After Kororaa announced its GPL problems and me writing a column about it, the people behind Kororaa have now posted an in-depth follow-up: “I have been receiving lots of information which I have been sorting through, thank you to everyone who has emailed me (although I would have also thanked you personally via email). I contacted both ATI and nVidia for some clarification on particular issues, however neither have answered my questions. Nevertheless, this is what I have found so far.”
… And thanks to a few raging lunatics in the F/OSS camp, the Kororaa author will no longer be releasing Kororaa 0.3.
Productivity and propagation at their finest! Whoever started this ought to be proud.
IF , REALLY BIG EMPHASIS ON THE *IF* , he break the law and dont respect the license , then he as to modify is code and software to be in compliance , where not thief , traitor , liar we whant Legal system that respect the law in GNU/Linux.
He can release Kororaa 0.3 , he as not received any court judgement blocking him from doing so , its is own decision , dont blame is decision on anyone else.
You seem to sugest that Kororaa is the only GNU/Linux project in existence , its one project , with very little users , IF ( AGAIN BIG EMPHASIS on the *IF* ) the accuser turn out to be right he as everything to be proud of , he as corrected a problem , yes breaking the law is a real problem for people who mather.
Leave it to Tom K to turn this into an attack on F/OSS…
The author of the Kororaa LiveCD basically says that it seems to much of a bother to make sure he can legally release version 0.3 of the LiveCD…He’ll still continue working on the actual distribution.
Personally, I think he should have continued working on it, however I can understand that he didn’t want to risk violating copyright law. That said, it seems pretty clear in his article that a) the NVIDIA/ATI drivers are NOT derivative works (the modules are, and are open-source, but not the drivers), and b) that mere aggregation of driver and kernel on the same disk do not represent a violation of the GPL.
Now, he prefers being safe than sorry, and I do understand that. However, I think Novell should come out with a Live SuSE CD that features Xgl and the NVIDIA/ATI drivers, if only to settle this issue once and for all.
I’ll agree with you that the particular kernel dev who opened up this can of worm should spend more time improving the kernel, and less time speculating about whether or not a LiveCD violates the GPL (when all appearances point to the contrary)…
By “a few raging lunatics” I’m assuming you mean the people who released Linux under the GPL. That is, Linus and the rest of the kernel developers.
Yeah, damn them for creating an open-source kernel. Damn them for letting anyone use their work freely, but not allowing it to be distributed together with proprietary modules. Who are they to decide how their own work should be licensed?
One thing I can’t understand is why Kororaa was picked on, when other distros e.g. PCLinuxOS, Mandriva etc ship with nvidia drivers. It seems a little bit unfair and its sad that they will stop working on the live cd if this issue is not sorted out.
GPL violation is not picking on anyone , its enforcing the license in use by the software , *IF* ( emphasis on the IF ) the distributor as broken the license.
“PCLinuxOS, Mandriva etc ship with nvidia drivers.”
Yes , but thats not a GPL violation , he must be doing something different then PCLinuxOS and Mandriva , with the driver. I personnaly dont know the details , but I think it as to do with making the NVDIA and ATI driver module inside the kernel directly , again only guessing here , because frankly so far , he is the only one making any noise about it and is details are always incomplete.
“It seems a little bit unfair”
IF he break the license its is action that are unfair.
Yes , but thats not a GPL violation , he must be doing something different then PCLinuxOS and Mandriva , with the driver. I personnaly dont know the details,
But if a kernel developer says he is doing something bad then he certainly must be. No-one may doubt anything the kernel developers say ’cause the kernel is released under the almighty GPL. And despite that Chris quite convincingly proves that very likely he isn’t doing anything illegal or in violation of the GPL, when the kernel developers say he is bad, then he IS BAD. Right?
“But if a kernel developer says he is doing something bad then he certainly must be.”
No , Kernel developper are software programmer and not lawyer or judge and certainly not from the FSF. They can be wrong on License and legal issue ( just look at LT the champion of all Legal mistakes ), He as to verify the authenticity of the accusation first , he seem to be running to the people who have zero knowledge and jurisdiction over it and get advice over email over the net.
“No-one may doubt anything the kernel developers say ’cause the kernel is released under the almighty GPL.”
Please keep your bulshit to yourself , kernel developper are human , they tend to make just as much mistake if not more then anyone else. Its a case by case situation.
“And despite that … of the GPL”
Chris dont prove anything beside that he can run around like a chicken with no head , He is accused of GPL violation ( by who ? nobody is even fully certain its really the case ) , the first thing he should do is consult with the FSF to see if its true , if it is ask how he can be made to comply with it. No one else seem to be running in GPL violation beside him.
“when the kernel developers say he is bad, then he IS BAD. Right?”
Can you make a more stupid logical comment ? I dare you , I am sure you can.
Stupid logical comments are there to demonstrate the cretinism of people’s attitudes when it comes to GPL or the open source philosophy. Just like in this case: The author of Kororaa is acting quite sensibly and trying to make sense of the accusations (which seem to be not valid anyway) but then there come the gazillions of zealots who cry “foul” immediately without focusing on the matter at hand. This very much resembles the ideology of totalitarian states and the mentality that you are guilty unless proven otherwise. And that because the unmentioned kernel developer does not understand his/her rights within the “almighty” GPL.
Just like now: strictly speaking it is unclear if there is a violation of the GPL (though evidently there aint) but every goddamn zealot around starts bashing at the “evil bastard who doesnt’t obey the almighty GPL”. BUT,the effect that it causes is that one enthusiastic chap is not certain whether or not to continue releasing liveCDs which showcase the latest developments at a new and potentially groundbreaking technology. And for what? That some idiot’s evangelist ego gets in the way?
THAT is what I am disgusted at.
THAT is what caused me spitting out right now and
THAT is why i tend to be disgusted at the GPL and Open source evangelists – they have lost it(their sanity that is).
I can repeat it, if necessary:
THAT is what I am disgusted at.
THAT is what caused me spitting out right now and
THAT is why i tend to be disgusted at the GPL and Open source evangelists – they have lost it(their sanity that is).
Your comment is illogical , your clearly demonstrating at what lenght Liar , coward , thief and traitor such as yourself are willing to go in order to bash and try to discredit the GPL.
The GPL and Open Source user are not responsible for the decision the Kororaa developper finally made. The GPL defender are not stopping the distribution or the progress they are there to enforce and protect the validity and legality of the GPL , WHEN someone break the GPL they are told , they are told how to fix it , they are told that this is a warning and that if they do not correct there ILLEGAL action , they will have to face the courts of law and be punished for there illegal actions under the GPL license.
You can do all the name calling you whant , you can charactherize the GPL , FSF and Open Source enforcer all you whant , at the end of the day they show up , pay the lawyers and completely destroy the arguments of those who dont comply after having been warned. Because the Judge as no choice , the GPL is one of the most clear legal license in existence , there is NO grey area on that mather, all those who say otherwise are liars who have never shown up there ass in court.
What the Kororaa developper seem to be trying to do is appeal to the court of public opinion and try to gather public support , wich he will get from the Thief , coward , liar and traitor such as yourself , there only problem is that it dont mather in a court of law. He even push the nonsense to ask ATI and Nvidia about the GPL and if he break anything with there software when he is accused of breaking the GPL , please show me the relation with them , they dont even use it at all , they dont support it , they had nothing to do with its creation.
You can be disgusted , you can spit all you whant , you can dislike and lie abou the GPL , and real Open Source
advocate , the problem is that when it mathers they show up with money ( Millions if not billions ) , Companies ( IBM , Red Hat , Mandriva , Novell , etc … ) , lawyers and doctor of law( Moglen , etc … ) , Advocate ( Perens , ESR , RMS , LT ) , support GNU/Linux users. And they enforce the law and the licence. Thats why your insane !
Thats why the GPL win , its truthfull , its real freedom its equality for all , its legall and enforced in court , its protected and it come up with its own set of defender and the army of GNU/Linux user who care and stand behind it.
Care to repeat your lies in court ? Just as I tought your a lying coward ! Care to provide fund to defend your position ? Just as I tought you send others to do your battle and dont provide them any support !
Thats why GNU/Linux win. Actions and support speak louder then meaningless words and empty promise.
Have a nice day.
P.S : Please make me happy , engagne the GPL in court. Its always nice when they get to make money off of parasite such as yourself.
It is not a matter of ego.
The GPL is not almighty.
Closed source drivers are mines which will explode in the future, when all you can find is old, outdated, unmaintained, badly written drivers that kind of did their job in their time. If we let them in the Linux kernel, it will turn into a minefield.
The kernel is shared under the GPL license because the copyright owners want all of its development to be shared in exactly the same way, so that all parts are shared and free and can be updated and improved with the rest of the system. Opportunistically sidestepping this filosophy to gain economic advantage as nVidia and ATI do should not be allowed, even though it is convenient for many.
If you want to enjoy great closed-source drivers, then use Windows XP; you probably already own a license, and it works pretty well. But Linux exists because of its approach to free code; if you skip that approach for the sake of convenience, the reasons for using and developing it will become weaker, and it will soon stop existing.
You don’t get sarcasm, do you?
“Yes , but thats not a GPL violation , he must be doing something different then PCLinuxOS and Mandriva , with the driver. “
Actually he is doing something different. He is sending it out already compiled to run with the kernel. The other distros all send the Nvidia package, but it is not compiled against the kernel until installation, making it a different story on it. What is in question is not that he is shipping the modules, but rather they are already compiled to work.
Then clearly , he is shipping proprietary software linked and *inside* GPL one.
Actually I think he’s not doing anything substantively different from what Mandriva and PCLinuxOS and others do (exluding Ubuntu which makes the nvidia driver a download).
Maybe Mandriva gets away with it by putting it on a different disc; they do ship on 5 discs I believe. Or this could just be the first project whomever decided to pick on because he believes it’s a serious problem and needs to be addressed immediately.
Right now though people who are freaking out are freaking out over:
1.) One guy sending an e-mail.
2.) Another posting said e-mail and asking for thoughts.
3.) Thoughtful responses, combined with psychotic ravings occasionally, from the community.
To be upset about the way this is proceeding is a bit ridiculous.
It’s my strongly held theory though that they aren’t really angry about this situation. But they are in fact angry, for some other reasons, about the existance and popularity of the GPL and are using this to promote their spite for said license.
What I don’t understand is people want us the uphold the law and ignore the purpose for which the law was written/implemented. Now it would make sense to most people that proprietary hardware would require proprietary driver for it to work properly, preferably by the same hardware company. Now if that company chooses to not open source their driver that upto the company as long they make drivers, why do we want to force corporates to follow our ideals. Any law for that matter is not more important than the purpose it serves be it GPL or BSD licensing or any law in general. What has happened here with Kororaa is very sad, the law is serving against the purpose it was designed for atleast in this case.
Just Ridiculous, I say. Counter-productivity at its finest.
Thank you crazy GPL-zealots. You are the reason why I’ll never release anything under this license.
Edited 2006-05-22 18:51
Yeah, sure NDA and other stuff of proprietary software never lead Counter-productivity.
“Ouch, i’ve got a BIG problem and i can’t ask my friend the genius because i’ve signed a NDA, support does not answer to phone, i’ll loose my whole week on that” what a pity poor guy.
Because people want to protect those who’ve licensed their works under it is the reason you wish to never use it?
I’m all for a perfect world with no legal overhead or any of that sort of thing; but I’m also not a complete idiot and I know some form of legal jargon is going to end up existing because there are people who will take advantage of a community that’s not watching its rights.
It might be interesting to know what software have you ever released under any license at all.
I’m all for open licensing and the GPL, but this whole thing seems more than a bit ridiculous to me. It really is too bad.
The NVidia drivers are quite portable and it’s a bit of a stretch to say that they are derrived from Linux.
Here’s what an NVidia developer had to say about how much the linux drivers are different from the BSD ones:
There are exactly 3 source files which need to be ported from linux to freebsd, then after that, it should be fairly simple to get all of our drivers running on FreeBSD.
http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/getmsg.cgi?fetch=171177+175462+/usr/loca…
And my guess would be that these files are from the opensource module.
Long time ago there was an effort to run the binary linux drivers on FreeBSD and I think they got the 2D part running and were close to running the 3D…
I think the problem with Kororaa was that the included drivers were staticaly linked into the kernel?
The Nvidia drivers have always been developed on Windows and then ported to the other OSes. An easy way to verify this is to notice that the Windows releases are always a few rev numbers in front of the other OSes.
My Nvidia kernel module is 4.53MB. That is larger than my kernel. Nvidia has placed their entire OpenGL stack inside of the driver.
On Linux they provide a user space library to translate X.org calls into calls into their module.
They are forced to make some mods on Linux to interact with things like the AGP subsystem. The code for this is in the open source portion of the driver. If you unzip their download the code is in there.
jonsmirl , sorry if your not the right individual.
Are you planning on making another state of the linux graphic , that whas a really great piece of information ?
http://jonsmirl.googlepages.com/graphics.html
jonsmirl , sorry if your not the right individual.
Are you planning on making another state of the linux graphic , that whas a really great piece of information ?
http://jonsmirl.googlepages.com/graphics.html
Nothing is in the works. If you are reading that article remember that it is a year old. It was written before AIGLX existed and XGL was just an unstable demo.
“Nothing is in the works”
Thats really sad , its the best piece I have ever read on the subject. Complete , informative , very well structured and researched. I really wish people would do as good a job all the time. You have my thanks for the former version and hopefully you will make a new one 😉
Thinking about the issue objectively, Kororaa has raised some pretty interesting debates in the community. These are issues that have been raised before, but since they’ve never been resolved, bringing them back into the limelight is a good thing.
An added bonus is that this is a “real world” scenario: there’s no need to conjecture on how the vague wording of the GPL, when applied to linking against the Linux kernal, “might” or “might not” affect an actual software product.
So, that’s an upside, right?
now, what would happen if a bored teen would start sending mails to GPL-projects leaders saying
“you code is tainted..one of your developer has pasted code from [insert proprietary company] in you 10 millions line of code project”
or
“by distributing this driver, you are violating the GPL”
man….FUD is horrible….
is that no one knows if it’s a violation.
There’s a lot of emotional response, but very little *legal* opinion about it– Although I’m certain that NVidia and ATI have already had this conversation with THEIR attorneys, or they wouldn’t have shipped the drivers period.
It sounds like, based on the description(s) given, that there’s not an actual GPL violation going on, just some FSF advocates bent out of shape.
If they want to bother sending a C&D to the Koroaa folks (and are willing to deal with the international issues), then let them. At that point Kororaa can decide if it’s worth fighting, or to just shutdown.
As a number of other people have pointed out, there are other distros that have been far worse about bundling, but are large enough they could fight back. This makes the whole situation even sadder.
Personally, I think the developer in question needs to either stand up and announce themselves, or apologize. If they’re not speaking for the kernel team, then they’re abusing their “authority”. Doing this in such a clandestine manner does nothing to help OSS, the FSF, or linux.
It *does* however, give a boost to Microsoft’s FUD machine.
There’s a lot of emotional response, but very little *legal* opinion about it– Although I’m certain that NVidia and ATI have already had this conversation with THEIR attorneys, or they wouldn’t have shipped the drivers period.
The proprietary drivers aren’t really the issue here. There’s no doubt that Kororaa has permission to distribute them. The question is whether Linux’ license (ie the GPL) permits distribution the way Kororaa is doing it.
AFAIK neither Nvidia nor ATI distributes Linux, so the GPL (in the context of it being the license for Linux) is irrelevant for them. The GPL only puts restrictions on distribution of the GPLd work itself. It doesn’t (and can’t) affect distribution of other works.
For example, it would be perfectly legal to create and distribute a Linux driver with a license that explicitly forbids using the driver with Linux. It would be pretty silly to do so, but perfectly legal. The only problem is that if someone decides to actually use that driver with Linux — that would be illegal. So basically, Nvidia and ATI are letting distributors and users take any consequences of distributing and/or using their proprietary drivers with a GPLd kernel.
Anyway, it does seem like the Kororaa guy simply was unaware of the legal issues with what he was doing. I think that whoever complained about it could have been a bit more polite and assume that there were no ill intentions.
AFAIK neither Nvidia nor ATI distributes Linux, so the GPL (in the context of it being the license for Linux) is irrelevant for them.
Yes, but only if these drivers also don’t “contain parts of Linux”, which turns out to be a legally tough thing to define
.
I think that whoever complained about it could have been a bit more polite and assume that there were no ill intentions.
I don’t think the original email was all that impolite, really.
Distribute the CD in an unlinked state. Add a question when you run it asking if you want non-GPL code inserted into the kernel, This process side steps the GPL. The GPL only prevents distribution of the linked code. In this case the linked code only exists in RAM and is not distributed. No distribution and the GPL does not apply.
This is a known hole in the GPLv2 that they are trying to close in GPLv3.
Just wondering why Kororaa can’t ask for an exclusion from the copyright holders (regardless of whether it is a violation or not).
Of course you’d probably have to figure out who the copyright holders are. This might be impossible (too many programmers/contributors scattered everywhere without up-to-date contact information), which makes me wonder if the copyright holders are organised well enough to take legal action in any case (even for blatant/deliberate violations without grey areas).
Of course you’d probably have to figure out who the copyright holders are. This might be impossible (too many programmers/contributors scattered everywhere without up-to-date contact information), which makes me wonder if the copyright holders are organized well enough to take legal action in any case (even for blatant/deliberate violations without gray areas).
The complete list of kernel contributors is unknown and some of them are dead. This makes it impossible to get permission to relicense things. I’m still waiting to see how Linus gets around that problem when considering the GPLv3.
The complete list of kernel contributors is unknown and some of them are dead. This makes it impossible to get permission to relicense things. I’m still waiting to see how Linus gets around that problem when considering the GPLv3.
If I took the source code for Linux, removed all of the copyrights and inserted my own commercial/proprietory copyright, then used search&replace to change every occurance of the word “Linux” to “Foo”, and then started selling it as “Foo, the greatest OS on earth” (for $100 per copy) with large international advertising campaigns, would anyone be able to stop me?
It seems to me that if the copyright holders aren’t organised enough to prevent this then Linux effectively has no enforcable copyright, and the only thing stopping GPL violations is “bad press”.
If I took the source code for Linux, removed all of the copyrights and inserted my own commercial/proprietory copyright, then used search&replace to change every occurance of the word “Linux” to “Foo”, and then started selling it as “Foo, the greatest OS on earth” (for $100 per copy) with large international advertising campaigns, would anyone be able to stop me?
It seems to me that if the copyright holders aren’t organised enough to prevent this then Linux effectively has no enforcable copyright, and the only thing stopping GPL violations is “bad press”.
You don’t need all of the copyright holders to agree to pursure a violation suit, you only need one. The only time everyone must agree is when the Linux license is going to be changed. For example, the GPL is part of the mess between IBM and SCO.
Of course if you did this I doubt if anyone would waste money trying to stop you since they can download the maintained version for free.
You don’t need all of the copyright holders to agree to pursure a violation suit, you only need one. The only time everyone must agree is when the Linux license is going to be changed. For example, the GPL is part of the mess between IBM and SCO.
Ahh – this would also mean that any kernel developer could initiate legal action against Kororaa (even when all other kernel developers don’t agree to it).
I guess that it’d also be impossible for Kororaa to ask for an exemption (i.e. to get limited permission), as all copyright holders would need to agree.
Of course if you did this I doubt if anyone would waste money trying to stop you since they can download the maintained version for free.
If anyone tried to do what I described, then I sincerely hope that every Linux kernel developer takes action, one at a time, so that the person/s violating the copyright end up with hundreds of seperate court cases (if they ignore the hundreds of cease and desist orders).
Ahh – this would also mean that any kernel developer could initiate legal action against Kororaa (even when all other kernel developers don’t agree to it).
Any one developer can initiate the action. But they have to pay to see the action through and that can be very expensive. The GPL is completely murky on this subject so it is unclear which party would win. If you are going to fight this case you would be a fool to chase Kororaa. Because even if you win you aren’t going to win anything because they don’t have anything to take. If you really wanted to fight this you would pick on a company with a lot of money.
This could provide a logical reason to attack Kororaa instead of a company like Mandriva: Because you _don’t_ want to be accused of seeking money, fame, etc; but you just want to fish out this thing you view as a violation of the license on your code.
Of course, in the end people say you’re picking on the little guy.
This could provide a logical reason to attack Kororaa instead of a company like Mandriva: Because you _don’t_ want to be accused of seeking money, fame, etc; but you just want to fish out this thing you view as a violation of the license on your code.
So who’s going to pony up the $100K minimum to finance the suit with no hope of a return?
I doubt the e-mail author had a lawsuit in mind.
There are a limited number of ways to settle the binary driver issue. You can get everyone to agree to relicense the kernel to something like GPLv3 which fixes the GPLv2 ambiguity or you can take someone to court and get a verdict on which interpretation is correct.
I’m a kernel developer too and I say Kororaa can distribute. Now you have one for and one against. Since no one is going to make the efforted needed to settle this Kororaa is safe.
Earlier I pointed out a known legal loophole in the GPLv2 that gets around the problem but nobody picked up on it.
Distribute the CD in an unlinked state. Add a question when you run it asking if you want non-GPL code inserted into the kernel, This process side steps the GPL. The GPL only prevents distribution of the linked code. In this case the linked code only exists in RAM and is not distributed. No distribution and the GPL does not apply.
This is a known hole in the GPLv2 that they are trying to close in GPLv3.
True, but GPLv3 is still fuzzy about DRM.
This is a known hole in the GPLv2 that they are trying to close in GPLv3.
I thought Linus’ stance is that he has no intention of relicensing the kernel under v3, at least in v3’s current draft form. He’s made it clear as well that he didn’t adopt the “any newer version” wording of the license, meaning it’s strictly v2.
I realize Linus doesn’t hold copyright on all of the code in the kernel, but the code contributed to the kernel is licensed under v2 right now, wouldn’t it require some sort of consensus from all of the copyright holders to adopt the newer version?
Can new code be contributed under v3 while existing code maintaining v2? Or is the kernel effectively going to stay at v2 because of Linus’ (and likely others’) positions?
Just genuinely curious…
Linus is against the GPLv3 in its current form. But the GPLv3 is subject to change and Linus’ position may change also.
I believe it is an unresolved question if the kernel could be relicensed from v2 to v3. Doing this requires permission of all the copyright holders and some of them are dead. There may be ways around this by only requiring negative votes and counting missing votes as agreeing to the change.
You can not contribute v3 code to the v2 kernel. It will be rejected.
You can contribute code with MIT or X licenses since those licenses are less restrictive than the GPL.
Make my day, turn Linux into GPLv3, I’d love to see how it lose popularity in a year and how BDS gain it.
I’d like to respond to the people who are saying the person who complained about the potential GPL violation to the Kororaa developers is picking, or even a raging lunatic.
Since the person who sent the email is actually a Linux (kernel) contributor, he/she is thus entitled to cry foul over the work he co-owns the copyright to.
You are completely within your rights to claim a copyright violation when you believe someone is actually violating your copyright! I think the real lunatics here are the people who think the person shouldn’t have sent the email.
As noted by other people, it is the Kororaa’s developers’ decision to suspend or halt the development of Kororaa. They alone are responsible for their decision. In fact, they could easily ship Kororaa without the proprietary drivers. There are quite a few 3d drivers which ship with X.org (including ones for many ATi cards), and some of them will work with Xgl out of the box.
Since the person who sent the email is actually a Linux (kernel) contributor, he/she is thus entitled to cry foul over the work he co-owns the copyright to.
You are completely within your rights to claim a copyright violation when you believe someone is actually violating your copyright! I think the real lunatics here are the people who think the person shouldn’t have sent the email.
It’s a license violation not a copyright violation.
The GPLv2 is simply not clear on this point and there is a lot of disagreement on LKML about this subject. The copyright holder as agreed that their code can be distributed under the terms of the GPLv2, but until someone takes this to court and clarifies things Kororaa can interpret the GPLv2 however they want. The burden of proof is on the kernel developer.
The GPLv3 is trying to clear this area up.
It’s a license violation not a copyright violation.
If it’s the former, then it’s the latter. The GPL gives extra rights not normally given by copyright law. If you don’t respect the license, then you don’t have the right to redistribute the software (and therefore violate copyright laws if you still do).
in this case is how the GPL is little more than a overblown EULA being used to circumvent laws, much as pre-nuptual agreements and the EULA’s of certain ‘big evil’ corporations do… like Network Associates ‘No Benchmarks or Reviews’ clause the New York courts ruled in violation of that states laws, or how some companies use “owner of a copy of a computer program” under 17 U.S.C. Section 117(a)(1) as a defense for siezing control of programs written by their employees, while at the same time sueing customers for patching/modding software to let it run on their machines… something that there’s MORE than enough legal precedent on under the terms of “Owner of software copy may adapt as essential step in utilization.” (Krause v. Title Serv for example) – a ruling that’s the whole reason the GPL can be thrown out by the end user on personal use but not by anyone doing mass distribution of GPL’d software.
Which of course boils down to the truly ironic part of this whole situation. I’m kind of laughing at how it seems the lions share of software freedom advocates seem bound and determined to use contract law to quash what little software freedom is left.
That when you install Kororaa It installs the nvidia driver straight away, is this because he has a precompiled kernel module or linked to the kernel?
The long story about how he explains still dont explain HOW he has the nvidia/ati driver setup to work pretty much straight away. What should have happened is that the screen should download the nvidia driver, accept the licence and then compile the module, just like the SUSE 10.1 tiny nvidia installer does.
Situations like this one are the ones who really makes me desire a good BSD based distro, Im sure some time not far we will have one and that day I will say good bye with all my glory to all the GPL bs in Linux, and say “Keep your license, keep you lawsy drivers. keep your hippie ideology Im going to enjoy the real world”, by now, I encourage to any who is looking for an alternative to Windows or OSX, don’t look at Linux or anything related to GPL.
I recently started working on my own distro/os as a hobby project. This issue with Kororaa is the chief reason that I decided to use FreeBSD instead of Linux as the base OS.
As much as I like OSS the Stalman, GPL3 attitude really sickens me. I like free software as much as the next guy, but not when it inhibits the free progress of technology.
> I like free software as much as the next guy, but not
> when it inhibits the free progress of technology.
Dude, using some proprietary drivers _does not_ encourage your “free” prograss of technology. It just gets some proprietary vendor money. The usefullness of this piece of hardware is, regardless of if it runs on your computer, still at the mercy of a single vendor. You are not allowed to modify it, not to distribute modified version, not allowed to study how it works.
All you get is a little fscking conveniencewhen installing the driver, at the expense of risking that other hardware vendors close up their drivers if nvidia and ati get by with this.
You fscking get nothing except that it makes it a little more convenient to run proprietary drivers on something thats thought to be a free system, and that proprietary vendors make profit of a free system without supporting it. Why dont you just use Mac OS X or Windows if you actually dont fscking care about if the software is free or not? Why do you use a free system if its freeness doesnt matter to you? Why do you get so embittered if someone tries to not let the proprietary shit pollute a free system?
> Why do you get so embittered if someone tries to not let the proprietary shit pollute a free system?
Because, oh potty-fingered one, some of us respect nVidia and ATI’s right to license what it pleases them to license, and like the ‘free as in beer’ for what it is. Its not as if *BSD licenses limit us. I like the freedom to choose to run proprietary stuff if I want, whether its a graphics driver or Oracle.
I can appreciate the desire to be able to audit all code, but I have a lot more sympathy for it in OpenBSD and there is less focus on desktop use. If you wantto be a player for teh desktop, then you’ll have to embrace companies that want to ship firmware in this way, or be marginalised. Which is not to say that Linux would be unusable as a 2D workstation, at least until teh 2D stuff is all ripped from the cards’ hardware.
I recently started working on my own distro/os as a hobby project. This issue with Kororaa is the chief reason that I decided to use FreeBSD instead of Linux as the base OS.
As much as I like OSS the Stalman, GPL3 attitude really sickens me. I like free software as much as the next guy, but not when it inhibits the free progress of technology.
As another FreeBSD user who was blown away by the coolness of the XGL demo, why don’t we see if we can encourage our friends at Kororaa to consider switching to FreeBSD? The BSD world is just a little more laid-back about such things.
I *will* say that I never expected an eye-candy thing like the XGL to be as useful and useable as it was. I want it for my workstation.
Couldn’t they just provide two iso images? One with the distro and a separate small one with the drivers. If the user want to, he/she can then compile her own two-session CD using both isos, but the driver iso is just optional. Burning a two-session disk is not difficult. The point is, this way, they do not need to include or distribute the drivers in the actual distro, but leave an option to the USER to setup his/her PERSONAL disk with them. Problem soved?
What protectable elements from the Linux kernel are introduced into the nvidia module binary upon compilation?
There seems to be a lot of conjecture but very little solid analysis.
Use, or reproduction of header files for use in most cases is legal since most content in header files is purely descriptive – not protectable under copyright law, and hence the GPL. There is case law to back this up, e.g. Sega vs Accolade.
Interestingly, the same argument – that header files are not protectable – is made in the SCO case, and many posts on Groklaw flesh out this position.
Or are we all collectively admitting that use of information identical to that in UNIX headers puts Linux under an AT&T license, forbidding its distribution under GPL?
So, if we accept that header files are not protectable, and only when protectable elements from a copyrighted work are incorporated into another work, creating a derivative work, that the GPL applies to that derivative work, has anyone actually checked to see if protectable elements (e.g. due to compiler macro expansion etc.) are present in the nvidia.ko binary?
Because, if no such protectable content is present, then distributing that module as ‘mere aggregation’ seems totally legal.
That’s actually an interesting question, and potentially the crux of the matter. The Linux header files are, arguably, not purely descriptive. They contain a large number of inline functions and functional macros. Some of these are sufficiently complicated that they probably merit copyright protection, and it’s pretty much impossible to write a Linux driver without using some of them.
If so, it seems difficult to make the argument that any Linux driver isn’t a derived work of the Linux kernel – using an inline function means that the (presumably copyrightable and GPLed) code is copied into your binary. But, again, there’s no way to know for sure without a lawsuit.
… is by solving it.
In this case, the problem is that it is not clear what the GPL allows and forbids in this case (though it’s quite obvious in most common cases).
One way or another, this unclarity needs to be cleared up. We cannot just ignore the issue because the possibly-violator(s) are such nice people.
If Kororaa takes this temporary hit and this exposure of the issue causes it to be cleared up (telling Kororaa what is needs to do to become compliant, if anything, so we can all be happy again), I think the net result is a positive one. I just hope that will happen….
(of course, the fact that many people consider the issue cleared up but disagree on the conclusion actually proves the unclarity
)
Instead of picking on those that defend in what they believe in – why not see if we can solve the underlying problem of the flaws & ambiguities of the GPL ?
As said before grey areas are very much unliked by companies – & fact is that Linux is used by big companies .
I think for Linux kernel & all those distros based on it – these grey areas should be removed with a magic wand to make the rules of the “game” as clear as possible for anyone involved or wanting to get involved .
Just IMO
It seems to me that he is following the right path on this one. However, he should release the next version, and continue as buisness as usual. Id advise that contacts the FSF or similar. The program is under “collective” copyright, essesnially, since its under the copyright of many people, the person who is claiming “foul” would have to prove that they are violating the GPL on *their* piece of code that they have contributed.
Also, it seems that i’d wait for the C&D on this one. Even if he was violating(which from what I can tell he’s not) the gpl, the most that would occur would be him having to not distribute the product. Afterall, in a court case it would be impossible to claim damages of any kind.
Im not for violating the GPL(obviously). However, I think that the whole situation is a little fishy.
-Mike
Hey, we could use the same trick as ATI and nVidia to write proprietary software using the GPL-licensed Qt libraries! That would really pave the way for KDE, and that choir of dumbed down Gnome users would have to shut up. Poor Trolltech would not win a penny out of their work, but that would serve them right for being an evil capitalist infiltrate in the free soft world.
All that would be needed is a step stone library or program that made any Qt call available through a different interface; maybe it could be a surrogate process that would call Qt when instructed to via some sort of interapp communication, sort of like X.
Is this not a great idea? Hey, let’s all together give the GPL a big kick in the ass. If we can seemingly respect the letter while raping the spirit, we can give all those commie hackers in ponytails what they deserve for mining the fields of poor Microsoft and Apple and for favoring piracy with their anti DRM stance.
Only once commie freaks and evil capitalists are out of the way will we gain the true convenience of having to respect no rules and reach no compromise. Then we will be free.
Doesn’t Berrylinux [1] do exactly the same thing? or are they including the drivers in a different way?
[1] http://distrowatch.com/?newsid=03450#0
It’s always the same story: http://tinyurl.com/oz6sa
There are a lot of distributions that include nvidia drivers, why bugging the developer of the 30th distribution listed on distrowatch?
I include nvidia drivers into RR4 and RR64 since they are born, and no one have ever told me something like that.
In this way, Kororaa’s sponsorship will be news websites.