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Okular is doing the right thingOkular is doing the right thingPosted Jun 1, 2009 21:48 UTC (Mon) by MattPerry (guest, #46341)Parent article: Okular, Debian, and copy restrictions
Okular is doing the right thing. The PDF spec allows setting these flags and the PDF viewer should enforce the use of those flag. If someone has created content that sets these flags to restrict what you can do with the content, that's a problem with the content, not the viewer. Okular needs to continue to honor those flags. It would be hypocritical of us to expect people to honor our wishes (or licenses that we use for free software) yet not honor the wishes of those who choose to restrict their content.
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Okular is doing the right thing Posted Jun 1, 2009 22:20 UTC (Mon) by tzafrir (subscriber, #11501) [Link]
Expected result: users will automatically disable this configuration and disrispect the limitation as before.
The "DRM" bit is not directly related to any usage and/or distribution license of the document.
(I personally normally use evince to view PDF files)
Okular is doing the right thing Posted Jun 2, 2009 1:01 UTC (Tue) by tzafrir (subscriber, #11501) [Link]
And then there's the hard way: actually distribute PDF files that have such annoying DRM limitations but no licensing issues whatsoever. This should be done in order to encourge users to use PDF viewers that that ignore those limitations (e.g.: in the case of KPDF/Okular: disable that configuration item, for win32 users: use e.g. Sumatra PDF (untested)).
I wonder if somebody actually did something of that sort...
Okular is doing the right thing Posted Jun 1, 2009 23:32 UTC (Mon) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link]
There is a subtle point here that I think you are missing about license restrictions and the enforcement thereof.
Is it okay for a tool to attempt to enforce usage restrictions? There's no algorithmic way to determine if a particular intended usage is protected under the fair use doctrine or not. The flags on the content can't take fair use into account at all. If strictly enforced they are guaranteed to restrict reasonable fair use.
I can't recall any serious discussion among FLOSS licensing supporters about toolizing enforcement of the licensing terms in such a way that it would also restrict fair use of the code or executable carrying the FLOSS license. You have to remember that FLOSS licensing only grants you rights that you do not have by default under copyright law without a license.
It's not strictly the wishes of the original author that is the question. The question is the wishes of the original author insofar as those wishes are not more restrictive than legal doctrine allows. Content usage flags can't accurately encode fair use and any such flagging will be overly restrictive. There's no a flag can no if I'm cutting and pasting a section for scholarly research and thus protected by fair use.
But that isn't to say that the flags should be silently ignored. I think there's real value in making people explicitly aware when there is a use restriction in place, so they can decide for themselves whether their use warrants fair use or criminal activity. The biggest problem with our content consumption culture is that we haven't made any allowances for content licensing in the interfaces we are using to select and use digital content. It all gets lumped together and users of the content have no way to make informed choices based on licensing restrictions. Being able to present the flagged use restrictions as advisory information in the pdf user interface would be more inline with a model of informed decision making.
-jef
Okular is doing the right thing Posted Jun 2, 2009 5:59 UTC (Tue) by MattPerry (guest, #46341) [Link]
> There is a subtle point here that I think you are missing about license
> restrictions and the enforcement thereof.
I agree that there is a subtle point. You are the one who is missing it.
> Is it okay for a tool to attempt to enforce usage restrictions?
Yes, because the flags for said usage restrictions are part of the spec and the program is implementing the spec as designed. The programmers should be commended for such thoroughness.
> There's no algorithmic way to determine if a particular intended usage is
Nor should there be. Fair use is a legal concept. It protects the user of the content from legal liability. It doesn't mean that you have a right to access that content in the most convenient manner possible.
Is Okular doing the right thing? Posted Jun 2, 2009 8:04 UTC (Tue) by PO8 (guest, #41661) [Link] "Implementing the spec as designed" is not an excuse for putative bad behavior here. If some portion of a spec called for program behavior that was racist or sexist, or would intentionally damage the user's software, computer or person, you surely would be willing to disregard that portion of the spec?Specifications capture intent; implementors with different intent must choose whether to respect a specification. Disregarding a spec is not to be done lightly—the willingness to faithfully implement specs is a form of social contract that makes the spec model work. But the broader social contract sometimes takes precedence. In this case, the decision to be made is whether a spec clause that will to some degree restrict the fair use activities of less-knowledgeable users is a serious enough problem to warrant deliberately violating the specification. I can see the argument for both sides here, but certainly the issue deserves more serious consideration than "one must always blindly follow specifications."
Is Okular doing the right thing? Posted Jun 2, 2009 14:16 UTC (Tue) by MattPerry (guest, #46341) [Link]
> "Implementing the spec as designed" is not an excuse for putative bad
> behavior here.
There's nothing bad about the behavior. Please elaborate if you disagree.
> If some portion of a spec called for program behavior that
You are comparing apples to oranges. There's is nothing malicious or harmful by setting a flag that says "I don't want this to be able to be printed, or text to be copyable."
There are legitimate reasons for restricting the copying and printing of documents. I work for a medical device manufacturer and we restrict the copying of text and printing of PDFs of our standard operating procedures. These are not restricted to prevent fair use by our employees but to make sure that there are not printed copies of older documents that are filed away and used by people for procedures. Such use of old documents can and have caused much expensive trouble with the FDA in the past. If an employee needs an older version to print, or needs text from an older version of a document, they can contact the document owner to get a copy of the content they require.
In this case, restricting the copying and printing enforces policies in our company that is intended to minimize costly mistakes.
> In this case, the decision to be made is whether a spec clause that will
No fair use rights are being affected. You can still take a screenshot of the content. You can still type in the text that you cannot copy. As I stated before, fair use does not mean convenience.
Is Okular doing the right thing? Posted Jun 2, 2009 19:58 UTC (Tue) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link]
Fair Use does not mean convenience. Free Software means convenience. Artificially enforced inconvenience is incompatible with the Free Software ethos. If you don't like what Free Software is about, what are you doing here?
Is Okular doing the right thing? Posted Jun 2, 2009 21:51 UTC (Tue) by sepreece (subscriber, #19270) [Link]
Free software means you, as the user of the software, can do what you want - you can set the configuration option or you can rebuild the package to change default, just as you can decide that it's inconvenient that cp observes the system access rules and change it so it lets you copy files regardless of the permission bits, assuming it's a system that you can install your own kernel on.
Free software ideals don't define what the software does out of the box, just that you're allowed to change it.
Okular has kindly provided a configuration bit to let you change it without doing any programming. Say, "Thank you", don't say "But, you should do it my way by default and if you don't you're violating the ideals of free software."
Is Okular doing the right thing? Posted Jun 3, 2009 18:19 UTC (Wed) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link]
I'm not talking to the Okular developers. They can do whatever the hell they want, and it's none of my business. I'm talking to the Debian maintainers of the Okular package, who signed an agreement to abide by the Debian Social Contract. These package maintainers are catering to people who are not members of the Debian community at the expense of people who are, in violation of that Contract.
Is Okular doing the right thing? Posted Jun 3, 2009 23:28 UTC (Wed) by sepreece (subscriber, #19270) [Link]
I don't think there's anything about the default setting of the Okular option that "violates the Debian Social Contract" or violates the DFSG, unless there's a lot of understood subtext that I'm not aware of as an outsider. The software is, to the best of my knowledge, appropriately licensed, modifiable, and redistributable.
But, as noted, I'm an outsider, and if the Debian community feels violated by the default setting of a user-changeable option, by all means, change it...
Is Okular doing the right thing? Posted Jun 4, 2009 1:15 UTC (Thu) by JoeF (subscriber, #4486) [Link]
"I work for a medical device manufacturer and we restrict the copying of text and printing of PDFs of our standard operating procedures"
And how exactly does that enforce "to make sure that there are not printed copies of older documents that are filed away and used by people for procedures"?
Is Okular doing the right thing? Posted Jun 6, 2009 1:24 UTC (Sat) by pjm (subscriber, #2080) [Link]
The word "enforce" is in general somewhat ambiguous about to what extent the object is absolutely obtained (see the variation in meanings given by a dictionary), but the post to which JoeF replies already makes clear (in more than one paragraph) that its author is aware that the software does not absolutely prevent copying.
(So the answer to the question how ... does that enforce ... is: it urges or causes (to quote one dictionary) that result both by informing the user that an author of the document has requested that the text not be copied or printed, and by requiring the user to go to extra effort to copy or print the document.)
The question under discussion is not whether copying is absolutely prevented (that question has already been answered both in the original article and in the post to which JoeF replies), but whether the software is effective in reducing costly mistakes, and whether there are any practical steps we can take to improve the tradeoff of preventing rare but costly mistakes against the cost of making it less convenient to copy when it is appropriate to copy.
(In this case, without yet having read the discussion in the bug report, I'd suggest that the dialog box could be improved by changing the text to An author of the document has requested not to copy text from this document., and going on to inform the user how they can nevertheless copy from the document. Adding a button to the dialog box would be something to consider, though the trade-off is that users don't then get much chance to think about the reason for the request. Again, I haven't read the discussion in the bug report.)
And more generally under discussion is how one might handle other cases where there is some desire to hinder some user actions ("limit freedom") to prevent harm or achieve some other desirable result.
Is Okular doing the right thing? Posted Jun 3, 2009 9:35 UTC (Wed) by jzbiciak (✭ supporter ✭, #5246) [Link]
I personally see this as being equivalent to a courtesy lock on a bathroom in a house. By default, if someone clicks the button on the knob, anyone else trying to enter the bathroom cannot, because the knob won't turn. But, grab a toothpick and "pop", the doorknob is unlocked.
There can be a great many reasons why someone might want to force their way into a bathroom (the vast majority of them having to do with emergencies). In general, it's to handle circumstances unforeseen by the person who set the lock.
The same goes here. Someone sets a lock on a PDF, and it's an advisory measure. (If it really, really mattered, they would have encrypted it.) The lock says "Hey, I don't think you should copy this." It's an advisory mechanism, though, and easily bypassed. And that's how it should be. The person bypassing the lock at least has a chance of knowing the intent and desires of the author.
If I were to propose a change, it would be this: Convert the "DRM says you cannot do this" dialog that has a global, sticky override flag stored elsewhere to a "DRM asks that you not do this" dialog that has a per-instance override button that says "Copy anyway." That way, the user at least gets informed of the author's intent, even if they choose to override it. Overriding is easy, but not so easy that the user never learns of the author's desires. If you want to get fancy, remember the decision per-document, but don't make it global by default.
The current mechanism of simply disabling DRM checks across the board would be equivalent to banishing courtesy locks on bathroom doors in my analogy above. It totally disables and removes the mechanism provided for stating intent.
Is Okular doing the right thing? Posted Jun 3, 2009 12:40 UTC (Wed) by sepreece (subscriber, #19270) [Link]
I would probably phrase the statement more like "The author has indicated that this document has restricted circulation and may not be copied." And the two action buttons would the be "Cancel" and "I have the author's permission to proceed."
Is Okular doing the right thing? Posted Jun 3, 2009 15:25 UTC (Wed) by Los__D (subscriber, #15263) [Link]
Err, no.
If we need language like this, the second option should of course be "That's MY choice, not his"
Is Okular doing the right thing? Posted Jun 3, 2009 23:29 UTC (Wed) by sepreece (subscriber, #19270) [Link]
I'd be perfectly happy with "Proceed anyway" ;-)
Is Okular doing the right thing? Posted Jun 11, 2009 6:13 UTC (Thu) by huaz (guest, #10168) [Link]
> "Implementing the spec as designed" is not an excuse for putative bad
> behavior here.
And who are you to decide which behavior is bad?
Come on, there is a standard and the code implemented it.
There is an option for you to turn it off if you care.
So spend five seconds clicking it off and stop whining!
Okular is doing the right thing. NOT. Posted Jun 2, 2009 8:31 UTC (Tue) by smurf (subscriber, #17840) [Link]
>> Is it okay for a tool to attempt to enforce usage restrictions?
>Yes, because the flags for said usage restrictions are part
One might argue that usage restrictions have no place in a spec in the first place. Those restrictions tend to be specious(sic). People click the "don't copy" button when creating these files for some arcane reason, but not because there's a real requirement to not be able to copy anything. Besides, there's Fair use.
The problem is even worse in DVDs. I'm not talking about DVDCSS here, but about the idea that disabling the Stop or Fast-Forward buttons makes any sense whatsoever. Yet, that's exactly what's done on quite a few DVDs. Not on the whole disc, of course -- just during the annoying "copyying is theft" 'message'. Oh, and during the previews for any other DVDs you might want to buy. Skipping commercials is some sort of libertarian leftie commie whateverie idea that needs to be eradicated, after all.
I digress. To summarize, my Fair Use right (usually) trumps your Set-Random-Bits-in-the-PDF rights.
I know that there are some exceptions. But: while you can certainly aggravate social or legal problems with technology, yon can't solve them that way.
Okular is doing the right thing. NOT. Posted Jun 2, 2009 14:25 UTC (Tue) by MattPerry (guest, #46341) [Link]
> People click the "don't copy" button when creating these files for some
> arcane reason, but not because there's a real requirement to not be able > to copy anything.
How do you know that? You cannot predict the requirements of every user in the world. I just gave one example here (http://lwn.net/Articles/335669/) of a legitimate use.
> Besides, there's Fair use.
Your fair use rights are unaffected by this. You can take a screenshot. You can type in the text that you cannot copy. Fair use doesn't mean it has to be convenient for you.
> The problem is even worse in DVDs.
We are not talking about DVDs we are talking about PDFs. Please don't change the subject.
> I digress. To summarize, my Fair Use right (usually) trumps your
Again, your fair use rights are not affected. Stop whining because you might have to spend a few more minutes of work than you expected to exercise your fair use rights.
Okular is doing the right thing. NOT. Posted Jun 2, 2009 15:17 UTC (Tue) by GreyWizard (subscriber, #1026) [Link] Fair use doesn't mean it has to be convenient for you. True, but the fact that the program is free software does. I expect a PDF viewer that I run on hardware I lawfully own to obey my instructions unconditionally, regardless of any "specifications" to the contrary. If I were willing to let other people decide what my computer does I would run Microsoft Windows or Mac OS X. If your organization needs to restrict printing on its workstations and you feel that implementing that restriction in the PDF viewers installed on workstations it owns is the best solution I have no objection. Go ahead and install a modified package tailored to the needs of medical device manufacturers. If there is no such thing then modify the settings yourself. Maybe an option for locking things down in this way does belong in a general purpose distribution like Debian. But if so it certainly must be off by default. Don't expect me to accept restrictions that are of no value to me. That's now how free software works.
Okular is doing the right thing. NOT. Posted Jun 2, 2009 15:31 UTC (Tue) by MattPerry (guest, #46341) [Link]
> > Fair use doesn't mean it has to be convenient for you.
> True, but the fact that the program is free software does. I expect a PDF
You point is moot as Okular has a configuration option to disable the feature/bug in question. Free software, like all software, is not a one size fits all proposition. You'll have to adjust settings and configurations to fit your definition of convenience.
Okular is doing the right thing. NOT. Posted Jun 2, 2009 16:12 UTC (Tue) by GreyWizard (subscriber, #1026) [Link] You point is moot as Okular has a configuration option No, you have merely missed my point. A configuration option is reasonable (as I stated plainly abov) but the only tolerable default for a general purpose distribution is off. Expecting the most numerous users to fiddle with a setting to make things more convenient for a small group (medical device manufacturers in your example) is backwards.
Okular is doing the right thing. NOT. Posted Jun 2, 2009 21:40 UTC (Tue) by sepreece (subscriber, #19270) [Link]
Again, I think you're overstating your preferred option as "the only tolerable option".
The point of free software is, as you say, that you control your machine. So, go control your machine! Set the configuration option or rebuild the package with your preferred default. That's what GPL freedom is about, not whether or not the default options suit your preferences.
Okular is doing the right thing. NOT. Posted Jun 3, 2009 2:39 UTC (Wed) by GreyWizard (subscriber, #1026) [Link]
"Again"? This is your first reply to me in this thread.
Your point seems to be that default settings can be chosen arbitrarily because users are prepared to spend unlimited time tuning their systems. Wrong. Changing configuration settings has a cost, including the possibility that a user will never discover the option at all. Therefore defaults are important and should be sensible for as many users as possible. People or organizations who wish to be bound by PDF restrictions are a tiny minority and so they should bear the cost of altering the configuration. Is that so hard to understand?
Okular is doing the right thing. NOT. Posted Jun 3, 2009 10:18 UTC (Wed) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link] You're wrong. Free software is about you being able to scratch your own itches if required, not about having all your itches proactively scratched for you by others. Free software authors (or distributors) are under no obligation whatsoever to cater to the wishes of »as many users as possible«. If they don't, they may have to accept the fact that nobody but themselves may be interested in their output, but if they're cool with that then it is totally their option. The whole point of free software is that you are (or anyone is) free to change a free program to suit different preferences than those of its original author, and to pass the changed program on to others. So if the Debian KDE people won't uncheck that box for you, then you will unfortunately have to do it yourself, or else find another distribution that comes with it unchecked. You could even create your own Debian derivative that is 100% identical to Debian in every respect except that it has that box unchecked, and distribute that for the benefit of all the other users who aren't prepared to bear the cost of figuring out how to uncheck the box themselves. This is what free software is about, not getting everything perfect for everybody out of the box, which is obviously impossible.
Okular is doing the right thing. NOT. Posted Jun 4, 2009 6:05 UTC (Thu) by GreyWizard (subscriber, #1026) [Link]
What makes you believe I am arguing that software developers and distributors have an obligation to serve their users? For various reasons, Debian developers WANT to serve their users. Their discussion, and the one happening here, is about how best to do that. Congratulations on noticing that getting everything right for everyone out the box is impossible. Please join the conversation AFTER you've figured out that this does not rule out getting as much right for as many people as possible.
Okular is doing the right thing.mostly. Posted Jun 3, 2009 13:23 UTC (Wed) by sepreece (subscriber, #19270) [Link]
Sorry, the "Again" was ill-chosen, I was reemphasizing someone else's point, not my own, and should have expressed that more clearly.
You did correctly state one implication of my point. The complete point was that the essence of free software is that software creators can scratch their itch in whatever way they please and if downstream re-distributors and users don't like it, they're free to change it. That does imply that default settings are arbitrary, at the will of their creator.
Since neither of has any evidence as to the distribution of opinions across the user base, your estimate of a "tiny minority" has as good a chance of being right as any other. My own guess is that most users would be comfortable with supporting the flag by default if the warning behavior was changed to allow an override action as part of the dialog and to provide a better message (without the misleading word "DRM" - a simple statement that the author has disabled copying text from the document). I, for one, DO appreciate knowing when I'm breaking the author's expressed rules for using the document.
Okular is doing the right thing.mostly. Posted Jun 4, 2009 5:49 UTC (Thu) by GreyWizard (subscriber, #1026) [Link] That does imply that default settings are arbitrary, at the will of their creator. No, it most certainly does not. Free software is not incompatible with striving for excellence. That means attempting to make the best decisions possible at every level, including making the defaults sensible for as many users as possible. Since neither of has any evidence as to the distribution of opinions across the user base, There is plenty of evidence on my side. But I don't care to present it because your challenge is not an intellectually honest one. You could apply this pattern to any statement, no matter how reasonable or self-evident. Do you have evidence that there is more light during the day than at night? Have you actually collected time series data of light measurements? Are you sure your instruments are calibrated properly? And so on. Would you waste time trying to convince me of the obvious? I hope not. Therefore if you insist that there might be more users who prefer to be constrained by PDF flags than not we will have to agree to disagree. I, for one, DO appreciate knowing when I'm breaking the author's expressed rules for using the document. Wanting to know the author's preference is not the same as wanting to be constrained by it.
Okular is doing the right thing. NOT. Posted Jun 2, 2009 15:42 UTC (Tue) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link]
And as part of that lock down, to make it effective, other parts of the operating system would have to interpret the pdf flags so that the document itself could not be copied off the device onto removable storage or over the network to another device where the flags were not respected. Effective lock-down is very hard to do unless the entire system is designed for it.
At best enforcing the flags in the document in a software reader will prevent casual breaches in workplace protocol. They certainly aren't enough by themselves to prevent malicious intent.
My question is, would notification about the flags be just as effective as default enforcement? If there was space in the UI that communicated that the document was flagged no-copy but the software reader itself made no effort to prevent you from copying it by default..would the no-copy notification be just as effective at preventing casual protocol breaches?
-jef
Okular is doing the right thing. NOT. Posted Jun 2, 2009 14:31 UTC (Tue) by sepreece (subscriber, #19270) [Link]
The common use of the "No copying" flag is corporate. The documents I've seen with copying disabled have usually been either proprietary corporate documents, marketing materials that weren't authorized for release, yet, and materials received from a third-party under NDA.
None of these sources believed the flag made it impossible to copy the document. However, the use of the flag means that a user copying the document has to be knowingly circumventing the flag. That makes it MUCH harder to argue in court that you didn't know you were breaking the rules when you copied a paragraph from a draft marketing announcement into a tech blog's rumor column.
I think supporting the flag, but allowing the user to circumvent it, is a nice balance between interests.
[NOTE: I'm less convinced than Jon that a court couldn't hold the flag to be considered to "effectively control access", but I don't think copyright is the real intended use of this flag.]
Okular is doing the right thing. NOT. Posted Jun 3, 2009 0:13 UTC (Wed) by xilun (subscriber, #50638) [Link]
How does the "No copying" flag work with "cp"?
Okular is doing the right thing. NOT. Posted Jun 3, 2009 12:45 UTC (Wed) by sepreece (subscriber, #19270) [Link]
It has no interaction with "cp", it just disables the ability to take snips out of the document. The expectation is that people are more likely to leak a paragraph than a whole document (in part because the whole document is more likely to identify who it was sent to) and that it avoids the possibility of quotes being taken out of context.
Okular is doing the right thing. NOT. Posted Jun 4, 2009 1:20 UTC (Thu) by JoeF (subscriber, #4486) [Link]
"it just disables the ability to take snips out of the document."
No, it doesn't. It just makes it more inconvenient. I can still open a text editor next to the PDF and re-type the snips.
Okular is doing the right thing. NOT. Posted Jun 4, 2009 14:28 UTC (Thu) by sepreece (subscriber, #19270) [Link]
Agreed, and that's clear in other comments I have made in this strand - it disables the ability to take snips out of the document without overriding the restriction.
The point (from my perspective) is just to make sure the user knows he's breaking the author's rules.
Okular is doing the right thing. NOT. Posted Jun 23, 2009 12:51 UTC (Tue) by Baylink (subscriber, #755) [Link]
Precisely. The point is to make it necessary for you to testify that you turned the protection off in order to copy the data.
I, personally, am on the side of the developer straight down the line here, and I think that the people whining about this need to go take a cold shower.
It'd be real interesting to hear rms's opinion on this: do you violate the spec in the name of "freedom!!!", or do you respect the spec? I'm sure he'd say violate it... but I think that knocks just a little chink in his armor, myself.
We *need* people like rms, don't get me wrong.
Just like we need lawyers.
But that doesn't mean we should do everything either of them say to.
The point is not so subtle and it's pointless to discuss it Posted Jun 17, 2009 6:35 UTC (Wed) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] Yes, because the flags for said usage restrictions are part of the spec and the program is implementing the spec as designed. Such behaiour is form of sabotage. It's called Italian strike. Recently Microsoft employed it and was rightfully condemned for it. I see no reason to applaud in this case too. Specs are not objects of worshipment. Specs are just tools. The end goal is usefullness of software. When specs damage this goal - they should be ignored and/or fixed. Here is such a case. The programmers should be commended for such thoroughness. Are you masochist? Why will you commend someone for strike against you?
Okular is doing the right thing Posted Jun 2, 2009 11:52 UTC (Tue) by epa (subscriber, #39769) [Link]
What you said makes sense apart from your choice of words 'criminal activity' when you mean very minor copyright infringement.
That's our Chandler allright Posted Jun 2, 2009 18:41 UTC (Tue) by ikm (subscriber, #493) [Link]
> It would be hypocritical of us to expect people to honor our wishes (or licenses that we use for free software) yet not honor the wishes of those who choose to restrict their content.
It would be, unless they are morons. But since the latter is always true, it won't. So the better way to implement this option is to pop up a box saying: "The authors of this PDF don't really want you to copy anything to clipboard. Most probably they like it more when you type it all back yourself, since this is apparently better for your fingers. Would you care to [honor it] [ignore it] [and don't ever show this again!]"
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