RMS: The GNU GPL Is Here to Stay (O'ReillyNet) [LWN.net]

RMS: The GNU GPL Is Here to Stay (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 23, 2005 21:54 UTC (Fri) by GF (guest, #32647)
In reply to: RMS: The GNU GPL Is Here to Stay (O'ReillyNet) by arcticwolf
Parent article: RMS: The GNU GPL Is Here to Stay (O'ReillyNet)

> [...]Aren't companies that use GPL'ed software (possibly modified) just exercising their freedoms?

When I go to e.g. www.google.com it is _I_ who use the software running on googles servers, I'm the user. However I get none of the so called "four essential freedoms". To the degree web (and other public) servers are running free SW, I think the SW should be published. That's at least my first sponteanous reaction.
I come to think of the story of how the malfunctioning proprietary print server software got RMS started on his mission. That SW was (maybe) not running on his workstation, he was just using a remote service, somewhat similar to web services.

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RMS: The GNU GPL Is Here to Stay (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 24, 2005 13:09 UTC (Sat) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]

I agree. I haven't read the full length of all the wordy replies, but from what I have read it seems that, when considering "people should be free to run and modify that software they use", people are skipping the question of "who is the user?" - is it the person interacting with the software, or is it the person that booted the remote box? I think it's more the former.

Saying that the person interacting with the software ceases to be the person running the software once the location of execution changes from local to remote seems to be suggest that "off-shoring people's lack of freedom" is a suitable replacement for the goal of giving people freedom.

RMS: The GNU GPL Is Here to Stay (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 24, 2005 14:18 UTC (Sat) by zotz (guest, #26117) [Link]

On top of that, let's take it a bit further than web services...

Say I give someone an account and let them vnc into the box via an ssh tunnel to a desktop. From that desktop they run programs covered by the gpl which I have modified. Now, I have not distributed the programs to them, I have allowed them use of my programs. Or is there some legal precedent that considers letting someone use something distribution? It has been a long time since I have looked into this.

all the best,

drew
--
http://www.ourmedia.org/user/17145

RMS: The GNU GPL Is Here to Stay (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 24, 2005 23:37 UTC (Sat) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]

It should be illegal to drive while drunk. This means that drinking 6 pints of beer and then driving should be illegal. I would argue that drinking 3 pints and then driving should also be illegal. Then someone comes along and says, "lets take it a bit further, should drinking 50 millilitres of beer and then driving be illegal?" Obviously not. But that doesn't change that drinking 3 pints and driving should still be illegal.

The question is: where's the line?

In terms of protecting freedom, like in terms of intoxication, there is no natural line, but that doesn't mean we shrug our shoulders and walk off. We draw a line. And when the line is to be reconsidered, like in the case of GPLv3, we hold a 12+ month public consultation to find consensus on where the line should be. The result will never please 100% of the people, but it should be acceptable to the vast majority. (Like a healthy democracy.)

Allowing someone vnc access to your box would probably be somewhere on the "doesn't invoke copyleft" side of the line. Allowing the general public to type ImageMagick commands, letting them upload an image and letting them download the output image after processing the commands, would probably be somewhere on the "does invoke copyleft" side.

The legal basis is not about precedent, it's about legislation, and there are two basises. One is called "public performance of a copyrighted work". The other is like section 2c of GPLv2, except extended to include "if the program has a command for downloading it's source code, you cannot remove that command or functionality". That's the gist, I don't know the finer details.

RMS: The GNU GPL Is Here to Stay (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 24, 2005 17:51 UTC (Sat) by zblaxell (subscriber, #26385) [Link]

Ah, but what _is_ the software?

Consider a MUD. Technically, it is a big database containing many small (and sometimes not so small) fragments of interpreted code and data, which execute in a simulation environment and respond to commands from users connected from remote locations. These systems usually have a lot of access controls built into them, to protect secret object behaviors from users who are supposed to be discovering these behaviors by interacting with the objects in a game context, and to prevent users from interfering with the objects' code directly in order to gain advantage over other users; however, in some systems restricted code inspection and modification rights can be granted to users (one system allows users to own a "pet" character and program its behavior).

Where does the code end and the data begin? A MUD server program without a database doesn't do much more than any other specialized language runtime and a database engine. A full dump of the database can contain personal user information, passwords, junk code and data, and other undesirables. A selective dump of only explicitly labelled public objects is possible, but it provides a giant legal loophole that could make license enforcement meaningless ("every object I created or modified contains my mother-in-law's home address and phone number and is therefore not public...what's left is exactly the code I downloaded from the GNU web site. Have a nice day."). One could put the GPL code on individual characters, I suppose ("Hi, I'm RMSbot, pat me on the head to download my code!").

Clearly we would not want the GPL to require users to distribute an entire site's worth of data whenever a GPL module is used, but it would seem to me that the license language would have to be absolutely bulletproof to avoid all kinds of abuse. How and where would we draw the lines?

RMS: The GNU GPL Is Here to Stay (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 24, 2005 23:39 UTC (Sat) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]

Does my comment about where to draw the line (just above) answer this?

I don't think so.

Posted Sep 25, 2005 22:48 UTC (Sun) by dark (subscriber, #8483) [Link]

You talked about where to draw the line between services that must have a download-source button and services that don't. But the parent comment was talking about the problem of defining what the source actually is. What should the button do?