Submitted by Disagreements over what should be included in the free software license’s next version have pitted the movement’s leaders against each other. Say the letters G, P, and L in that order around most folks and you’re likely to be met with a blank stare. But try dropping them around the open-source crowd, especially in proximity to San Francisco this mid-August, and you’ll get a very different response: everything from fist-pumping to hand-wringing.
I agree with the author, the FSF is in danger of becoming irrelevent if they don’t agree to modify the more radical parts of the GPLv3 (patents & DRM).
Say what you like about them — and I wouldn’t necessarily disagree — but patents in particular are a foundation stone of modern business. Since Linux IS a business, and the business sector is where most development funding comes from, a GPL that doesn’t deal with patents would kill a lot of impetus in the Linux movement.
Either that, or the license would be forked.
Don’t you think patents are exactly what Linux or Open Source isn’t?
Edited 2006-08-21 09:42
Don’t you think patents are exactly what Linux or Open Source isn’t?
Who is deciding for you what a kernel and open source is about?
The people using and developing open source software and models. Maybe something like openPatents will be better, but I oppose the (software)patent system the way it is now.
//Don’t you think patents are exactly what Linux or Open Source isn’t? //
The problem is that some large software vendors seem to think that they can have a copyright and a patent applicable to code, and yet still keep the code a trade secret.
In actual fact, copyrights are supposed to apply to published work, to stop it being copied without permission … as in a printed book. Keeping the code secret and copyrighting it are really at odds with each other.
Similarly with patents. A patent is supposed to divulge exactly how a technology works. In repayment for researching and then divulging a new technology, a patent then grants a period of monopoly rights.
Trade secrets are supposed to be kept secret. In the spirit of IP law, you cannot keep something secret yet expect to get a set of publishers rights (copyrights) and also inventors rights (patents) on something while at the same time you have kept it a secret.
Somehow, software seems to be getting away with this. Software vendors in keeping code secret, copyrighting it and applying for and being awarded patents are taking each and every IP law right there is, and giving absolutely nothing in return.
Open Source is an attempt to give something to society to balance out the abrogation of societies rights that proprietary software vendors seem to have arranged for themselves.
Only in America could capatalism go this far off the rails IMO, and only in America could things like this be done in the name of “free market economy” while actually removing all free market competition from a market.
Irony of ironies here, it would seem. America has utterly lost the plot when it comes to IP law, IMO.
thing is, they copyright the finished binary, not the code. and they patent the idea(s) behind the code, not the actual code.
atleast thats my understanding of it.
thats why if something is patented one cant reimplement it as its very idea is patented, and no matter how you write the code, its still the same “idea”.
copyrighted binarys can be reimplemented tho. your basicly taking the base idea and making your own spin of it. perfectly legal as long as none of the design-details can be clearly shown as “borrowed” from the original program. its a fine line to walk, and one that the samba team among others have done and keep doing.
Trade secrets are supposed to be kept secret. In the spirit of IP law, you cannot keep something secret yet expect to get a set of publishers rights (copyrights) and also inventors rights (patents) on something while at the same time you have kept it a secret.
Correct. In order to get patent protection, you need to accept disclosure of the underlying intellectual property principles.
Somehow, software seems to be getting away with this. Software vendors in keeping code secret, copyrighting it and applying for and being awarded patents are taking each and every IP law right there is, and giving absolutely nothing in return.
Not true. They’re disclosing their invention as part of the patent application process.
Open Source is an attempt to give something to society to balance out the abrogation of societies rights that proprietary software vendors seem to have arranged for themselves.
There’s nothing wrong with trying to protect your own interests. The question, really, is how far you’re willing to go.
Trade secrets are supposed to be kept secret. In the spirit of IP law, you cannot keep something secret yet expect to get a set of publishers rights (copyrights) and also inventors rights (patents) on something while at the same time you have kept it a secret.
Correct. In order to get patent protection, you need to accept disclosure of the underlying intellectual property principles.
But the publishers are NOT releasing the information. How do you think SCO, for example, can get away with doing what they do? They file a patent on the “idea” of what software should do.. on such a technical and abstract level that the patent is worthless to learn from. The actual patented code’s not in there! Then they turn around and copyright the shiny disc with the program on it. Again, they inherit that ability from the record industry, that performing a song is a separate work to writing words & music, but the law, and careful court cases, ignore that you can’t actually reproduce the software work with only the “recording”. So no, they are not complying with the “spirit” of copyright law at all.
Somehow, software seems to be getting away with this. Software vendors in keeping code secret, copyrighting it and applying for and being awarded patents are taking each and every IP law right there is, and giving absolutely nothing in return.
Not true. They’re disclosing their invention as part of the patent application process.
Again, see above. We’ve all see Amazon’s “one click” patent that doesn’t contain any actual code or programs used, just a nebulous “idea” that anybody with half a brain could figure out. Again, in meatspace patents IMPLEMENTATION counts for everything. Look how many “mouse trap” patents there are.. now realize that software patents don’t tell you which one they are using, just “catching a mouse”. Much of the valued “innovation” of patents comes from not wanting to pay royalties as much as getting the patent. Lots of work goes into engineering around patent obstacles. With software patents it’s extremely difficult, if not impossible to avoid costly lawsuits.
Open Source is an attempt to give something to society to balance out the abrogation of societies rights that proprietary software vendors seem to have arranged for themselves.
There’s nothing wrong with trying to protect your own interests. The question, really, is how far you’re willing to go.
Open source exists because the monopolies are so entrenched that FREE is the only thing that can compete! OSS survives on the good will of companies and hobbiests. The problem with Patents, Copyright, etc is that it’s becoming a form of corporate feudalism, against everything the USA stands for. Worse is that the corps just don’t stop arguing the same thing until they get it.. look at the Broadcast flag, back again hidden in a telcom bill. Or look at how in the EU they keep brining up the software patent thing over and over. There’s no why for normal people to effect the system anymore. That’s very, very bad! Even the Govt seems to be getting on on the whole “EULA + DRM” feudalistic idea of govt service tied to non-negotiable rules that you have to give away rights not normally allowed for the govt to take to receive “compensation”.. which is sometimes compulsory, like the new driver license/national ID, or drug testing school kids.
“but patents in particular are a foundation stone of modern business”
That’s not true when it comes to software. In software, it is all about copyright. Patenting only harms the software market.
In software, it is all about copyright.
Perhaps I’m just too conservative but personally I feel that if I come up with a new method of doing something I should be able to patent it. Essentially this means that I can copyright my new idea. I don’t have to be a programmer to benefit from said idea. If I am not a programmer, how else can I profit from my intellectual invention (rather than physical code) in the long-run?
Certainly when this gets out of hand it can lead us to dark places, but the fundamental concept of a patent does not offend my sensibilities.
Edited 2006-08-21 12:31
//Certainly when this gets out of hand it can lead us to dark places, but the fundamental concept of a patent does not offend my sensibilities. //
You are supposed to publish what your idea is in the patent. If you do that, then the law grants you a period (twenty years I think it is) where you have exclusive rights to the idea … rights you may license for a fee to other parties.
In software, there seems to be in America this idea that you can have a software patent but you are somehow not obliged to reveal how it works (the code, in the case of a software patent). That is wrong.
You are supposed to reveal the patent. Then you get the benefit for twenty years, and then everyone gets to use it after that. If software patents were worked this way in America, then it might be half-way reasonable (although the standard twenty years is a very very long time indeed in the software industry). But it is not like this. There seems to be the practice that it is not necessary for the patent to reveal how the idea works. That is the evil bit.
Edited 2006-08-21 13:23
The patent system is not for people having great ideas to get money out of them. It is to open up inventions to the public, by granting the inventors license fees for some years for doing so.
The problem is, that the patent system is not practical for software in almost every case. This is just practical experience and it means that most patents only lead to people having to pay for things they have invented themselves (or that just can’t be done in a reasonable other way) – but someone else came first and patented it – or things that are trivial (the progress bar is patented!). It is kind of perverted, because most times only the patentholders really profit from it. The time a patent is protected is also way too long, software just evolves too fast.
A little example: The FAT filesystem is one of the worst known ones. Everyone who is into file systems knows that. But it is one Microsoft Windows understands. So USB sticks etc. use the FAT filesystem, so that Windows is able to mount them without additional software. Now Microsoft got a patent on his FAT filesystem and USB gadget manufacturers have to pay license fees to MS for the filesystem. A filesystem really everybody could have thought of himself! People don’t pay patent fees because they can profit from a great invention..
That’s the trouble, you’re right. And Stallman, and everyone else, I think, realizes it. Software patents are redundant.
We come back to that clause that enables patents, copyrights, and the rest of the family in the Constitution: Securing ownership for limited times to the benefit of science and the arts (rephrased). So, why would you ever have two methods of that?
It seems to me that software patents are really system design patents. Whether that were implemented in software or hand-hacked in gates in hardware would be irrelevant to a large number of patents (such as Microsoft’s button holding patent).
But if you go back to the origins of the FSF I think you’ll find patents aren’t all they hate: They didn’t like copyright when it first applied to software either.
I still think software patents are a bad idea. The term it would take to implement your idea is long enough to become the market leader and remake your investment, and patent terms are going to approach eternity in the software world. Copyright is already longer than eternity (2038-1970 < 2018-1923).
But I don’t think opposing patents with the GPL is the way to do it. Even if it works, it seems like the wrong channel. But maybe it’s necessary as a defensive move?
That’s not true when it comes to software. In software, it is all about copyright. Patenting only harms the software market.
When was the last time you were sued for writing a piece of software? Seriously. Ergo, you’re exaggerating wildly the “harm” done to the software market.
I’m not exaggerating anything! I only said there is harm.
There were many cases where patents seriously harmed the market, including Microsoft sued for trivial patents. Just read the news!
If Torvalds chooses not to go with version 3 for Linux, the Free Software Foundation will become even more irrelevant to the business world of open source. Of Torvalds, Peters notes, “He would move to it if he thought there was something beneficial in there, but I don’t think he’s seen it yet.”
Uhmm, Torvalds can re-license the code he wrote in the kernel, he can ask others to re-license their code, he could discard and re-write code for those kernel developers that are dead, can’t be found, or won’t change the license for their code…but he can’t just wholesale change the license of “Linux”.
Forget about it.
Why wars? Use a different license if you don’t like the GPL v3 – problem solved. At least when you can use a different license. Even on Linux not everything has to be licensed under the GPL.
>Use a different license if you don’t like the GPL v3 – problem solved.
Solved? Regardless of what licensing choice is made, one is beset with a chorus of feedback about how the choice is too liberal/conservative.
D. Richard Hipp’s approach in the SQLite project takes on a new sparkle of wisdom.
Why wars? Use a different license if you don’t like the GPL v3 – problem solved. At least when you can use a different license. Even on Linux not everything has to be licensed under the GPL.
The point is getting a license ‘everyone can agree to’ so that there’s less sprawl of licenses.
And clarifying unclear issues is usually not a bad thing.
People can’t even agree on text editors and shells, and software licensing is a far more wide-ranging issue.
There will NEVER be a single license which covers all cases. Someone will always disagree.
I do agree that clarifying unclear issues is important. If a license is ambiguous, it’s that much less effective.
Just my 2 cents but I’ve had enough of the whole circus.
Either these guys use some common sense and get together something that will allow Linux to prosper among users all over the world. Or they come up with some restrictive, politically-correct hocus-pocus that will forever limit Linux’s appeal to a small subset of its potential audience.
If the first then I can look forward to many more years of Linux heaven. If the latter, then like huge numbers of people I won’t be using Linux in a few years because it will refuse to do many of the things I expect an OS to be able to do. Ironic, considering all the stuff about choice and freedom that is bandied about.
I was hoping to see Richard Stallman firmly tied to one of the seats in “Snakes on a Plane”, but – sigh – I expect he was late getting to the airport or took the wrong plane anyway.
… and your post has something to do with GPLv3 because?
Because it fills up boards like this with the same blather from the same dweebs that has been rehearsed a thousand times already. There is nothing to learn, and no one goes any further. I guess it must be a slow news day out there, or else this topic would not have been put up together with its meretricious headline. Still, we can always count on the OS news legal issues fan club to mod down anything they don’t understand.
… Or, as I see it: Legal issues that may threaten to tear down the OSS movement or even slow the software and OS world into a scratching halt, throwing everybody into a huge patent war, are being modded down by poeple who have no interest in software what-so-ever or simply don’t care.
If you don’t understand why the discussion about GPLv3 (in this case) and software patents is so important or simply don’t care, you are fully entitled to ignore that article. -Nobody- is forcing you to read them, or post comments about them…
Come to think about, if this is indeed a slow news day, what are -you- (!!!) doing here?
Edited 2006-08-21 13:00
Lots of sensationalism, little content, and the ocassional falsehood thrown in (Firefox is tri-licensed under the GPL among other things, actually).
The writer would have done better if the article concentrated on working out what exactly HP or Torvalds object, rather than trying to compress it in a single off-hand quote.
Sounds just like Comical Ali
Linux is just a kernel, and therefore a small piece in an otherwise huge GNU/Linux system. Stallman contends just that, and isn’t too worried that Linux becomes GPLv3-d.
On the other hand, Eben Moglen seems to have confidence that Torvalds will make this change, which I doubt will happen, but it appears that everyone, including Torvalds has some sort of a mixed reaction.
I’ve read the GPLv3. I do not believe that the patent and DRM clauses/sections/statements/[legality] should be altered to fit the whims of businesses. Free Software, while still leaving room for business, was never in the best interest in the businesses because it was about respecting freedom and implementing politics, something businesses do not like.
Unless you’re a business whose planning to restrict and subjugate users in one way or another that would violate the license in some arbitrary fashion, I would not be worried about the changes in GPLv3. In case you haven’t noticed, their definition of Free Software has not changed. The license still permits you, as the consumer of the said software to run, copy, modify, and redistribute the software under the same definition of Free Software as was initially intended.
I assert that the GPLv3 is one of the most American, democratic things you can do to the world of Free Software. The American way was initially about freedom of speech, choice and individual opinion, but it seems that our government, politics (both in software and in many other factors in life and business) are being steadily impeded upon.
If businesses are afraid of the said politics — let it be. We don’t deserve DRM and software patents infringing on the rights of the users and developers who came to this world to be free.
I’ve read the GPLv3. I do not believe that the patent and DRM clauses/sections/statements/[legality] should be altered to fit the whims of businesses. Free Software, while still leaving room for business, was never in the best interest in the businesses because it was about respecting freedom and implementing politics, something businesses do not like.
Unless you’re a business whose planning to restrict and subjugate users in one way or another that would violate the license in some arbitrary fashion, I would not be worried about the changes in GPLv3. In case you haven’t noticed, their definition of Free Software has not changed. The license still permits you, as the consumer of the said software to run, copy, modify, and redistribute the software under the same definition of Free Software as was initially intended.
I assert that the GPLv3 is one of the most American, democratic things you can do to the world of Free Software. The American way was initially about freedom of speech, choice and individual opinion, but it seems that our government, politics (both in software and in many other factors in life and business) are being steadily impeded upon.
First of all, once again, GPLv3 has nothing to do with conventional DRM. Nothing in v3 would prevent vendors from implementing DRM as a method of content control. If that’s your concern, you’ll have to continue to vote with your feet rather than letting others make decisions on licensing for you.
The issue is to whether or not it is appropriate for a software license to dictate terms to hardware manufacturers for the privilege of running and supporting “free” software.
Many like to wrap themselves in a flag and cry freedom whenever Stallman farts in public. That’s fine. Others are a little more rational about it. You don’t have to embrace patents, closed architectures or capitalism to accept that they exist and find a way to co-exist with them.
The GPL became the de facto OSS license not because of the freedom it brought users, but because of the fact that it inadvertently created a mechanism that encouraged collaboration from both commercial interests and the community. Which is why Linus chose it in the first place. Linux has become a multi-billion dollar business, no other OSS project can make that claim. And more importantly it has done so without extracting sacrifice from the community that helped it prosper. Individual users have access to run and modify the very same software that enterprises pay thousands upon thousands of dollars in contract fees to deploy and support.
And apparently that’s not good enough because of Tivo, we now need to interfere with something that works adequately in the name of zealotry. We need to break something that is working in order to teach big bad corporations a lesson.
Linux, despite it’s community roots, is driven by commercial interests. It would never have reached it’s current position without that support. It has somehow achieved a balance that works better than I think anyone anticipated. It validates the power of the GPL and an OSS development model. It is far from perfect, but it’s success justifies accepting it’s deficiencies rather than throwing it away.
Unfortunately it doesn’t necessarily validate the FSF model of absolute, unequivocal freedom and so Stallman is attempting to hijack Linux’s success as a platform for furthering political idealism.
The best thing that could happen is the rejection of v3 by the kernel team thereby scaring off all the free software zealots and allowing everybody else to stick with the program and keep linux advancing, free from political interference and still able to embrace commercial support, development and investment in the same quid pro quo manner it has always been. The majority seems happy enough with the status quo, so who exactly is asking for change?
The issue is to whether or not it is appropriate for a software license to dictate terms to hardware manufacturers for the privilege of running and supporting “free” software.
Of course it is appropriate, or at least this is what the GPL (all of its incarnations) has always done. You can’t legally interface hardware with non-closed modules to GPL-ed software and distribute the result. That is why there are no closed drivers in the kernel. That is why NVIDIA is asking its customers to create non-redistributable kernels by implanting non-gpl-ed code in it. The only way to make a legally distributable hardware and software combo is to comply with the GPL. So GPLv2 imposes restrictions on hardware vendors.
Unfortunately it doesn’t necessarily validate the FSF model of absolute, unequivocal freedom and so Stallman is attempting to hijack Linux’s success as a platform for furthering political idealism.
You seem to forget there would be no Linux if it weren’t for GNU. Linus could take a complete GNU OS environment to write his kernel against. That OS environment written by the GNU project is directly linked to the FSF. So who hijacked who?
Don’t forget that when the GPLv3 goes gold, the whole GNU software repository is instantly licensed under both the GPLv2 and GPLv3 and moving onward from there the patches will probably become GPLv3 only. So with time passing, the current GNU GPLv2 toolchain will become increasingly more entangled with GPLv3 code, making it practically impossible to use it under the GPLv2.
I wonder what Linus’ contingency plan is. Massive forking to keep the current GNU toolchain GPLv2 clean or just accept that locking GPLv3 code with a DRM padlock is impossible. I guess it will be the latter.
Commercial interests, besides the small subset of entertaiment businesses, don’t care about electronic padlocks. They don’t use computers to listen to the latest rubbish from commercial “pop stars” or the latest flick from Hollywood. Then again, Hollywood is free to write closed software to support their flicks on GNU/Linux, with DRM and all. The Record Industry has the same freedom. They just can’t take an easy ride and piggy back on software licensed under the GPLv3.
Who is asking for change? Everybody who wants to use his/her computer free from third party interests seeking to impose restrictions on usage. It’s better to accept some self-restriction than to lose that control wholesale to an ourside party.
In other words, I’d rather forego the latest whizbang, must-have Joe Average fad myself, than have you decide what I can do with my property. The GPLv3 provisions for that.
Of course it is appropriate, or at least this is what the GPL (all of its incarnations) has always done. You can’t legally interface hardware with non-closed modules to GPL-ed software and distribute the result. That is why there are no closed drivers in the kernel. That is why NVIDIA is asking its customers to create non-redistributable kernels by implanting non-gpl-ed code in it. The only way to make a legally distributable hardware and software combo is to comply with the GPL. So GPLv2 imposes restrictions on hardware vendors.
This argument gets tired, until a court of law in some jurisdiction hands down a ruling with regards to GPL and derived works, specifically in nvidia’s case since it has been hilighted by many people, including devs, as being compliant, it’s a gray issue.
And the other important difference is that the current status quo leaves the choice to the user to use proprietary hardware or not. v3 is attempting to take that choice away by making it for them.
You seem to forget there would be no Linux if it weren’t for GNU. Linus could take a complete GNU OS environment to write his kernel against. That OS environment written by the GNU project is directly linked to the FSF. So who hijacked who?
Don’t forget that when the GPLv3 goes gold, the whole GNU software repository is instantly licensed under both the GPLv2 and GPLv3 and moving onward from there the patches will probably become GPLv3 only. So with time passing, the current GNU GPLv2 toolchain will become increasingly more entangled with GPLv3 code, making it practically impossible to use it under the GPLv2.
I wonder what Linus’ contingency plan is. Massive forking to keep the current GNU toolchain GPLv2 clean or just accept that locking GPLv3 code with a DRM padlock is impossible. I guess it will be the latter.
The issue isn’t the toolchain, it’s the kernel. Even the FSF agrees that userspace apps aren’t under the jursidiction of the kernel GPL. v3 GPL apps, closed apps, BSD apps, any number of apps can run under a v2 kernel.
Commercial interests, besides the small subset of entertaiment businesses, don’t care about electronic padlocks. They don’t use computers to listen to the latest rubbish from commercial “pop stars” or the latest flick from Hollywood. Then again, Hollywood is free to write closed software to support their flicks on GNU/Linux, with DRM and all. The Record Industry has the same freedom. They just can’t take an easy ride and piggy back on software licensed under the GPLv3.
What does DRM’d media content have to do with v3? The issue is restricting the software that can run on closed platforms, not what that software can do.
Who is asking for change? Everybody who wants to use his/her computer free from third party interests seeking to impose restrictions on usage. It’s better to accept some self-restriction than to lose that control wholesale to an ourside party.
And how are you losing that? In your day to day use, how is v2 restricting you in some way that v3 solves? The implication here is for hardware vendors attempting to use linux in an embedded manner. Tivo uses linux on their box, posts back any modifications to the source in compliance with the GPL that people are free to study and apply to other potential media-oriented projects, but uses a digital key to prevent people from modifying the kernel and running their own software on the platform.
The fact that Tivo’s whole business model is driven on service subscriptions that could be easily bypassed if users can modify the kernel and remove locks on the guide information is moot. The freedom for people to install Doom on their hardware-subsidized Tivos seems to weigh more heavily that the right for a company to derive a revenue stream that provides a service customers are freely able to choose while potentially benefiting the community by feeding modifications back that may be used in other applications.
So in the end, Tivo is forced to use a BSD solution and the linux commmunity winds up with squat, not even the potential for return.
This has nothing to do with protecting your freedoms, nothing changes for you in day-to-day use, it’s about pissing on the commercial interests that are creative enough to build legal business models within the confines of the GPL. It doesn’t advance anything and sends a message that OSS isn’t open for business after all.
In other words, I’d rather forego the latest whizbang, must-have Joe Average fad myself, than have you decide what I can do with my property. The GPLv3 provisions for that.
No, common sense and education provisions for that, nobody forces you to purchase anything. Hardware vendors will not embrace freedom because of v3, they’ll simply ignore the market. You’re advocating the restriction of choice in the name of freedom. Personally I’d prefer choice and the ability to choose what works best for *me*, not for someone else’s agenda.
Linus contigency plan is to refuse to accept contributions licensed under GPLv3. And that it is.
The only preventing a binary kernel module to be redistributable is the GPL, and while I do not have a problem with that as such, please do not make it seem that it is somehow some grand plan for world domination by Nvidia. Nvidia wants to sell as much hardware as possible, and you can be sure that if GPL’ing their drivers was the way to make them do that, they would do it in a heartbeat. And it is perfectly legal to install the Nvidia driver on your Linux machine.
You have a choice not to use Linux, or Nvidia’s software or hardware, or indeed any non GPLv3 software, and you can use that choice. Everything is compromise. If you can’t deal with compromise, then you can’t deal with real life.
DRM and software patents are 2 different things. I tend to agree that software patents are a bad thing, but DRM’s main use today is the protection of copyrighted music and video. If you are an artist, you have the right to control the distribution of your work any way you see fit, and DRM is the only way to do that in today’s technological society.
It is better to work with content producers to build better, more free DRM systems, that work fairly and can be trusted. DRM is not evil in itself, but it can be used as such. Banning DRM in the GPL leaves users of free systems out in the cold when it comes to new content formats (HD-DVD, Blue-ray), and forces them to either not buy new technology, lowering the adoption rate and slowing down innovation (you can pile the scorn on, but it’s true, iTunes, for example, would not have existed without DRM), or force them to go to OSX or Windows.
Lets not cut off our noses to spite our face, ok?
Come on guys, that’s an article from BusinessWeek…
What do they know about it? Doesn’t an title like “Open Warfare in Open Source” already tells you that they don’t know shit from chocolate?
Just getting voted down because some people don’t agree with me isn’t the idea behind the voting system…
Well, that is certainly one perfectly valid way of looking at. Now, on the off chance you would like the thrill of understanding the other position, I ask you to ask yourself, “Would I really want to live in a society where I also get locked out of everyone else’s new idea (regardless of whether I could or did came up with it independently)?”
The key here is the question is, “Would I want to live in such a society?” It is not, “Is such a society fair?” The later is, unfortunately, most likely what most people think of when examining this issue. It is largely a practical issue of equal accessibility, fair evaluations, and so on (which, arguably, the current system does have serious problems around). The former gets to the heart of the greater issue: individualism versus collectivism.
You see, as being part of a modern society, we are all inevitably quite individualistic (that is, we have a strong sense of self, and things belonging to that self). While this is good in that it has greatly advanced society by immensely increasing the speed at which societal change can occur (specifically the breaking of societal barriers that would otherwise hinder everyone from being the most they can be, and therefore, in turn, contribute the most they can back to society), it is also fundamentally flawed.
The truth is, we are a herd species. We live and die by the collective. We are nothing without each other and our collective knowledge of countless generations of forefathers and mothers (such as even simple things about what mushrooms are safe to eat). Not one of us, in all our individualistic glory, would survive a month if dropped naked and alone into the middle of the jungle. We got where we are, and will get where we are going, by collectively working together, and the more efficiently we do that, the more there will be for all of us to enjoy.
Efficiencies are the key. Adam Smith figured everyone working for themselves would naturally produce the most effective system. In his pioneering work on zero sum games, John Nash proved quite the opposite can be true. Now, reflect on the patent system and its immense legal proceedings (and corresponding use of vast amounts of collective human potential). Read the recent reports of the shrinking research departments and the ballooning legal departments in the successful drug companies. Learn that as even far back as 1917, the government had to step in and force the airplane manufacturing industry to pools its patents in order to break the deadlocks, or even how the light-bulb industry stagnated for many years around Edison’s patent.
Don’t just nod at the theory of patents and say that makes sense. Examine the reality of patents. Check the follow up studies. Is the theory holding up? Is, as the theory promises, society as a whole better off for them? Then stand back and ask yourself, “Do we, as a society, really want to have idea patents?”
OH NOOOoooo GPLv3 isn’t going to take over the world. Whatever will we do. I know, we will change it so everyone is happy and then it can take over the world…
Oh wait, the gpl was written by the FSF who specifically want to define and protect certain software freedoms. They feel that v3 is a continuation of those efforts and have specifically stated how they are just that. So if you don’t like it….pretend like it doesn’t exist.
I don’t care if my OS takes over the world. I don’t even care if it is popular as long as I am happy with it. One thing that makes me happy is the freedoms so I for one will be happy to see v3 and only hope we soon have a os licensed under v3.
Sounds like torvalds should of went with the BSD license if thinks closing/hiding of code is a good thing. How popular do you think his project would be then?
Torvalds going BSDL in 1991 would have meant the end of Linux (as it is “just” a kernel). IBM, HP, SGI, et al would never have poured in resources, as their IP would have become up-for-grabs by competitors.
The only reason big industry became interested, is because of the iron clad FSF license, the GPL. The GPL is an ultimate IP protector.
The rest of “Linux” is actually all outside projects and nothing to do with Torvalds. The biggest parts are GNU, Xorg, Gnome/KDE, Apache, OpenOffice.org and none is under control of Torvalds.
Sounds like torvalds should of went with the BSD license if thinks closing/hiding of code is a good thing. How popular do you think his project would be then?
How popular would linux be if the commercial interests were told before they contributed billions in development that their ability to one day see a revenue stream was to become handicapped?
Linus chose the GPL v2 because it facilitated collaboration and openness without the handicaps of political ideologies that would have scared off commercial contribution. v3 attempts to reinforce those ideologies.
If you’re a big supporter of v3 and want a v3-only OS, better start working on your coding skills because you guys won’t have the commercial interests underwriting your pet projects any more.
The FSF and Linus have often been at odds. The fact that there is one (just one!) new license, which happens to be supported by the FSF, changes nothing.
DRM will (hopefully) sink under its own weight. The GPLv3 is just an attempt to put another nail in its coffin.
DRM will (hopefully) sink under its own weight. The GPLv3 is just an attempt to put another nail in its coffin.
Wishful thinking, I’m afraid. If anything, DRM is going to become even more pervasive (and pernicious).
So, RMS wants to make sure no corporate can use patents and DRM against open source,sweet.
Edited 2006-08-21 17:37
So, RMS wants to make sure no corporate can use patents and DRM against open source,sweet.
So, in other words, companies that were previously inclined to license their work under GPL 1.x/2.x — with patent protections — will not be inclined to do so under GPL 3.x. So who wins? Answer: Nobody.
This is a battle of control. This happens every time you bring the Law into it. The law isn’t made to resolve issues anymore (if it ever was). It’s self-regulated and self-administered. Meaning it’s a business for and by lawyers where they can do anything. Even in a scenario like this, OSS and FS, where people want to give more flexibility to programmers, it ends up in conflict because of the Law. So any new ideas just ends up self-destructing because that is what the Law is good at. Patents anyone? At least everyone’s on the same side on that one, except the lawyers and large corporations. Strange, no?
…If the corporates decide they do not like the GPLv3, they can just fork the whole GNU thing (well within their right according to GPLv2) and well, life will go on. The FSF’s biggest mistake is that they believe they have control, but the GPL does not give you control. It is the code that is free, not the users or the writers of the code.