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Okular is doing the right thing. NOT.Okular is doing the right thing. NOT.Posted Jun 2, 2009 8:31 UTC (Tue) by smurf (subscriber, #17840)In reply to: Okular is doing the right thing by MattPerry Parent article: Okular, Debian, and copy restrictions
>> 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.
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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 (guest, #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 (guest, #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 (guest, #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 (guest, #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 (guest, #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 (guest, #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.
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