Not OK

Posted Oct 19, 2010 18:33 UTC (Tue) by dlang (guest, #313)
In reply to: Not OK by FlorianMueller
Parent article: Open Standards in Europe: FSFE responds to BSA letter

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

Not OK

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? ;)

Not OK

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.

Not OK

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.

Not OK

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.

Not OK

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.

Not OK

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?

Not OK

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).