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Stallman: Nokia's announcement next to nothing (NewsForge)
NewsForge has Richard Stallman's take on Nokia's limited patent grant. "We can honestly thank IBM for agreeing not to sue us with 500 of its patents, and we can thank Nokia too for agreeing not to attack one of our community's projects. But don't be distracted from the real issue at stake. Nokia most likely intends to use this announcement as a way to put us in more danger.
Nokia, along with IBM and Microsoft, is lobbying hard for software patents in Europe. Nokia will surely point to its own small gesture as 'proof' that software patents will not be devastating to free software."
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Stallman: Nokia's announcement next to nothing (NewsForge) Posted May 30, 2005 13:24 UTC (Mon) by smitty_one_each (subscriber, #28989) [Link] >Since then, various other companies have been exploring>how little they can give to the free software community >and still pose as our supporters.
Alternatively, positive reinforcement, and actual sales generated by supporting free software, could lead to a less caustic atmosphere between industry and the community.
I second your main point Posted May 30, 2005 14:38 UTC (Mon) by leonbrooks (guest, #1494) [Link] Yes, Richard Stallman is a bright boy and immensely useful despite the lack, but I'd really like to see some social skills there too.
Social skills Posted May 30, 2005 16:11 UTC (Mon) by wilck (subscriber, #29844) [Link] If RMS had no social skills, he would hardly have gathered the largest social movement in the history of software development behind himself.
Social skills Posted May 30, 2005 18:36 UTC (Mon) by iabervon (subscriber, #722) [Link] He's really gathered the largest social movement in the history of software development behind his license, not himself. His work has succeeded on technical merit, not due to his advocacy. The GPL and LGPL are clearly written and express what a lot of people want out of the community they share their work with. I think the attitude of "the license is good; it doesn't matter if the author's a nut" is more common than "the author's a good guy, so we should use his license".
Social skills Posted May 30, 2005 22:59 UTC (Mon) by smitty_one_each (subscriber, #28989) [Link] I like to say: "I appreciate the substance, if not always the style."
Social skills Posted May 31, 2005 2:22 UTC (Tue) by njhurst (guest, #6022) [Link] I think you have just described an excellent social hacker. We're talking about a person who is apparently so repugnant that people fall over each other trying to ridicule him, yet they still follow what he's done. It's easy to have lots of followers if you are a beautiful, charismatic person; it is far more impressive if a hunchbacked, smelly ogre gets that following (not that richard is actually shrek). That is social intelligence at its extreme in my books.
Social skills Posted May 31, 2005 3:01 UTC (Tue) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] I disagree; it's not just the license, it is RMS's persistence and refusal to bend (exactly the qualities that rub some the wrong way) that has contributed to the success he's had.
Social skills Posted May 31, 2005 7:22 UTC (Tue) by wilck (subscriber, #29844) [Link] Yes, plus the often extraordinary clear-sightedness of his views.
I second your main point Posted May 31, 2005 15:58 UTC (Tue) by jstAusr (guest, #27224) [Link] What was the name of that one guy that predicted the earth was round? Damn good thing we locked him up or people would still be falling off.
leonbrooks, could you tell us about *your* social skill problems as well?
BitKeeper dismission proves he's right Posted May 31, 2005 16:02 UTC (Tue) by Blaisorblade (guest, #25465) [Link] We can think of Stallman as a mathematician: if it isn't indeed completely (mathematically) provable that you can trust a company not to attack you, or that you're using a free software, then you must suppose that all the worse could happen.
In fact, "free" BitKeeper dismission proved this. BitMover could have stopped releasing his free version at any time, and actually it did... Actually, it was for a reason that could be right (reverse engineering, but I wouldn't use those words for telnetting to a bk: server; but let's assume it was a reasonable attempt at reverse engineering).
The point that showed up recently was that BitMover could at any time create problems for us... and it did. They claim having a good reason, I would think more that BitKeeper didn't need any more the advertisement Linux gave it, and that maybe the community reaction was too bad.
But even if the community had been happy, sooner or later the advertisement campaign would have finished, right?
Also, a point that showed up even more was that the community didn't need in fact BitKeeper; in fact no more than a month of work resulted in git... which is simply astonishing.
He's right, except ... he is. Posted May 30, 2005 15:21 UTC (Mon) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link] Stallman is right that this grant doesn't actually offer anything that releasing the gadget doesn't grant anyway. That is, since they are publishing the kernel source (and applications) covered under the GPL, they can't impose additional conditions -- such as keeping current on patent royalties -- on the use of that code. In fact, their obligations extend beyond their announcement. If I extract code from the kernel and put it in my program, they can't enforce patents on that either. (Of course some idiot jury or corrupt judge could rule otherwise.)
There's one place where their announcement seems to offer something just publishing under the GPL doesn't. That's the threat against anybody else enforcing patents against code in their gadget. Normally they would wait for whoever was suing actually to sue Nokia before enforcing their own patents against the attacker. Of course, they haven't actually offered to enforce their patents against such parties; they have only announced that such parties don't automatically get a license to use any Linux code that implements their patents. Since the GPL doesn't actually allow that restriction, it's moot. Because otherwise the patents already were not licensed, there's nothing left.
Certainly anybody they already have patent-rights exchange agreements with is free to sue any other user of Linux without fear of Nokia enforcing anything against them. Likewise, anybody who doesn't distribute anything all, and is just a litigation shell, such as Nathan Myhrvold's outfit. Lots of people were fooled by this, and only the dedicated will read this or Stallman's remarks. That made it a crafty thing to do, but also reveals their true intent.
He's right, except ... let's see Posted May 30, 2005 16:40 UTC (Mon) by ccyoung (subscriber, #16340) [Link] Let's see. Appears to me 1) they're dipping their toes in the water, and 2) they have attorneys who are drawing these things up - language here is one of internal compromise. But to the company it's a Itsy-Bitsy, Teensy-Weensy, Yellow Poka-Dot Bikini that she wore for the first time today.
software patents are inherent threat to free software Posted May 31, 2005 15:08 UTC (Tue) by geripi (guest, #29822) [Link] Even if IBM, Sony, Microsoft, Nokia and some other big bulls in the software space pledge not to sue any free software distributors for patent infringement, it would not be enough.Because there still would be the occasional patent litigation company suing any free software company with deep enough pockets to be worth the trouble.
In the meantime we have only two things to do:
- Try to get rid of software patents at least for free software (in EU as well as USA).
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