RMS: The GNU GPL Is Here to Stay (O'ReillyNet) [LWN.net]

O'Reilly's OnLAMP talks with Richard Stallman about the GPL v3. "RMS: The GNU GPL is designed to achieve the goals of the Free Software Movement; specifically, to ensure that every user of a program gets the essential freedoms--to run it, to study and change the source code, to redistribute copies, and to publish modified versions. The GPL does that job very well; most other free software licenses don't try."

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RMS: The GNU GPL Is Here to Stay (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 23, 2005 19:57 UTC (Fri) by mjr (guest, #6979) [Link] (16 responses)

While I applaud RMS for his efforts on all versions of the GPL, I'm not so sure about the advisability of the web service clause that's being considered, even if it only applies if code to download the source is already present. The requirement would nevertheless go above and beyond simple conditions for redistribution, and quite possibly cause a measure of division in the FOSS community. One can easily envision eg. DFSG-compliance flamefests on the subject (though perchance GPL3'd software not containing such code would remain less contestedly free).

I do agree that web services not publishing source are a problem, I'm just also wary of the cure.

RMS: The GNU GPL Is Here to Stay (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 23, 2005 20:27 UTC (Fri) by arcticwolf (guest, #8341) [Link] (15 responses)

I'm also somewhat concerned about that, myself, and for that matter, I'm not even sure that web services not publishing source code is a problem.

According to RMS, two of the basic freedoms that users should enjoy are the right to run software and the right to change it. Isn't that just what these services are doing? Of course the idea that if modify GPL'ed software and distribute, you have to contribute those changes back under the same license is central to the whole Free Software movement, but it seems to me that RMS has his priorities inversed here: you have to contribute those changes so that other users will still have the basic freedoms, not the other way around. It's users' freedoms that's central; the GPL and its mechanisms are a means to achieve those freedoms, but they're not an end themselves.

And that's why I'm concerned, and - I assume - why others are concerned, too. Aren't companies that use GPL'ed software (possibly modified) just exercising their freedoms? A clause in the GPL that would require them to make available the changes even when they wouldn't otherwise do so, IMO, seems like a restriction of users' freedoms to create a stronger copyleft, which is somewhat paradoxical as the only *point* of copyleft is to ensure users' freedoms.

The case is different from the BSD licenses, too. While one might argue that the same reasoning could be applied to BSD licenses (the GPL does restrict the users' freedom to use the software without giving back, after all), the difference is that the BSD license also applies when you actually distribute code - that is, when there are other users who will not have the freedom to use, study, change etc. the software anymore afterwards. IMO, it makes sense to restrict a user's freedom to not "give back", as other users would otherwise not have the basic freedoms anymore, but in the case of web services not making available the software they use internally, noone's deprived of any freedom.

And what's worse, maybe, is that a clause like this in the GPLv3 might make it incompatible with the GPLv2. IANAL, of course, and neither am I a licensing guru, but... doesn't the GPLv2 say that you may not place additional restrictions on your users when you incorporate GPL'ed code into your project? It wouldn't be a problem with most projects, probably, since most are licensed under the GPLv2 "or any later version", so you could choose to use them under the GPLv3 instead, but it's not true for *all* projects, and some high-profile ones, like the Linux kernel, are licensed under the GPLv2 *only*. It seems to me that it would be impossible to incorporate GPLv2 only-code into a GPLv3 project, if the GPLv3 will indeed contain a clause like this.

Optional

Posted Sep 23, 2005 21:53 UTC (Fri) by ncm (guest, #165) [Link]

The FSF were foresightful in saying "or any later version" in v2. Would that Linus were so, but he professedly doesn't believe in foresight.

In the freedom balance, the GPL weighs users -- particularly those who want to customize software for themselves -- far above original authors. Under the current copyright regime, authors have it all. If they don't like a license, they have unlimited alternatives -- unless they want to draw on the Free Software commons. But why should a web service get to both draw on the Free Software commons for profit, but not be as obliged as those whose code they used? How is running code on a web site's servers different, in any fundamental way, from running it on a user's machine?

To help focus the question, suppose (in a universe not so distant) the site owners had a choice to download code derived from Free Software to a user's browser, and run it there; or to run the same code on their servers. The user's experience is the same either way. Surely if they downloaded it, the GPL would apply. Not downloading it, they're getting the same benefit, but the user is not extended the same right to improve her experience. Instead, she's obliged to beg the site owner to incorporate her suggestions, or re-implement from scratch. She's not enabled to set up her own service, passing along her own ideas to others.

Every argument against public-performance clauses applies equally well to GPLv2. GPLv2 has been an enormous success, moreso now than in the past. That's despite loud and repeated predictions that BSD would be more popular with businesses, marginalizing GPL, if GPL weren't relaxed some. That didn't happen. What happened was that BSD-licensed code has stagnated, vs. GPL software, because those who chose BSD frequently didn't their give improvements back. That surprised some people, but not me, and not the FSF.

Nowadays, with code running on servers, GPLv2 and BSD are equivalent, and that threatens to flatten GPL development to the (much slower) BSD rate of improvement, and deprive users -- all of us -- of the benefits that were the real purpose of the GPL. How would you feel about making improvements to a GPL program for a company, expecting that you would be able to take your work with you to the next job, and then finding that the company had decided not to let you?

RMS: The GNU GPL Is Here to Stay (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 23, 2005 21:54 UTC (Fri) by GF (guest, #32647) [Link] (6 responses)

> [...]Aren't companies that use GPL'ed software (possibly modified) just exercising their freedoms?

When I go to e.g. www.google.com it is _I_ who use the software running on googles servers, I'm the user. However I get none of the so called "four essential freedoms". To the degree web (and other public) servers are running free SW, I think the SW should be published. That's at least my first sponteanous reaction.
I come to think of the story of how the malfunctioning proprietary print server software got RMS started on his mission. That SW was (maybe) not running on his workstation, he was just using a remote service, somewhat similar to web services.

RMS: The GNU GPL Is Here to Stay (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 24, 2005 13:09 UTC (Sat) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] (2 responses)

I agree. I haven't read the full length of all the wordy replies, but from what I have read it seems that, when considering "people should be free to run and modify that software they use", people are skipping the question of "who is the user?" - is it the person interacting with the software, or is it the person that booted the remote box? I think it's more the former.

Saying that the person interacting with the software ceases to be the person running the software once the location of execution changes from local to remote seems to be suggest that "off-shoring people's lack of freedom" is a suitable replacement for the goal of giving people freedom.

RMS: The GNU GPL Is Here to Stay (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 24, 2005 14:18 UTC (Sat) by zotz (guest, #26117) [Link] (1 responses)

On top of that, let's take it a bit further than web services...

Say I give someone an account and let them vnc into the box via an ssh tunnel to a desktop. From that desktop they run programs covered by the gpl which I have modified. Now, I have not distributed the programs to them, I have allowed them use of my programs. Or is there some legal precedent that considers letting someone use something distribution? It has been a long time since I have looked into this.

all the best,

drew
--
http://www.ourmedia.org/user/17145

RMS: The GNU GPL Is Here to Stay (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 24, 2005 23:37 UTC (Sat) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]

It should be illegal to drive while drunk. This means that drinking 6 pints of beer and then driving should be illegal. I would argue that drinking 3 pints and then driving should also be illegal. Then someone comes along and says, "lets take it a bit further, should drinking 50 millilitres of beer and then driving be illegal?" Obviously not. But that doesn't change that drinking 3 pints and driving should still be illegal.

The question is: where's the line?

In terms of protecting freedom, like in terms of intoxication, there is no natural line, but that doesn't mean we shrug our shoulders and walk off. We draw a line. And when the line is to be reconsidered, like in the case of GPLv3, we hold a 12+ month public consultation to find consensus on where the line should be. The result will never please 100% of the people, but it should be acceptable to the vast majority. (Like a healthy democracy.)

Allowing someone vnc access to your box would probably be somewhere on the "doesn't invoke copyleft" side of the line. Allowing the general public to type ImageMagick commands, letting them upload an image and letting them download the output image after processing the commands, would probably be somewhere on the "does invoke copyleft" side.

The legal basis is not about precedent, it's about legislation, and there are two basises. One is called "public performance of a copyrighted work". The other is like section 2c of GPLv2, except extended to include "if the program has a command for downloading it's source code, you cannot remove that command or functionality". That's the gist, I don't know the finer details.

RMS: The GNU GPL Is Here to Stay (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 24, 2005 17:51 UTC (Sat) by zblaxell (subscriber, #26385) [Link] (2 responses)

Ah, but what _is_ the software?

Consider a MUD. Technically, it is a big database containing many small (and sometimes not so small) fragments of interpreted code and data, which execute in a simulation environment and respond to commands from users connected from remote locations. These systems usually have a lot of access controls built into them, to protect secret object behaviors from users who are supposed to be discovering these behaviors by interacting with the objects in a game context, and to prevent users from interfering with the objects' code directly in order to gain advantage over other users; however, in some systems restricted code inspection and modification rights can be granted to users (one system allows users to own a "pet" character and program its behavior).

Where does the code end and the data begin? A MUD server program without a database doesn't do much more than any other specialized language runtime and a database engine. A full dump of the database can contain personal user information, passwords, junk code and data, and other undesirables. A selective dump of only explicitly labelled public objects is possible, but it provides a giant legal loophole that could make license enforcement meaningless ("every object I created or modified contains my mother-in-law's home address and phone number and is therefore not public...what's left is exactly the code I downloaded from the GNU web site. Have a nice day."). One could put the GPL code on individual characters, I suppose ("Hi, I'm RMSbot, pat me on the head to download my code!").

Clearly we would not want the GPL to require users to distribute an entire site's worth of data whenever a GPL module is used, but it would seem to me that the license language would have to be absolutely bulletproof to avoid all kinds of abuse. How and where would we draw the lines?

RMS: The GNU GPL Is Here to Stay (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 24, 2005 23:39 UTC (Sat) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] (1 responses)

Does my comment about where to draw the line (just above) answer this?

I don't think so.

Posted Sep 25, 2005 22:48 UTC (Sun) by dark (guest, #8483) [Link]

You talked about where to draw the line between services that must have a download-source button and services that don't. But the parent comment was talking about the problem of defining what the source actually is. What should the button do?

RMS: The GNU GPL Is Here to Stay (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 23, 2005 23:28 UTC (Fri) by Duncan (guest, #6647) [Link] (3 responses)

As RMS says in the article, code licensed under the GPLv2 ONLY will by definition be incompatible with the GPLv3, no matter what the GPLv3 contains, at least to the extent that if the code is contained within the same files, offset comments would need to be applied (and maintained) stating which code was the exception to the general file license. This is part of the issue with v2 ONLY language and why the suggested language uses the "or any later version" clause. That clause, as you mention, means code can be automatically updated to the GPLv3 without issue, because it's inherent in the license conditions.

Do note that the existing kernel code isn't all GPLv2 in any case. Some code originates from BSD, in which case the original BSD code can be relicensed too GPL3 just as it was relicensed to GPL2 (BSD permits that). Other code was specifically contributed under the "or any later version" clause, while other code has specific language turning over copyrights to Linus, or specifically permitting him to exercise his judgment in terms of license. Thus, it won't all be unconvertible. Actually, much of the code either has known and still active contributors or has the far more direct newer "signed off by" lines, in which case it won't be an issue.

OTOH, the same security blanket that makes it infeasible for the likes of Jeff Merkey (sp?) to offer to buy the kernel, because not all copyright holders could be tracked down, also prevents conversion in this case. Given that about a third of the kernel code has been rewritten since 2.6.0 (estimate based on Andrew's claim earlier that about a quarter had been at that point), with much of that code directly signed off and therefore directly attributable, and the rest fairly easy to retrieve from logs, and the known or easily traceable authors of much of the remaining code, perhaps a quarter would initially be stuck GPLv2 only, if the active kernel coders as a group decided to switch. However, even without direct targeted effort, just rewriting as they came across it, the remaining code would likely be mostly gone in a year, and with a bit of targeting of the harder and more niche code, the rest could be gone, either replaced, or in the case of non-critical code like some of the several file systems, be yanked out entirely if necessary. That's a far cry from immediate, but two years or even three wouldn't be that extreme given the time other projects will be taking to do their own conversion, and the complexity of the kernel.

Still, all that said, I can see a couple other possibilities happening as well. One, the kernel already includes the Linux Kernel GPL Preamble, a legally binding disclaimer specifically stating that the kernel's GPL does NOT apply to userland code. Anything in the GPLv3 that proved disagreeable to a suitable number of active kernel devs could be similarly disclaimed, by section and paragraph, if necessary.

Two, it's possible, tho I wouldn't call it likely at this point, that the GPLv3 will include a "menu" of several optional modules that can be applied by the author as desired, much as the Creative Commons Licenses do, only with a strong central core that they don't have. The core might be very similar to the GPLv2, with optional patent and software-as-a-service clause modules that an author can choose to claim or disclaim as desired. (As noted above, even if this isn't the case with the formal GPLv3, it can always be /made/ the case with exceptions similar to the kernel license preamble already in place.)

Of course, these options do mean rather more license proliferation, but if the modules were formalized, it would at least keep the proliferation to some level of control. If disclaiming is left to the individual cases, the situation could easily become far more complicated, unless the GPLv3 gets the same level of support as the GPLv2 now has or better, not a given by any means!

Duncan

RMS: The GNU GPL Is Here to Stay (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 26, 2005 1:14 UTC (Mon) by viro (subscriber, #7872) [Link] (2 responses)

"GPL v2 or later" means "I believe that future licenses FSF might
come up with will be compatible with my views". Since I do not
hold such beliefs, I will not agree to relicense my contributions
to such terms. Anybody suggesting such relicensing is welcome to
the answer Mr. Merkey got in response to similar suggestion.

RMS: The GNU GPL Is Here to Stay (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 26, 2005 21:26 UTC (Mon) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] (1 responses)

However, if GPLv3 turns up and is agreeable, relicensing under `GPLv2 or v3' might be OK, right?

RMS: The GNU GPL Is Here to Stay (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 26, 2005 23:57 UTC (Mon) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link]

yes, however to change from GPLv2 to GPL v2 or v3 may be difficult to do, it requires either a formal agreement from all contributers to a project that some person is allowed to make the decision for the project (which the popfile project has done), or getting the agreement from all contributers to make the change, or replacing all code from contributers who you can't get the agreement from.

RMS: The GNU GPL Is Here to Stay (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 24, 2005 12:26 UTC (Sat) by jstAusr (guest, #27224) [Link] (2 responses)

> According to RMS, two of the basic freedoms that users should enjoy
> are the right to run software and the right to change it.

Don't you think the four freedoms are intended to be applied as a set? Otherwise, why not just have two freedoms or ultimately no freedom?

The four freedoms are intended for all users aren't they? In other words, in each case, don't you need to consider if the four freedoms are intact for all the users?

Just one other thought. The destination of web services is to have the users pay for each use of every program. All programs would reside on servers. The users machine would hold only data and reports or maybe they would pay for storage space on the server. If you would want to listen to a song, play a game, write an email, or anything else, you would need to pay a service fee to a program server. A certain well known monoply has wanted that to happen for a long time.

RMS: The GNU GPL Is Here to Stay (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 24, 2005 16:57 UTC (Sat) by zblaxell (subscriber, #26385) [Link] (1 responses)

The freedom does have to stop somewhere. That guy who wants to modify the DNS server on my machine by sending it patches inside a buffer overrun exploit packet should *not* get the four freedoms. If I believed the DNS server's license required me to grant the freedoms in this particular case, I'd run a different DNS server.

It's not at all clear to me how the GPL maps onto situations where pieces of code are executing in different administrative domains. On the one hand, I should have freedom to use any software I can legally get my hands on in any way that I like, within reason. On the other hand, I should also have rights to privacy and the disposition of my property (software is infinitely reproducible, but server resources are not). When part of the software is running on my machine and part is running on yours, where does my freedom end and your privacy begin?

RMS: The GNU GPL Is Here to Stay (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 26, 2005 4:30 UTC (Mon) by jstAusr (guest, #27224) [Link]

The four freedoms don't address malicious mischief or criminal intent. Those activities don't begin or end with the GNU GPL.

zblaxell, I agree with most of what you have written, even if not with the exact reasoning, and that server resources are important. Security through obscurity has been a goal of the monopoly, the direction that path is going seems rather disagreeable or even unacceptable. The results of the community working in an open manner have generally been better and certainly are more honest. As to your question, I would rather if your freedom and my privacy were not in opposition, thank you very much :).

I'll bet RMS would love it if all of us wrote a perfect GNU GPLv3 so he wouldn't need to try to attain that difficult goal.

RMS: The GNU GPL Is Here to Stay (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 23, 2005 23:18 UTC (Fri) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (1 responses)

All the talk about the practicality of OSS and developement models and this and a that is nice and all. It's very smart to be pragmatic about things...

But RMS's interview just reminds me of the primary reason that I use Linux-based operating systems and Free software whenever I can:

Because they respect my freedom.

I like that. I like that alot. No paying more for more features, no expiring contracts, no weird activation scemes. No having to warez software I can't afford, no having to buy new copies or search around for 'cracks' just becuase my brother wants a new computer (etc etc etc)

No messing around with all that _nastiness_.

It's worth more to me then all the tea in china. The only major restriction is that I have to respect the freedom of other people to use the software like I can use it. Having it dirt cheap, secure, and of generally pretty high quality is icing on the cake.

For the webserver stuff. It makes sense that since it's publicly being used the source code should be publicly be aviable. I don't see how having a _command_ to force the download of the source code makes sense.. depending on the webserver and agreement with the internet connection provider it can end up being a very expensive thing to do. I can see maybe making sure that directions on how to obtain the source code should be publicly aviable.

Like for example if I am google or whatever and I decide to upgrade to the GPLv3 license for whatever software that is GPL and is publicly used.. then I could stick a GPL license on the legal page of the website along with instructions to mail a check or money order containing 2 bucks to so-and-so address and I'll receive a cdrom or dvd containing the source code in 7-10 business days. (which is perfectly valid behavior for distributing software under the current GPLv2 license, as I understand it (I am not a lawyer))

That way using the GPLv3 licensing isn't going to put any extra undo stress or increase the cost of using the code for google and yet it allows anybody interested in the source code to easily obtain a copy of it.

Google could probably easily afford it, but much smaller companies can sometimes run out of bandwidth pretty quickly.

It would suck to introduce a easy way to perform a DOS attack on software that's enforced thru the freaking license.

RMS: The GNU GPL Is Here to Stay (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 26, 2005 7:33 UTC (Mon) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

The trouble with "mail me a cheque for two bucks" is it doesn't scale :-)

That would probably cost me ten bucks or more to get my hands on a two buck cheque, and once you got it, it would probably cost more than two bucks postage to get the CD to me ...

And okay, that ain't a lot of money for me, but for many people, two bucks is two days pay ...

Cheers,
Wol

public server clause could be problematic

Posted Sep 24, 2005 0:02 UTC (Sat) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] (3 responses)

While I'm sympathetic to the reasons why RMS and others like Bruce Perens have advocated some kind of "public server must serve its own source code" clause, it seems that there are many practical problems with the idea.

For example, RMS says that if the program provides a "download source" button, modifiers can't take that button away. That's fine if you just make a small improvement to the program. But what if the only part of the function you want is a cool string-matching function, and you want to use it in a program that is not a server? Is this legal? And if you craft a loophole to make an exception for that, will some lawyer come up with a "laundering" procedure where you extract the modules one by one through the loophole, and then reassemble them into a new program that doesn't have the "download source button" obligation?

Maybe RMS has an idea of how to solve this, but I haven't seen any evidence that it is even being thought about.

public server clause could be problematic

Posted Sep 24, 2005 12:50 UTC (Sat) by copsewood (subscriber, #199) [Link] (2 responses)

I think the distinction here is whether or not the operation of a program constitutes a public performance. A server providing a service to its users provides a kind of public performance. A reuse of code from that program for another purpose may or may not, but the license from the reused code will carry over and retain the requirement, such that if this code is ever reassembled into something that does provide a server with users, the licensing requirement for the download button will carry through.

It would take away privacy for a reuse which is not a public performance to require publication for private use of private changes. This privacy need will need to continue to be recognised in a future GPL which is likely to be accepted as respecting freedom in the sense of the right to this kind of privacy. However, once code from a private version requiring the download button for a server version is incorporated into a server version the download button requirement will reactivate.

You could argue that enforcement of this would be difficult, as how does the user of a server know what code provides it ? This, however, is a similar issue to the difficulty of knowing what source code was compiled into a binary distributed version of a program, where other means of obtaining evidence are likely to give the game away to someone who is interested enough.

public server clause could be problematic

Posted Sep 24, 2005 15:03 UTC (Sat) by tzafrir (subscriber, #11501) [Link] (1 responses)

Suppose that the server's code gets actually maintained, does this force the maintainer to keep track of any minor version that has been exposed to the public, just in some user will demand it at some point in the future?

public server clause could be problematic

Posted Sep 27, 2005 14:22 UTC (Tue) by copsewood (subscriber, #199) [Link]

"Suppose that the server's code gets actually maintained, does this force the maintainer to keep track of any minor version that has been exposed to the public, just in some user will demand it at some point in the future?"

My understanding of the download button license requirement is that this does impose the obligation to make all changes available for download, only in respect of the version currently in use while it is in use. The practicality of this requires that the code of the server as currently maintained needs to sit alongside the server and that the download button facility knows the location of the source tree from which the server is compiled or interpreted. Assuming that this source tree is maintained according to instructions which will be distributed along with the license this should not be an onerous obligation.

Another approach which could also meet a historical requirement based on past minor versions, might enable those providing such servers automatically uploading patches to a free-software repository, and these patches being automatically included within the effect of the download button. This technical approach to license compliance would also have benefits for upstream maintainers who may wish to include same patches in the mainstream distribution or popular forked versions of it. Having a more efficient patch distribution mechanism has obvious benefits for patch authors, who want to avoid the effort of repeated application of patches to newly installed mainstream version upgrades.

Posted Sep 24, 2005 17:36 UTC (Sat) by job (guest, #670) [Link] (2 responses)

I sincerely hope that the FSF takes a very cautious approach to the "ASP loophole". While I do agree with the above assertment that VNC-style remote GUI of an application is an effective way around the redistribution rights of the GPL, I do also realise that Google can't be expected to release the source of their software just because they run it on Linux.

I also don't think the problem of web apps is as big as the problem of locking in the users data in the web apps colocation centres. What good is it to have access to all these free software to manipulate your data when you don't have your own data in the first place? This is however far beyond the scope of the GNU project and can most probably not be addressed by licensing.

More pressing are the patent clauses that are starting to appear in other licenses such as Apache's. They may be a good idea, I am not really qualified to say, but that is creates an incompatibility with the GPL is somewhat unnecessary and should be fixed.

Posted Sep 24, 2005 20:20 UTC (Sat) by peschmae (guest, #32292) [Link] (1 responses)

I don't think the idea *ever* came up to force people to publish their software under the GPL only because they are running on Linux (or another GPLed system).

What they are talking about is a web service being based on a GPL 3.0ed web service and that this modified code (based on GPL 3.0 code) should be available under the terms of GPL 3.0 to users of this web service as well.

Posted Sep 25, 2005 13:00 UTC (Sun) by job (guest, #670) [Link]

You fail to see the problem. Google is a big application and parts of it, such as the GoogleFS which was published in an article, probably runs in the kernel. That makes it a "derived work". (Most probably. Exactly what constitutes a derived work will be the point of many flame wars.) This currently doesn't matter because they are clearly not distributing anything. Closing the ASP loophole may have lots of unforeseen consequences such as this one.

RMS: The GNU GPL Is Here to Stay (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 24, 2005 17:43 UTC (Sat) by mikec (guest, #30884) [Link] (3 responses)

There is a fascinating experiment on human nature at work here... I am not sure what it would change for the particpants to understand it, perhaps nothing, but I think it is important for advocates of opensource&free software to step back now and then to see the big picture.

I say this because of various recent developments.

I have used linux and various other forms of opensource/free/shared software since the 80's. I cannot imagine life without it. I have also used "proprietary" software in the time that I could not have lived without either... Eventually the "innovation" within those useful proprietary software programs wore off, they became a commodity and were replaced by free/open/etc... equivalents... all was well...

1. That said, what we are seeing now is the inevitable decline into legalease that every human culture/sub-culture/system seems to suffer...

Once something has stabilized and the large predators are removed from the system and food is plentiful, we all degrade into lawyers. We litter the field with new rules, caveats, gotchas... Anyone who has kids has seen this process at work as early as 3-4yr olds... it seems hardwired...

I am not saying that GPL/RMS/OSDL/et al. should not exist, or that they don't need to continue to evolve - realistically, they are operating within the system presented, it is a form of M.A.D. and to do nothing would be even more detrimental in the near term.

2. I wish I could remember some specific instances, but I have seen a number of articles with high-profile project members of popular GPL'd projects complaining that "big corperations" were benifiting from FOSS but giving back nothing. (without violating GPL rules - of course - those that take the code, modify and sell it I think deserve the flames they receive)

<sarcasm>
How odd? So, you say software should be free, but you would really like to be rewarded/compensated for your time and effort? Interesting thought... Sounds like work though...
</sarcasm>

3. As with any system involving humans, the real answer is almost undoubtedly 1/2 way between the 2 extremes...

In reality, our system (as a whole) must be able to portportionally award those who really innovate or there will be no innovation. There are those software developments which either:
a. make a significant difference in everyone's lives
OR
b. make a profound difference in a select few people's lives

In our existence where we must buy food and houses and clothes - a "difference" generally becomes monetary. So, it seams reasonable that to get that benifit, I must trade some of my benifit away to the person or people that gave me that benifit...

HOWEVER, eventually, even the most exciting innovation eventually becomes a commoditiy...

This is where our current system has trouble... Once innovative products are now stale, commonplace, relatively easily replaced, part of our daily lives, yet we are still paying for them as if they were revolutionary...

Engineers of all forms have (at least) one fatal flaw in their thinking (I know because I am one). They assume that just because they are capable of doing something, they can do it for themselves and paying money for that doesn't make sense...

In reality, our time on this earth is rather finite... every minute of your life has a profound oppourtunity cost (both monetary and otherwise).

So, I think we all need to realize that there is a place for proprietary software. It is certainly not everywhere - and the bar should be far higher than it is. But trying to argue that charging money for software is immoral, illegal, wrong, etc... is like saying that running a grocery store is immoral, illegal, wrong, etc...

RMS: The GNU GPL Is Here to Stay (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 24, 2005 22:43 UTC (Sat) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (2 responses)

As far as I know nobody said anything about weither or not it's moral to charge people for using software/service.

Money isn't a issue and GPL/RMS/FSF fully supports people making money and charging money for software as far as I can tell.

The trouble is that many people feel that the only possible way to make money from software successfull is that they must hide the source code from people and use patent law and other punitive measures to create artificial demand for software by restricting what you can and cannot do with said software.

RMS on the other hand feels (as I understand it) that restricting access to the source code of software your using is immoral. (again as I understand his stance) Money and charging money or being a commercial success or popular is very secondary to the moral implications of Free software in RMS's eyes..

It's perfectly moral to charge money for software or programming services as long as you make the source code aviable to your end users, as RMS sees it.

One example of a project that does this is the developers of Lustre clustering file system. http://www.lustre.org/

They work to create very high speed and high aviability file systems and in turn their work is used by many in the high performance computing feild. When you buy the software from them they give you the source code with it, under the GPL license even. (I believe.) They make aviable a slightly older version of their system publicly aviable to download if you'd like to use it without paying for it.

RMS: The GNU GPL Is Here to Stay (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 24, 2005 23:28 UTC (Sat) by ncm (guest, #165) [Link] (1 responses)

If it's under the GPL, those who paid for it have the right to redistribute the source, but might have neither requirement nor motivation to do so. Cygnus Support, later Cygnus Solutions, now Red Hat, and lately CodeSourcery, have sometimes profited by relying on this fact. This is particularly likely if the only others who might benefit from redistributing it are competitors; or if others who could use it can afford to pay and really ought to share the burden of maintenance.

More frequently, nobody else is interested in the heavily customized version, perhaps because it only works on a proprietary kernel or a proprietary link format. Thus, the source is available but the competitors are obliged to pay again anyway, to get the customizations they need instead. Each of the infinitely varied MIPS implementations, for example, needs its own compiler customizations. It would be as much work to customize one of them again as to start with the FSF version.

There's nothing shady about any of this.

RMS: The GNU GPL Is Here to Stay (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 25, 2005 10:25 UTC (Sun) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link]

Previous versions of Lustre file system I've looked at are in the form of just normal everyday kernel patches. Your free to download them yourself if you want to look at the code.. just register with their website and they'll email you a ftp link to the source code.

It's mearly a example of how a company can make money selling GPL'd software. Lustre does fairly well and the developers learned how to make it work by lessons taken from previous attempts at creating a high speed, high aviability clustering file system. (called intermezzo and before that coda (and before that example from afs/openafs))

Also as a bonus to this developement Lustre developers have had to do a lot of work improving and adapting it's changes to existing file systems. The major filesystem they worked on that could be used along with their clustering file system is ext3. They've put substantial developement time and work into ext3 which was then worked on by Redhat to get the it into the kernel proper. It is one of the major reasons why ext3 is as nice as it is now.

RMS: The GNU GPL Is Here to Stay (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 25, 2005 0:18 UTC (Sun) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (14 responses)

as many have noted the real question here is where to draw the line, and the answers that boil down to 'I'll know it when I see it' don't do anything to reassure the rest of us on the issue.

many people want to make code that runs websites available.

does this mean that anything that has any way to access it over the network must require that a method be offered to download the source of it (assuming it's based on a GPL work)?

think carefully about this, if so you are requireing changes to every network protocol out there (DNS, SMTP, IMAP, POP, BitTorrent, etc) just in case there's ever a GPL version of it (or the GPL version won't be able to be written and still comply with GPLv3), carrying this to it's logical extreme, what about Ping? does the fact that you can ping a box and get a response mean that you are entitled to all the local patches and config info about the kernel that is running on that box?

if not, what exactly is so special about HTTP that it deserves special treatment?

think about the current AJAX 'craze' (javascript running on browsers makeing async calls to a server for specific functions), currently this implements it's server-side calls by useing XML-over-HTTP so both server and client side code would have to be provided, but it would be pretty simple to have the call from the client to the server use a different port and eliminate the HTTP wrapper (it would even be more efficiant). now all of the sudden since the majic HTTP protocol isn't used anymore there's no requirement to provide the server source?!?!?!?

RMS: The GNU GPL Is Here to Stay (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 25, 2005 0:26 UTC (Sun) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link]

by the way, the answer that HTTP is special becouse it's popular is not acceptable unless you want to have licenses changeing periodicly based on what software is popular at the time the license is written.

RMS: The GNU GPL Is Here to Stay (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 25, 2005 13:11 UTC (Sun) by job (guest, #670) [Link] (9 responses)

Please respect all the people who reads your comment and has to spend some extra work to parse what you're actually saying. Using proper capitalization and punctuation would make it simpler. Keep in mind that many of us reads English as a foreign language spends enough neurons on reading the text without having to fill in the missing characters.

As to what you're saying, it is not likely that one network protocol would be favoured over others in a software license. Neither is it likely that any protocols need to be changed just because one is required to distribute source code.

RMS: The GNU GPL Is Here to Stay (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 25, 2005 23:12 UTC (Sun) by dark (guest, #8483) [Link]

I think there is some basis for being concerned about that. The Affero GPL is a variant of the GPL which has a downloadable-source clause. The FSF was involved in drafting it, and one of the goals was to see how such a clause would work in practice. So it's a precedent to consider, and it does single out HTTP as the protocol to use.

That doesn't mean the GPLv3 will automatically do the same thing, but we should at least talk about it. And we can't just ignore the protocol either. I work with services for mobile phones, where the transport protocol might be SMS -- 140 bytes per packet, costing several cents and several seconds to send a packet. Offering source code over that is not reasonable.

RMS: The GNU GPL Is Here to Stay (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 25, 2005 23:48 UTC (Sun) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (7 responses)

if it's not going to favor one protocol over another, please explain how the 'download button' will work for an IMAP mail server, or for a DNS server.

RMS: The GNU GPL Is Here to Stay (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 26, 2005 5:04 UTC (Mon) by jamesh (guest, #1159) [Link] (6 responses)

If you really wanted such a feature for an IMAP server, one possible way would be to provide a read-only folder that contains a single message with the source code as an attachment. If the folder isn't subscribed by default, then it wouldn't annoy users that aren't looking for the source.

RMS: The GNU GPL Is Here to Stay (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 26, 2005 5:18 UTC (Mon) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (5 responses)

it's not a question of wanting to add it, it's a question of will GPLv3 _REQUIRE_ you to add it.

and while IMAP does have a mechanism that can be twisted into providing this (as long as the attachment isn't too large) not all protocols are as easy to manipulate, DNS being one good example.

Self-advertising protocols

Posted Sep 26, 2005 17:28 UTC (Mon) by ncm (guest, #165) [Link]

Not to quibble, but DNS is perfectly capable of delivering a URL. Even ping can do that. So can old-standard SMTP. New protocols seem increasingly likely to have a place to paste in a URL.

As for how vague the legal definition of "public performance" must be, applied to software: if in doubt, put in the URL. If anyone you don't know downloads the code, it must have been a public performance.

RMS: The GNU GPL Is Here to Stay (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 27, 2005 2:39 UTC (Tue) by jamesh (guest, #1159) [Link] (3 responses)

As far as I can tell, the term they are talking about would forbid you from removing such a feature, rather than requiring you to add it.

This is similar to the existing GPLv2 provision that interactive derivative works should print a copyright and warranty notice on startup, which is waived if the original version was interactive but didn't print such a message.

It's a bit hard to say any more without knowledge of the actual terms being considered.

RMS: The GNU GPL Is Here to Stay (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 27, 2005 3:48 UTC (Tue) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (2 responses)

I wasn't aware of such a provision, could you please clarify which clause requires it?

RMS: The GNU GPL Is Here to Stay (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 27, 2005 6:54 UTC (Tue) by jamesh (guest, #1159) [Link]

Section 2 (c), which deals on creating and distributing modifications to GPL covered software:

c) If the modified program normally reads commands interactively
when run, you must cause it, when started running for such
interactive use in the most ordinary way, to print or display an
announcement including an appropriate copyright notice and a
notice that there is no warranty (or else, saying that you provide
a warranty) and that users may redistribute the program under
these conditions, and telling the user how to view a copy of this
License.  (Exception: if the Program itself is interactive but
does not normally print such an announcement, your work based on
the Program is not required to print an announcement.)

So this clause has the following implications:

If you modify an interactive GPL'd program that prints a copyright message such that the derivative work is also interactive, then the derivative must also print a copyright message.
If you modify an interactive GPL'd program that does not print a copyright message, you are not required to print a copyright message in the derivative.
If your derivative is not interactive, then it doesn't need to print the copyright message on startup.
If you modify a non-interactive GPL'd program such that the derivative is interactive, you need to print a copyright notice on startup.

RMS: The GNU GPL Is Here to Stay (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 27, 2005 10:16 UTC (Tue) by job (guest, #670) [Link]

How about reading the article? What is this, Slashdot?

RMS: The GNU GPL Is Here to Stay (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 26, 2005 17:31 UTC (Mon) by pontus (guest, #3701) [Link] (2 responses)

Somebody is missing the point here. The proposal was not that every remote service must offer the source code for download through that service. The proposal was that if there is already such a function in the service, it must not be removed.

RMS: The GNU GPL Is Here to Stay (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 26, 2005 17:48 UTC (Mon) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (1 responses)

but that won't close the 'ASP loophole' becouse the software the ASP is providing may not have been web enabled in the first place so it wouldn't have the download function.

RMS: The GNU GPL Is Here to Stay (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 26, 2005 20:43 UTC (Mon) by dd9jn (✭ supporter ✭, #4459) [Link]

At least it gives fair competition back to the developers who decided to release the software with such an ASP source retrieval command. As it stands now it is pretty easy to grab some high value software, write a simple frontend and marginalise the orginal version - using the advantage of having a way to hide the actual software.

Well, this is actually not only an ASP problem but extends to many applicance vendors.