to have worked fine so far. :)
> if it really wanted to do so it would be far more simplistic about
> it and say "any changes you make must be published within 24 hours or
> your license is revoked".
Wouldn't hold up in court, for a number of reasons.
> All you are doing is saying that your goals are better than other goals.
Stallman isn't saying you can't put your code under the license you like.
He's not really addressing you. (I think he's written you off as a lost
cause.) He was talking to the rest of the kernel development list and going
"What are you, NUTS? There be strings attached!" And they went "So why
doesn't the FSF sponsor a bitcreeper replacement?" And he has studiously
chosen to ignore this, it seems. Either that or his inbox runneth over...
> That's not freedom, that is you deciding what is best for the world.
> You may well be right, your goals may be what is best for the world.
> None the less, that's not freedom. That's Big Brother making decisions
> for all "the little people" in the world.
The same could be said about the founding fathers and the constitution...
> And, surprise surprise, you
> may not be right. Freedom is about everyone have equal rights to make
> their own choices, nobody died and elected you God.
If freedom is about everyone having equal rights, then if everybody is locked
up in the same size cell, we're all free. (In prison you get to make any
choice you want. Whether or not you can act on it is another matter, but
that's a pragmetic concern wherever you go. It's easy to choose how to spend
a million dollars...)
The difference between the utopian ideal of putting all your code in the
public domain and licensing it under the GPL, is that the GPL works and
putting our code in the public domain means, under our legal system, people
can sue you if your "hello world" fails to cure cancer for them.
Who are you to take away their freedom to sue you by putting clauses in your
license forbidding it? :)
Rob
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 84+ messages in thread
* Re: Bitkeeper outrage, old and new
2002-10-21 2:42 ` Larry McVoy
2002-10-21 2:20 ` Rob Landley
@ 2002-10-21 3:16 ` Eric W. Biederman
2002-10-21 3:42 ` Alexander Viro
1 sibling, 1 reply; 84+ messages in thread
From: Eric W. Biederman @ 2002-10-21 3:16 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Larry McVoy; +Cc: Richard Stallman, hch, linux-kernel
Larry McVoy <lm@bitmover.com> writes:
> > > Just admit that the GPL forces people to do things just the same as a
> > > traditional license forces people to do things. You speak of freedom
> > > yet you took that freedom away with the GPL. If you really believed
> > > in freedom then the GPL would just be the same as the public domain.
> > > *That's* freedom. The BSD license is far closer to a truly free license,
> > > the GPL isn't even remotely close to a free license.
> >
> > Hogwash. The BSD license has not provisions to keep the source code
> > freely available. Consider what the world would be like if anyone was
> > allowed to do anything to you they wanted, if murder was legal.
> >
> > The GPL forces people to respect others freedom to use a work so
> > covered. That is still a power, but used in a good way. The power
> > to silence criticism is definitely not a power that enhances anyones
> > freedom.
>
> Hogwash indeed. Free means the freedom to do whatever you want.
> Consider the US free speech. Nobody says "this sort of speech is good
> for the world, therefor it is the sanctioned form of free speech and
> all other forms are prohibited". That's not freedom, that's someone
> playing God.
In the US it is illegal to yell fire in a theater if there is no
fire. That is there are forms of speech that are clearly bad.
> The GPL is *not* about freedom it is about forcing the
> source code to be freely available.
And freely modifiable. Which sounds like freedom to me to do pretty
much what I want with the a program.
Code available under the BSD license is freely modifiable, but not
necessarily freely available.
Not being able to get the code sounds a lot less free to me.
> And it does a fairly poor job of
> that, if it really wanted to do so it would be far more simplistic about
> it and say "any changes you make must be published within 24 hours or
> your license is revoked".
>
> All you are doing is saying that your goals are better than other goals.
> That's not freedom, that is you deciding what is best for the world.
> You may well be right, your goals may be what is best for the world.
> None the less, that's not freedom. That's Big Brother making decisions
> for all "the little people" in the world. And, surprise surprise, you
> may not be right. Freedom is about everyone have equal rights to make
> their own choices, nobody died and elected you God.
Given I haven't forced anyone to use GPL'd software I am not forcing anyone
to do anything, unless they want to use my software. Nor are you
forcing anyone to anything with BitKeeper. And the kernel is setup so
no one has to use BitKeeper to develop the kernel.
Using the Linux kernel as a tool to advocate only GPL'd software seems
inappropriate as those are not the aims of the kernel maintainers. If
RMS wants that he is free to fork the kernel, or write a kernel that
with a license that prohibits people from using software you don't
like.
Eric
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 84+ messages in thread
* Re: Bitkeeper outrage, old and new
2002-10-21 3:16 ` Eric W. Biederman
@ 2002-10-21 3:42 ` Alexander Viro
2002-10-22 20:16 ` Henning P. Schmiedehausen
0 siblings, 1 reply; 84+ messages in thread
From: Alexander Viro @ 2002-10-21 3:42 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Eric W. Biederman; +Cc: Larry McVoy, Richard Stallman, hch, linux-kernel
On 20 Oct 2002, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
> Using the Linux kernel as a tool to advocate only GPL'd software seems
> inappropriate as those are not the aims of the kernel maintainers. If
> RMS wants that he is free to fork the kernel, or write a kernel that
> with a license that prohibits people from using software you don't
> like.
Having seen the software written by RMS, I'd say that you've missed one
crucial detail: s/write/write (and find suckers who would use)/.
RMS opinion might weight a lot more if he (and FSF programmers in general)
were capable of writing programs without terminal bloat and without huge
amount of security holes. As it is, I'm willing to give them exactly the
same respect I give to other people writing code of such quality - Microsoft
employees. Gates is kooky in one way, Stallman - in another, but both
can't write decent software, both are utterly devoid of taste and both profess
"features over fixing bugs" beliefs.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 84+ messages in thread
* Re: Bitkeeper outrage, old and new
2002-10-21 3:42 ` Alexander Viro
@ 2002-10-22 20:16 ` Henning P. Schmiedehausen
0 siblings, 0 replies; 84+ messages in thread
From: Henning P. Schmiedehausen @ 2002-10-22 20:16 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: linux-kernel
Alexander Viro <viro@math.psu.edu> writes:
>were capable of writing programs without terminal bloat and without huge
>amount of security holes. As it is, I'm willing to give them exactly the
You expect security consciousness from someone who fights against passwords
and "user restrictions". Sheesh, give me a break. :-)
Regards
Henning
--
Dipl.-Inf. (Univ.) Henning P. Schmiedehausen -- Geschaeftsfuehrer
INTERMETA - Gesellschaft fuer Mehrwertdienste mbH hps@intermeta.de
Am Schwabachgrund 22 Fon.: 09131 / 50654-0 info@intermeta.de
D-91054 Buckenhof Fax.: 09131 / 50654-20
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 84+ messages in thread
* Re: Bitkeeper outrage, old and new
2002-10-19 23:12 ` Larry McVoy
` (3 preceding siblings ...)
2002-10-20 21:42 ` Eric W. Biederman
@ 2002-10-21 9:39 ` jbradford
2002-10-21 15:08 ` Larry McVoy
4 siblings, 1 reply; 84+ messages in thread
From: jbradford @ 2002-10-21 9:39 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Larry McVoy; +Cc: rms, hch, linux-kernel
Larry,
I visited:
http://www.bitkeeper.com/
clicked on products, then clicked on downloads & status, and then
clicked on the link to the free use license, which links to:
http://www.bitkeeper.com/Sales.Licensing.Free.html
Presumably this can be considered a typical way to navigate through
the site.
The license I was presented with was the BitKeeper License version
1.37, 02/18/02. This does not include the clause about the license
being unavailable to people who are developing a competing product to
Bitkeeper.
I pointed this out to you in a private E-Mail, but I didn't receive a
response - I think it is very confusing for people to believe that
they are licensed to use the product, only to later be told that they
are not.
John.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 84+ messages in thread
* Re: Bitkeeper outrage, old and new
2002-10-21 9:39 ` jbradford
@ 2002-10-21 15:08 ` Larry McVoy
0 siblings, 0 replies; 84+ messages in thread
From: Larry McVoy @ 2002-10-21 15:08 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: jbradford; +Cc: Larry McVoy, rms, hch, linux-kernel
> The license I was presented with was the BitKeeper License version
> 1.37, 02/18/02. This does not include the clause about the license
> being unavailable to people who are developing a competing product to
> Bitkeeper.
>
> I pointed this out to you in a private E-Mail, but I didn't receive a
> response - I think it is very confusing for people to believe that
> they are licensed to use the product, only to later be told that they
> are not.
We've been working with IBM to try and come up with a revision of the license
which addresses some of the problems. When we get done we'll update the
website.
By the way, the non-compete clause was put in because I figured the standard
"no reverse engineering" clause would cause even more fuss. Little did
I know.
--
---
Larry McVoy lm at bitmover.com http://www.bitmover.com/lm
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 84+ messages in thread