GitHub is my copilot
GitHub is my copilot
Posted Jul 16, 2021 13:16 UTC (Fri) by ldearquer (guest, #137451)Parent article: GitHub is my copilot
>> The GPL doesn't exist because copyright is good, it exists because software being copyrightable is what enables the concept of proprietary software in the first place.
I think this whole argumentation of how ［reducing the notion of derived work is actually good for free software］ is totally nuts.
Or maybe I misunderstood something.
Copyright is not what enables the concept of proprietary software, or not alone. For end users there are arguably more annoying and immediate aspects of propietary software, which don't depend on copyright law: Binary-only distibution, closed protocols, device lock ("tivoization"), etc.
Last week I had to fix my son's bed frame, bought about 10 years ago. I ended up screwing and bolting in manners not foreseen by the original designer, but hey, they didn't seem to think about children that actually jump and play on the bed (despite of mum's disagreement).
Luckily the bed frame was not codified in binary opcodes.
Posted Jul 16, 2021 17:06 UTC (Fri)
by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325)
[Link] (19 responses)
I would prefer to address this problem by passing comprehensive right-to-repair legislation, but I don't see that happening any time soon. The main advantage of legislation, of course, is that it is much harder to opt out of legislation than to avoid using GPLv3'd software.
Posted Jul 16, 2021 21:05 UTC (Fri)
by ldearquer (guest, #137451)
[Link] (3 responses)
However, so far copyleft has been of much more help than legislation. If legislation is to fix this, then bring the legislation first, and render the copyleft unnecessary, but don't do it the other way around.
Note that copyright (copyleft) can't really in any way avoid proprietary software per se. It just prevents that, whatever free software is made, it remains free for future recipients. In theory, it should avoid someone in a position of power to make use of it for locking users, but that requires the copyright + 'derived work' mechanism. Imagine MS releasing a version of Office made from Libreoffice + some closed source importer/exporter to a proprietary docxx format. We would all effectively move to the new format, and all the effort put on having a free office suite would be used against that goal.
Even if this could sound ridiculous today, there you have Edge...
But back to the main point, I still fail to see how minimizing the 'derived work' concept would help free software. Definitely not for users.
Posted Jul 16, 2021 21:27 UTC (Fri)
by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325)
[Link] (2 responses)
Regardless, this is all academic. The definition of "derivative work" is what it is. We can't change it now (except by legislation, but that's not happening).
* Side note: Microsoft can already do this anyway because Apache OpenOffice is under a permissive license that allows it. I'm not sure of the compatibility status of LibreOffice vs. OpenOffice, but it might not matter. You could first develop the plugin for OpenOffice and then, as a separate step, make minor compatibility adjustments as needed. This is probably fair use and might not even be subject to copyright protection in the first place because it would be purely functional (compare and contrast Oracle v. Google, Baker v. Selden, etc.).
Posted Jul 17, 2021 8:21 UTC (Sat)
by james (subscriber, #1325)
[Link] (1 responses)
If the software industry (which very much includes Linux, these days) had coalesced around an understanding of roughly where the boundaries of "derivative work" were, the courts would not be bound by that, but would be likely to respect it in their deliberations: partly because they don't like upsetting whole industries if they don't have to, partly because they do consider existing legal thought (certainly from other jurisdictions or scholarly works), and partly because one of the functions of a judgment is to let everyone know why they decided what they did, so if they departed from existing consensus they'd be expected to explain why.
And we've worried a lot more in public about "derivative work" than the proprietary software industry (and had lawyers informing debates). Our opinions are likely to inform what the rest of the industry thinks.
I'm not going to comment about civil law jurisdictions here.
Posted Jul 17, 2021 8:46 UTC (Sat)
by james (subscriber, #1325)
[Link]
Posted Jul 17, 2021 2:03 UTC (Sat)
by pabs (subscriber, #43278)
[Link] (14 responses)
> Binary-only distibution, closed protocols, device lock ("tivoization"), etc.
The only way to eliminate those would be to essentially enshrine the four freedoms and some other things in legislation. I feel like the proprietary software vendors have the power to prevent that from happening.
Posted Jul 17, 2021 9:05 UTC (Sat)
by ldearquer (guest, #137451)
[Link] (13 responses)
But does this require the four freedoms?
They seem to be discussed as a pack, all or nothing, but it seems to me that, IIRC, the first two (having full control on what you get/pay for) are much more legit than the rights to redistribute.
Maybe I am just mixing in my persnal feelings, but if I buy a car, I can understand the guys who designed the car tell me I shall not copy their design to build and give away similar cars, at least for a reasonable span of time.
But if they tell me that, well, the car is mine, but not really mine, kind of renting, but you pay for maintenance, and sorry you can't open the hood, or replace a spark plug or service it without their approval...
Posted Jul 17, 2021 23:58 UTC (Sat)
by pabs (subscriber, #43278)
[Link] (12 responses)
Imagine the entertainment system in a common type of car has a bug in it that manifests after the warranty period ends and the bug is really annoying, only manifests rarely, manifests only while driving but doesn't brick the system. To be able to efficiently debug the system you need to be able to run it elsewhere under simulation so you can pretend you are driving (freedom 0), since debugging from the back seat while driving around is likely quite hard. You need to be able to review the source code too (freedom 1) to figure out what is going wrong. Since the owner doesn't know programming, they need to enlist the local mechanic-programmer, distribute (freedom 2) the source code and a log of the data streams while the bug happens to them, have them modify the code (freedom 3) to add the fix and share (freedom 2 again) the fix back to the owner and to the fork maintained by the world-wide mechanic-programmer association.
Posted Jul 18, 2021 0:49 UTC (Sun)
by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325)
[Link] (2 responses)
If, say, we required that software copyright expire automatically as soon as the warranty expired, then either we'd get much better warranty terms out of it, or else the manufacturers would shrug and let it expire. Of course, I'm not sure where that would leave all those FOSS licenses with NO WARRANTY exclusions... Maybe we just have a default minimum of 2 years or so? Or limit it to locked-down hardware or something. I dunno, just spitballing here.
(If your software is developing at such a glacial pace that a 2-years-outdated fork is going to seriously compete with it, then I tend to wonder how placing it under copyleft was really doing all that much good in the first place.)
Posted Jul 18, 2021 0:54 UTC (Sun)
by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325)
[Link]
It's already 90% of the way to being useful. The other 10% has to do with DMCA provisions, EULAs, etc. If you abrogate those and require that 17 USC 117 is *always* in effect for *any* lawfully-obtained software under *any* circumstances, even if DRM-encumbered, then that provision would no longer be a dead letter.
Posted Jul 18, 2021 0:59 UTC (Sun)
by pabs (subscriber, #43278)
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Posted Jul 18, 2021 8:21 UTC (Sun)
by ldearquer (guest, #137451)
[Link] (8 responses)
So I agree freedoms 2 and 3 are one possible option, but my line of thought is, are they the only option?
For example, the world-wide fork could be distributed in the form of a patchset to apply on specific versions of the original work. See e.g. how game modders work, where everyone has their own copy of the game. If the game was released with full source code, they would do even better. The freedom to distribute copies of the original work would be convenient, comfortable, but not strictly required.
Posted Jul 18, 2021 8:25 UTC (Sun)
by pabs (subscriber, #43278)
[Link]
Posted Jul 18, 2021 9:50 UTC (Sun)
by smcv (subscriber, #53363)
[Link] (6 responses)
I suspect most game mods have to contain enough copied or modified from the original game that the copyright holder of the original game could shut them down as copyright-infringing, if they wanted to. In my experience, game modders usually rely on exemptions that don't actually exist either in law or in the game's EULA (for example "it's non-commercial, so it's fine"), and the game's copyright holder turns a blind eye to it because they recognise the value of mods in popularizing their games.
Perhaps copyright law should behave more like game modders think it does, and less like the overreaching reality, but that seems unlikely to happen while changes to it are primarily driven by the same few entertainment cartels.
Posted Jul 19, 2021 0:03 UTC (Mon)
by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325)
[Link] (5 responses)
This greatly depends on the game. Skyrim, for example, is explicitly designed to encourage modding, with an EULA that specifically permits it. In recent years, Bethesda has even been selling mods for real money (with the modder taking a cut).
> Perhaps copyright law should behave more like game modders think it does, and less like the overreaching reality, but that seems unlikely to happen while changes to it are primarily driven by the same few entertainment cartels.
And... that's where the analogy falls apart. In my experience, Skyrim modders are some of the most unreasonable people on the internet. Behaviors I have seen:
* Uploading a mod, free for anyone to download, and then characterizing mirrors of that mod as "piracy."
Technically, most of these things are (to some extent) supported by existing copyright law. But IMHO that's because copyright law is ridiculous, not because the modders are right. If you suffer no economic harm from someone's "infringement," then you should not have a claim against them, plain and simple. Or at most, you should have a claim to nominal damages and equitable enforcement of the license (i.e. an injunction), not statutory damages of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Posted Jul 19, 2021 2:08 UTC (Mon)
by pabs (subscriber, #43278)
[Link] (1 responses)
There is usually zero economic harm from GPL violations (at least easily demonstrable to the copyright holder), so I think I'm going to have to disagree with you here.
> Or at most, you should have a claim to nominal damages and equitable enforcement of the license (i.e. an injunction), not statutory damages of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
An injunction against GPL violations seems good but I don't think nominal damages are appropriate based on what I read on WikiPedia, instead it should be restitutionary/disgorgement damages (where they pay back their ill-gotten gains), or possibly punitive damages or both, or something like paying for consultancy to help them come back into GPL compliance, or paying legal costs for bringing a suit against whoever they received the violating software from.
Posted Jul 19, 2021 14:55 UTC (Mon)
by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325)
[Link]
OTOH, money damages are perfect for the proprietary software crowd because they become the profit that the company was trying to make in the first place.
Side note:
> WikiPedia
They stopped using CamelCase links in 2002. Why do people still write their name like this?
Posted Jul 19, 2021 16:50 UTC (Mon)
by rgmoore (✭ supporter ✭, #75)
[Link] (1 responses)
I strongly disagree. There should be a moral presumption against people taking others work, even if they aren't trying to exploit it commercially. As an example, I am an amateur photographer. I like to share my photographs with friends and family and sometimes the whole world, but I have never tried to sell my photos. That shouldn't mean that anyone who sees them should be able to use them however they like without asking my permission. If copyright law is limited to economic losses, it means amateurs like me have no right to prevent others from using our work in ways we don't approve of.
Posted Jul 19, 2021 20:48 UTC (Mon)
by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325)
[Link]
As it is described in the US Constitution, for example, copyright is a subsidy ("to promote the progress of science and the useful arts"). It has nothing to do with morality and is purely an economic scheme to incentivize people to create more stuff. This is why copyright originally had a relatively short term of 14 years with an optional 14 year extension. This is also why copyright explicitly does not protect ideas, concepts, etc. Countries other than the US have a separate scheme of "moral rights" which vest permanently in the author, cannot be sold, transferred, or renounced, and are more limited in scope than standard copyright (generally having to do with attribution, mutilation of the work, etc.). Perhaps the US should borrow this idea.
Corporate interests have, in recent years, found it more useful to characterize copyright as a form of property, giving us laws like the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998. Perhaps you agree with that characterization, but it is instructive to look at the consequences which it has wrought before you assume that your characterization is the only correct one.
Posted Jul 30, 2021 1:19 UTC (Fri)
by mrugiero (guest, #153040)
[Link]
Posted Aug 3, 2021 9:34 UTC (Tue)
by nim-nim (subscriber, #34454)
[Link]
All those depend on copyright law one way or another, without copyright anyone could remove the anti-features and share the result.
However, Android and the rise of cloud services showed that openness is not sufficient in itself. Unless you make sharing of changes mandatory a sufficiently rich actor can take over any mature open source codebase, by adding just enough closed changes other variants become uncompelling to work on.
Mandatory opening and sharing of changes is the only thing that enables Joe Nobody to work on a shared codebase at the same level as big corporations.
Corporate devs are not smarter or more motivated, corporations can just afford to out-spend individuals long enough for them to give up (in other economic domains that is called dumping).
GitHub is my copilot
GitHub is my copilot
GitHub is my copilot
GitHub is my copilot
The definition of "derivative work" is what it is. We can't change it now (except by legislation, but that's not happening).
I'm not entirely convinced about that: the precise definition of "derivative work" with respect to software in any given common law jurisdiction would need to be thrashed out in a number of court cases that (as far as I'm aware) haven't happened yet.
Not to say how much this will happen. Just there isn't a total vacuum.
GitHub is my copilot
GitHub is my copilot
GitHub is my copilot
GitHub is my copilot
GitHub is my copilot
GitHub is my copilot
GitHub is my copilot
GitHub is my copilot
GitHub is my copilot
GitHub is my copilot
GitHub is my copilot
* Characterizing attempts to fix or improve another mod as "piracy," even when the original mod is obviously broken. In one case, I believe a user threatened to contact law enforcement over this sort of thing.
* Requiring logins to download an otherwise free mod. Using this to try and prevent specific individuals from downloading specific mods (which are otherwise free for everyone).
* A modding tool that checks to see if you have installed certain applications which the author disapproves of. This check is not disclosed anywhere in the documentation, and the software refuses to run with a mysterious error message if it finds those applications.
* Characterizing direct downloads (where you don't look at their fancy web page first) as "piracy" or otherwise problematic.
* Removing mods for petty or ridiculous reasons.
* Insisting that people who are good at modding are always right, and anyone who disagrees with them, about anything, must be wrong.
* Miscellaneous internet toxicity.
GitHub is my copilot
GitHub is my copilot
GitHub is my copilot
If you suffer no economic harm from someone's "infringement," then you should not have a claim against them, plain and simple.
GitHub is my copilot
GitHub is my copilot
GitHub is my copilot