Weekly Edition
Return to the Front page
| |||||||||||||
Devices that phone home
By some accounts, the Palm Pre is a nice device; it is, of course, based on
Linux. Joey Hess recently stirred up a bit of a fuss when he dug into his
device and determined that it was reporting a surprising amount of
personal information back to Palm.
It seems that Palm knows where Pre owners are, as determined by the GPS
receiver; the device also reports information on application use, program
crashes, and more. All of this activity is covered under Palm's posted
privacy policy, but it is sure to come as a surprise to many users.
Palm is not alone in this kind of activity. More recent Android phones put up a disconcerting confirmation dialog when asked to calculate location information from the cellular network:
Location consent: Allow Google's location service to collect
anonymous and aggregate location data. Collection will occur
regardless of whether any applications are active.
If the user withholds consent, the location service will not function at all. Android devices also upload a great deal of other personal information - the phone book, for example - to Google's servers. Amazon's Linux-based Kindle uses its built-in cellular modem to send back log files, information about what books are on the device, bookmark locations, notes, and more. There is no way to turn this reporting off short of disabling the wireless connection. One of the key advantages of free software was supposed to be freedom from this kind of surveillance. With control over the software on our systems, we can remove feature which were put there for somebody else's benefit. We don't have to create systems which will report our location, application choices, reading preferences, and more to some remote mothership. When we control our systems, we can ensure that those systems don't sell us out to others. But the three examples listed above are all Linux-based systems. We may be running free software, but we are not getting all of the benefits that freedom is supposed to bring to us. Just because a system is running free software does not mean that it is your friend. Ensuring our freedom to control devices like these is part of the motivation behind the anti-DRM provisions added to version 3 of the GNU General Public License. Devices running GPLv3-licensed software must make it possible for users to rebuild and replace that software; said users can, in the process, omit any misfeatures that they feel they can do without. But it must be said: GPLv3 appears to have failed in this regard, so far; vendors of closed devices have generally just chosen to avoid software with that license. Your editor is unaware of a single device which was left open because GPLv3 required it. In any case, many platforms are sufficiently open to enable other solutions to the worst problems. Joey posted a workaround (delete /usr/bin/contextupload) for Palm devices. Fully-open Android devices are available, and those which are not open by design can generally be liberated after the fact. It also appears to be possible to make significant changes to how Kindle devices work - a subject your editor intends to look into in the near future. There are still benefits to having these systems run Linux, even if they are locked down; we understand well how they work and are well equipped to make changes. That said, the number of users actually making such changes has got to be quite small. It would seem that, as a general rule, we are little concerned about the loss of our privacy. Perhaps views will change after, as seems inevitable, some company is caught badly abusing data collected in this manner. Or, perhaps, life will replicate John Varley's Steel Beach, where Lunar residents restore full power to their Central Computer even after it tried to kill them all because having access to its services is so convenient. It is often the case that having our information available to others is most convenient. Regardless of how things go, we can only hope to make informed choices if we know what our devices are actually doing. And we'll only know that if we can see what those devices are up to. Knowing that they run something based on Linux is far from enough. That's why attempts to use laws like the US DMCA to shut down investigation and liberation of devices are so scary. It's bad enough to be unable to run the software we want on our devices; being unable to see what those devices are doing behind our backs is even worse. (Log in to post comments)
It's up to the Linux devs, not GPLv3 Posted Aug 20, 2009 2:34 UTC (Thu) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]
The DRM and Tivoisation problems usually start at the kernel.
If the Linux kernel developers won't adopt a licence that protects users from DRM and Tivoisation, then there's nothing GPLv3 can do.
Hopefully with time GPLv3 will prove itself to the Linux devs to be a good licence. Then we'll start having less DRM'd devices sending our personal info to all and sundry.
It's up to the Linux devs, not GPLv3 Posted Aug 20, 2009 17:17 UTC (Thu) by jeff@uclinux.org (subscriber, #8024) [Link]
No, then you'll have devices without the Linux kernel since many think it breaks their business
model. Linux is not the only game in town for hardware vendors, and technical superiority is not a useful business case to advocate for it's use if the vendor thinks his business model will break.
You can say "great, we didn't want them anyway", but I'm not sure you've really won in that case.
great, we didn't want them anyway Posted Aug 21, 2009 9:18 UTC (Fri) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] At least we won't be frustrated and feel cheated by the presence of "Linux". Keep in mind that many people, people like us are buying these devices because they run Linux. When they find that this "Linux" is locked down they are likely to be disappointed and wonder where their openness went. So the manufacturers are in fact giving a bad name to Linux, which once meant openness and, well, freedom.Perhaps this is a good opportunity for the FSF: a "GPLv3" sticker would be a great way to show that the device is really open, and to revitalize the "GNU/" part of "GNU/Linux".
It's up to the Linux devs, not GPLv3 Posted Aug 20, 2009 18:43 UTC (Thu) by joey (subscriber, #328) [Link]
Interestingly, the Palm Pre's kernel can apparently be replaced easily. They posted all their patches, and the boot loader is not locked down at all. (There is one binary kernel module that apparently controls the backlight.)
That's the main reason I got the Palm Pre in the first place.
Devices that phone home Posted Aug 20, 2009 8:15 UTC (Thu) by madhatter (subscriber, #4665) [Link]
I'm sorry to keep banging the drum, but if people really want a free GSM device, they need to get one that primarily serves them, not the demands of the manufacturer / network provider / sponsor first.
Stocks of the OpenMoko are still available (mine works well for me as a daily phone) and "maddog" hall is working with the University of Sao Paulo to get more phones made if there is demand.
It is with these devices as it once was with graphics cards: you vote with your wallet. If you buy hardware whose primary purpose is not your freedom, don't be too surprised when it keeps wanting to serve some other master.
Disclaimer: I'm a regular 'moko user and community contributor, and neither receive nor have received any kind of recognition or recompense from openmoko.
Devices that phone home Posted Aug 20, 2009 8:50 UTC (Thu) by fb (subscriber, #53265) [Link]
> Android devices also upload a great deal of other personal information - the phone book, for example - to Google's servers.
I have an Android phone, and while it bugs me that Google collects so much information on everything I do, I love the way it solves so many synchronization problems.
> One of the key advantages of free software was supposed to be freedom from this kind of surveillance. With control over the software on our systems, we can remove feature which were put there for somebody else's benefit.
The way I look at it, one of the key advantages of free software is that it allows anyone to build systems.
The problem is that, even at the desktop level, there was never (AFAIK) a "KDE/Gnome/FreeDesktop Settings/AddressBook/Bookmarks/Cache" in the cloud, that would (a) solve the synchronization problems that apps like Google Reader and Google Contacts came to solve, and (b) give us reasonable control over our data.
Somehow people never got into it.
BTW, the new Maemo/N900 is already around the corner http://www.mobile-review.com/review/nokia-rx51-n900-en.shtml
Devices that phone home Posted Aug 20, 2009 9:15 UTC (Thu) by njwhite (subscriber, #51848) [Link]
> That said, the number of users actually making such changes has got to be quite
> small. It would seem that, as a general rule, we are little concerned about the loss of > our privacy.
FWIW, I think the majority of us wo care about such misfeatures aren't buying such
I suspect I'm in a minority, but I for one don't see what the big fuss about sticking a
But I certainly agree with others that widespread adoption of the GPLv3 is the way to
I do hope that sometime the kernel developers reconsider their stance to GPLv3. It
Devices that phone home Posted Aug 20, 2009 10:16 UTC (Thu) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
Given the sheer number of copyright holders the kernel has, it's not clear that it's possible for the kernel to be relicensed. Doing so without the permission of every copyright holder would require something like arguing that the kernel is a collective work, and that opens the door to various other potentially nasty possibilities. So, really, whether or not the kernel developers are in favour of GPLv3 is irrelevant as far as the existing kernel's license goes.
Difficult, but first there has to be a will Posted Aug 20, 2009 11:30 UTC (Thu) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] It would be difficult, but not impossible. Mozilla already did it, despite not reaching every contributor. I wrote a piece about relicensing Linux back in 2006. Free software has legal teams and law firms and legal networks nowadays that can work out the hows of doing it when the time comes, but first we need to convince the Linux kernel devs that freedom is valuable or GPLv3 is useful.
Difficult, but first there has to be a will Posted Aug 20, 2009 12:03 UTC (Thu) by njwhite (subscriber, #51848) [Link]
I agree, it would be possible given such a desire.
Back in 2006, Alan Cox wrote (see http://lwn.net/Articles/169831/):
> > Also, given that several of the copyright holders in the kernel are
And Linus in 2007 said (http://lwn.net/Articles/237905/):
> maybe ZFS is worthwhile enough that
So yes, I agree that the issue of relicensing is primarily social.
To me the tivoisation debate seems to stem from a false assumption that the GPL is there primarily to protect the freedom of developers, whereas its primary purpose is rather the freedom of all users (whether they're using GPLed code to develop a new TV recording product, or have bought said product).
Difficult, but first there has to be a will Posted Aug 20, 2009 12:57 UTC (Thu) by jordanb (guest, #45668) [Link]
Linux has already been re-licensed: when Linus removed the "or later" language.
It's sufficient to post a public notice that you're going to make the change, and wait an appropriate amount of time for any copyright holders to object. There's no need to contact, individually, every possible copyright holder.
Difficult, but first there has to be a will Posted Aug 20, 2009 14:21 UTC (Thu) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
That's not re-licensing - it's choosing to only distribute further versions under GPLv2, as is expressly permitted in the "or later" boilerplate. Anyone can take any GPL code with that language and redistribute it without.
Difficult, but first there has to be a will Posted Aug 20, 2009 15:47 UTC (Thu) by fb (subscriber, #53265) [Link]
Linus never removed the "or later" language, as he never had the "or later" thing in his code. The license in the kernel has always been a verbatim copy of GPLv2.
What happened is that the wording "only" was added at some point for clarification.
Difficult, but first there has to be a will Posted Aug 20, 2009 14:19 UTC (Thu) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
Not impossible, certainly. Just not likely to happen.
Devices that phone home Posted Aug 20, 2009 14:22 UTC (Thu) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]
Out of curiosity...
Have you, or any other kernel person, actually had proper legal advice to that effect, or are you assuming this and/or repeating herd wisdom amongst Linux kernel programmers?
It seems strange to me that the self-determined best interests of a large majority of copyright holder, both in terms of the numbers of rights holders and in terms of the proportion of the owrk, could be stymied by a trifling few rights holders. I would be *very* surprised if unknown rights holders could completely stymie change, if all known holders agreed and took all reasonable steps to locate the unknown ones.
There must surely be precedent in the recording industry. I'd really love to hear of such more substantive argument rather than (and I mean this nicely ;) your mere assertion.
I vaguely recall asking you this before on LWN (but perhaps it was someone else).
Devices that phone home Posted Aug 20, 2009 14:36 UTC (Thu) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
I don't think the recording industry's a terribly relevant analogy. Bear in mind that there's plenty of code in Linux that's been released under the GPL and then introduced into the kernel by someone other than the original copyright holder. Does the act of releasing my code under GPLv2 imply that it can be relicensed to GPLv3 if someone else copies it into a larger work first? This kind of situation doesn't generally happen in other industries.
The legal situation is awkward, and I strongly suspect that most legal opinions provided on the matter are based on an incomplete understanding of how kernel development has occured. Bear in mind that any legal argument that says the kernel can be relicensed to GPLv3 without explicit permission of all copyright holders probably also implies that the kernel (and, by extension, other large open source works) can be relicensed to a non-Free license without explicit permission of all copyright holders. That's a dangerous sounding precedent, and I think that influences people's lack of desire to put significant effort into exploring that possibility.
Devices that phone home Posted Aug 20, 2009 15:41 UTC (Thu) by jordanb (guest, #45668) [Link]
Let's leave bears out of this.
Devices that phone home Posted Aug 20, 2009 16:08 UTC (Thu) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]
I wasn't analogising, I'm just saying the music industry must surely be a rich source of case law regarding joint ownership works. The case we're looking for is where a rights-holder goes genuinely AWOL, and the other rights-holders agree to something in their absence, with the AWOL rights holder popping up again, well after the fact, and objecting.
I don't really know how to search for cases, just curious if anyone does.
Basically, I strongly suspect the "we can't contact everyone" thing might not be much of an obstacle. If you make all reasonable efforts to contact known rights-holders and publicise a proposed change, over a longish period of time, then I suspect that'd be enough. Like coriordan writes in his piece, if you can show a near-unanimous acceptance of a change amongst known rights-holders, and no objections, then I doubt a judge is going to think it reasonable to prejudice all their interests in the work for the sake of a few AWOL owners. But hey..
TBH, I suspect the /contactable/ rights-holders would be much more of an obstacle ;).
Devices that phone home Posted Aug 20, 2009 16:18 UTC (Thu) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
I think the significant difference is that most joint works in the recording industry probably consist of material that was explicitly contributed by the copyright holder, and that's not the case in Linux.
Devices that phone home Posted Aug 20, 2009 18:40 UTC (Thu) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]
I'm guessing the bulk of Linux code is not imported code..
For the parts that are imported, a bit of due diligence in verifying the background might determine that much of it is easily upgradeable to GPLv3 (e.g. GPLv2 code where the authors didn't go out of their way to remove the "or later" and BSD licensed code). All of it must be GPLv2 compatible, and nearly all of it will also be GPLv3 compatible.
But hey...
Also, in another sub-thread you've argued that when Linus removed "or later" he was doing so within the terms of the GPLv2. That means that the Linux kernel prior to that point *was* licenced under the "or later" clause. At least, it would be by your logic. Linus argued at the time that he had never meant for "or later" to apply, iirc - which seems weak.
Basically, it seems like you could take an older version of Linux and make it GPLv3, given what you say. You could then contact contributors after that point - which seems like a *much* easier job given it was done after kernel went to an SCM (and after SCO)...
Devices that phone home Posted Aug 26, 2009 15:46 UTC (Wed) by sepreece (subscriber, #19270) [Link]
Copyright is not like trademark - you can't abandon a copyright, it's yours until it expires. In a work of joint authorship, each and every author has to accede to any licensing change. While there are grey areas around copyright, especially wrt fair use, this isn't one of them.
The recording industry does have very good examples of this, cases where someone wants to issue historical recordings (for instance, recordings of broadcasts not originally licensed for release) or to use recordings in, for instance, soundtracks or commercials. In general, if you can't get permission of all the copyright holders, it can't happen.
A Linux relicensed without explicit permission of all included contributors would be open to infringement suits from anyone who hadn't authorized the change, which would make it generally unappealing to commercial users.
Devices that phone home Posted Aug 26, 2009 21:40 UTC (Wed) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]
I did ask about recording industry precedent. I'd be very interested to read more of specific cases.
Though the wording of the law (at least in UK) is crystal clear, the real-world remains grey. E.g. your assertion doesn't square with the actual experience of the Mozilla foundation, who managed to relicence even with some uncontactable contributors (as per coriordan at least).
Your reply is very interesting (thanks!), but ideally I'd like to also read actual judgements.
Implicit relicensing Posted Aug 21, 2009 22:26 UTC (Fri) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] Bear in mind that any legal argument that says the kernel can be relicensed to GPLv3 without explicit permission of all copyright holders probably also implies that the kernel (and, by extension, other large open source works) can be relicensed to a non-Free license without explicit permission of all copyright holders.IANAL, but not likely. When (if) a judge looks into the matter she is likely to look into the intent of the original and the modified licenses. If two are very similar in spirit but differ as to the details the change is quite reasonable. If however the original is the GPL and the modified is Microsoft EULA for Office, then this argument is not going to go far. And of course most code owners are not likely to sue if both licenses really convey the same meaning.
Implicit relicensing Posted Aug 22, 2009 10:56 UTC (Sat) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
the problem is that many kernel developers do not consider GPLv2 and GPLv3 to have the same intent. they have been very vocal about this disagreement. so if you get a judge to override the explicit statements of the developers saying that they disagree with the anti-tivo provisions of the GPLv3, then why couldn't the judge override any other considerations (like release of source code) for a change to another license?
Implicit relicensing Posted Aug 23, 2009 19:18 UTC (Sun) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] If you have vocal developers against the change then it is not feasible to start with (even if as in this case the FSF, creators of the license, think it has the same intent). We were talking about implicit relicensing, where developers still active all agree, and there is a number of unreachable contributors. If one of those contributors -- say, Jeff Merkey -- did later come out and say that the change was unreasonable then there is good argument to counter it: all developers present agreed that the two licenses had the same intent.
All GSMs 'phone home' Posted Aug 20, 2009 16:42 UTC (Thu) by hanwen (subscriber, #4329) [Link]
If being 'free from surveillance' is a concern, you should not be using
celular phones at all. Network operators collect location data (not anonymized or aggregated) from any GSM device, and will happily turn this information over to law-enforcement if presented with a warrant.
All GSMs 'phone home' Posted Aug 20, 2009 18:34 UTC (Thu) by hummassa (subscriber, #307) [Link]
one thing is to hide your location collection from a judge with a warrant;
another thing is to hide it from Joe Scriptkiddie with a notebook.
All GSMs 'phone home' Posted Aug 20, 2009 23:24 UTC (Thu) by njwhite (subscriber, #51848) [Link]
Or even from large corporation X and their marketting allies.
All GSMs 'phone home' Posted Aug 27, 2009 4:25 UTC (Thu) by lysse (guest, #3190) [Link]
Indeed, free software alone can never guarantee your privacy as soon as you hit the network, especially when the infrastructure is owned and controlled by some large body with its own agenda. Freedom necessarily has to start with freedom of infrastructure. That's why I've been so disappointed that thus far, mesh networking has utterly failed to take off anywhere. Unfortunately, I don't know what to do about changing that - if "free wireless broadband everywhere" won't do it, then heaven knows what will...
Freedom Posted Aug 21, 2009 15:10 UTC (Fri) by smoogen (subscriber, #97) [Link]
"One of the key advantages of free software was supposed to be freedom from this kind of surveillance. "
I have heard this for years, but I have always wondered how true it is in reality. The Freedom that you have is that you could rebuild your Tivo, you could rebuild your Google phone, etc etc. but they don't have to offer you service after you have done so.
The big issue is that when working in a networked world you do trade some rights for other 'privileges' to interconnect with others. Actually its pretty equivalent to the physical world, the only way you can assure absolute privacy is by living in a hut in the woods far away from others.. as soon as you start interacting with others parts of that privacy are gone. What you end up with in a social group is a 'mutual' definition of what privacy is for a person. The definition of what is private to a group has evolved over 1000's of years of social engineering swinging back and forth from close to none to close to all.
Computer networking privacy is starting to go through the same evolution and will have to go through the same evolutions til we find what people are really willing to live with when they understand the costs (if they ever really do)
Freedom Posted Aug 23, 2009 0:49 UTC (Sun) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link] The Freedom that you have is that you could rebuild your Tivo, you could rebuild your Google phone, etc etc. but they don't have to offer you service after you have done so. That can't have been the intent of the inventors of free software. Free software is, after all, more than a legal device; it's a philosophical ideal. If you have to pay too much (e.g. the ability to use your Tivo for anything in exchange for the ability to rebuild it), you haven't even approached an ideal. I think the founders had in mind a world in which people had essentially the same services they had with traditional software, and in addition the ability to change the software to taste.
Freedom Posted Aug 23, 2009 7:01 UTC (Sun) by smoogen (subscriber, #97) [Link]
The issue is that there are several devices involved in all these cases:
1) The physical device which could be open or closed (most of the todays hardware is closed with some exceptions).
2) The software which in our 'discussion' is GPL or similar Free/Libre software.
3) The service that the company (Tivo, AT&T, Google, Palm, etc) offers you to use. [This could be the cell phone access, the map access, diskspace, etc]
The service is the part that is not freely given to the people to use as it costs money to operate, debug, etc. The service providers are under no obligation under the GPL2 to make that service still available to you if you have altered what they gave you.
If you were to buy an OS support contract from Red Hat, Ubuntu, SuSE, etc and you were to recompile some of the packages, none of the are obligated to help support you on those changes. And if you were to recompile say apt or yum and it didn't work.. they would tell you that you couldn't access their updates directly until you went back to the default stuff.
If this is not what people want, they can either make their own services to compete (as in the case of Tivo) or need to petition the government to allow for non-monopoly access to airwaves (in the case of cell phones). And no its not fair, but the real world is sadly rarely that.
Freedom Posted Aug 23, 2009 17:13 UTC (Sun) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
note that tivo does not shut you down if you hack the box. I've been running hacked tivos for over 10 years now.
the tivo style lockdown slows down the initial hacking of the device, but tivo has not been one of the companies being aggressive in preventing hacks.
if you want examples of that sort of behavior, look at the game console situation. there the manufacturers bother to implement _much_ stronger protections than anything tivo ever did, and those protections then get bypassed (sometimes by custom hardware that gets manufactured so that it requires no tampering with the original electronics), and the console manufacturers then go to court with DMCA claims to shut down the mod-chip makers.
they don't happen to use linux under the covers the way that tivo does, but I see their behavior as being very bad, while I don't really have a problem with tivo (I wish they didn't have the initial barrier to hacking, but given the entertainment industry paranoia I see why they have it)
Freedom Posted Aug 24, 2009 3:39 UTC (Mon) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link] I guess I've lost your point. I agree with your description of how things stand and what rights people have today. But I was responding to your statement about the goals of free software: "One of the key advantages of free software was supposed to be freedom from this kind of surveillance. " And I believe you said that as long as people are free to remove the surveillance functions from software, free software doesn't demand that the modified software still be usable. But I think it does. It demands that the modifier of the software not have to give up anything. After all, before the free software movement, people always had the ability to modify software -- source code licenses were available, just not at a price practical for any ordinary user. The issue of whether Red Hat should be obligated, under the ideals of free software, to support modified software the same as unmodified under a support contract, is separable, because there's a real difference in cost to Red Hat; i.e. support of the modified software is actually more, not the same, service. But I can definitely see free software advocates demanding that Red Hat at least provide support up to the point where the modification might reasonably be affecting something.
Freedom Posted Aug 26, 2009 15:37 UTC (Wed) by sepreece (subscriber, #19270) [Link]
"But I can definitely see free software advocates demanding that Red Hat at least provide support up to the point where the modification might reasonably be affecting something."
How is this different from the case of kernels with the taint flag set? The expectation there is that kernel devs will just say no to even looking at the problem...
Freedom Posted Aug 26, 2009 15:56 UTC (Wed) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link] But I can definitely see free software advocates demanding that Red Hat at least provide support up to the point where the modification might reasonably be affecting something. That's a good point -- free software advocates might oppose the taint flag concept, as a something that reduces a person's freedom to modify software. On the other hand, the taint flag is a lot like the copyright reserved on GPL software: it reduces a recipient's freedom to redistribute code, but is considered pro-free-software in the balance because it tends in the broader picture to increase others' freedoms with respect to the software. Red Hat refusing to service modified (openly) software doesn't have that going for it.
Freedom Posted Aug 26, 2009 16:18 UTC (Wed) by smoogen (subscriber, #97) [Link]
Having tried to do technical support on these issues before they become expensive quickly. The only way to support them is on an hourly rate with some sort of growth curve on the pricing. The reasons are the following:
1) Replicate the build environment. I have dealt with patched software that shows some sort of problem that the unpatched software does not. More than half of the time the issue is not the patch itself but how the code was built:
2) Replicate the use. The other large case I ran into is where the software was changed and then used in some odd way that requires specialized settings for. [Oh its using IP->SLIP->RS232->RS422->Radio- to get its network stack.]
3) Poor quality patch or other practices. [Oh thats the patch on the net, I cleaned it up a bit before putting in on the machine... (after 8 hours of debugging)]
And while the number of people who end up in those categories are 'relatively' small.. you end up spending so much time and pulling in so many extra resources that its not cost effective in the end. [Unless you sell support via an insurance policy type model and the costing for that is actually a lot higher than what most customers want.]
Freedom Posted Aug 26, 2009 17:20 UTC (Wed) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
don't forget fun like specific models of hardware (I've had cases where one version of the e1000 quad card would work and another didn't)
or where the problem is load and timing dependant
even without modifying the code at all (and frequently even without recompiling anything) there are all sorts of ways for things to not work that are hard to duplicate.
Freedom Posted Aug 26, 2009 20:28 UTC (Wed) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link] even without modifying the code at all (and frequently even without recompiling anything) there are all sorts of ways for things to not work that are hard to duplicate. Right, so to complete the idea: debugging is a system of gambling. You look at all the possible causes of a problem and attack them according to their relative probabilities and the costs of the attacks. Sometimes, a user modification is high on the probability list, so it makes sense to do something costly like have the user reproduce it on unmodified software or debug it himself or live with the problem. Other times, the nature of the modification (and credibility of the user who tells you what is modified, I might add) puts it way down the list, so maybe it makes sense for the analyst to take 10 minutes to try reproducing the problem on his unmodified system. But when an analyst just makes a blanket statement that he won't work on user-modified code, that can put a crimp in software freedom for no good reason. Having tried to do technical support on these issues before [I know] they become expensive quickly. The only way to support them is on an hourly rate ... There's nothing wrong with that, in terms of preserving software freedom. As long as you charge only for the time related to the user modification. If the bug turns out to exist in unmodified code and you didn't spend any time ruling out the user modification and all your normal tools worked in the debugging process, there's no call to charge the user more than you would have for unmodified code.
Freedom Posted Aug 27, 2009 3:09 UTC (Thu) by vonbrand (subscriber, #4458) [Link] Having tried to do technical support on these issues before [I know] they become expensive quickly. The only way to support them is on an hourly rate ...There's nothing wrong with that, in terms of preserving software freedom. As long as you charge only for the time related to the user modification. If the bug turns out to exist in unmodified code and you didn't spend any time ruling out the user modification and all your normal tools worked in the debugging process, there's no call to charge the user more than you would have for unmodified code. This is a nice theory, but if there are local changes, and the vanilla version (seems) to work fine elsewhere, logic says to check those changes first... if they turn out not be related to the misbehaviour, the work done ruling that out has already been spent. BTW, "software freedom" is not some kind of right you enjoy because you are breathing, it is something others worked hard to give. Please respect them, their wishes and their work.
Freedom Posted Aug 27, 2009 17:22 UTC (Thu) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link] if there are local changes, and the vanilla version (seems) to work fine elsewhere, logic says to check those changes first... It's just not that easy. If the local changes are far removed from the area with the symptoms, it often makes sense to check something else first (actually next -- the first thing you checked was that the vanilla version seems to work fine elsewhere) -- if your goal is to minimize the total amount of pain for everyone. if they turn out not be related to the misbehaviour, the work done ruling that out has already been spent. This is consistent with my claim that it's OK (meaning doesn't reduce software freedom) to charge by the hour for work made necessary by the local changes. The user would pay for that work to rule out the local change. But not for anything else. BTW, "software freedom" is not some kind of right you enjoy because you are breathing, it is something others worked hard to give. Please respect them, their wishes and their work. Of course, but I don't see how this is relevant to this thread.
Freedom Posted Aug 27, 2009 17:54 UTC (Thu) by smoogen (subscriber, #97) [Link]
I think it comes down to usage of language without a physical medium to interpret intent.
My first interpretation of your postings language useage was that "Software Freedom" was an absolute right and that Red Hat, Novell, Canonical, etc MUST support any changes a customer makes to their code. That might not have been your intent, but it was how I (and possibly vonbrand) read it at first.
Freedom goes both ways. The companies could offer per hour support on changes, they are also free not to. There is nothing in the GPL which requires them to do so (even in the 3.0 versions).
|
|||||||||||||