The end of the line for GNU Ghostscript [LWN.net]

The end of the line for GNU Ghostscript

Posted May 20, 2003 17:52 UTC (Tue) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]

To an individual, this makes no real difference, but as a community it makes it harder to promote Free Software when our own software promotes non-Free software.

That's the other side of the debate.
Ciaran O'Riordan

The end of the line for GNU Ghostscript

Posted May 20, 2003 18:29 UTC (Tue) by josh_stern (guest, #4868) [Link]

This same template gets reused over and over again. RMS genuinely believes
that non-free software is ethically wrong and should be boycotted, while a
plurality of people who consider themselves to be part of the Free/Open Source
software community don't share that view; they think free software is good,
with no implication about proprietary software being evil, just like someone who
thinks charity is good isn't therefore against private property rights. This is really
a fundamental divergence of views, not a personality issue or something that
can be patched over with a spirit of cooperation.

The end of the line for GNU Ghostscript

Posted May 20, 2003 19:14 UTC (Tue) by rkpagadala (guest, #6588) [Link]

There are serious problems with proprietary software, copyright law which forms the underlying basis for software allows the author (actually the corporation) to hoard it for 75 years. In view of the fact that the vast majority of software has a shelf life of a few years copyright of 5 years (or say 10 years) should be sufficient. After that the software can be released into the commons so that others may use/improve it.
However shortening of copyrights is unlikely to happen, because of corporate lobbying. The only choice we as individuals have is to try and avoid using proprietary software as much as possible, but perhaps more importantly we must pay for free software that we like by contributing to the authors of programs we like.
Let me know your thoughts, I can be reached at yahoo.
Thanks
Krishna

The end of the line for GNU Ghostscript

Posted May 20, 2003 21:41 UTC (Tue) by josh_stern (guest, #4868) [Link]

My thought is that when looking at things purely from the point of view
of the users of a piece of software (or another copyrighted product)
that *has already been created*, it is nicer, of course, for the product
to be copylefted. However, this POV is not sufficient to believe a)
that copyright is bad, or b) that proprietary stuff should be boycotted.
Regarding a) one must consider the whole question of whether the
work (with the same quality, timeliness, etc.) would have been created
if the possibility were not there for the creators to gain compensation
with the aid of intellectual property laws. In many cases, the answer
to that question is probably 'No'. So users should pick the
product/system that works best for them, while keeping all of the
issues in mind. One of the issues is making the world a better place
by aiding the production of more free software, and it is good to have
strong advocates for that idea, like RMS and others. But, whatever
system one personally picks, I don't believe that the alternative
system should be criticized on ethical grounds.

In the particular situation that prompted this article, the tag 'GNU' is
functioning very much like an FSF copyright, and FSF has rights
(legal or otherwise) to say how it should be used. That remains true
whether or not one believes that their views are entirely reasonable.
So if, one day, someone is asked to remove references to GNU from
their project, on account of their sponsor's ideological differences with
the FSF, then they will have my sympathy if they choose not to oblige
such a requt and disassociate themselves from the sponsor.

The end of the line for GNU Ghostscript

Posted May 22, 2003 9:38 UTC (Thu) by tres (guest, #352) [Link]

I thought copyright was extended to 95 years for corporations; wasn't that affectionately called the Mickey Mouse Copyright Extension Act?

The end of the line for GNU Ghostscript

Posted May 20, 2003 19:53 UTC (Tue) by jdthood (subscriber, #4157) [Link]

> This is really a fundamental divergence of views, not a
> personality issue or something that can be patched over
> with a spirit of cooperation.

Yes.

GNU's refusal to lend its name to something it simply
cannot abide (viz., the advertising of non-free software)
should not have been called 'censorship'.

The end of the line for GNU Ghostscript

Posted May 20, 2003 21:49 UTC (Tue) by cpm (guest, #3554) [Link]

The current SCO/MS/IBM/Lawsuit "patent" issue should be enough
to shed some light on what RMS has been whinging about all these
years.

SCO happens.

The end of the line for GNU Ghostscript

Posted May 20, 2003 21:56 UTC (Tue) by josh_stern (guest, #4868) [Link]

What specific connection are you thinking about? Are you saying
that IBM must regret their decision to license Unix source code when
they developed AIX and that the current situation shows them that
they would have been financially better to develop their own version
from scratch, and perhaps distribute it under a free software license
so it could be used on anyone's hardware? Can you elaborate?

SCO/RMS connection

Posted May 21, 2003 17:25 UTC (Wed) by Max.Hyre (subscriber, #1054) [Link]

Dear Mr. Stern:

I suspect the connection alluded to by cpm is that the SCO idiocy is only possible given legislative attempts to create monopolies on things so nebulous as ideas.

In your earlier post (beginning ``My thought is that when looking at things...'') you raise

the whole question of whether the work (with the same quality, timeliness, etc.) would have been created if the possibility were not there for the creators to gain compensation with the aid of intellectual property laws.

To my mind, the question is rather whether the difference between the work created and what would exist without copyright and patent incentive is a worthwhile tradeoff.

In the case of Ghostscript, we certainly have an existence proof in Prof. Knuth's TeX --> .dvi chain, built without recourse to those incentives. Given the differences between TeX and Ghostscript, would society be better off with only TeX (no Ghostscript, but also no SCO lawsuit), or with things as they are today?

The real question (in the U.S., anyway; Constitution and all that, dontcha know) should not be whether the program would have been written, but whether society (as opposed to a few individuals, or any corporations) is better off without software copyright and patent. I used to think RMS generally had the right ideas, but maybe went a bit far with them. Now that I see how much time, expense, and public good is sent down the tubes due to these issues, I have to agree with him: society (all of it, not just programmers) would be better off if all software were GPLed. Given that belief, I must then conclude that proprietary software is, indeed, immoral, and should be illegal.

Best wishes,
Max Hyre

SCO/RMS connection

Posted May 21, 2003 21:44 UTC (Wed) by josh_stern (guest, #4868) [Link]

Dear Max,

Your view, as I understand it, is that society as a whole would be
better off if copyrights, patents, legally binding user agreements, and
prohibitions against reverse engineering in the area of software were
all abolished. This would be a truly radical change from the present
economic situation. It doesn't sound like a good idea to me, but your
argument is so thin (Point 1: Knuth, a tenured Prof. at Stanford wrote
Tex/Dvi as free software and Point 2: SCO's annoying lawsuit has
something to do with software IP) that direct rebuttal seems
superfluous. Instead I'll make the following points: a) throughout
history, attempts to radically change society's way of doing business
based on somebody's theory, like the centrally planned economy in
the old Soviet Union, have almost always been failures for all
concerned - individual minds with theories are no substitute for milions
of people making the individual decisions that they make to get on
with their lives; b) you are making a different argument than the one
RMS/FSF makes - RMS argues that the ends (compensation) don't
justify the means (prohibitions on sharing) while you are arguing that
the ends of having only free software (ignore the naysayers, just as
much good software will be built and it will be all free) justify the
means (all business/commerce using software IP has to find a new
commercial model); c) rhetorical question: most free software
developers that I know play commercial games - why do they make
that choice when there are some free software games also available?

The end of the line for GNU Ghostscript

Posted May 20, 2003 23:51 UTC (Tue) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]

Are you sure this is a patent issue? (could you give a reference)

All the press say "Intellectual Property". I know this is a stupid term and could mean anything but I haven't heard anyone mentioning patents yet. Intellectual Property could mean patented inventions or copyrighted code or trade secrets or trade marks or one_other_thing.

I think this case is more a copyright case, SCO acusing IBM of sharing some bits of code between their two development teams. I think.

Ciaran O'Riordan

The end of the line for GNU Ghostscript

Posted May 20, 2003 23:52 UTC (Tue) by erat (guest, #21) [Link]

Perhaps, but only if your community believes that all non-free software is morally unjust or is otherwise best avoided. I don't see any reason why free and non-free software can't co-exist (freedom of choice is a Good Thing, not a Bad Thing), but I must admit that I seem to be in the minority when it comes to this viewpoint.

Besides, I don't believe in promoting one's software by demoting or otherwise trying to "hide" the competition (I'm probably in the minority with this viewpoint as well). Competition shouldn't hinder the acceptance of free software if that software is of equal or better quality to the non-free stuff.

The end of the line for GNU Ghostscript

Posted May 21, 2003 0:42 UTC (Wed) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]

You value Competition, then why allow proprietary software to deal in secret file formats and secret programming interfaces?

In the Free Software world there is competition between Galeon, Mozilla, Konquerer, and others. And if anyone else wants to write they're own web-browser, the authors of the existing ones have agreed to let you read and borrow their code.

What percentage of people using proprietary operating systems use Microsoft Internet Explorer? (I know Opera and Netscape exist but only one browser comes pre-installed and most people just use it.)

So which system gives you competition and choice?

I think the issue is about how you treat others around you, and what sort of treatment you accept. I don't think companies should be allowed to ban a user from seeing what a program is doing. And when I meet a friend and they ask for a copy of a useful piece of software I have, I don't think a third party should be allowed to make the decision for me.

Ciaran O'Riordan

The end of the line for GNU Ghostscript

Posted May 21, 2003 8:36 UTC (Wed) by ronaldcole (guest, #1462) [Link]

It's about my freedom to contract. If "proprietary software/formats" help me get my job done, then I'll use them. That said, the free market should take care of the "proprietary software/formats" problem on its own. And with full knowledge of that fact, Big Entertainment petitions Congress to put chains on the free market so that their anti-consumer/anti-competitive business models can have free reign. But Congress infringing on my freedom to contract is the problem here.

So, I'm fine with Aladdin not playing nice with GNU and using a more restrictive GPL license.

And let's not forget, Stallman supports your right to "just say no" to the friend who asks you for a copy of that attractive "GNU/Linux" software. He doesn't want to require you to be a distributor.

Freedom to contract

Posted May 21, 2003 9:17 UTC (Wed) by angdraug (subscriber, #7487) [Link]

Freedom to contract is just an illusion: when you have to resort to claiming freedom to contract, this means you are cornered into choosing between two evils, which is a very limited understanding of freedom. Even more limited in a case of monopolistic situation, where you only have one choice to choose from (if you don't want to represent it as two choices of a) give up your freedom, and b) die of hunger).

Freedom to contract

Posted May 21, 2003 18:45 UTC (Wed) by ronaldcole (guest, #1462) [Link]

Freedom does not "corner" anyone: there are certainly more than two choices, and the choices aren't "de facto" evil. Ergo, argue for your limitations and they're yours.

Freedom to contract

Posted May 22, 2003 9:34 UTC (Thu) by angdraug (subscriber, #7487) [Link]

Where did I say that it is freedom that corners you? It is the infamous "free market" that reduces your choices, and it does that by using a freedom to take away freedoms (iirc that is known as the Russel's paradox: the only way to ensure freedom is to deny freedom to take away others' freedoms). In your case, it takes from you the freedom to get your job done without paying for proprietary software.

The end of the line for GNU Ghostscript

Posted May 21, 2003 9:41 UTC (Wed) by mem (subscriber, #517) [Link]

If "proprietary software/formats" help me get my job done, then I'll use them.

Whoa, hold on there. I can *see* that some people might need to use non-free software for some reason or another. That's their choice and their problem, but when you start equating non-free software with proprietary formats you are going down a slippery slope. Using non-free software is a private choice, it affects you and you only. Using proprietary formats imposes *your* world view on others. That's a very different issue. And do take notice of the fact that "open formats" isn't the same as "formats produced by free software".

The end of the line for GNU Ghostscript

Posted May 21, 2003 18:47 UTC (Wed) by ronaldcole (guest, #1462) [Link]

Perhaps you should re-read the post I was replying to.

The end of the line for GNU Ghostscript

Posted May 21, 2003 14:13 UTC (Wed) by guybar (guest, #798) [Link]

You value Competition, then why allow proprietary software to deal in secret file formats and secret programming interfaces?

I do not think one should constrain companies from doing so, but rather one should educate the public (costumers) of the long-term costs of secret formats. Microsoft, as a loose-cannon monopoly, is making too-good a job in exploiting these long-term costs, as its beginning to find out.

I think the issue ... companies should [not] be allowed to ban a user from seeing what a program is doing ...

I agree it is not constraints on supliers that is the problematic issue, but constraints on users.

The current extreme situation does not, howevewr, automatically imply that a total lack of constraints is the optimal solution. In fact, even the GPL is basicly a set of constraints on users.

The end of the line for GNU Ghostscript

Posted May 22, 2003 15:40 UTC (Thu) by xoddam (subscriber, #2322) [Link]

> In fact, even the GPL is basicly a set of constraints on users.

On the contrary, the GPL places absolutely NO constraints on
use. It is a set of constraints on *distribution*.

Jonathan

The end of the line for GNU Ghostscript

Posted May 22, 2003 14:29 UTC (Thu) by erat (guest, #21) [Link]

You raise a number of points. I'll see if I can step through them all...

1. Proprietary file formats

Tell the truth: when's the last time you got an MSWord document that you couldn't edit (or
even view) in anything other than MSWord? How about Excel spreadsheets? Have you found
that Excel spreadsheets (saved w/o encryption, of course0 are not workable in anything but
Excel?

Unless someone saves files in a very recent version of a proprietary file format (I'm talking
mostly about MS Office formats here because they're the de facto standards for most of the
US, which is where I am at the moment) odds are good their work can be viewed/processed/
edited/whatever using free and open source software. Contrast that with "open" file formats
like the funky one used by OpenOffice or the XML stuff that AbiWord uses and you can't say
the same thing. At least with these proprietary formats I can use something other than the
app that created the file. In the end, exchange of data is what's important to me. As
annoying as it may be dealing with proprietary file formats, the fact is they no longer hinder
my productivity on any of the 3 or 4 platforms that I use on a daily basis. (Yes, I know about
RTF, but for some reason people don't use it as much as they should. Besides, RTF isn't all
that hot.)

Before moving on, I'll add this: Microsoft didn't make Office file formats ubiquitous, it's users
did. Blame corporate America.

2. "Secret" programming interfaces

If you're a developer, I guess this matters. I've done a bit of programming, but off the top of
my head I can't think of any secret API that I'd need to use. If you're talking about Microsoft
and it's legendary secret API that is only exposed to MS apps, then you're talking about one
special case (in spite of getting only a slap on the wrist, they WERE judged to engage in
monopolistic practices. I can't think of another company that's doing the same thing).

This actually harkens back to item #1 above, and the comment I made about OpenOffice. If
it does such a good job with importing/exporting MSWord/Excel/whatever documents, why
did it not simply make those the native OpenOffice formats? Why did those folks feel the
need to create their very own, not-like-anything-else-part-binary-part-XML format? For all
the talk about open this and proprietary that, it seems lots of folks STILL want to go in their
own direction. Ditto for APIs. I don't care if a file format or API is open. None of it counts
IMHO if people don't adopt their use (and again, the MS APIs that supposedly exist would be
one special case).

3. Internet Explorer and other web browsers

Other than broken PNG support and possible philosophical issues with the use of Windows,
can you explain why anyone would want to replace Internet Explorer if it works fine for
them? I don't care for it, but I don't care if other people use it. It's a web browser. It works.
It requires no special downloading/building/installation. It seems reasonable to me to that
most people use it. They have the option to use something else for web browsing if they
want.

As for building other web browsers, again, this is probably important if you're a
programmer but right now there's a glut of FOSS web browsers out there and none have
dazzled me (other than Safari on my iMac or maybe the piggish Mozilla). Here's where
competition kicks in. Make these other browsers comparable to the good ones and more
heads will turn.

4. Companies not letting folks see what their software is doing

My issue is slightly different: I don't think companies should be doing anything that would
warrant suspicion.

5. Wanting to be able to share software

If you use nothing but software that you can share with friends, no problem. You seem to
have chosen that path so this probably isn't an issue for you. It would be nice if everyone
could do that.

It would also be nice if I could get free use of my neighbor's Lexus convertible whenver I
want to take a drive in the mountains, but that's not my property and there are laws (created
by third parties) that forbid me from just taking the thing. I don't mind this because the
same laws that keep his car from being swiped keep my car from being swiped as well. So
even if the situation isn't favorable, it's at least even. If you're the type who will share your
car with anyone who wants it, let me know. :)

In closing, I will say that I'm a FOSS advocate. I'm not religious about it, nor do I see ethical
issues with non-FOSS software. I believe the world can accommodate one without killing off
the other.

The end of the line for GNU Ghostscript

Posted May 21, 2003 13:40 UTC (Wed) by guybar (guest, #798) [Link]

I don't see any reason why free and non-free software can't co-exist ... I must admit that I seem to be in the minority when it comes to this viewpoint.

Although I don't have any data, I strongly suspect you're actually a part of a large, silent majority. Strong convictions make for louder voices; not nescecerily wide support.

But then, my oppinions are similar, so I may be biased.