Not OK

Posted Oct 19, 2010 12:05 UTC (Tue) by pboddie (guest, #50784)
In reply to: Open source must be able to deal with patent licenses if necessary by FlorianMueller
Parent article: Open Standards in Europe: FSFE responds to BSA letter

In this case, if the free software movement believes that those GPLv2-based license deals aren't OK, they should sue Red Hat, Novell, Canonical, HTC, TomTom etc. and see how far they get.

Of course the Free Software movement, or at least the FSF, doesn't believe that such deals are OK: that's why GPLv3 was drafted, and is presumably why you regard it as "unpragmatic". But since the very nature of organisations like the FSF and FSFE is to advocate change, I don't think you should expect them to go out of their way to advocate "pragmatism", especially when such "pragmatism" appears to be about establishing some kind of VIP line for fast-track and/or exclusive access to the benefits of Free Software.

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Posted Oct 19, 2010 12:11 UTC (Tue) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link] (19 responses)

Of course the Free Software movement, or at least the FSF, doesn't believe that such deals are OK: that's why GPLv3 was drafted

I meant legally OK. No one debates philosophy. The argument made by FSFE and others in the EU open standards debate is that those FOSS licenses just don't allow it, period. That's the problem. If they just said they don't like it (but admitted that it can work legally), that would be a much better basis for finding a solution.

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Posted Oct 19, 2010 13:18 UTC (Tue) by pboddie (guest, #50784) [Link] (17 responses)

I meant legally OK. No one debates philosophy.

Such a great way to brush aside any discussion, particularly when policy-making is all about defining what should be rather than what is.

The argument made by FSFE and others in the EU open standards debate is that those FOSS licenses just don't allow it, period.

They don't allow it if the goal is to be upheld that the four freedoms can be practised by anyone. Hence my remark about the VIP queue.

If they just said they don't like it (but admitted that it can work legally), that would be a much better basis for finding a solution.

Finding a solution to what? The need for a captive audience for patent-holders, guaranteed by public standards and policies? It's interesting how supposed advocates of the free market are always first in line to ask for government favours.

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Posted Oct 19, 2010 13:25 UTC (Tue) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link] (16 responses)

Such a great way to brush aside any discussion, particularly when policy-making is all about defining what should be rather than what is.

Contrary to me brushing aside any discussion, it's you who widens the debate in a way that doesn't reflect the reality of the political process we're talking about.

I said before that there would be no problem with FSFE and others saying that they don't like software patents and patent royalties. The problem is that their central argument is the false claim that FOSS can't deal with this.

They are entitled to their philosophy (by the way, while I don't share that fully, I'm certainly much closer to it than to the BSA's philosophy). They just aren't entitled to their own made-up "facts".

They lie to politicians in the EU about the impact of those patent deals because they believe they're more likely to get their way by dishonestly misrepresenting, misleading, and overstating.

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Posted Oct 19, 2010 13:30 UTC (Tue) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

Wow, with comments like that you're bloody lucky you're not in the UK. (Actually UK libel law is so ludicrously strict that this being viewable in the UK is probably sufficient grounds for the people who consider themselves libelled to launch a libel suit: libel suits launched on much flimsier grounds have succeeded here, much though everyone else wishes they hadn't. But FSFE aren't massive corporate barons and have actual ethics so are unlikely to do that.)

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Posted Oct 19, 2010 13:43 UTC (Tue) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

"that doesn't reflect the reality of the political process we're talking about."

You mean a bunch of politicians and lobbyists talking meaningless bullshit?

I saw an interesting article about that Philadelphia "pi = 3" bill recently? And do you know WHY it failed?

Because a visiting professor kindly pointed out to several prominent politicians that, if you did the maths as *PRE*scribed by the bill, you ended up with the result "pi = 3.2".

And when the European politicians realise they've been fed that sort of bullshit, they are NOT going to be impressed.

Dunno about you, but if someone makes a fool of me, I take offence. And if your career depends on looking sage and wise, the offence could be very damaging to the lobbyist ...

Cheers,
Wol

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Posted Oct 19, 2010 14:20 UTC (Tue) by pboddie (guest, #50784) [Link] (13 responses)

The problem is that their central argument is the false claim that FOSS can't deal with this.

The uninhibited practice of the freedoms around Free Software - something which organisations like the FSF and FSFE consider an essential part of Free Software licensing - is incompatible with the kind of "VIP lounge" concept that you seem to consider acceptable or "pragmatic". I believe you may even have made this point yourself in some recent discussion or other, probably in a condescending "this is the world - live with it!" tone while trying to get everybody to specifically discuss Motorola's defence strategy against Microsoft (a matter for their lawyers, I would argue) rather than the wider issues of more general interest.

So the organisations responsible for the licensing of the bulk of Free Software are not lying, unless you are trying to redefine Free Software as something it isn't: "VIPs this way, everybody else wait in line", effectively "FOSS Light".

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Posted Oct 19, 2010 14:46 UTC (Tue) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link] (12 responses)

Where they're lying is where they say it doesn't work due to FOSS license terms. Not where they say it's against FOSS philosophy.

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Posted Oct 19, 2010 16:18 UTC (Tue) by pboddie (guest, #50784) [Link] (11 responses)

Well, given that even GPLv2 and LGPLv2.1 bring a degree of uncertainty as to whether someone is actually permitted under those licenses to acquire patent licences only for themselves and then to distribute the code to others - the defence of such behaviour being, as I recall, that "the patent bit isn't in the right section of the licence", "they used the wrong word" and "we aren't being sued, so it's OK", where the former excuses seem to contradict what lawyers keep saying about legal texts needing to be interpreted in the context of what the intent of the text actually is - I think it would be inappropriate for the FSFE to say, "No, it's all actually OK after all!"

Just because no-one has sued someone else over such a matter doesn't mean they won't, and it's certainly not any kind of a decent basis for public policy.

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Posted Oct 19, 2010 17:57 UTC (Tue) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link] (10 responses)

In my opinion you can't have your cake and eat it. Either FSFE is serious about incompatibility of such deals with the GPLv2, and then its US mothership called FSF, which has all the Linux copyrights assigned to it, has to enforce the GPLv2's terms; or, which is the way I view it, the incompatibility claim blows things out of proportion and is not an honest way to have a debate over interoperability policy.

You conclude with a remark about "a decent basis for public policy." I'm focused at this poin t on a decent basis for a facts-based debate on public policy. Without the former, we may never get to the latter.

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Posted Oct 19, 2010 18:33 UTC (Tue) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (9 responses)

the FSF does not have all the linux copyrights assigned to it.

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Posted Oct 19, 2010 18:35 UTC (Tue) by Trelane (subscriber, #56877) [Link]

Was it the lack of a "GNU/" prefix that tipped you off? ;)

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Posted Oct 19, 2010 18:35 UTC (Tue) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link] (7 responses)

Even if it doesn't have all, even a small part would be legally sufficient to enforce GPLv2 if there was a breach.

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Posted Oct 19, 2010 18:37 UTC (Tue) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (6 responses)

true, it would be, but the FSF has never done any GPL enforcement on the linux kernel.

other people have, but not the FSF.

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Posted Oct 19, 2010 18:47 UTC (Tue) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link] (5 responses)

We make progress through this exchange and I appreciate your clarifications.

After four years since the Microsoft-Novell days -- four years during which various other Linux patent deals involving royalty payments were done -- no one has enforced the GPLv2. That's a fact. If this is such a central thing to the GPL, the FSF or another enforcer would have had to do so.

But RMS himself admitted that even the early drafts of GPLv3 (v3!) would have allowed the Microsoft-Novell type of deal. That proves they just don't have a legal basis. So FSFE shouldn't tell EU politicians there's a legal problem with GPLv2. They should admit they just don't like software patents (I don't like those patents either) and then have an honest debate over what to do.

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Posted Oct 19, 2010 21:59 UTC (Tue) by pboddie (guest, #50784) [Link] (4 responses)

But RMS himself admitted that even the early drafts of GPLv3 (v3!) would have allowed the Microsoft-Novell type of deal. That proves they just don't have a legal basis.

No, it only "proves" that early drafts of GPLv3 would have allowed (or perhaps more correctly, may not have prevented) the "mutual promise not to sue other people" kind of agreement that Microsoft-Novell was all about.

So FSFE shouldn't tell EU politicians there's a legal problem with GPLv2.

Even when advice to the contrary has already been given?

They should admit they just don't like software patents (I don't like those patents either) and then have an honest debate over what to do.

Repeating things about people "lying" and things being "irrelevant" over and over again doesn't make them true. As I already pointed out, the FSF* organisations clearly regard there to be issues with combining copyleft licences (and others) with "every man for himself" patent licences. That no-one has sued the various large corporations indulging in such activities over the matter says a lot less about whether those corporations are in the right (legally or ethically) than it does about the general imbalance in the average legal system where it could well be a hard slog to get a judgement on a matter of such importance against a determined and wealthy opponent.

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Posted Oct 20, 2010 3:45 UTC (Wed) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link] (3 responses)

I would prefer not to have to repeat my remarks on honesty. Unfortunately, you and some others don't make that distinction. In your latest post you again brought up "legally or ethically", which doesn't help to keep both dimensions separate.

The "advice to the contrary" you link to is weak tea compared to the fact that it's common practice now in the industry and not legally challenged by the free software movement.

Finally, you make the cheap excuse that under this legal system it's so hard to fight against a large corporation. Oh come on, how more pathetic can it get? Would this mean free software is lost anyway because might makes right in the legal system? By the way, if there's a worldwide breach of the GPL, such as by global players of the Red Hat or Samsung kind, you can do forum shopping and pick cheap place, such as my jurisdiction (Germany) and sue there first. But it hasn't been done anywhere by anyone.

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Posted Oct 20, 2010 11:28 UTC (Wed) by pboddie (guest, #50784) [Link]

I would prefer not to have to repeat my remarks on honesty.

So would we all.

The "advice to the contrary" you link to is weak tea compared to the fact that it's common practice now in the industry and not legally challenged by the free software movement.

Well, I'm just explaining how the FSFE people concerned can make their particular claims and not go round winking to each other about how they were really "lying" afterwards. And you go on again about how no-one has sued anyone, but again that doesn't have anything to say about whether someone could do so once everyone has "agreed" that there's no underlying problem.

You know, quite a few people had a discussion on this very site about patent-encumbered standards a few months ago. Look it up: it was all about MPEG, Theora, Mozilla and HTML5. There were three principal positions:

"Patents in standards should be avoided because it ends up mandating a form of private taxation on implementers."
"Patents in standards don't matter because even though our code is affected, we don't care and no-one is going to come after us anyway."
"Patents in standards are OK because it's just a matter of paying a fee and then we're covered."

And yes, the discussion involved persuading the people taking the second position that although their code is nice, that perhaps they should consider what the people taking the third position were doing with their code. And no, sadly, those people representing the developers weren't particularly interested.

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Posted Oct 24, 2010 7:17 UTC (Sun) by Ze (guest, #54182) [Link] (1 responses)

I would prefer not to have to repeat my remarks on honesty.

Is that because you seem to have a problem with honesty yourself? You've made dishonest claims about GPLv3 and GPLv2.

You claim that GPLv3 is irrelevant because no major projects have adopted it , yet you've been shown evidence to the contrary that the tiniest bit of research on your part would've found.

You've also claimed that GPLv2 is patent compatible using extremely poor logical reasoning. It's spurious logic to claim that just because the text of early drafts of GPLv3 doesn't protect against software patents that GPLv2 doesn't protect against them , when the concerning them between the two had most probably changed. Someone who is so interested in FOSS and software patents surely can't claim that such a basic flaw in reasoning is an honest mistake....

Could the reason you don't want your claims about honesty repeated is because you have a problem with honesty yourself?

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Posted Oct 24, 2010 11:39 UTC (Sun) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link]

Of course the patent-related language changed between GPLv2 and (the early drafts of) GPLv3. But the fact of the matter is that a stricter language on patents was a GPLv3 design goal from the outset. So it's perfectly reasonable (except for people who want to create unreasonable doubt) to say that there's a continuum in terms of patent-licensing-related ridigity ranging from GPLv2 to early drafts of GPLv3 to the final version of GPLv3:

GPLv3_final > GPLv3_early > GPLv2

Let X be on said continuum the point at which you can prevent the Novell type of deal:

GPLv3_final > X > GPLv3_early (according to RMS)

Thus, X > GPLv2 (or more likely, X >> GPLv2).

Further empirical evidence -- as if it were needed -- for the latter is that Novell's deal never got challenged in court during all those years, even though the SFLC certainly would have the funds in place to do so.

Let Y be on said continuum the point at which Red Hat can, according to Eben Moglen, do the FireStar type of deal, where Red Hat paid a royalty:

Y > GPLv3_final > GPLv3_early > GPLv2

Thus, Y > GPLv2 (or more likely, Y >> GPLv2).

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Posted Oct 19, 2010 13:25 UTC (Tue) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

"I meant legally OK. No one debates philosophy."

Why not? The whole point of the "mathematics" debate is it is a philosophical debate. Which is intended to prove that the law on patents is an ass. More to the point, it is a self-contradictory unenforceable ass.

And WHEN (not if) the Judges realise what's going on, there's going to be a pretty massive bonfire of the vanities (or bonfire of the patents, if you prefer it).

Cheers,
Wol

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Posted Oct 19, 2010 13:37 UTC (Tue) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

Add to this, RMS is the *last* person to be accused of pragmatism.

And hindsight pretty much invariably shows he was right to dig his heels in and refuse to compromise.

Cheers,
Wol

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Posted Oct 20, 2010 15:49 UTC (Wed) by armijn (subscriber, #3653) [Link]

Karsten Gerloff (FSFE president) has written down how FSFE's open standards work is actually down. It's definitely worth a read: http://blogs.fsfe.org/gerloff/?p=408