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Google ?Google ?Posted May 23, 2007 6:04 UTC (Wed) by xoddam (subscriber, #2322)In reply to: Google ? by khim Parent article: A day at the Open Source Business Conference
Moglen is arguing that private development of copylefted software for
No-one is raising doubts that Google is in compliance with the GPL. It is
But it is also true that Google does a lot of in-house development,
The Affero Public Licence is something Moglen has developed with the
The public, no matter how freedom-loving, is not going to boycott Google's
Maybe Eben Moglen would do better appealing to Google's famous non-evil
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Google ? Posted May 23, 2007 11:07 UTC (Wed) by hpp (guest, #4756) [Link] GoogleFS is developed and used only within Google, but do we have any evidence that it includes GPL'ed components? The same questions applies to other pieces of the Google world (map/reduce, monitoring code, search code) - it may run on Linux but I am not aware of it including GPL'ed components.
As such, there shoud be no pressure on Google to release any of this...
Google, yes Posted May 23, 2007 14:41 UTC (Wed) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] As such, there shoud be no pressure on Google to release any of this...Why not? At least the same pressure as on all other proprietary vendors that "do not get it". Maybe even more: other companies are openly "evil" and do not care about doing things right. Google does care, or at least that is the public line.
Google, yes Posted May 23, 2007 17:51 UTC (Wed) by emkey (guest, #144) [Link] I don't think it is the vendors who don't get it in this case. Nobody owes me a thing. I'm grateful when given a gift but I do not mistake it for anything else other than a gift.
This overly developed sense of entitlement by certain people in the free software community is just annoying and very counter productive.
Free software has gained the ground it has because it is a superior model. Odds are reasonably good it will continue to gain ground for the same reason.
Just to be clear, I'm not painting Moglen with this brush. He may in fact have a legitimate point in this case. I don't know enough to say at this juncture.
Following a superior model Posted May 23, 2007 19:46 UTC (Wed) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] Sure, and it is out of the pure kindness of our hearts that we want Google to release their own software as free software. Mind you, we want Google to succeed, and the easiest way to success for such a good friend of free software is surely to free their own software. Since it is such a superior model, it is odd that they themselves have not seen the light, but whatever. A slight prodding is probably all they need to do it, lest something bad (following an inferior model) befalls them.:P Now seriously. You are right in most things, but even Linus thinks that "GPLv2 is about tit-for-tat", and he is not suspect of ideological purity. Now let's zoom out a bit. In a general sense you could say that Google is what it is because of free software, so asking them to give some of their own back would not be so outrageous. All xoddam and others are saying is that freeing their own software would be what separates "good" citizens from "outstanding" citizens. Meanwhile Moglen only speaks about modifications to software which is already free. Pure tit-for-tat, probably even Linus would be with him in that.
Following a superior model Posted May 23, 2007 22:41 UTC (Wed) by i3839 (guest, #31386) [Link] > asking them to give some of their own back would not be so outrageous.
Following the same logic, you could ask writers who use open source for their work to release their books under a free license.
Distributing local modifications to free software used is of course something different and a very good thing, but still not something that should be forced. Just imagine the pain when using a LGPL library with your own buggy program that arbitrarily scribbles memory!
Following a superior model Posted May 31, 2007 12:06 UTC (Thu) by zotz (guest, #26117) [Link] "Following the same logic, you could ask writers who use open source for their work to release their books under a free license."
OK. Here you go:
http://www.ourmedia.org/user/17145
If we can figure out a way for people to make a decent living using Free Licenses, why not seek to promote such?
all the best,
drew
Superior model ? Hardly... Posted May 23, 2007 23:24 UTC (Wed) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] I often see this screams about "the superior model" and how everyone should only ever write free software. While free software clearly wins when moral and ethic is included when we are talking about practical viewpoint everything is not so easy. I think Craig A. James said it best: There is a natural "lifecycle" to software technology, which includes both commercial periods and FOSS periods.. If you'll think about successful FOSS projects - they are either converted former proprietary projects (Firefox, OpenOffice.org, etc) or reimplementation of proprietary projects (Linux, GCC, MySQL, etc). In rare cases FOSS dominates the niche from the start to finish (web-servers: from NCSA httpd to Apache), but it only happens when initial design is simple enough and can be done without massive efffort. Otherwise proprietary leads for a while but eventually FOSS overcomes it - and looks like that is natural lifecycle of software... I suspect most of Google's software is at the beginning of this cycle. But some are already at the middle and may be even closer to the end (whoever uses Picasa for Linux ? what for ?).
Superior model ? Hardly... Posted May 24, 2007 7:20 UTC (Thu) by intgr (subscriber, #39733) [Link] The vast majority of popular proprietary software is also reimplementation of other proprietary products; I think it's just a matter of luck depending on who is in the right place at the right time. But indeed, free software seems to be winning in the long run (or at least that's what I would like to think).
Superior model ? Hardly... Posted May 24, 2007 8:00 UTC (Thu) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] Some proprietary products are also reimplementations of free products; like IIS from Apache or the Windows NT networking layer (some say directly ripped off BSD). Or version control software from CVS. Or even all Unices from the original AT&T Unix, which followed a model closer in many respects to free software than to proprietary products (patches and distributions) and which resulted in the free BSD.
Superior model ? Hardly... Posted May 24, 2007 17:34 UTC (Thu) by njs (guest, #40338) [Link] Proprietary software does seem to be better are opening up markets, though -- look at, oh, say, video editing software right now. The commercial development houses looked around at the market and could see that consumer video was coming down the pike and going to be a big thing, so they invested the capital up-front to build video editing suites, and it's partly the existence of cheap and usable editing suites that's making it possible for ordinary people to start playing with video and grow the market.
Traditional FOSS development is not at all forward-looking (and it's even a point of pride, for good technical reasons, YAGNI and all that). It wasn't until lots of people had access to hardware and were playing around with it that the itch grew to create free editing software, and so now the free stuff is still way behind the proprietary stuff. It's not clear that the free stuff would exist at all without the proprietary stuff having enabled hardware sales and development.
No reason that commercial investment on speculative markets has equate to proprietary software, though -- they could just as well invest capital up-front in developing a GPLed hunk of software, make money on support, and then when the market picked up ride the influx up new developers right past their competitors. Until that happens, though, this is a particular niche situation where FOSS development has fewer than usual competitive advantages over proprietary stuff.
Superior model ? Hardly... Posted May 24, 2007 20:12 UTC (Thu) by oak (subscriber, #2786) [Link] > If you'll think about successful FOSS projects - they are eitherconverted former proprietary projects (Firefox, OpenOffice.org, etc) or reimplementation of proprietary projects (Linux, GCC, MySQL, etc). In rare cases FOSS dominates the niche from the start to finish (web-servers: from NCSA httpd to Apache), but it only happens when initial design is simple enough and can be done without massive effort.
These are the new FOSS projects. There are a couple of good examples of
I'm personally still using X daily and TeX weekly, and both are also
Google ? Posted Jun 8, 2007 10:58 UTC (Fri) by hozelda (guest, #19341) [Link] >> As such, there shoud be no pressure on Google to release any of this...
The pressure is not on Google to release something it won't have to under an Affero type license. The pressure is on every company (with special focus on one of the wealthiest businesses in the world) to make sure that if they are not using GPL, that they continue not to if they want to keep things secret. Otherwise, they are legal today, but things may change so (eg) Google should plan now. They would then need to open up or else reimplement the GPL components (that become GPL3,4,etc) to keep their secrets.
It's called "advanced notice -- just in case."
Google ? Posted Jun 8, 2007 11:05 UTC (Fri) by hozelda (guest, #19341) [Link] I forgot to mention, I do think Google has contributed. But it does seem it is disproportionate what Google has gotten from its use vs. what it has given back. In such a case, those contributing might want to adjust their future license to make such a disparity less likely.
Google ? Posted May 23, 2007 13:56 UTC (Wed) by dank (guest, #1865) [Link] I think the reason people are worrying that Google might notbe a great free software community citizen is that it's not easy for outsiders to tell how much of Google's infrastructure involves GPL'd code, and furthermore how many enhancements Google is making to GPL'd code but is not contributing back to the public. Maybe it would help for Google to invite an outside observer (Eben?) to have a look and report back to the community.
Chris DiBona said in http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2132480,00.asp
It's worth noting that Google ships some of their infrastructure
Google ? Posted May 23, 2007 14:33 UTC (Wed) by NigelK (guest, #42083) [Link] I think it's a very dangerous path to go down to suggest that those users of GPL software who provide little or no new code as "suspect" and deserving of a code audit.
Smacks too much of Microsoft and BSA intimidation tactics.
Google ? Posted May 23, 2007 16:09 UTC (Wed) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link] The GPL says that any recipient of GPL code is absolutely entitled to do with it what they want on their own machines, including changing it until its own mother wouldn't recognise it and not sharing the result, as long as they do not distribute compiled binaries of the code in question to others. If the folks at Google want to grab GPL code off the net and rewrite, enhance, ..., it for their own use, then more power to them. This is how the GPL works, and how it is intended to work. When did that change?
Google ? Posted May 23, 2007 17:03 UTC (Wed) by amikins (guest, #451) [Link] Seconded. It's always been held that if someone wants to combine their proprietary code with GPL'd code in-house, without distributing it to anyone else, this is just fine. It's their codebase, and they can do what they like with it.. It's only when they go to distribute other people's code that they need to worry about the license.The definition of 'distribute' has gotten mightily strained lately, between this and the nonsense with Microsoft's coupons.
Google ? Posted May 23, 2007 18:43 UTC (Wed) by lorien420 (guest, #44036) [Link] "When did that change?"
It hasn't changed, but it was a considered change for the GPLv3 that provided web services and the like should count as a form of distribution.
Both sides of this debate have valid points, and it seems to revolve around what we mean by "in-house." I would define "in-house" as meaning software that only affects your company. This could include custom modifications for your processes, internal bug tracking, etc.
Where some minds differ is when you develop "in-house" software that is marketed and sold as a public web service. While the software lives exclusively in-house, you are allowing outsiders to utilize it. Many feel that it violates the spirit of free software to not provide these people with a stab at the changed sources to set it up on their computer and do what they want to with it.
Copyright law defines what constitutes "distribution" Posted May 23, 2007 19:38 UTC (Wed) by tseaver (subscriber, #1544) [Link] The wish of some (e.g., in the "Affero" license) to extend that definitionto include situations not covered by copyright law are likely to end up unenforceable, at best.
Copyright law defines what constitutes "distribution" Posted May 23, 2007 23:32 UTC (Wed) by MathFox (guest, #6104) [Link] Copyright law also covers "public performance" and a case can be made that running software on a publicly available computer (for instance a webserver) constitutes public performance of the program.IANAL and I know that the details of the law vary by country... Affero might be stretching the GPL a bit, certainly not recommended for every application, but it is founded on the letter of the law.
Copyright law defines what constitutes "distribution" Posted May 23, 2007 23:56 UTC (Wed) by xoddam (subscriber, #2322) [Link] That's true, but copyright law (in some countries) covers things otherthan distribution; for instance the right to prepare modified works or (as a previous reply mentions) to perform the work to a public audience. The point is that it is illegal (in those jurisdictions) to make "in house" modifications except as allowed by the copyright licence (and by "fair use", if such a right also exists in that country).
The GPL v2 gives blanket permission to modify the code as the licensee
The new notion of "propagation" in the most recent draft of the GPL v3
It might apply equally effectively if "propagation" were defined also to
If copyright gives holders the right to demand payment per copy or for a
Nevertheless I don't think applying those terms to the GNU body of code
Such a move might be so counterproductive as to move Google from the "free
Copyright law defines what constitutes "distribution" Posted May 31, 2007 12:35 UTC (Thu) by zotz (guest, #26117) [Link] I don't see why people seem to thing this. Can you explain the thinking for me?
I can deny the right to copy my work even in house unless you agree to the conditions set in the license. Yes? No?
all the best,
drew
Google ? Posted May 24, 2007 2:30 UTC (Thu) by lysse (guest, #3190) [Link] > It hasn't changed, but it was a considered change for the GPLv3 that provided web services and the like should count as a form of distribution.
By that standard, then if I provide someone with a shell account on my machine, then I am distributing every program they can access to them; even if I only provide execute access to the programs, I would still have to provide them with a means of downloading all source code. I can't see any sensible way of defining "distribution" that would include web services but exclude this; one might draw a distinction between public distribution and limited distribution, but that would make the desirable qualities of the GPL easily circumventable.
So such a restriction would have to be defined as a restriction on use, rather than on redistribution... and then you'd have to define "use" in a way that includes "present to the world as a web app" for Perl scripts, but excludes "compile a program" for gcc, or "produce a Postscript file from this text file" for groff - or even "run this script" for Perl itself - and you'd have to be absolutely sure your definition was both precise and enforceable.
Er, eek?
Google ? Posted May 31, 2007 12:39 UTC (Thu) by zotz (guest, #26117) [Link] "By that standard, then if I provide someone with a shell account on my machine"
Could be. Anyone agree? Disagree?
What about putting together a system, hardware and modified software, and renting it out.
all the best,
drew
Google ? Posted May 24, 2007 8:11 UTC (Thu) by ekj (guest, #1524) [Link] It didn't change.But the *spirit* of the GPL is that every single user of a piece of software should have the freedom to improve, change, redistribute, adjust that piece of software, if he/she so chooses. This breaks down with web-services. If you took a GPL-program and adopted it so that it could run as a web-service, you could then (currently) sell access to this web-service per-seat, and the users would be unable to improve, change, redistribute or adjust the program they are using. Which is contrary to the spirit of the GPL, but perfectly legal according to the *letter* of GPLv2. In effect, if you use GPL-software only for a web-service, you're allowed to treat it like BSD.
Google ? Posted May 24, 2007 9:17 UTC (Thu) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link] Let's stipulate for a moment that you are right about the »spirit« of the GPL, as applied to web services. The question here is how far down the stack this should extend. Presumably Google are running their own proprietary search engine code, on which the »spirit of the GPL« has no bearing, on top of a possibly-patched Linux kernel. Should they be morally obligated to publish their Linux kernel patches just because the machine in question is running (or even merely talking to another machine running) a web server that is accessible by the public?
Google ? Posted May 24, 2007 22:57 UTC (Thu) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link] No, something changed.The GPL didn't change, and legal requirements didn't change, but the thing that Stallman sought to regulate with GPL has changed. Much of the computer use that formerly happened via distribution of software now happens by offering a service on the Internet. For example, this year I filed my income tax using a web service, whereas in the past I would pick up a CD at a store. And it looks like that trend will continue. Essentially, we're moving from the Microsoft era to the Google era. So to continue the freedoms GPL hoped to give to computer users, there needs to be something new.
Google ? Posted May 31, 2007 12:27 UTC (Thu) by zotz (guest, #26117) [Link] "When did that change?"
When software as a service came into the game? (Spirit wise, not letter wise at this point perhaps.)
all the best,
drew
Google ? Posted May 23, 2007 20:26 UTC (Wed) by BeS (subscriber, #43108) [Link] >But it is also true that Google does a lot of in-house development, possibly based on GPL code (how would I know?) which is *used* by the public -- on Google's servers -- but not *released* to us. I don't care that much about it, because even if Google would release this software probably most of us wouldn't be able to use the software because we don't have the servers Google has. I care much more about software which Google develops and releases as non-Free Software (e.g. Google Earth). That's where Google looks really bad as a "Free Software citizen".
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