A top Red Hat exec has attacked the open-source credentials of its sometime business partner Sun.
Red Hat exec takes Sun to task on open source
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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“Software patents, Image the world to day if we had a patent system in place like now but during the Renaisance? ”
Hahah.. Patents for software make greedy sense. Software has already been invented in my opinion and patents for the types of software is retarded….
other patents for real inventions are cool tho
Doesn’t it strike anybody else as weird how big companies are now fighting each other through blogs? It used to be that no statement ever got out of a company unless it had been throughly vetted by PR. I don’t know if I like this brave new world. Methinks Sun and RedHat might wanna keep closer tabs on their employees’ blogs.
“It is called a pi$$ing contest and yes you are both engaged… go play now”
Yeah, but it’s a fun pi$$ing contest. 🙂
Why don’t you join and add something to the discussion? Come on in, the water’s fine!
Oh yeah, I agree wholeheartedly with David in that software patents are a terrible thing. Prior art is prevailant and patents are only used by large corporations to crush small companies and developers, and to stifle innovation and competition. Software patents have to go entirely, and the patent system as a whole has to be totally revamped.
To Sun’s credit, they have contributed quite a lot to open source, with Gnome work and giving away OpenOffice.
But OpenOffice looks like it might be used as a trojan horse, now that Sun is Microsoft’s paid off lapdog. I want to like Sun – they’ve put out some kick-butt technology – but they are very two-faced towards open-source – funding SCO, getting in bed with M$, and stupid FUD attacks against Red Hat. All the while Red Hat has mostly conducted it’s business honorably, and being 100% supportive and selling open source, GPL software.
Oh, and Stallman is not a Marxist, and deserves his due! 😉
Sun Java Desktop System rulez.
redhat doest even support fedora, how can they expect sun to support openoffice. sun > redhat
Sun alone decides the future of Java, or if it should have a future at all.
You have no idea what you are talking about. IBM and BEA own the Java market, with SUN in a distant third.
redhat doest even support fedora, how can they expect sun to support openoffice. sun > redhat
Very well and consicely put.
I love what The Register wrote about this.
-> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09/24/redhat_sun_blogwar/
Couldn’t agree more. 🙂
Quote:
“Sun Java Desktop System rulez.” You sound like a troll. A troll that can’t spell – it’s rules. Please, get it right.
How so? The license alone is disgraceful. It’s just as bad an unpalatable as a Microsoft EULA. It’s OK for Sun to pilfer open source and add it together, but if Redhat does the same they’re a bunch of corporates bleeding off GPL developers? That’s a bit hypocritical.
Simba, without trying to sound rude, you made a comment about disliking the fact that Redhat uses software in its distribution that others have coded. Yep. It does. So does *every* other distribution out there. It’s the raison d’etre (I think I spelt that right) of the GPL. Use freely. View src code freely. Spread freely. Modify freely. Redhat has contributed a lot to Open Source and Linux in particular. Redhat really did get a lot of people aware of Linux. Think about that. If you don’t like the fact that Redhat can take GPL code that developers have worked on, use it, and not have to pay a cent to those said developers, then don’t release your code under the GPL.
Feel free to develop your own license and use it. Use a BSD license (even worse than GPL). BSD license allows corporate bodies to take someones hard earned work, modify it, sell it and make a nice profit and say ‘screw you’ and not re-contribute the improvements or changes back to the community. Apple anyone? Why do you think Apple took a mach kernel and used BSD? mmm?
No, I don’t use Redhat or Fedora, I use Libranet (Debian based). I wouldn’t touch Redhat if you paid me as I consider their distribution ‘broken’ in many ways. That and I detest RPM.
Kimba, I also understand what you said about mice (and other species). Look at the wolf. Has a pack. A leader. A strong pecking order/social order of the pack members. They all contribute to the survival of the pack, and the young. Any wolf that decides to misbehave will be exiled from the pack, and forced to survive on their own – which usually means certain death. The sum of the individuals, to benefit the whole. Man can and should learn a lot.
Dave
Well, I don’t think most of the Linux community is quite this ideological. There is just a small militantly “anti-anything commercial software” faction led by Stallman that is very vocal.
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stallman doesnt oppose commercial software. the gpl even states this clearly. stallman and others and against proprietary software. they are not one and the same
I don’t like speaking for other people, but I got the feeling Simba’s problem with Redhat is not that they’re making money off his code, but that it’s a broken corporation where the board of directors makes a disproportionate amount. It’s one thing to make a living, but completely another to get unfairly rich.
Well, even though I think greed is socially created, you have me convinced to read about the selfish gene theory.
I’ve been trying to work it out for a long time, it’s obvious that greed and power are near the root of our species’ problems, but I’ve been struggling with the cause of the greed and power themselves. Then it struck me when you stated the theory that all animals are selfish, we all share that gene. Of course, and in a natural habitat it’s a necessary survival trait. However, in our society where natural selection is distorted and we transfer our individual power to a centralized group; that’s when the selfish trait becomes greed.
Everything you were saying about Redhat that I didn’t already agree with fell into place.
However, I still disagree. Personally I won’t support Redhat or other companies which I feel aren’t sufficiently ideal for our times. We have to admit though, there’s much worse out there, just look at Microsoft and Oracle. Redhat is simply a transition, they’re better than the last, and the next will be better than themselves. As much as I’d love for the system of corporate manipulation to fall overnight, it would result in a great deal of violence and suffering. So while I don’t personally support Redhat, I do respect their place in history.
Even if Sun has the will to make java open source it takes a considerable amount of time to convert it in both technical and legal aspect to a solid open source product.
On the other hand, due to technical essence of Java, the transition to an open source and the same time industry standard Java is a dangerous task and if done carelessly can simply balkanize the Java and it’s community.
Maneuvering on this point (If Sun is faithful, then why they don’t free Java) is plain bad marketing strategy. Sun is currently working on freeing more code every day.
In general, the fact that Redhat wants to see itself as the entire open source community is unfaithful. I think PR and advertising people at Redhat should be more careful not to “burn” the original idea of open source movement for a quarter marketing campaign.
Ironically, it seems that the revolution is beginning to eat her children again.
“Simba, without trying to sound rude, you made a comment about disliking the fact that Redhat uses software in its distribution that others have coded. Yep. It does. So does *every* other distribution out there.”
Yes. And as I said, I don’t mind if Debian uses my code. I don’t mind if my code ends up in GCC. After all, I use code written by GCC programmers everytime I link an application. It’s only fair that I give code back to them when I can.
What I do mind, is the commercialism of publically traded Linux vendors. But once again, I don’t think it will do much good to debate this. The debate has been had before, and there really are no new arguments either way.
“Well, even though I think greed is socially created, you have me convinced to read about the selfish gene theory.”
Once again, I would recommened Richard Dawkins “The Selfish Gene”. This is the definitive work on the theory, and Dawkins is largely responsible for developing the theory in the first place.
“Then it struck me when you stated the theory that all animals are selfish, we all share that gene.”
Roughly 96% of genes are shared by all mammals. There are cats, dogs, mice, etc., that actually have some of the same genes you do. What is responsible for most of differences is not that the genes are different, but that not all genes are turned on in any given species.
Dawkins often recieves a great deal of critisism from some because they feel that he is trying to justify criminal activity and such by claiming it is genetically based. However, Dawkins himself is quick to point out multiple times in his book that just because we may be genetically programmed for certain behaviors, does NOT give us a moral license to actually carry out those behaviors. This is one of the major things that makes us human. We have the mental capacity to know that certain things we may have a genetic tendancy to want to do are morally wrong, and that therefore they should not be done.
I am just tired of Red Hat being attacked for stupid reasons. The underlying theme through this whole thread is company=evil and it doesn’t seem to matter which company it is, because they make money and dont work for free we should not support them. Politics should be left out of software. The main purpose of the GPL is to give away code, which Red Hat does 100%; The GPL says NOTHING about must work for free.
I wonder if you people have the slightest idea how much money it takes to do what they do, hell just for their bandwith alone. Take a look at Havoc’s blog entry on 9-5 to see what RH does all day:
http://log.ometer.com/
Or better yet look what went into RHEL v3 then try and tell me they or company’s don’t do enough for linux.
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=7288&mode=thread&order=…
Don’t just skim that link, read it so next time you have a clue of what goes on beyond slashdot rants.
I’m tired of hearing this, really. Money is why Hardware vendors release specs, Money is why HP has people writing print drivers. Money is why Linux can run on 64 cpu’s. You think Highschool and college students know how to write a world class OS? sorry, it’s done by freakin’ brilliant people who deserve to be paid like it.
I have no problem with businesses. I have no problem with Red Hat engineers. I acknowledge the fact that Red Hat has put a great deal back into the community.
What I DO have a problem with is their executive’s behavior. The fact that they get rich quick on the work of their employees and other developers. I have no doubt that the Red Hat executives are much more responsible and do more actual work than most other larger businesses, and like I said I respect them for their place in history.
However, that doesn’t mean I have to support them myself, as my personal morals come into play. It’s not like I’m singling Red Hat out, I don’t support the vast majority of corporations, and when I do I pick and choose smaller ones who care.
Again, yes Red Hat cares more relative to other big corporations, but when it comes to Linux distributors I see them as being near worst. And yes, it is a matter of money. It’s the money overruling compassion for the community and customer, and even the quality of the product. It may not be manifesting itself, but eventually we’ll start to see cutting of corners to save a few bucks. Then one sided decisions which benefit customers with more liscenses, and are detrimental to smaller ones.
I simply don’t trust people or companies which put money first. It can be a great tool, but it should never be a driving factor.
“Iam just tired of Red Hat being attacked for stupid reasons. The underlying theme through this whole thread is company=evil and it doesn’t seem to matter which company it is, because they make money and dont work for free we should not support them.”
You don’t get it. It’s not that Red Hat is making money that is the problem. It is that Red Hat is making money largely off the volunteer efforts of programmers who are NOT getting paid.
“The main purpose of the GPL is to give away code, which Red Hat does 100%; The GPL says NOTHING about must work for free.”
Ah… So we can’t disagree with some aspects of the GPL? Why isn’t that same standard applied to Sun’s Java license? GPL advocates love to gripe about the Java license. But then if someone complains about an aspect of the GPL, they hae a fit?
“You don’t get it. It’s not that Red Hat is making money that is the problem. It is that Red Hat is making money largely off the volunteer efforts of programmers who are NOT getting paid.”
This is basically classic corporate parasitism. A corporation who has found a way to get unpaid volunteers to do most of the work for them. This is what I can’t stand. I have no problem donating my programming time to a non-profit cause such as Debian. I do have a problem when much of my volunteer efforts are going to make corporate executives rich. This is corporate parasitism. And I have a moral problem with it. This is why I do not support Red Hat.
You guys should work on a new license, one that can only be distributed for free. Then the Companys (like red hat) can adopt a license that doesn’t allow you to use their work. Id love to see what your OS looks like without Sun, Red Hat, Novell, IBM, Intel or HP’s work. It wouldn’t even boot. Do you think Red Hat is inlove with the fact that Novell gets “rich” off of the decade of work Red Hat has put into the kernel and utilities? They don’t bitch about it, infact they PACKAGE some of their software for your favorite distro debian.
I noticed neither of you read/commented on the article I posted you go right back to saying:
You don’t get it. It’s not that Red Hat is making money that is the problem. It is that Red Hat is making money largely off the volunteer efforts of programmers who are NOT getting paid.
I do get it, thats why I posted that link, its NOT just jumping on the Back of Debian (free OSS) developers, Debian gets more from the companys then they get from the community, think about it what revolutionairy idea has Debian given us? apt-get? Nice, thanks. What has Red Hat given us? This is a very large list so I’ll just give an example by one of their future ideas: stateless linux. http://people.redhat.com/~hp/stateless/StatelessLinux.pdf
“Then the Companys (like red hat) can adopt a license that doesn’t allow you to use their work. Id love to see what your OS looks like without Sun, Red Hat, Novell, IBM, Intel or HP’s work. It wouldn’t even boot.”
Except that Red Hat can’t do that since the GPL forbids it.
And actually, you seem to forget that not all of the software that Red Hat makes is open source. Take the rather defunct Applixware for example.
But yes, I have actually considered doing this, realising some of my code under a modified GPL that has an additional clause that the code may not be included with a product that is being sold “for profit or by a commercial company”.
Hense, Debian could include my application or whatnot in their distro, but Red Hat could not.
First, Simba and I don’t completely agree on this, I want to make sure you understand that. It seems his problem is more centered around developer work while mine is around corporate greed. I think there’s definitely some overlap, though, and I certainly respect his opinion. Maybe if I was a programmer my view would be more like his.
Now, again, I don’t care that Red Hat makes money. I’m glad that they have the decency to give back to the community they couldn’t survive without. I certainly respect their developers for the work they do, and I even respect the executives as I respect all humans.
My problem is that the executives make a disproportionate amount of money relative to the rest of the company. They somehow think, just like most executives, that being at the top of the company makes them better humans. That’s disgusting, and I CAN NOT support a company that functions in that fashion when there’s anywhere near a reasonable way around it.
Plus I believe that mindset will inevitably lead them astray somewhere down the road, as I explained above.
Except that Red Hat can’t do that since the GPL forbids it.
Exactly! great we found some common ground here, It’s not a one way street, you can’t tell Red Hat you can’t use my code but I can use yours. That’s what It’s all about! Sharing!
I never heard of applixware, but apparently it is owned by a company called Applix INC. since 1998.
Good Luck with your new license, you’ll need it.
What have Red Hat executives done to prove to you they think they are better human beings than you? I’ve heard them say linux isn’t ready for the desktop, but I missed the “get away beggar! I have a world to pillage!” speech. Was that in April? cause I was in Hawaii then vacationing.
“This is basically classic corporate parasitism. A corporation who has found a way to get unpaid volunteers to do most of the work for them. This is what I can’t stand. I have no problem donating my programming time to a non-profit cause such as Debian. I do have a problem when much of my volunteer efforts are going to make corporate executives rich. This is corporate parasitism. And I have a moral problem with it. This is why I do not support Red Hat. “
I respect this stance. If I’m going to contribute to open source or a distro, I’d rather it be Debian, unless, of course, I’m looking to get hired by a corporate distro.
But I don’t resent Red Hat making money off of open source software (developed by many volunteer programmers). As I said in a previous post, distros make money not off selling open source software, but selling packaging, testing and certification, support, services, and added software utilities (which they often open source – Red Hat’s Anaconda, Mandrake’s drak utilities, and SuSE’s Yast are all good examples). Also, Red Hat is the biggest of all the distros for contributing to the Linux Kernel. Andrew Morton (Torvalds’ leutenant) has said that at least 90% of current kernel contributors are paid by corporations like Red Hat SuSE, HP, IBM, etc) and that there is very little code going into the kernel contributed by voluteer programmers.
Plus, distros like Red Hat help advance Linux/OSS into the enterprise, which helps everyone. So the executives probably deserve to make a comfortable living in running their successful businesses.
“Good Luck with your new license, you’ll need it.”
Well, I suspect there are a lot of “Linux old-timers” out there who share my resentment of how commercialized it has become. I’ve been using Linux since before there were any distros. Back when you still had to roll your own.
In fact, I know there are other “Linux old-timers” who resent how commercialized it has become. Because I have talked to several who have finally abandoned Linux and migrated to FreeBSD for this very reason. Because they wanted to gey away from all the commercialism.
Now that is a surprise
Because I have talked to several who have finally abandoned Linux and migrated to FreeBSD for this very reason. Because they wanted to gey away from all the commercialism.
God forbid Red Hat sell their work, but Apple charges an arm and a leg and doesn’t supply changes. Some of that BSD code is in Microsoft products even. you caught me offguard with that one.
“God forbid Red Hat sell their work”
Except that most of the work Red Hat is selling is NOT theirs. Wrap that in as many “Oh but we are not selling Linux” spin layers as you want. But at the end of the day, without the efforts of thousands of volunteers, Red Hat is out of business. So yes, they are surviving by parasitizing off volunteer programmers.
“Apple charges an arm and a leg and doesn’t supply changes. Some of that BSD code is in Microsoft products even.”
But unlike Linux, FreeBSD is a complete operating system. It nost just a kernel. So unless you actually do operating system programming, your code doesn’t end up in Microsoft’s products, or in Apple’s products.
And FreeBSD itself does not have the commercialism that Linux does.
I’m by no means suggesting that they don’t deserve to live comfortably. Everyone deserves that, and nobody more than any other. When we get people thinking they deserve more is when we get people who don’t get what they need, much less comfort.
“So unless you actually do operating system programming, your code doesn’t end up in Microsoft’s products”
Another point would be that there are very few lines of BSD code in Microsoft Windows. And Microsoft could clearly survive without the BSD code. They would have to find another TCP/IP stack.
With Red Hat, that is no the case. Red Hat is literally parasatizing millions of dollars with of programming work off of volunteers. There is an obvious difference of degree here.
Anyone who uses Linux/FreeBSD etc. is by your definition ‘parasitising’ off the work of a large number of volunteers.
To the ‘I use FreeBSD, which is free from Linux commercialism’ guy – Youre not paying these people, and your ‘holier than thou’ use of FreeBSD is as valid an example of you freeloading and ripping off the FreeBSD developers as Redhat is ‘ripping off’ the Linux community. If Redhat is somehow stealing from the Linux community, you are stealign from the FreeBSD community by using the software.
By your logic the only people who aren’t ‘parasites’ are those who pay for their software.
People put their software under the GPL, BSD or other licenses for good reason. If you are really trying to say that these people were all wrong, didn’t know what they were doing, and really meant to enforce a ‘nobody can ever profit from my work, the support of my works or build upon them’ policy, well, I think you are utterly wrong, not to mention unbelievably arrogant.
Once again, there is a difference between a user using software that is freely given, and a corporation making millions of dollars off of the efforts of volunteers.
Namely, that’s irrefutably the intention of the developers, for the software to be used. Intending the software to be commercialized is obviously debatable.
Exactly. It’s the intention of developers. if I write free software and give it to a community, I did is so that the community can benefit. I did NOT do is so that someone else could turn around, include it in a collection of other software that other programmers also wrote for the benefit of the community, package it in a fancy box, and then get rich off of it. I gave it for free, and now they are trying to make money off of it, of which I will never see any. To me, that is a basic betrayal of trust.
Still though, I’d be concerned about a liscense that restricts commercialization any more than saying if you modify this code, you have to release your source. To me, the whole point of these open liscensing schemes is to transition to the point where liscenses are no longer necessary. A liscense which tells people they can’t make money off this software, even though it at this point protects the code by being contrary to commercialization, sounds like it would be counter productive to me. In fact, it seems to me that it could someday grow into similar problems as your standard commercial EULA.
I wonder if Debian would accept a liscense like that.
Would you say that the BSD and GPL licenses are intended to support only non-commercial computing activities?
That is, if I employ Linux of FreeBSD in my company’s network, or consult/implement Linux/BSD networking solutions for profit, am I ‘parasitizing’ off the community?
Have I commercialized the software by using it in a the course of commercial activities?
Are you suggesting that BSD and GPL software be restricted to activities that have no commercial component whatsoever?
If the developers intended the software to be ‘used’, but not used for profit-making activities, why didn’t they codify this in their respective licenses?
I mean, saying the developers might have intended to disallow the commercialization of the software while allowing it’s use, by placing it under licenses which (in the case of the GPL) deliberately cater to this scenario e.g. profit from the software all you like as long as source is distributed with binaries – or the BSD license, which is about the most commercialisation-friendly software license there is, is just ridiculous.
If developers didnt intend the software to be commercialised, dont you think it would have been more straightforward to place it under a ‘no commercial use’ licensing provision?
You can say it’s ‘debatable’ but the simple application of Occams Razor here leaves your argument all slashed up and bleeding on the floor.
“You can say it’s ‘debatable’ but the simple application of Occams Razor here leaves your argument all slashed up and bleeding on the floor. ”
Clearly you don’t understand the principle of Occam’s Razor, or you would not even be trying to apply it to a situation like this since it doesn’t work. (And yes, I have taken classes on logic. Have you?)
But once again, there is a difference here. I might say “Free for non-commercial use” or I might say “free for all users”. However, virtually no freeware license in existence grants the end user the right to package up the software and resell it for a profit. That’s where the distinction is. I wrote my software and gave it away for free so that people could USE it. I did not write it and give it away for free so that someone else could turn around and SELL it. If I wanted the software to be sold, I would have sold it myself instead of let someone else reap the profits of my work.
Of course not, the GPL and BSD are purposefully very agnostic. They don’t care where you use the code or how you use it as long as it stays open. That’s freedom. It’s not commercialization friendly, it only does nothing to stop commercialization beyond protecting the code itself.
Using the code in a corporate environment is also very different from taking it and selling it, justifying it by claiming you’re just selling documentation and support.
But then, I don’t have any problem with commercialization itself, just the structures and practices of some of the corporations which do so. For example, I’m not a big fan of these distributions that don’t offer a free download edition. Even Xandros, by crippling CD burning, among other things, is really pushing it. Then of course there’s the bastard executive complaint I’ve been making all along.
I forgot your ‘why not a no commercial use?’ argument.
Read my argument @simba from 21:19. Basically, because it goes against the essence of the OSS community. Also because the GPL and BSD are something of a status quo in said community, they have a great deal of momentum behind them. I suspect it’s generally accepted that splitting into a bunch of seperate licensing schemes will waste that momentum instead of maximizing the impact.
And yes, I actually do know how to spell ‘license’
Which part of the BSD license prevents me from packaging up BSD software and selling it for profit?
Which part of the GPL license prevents me from packaging up GPL software and selling it for a profit, as long as I include the source?
I don’t understand where you make the leap to the position that ‘I didn’t give it away so that someone could turn around and sell it’ – if this was the case, youre an idiot for using either the GPL or BSD license, because both of them specifically allow this behaviour.
If you wanted to sell your software, then sell it commercially – if you want to disallow reselling, place it under a license that disallows reselling.
Placing it under a license that allows its resale and then saying you didnt intend to do so just shows immense stupidity.
You still don’t get the point that commercial distros are selling “value added” products and services on top of vanilla Linux. If they did not sell “value added” products and services, most of them would not exist and Debian would be the only one of the major Distros left (and other “free”, fully volunteer built distros).
Since Debian is such a great distro (and has become more newbie friendly with the new Debian-installer and Discover), commercial distros have to sell “value added” products and services in order to maintain a viable business. And since they are using GPL software, they have to turn over their own source code that they developed/added to the community. So they make their money with the “value added” products and services.
Even Richard Stallman, who you’ve labeled marxist, sold his GNU software on tapes and other media to people that wanted his free software packaged on easily distributed media. He also sold customized versions of GNU software to customers who needed it tweaked or have added features. With GPL’d open source software, everyone contributes (in one fashion or another), and everyone benefits. The commercial distros have contributed, and not just to their bottom line. Red Hat has given us RPM, Anaconda, lot’s of Gnome development, and tons of kernel code. SuSE has given us lot’s of KDE development (it originally rose out of SuSE’s efforts), kernal code, and Yast. Mandrake has given us KDE development, the Drak tools, and Frozen-Bubble.
And you’ve made the point that if the development efforts of volunteer open source developers went away, Red Hat would go away. True, but if car technology went away, mechanics would be out of work. If networking technology went away, network admins would be out of work (not to mention everything on the internet). To follow your logic of “parasitic corporations” – the internet features fully open source technology, and fully depends on it. If that open source technology went away, thousands of businesses would go away, including but limited to: Yahoo, Google, Amazon, eBay, and many others.
Once again, it’s free as in freedom, not as in beer.
Another point: Since there are millions of open source developers, and there are many commercial distros, and the millions of open source developers are more than likely fully aware that the commercial distros are making money off of their volutarily developed software, it means that probably the overwhelming majority of volunteer open source software have absolutely no problem whatsoever with commercial distros building their business on top of their voluntarily developed open source software.
The reason they have no problem with it is the GPL. The GPL means that everyone benefits – that the freely developed software always comes full circle and rewards the original developer or user. If not monetarily, it’s from added features, new job opportunities, or some other unforseen reward. Commerce is not only about money – there are many kinds of commerce.
Finally, if you don’t like corporations making money off of your freely developed software, don’t develop it. Go get a job writing software and get paid for it, and leave open source behind. Otherwise, make yourself at peace with the fact that your freely developed open source software is going to help someone’s business (if it’s good). You’ll be much happier and less bitter that way.
“if this was the case, youre an idiot for using either the GPL or BSD license, because both of them specifically allow this behaviour.”
I use the GPL sometimes because I like to contribute code back to the community. The reason I don’t use a lot more than I do is because of the fact that it allows the kind of parasitism that commercial Linux vendors engage in.
“You still don’t get the point that commercial distros are selling “value added” products and services on top of vanilla Linux”
THis is going in circles. I’ve already stated the problem with this argument. It is simply a spin. It is an attempt to make what is going on look better. At the end of the day, what is being sold is the work of a bunch of volunteer programmers with some window dressing stuck on top of it. No amount of “but we are really selling support, etc.” can hide that.
“Since Debian is such a great distro (and has become more newbie friendly with the new Debian-installer and Discover), commercial distros have to sell “value added” products and services in order to maintain a viable business.”
And many times those “value added” features come in the form of ripping code from Debian in order to maintain a viable business. Once again, parasitizing the work of volunteer developers to make money.
“Red Hat has given us RPM”
And this is better then apt-get how? It’s not. It’s inferior to apt-get.
“To follow your logic of “parasitic corporations” – the internet features fully open source technology, and fully depends on it.”
The Internet does NOT depend on open source technology. Much of it runs on open source technology beause it is cheaply available, but it does not depend on it. The TCP/IP protocol was developed by universities and the military long before anyone drempt up the GPL. And plenty of Internet servers are running on commercial closed source operating systems, with commercial closed sourse Web servers, and using commercial closed source databases and commercial closed source scripting languages.
Red Hat do not force people to buy their packaged version of openoffice.org or whatever program they have which has been developed partly by volunteers. If you don’t want to pay you can get it somewhere else.
What Red Hat offers is what Debian doesn’t. A supported distro especially made for companies. With their (and Suse/Mandrake) services people can change from windows to linux but keep doing business the same way.
If they would use debian they would have to hire a big IT staff to do all the work/support for them that the commercial linux companies otherwise do for you.
Though something is still nagging at me. As logical and sound as JeffS’s points sound to me, Simba followed Logic classes, so he must be some kind of logic genius, always without fault. hmmmmm….
(on Salivar’s points I do sort of agree, but it happens in all companies and is just the way big company culture has developed. I’m not saying this is a good thing, I am saying that I never heard of Red Hat taking it to the extreme in any way)
And please note that I do respect Red Hat (and Novell, IBM, and Apple) for it’s place in history as, hopefully, a transition away from the amoral, and sometimes downright immoral big businesses. However, I don’t see that as any reason to accept that they too are amoral in many ways. When we accept that fact then nobody has a reason to take the next step.
By the way, certification is what User Linux is here for, when it’s ready.
“If they would use debian they would have to hire a big IT staff to do all the work/support for them that the commercial linux companies otherwise do for you.”
I don’t agree with this. And my reasons are based on experience. When I had to call Red Hat support one time, I got a technician who knew less than I did. That’s helpful… and needless to say, I never called Red Hat for support again. On the other hand, with Debian, I go on the Internet, post a message to a newsgroup or mailing list, and I have an answer usually within 20 or 30 minutes because the community support is so good
“Simba followed Logic classes”
My point is that people should not throw out terms when in the same sentence, they prove that they do not know the proper application of the principle behind the term they are using.
So your experience with Red Hat support was a bad one and you wouldn’t use the company any more. If other companies do the same, Red Hat would be losing a lot of customers and would need to change things around. Or the companies would go to a different commercial linux vendor, who would also include all these free programs, exactly because they are free.
That doesn’t change the fact that it IS in fact what they offer. And what they offer is what companies want. They don’t want community support.
You may think it’s better, but that’s really not the point. That’s just opinion.
Oh, and I know what you meant with the logic classes comment, but it still looked silly. Just debunking his occam’s razor claim (haven’t heard of it myself) would have looked better. That’s what I wanted to point out.
> My point is that people should not throw out terms when in
> the same sentence, they prove that they do not know the proper
>application of the principle behind the term they are using.
My point was to illustrate that you are trying to expound your personal views on software licensing by introducing an argument based on pure speculation as to developer intent.
You are trying to claim that despite the developers decision to license their software under a set of terms, that these terms to not really represent the developers intentions.
My example of occams razor was supposed to point out that if the developers didn’t intend to allow commercialisation, would it not be simpler to license their software under such terms?
i.e. the simplest explanation for an observation is most likely the correct one.
You attack the form of my posts e.g. a typo, my supposed failure to apply the concept of occams razor in a fashion that you consider appropriate – while simply not bothering to respond to my questions and assertions because you know your position is untenable in the face of the indisputable facts.
You are trying to suggest that OSS developers, as a whole, would choose to license their products under a set of terms that plainly did not match with their intentions, and attempt to justify this by introducing some nebulous concept of ‘the spirit of the OSS community’ – Which in this case I can only assume means ‘Simba’s personal beliefs w/regard to software licensing’
Why don’t you go to the GNU site and take a look at where they are selling a set of all the GNU software for thousands of dollars.
These people are clearly intending to profit off the contributions of thousands of volunteers. Shouldn’t you be denouncing GNU and the FSF along with Redhat?
If you (Simba) would actually follow suit and release a program under a modified GPL which ony allows companies that don’t ask money for their products to use it you would not be improving anything.
Releasing it like that would be inconveniencing Red Hat/Novell customers. And at the same time those companies would not be able to contribute to the programs either. Some commercial company probably would have and released it’s improvements back to the public (as is specified in the gpl).
So not only do you stop Red Hat/Novell/Mandrake/etc from including the program in their package and supporting it, but you would also hamper development because those companies would not contribute to it.
“You are trying to claim that despite the developers decision to license their software under a set of terms, that these terms to not really represent the developers intentions.”
I’m not claiming it does not represent the intentions of all developers. I am claiming that it does not represent the intension of some developers, and that I am not the only one who is rather unhappy with the commercialization that has occured.
“i.e. the simplest explanation for an observation is most likely the correct one.”
occam’s razor can only be applied to systems that can be modeled mathematically. It can be applied to evolutionary pathway charts, or economics, etc. It cannot be applied to a philosophical debate such as this.
“You are trying to suggest that OSS developers, as a whole, would choose to license their products under a set of terms that plainly did not match with their intentions”
Find me one post where I claimed that my views were the views of ALL OSS developers. I have never made that claim. I have stated why I don’t like Red Hat, and why I know some other developers don’t either. I never claimed to represent the entire OSS community.
“These people are clearly intending to profit off the contributions of thousands of volunteers. Shouldn’t you be denouncing GNU and the FSF along with Redhat?”
I’m not friend of FSF either because I think their views of software patents and licensing are extreme. And as I have already pointed out, I am of the opinion that a flat out ban on software patents will hinder inovation. Not encourage it.
>>I don’t see why Sun should protect users of openoffice for free. You didn’t pay for it, so it’s not their problem.<<
So it’s okay to give somebody a trojan horse? Nice “gift” sunw, thanks a lot. Thanks for something designed to blow up in our face.
Can we at stop all the BS about sunw being a friend to F/OSS, and admit that sunw is just another msft?
“Releasing it like that would be inconveniencing Red Hat/Novell customers.”
Why? A 5 year old child can download software off the Internet. I never said the product couldn’t be installed on commercial Linux distributions. Only that commercial Linux distributions could not bundle it with their product. It’s no different than Windows really. I place free Windows software on the Internet and a Windows user can download it and use it for free. But if Bill Gates calls me up and says “We want to bundle your product with Windows to make Windows more useful to people… Oh… But we expect you to provide the product to us for free, and let us bundle it for free, and we aren’t going to pay you anything for letting us bundle the product”, my answer would be “Yeah right. No way.” Same idea when it comes to commercial Linux distributions.
“So it’s okay to give somebody a trojan horse? Nice “gift” sunw, thanks a lot. Thanks for something designed to blow up in our face.”
You make it sound like Sun did this as some part of a scheme to intentionally hurt the open source community. Give me a break. Not everything is a conspiracy, ok? The moon landing really did happen, there are no aliens at Area 51, and the CIA does not have a super computer called Carnivore. Ok?
“Can we at stop all the BS about sunw being a friend to F/OSS, and admit that sunw is just another msft?”
Sun has contributed a great deal to open source. Though I would not be surprised if their policies change thanks to all the whining and accusations made by certain open source users. Maybe we won’t see open source Solaris after all. Not if this is how the open source community is going to respond to their open sourcing efforts.
But if Windows wanted to include openoffice (for example) in Longhorn the only people complaining would be other office manufacturers (in this case themselves, so it doesn’t make real sense, but bear with me here).
Yet if you purchase longhorn you will be guaranteed that they will help you with your openoffice problems with a call. otherwise one would have to go to the forums/newsgroups and look for it.
Yes, I do know that it works very well, but that’s not the point. A company that includes a program into their distro supports it and can be held accountable for it.
People that don’t need that can just download the program, but people that want that can buy Red Hat. Red Hat will support it, and that’s what you pay them for.
That you think their support is crap is completely beside the point. Trying to make Red Hat look evil because they offer that service is nonsense. they don’t sell anyone else’s work, they support a bunch of programs in a nifty distro and ask money for that support. You are still allowed to use the software even if you don’t pay them.
>>You make it sound like Sun did this as some part of a scheme to intentionally hurt the open source community.<<
Sunw originally gave away openoffice to hurt msft. So first sunw joins the open-source people to hurt msft, then sunw joins with msft to hurt open-source. Nice. How very loyal and trustworthy, of them.
>>Give me a break. Not everything is a conspiracy, ok?<<
Give *ME* a break! Are you even dimly aware of msft’s business practises? Next you are going to tell me that msft didn’t conspire with scox to hurt open-source.
>>Sun has contributed a great deal to open source.<<
Again, nice “gift” unibomber/sunw: gee, a bomb designed to blow up in my face – how thoughtful.
>>Though I would not be surprised if their policies change thanks to all the whining and accusations made by certain open source users.<<
Oh gosh, I better stop complaining about sunw right away. Or sunw might stop their ever-so-generous donatins. Sunw did what it did for $$$. Sunw doesn’t give a damn about if the F/OSS community is cheering them, or booing them.
>>Maybe we won’t see open source Solaris after all. Not if this is how the open source community is going to respond to their open sourcing efforts.<<
Sunw can not legally open-source Solaris, and sunw knows it. Don’t believe me? Talk to the legal departments at IBM and HPQ – ask them about their UNIX contracts. AFAIK: sunw can keep their Solaris code. IMO: Linux and the BSDs will pass sunw by in a few years anyway.
“GPL advocates love to gripe about the Java license.”
http://www.abanet.org/intelprop/opensource.html
They are the guild of lawyers & judges in US. Hardly your usual “GPL advocates” or “marxists”.
And please, please, read Sun’s SCSL license before you start to argue about it. Because otherwise you’ll just look funny labelling people ‘marxists’.
cheers,
dalibor topic
“My point is that people should not throw out terms when in the same sentence, they prove that they do not know the proper application of the principle behind the term they are using.”
You mean like when you claim apt-get is better than RPM?
They do completly differen’t things. dpkg is like RPM in which case they both do thier jobs. I question if ever used Red Hat and called support like you claim. Maybe I’m wrong but you just don’t seem like the type to buy support and more like the type to quit a job who dare make you use a commerical distro.
I put a response to this on the Red hat Execs blog.
Um… Question… Did you actually read the article you posted a link to? Because it says nothing very negative about Sun’s Community Source License, other than that it does not meet the traditional definition of open source as put fort by OSI.
The article, is, however, rather critical of the GPL for use in business because of concerne about businesses having to release source code, thus making it “very difficult” to base a business on open source software using licences such as GPL.
Sounds like you posted this link without even reading it first, since it actually makes the GPL come off as far more poblematic than Sun’s license.
Sun is adapting and so should you. I don’t think Sun is talking to the people that like to run linux on their desktops because they can’t afford to run OS X by buying an Apple desktop/laptop, or those that want to call themselves geeks because they can open up a terminal. Sun is talking to the corporate market, the ones that run operating systems and enterprise software on their systems to make money, not to just try them out or to be anti-Microsoft like many on the linux bandwagon.
Sun is right in that if I want to run an enterprise caliber software (Oracle, SAP, PeopleSoft, etc.) I have to run it on a certified platform in order to get support. That usually turns out to be Red Hat and in some cases Suse. Would I love to run Debian? Sure. Can I? Not if I want to get support from Oracle or any other enterprise vendor. To Oracle, Red Hat IS linux and as a corporate buyer it means the same to me. Red Hat can solve this issue easily if they say that they’ll transfer all their ISV certification to any LSB compliant distribution. They are all Linux, right? Will they do that? I don’t know, but I doubt it since it will cripple their business model. Will you hear anything like this from IBM, Dell, Intel, Oracle, SAP or even Novell? No, if you read “Under the Radar” by Rober Young, you would know that they are all pre-IPO investors in Red Hat. There’s a lot of I think that’s Sun’s message on the difference between the open source movement and the reality that you encounter with Red Hat in the marketplace. There’s a lot of hype going on in the and it is very hard to separate it from the truth.
How can I tell Sun is adapting? Well, they just don’t sell Sparc systems anymore. Have you tried any of the new Opteron servers that they are selling? They kick ass performance and price wise.
Have you tried Solaris 10? Have you checked its performance? These questions have to be answered before people start running their mouths for hype sake. The truth still remains that Solaris is a scalable OS and I can run it now on x86. In the past Solaris on x86 was an afterthought. Now with solaris 10 it kicks ass and I’m not talking about SMP systems only, try it on a single proc machine also. Try it and if you don’t get what I’m seeing rip this thread appart and let everyone out there know that solaris 10 sucks. But if you find what I’ve seen let people know as well. That’s the beauty of sites like this that allow for comments, they allow for the free and unbias opinion of the users and foster knowledge creation and collaboration.
Sun doesn’t get open source? Come on, give me a break. Do you run vi? Give thanks to Bill Joy and Sun. Do you have anyone with disabilities that is running Gnome? Thank Sun. Would people have even talked about linux on the desktop if it wasn’t for Open Office? Thank Sun for that also. Sun doesn’t talk about open source the same way we’ve been hearing in the last 5 years because they’ve been doing it for a long time.
Is Sun proprietary? Yes they are. Does a big company care? No, not really. Can I get the source for Solaris? It has been available for partners and educational institutions for a while. Do most companies have better kernel hackers in their IT team than Sun to mess around with their code? Not really.
Sun is not Microsoft. They have the engineering to back that up and it will give Red Hat a run for its money.
In the end, this is the best thing that has happened to Linux lately. Red Hat will have to compete with Sun based on performance, security and features. As users of both Linux and Solaris it will be a win-win and I don’t see anything wrong with that.
“Sunw can not legally open-source Solaris, and sunw knows it. Don’t believe me? Talk to the legal departments at IBM and HPQ – ask them about their UNIX contracts.”
In case you haven’t noticed, has not been identifed with UNIX Sys V since Solaris 7. So yes, Sun can open source Solaris. THere are aspects of it that they cannot open source, such as the CDE desktop. But CDE is going away anyway. Most of Solaris can be open sourced.
“Give *ME* a break! Are you even dimly aware of msft’s business practises?”
Which has NOTHING at all to do with you now trying to suggest that Sun intentionally introduced a product to the open source community that they knew would cause problems. There is no evidence to back that up at all! So once again, give me a break.
Quote:
“God forbid Red Hat sell their work, but Apple charges an arm and a leg and doesn’t supply changes.”
Yes. This is why a BSD style license is less desirable than a GPL based license, and why I do NOT use Freebsd et al. I simply cannot support a license that allows a company to modify what they get and not return it to the community, and then make a bucket out of it. At least the GPL forces you to return the improvements to the community if you use the improved code for anything other than personal usage.
If you cut the ability for corporations to use others code out of the GPL, then Linux would die a very quick, sudden death. NO corporation would touch it. Most of the kernel developers would be without payrolls. Development would slow, if not stall. Hardware? Discontinuation of hardware donations from vendors for testing/development purposes. The public eye on Linux would disappear. It would destroy ALL of the developers that have released code based on the GPL as a dominoe effect.
Basically, Simba and Michael, you can’t have one without the other. It’s both, or none. Whether you like it or not, is personal. The GPL is here to stay (thankfully). I’ve paid for my distribution (Libranet). Should I then be told, sorry, you can’t use anything that hasn’t been produced by the Libranet developers? Any non Libranet developer based GPL products I can’t use, cos i’m leeching? Wouldn’t leave me much of a system…same for ANY other Linux distribution. They all make money. Look at Lycoris/Linspire/Xandros. They all bastardise the desktop environments to make it easier for ‘newbies’ – are any of those things returned to the community? Nope. Bastards. These are the ones you should be bitching about. Redhat has returned a LOT of things to the community. Not all of them big time, but as anything in life, the big picture is generally made up of small things.
Dave W Pastern
“Should I then be told, sorry, you can’t use anything that hasn’t been produced by the Libranet developers?”
Once again, I didn’t say you couldn’t use them. You can download them off the Internet just like anyone else. It’s just that they could not be bundled with the commercial distribution.
I usually never install bundled software anyway because it is almost always outdated. I always download the latest versions from the Internet.
Quote:
“But if Bill Gates calls me up and says “We want to bundle your product with Windows to make Windows more useful to people… Oh… But we expect you to provide the product to us for free, and let us bundle it for free, and we aren’t going to pay you anything for letting us bundle the product”, my answer would be “Yeah right. No way.” Same idea when it comes to commercial Linux distributions.”
Interesting. And you know what? Microsoft can actually do that. They can use your GPL software that you’ve developed, whether you like it or not. And they don’t have to pay you a cent. And you can’t legally make them either, especially if you’ve released it under the GPL. Sure, you can ask them, but they’ll tell you to bugger off. As long as Microsoft (or any other corporate entity) keeps the licensing for that package the same, notes the license that the package was released under, and makes available the src code for it they are adhering to the GPL and you can’t do jack about it. If you don’t like that thought, then don’t release under the GPL.
Dave W Pastern
“For instance, Sun Microsystems has introduced a “Community Source License Agreement” that is an attempt to capture some of the spirit and momentum behind open source initiatives, but contains significant restrictions that make it substantially different …”
In other words, it’s trying to sail under a false flag. Note that it says ‘significant restrictions’, not just restrictions. So not just significant in the eyes of GPL advocates, but significant in the eyes of lawyers, too.
“The Sun license … purports to treat the source code as “confidential information,” even though it is available for download from the Internet.”
Notice the ‘even though’ bit? The quotes around ‘confidential information’? I understand that as trying to make those claims stand out in particular as contradictory.
“The application of the term “open source” to projects licensed under proprietary models, such as the Sun Community Source License, could help lead to reducing the term “open source” to a marketing gimmick and to confusing developers about the rights associated with various programs available under the “open source” banner.”
Sun has been eager to market SCSL and Java as ‘as good as open source’. Given that SCSL contains significant restrictions, that’s not honest, in my opinion. Moreover, confusing developers about their rights, does not serve these developers well.
It is amazing how confused people are about their rights when it comes to Java. If you use SCSL’d code commercially, you have to have a written contract with Sun, and pay royalties, or you are violating the SCSL, for example.
“Software developers must ensure their lawyers have an opportunity to review the license agreements associated with “open source” programs before they download and use these programs in their own projects, and that their lawyers carefully review the licenses that accompany programs billed as “open source” software to ensure the licensing and other contractual restrictions are consistent with the expectations, goals and risk tolerances of individual clients.”
This is in the same paragraph as the explicit notion of SCSL as a proprietary licensing model that’s sailing under a false flag. Given that such falsely advertised licensing schemes as SCSL can result in significant financial obligations to developers, the american bar association recommends that lawyers check software licenses, etc.
The SCSL is picked as an example why the ABA recommends that your lawyer checks the licenses your developers accept. If that ain’t a great endorsement of a licensing practice, I don’t know what is
cheers,
dalibor topic
“In other words, it’s trying to sail under a false flag. Note that it says ‘significant restrictions’, not just restrictions. So not just significant in the eyes of GPL advocates, but significant in the eyes of lawyers, too.”
Can you say “spin”? Sure you can. I know you can. You are implying that the lawyers are condemning the Sun license when in fact, the document does not say they are. They are just pointing out a few potential problems.
And once again, the condemnation the GPL for use within commercial companies is FAR stronger then the condemnation of the Sun license.
“It is amazing how confused people are about their rights when it comes to Java. If you use SCSL’d code commercially, you have to have a written contract with Sun, and pay royalties, or you are violating the SCSL, for example.”
And if you use GPLd code in a closed source project, you are screwed. Period. You can’t even pay a royalty. You are just screwed. And do you know how easy it could be to accidently used GPLd code in a project? Pretty easy because of its viral transmission method.
Quote:
“It’s just that they could not be bundled with the commercial distribution”
mmm. Lemme see, that would make buying a distribution useless. Let’s see…no Gnome. No KDE. No OpenOffice. No Kernel. No X. No networking ability either…I’m going to be able to do a really lot with this machine!
What does Libranet offer? Adminmenu administration tool (similar to YAST but better imho). Custom installer. Selection of quality packages (well, as deemed by the developers Jon & Tal), Libranet safe update archive, truly excellent support, excellent user forums filled with knowledgeable and friendly fellow users who love using Linux, and Libranet in particular. Most of this is service orientated, rather than code, but what Libranet does offer (and many other distributions) is very very good.
I can install Debian ‘woody’ and fart ass around to get it all working. Then have to scratch my head on how to set up the /etc/apt/sources.list and /etc/apt/preferences so my system doesn’t get screwed when I try using mixed repositories, or I can buy Libranet, install it nice and easy and just sit back, relax and enjoy. And yes i’ve used Debian ‘woody’. Oh and the packages that come with Debian ‘woody’ are rather old now…with Libranets safe update archive I can relatively safely update to the very latest packages. Sometimes there are hiccoughs, but not many and they are fixable. That’s really NICE.
All of this would be missing if your ideals of the ‘abuse’ being done to the GPL and developers by corporations was fixed the way you want. I’m quite happy to have Redhat make a buck, and others. As long as they return to the community. Linspire and others don’t, and they’re the bastards that need a good kick up the ass.
And to return back to the topic of the posting, I feel that Sun is a double faced, traitorous, lying s.o.a.b, that has decided to ally itself with Microsoft to try and stem the tide of OSS and keep it’s old style money racqueteering (oops I mean profit) business going. Guess Sun and Microsoft are going to have to bribe a lot of US politicians to get their way now…oops, they already do!
Dave W Pastern
Let’me quote the only section of the document that mentions the GPL in full:
“Companies looking to build a business on open source software also need to consider the problems associated with creating derivative works. Some open source license forms, such as the GPL, require licensees to provide free copies of their derivative works in source code form for others to use, modify and redistribute in accordance with the terms of the license agreement for the unmodified program. This licensing term is advantageous for the free software community because it ensures that no for-profit company can “hijack” the code base from the community. On the other hand, this licensing term makes it very difficult for companies in the commercial software business to use such open source software as a foundation for a business. These companies must be concerned that their “value added” programs might some day be viewed as “derivative works” and need to be made available to the world in source code form for free. ”
Where is a “condemnation” in there? There is a sentence about paying concern about derivative works under the GPL. Nothing about sailing under a false banner, or apparent contraditions, like with the SCSL.
How is it “far stronger”? They spend two paragraphs discussing licenses that are falsely advertised as open source, their negative implications and problems for developers. They spend one sentence to point out to be concerned about creating derivative works wrt to GPL’d works.
Bring on your spin accusations, as much as you want, I prefer to use quotes and facts.
cheers,
dalibor topic
“Bring on your spin accusations, as much as you want, I prefer to use quotes and facts. ”
“blah blah could confuse developers, so you must make sure you read the license agreement”. That’s just obvious common sense. And you have to do this with other open source licenses too. For example, do you know what all the requirements are if you want to use an LGPLd library?
The warnings about no warranty, etc. Clearly apply more to the GPL then to the Sun license. After all, Sun is a major corporaton that you can sue if something goes wrong. If your GPL software blows up on you and costs your company millions of dollars, there is no one you can sue, etc.
If what you call ‘viral’ in the GPL bothers you, I’d suggest checking out this fine clause in the SCSL:
“GLOSSARY, 13. “Modification(s)” means (i) any change to Covered Code; (ii) any new file or other representation of computer program statements that contains any portion of Covered Code; and/or (iii) any new Source Code implementing any portion of the Specifications.”
Regarding (ii): the GPL does not make any claims to any new files you create that are not derived works from GPLd works. the SCSL says that any file you create belongs to Sun if it has any portion of SCSL’d code, derived or not derived does not matter.
Regarding (iii): the GPL does not make any claims to your code implementing some specifications. Just because there is a GPLd C library does not mean that GPL says all C libraries ever written must be GPLd. SCSL tries to sneak in protection of idea from patent law into copyright, which only protects an expression. SCO is currently losing that argument in court big time, btw, but they didn’t have it in contract. SCSL has it in contract.
So how, precisely, is the SCSL less viral than the GPL?
cheers,
dalibor topic
I know it must be hard to seperate the arguments of Simba and I because they are very similar, but I agree with a lot of what you say. I’ve already defended the GPL in this thread, as I believe a more restrictive license would be setting OSS down the wrong path (there are two sides surrounding moderation, but only the center is truth). I’ve also stated that I respect the Red Hat developers for what they’ve done, and Red Hat for giving back to the community. It’s the executives I dislike, playing corporate games and being driven by greed. I actually agree with them in the case of Sun, but that’s not reason to sing their praise, for me. I know it’s typical, and I know they’re better than most in this day and age, but I believe that if we accept them for making headway, others won’t feel the need to go a step further.
I agree, Lycoris/Xandros/Linspire etc are much worse, I made a similar point earlier. Still though, if I think one of those is the best option for someone, I’ll still suggest it. Sure, I’ll give them a bit of philosophy, but I won’t decide for other people. Hell, for some people I’ll even suggest Microsoft before anything else.
I agree with Simba that selling documentation and support is just working around the license. In reality they’re just selling the software packaged with support and documentation. I don’t mind this so much, that’s the way the GPL is written, and that’s what we have. I do believe we have to move past this someday, but that day isn’t here yet, and it’s not close enough for me to tell even what the choice is, much less possible solutions.
What it comes down to for me is, I recognize the fact that Red Hat is transitioning big business to a more moral state, but I can’t actually accept Red Hat as a business because with that task they can’t help but be amoral/immoral themselves. I could care less if people make money off of OSS. As I stated earlier in the thread, I see it as a good way for developers to find gainful employment without selling their souls AND working on their love. It’s when these corporate entities take this work, use it to stuff the executive’s pockets, and/or then don’t give their work back to the community that I have a problem.
I do, however, respect Simba’s opinion, as their is a lot of crossover in our views. The foundations of our philosophies aren’t the same though.
“For example, do you know what all the requirements are if you want to use an LGPLd library?”
Specifically… Most people think that the LGPL can be used in commercial and closed source software, and you only have to ship binaries. This is the common simple definition of the LGPL “Can be used in commercial and closed source projects”… However, this is not quite accurate. Are you aware of the object code clause in the LGPL?
It’s always important to read the license for any library you are planning to link against. Otherwise you might get burned in the future by some clause you didn’t know existed.
“If what you call ‘viral’ in the GPL bothers you, I’d suggest checking out this fine clause in the SCSL:”
What I mean by “viral” is this.
Person A Gives a library to person B that person B uses in his closed source library.
Person B uses this library to create another library, which is also closed source, and gives it to Person C, who uses it to create a closed source application.
Person A is discovered to have used GPL’d code in his library.
Oops… Guess what? That GPL problem propegates all the way up to person C, since Person A’s library must now be GPLd, which means that Person B’s library must also be GPLd, which means that Person C’s application must now be GPLd.
That’s what I mean when I say “viral transmision method”.
“Sun if it has any portion of SCSL’d code, derived or not derived does not matter.”
Um… And how is this different then the GPL? If your code contains even one statement of GPL code, you have to GPL your entire code.
And please explain to me what you mean by “derived or not derived” does not matter. If you have “any portion of the SCSL’d code” then you have code in your application that is not yours. Yes? And the GPL is the same way. If you have “any portion of the GPL code, whether included directly by cutting and pasting, statically linked, or dynamically linked”, you still need to GPL your code.
Quote:
“I agree with Simba that selling documentation and support is just working around the license. In reality they’re just selling the software packaged with support and documentation.”
I disagree. I get good, solid support if I ever need it from Libranet. Most other distributions offer relatively good support as well. That’s worth the money imho. I rarely need the support, but it’s there if I *do* need it. That’s good.
Let’s take an example here shall we? Or two 😉
1. Microsoft. Try ringing them for support, go on. They’ll charge an arm and a leg in *most* instances. But, you’ve just paid a shitload of money for their o/s…really good deal, NOT.
2. Apple. Ever tried ringing Apple (and don’t have a AppleCare Protection Plan and you’re outside the 3 months ‘free’ support)? $49 Australian for a pay per incident agreement. Yup. Seriously. And they’re pretty tight with what’s one incident, and what’s another. So you may have 3 incidents on your Mac, and they’ll charge you for all 3…or charge you for one and only support you for one. Oh, and Apple does *not* support the Unix side of their o/s at all (unless you pay for a professional pay per incident agreement, was at $399 per incident when I worked for Apple in their Tech Support). The Apple kbase used to be quite good, if you weren’t lazy you could find the answer to most of your problems and fix it yourself if you were so inclined. I’ve noticed over the past 12 months that the kbase has gotten a lot worse, covers a lot less topics, in a lot less detail. I’d put money on it, that it’s a deliberate ploy to capitalise on the average person not really knowing what they’re doing, can’t find it on the web, so they’re *forced* to by either a pay per incident agreement, or a AppleCare protection plan.
So, as you see, paying for support is a constant problem, even with commercial software. I get a lot better value for money with Libranet (or Redhat) that I do with either Apple or Microsoft, no matter what spin they want to try and throw to the public.
I, like a lot of other Linux users, give my time and knowledge away for free, and contribute to the user forums of the distribution that I use. I don’t have to, but it’s part of the community spirit. I don’t get paid for it, I don’t get paid for my technical knowledge, and I can deal with it. It’s part of the community spirit, and if it means another happy Linux user i’ve helped, then that’s a lot of personal gratuity to myself. Sun lacks this ‘community spirit’ imho. They care about themselves first, and if they had to *uck over OSS to make a buck they would. They’d get squashed like the bugs that they are, and deservedly so.
Dave W Pastern
I’m by no means saying that the support people get isn’t good. I’m saying that telling people they’re not paying for the software is a half truth at best. If they’re spending money, and they’re getting software, then they’re paying for the software as part of a package.
I won’t comment on Sun here, just because I don’t like taking part in conversations where someone/something is derogatorily called a bug, or where claims are made that someone will f*** someone else over. I’m not saying it’s not true, I just don’t like the tone that was set. No offense.
I already spoke a lot about Sun earlier, though, and it’s even possible that we agree.
Btw, I’ve tried Libranet quite a bit, and even paid for 2.8.1. I agree that the support is great (database and forum, didn’t test email), and they have a good foundation going. But I couldn’t live with the hybrid Debian/Libranet sources, I couldn’t install much that I wanted because of dependency conflicts. Plus it all seemed very unrefined, especially the artwork. I liked the premise though, and I think it has potential.
I should warn you, you’re really close to getting me started on local business’ and regional sustainability. You might not want to open that can.
Quote:
“Btw, I’ve tried Libranet quite a bit, and even paid for 2.8.1. I agree that the support is great (database and forum, didn’t test email), and they have a good foundation going. But I couldn’t live with the hybrid Debian/Libranet sources, I couldn’t install much that I wanted because of dependency conflicts. Plus it all seemed very unrefined, especially the artwork. I liked the premise though, and I think it has potential. ”
I don’t really care too much about artwork, it’s the system that counts, not how pretty it is. Prettiness is a nice extra, but it’s not entirely necessary. Glad to see you’ve tried Libranet 🙂
I don’t have any real issues with the Debian/Libranet hybrid sources, in fact the Libranet sources are really their repository of packages that have been pinned to have a higher priority than the Debian sources to prevent or limit breakages when updating. It’s no worse than trying a pure Debian installation and using mixed sources and apt preference pinning (yes i’ve used Woody for 12 or so months so I have a pretty good idea of how to do it the ‘hard way’).
As to the dependency issues, you have to know how to use apt smartly. Careful usage of apt-get (and avoiding synaptic, aptitude et al as they just make things worse imho), combined with a good understanding of dpkg, dselect etc will result in a totally usable system with no dependencies. I’m running KDE 3.3, Gnome 2.6, OpenOffice 1.1.2-4, XFCE 4.0.5-1, Samba 3, Gimp 2, Mozilla FireFox 0.9.3-5. No packages held back, or anything like that. You just have to *know* how to handle apt, and that’s like any system.
Dave W Pastern
BTW Did you post on the forums, if so what was your nick? I’m curious now 😉 My handle is Morgoth 😉
“And please explain to me what you mean by “derived or not derived” does not matter.”
With pleasure. If you agree to the SCSL and create a new file with this content:
<<It is not like the GPL extends, or the FSF implements marxism, and free software is not class struggle. While some members of the public think that is true, I can tell you this in private, and my verdict is final, that is false.>>
Then the SCSL says you must license it under SCSL because it contains parts of SCSL covered works, namely some Java keywords. The GPL says that if it is a derived work, it must be GPLd. The above text is not derived from GPLd code because I wrote it myself on the spot.
The SCSL says everthing you write from now on that uses a single word (“any part”) from SCSL’d code must be SCSLd. That’s not what copyright law says, that’s a provision in the SCSL to extend Sun’s reach way beyound Sun’s copyrights.
That’s the difference between letting the copyright law decide what constitutes a derived work, what GPL does, and preventively laying claim on all works created by you in the future, whether they are derived from the original work or not, which is what SCSL does. Guess which one goes down better with lawyers, and with developers.
cheers,
dalibor topic
‘If you have “any portion of the GPL code, whether included directly by cutting and pasting, statically linked, or dynamically linked”, you still need to GPL your code.’
There is nothing about static or dynamic linking in the GPL. Please do not make up quotes that are not in the GPL, it makes you look funny when you accuse me of spinning.
cheers,
dalibor topic
“The warnings about no warranty, etc. Clearly apply more to the GPL then to the Sun license. After all, Sun is a major corporaton that you can sue if something goes wrong. If your GPL software blows up on you and costs your company millions of dollars, there is no one you can sue, etc.”
Quoting directly from the SCSL:
“5.1 COVERED CODE IS PROVIDED UNDER THIS LICENSE “AS IS,”
WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED,
INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, WARRANTIES THAT THE COVERED
CODE IS FREE OF DEFECTS, MERCHANTABLE, FIT FOR A PARTICULAR
PURPOSE OR NON-INFRINGING. YOU AGREE TO BEAR THE ENTIRE
RISK IN CONNECTION WITH YOUR USE AND DISTRIBUTION OF COVERED
CODE UNDER THIS LICENSE. THIS DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY
CONSTITUTES AN ESSENTIAL PART OF THIS LICENSE. NO USE OF
ANY COVERED CODE IS AUTHORIZED HEREUNDER EXCEPT SUBJECT TO
THIS DISCLAIMER.”
The ‘you agree to bear the entire risk’ bit means that you give up your right to sue if anything goes wrong.
Moreover, Sun demands that you pay their legal bills if they are end up being in trouble and you are the one to blame:
“a) Your Indemnity Obligation. You hereby agree to defend,
at Your expense, any legal proceeding brought against
Original Contributor or any Licensee to the extent it is
based on a claim: [snip] (ii) arising in connection with any
representation, warranty, support, indemnity, liability or
other license terms You may offer in connection with any
Covered Code; or (iii) arising from Your Commercial Use of
Covered Code, other than a claim covered by Section 5.b)
below, or a patent claim based solely on Covered Code not
provided by You. You will pay all damages costs and fees
awarded by a court of competent jurisdiction, or such
settlement amount negotiated by You, attributable to such
claim.”
Let’s do business together, but the lawsuits are on you.
cheers,
dalibor topic
Well, I’ve used Woody, Sarge, and Ubuntu to a degree (as well as others I wasn’t all that fond of), and I’ve used Apt from the cli, aptitude, and synaptic. Using aptitude and the cli in Woody and Sarge I never had any such problems, but then I only used the free Debian sources. Ubuntu, similarly, maintains their own repository and I didn’t open up Universe, so I didn’t have any problems there either, with synaptic. I would much rather see Libranet maintain their entire repository instead, as it would just clear up so many problems. For example, I couldn’t install MPD or Elmo, and once a few months ago (I’ve tried several times), I couldn’t even upgrade the base system from Libranet’s repository without breaking gconf2 and GDM.
No, prettiness isn’t necessary, but it felt cluttered to me, and it kind of magnified the other problems, to an extent.
But I’m not really big on Apt right now anyway, since I discovered Arch. Pacman does nearly as much as Apt/dpkg with a much simpler design, and it doesn’t hijack my configuration files (as much). Plus it has ABS, which makes it simple to build Pacman packages from source. But it doesn’t have the promising future in user friendly distros that Apt does.
I posted a couple times, but I don’t remember the handle I used. I seem to remember a Morgoth, though.
If people are paying for the software and not for the support, how come they can get the software for free without the support? I know they only offer the source these days, but people are allowed (and do) distribute Red Hat as Isos (white box, CentOs and such projects).
You do not pay for the software, you pay for the work Red Hat did in making it a cohesive, well-working package and for the support and services.
First, there are many commercial distributions that aren’t even as open as Red Hat, like Lycoris and Linspire (Lycoris did for update 3, I doubt they will for 1.4 before 1.5). Red Hat might not be as bad, but obviously they’re impeding the whole process by only releasing sources, and then not allowing 3rd party builds to be called Red Hat.
If these commercial distributions want to convince me they’re not selling software, they’ll simply have to stop doing it. To do that they’ll not only have to release free, complete ISO’s (they can hold back their own non-GPL’d code if they insist, but will it really be their distribution then?); but they’ll also have to stop selling their packages with discs. Instead they can sell packages with documentation and support, and people can either download the ISO or purchase a disc from a 3rd party who simply burns or presses CD’s. There can’t be any money flowing from said 3rd party to the distributor.
But why inconvenience their customers in such a way. A company just wants to have high quality discs and get them immediately when they purchase their license.
I see the point you are trying to make, but it’s such an exaggerated way for a company to go about their business just to make a point.
As in isos, sure they could give those, but I’m sure they have their reasons. Maybe they don’t want new linux users to get their corporate dirtibution when they would be much better served by Fedora. Maybe they are afraid that downloaders would start calling for support, not knowing they won’t get it. Maybe they do it so that more old-fashioned company management don’t think they are getting conned paying for something you can get for free.
When you run a company you’ll have to make a decision between ideology and practice at some points and I think the things you are falling over are sufficiently tiny not to be a big deal. (except the ceo thing of course, but that doesn’t have much to do with their release)
This discussion thread has been awesome – lot’s of smart, lively debate by intelligent people. Kudos to everyone (includeing Simba).
However, I’m having trouble figuring out Simba, and exactly where Simba is coming from.
Early in the thread, Simba labeled Richard Stallman as a marxist.
Then later Simba complained about commercial distros making money packaging and supporting GPL’d open source software, saying Debian is the only way to go (BTW – I think Debian rocks as well, but I don’t think it’s the only way to go), and that the commercial distros are “parasiting” off the efforts of volunteer developers. – This seems to be pro marxist.
And now, Simba is complaining about the GPL, trying to argue against it’s validity.
So one moment Simba is against Stallman/FSF/GPL. Then the next moment Simba is totally pro GPL (in the case of Debian) and against commercial distros. Then the next moment Simba is against the GPL again. And Simba says it’s bad for commerical Linux distros to use GPL software to make money, but then says it’s okay for M$ or Sun to do so.
Also, Simba talks about the “selfish gene”, proclaiming that everyone is intrinsically selfish, then Simba espouses Debian – the totally free, totally volunarily developed Linux distro.
It’s just such a mass of contradictions.
David, well said on Libranet. I’ve heard great things about Libranet. I have yet to try it, but I probably will. I have Mepis and Mandrake right now. Mepis is another Debian derivative that makes Debian brain dead easy, everything installs with no fuss, and everything “just works”. And you get the great Debian core packages (reliable and stable and fast) along with the awesome apt-get, along with the awesome Debian repositories. Libranet sounds the same. You pointed out perfectly how a disto can add tremendous value on top of FOSS and/or Debian, and make it very much worth while paying for it.
I also agree with you wholeheartedly about Lindows/Linspire. I had my Mom get one of those Fry’s $189 PCs with Lindows pre-installed. Lindows/Linspire trys to nickel and dime you to death by installing an extremely minimal amount of software by default, then trys to charge you up the wazoo to download other software from their Click and Run warehouse (stuff that’s freely available with most other distros). If you try apt-get with Debian repositories, you’ll break the installation.
Plus, Lindows/Linspire is not giving back to the community – they have not contributed to general development, nor have they released anything they wrote into the community. Linspire is an actual example of what Simba is talking about a parasitic corporation – taking from GPL FOSS without giving back. Screw them.
Anyway, I’m going to install my Mepis copy onto my Mom’s machine, so she’ll have free access to lots of great software.
In this interview mr. Carmony talks about contributing to open source:
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=5758
“There is nothing about static or dynamic linking in the GPL. Please do not make up quotes that are not in the GPL, it makes you look funny when you accuse me of spinning.”
Yes, there is. Sorry, but you are clearly wrong here. And anyone who has ever usewd the GPL will back me up on this.
If you statically link against a GPL library, then you have created a derived work. Code from thatr GPL library is being included in your project, and therefore, you are required to GPL your project. It makes no difference whether you cut and paste the code directly, or whether the linker puts the code in there. Either way, you have used GPL code and are required to GPL your software.
If you dynamically link, the only difference now is that the GPL code is being linked into your project at runtime rather than at compile time. And once again, you have to GPL your project.
I suggest you do a little more research on the GPL as you will find out most certainly that what I am telling you is correct.
“And now, Simba is complaining about the GPL, trying to argue against it’s validity.”
There are two points I was trying to make here:
1. The document from the lawyer’s guild that was quoted was rather critical of the GPL. So trying to single the Sun license out as being critisized in that document was rather dishonest.
2. I am not a against the GPL. What I am against, is certain clauses in the GPL. Specifically, I am against the fact that it allows commercial companies to parasatize GPL code. And I am also against the fact that it uses a vertical transmission method to force its terms on users. ie: a class that is burried 5 libraries deep can force an entire project to be GPLd, even though the original GPL code is actually quite removed from the project.
“And Simba says it’s bad for commerical Linux distros to use GPL software to make money, but then says it’s okay for M$ or Sun to do so.”
I don’t see MS or Sun parasatizing the work of tons of volunteers to stay in business. MS definately is not. Sun is still primarily a hardware vendor, so they are not either.
“Also, Simba talks about the “selfish gene”, proclaiming that everyone is intrinsically selfish, then Simba espouses Debian – the totally free, totally volunarily developed Linux distro.”
Richard Dawkins is quick to point out that just because we are genetically programmed to be selfish does NOT give us a moral license to behave that way. So I may argue that there is a pre-existing genetic trend for us to behave a certain way. But I would never argue that this justifies or makes it morally acceptable for us to behave that way.
Oops. Those last two posts were from me. I had dumped my cookies file and then forgot to fill in the name again.
Notice I never said that the 3rd parties who sell CD’s couldn’t offer the distributor’s documentation and support package along side the CD.
I also just realized that the 3rd parties, in a very extreme sense, have the same issue, selling a CD, but they’re getting the software.
These are the reasons why I said I basically accept the way commercial distributions work right now, but I think it needs to be addressed in the future.
Please give me the precise quote from the GPL itself where it speaks about static or dynamic linking. I can find none.
The only occurrence of the word ‘link’ in the GPL is in this section, *after* the end of terms and conditions:
“This General Public License does not permit incorporating your program into proprietary programs. If your program is a subroutine library, you may consider it more useful to permit linking proprietary applications with the
library. If this is what you want to do, use the GNU Library General Public License instead of this License.”
The GPL speaks about derived works in the context of copyright law. Derived works are a well-defined term within that legal framework. There is no mention about dynamic linking in the copyright law, afaik. You seem to be focused on technical implications of the GPL, so you’re getting it all backwards.
Let me try to make it simple:
a) GPL is a license that’s based on terms and definitions from copyright law. The technical implications follow from that.
b) Linking is a way of incorporating works into others in order to create larger, derived works.
c) The copyright law prohibts you from creating derived works unless the author grants you a permission.
d) The GPL grants you that permission under specific conditions.
e) The copyright law does not grant you the permission to create derived works without the permission of the author, so it doesn’t give you the permission to incorporate his works into yours without permission, so it doesn’t give you the permission to link without an explicit permission from the author.
(SCO didn’t understand that either, btw.)
It is not the GPL that made the rules about what constitutes derived works. It is just normal copyright law. If you don’t like copyright law wrt to derived works, go ahead and change it. Blaming the GPL for giving you more freedoms than the copyright law does, sounds, well, weird.
cheers,
dalibor topic
“b) Linking is a way of incorporating works into others in order to create larger, derived works.”
Then you have just confirmed what I said. Static and dynamically linked projects are derived works, and therefore must be GPLd.
I’m not sure what you are trying to suggest here. Are you trying to suggest that you do not need to GPL a dynamically linked work? Or are you just arguing that the GPL doesn’t specifically say you have to, but that because of copyright law, you to have to? If case #2, what’s the point in arguing it? Either way, the GPL requires you to GPL a dynamically linked work.
“It is not the GPL that made the rules about what constitutes derived works. It is just normal copyright law. If you don’t like copyright law wrt to derived works, go ahead and change it. Blaming the GPL for giving you more freedoms than the copyright law does, sounds, well, weird.”
Now you are REALLY spinning it. It’s simple. If the GPL didn’t care about dynamically linked binaries, they could have put a clause in there exempting it. But they didn’t. So yes, dynamically linked binaries are a derived work.
You are basically arguing semantics here to try to make it look like the GPL doesn’t forbid you from doing something, but that instead it is implied copyright law that forbids it. Sorry, but this isn’t going to work with me.
“There is no mention about dynamic linking in the copyright law, afaik.”
I think this seems to be the sticking point. And yes, I think you are right. There is no specific mention of dynamic linking. And thus, this has been argued before by software lawyers. The main sticking point seems to be this. If you create a dynamically linked work, you have not actually performed the act of including including someone elses work in your project, therefore, the GPL cannot apply to a dynamically linked work since the person who created the work did not actually perform any kind of act to include that code in their project. (whereas with a statically linked work, you performed the act of invoking the linker, which thus is like pressing the “copy” button on a copy machine.)
However, the general concensious seems to be that it doesn’t matter. Because with a dynamically linked project, you knowingly and intentionally provided a mechanism for your project to include copyrighted code at the time the binary is run. Furthermore, the binary cannot run without that copyrighted code being included at runtime. Therefore, dynamically linked works are still derived works and will still inherit the GPL.
So even though technically you may be right, and copyright law says nothing about dynamically linked works, it is only because the law has not yet caught up with the technology. And for all practical and legal purposes, a dynamically linked work still included copyrighted code, and therefore must be GPLd if that is the license the dynamic library uses.
“I’m not sure what you are trying to suggest here. Are you trying to suggest that you do not need to GPL a dynamically linked work? Or are you just arguing that the GPL doesn’t specifically say you have to, but that because of copyright law, you to have to? If case #2, what’s the point in arguing it? Either way, the GPL requires you to GPL a dynamically linked work. ”
The latter, of course. The point in arguing it is twofold:
You said that there is something about statical/dynamical linking in the GPL. You have failed to provide a quote for your assertion that GPL talks about statical or dynamical linking. You’d probably call it spinning, if it was something I said.
The second point is not a technicality, though. You are arguing about GPL being viral without apprently being able to comprehend that the ‘virality’ is not a specific property of the GPL.
It exists in a much broader form in Sun’s Java license, as I have shown with *quotes from the license*. It is a property of copyright law: the law grants the author a say in the modification, distribution, etc of his works. SCSL, Sun’s Java license, uses that to make claims on unrelated works containing portions of SCSL’d works, and on all expressions of a particular idea (implementations of a specification).
In particular the latter part is an attempt to sneak in protections that patent law grants into Sun’s Java, without going through the patent process. Remeber, patent law protects ideas, copyright law protects specific expressions.
Which one is more viral, again?
cheers,
dalibor topic
“The second point is not a technicality, though. You are arguing about GPL being viral without apprently being able to comprehend that the ‘virality’ is not a specific property of the GPL.”
But it IS a specific property of the GPL because the part that makes it viral is written into the GPL. Compare this with say, user32.dll, which is a key library included with Windows that any Windows program must dynamically link against. Microsoft does not tell me I have to give them any code that I link against user32.dll. They do not force me to pay royalties for any code I link against user32.dll, etc. Rather, in the interest of simply getting people to write software for Windows, Microsoft allows me to dynamically link with user32.dll. There are not “you need to allow us to have the source code, or you need to inherity the Microsoft EULA, etc.” clauses that go along with it. So yes, the GPL “viral nature” exists specifically because of clauses in the GPL. Therefore, it is a specific property of the way the GPL is written.
“It exists in a much broader form in Sun’s Java license, as I have shown with *quotes from the license*. It is a property of copyright law:”
But now lets consider the practical implications of the Sun Java license. Really, these things only nail me if I am actually modifying the Java interpretor, or something like that. These clauses do not apply to me as a programmer who is simply writing software to run on the Java platform. I can write commercial, free, open, or closes source software using J2SE and I do not have to pay Sun or dime, nor does Sun have any rights to my source code. So basically, you are taking a specific clause in the Sun license and trying to apply it generally, which is simply dishonest. These clauses do not appkly to what the vast majority of Java programmers are doing.
Compare this to a GPLd libary, in which the GPL very much affects what the programmer is doing since any code that is linked against that library must inherit the GPL. That is not the case with code that uses the Java API. Sun does not tell me I have to license my code a certain way, or give them rights to it, or pay them royalties for code I write that uses the Java API.
Now I know that most libraries (the ones that come with GCC for example) use the LGPL, which allows writing propreitary software. But even this has a clause which most folks are not aware of unless they actually read the licence. And that clause is that if you link against LGPLd code, you need to provide a way for the users of your app to relink your code if they request you to do so. That basically means that at a minumum, you have to provide object code to your users upon request. This can also have further implications. If you are also staically linking with a commercial library that you do not have permission to redistribute, then you cannot use any LGPL libraries since you cannot meet the requirement that your users be able to relink your code if they wish to do so. (You cannot provide them with all of the libaries necessary for them to relink your code.)
So really, when it comes to practical application of the licenses for typical programming, the Sun license is less restrictive then both the GPL and the LGPL as far as the programmer’s rights are concerned.
BTW, I’m going to post the answer to what I suspect your next point will be, which is that the GPL and LGPL license allow me to modify the actual library without having to pay royalties, or turn my code over to some company, etc, where as this is where the Sun license becomes problematic.
My response to this is that you shouldn’t be modifying these libraries anyway, because it breaks the portability of your code.
And with Java or C++, you would have to be doing something really arcane if you found yourself needing to do this anyway (and chances are if you found yourself needing to do this, you are probably doing something wrong and should really rethink your approach.)
If I don’t like the way a class in the Java API behaves, I do not need to modify the API, and I woildn’t want to anyway. I just subclass it and then override its methods. And Sun does NOT charge me royalties or claim any rights to my source code if I subclass a class in the Java API and then override its methods. So once again, the clauses you are trying to apply generally simply don’t apply to the vast majority of programming in Java.
“Rather, in the interest of simply getting people to write software for Windows, Microsoft allows me to dynamically link with user32.dll.”
Please back up your claims with quotes. You’ve been accusing me during a lot of out debate of spinning and being dishonest. I have provided quotes for my assertions, your assertions have so far failed to be backed up by quotes from the licenses. So please allow me to be sceptical about your understanding of Microsoft’s EULA without seing the precise quote of the license and a URL to it.
cheers,
dalibor topic
“Rather, in the interest of simply getting people to write software for Windows, Microsoft allows me to dynamically link with user32.dll.”
Well, I can back this up if you want. But it may take me awhile to actually find the specific license that covers linking against the Windows API. But what I can tell you for, and which you shouldn’t beed me to find a quote for, is that virtually every Windows program in existence needs to link against user32.api as this is where the user interface funtionality comes from. And I’m sure you also don’t need me to find a quote for you that freeware and shareware authors are NOT paying royalties to Microsoft, etc.
BTW, the clauses in the Sun license exist for a very good reason. Because Sun does not want a bunch of incompatible implementations of Java out there because people decided to modify the Java API itself. That would break part of the whole point of Java, which is portability. Sun basically says “You can port the JRE to another platform without paying us royalites, etc. provided you do not modify it.” I personally think this is a good policy given that the whole philosophy depends on Java being universally portable. if you get a bunch of modified JREs out there, the portability is gone and now one would have the same problem they have with any other language. They would have to recompile Java code each time they switched to a different JRE.
This is what got Microsoft in trouble. They violated the part of the licence that said they could not modify the JRE itself. And we all know why Microsoft did modify the JRE. Because they intentionally introduced incompatibilites to try to undermine Java.
The Sun license is a good one in my opinion. It does not affect me as a Java programmer. In fact, it protects me. It protects me from having my programs break when I distribute them because some user is running a modified version of the JRE on their system. The Sun license ensures that my programs will actually be universally portable because the license ensures that the JRE is consistant across platforms.