(Right, I'm going to sleep.)
It's a quickish letter, 1 page so people can fax more of them, slightly larger print coz fax machines aren't great.
The voting list was mostly robbed from FFII but I've checked most of their endorsements and filled in most of the gaps.
There are 102 MEPs, 15 Irish, 87 UK. Take a block, tell the list, and take another block after if you can. I don't have fax access but I'm getting a friend to do 10 for me, so I'll take UK 78 to 87. I'll probably be without email until 1630h if you need to make changes, the OpenOffice file is here along with the pdf:
http://www.compsoc.com/~coriordan/docs/sept23/
This page gives links to the Irish & UK MEP listings. They're in Strasbourg, each MEP has a Strasbourg fax number on their page.
AFAIK, plenary sessions end at 1300 or 1400, so our MEPs will have the evening to read faxes, if we can get it to them early that would be great. Strasbourg is 1 hour ahead of us.
I stuck my name on it in the hope that they'll recognise it from the previous letter. Niall Douglas says the last letter went down well across the parties, so linking the two letters might add a bit of clout.
This might be our last chance to make a difference.
Good Luck. Ciaran.
I'll take all the Irish MEP's.
-----Original Message----- From: fsfe-ie-bounces@fsfeurope.org [mailto:fsfe-ie-bounces@fsfeurope.org]On Behalf Of Ciaran O'Riordan Sent: 23 September 2003 05:11 To: fsfe-ie@fsfeurope.org Subject: [Fsfe-ie] 1-page letter, faxes at the ready
(Right, I'm going to sleep.)
It's a quickish letter, 1 page so people can fax more of them, slightly larger print coz fax machines aren't great.
The voting list was mostly robbed from FFII but I've checked most of their endorsements and filled in most of the gaps.
There are 102 MEPs, 15 Irish, 87 UK. Take a block, tell the list, and take another block after if you can. I don't have fax access but I'm getting a friend to do 10 for me, so I'll take UK 78 to 87. I'll probably be without email until 1630h if you need to make changes, the OpenOffice file is here along with the pdf:
http://www.compsoc.com/~coriordan/docs/sept23/
This page gives links to the Irish & UK MEP listings. They're in Strasbourg, each MEP has a Strasbourg fax number on their page.
AFAIK, plenary sessions end at 1300 or 1400, so our MEPs will have the evening to read faxes, if we can get it to them early that would be great. Strasbourg is 1 hour ahead of us.
I stuck my name on it in the hope that they'll recognise it from the previous letter. Niall Douglas says the last letter went down well across the parties, so linking the two letters might add a bit of clout.
This might be our last chance to make a difference.
Good Luck. Ciaran. _______________________________________________ Fsfe-ie mailing list Fsfe-ie@fsfeurope.org https://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/fsfe-ie
The Irish MEP's are done. That's my lot for now, if there's any left this evening let me know and I'll see what I can do.
Sending a fax to Dana has confused me. I need a lie down.
adam
hi,
i've done 1 - 40 uk ( inclusive )
there is no answer from no 6, 14, 29, 39
-- adam
I have someone to do another 20, so I'm taking UK 58 - 77.
only UK 41 to 57 remain now, anyone else got spare capacity?
ciaran.
On Tue, Sep 23, 2003 at 12:00:50PM +0100, Adam Moran wrote:
hi,
i've done 1 - 40 uk ( inclusive )
there is no answer from no 6, 14, 29, 39
On Tue, Sep 23, 2003 at 03:28:26PM +0100, adam beecher wrote:
On Tue, Sep 23, 2003 at $time + $offset, Adam Moran wrote:
only UK 41 to 57 remain now, anyone else got spare capacity?
done - no answer, # 44
Got there before me! That the lot?
yup. Thanks a lot guys, I didn't think it would all get done. Fingers crossed now.
Any criticisms about the content of the letter?
ciaran.
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On 23 Sep 2003 at 16:42, Ciaran O'Riordan wrote:
Thanks a lot guys, I didn't think it would all get done. Fingers crossed now.
Any criticisms about the content of the letter?
Bit late now innit? :)
Anyway, congrats all, sorry I couldn't take part - I only have net access after 6pm, no fax machine and no money :(
I'll be holding my breath tomorrow!
Cheers, Niall
Thanks a lot guys, I didn't think it would all get done. Fingers crossed now.
Tab-delimited spreadsheet of Irish MEP fax numbers attached, for future reference. Why are there two country codes? Anyone?
Any criticisms about the content of the letter?
No, aside from the fact that these things would probably look better coming from an "association" or somesuch, particularly in a case like this where the MEP's are being hammered from the other side by associations, corporations and professional lobbyists. There's no doubt that the personal approach does work in some circumstances, but I think personal lobbying is best used to /enhance/ an organised campaign.
Greenpeace and the EFF are perfect examples, and when you get right down to it we're just talking about a few forms and a web-fax gateway, something a bunch of techies like us should be able to procure and produce in a couple of hours. Paying for the faxes in another matter. I've been trying to organise FaxYourTD for ages but I keep running up against it -- looks like we'll end up with premium-rated texts. Ewww. :(
adam
On Tue, Sep 23, 2003 at 10:36:44PM +0100, adam beecher wrote:
Thanks a lot guys, I didn't think it would all get done. Fingers crossed now.
Tab-delimited spreadsheet of Irish MEP fax numbers attached, for future reference. Why are there two country codes? Anyone?
+32 is their Brussels office, +33 is their Strasbourg one. This plenary session is in Strasbourg but I've heard that communications sent to one office get forwarded to the other, not sure what sort of delay occurs though.
Any criticisms about the content of the letter?
No, aside from the fact that these things would probably look better coming from an "association" or somesuch
Agreed. This is still something I'm thinking about (how to set up an effective organisation). A board of five people would be great but five people have to stand out as being capable. This can only wait so long. At some point we should just make an org and if it's suboptimal, we'll live with it for a year and have elections then. Jan 5th would be a good cut-off date for an org, it's the 20th anniversary of the GNU project.
when you get right down to it we're just talking about a few forms and a web-fax gateway
A public "fax your MEP" webpage? This could be useful in general but on the software patents issue it would have been a hinderance. One of the problems we encountered was the complaint that MEPs were receiving too many communications.
They got loads of "Say NO to software patents", which McCarthy countered by saying that her proposal didn't create software patents. What the MEPs were asking for was a education about what exactly was bad about the directive. This sort of information can only come from a small number of informed people (preferably with peer review).
hi ciaran,
Ciaran O'Riordan wrote:
They [the meps] got loads of "Say NO to software patents", which McCarthy countered by saying that her proposal didn't create software patents. What the MEPs were asking for was a education about what exactly was bad about the directive. This sort of information can only come from a small number of informed people (preferably with peer review).
i agree with the peer review but i think the group should be as open as possible ... i sat in on a uk educational matadata standards meeting a few weeks ago and am outraged at the schemas that that 'small number of informed people' have cooked up ... let's not get dragged back in to that way of doing things ... peer review means that we can trust that the 'informed people' are the 'informed people' because their reputation stands or falls on the content and the form of their argument
-- adam
+32 is their Brussels office, +33 is their Strasbourg one. This plenary session is in Strasbourg but I've heard that communications sent to one office get forwarded to the other, not sure what sort of delay occurs though.
Well, I sent 'em to +32. Right-to-left an' all that. :)
Agreed. This is still something I'm thinking about (how to set up an effective organisation). A board of five people would be great but five people have to stand out as being capable. This can only wait so long. At some point we should just make an org and if it's suboptimal, we'll live with it for a year and have elections then. Jan 5th would be a good cut-off date for an org, it's the 20th anniversary of the GNU project.
To be clear, I'm not all that bothered about the actual organisation. As Adam Moran suggested, we have our organisation right here, so I'd be inclined to just give it a name and a logo. And don't make a big thing out of them either, they tend to take important energy away from the actual campaign. Something simple like "The Association of Free and Open Source Software Developers" with a plain-jane black-and-white logo (lots of faxes remember) is just fine.
I can go through examples of why I think this if you like (I (am/have been) involved with IrelandOffline, IE Watch and CorkWAN), but I'll assume for the moment that I don't need to. The only minor concern I have is the implicit tie with Free Software, but since it's just the mailing list at the moment, it's not really that important.
A public "fax your MEP" webpage? it would have been a hinderance. One of the problems we encountered was the complaint that MEPs were receiving too many communications.
Again to be clear, the faxing project is a general tool I wish to introduce, to be used by voters and Internet-based campaigns in general. I wasn't specifically suggesting it for this campaign.
adam
Maybe a name, logo, and informal association would be good for this list.
As I've mentioned here before, I also have seperate aims. I'd like to form an Ireland-based Free Software organisation. It would not eat this list, it should have it's own lists. Support has been shown for this idea and the name "Irish Free Software Organisation" (ifso.ie).
OT: re: IFSO in general
I hope to discuss this further on the list soon, but I'll outline some points here since the topic was brought up:
I believe that every software user should have the freedoms promoted by FSF, and I'm committed to making this happen.
In the past two years, I've met with the staff and committees of half a dozen national, European, and American Free Software and digital-rights groups. I've been looking at how they've run their orgs and trying to figure out the most effective methods.
I think it's time for an Irish org. This org will not be set up just for the sake of it, and not to create a priesthood or a divide between board and community. It will be set up to promote and defend Free Software. I'm going to work hard to make it effective, and I'm looking for others who will share this goal.
From looking at other orgs, I'm convinced of one thing: it must
be open and transparent. It must focus on providing a service to the community, to enable others.
We all have fulltime jobs or college schedules, and we'll all be new to this level of software-freedom activity. The task is huge, but I think we're ready to start.
So, who will be on the board? Picking a board may involve hurting peoples feelings. It has to be done, we'll have elections after one or two years. Anyone that is committed won't let hurt feelings stop them from contributing anyway. The board will probably be formed from an agreement between members of this list. This list is a place where people can get help and encourage others. Capable people will become (semi-)obvious after a while.
ciaran.
On Thu, Sep 25, 2003 at 10:22:43AM +0100, adam beecher wrote: [an association]
Agreed. This is still something I'm thinking about (how to set up an effective organisation). A board of five people would be great but five people have to stand out as being capable. This can only wait so long. At some point we should just make an org and if it's suboptimal, we'll live with it for a year and have elections then. Jan 5th would be a good cut-off date for an org, it's the 20th anniversary of the GNU project.
To be clear, I'm not all that bothered about the actual organisation. As Adam Moran suggested, we have our organisation right here, so I'd be inclined to just give it a name and a logo. And don't make a big thing out of them either, they tend to take important energy away from the actual campaign. Something simple like "The Association of Free and Open Source Software Developers" with a plain-jane black-and-white logo (lots of faxes remember) is just fine.
I can go through examples of why I think this if you like (I (am/have been) involved with IrelandOffline, IE Watch and CorkWAN), but I'll assume for the moment that I don't need to. The only minor concern I have is the implicit tie with Free Software, but since it's just the mailing list at the moment, it's not really that important.
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On 25 Sep 2003 at 15:47, Ciaran O'Riordan wrote:
As I've mentioned here before, I also have seperate aims. I'd like to form an Ireland-based Free Software organisation. It would not eat this list, it should have it's own lists. Support has been shown for this idea and the name "Irish Free Software Organisation" (ifso.ie).
What's wrong with using this list? It was only created very recently, so we really can choose whatever direction we like for it. So long as it's generally about free software with an irish perspective, you're fine.
You'll also find people like me prefer to join as few lists as possible. I already waste enough of each day reading email and the signal to noise ratio is low enough.
In the past two years, I've met with the staff and committees of half a dozen national, European, and American Free Software and digital-rights groups. I've been looking at how they've run their orgs and trying to figure out the most effective methods.
I would use "human rights" rather than "digital rights". After all, all we're asking for is not to be exploited.
Picking a board may involve hurting peoples feelings. It has to be done, we'll have elections after one or two years. Anyone that is committed won't let hurt feelings stop them from contributing anyway. The board will probably be formed from an agreement between members of this list. This list is a place where people can get help and encourage others. Capable people will become (semi-)obvious after a while.
I have six years of activist experience behind me and in my experience, the people who get a job are those who are willing to do it. Very rarely is there competition for a place - it's boring, tedious and long thankless work and few do it for free. Another point is most newbies don't realise this and are very enthusiastic to begin with, then quickly lose interest.
IMHO the only call for more organisation is perhaps to get the official FSF Ireland designation and thus access to FSF resources.
Cheers, Niall
On Thu, Sep 25, 2003 at 09:44:13PM +0100, Niall Douglas wrote:
On 25 Sep 2003 at 15:47, Ciaran O'Riordan wrote:
[IFSO] would not eat this list, it should have it's own lists.
What's wrong with using this list?
hmm, I suppose we could continue with this list, it would be simpler. When the time comes, I'll ask for any objections.
I have six years of activist experience behind me and in my experience, the people who get a job are those who are willing to do it.
(I think I'm agreeing with you) Board positions will be offered to people who are willing and presumed capable of getting the job done. Attitude will be a major factor. There will be people who want to be on the board to alter the direction of the org inline with their own agendas, and there will be people who want to make their voice louder. But it must be highlighted, the board will not be a priesthood, it should aim to facilitate the community, not to control it. Anyway, more of this some other time...
IMHO the only call for more organisation is perhaps to get the official FSF Ireland designation and thus access to FSF resources.
Here's the deal: FSF doesn't want loads of mini-FSFs. A load of trust is required when allowing an org to use the FSF name, so they have FSF, FSF-europe, and FSF-india. FSF-europe encourages the formation of national FS orgs and has an "Associates" program. After a short term of successful running, an org can apply to become an Associate of FSF-europe. Associate groups get consulted on the dealings of FSF-europe.
Info about the Associates program is here: http://www.fsfeurope.org/associates/about.en.html
And the current list of Associates is here: http://www.fsfeurope.org/associates/associates.en.html
what FSF resources would we want access to? (I have access now. When IFSO is formed, it will have access)
ciaran.
On Thu 25 Sep 2003 21:44, Niall Douglas wrote:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 What's wrong with using this list? It was only created very recently, so we really can choose whatever direction we like for it. So long as it's generally about free software with an irish perspective, you're fine.
Well, my first post to this list and it may seem a bit harsh :-( :
I've been lurking for some time, as this list is a place where really strong anti-software-patent action has been happening. Plus I'm Irish and interested in the FSF, though I'm not 100% in agreement with the FSF, myself (they're far too moderate and reasonable altogether... ).
However, I figured I'd better get this out in the open right at the start:
You posted (on tuesday) some comments about the GPL being non-free...
That seems an odd (read: absurd) stance for an FSF list, and one direction that really would seem a tad inappropriate for the list to take while it is under the "FSF" banner. You may have been joking or sarcastic, of course, and I'm not suggesting it's a _discussion_ that's inappropriate for the list (though it's been done to death over the years and gets kinda boring), but as a _direction_ I'd like to state my not-so-humble opinion right now that it's pretty damn silly.
Of course, academically, the GPL isn't totally "free" like "I release this into the public domain" would be. Perhaps that's all you meant, but I don't really know.
Of course, what would be even freer would be if copyright didn't exist at all.
The GPL is designed to try to preserve some of the freedom that existed before software ("applied discrete mathematics") became copyrightable late last century. It's doing a damn good job in the anti-free environment that the current crop of infofascists (WIPO etc.) have produced. While the GPL would be unenforceable in the absence of software copyright and patent law, it would also be unnecessary, as people have pointed out ad nauseum.
Copyleft only acts "un-free" to those who would, secretly or otherwise, wish to "own" information under copyright law themselves and thus restrict the freedom of others. I don't give a shit if some people can't sit on their arses and "sell" infinitely-replicable information patterns of software as an artificially-scarce "product" once the GPL takes over. I could still make a packet on computers, doing ACTUAL WORK of installation, configuration, operational support, "bespoke" new development and so on, even in the complete absence of software copyrights (and patents).
While the current furore has temporarily united in opposition to patents many proprietary and free software people, I would not be in favour of pandering to proprietary interests on an FSF list - I'm not one of those wishy-washy "peaceful coexistence with proprietary software" open-source types. That's like "peaceful coexistence" with an aggressive mucormycosis.
By now you may be saying "If I Ever Meet You I Will Kick Your Ass", but I really don't care - I'm a just bit paranoid about fifth columnists, a (Microsoft-favorite) strategy that has been used to try to destroy computing things before (with varying degrees of success - e.g. even the Amiga still has a kind of unholy walking-death, though I prefer to stay away from the shambling horror and try to remember it as it once was...)
[quavery schlock horror voice] I know people have gone to Microsoft Research, and come back... different... [/quavery schlock horror voice] ... like invasion of the bodysnatchers different, or "I read Dianetics and know that Scientology can help me" different...
David Golden.
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On 26 Sep 2003 at 3:19, David Golden wrote:
I'll take this off list and reply to you tomorrow. I didn't actually mean to make my views so public on this particular list but anyone interested can see plenty more on the fsfeurope discussion list archives.
Cheers, Niall
On Thu 25 Sep 2003 21:44, Niall Douglas wrote:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 What's wrong with using this list? It was only created very recently, so we really can choose whatever direction we like for it. So long as it's generally about free software with an irish perspective, you're fine.
Well, my first post to this list and it may seem a bit harsh :-( :
I've been lurking for some time, as this list is a place where really strong anti-software-patent action has been happening. Plus I'm Irish and interested in the FSF, though I'm not 100% in agreement with the FSF, myself (they're far too moderate and reasonable altogether... ).
However, I figured I'd better get this out in the open right at the start:
You posted (on tuesday) some comments about the GPL being non-free...
That seems an odd (read: absurd) stance for an FSF list, and one direction that really would seem a tad inappropriate for the list to take while it is under the "FSF" banner. You may have been joking or sarcastic, of course, and I'm not suggesting it's a _discussion_ that's inappropriate for the list (though it's been done to death over the years and gets kinda boring), but as a _direction_ I'd like to state my not-so-humble opinion right now that it's pretty damn silly.
Of course, academically, the GPL isn't totally "free" like "I release this into the public domain" would be. Perhaps that's all you meant, but I don't really know.
Of course, what would be even freer would be if copyright didn't exist at all.
The GPL is designed to try to preserve some of the freedom that existed before software ("applied discrete mathematics") became copyrightable late last century. It's doing a damn good job in the anti-free environment that the current crop of infofascists (WIPO etc.) have produced. While the GPL would be unenforceable in the absence of software copyright and patent law, it would also be unnecessary, as people have pointed out ad nauseum.
Copyleft only acts "un-free" to those who would, secretly or otherwise, wish to "own" information under copyright law themselves and thus restrict the freedom of others. I don't give a shit if some people can't sit on their arses and "sell" infinitely-replicable information patterns of software as an artificially-scarce "product" once the GPL takes over. I could still make a packet on computers, doing ACTUAL WORK of installation, configuration, operational support, "bespoke" new development and so on, even in the complete absence of software copyrights (and patents).
While the current furore has temporarily united in opposition to patents many proprietary and free software people, I would not be in favour of pandering to proprietary interests on an FSF list - I'm not one of those wishy-washy "peaceful coexistence with proprietary software" open-source types. That's like "peaceful coexistence" with an aggressive mucormycosis.
By now you may be saying "If I Ever Meet You I Will Kick Your Ass", but I really don't care - I'm a just bit paranoid about fifth columnists, a (Microsoft-favorite) strategy that has been used to try to destroy computing things before (with varying degrees of success - e.g. even the Amiga still has a kind of unholy walking-death, though I prefer to stay away from the shambling horror and try to remember it as it once was...)
[quavery schlock horror voice] I know people have gone to Microsoft Research, and come back... different... [/quavery schlock horror voice] ... like invasion of the bodysnatchers different, or "I read Dianetics and know that Scientology can help me" different...
David Golden.
Fsfe-ie mailing list Fsfe-ie@fsfeurope.org https://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/fsfe-ie
I'll take this off list and reply to you tomorrow. I didn't actually mean to make my views so public on this particular list but anyone interested can see plenty more on the fsfeurope discussion list archives.
Can you guys keep this on list? I'd be insterested in the debate.
I for one interpret the GPL as a social construct. It's intended to build a community of people who study, modify and redistribute software. I also think that it is commercially exploitable (I'm organising a lecture by a CEO who _believes_ in Free Software).
I personally don't like things like Open Source or the LGPL. I don't like the possibility that things could be unfree.
OTOH Ian Clarke was correct when he corrected me on what freedom really means. I suggested that we should push for a Free Software clause in swpat legislation. Ian correctly pointed out that goverment legislation that _forces_ the use of Free Software negates the whole idea of freedom.
So, as a social construct, the GPL is doing good things. It's leagal status is debatable (and not wholly of interest to me). If you don't choose to use Free Software I believe that you are missing out on several large advantages. The opinion of people who believe in Open Source (as a superset of Free Software) or propritery software (as a disjoint set from Open Source) is valuable, but I don't want to see an IFSO settling for a "common position" of Open Source.
[Niall] > > I'll take this off list
I'd rather you didn't. I like to keep correspondence arising from mailing-lists on-list unless it's definitely off-topic (aside: I detest being CC'd on posts if I'm subscribed to the mailing list...) Otherwise, I'd have to make many more mail-filtering rules, just to keep discussion threads together, not to mention the greater opportunity for misrepresentation if discussions aren't publically archived.
Can you guys keep this on list? I'd be interested in the debate.
Ook.
I for one interpret the GPL as a social construct. It's intended to build a community of people who study, modify and redistribute software. I also think that it is commercially exploitable (I'm organising a lecture by a CEO who _believes_ in Free Software).
It is commercially exploitable, you just need to provide solutions and services, and, while people don't have more bandwidth than you could shake a at, you can even get away with packaged products in a shiny box.
Alternatively, something I like less, but it is hardly invalid, and also a point that Niall seems to have missed in my first reading (skimming) of his proposed "tornado fair use license": [ http://www.nedprod.com/tornado/license.html ]
One can dual-license - there is nothing in the current western legal framework really stopping the original copyright holder of GPL software negotiating alternative licensing with interested parties - the original copyright holder can release under whatever terms he wants, even multiple different licenses. In fact, that seems relatively fair to me, and perhaps to Niall (?) - those who abide by the GPL get to use it for free, those that seek exploitation via more restrictive copyright assertions have to negotiate alternative terms with the copyright holder, such as a cut of the profit. There's simply no need for some wierd and definitely legally dubious (IANAL, blah, blah) license such as Niall's proposal, even if you want to allow proprietary use of the code.
Niall suggests those wishing to disallow proprietary use under his license could set a prohibitvely high monetary price, but one man's high price is another's pocket change. Anyway, I certainly don't ascribe to the simplistic and grade-school-capitalist theory that it is valid to assign everything a single predefined monetary price, and would rather negotiate on a case-by-case basis for monetary or non-monetary compensation...
This negates, as far as I am concerned, most of the reasoning behind Niall's proposed license, and certainly seems to have worked okay for Troll, Aladdin, etc.
I also disgagree strongly with his assertion that free software inhibits blue-sky research and entreprenuerialism:
What's inhibiting my entrepreneurialism at the moment is the fact that some jackass american do-nothing company might soon have a legal right in europe to shut down any company I consider forming by "patent" rights that didn't even exist a couple of years ago. As a cold-hearted mostly-capitalist (not fascist/corporatist, though), I regard government-enforced copyright and patent as annoying interference with the free market in physical items.
The very phrase "intellectual property" is a propaganda term, as RMS points out - it is simply not the case that information is even remotely like physical property, at least for the present and in macroscopic human life - it is only even vaguely "property" in the twisted legal sense that property is a result of law, not a beginning.
Software, just like mathematics (gee, because it IS mathematics), and unlike many other fields, requires little or no capital investment for blue-sky research - some of the most innovative computing science research was, is, and probably will be, done with a pencil and paper, not even a €500 computer. And sweeping ground-up rewrites aren't particularly necessary for impressive blue-sky research - the modularity of sytems like Linux, Flux, Apache, etc. mean that "ground-up rewrites" are happening all the time, but you only have to ground-up rewrite the bits you care about, not everything, so some continuity is also preserved.
OTOH, I'd be quite happy with Niall's "five years and it's public domain" terms, and I agree totally with his assertion that software patents are terrible :-)).
I personally don't like things like Open Source or the LGPL. I don't like the possibility that things could be unfree.
Yeah, I'm just wary of them, mainly. I don't think anyone could reasonably argue that e.g. BSD stuff _is_ unfree, it's just that it's very easily landgrabbed.
Ian correctly pointed out that goverment legislation that _forces_ the use of Free Software negates the whole idea of freedom.
Well, yeah. I don't think legislation forcing the use of free software is sensible - I do think correction and/or removal of legislation creating advantage for proprietary software is worthwhile, though.
The current problem is that quite reasonable legislation that has been proposed to allow the mere _consideration_ of open source software in government tenders tends to be painted by infofascist-controlled media and opposing speakers as _mandating_ or _promoting_ open source - very different things. Of course, once open source is allowed to be considered, people are often quick to see the advantages, but that just means proprietary vendors have to <gasp> compete, not that they'll be destroyed necessarily.
So, as a social construct, the GPL is doing good things. It's legal status is debatable (and not wholly of interest to me).
It has been effectively quite strong over the past decade, anyway, since, even if a particular court found it invalid, it would be difficult to get a result other than reversion to "all rights reserved" of the copyright holder.
Thus, if you're a proprietary company attacking the GPL itself in court, you have two main results - either you lose, and abide by the GPL or lose the right to use the code if you can't negotiate alternative licensing, or you "win" and lose any right to use the code, which is pretty pyrrhic unless you're a non-productive pseudocompany with another master and a hidden agenda [cough]SCO[/cough].
I don't want to see an IFSO settling for a "common position" of Open Source.
If it did, I would hope it would be courteous enough to call itself the IOSSO rather than the IFSO - It's bad enough we have MS and MS-wannabees in Sun trying to dilute and confuse terminology surrounding open source and free software, we don't need those within the general group mutating the terminology away from the commonly recognised definitions.
David Golden
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On 26 Sep 2003 at 14:26, David Golden wrote:
Alternatively, something I like less, but it is hardly invalid, and also a point that Niall seems to have missed in my first reading (skimming) of his proposed "tornado fair use license": [ http://www.nedprod.com/tornado/license.html ]
It's an old idea that, more a sounding board for ideas and discussion than reality. It's certainly not legally enforceable because copyright law forces things on derivative works as defined by copyright law.
One can dual-license - there is nothing in the current western legal framework really stopping the original copyright holder of GPL software negotiating alternative licensing with interested parties - the original copyright holder can release under whatever terms he wants, even multiple different licenses. In fact, that seems relatively fair to me, and perhaps to Niall (?) - those who abide by the GPL get to use it for free, those that seek exploitation via more restrictive copyright assertions have to negotiate alternative terms with the copyright holder, such as a cut of the profit. There's simply no need for some wierd and definitely legally dubious (IANAL, blah, blah) license such as Niall's proposal, even if you want to allow proprietary use of the code.
I'm not disputing that. I just feel the GPL has bad knock on effects considerably underestimated by its proponents.
Niall suggests those wishing to disallow proprietary use under his license could set a prohibitvely high monetary price, but one man's high price is another's pocket change. Anyway, I certainly don't ascribe to the simplistic and grade-school-capitalist theory that it is valid to assign everything a single predefined monetary price, and would rather negotiate on a case-by-case basis for monetary or non-monetary compensation...
Neither do I. But it is how the current system works - even something really stupid like goodwill is assigned a monetary value.
This negates, as far as I am concerned, most of the reasoning behind Niall's proposed license, and certainly seems to have worked okay for Troll, Aladdin, etc.
I had been trying to integrate the best elements of free software with a revenue model that adequately rewards contributions to society all into the one license. Unfortunately I've since learned that copyright law makes that impossible.
I also disgagree strongly with his assertion that free software inhibits blue-sky research and entreprenuerialism:
What did you think of my arguments (the page is at http://www.nedprod.com/tornado/license.html)?
The very phrase "intellectual property" is a propaganda term, as RMS points out - it is simply not the case that information is even remotely like physical property, at least for the present and in macroscopic human life - it is only even vaguely "property" in the twisted legal sense that property is a result of law, not a beginning.
Information is power, and thus it is valuable to those who wish to exert power. For example if most Americans knew the true state of Saddam's Iraq, they would never have let Bush invade that country.
Software, just like mathematics (gee, because it IS mathematics), and
Software is a BRANCH of mathematics. It is *similar* to other areas of mathematics but it is most certainly not the same.
unlike many other fields, requires little or no capital investment for blue-sky research - some of the most innovative computing science research was, is, and probably will be, done with a pencil and paper, not even a ¤500 computer. And sweeping ground-up rewrites aren't particularly necessary for impressive blue-sky research - the modularity of sytems like Linux, Flux, Apache, etc. mean that "ground-up rewrites" are happening all the time, but you only have to ground-up rewrite the bits you care about, not everything, so some continuity is also preserved.
See Reiser's comments on why filing systems should be completely rewritten every few years. I completely agree with him except I extend it to most software.
Linux is most certainly not innovative, neither is Apache particularly. There is virtually nothing on Windows or Linux which qualifies as "blue sky" innovative. If you want to see "blue sky" innovative, go look at EROS, Plan 9, Syllable or even GNU Hurd (though ten years ago). That kind of innovation demands total rewrites from the ground up.
And that kind of sweeping change is something free software cannot do because you'll never get enough of a team together to agree on something totally unproven. Only investment capital can pay people to do the work required to prove a concept.
I personally don't like things like Open Source or the LGPL. I don't like the possibility that things could be unfree.
Yeah, I'm just wary of them, mainly. I don't think anyone could reasonably argue that e.g. BSD stuff _is_ unfree, it's just that it's very easily landgrabbed.
Agreed. I prefer a clause like the LGPL has which mandates enhancements to some code are returned to the community.
Well, yeah. I don't think legislation forcing the use of free software is sensible - I do think correction and/or removal of legislation creating advantage for proprietary software is worthwhile, though.
On this we would disagree. I want a law mandating that source comes with all code. I also want a law giving the mandatory right to anyone to enhance or modify their purchase and share those changes with others. Period, across the board.
I don't want to see an IFSO settling for a "common position" of Open Source.
If it did, I would hope it would be courteous enough to call itself the IOSSO rather than the IFSO - It's bad enough we have MS and MS-wannabees in Sun trying to dilute and confuse terminology surrounding open source and free software, we don't need those within the general group mutating the terminology away from the commonly recognised definitions.
Well, they'll do anything they can to win. That's immoral practice like all big business must do, and it's why Microsoft is the world's biggest software company.
Cheers, Niall
I'm not disputing that. I just feel the GPL has bad knock on effects considerably underestimated by its proponents.
I don't think the effects are underestimated by me, anyway, but I would note that "bad" is in this instance quite thoroughly in the eye of the beholder...
Neither do I. But it is how the current system works - even something really stupid like goodwill is assigned a monetary value.
Sometimes, but even if it it's not guaranteed to anyone one easily assessed value, and is often disputed hotly.
Remember, we're out to change the system, not perpetuate it in its current broken state, anyway.
My point stands- predefining your buying price is silly when you're out to remain unbought.
What did you think of my arguments (the page is at http://www.nedprod.com/tornado/license.html)?
A point by point analysis will take time that would be better spent developing software, but if I have free time I might do so. In the interim, I hope my general arguments are enough. I've already raised an initial opinion that even if one believes your argument, the dual-licensing option is enough to cover the important bases.
The very phrase "intellectual property" is a propaganda term, as RMS points out - it is simply not the case that information is even remotely like physical property, at least for the present and in macroscopic human life - it is only even vaguely "property" in the twisted legal sense that property is a result of law, not a beginning.
Information is power, and thus it is valuable to those who wish to exert power. For example if most Americans knew the true state of Saddam's Iraq, they would never have let Bush invade that country.
Having value does not make something property, nor is it a valid argument for making it into property, particularly if it's non-scarce. It certainly doesn't have a simple and unchanging value, e.g. value you could depreciate with a simple rule like office furniture. Think about the value of timing of information - yesterday's news today is much less valuable to most people than today's news today.
It's a little more accurate IMHO to say asymmetry of information can translate to power - the value was not in the information in your example, it was in the keeping of information away from the american public. From the perspective of Bush, if he insisted on ascribing the value to the information itself rather than to the propaganda and disinformation service the media and intelligence agencies provided to him, information would have been devalued by sharing, from the american public's perspective, it's value would have increased.
So the value of information is in the eye of the beholder...
All in all, life would be a lot easier if people stopped trying to treat bits like bricks...
See Reiser's comments on why filing systems should be completely rewritten every few years. I completely agree with him except I extend it to most software.
Linux is most certainly not innovative, neither is Apache particularly.
Thus far, we've bandied about the term "innovation". That has a economic meaning - "innovation" is the introduction of something new to a market, often with disruptive effects, think "act of innovation", and a more common, loose usage, largely synonymous with invention, think "an innovation". As far as I can tell, thus far, we've been using the common-usage one, since the economic usage allows evolutions to be innovations. I have continued with the common usage below:
Components of Linux are innovative. System evolution by subsystem revolutions. System revolution by subsystem evolutions. By gerrymandering your system boundaries and lumped-approximating, you're probably always going to be able to declare "innovative" and "non-innovative" bits - "An OS written in C on a Computer? Been done. Bah."
Could Reiser rewrite filesystems without having to rewrite everything else if linux weren't modular?
Another thing is that people often regard as innovative stuff that isn't really but that they don't know the history for. You mention EROS, well, that's an evolution of KeyKOS. There's a also quote, which I'm about to fail to attribute, which paraphrased is - "you can make it big in Computer Science by looking at what people were doing years ago, waiting for people to forget about it, and releasing it as a big new thing": XML<--Lisp sexps, only badly done, OODBMS<--Hierarchical DB (bad idea then, bad idea now...), etc.
There is virtually nothing on Windows or Linux which qualifies as "blue sky" innovative. If you want to see "blue sky" innovative, go look at EROS, Plan 9, Syllable or even GNU Hurd (though ten years ago). That kind of innovation demands total rewrites from the ground up.
And those projects are... open source. Anyway, in the open source world, features and pieces can be interchanged readily - even if no end-user ever bothered with Hurd or EROS, they have already had lasting effects on the design of Linux and other OSes.
And that kind of sweeping change is something free software cannot do because you'll never get enough of a team together to agree on something totally unproven. Only investment capital can pay people to do the work required to prove a concept.
You say that, yet 75% of your examples are GPL and quite actively developed? Whatever. That's a baseless assertion, as far as I'm concerned. Quite apart from the fact that that assumes people need paying to do the work (history has many counterexamples, and I know I do blue-sky stuff just for laughs), significant Investment capital can be, and has been in the past, given to open-source people, companies, universities, and so on. Your generalisations about human motivation, which you've done a few times, are iffy, and probably reflect most on your own motivations.
Agreed. I prefer a clause like the LGPL has which mandates enhancements to some code are returned to the community.
Well, actually, it only mandates return if you _distribute_. If you enhance in-house without ever distributing, you don't need to return.
On this we would disagree. I want a law mandating that source comes with all code.
Nah. In the absence of copyright and patent, binary-only code would soon be outcompeted.
I also want a law giving the mandatory right to anyone to enhance or modify their purchase and share those changes with others. Period, across the board.
Well if you actually "purchase" the copyright to some software, rather than "license" the use of the software, even in the current framework, you get that right. The problem is, people often think (and are misled by the packaging and marketing of software) that they're "purchasing" when they're only "licensing".
One of the best ways to encourage Free Software is actually strict enforcement of EULAs - thanks, BSA!.
Well, they'll do anything they [MS] can to win.
Yep, though I predict they'll eventually burn out, and assuming I'm not hit by a bus or whatever, most likely within my lifetime. All empires fall, and MS's could crumble alarmingly quickly. I do find Linus' recent quote in the new york times amusing:
[ From NYTimes, 2003-09-38 ] The thing is, at least to me personally, Microsoft just isn't relevant to what I do. [....] I just can't see myself in the position of the nemesis, since I just don't care enough. To be a nemesis, you have to actively try to destroy something, don't you? Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely unintentional side effect.
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On 28 Sep 2003 at 2:40, David Golden wrote:
I'm not disputing that. I just feel the GPL has bad knock on effects considerably underestimated by its proponents.
I don't think the effects are underestimated by me, anyway, but I would note that "bad" is in this instance quite thoroughly in the eye of the beholder...
This is a particularly modern viewpoint of bad being subjective. I disagree - there is most certainly absolute good and absolute bad.
Information is power, and thus it is valuable to those who wish to exert power. For example if most Americans knew the true state of Saddam's Iraq, they would never have let Bush invade that country.
Having value does not make something property, nor is it a valid argument for making it into property, particularly if it's non-scarce. It certainly doesn't have a simple and unchanging value, e.g. value you could depreciate with a simple rule like office furniture. Think about the value of timing of information - yesterday's news today is much less valuable to most people than today's news today.
But the same goes for say gold - one day it's worth something, next day something else.
I don't think you'll get any disagreement from anyone here that information which has neglible reproduction cost should be much freer than it is. But I think we can all also see why there is a desire to control it and make it property by those who have something to gain from it being so.
It's a little more accurate IMHO to say asymmetry of information can translate to power - the value was not in the information in your
Asymmetry of *anything* translates to power eg; guns, wealth, food etc. Even asymmetry of love, faith, truth etc.
All in all, life would be a lot easier if people stopped trying to treat bits like bricks...
Are you referring to the innate interconnectedness of all things in the universe?
Thus far, we've bandied about the term "innovation". That has a economic meaning - "innovation" is the introduction of something new to a market, often with disruptive effects, think "act of innovation", and a more common, loose usage, largely synonymous with invention, think "an innovation". As far as I can tell, thus far, we've been using the common-usage one, since the economic usage allows evolutions to be innovations. I have continued with the common usage below:
I would define "innovative" as doing something not done before in that particular context.
Components of Linux are innovative. System evolution by subsystem revolutions. System revolution by subsystem evolutions. By gerrymandering your system boundaries and lumped-approximating, you're probably always going to be able to declare "innovative" and "non-innovative" bits - "An OS written in C on a Computer? Been done. Bah."
I was more meaning that Linux was ten years behind the state-of-the- art when Linus first wrote it. And it's continued to remain substantially behind best practice ever since with very substantial resistence to adding things like threading support which NT had in 1991.
Could Reiser rewrite filesystems without having to rewrite everything else if linux weren't modular?
We've had modular operating systems since at least the IBM/360. OTOH what Reiser has done in the more recent versions of ReiserFS is gone places which to my knowledge haven't been visited before and the next versions he's sketched out makes me feel quite excited :)
Another thing is that people often regard as innovative stuff that isn't really but that they don't know the history for. You mention EROS, well, that's an evolution of KeyKOS. There's a also quote, which I'm about to fail to attribute, which paraphrased is - "you can make it big in Computer Science by looking at what people were doing years ago, waiting for people to forget about it, and releasing it as a big new thing": XML<--Lisp sexps, only badly done, OODBMS<--Hierarchical DB (bad idea then, bad idea now...), etc.
Absolutely, but then all innovation comes from what was done before. I know EROS borrows heavily from prior systems but when I was reading its specs it was still doing things which hadn't been done before on an operating system to my knowledge (certainly not in its predecessors).
There is virtually nothing on Windows or Linux which qualifies as "blue sky" innovative. If you want to see "blue sky" innovative, go look at EROS, Plan 9, Syllable or even GNU Hurd (though ten years ago). That kind of innovation demands total rewrites from the ground up.
And those projects are... open source. Anyway, in the open source world, features and pieces can be interchanged readily - even if no end-user ever bothered with Hurd or EROS, they have already had lasting effects on the design of Linux and other OSes.
If they weren't open source, we wouldn't know about them :)
And that kind of sweeping change is something free software cannot do because you'll never get enough of a team together to agree on something totally unproven. Only investment capital can pay people to do the work required to prove a concept.
You say that, yet 75% of your examples are GPL and quite actively developed? Whatever. That's a baseless assertion, as far as I'm concerned.
Not at all. I never claimed that they weren't GPL. I *did* say the GPL works against blue-sky innovation.
Let's look at the history: EROS was developed by academia, Plan 9 by AT&T labs, Syllable by one guy plodding away alone for nearly three years until he'd proved enough of his concept to get people to help him.
Now look at GNU Hurd. They had the idea back in 1991 and it's STILL not finished today. It's not the fault of its developers - its because when an idea is unproven, it's hard to attract volunteers who don't want to also add to the recipe.
Quite apart from the fact that that assumes people need paying to do the work (history has many counterexamples, and I know I do blue-sky stuff just for laughs), significant Investment capital can be, and has been in the past, given to open-source people, companies, universities, and so on. Your generalisations about human motivation, which you've done a few times, are iffy, and probably reflect most on your own motivations.
You've just proven my point - some external entity needs to invest some capital to employ workers.
Now consider an innovative project. One guy makes it look exciting but if he's GPLed it business wouldn't bother investing. Thus either he plods away alone for a few more years, or it withers and dies.
At least with BSD or LGPL projects business can buy it in, develop it and use it as a base for some product.
What the GPL is *extremely* good at is making superior clones. Look at KDE. It looks like Windows, works like Windows but is also slightly better than Windows. But it's still cloning Windows - nothing radical there.
You can carry on throughout most free software - it either clones other Unix software or it clones Windows software. A small proportion is original eg; the scripting languages. But there's not much in there which is radically innovative.
Agreed. I prefer a clause like the LGPL has which mandates enhancements to some code are returned to the community.
Well, actually, it only mandates return if you _distribute_. If you enhance in-house without ever distributing, you don't need to return.
Sorry, true. This is good actually as some enhancements do harm :)
On this we would disagree. I want a law mandating that source comes with all code.
Nah. In the absence of copyright and patent, binary-only code would soon be outcompeted.
Doesn't matter. It's a case of consumer rights to me, what's just.
Well, they'll do anything they [MS] can to win.
Yep, though I predict they'll eventually burn out, and assuming I'm not hit by a bus or whatever, most likely within my lifetime. All empires fall, and MS's could crumble alarmingly quickly. I do find Linus' recent quote in the new york times amusing:
Certainly even the average user is getting sick and tired of crummy reliability - viruses, worms etc.
[ From NYTimes, 2003-09-38 ] The thing is, at least to me personally, Microsoft just isn't relevant to what I do. [....] I just can't see myself in the position of the nemesis, since I just don't care enough. To be a nemesis, you have to actively try to destroy something, don't you? Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely unintentional side effect.
I wouldn't put it past MS to have Linus assassinated. If I were him, I'd be careful.
Cheers, Niall
Ok, this debate has gone off the rails. The length and content is unwieldy to most people.
We are now discussing Linus being assinated, GNU Hurd not being production ready, the existence of absolute good and evil, the failings of Linux, the windows-ish look of KDE, free software not being innovative, the temporal value of precious metals, the universe, love, truth...
If participants have unresolved free software issues that they believe are resolvable, could a new short-bodied thread be started?
Ciaran.
On Sun, Sep 28, 2003 at 03:55:53AM +0100, Niall Douglas wrote:
On 28 Sep 2003 at 2:40, David Golden wrote:
[snipped: 211 lines of meta-physics]
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On 29 Sep 2003 at 0:35, Ciaran O'Riordan wrote:
Ok, this debate has gone off the rails. The length and content is unwieldy to most people.
We are now discussing Linus being assinated, GNU Hurd not being production ready, the existence of absolute good and evil, the failings of Linux, the windows-ish look of KDE, free software not being innovative, the temporal value of precious metals, the universe, love, truth...
If participants have unresolved free software issues that they believe are resolvable, could a new short-bodied thread be started?
Hmm, I guess you won't like what I just posted. Sorry, my modem based connection sends email before it downloads what's new.
Why I believe X is because I believe A, B & C. To explain why I think X is correct requires explaining A, B & C which in turn can recurse downwards. This can take some time but is where the real fruit of these kinds of discussion are borne. It's also why I keep it off list as for those not interested, it's very tedious.
If you want it short, you won't get past me saying "GPL is bad" and everyone else probably saying "GPL is good". That gets no one anywhere except knowing what we've already established.
Back off list?
Cheers, Niall
On Mon, Sep 29, 2003 at 02:23:38AM +0100, Niall Douglas wrote:
On 29 Sep 2003 at 0:35, Ciaran O'Riordan wrote:
Ok, this debate has gone off the rails. The length and content is unwieldy to most people.
[...]
Hmm, I guess you won't like what I just posted. Sorry, my modem based connection sends email before it downloads what's new.
Holy crap! I nearly fell off my chair :)
If you want it short, you won't get past me saying "GPL is bad" and everyone else probably saying "GPL is good". That gets no one anywhere except knowing what we've already established.
Right. I think we can agree on this. To All: End Of Thread. (please?) (no on-list response required)
Back off list?
Yes.
Please remember that each mail sent to this list goes to 33 people. We should aim to keep mails on topic (FSFE), readably short, and when a thread is going nowhere - bow out.
Again, if people have any _Free_Software_ issues that are unresolved, _and_they_think_are_resolvable_, start a new thread. A day off is a good idea first though.
On Mon 29 Sep 2003 00:35, Ciaran O'Riordan wrote:
Ok, this debate has gone off the rails. The length and content is unwieldy to most people.
I grow weary of the thread myself, and it has probably long since served its purpose in exploring where Niall's views (despite his repeated presentation of them as absolute truths ;-)) may be at odds with a sensible direction for an FSF list. I have to actually get back to real work - in my view, the best way to overcome proprietary software is to drown it in a deluge of high-quality and (tee hee) innovative free software as soon as possible.
I will make this observation before I shut up (I will not continue this thread off-list):
Oh but we're not hiding it. These discussions merely go on behind closed doors where the enemy(TM) have difficulty getting to it.
Thinking in terms of "the enemy" is not really very useful. Free software is pretty inclusive. Even Microsoft is welcome to play if they abide by the rules. Talking behind closed doors will cause suspicion, and may even make enemies out of the previously indifferent. You can defend against espionage and infiltration attempts by openness and accountability. A spy can't make off with damaging-if-revealed secrets if you have none, and an infiltrator can be bound by accountability to either do the right thing or immediately reveal himself.
He who controls information creates the potential for power. Therefore putting this stuff in public is counter-productive in the current climate.
Not at all counter-productive, if you're out to empower the public rather than seeking to become the next tyrant.
On Sun 28 Sep 2003 02:40, David Golden wrote:
Sometimes, but even if it it's not guaranteed to anyone one easily assessed value, and is often disputed hotly.
Sorry, that made no sense. Still reads like crap but at least makes some sense rewritten as following:
Sometimes, but even if it is, it's not guaranteed any one easily assessed value, and is often disputed hotly.
Yeesh, that's what I get for trying to write, or even think, at 4 in the morning.
I'm going to bed.
On Fri, Sep 26, 2003 at 09:54:59AM +0100, Aidan Delaney wrote:
I personally don't like things like Open Source or the LGPL.
LGPL is a clever tactical move by FSF, remember that they advise people to use it only in very special circumstances: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-not-lgpl.html
If glibc was GPL'd, proprietary companies would have two choices, either GPL their software or write their own libc.
Oracle is not going to GPL their database, and it's not going to stay away from GNU/Linux. They would make their own libc, and they'd sell it to other proprietary companies. The end result being that the proprietary apps are available for GNU/Linux, and glibc loses relevence.
With LGPL, proprietary apps are available for GNU/Linux, but glibc remains the standard, and any changes made to glibc by proprietary companies still have to be contributed back.
To application developers, libc, not the kernel, is the core of an OS. We don't need a split at the core.
Ian correctly pointed out that goverment legislation that _forces_ the use of Free Software negates the whole idea of freedom.
I would have no problem if the govt required software companies to give users the permissions that Free Software ensures. It would simply be a consumer protection law. But I don't see this happening in the next decade, so a discussion would be moot.
It's leagal status is debatable (and not wholly of interest to me).
I'm a legaly-interested fellow, there's currently no valid claim that GPL is not enforceable.
A question of it's legality came from an M$-funded german legal group. Their claims were brain dead. They said it wasn't inforceable because it disclaimed warranty but it actually diclaims warranty "to the maximum extent permitted by law".
Another group brought up the european issue of "Moral Rights" with similar brain dead content. It's just part of the larger FUD campaign.
anyway, must dash, I've just received a mail that says I've won an award, and it's in all caps so it must be important...
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On 26 Sep 2003 at 15:43, Ciaran O'Riordan wrote:
It's leagal status is debatable (and not wholly of interest to me).
I'm a legaly-interested fellow, there's currently no valid claim that GPL is not enforceable.
I don't think the problem is whether it's enforceable, it's when it applies and when it does not.
For example I personally would say that proprietary code can use a GPL library if it's in a DLL and no GPL code found its way into the proprietary binary so long as the proprietary work is a work in its own right.
But GNU disagrees in its GPL FAQ. Legal opinion appears to be very divided on this one. If you apply the AFC test for determining copyright derivationness, I think I'm right for most binaries. I'm currently arguing this one with a fellow on fsfeurope actually.
Cheers, Niall
On Sat 27 Sep 2003 18:44, Niall Douglas wrote:
For example I personally would say that proprietary code can use a GPL library if it's in a DLL and no GPL code found its way into the proprietary binary so long as the proprietary work is a work in its own right.
IANAL, TDNCLA, blah blah. That in "its own right" is the kicker, really.
But GNU disagrees in its GPL FAQ. Legal opinion appears to be very divided on this one. If you apply the AFC test for determining copyright derivationness, I think I'm right for most binaries. I'm currently arguing this one with a fellow on fsfeurope actually.
AFAIK, there's definite doubt over whether the AFC test is generally valid or just constitutes a *possible* procedure for determining derivation. AFC testing (not really a "test" as a software developer used to concrete yes-or-no testing would understand it, more of a set of guidelines for best practices for doing a similarity assessment, AFAIK) would be a proposal that might be made in a particular case for reaching resolution - it would be a foolish court indeed that just accepted a pre-prepared AFC analysis by one or the other party. who would of course cherry-pick the (essentially near-arbitrary, IMHO) choices for abstraction and filtration to their advantage, all that sort of thing would have to be agreed between both parties.
I also don't like aspects of the AFC-test like things to date - seems to me that they could turn copyrights into pseudopatents very handily, because at a sufficient levels of abstraction and lumped-approximation, almost any program doing the same thing as another could be considered "the same", which is another argument for both parties and the court having to agree what abstractions and filtrations are valid on a case-by-case basis.
There's certainly a (valid, IMHO, on reading the GPL, but again IANAL) position that consideration of derivation alone is *simply not enough* to decide the applicability of the GPL, and intent would have to be considered.
All in all I'd say it's not going to be sorted out without going to court, and then the most likely result is that derivation will continue to be decided on a case-by-case basis, perhaps slowly building up a bank of precedents on what filtrations and abstractions are "right" - the lawyers get richer that way anyway :-)
Shades of grey instead of black and white, and the "you win, you lose, you lose, you lose" effect will continue to put paid to most possible cases before they ever reach court.
See long and boring threads on http://www.mail-archive.com/license-discuss@opensource.org/thrd5.html#05876
Conspiracy theory #15741 is the IBM have engineered the SCO suit and their countersuit to set precedent for a few precise limitations on what does and does not constitute derived work of GPL software.
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On 28 Sep 2003 at 16:20, David Golden wrote:
On Sat 27 Sep 2003 18:44, Niall Douglas wrote:
For example I personally would say that proprietary code can use a GPL library if it's in a DLL and no GPL code found its way into the proprietary binary so long as the proprietary work is a work in its own right.
IANAL, TDNCLA, blah blah. That in "its own right" is the kicker, really.
What are these acronyms?
AFAIK, there's definite doubt over whether the AFC test is generally valid or just constitutes a *possible* procedure for determining derivation. AFC testing (not really a "test" as a software developer used to concrete yes-or-no testing would understand it, more of a set of guidelines for best practices for doing a similarity assessment, AFAIK) would be a proposal that might be made in a particular case for reaching resolution - it would be a foolish court indeed that just accepted a pre-prepared AFC analysis by one or the other party. who would of course cherry-pick the (essentially near-arbitrary, IMHO) choices for abstraction and filtration to their advantage, all that sort of thing would have to be agreed between both parties.
I completely agree. But courts will follow precident, so we're likely lumped with it.
Anyway, its interpretation as you rightly point out below is extremely variable. It looks to me more of a chance thing than a real test.
There's certainly a (valid, IMHO, on reading the GPL, but again IANAL) position that consideration of derivation alone is *simply not enough* to decide the applicability of the GPL, and intent would have to be considered.
For example, how can you illustrate than running a binary and loading a shared library are different? Both page in an executable image as a memory mapped file. Both involve calling into the binary and it calling outside of itself. Both provide services to outside code and both page in other binaries (libraries) and call them too.
Cheers, Niall
On Mon 29 Sep 2003 01:43, Niall Douglas wrote:
IANAL, TDNCLA, blah blah.
What are these acronyms?
I am not a lawyer. This does not constitute legal advice. Blah blah is not an acronym, I was just emphasising the ubiquity of such very-low-value disclaimers.
hi,
Niall Douglas wrote:
What's wrong with using this list? It was only created very recently, so we really can choose whatever direction we like for it. So long as it's generally about free software with an irish perspective, you're fine.
i agree that this list is a good as place for doing something as anywhere - as for the 'irish perspective' bit, sure ... but the point as to be to internationalise this action rather than confine it to state or land boundaries
You'll also find people like me prefer to join as few lists as possible.
snap, but i bet like me you're on quite a few lists that have overlapping interests to this particular group - i think the task at hand is to find a way of working with these groups more closely
the obvious example is [fsfe-uk] - i know ciaran cross fertilises this list when ever he gets the chance - it would be good to co-ordinate our efforts on one list
also, i've been making people here http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/sheffield/ aware of what's been happening in the anti-patent debate - they (we) are very interested in producing an article in support of this work - my guess is that the such a story would be adopted by the main uk site and perhaps the main parent site thereafter - mainstreaming our activity has to be a key issue - to me IMC seems the logical place for this given their strong links with FLOSS and their organational aims
I would use "human rights" rather than "digital rights". After all, all we're asking for is not to be exploited.
i agree
-- adam
hi,
i forgot to mention, when i floated the idea of finding a common place to work on this campaign, to the [fsfe-ie], [fsfe-uk] and [ox-en] lists ... at the beginning of this month, a hand full of people replied off-list saying they were interested and ready to help
Adam Moran wrote:
the obvious example is [fsfe-uk] - i know ciaran cross fertilises this list when ever he gets the chance - it would be good to co-ordinate our efforts on one list
-- adam
On Wed, Sep 24, 2003 at 10:53:15AM +0100, Ciaran O'Riordan wrote:
They got loads of "Say NO to software patents", which McCarthy countered by saying that her proposal didn't create software patents. What the MEPs were asking for was a education about what exactly was bad about the directive. This sort of information can only come from a small number of informed people (preferably with peer review).
Somewhat coincedentally I am working on a tool, a website, designed to facilitate collaborative authoring of documents (email/webpage/whatever) where users get to vote on each modification before it is applied to the document, and where moderations conflict with each-other users can vote for which they like most.
It is more-or-less working on my computer, I just have to move it to a public server. As soon as I do I will email here with the URL (it will be http://3D17.org/) and you can all help me to beta-test it ;-)
Ian.
On Thu, Sep 25, 2003 at 10:27:58AM -0700, Ian Clarke wrote:
It is more-or-less working on my computer, I just have to move it to a public server. As soon as I do I will email here with the URL (it will be http://3D17.org/) and you can all help me to beta-test it ;-)
Ok, temporarily up at: http://dodo.freenetproject.org:8280/Edit/servlet/com.cematics.edit.Main/
*PLEASE* remember that this is *very* alpha quality, in fact, this is the first time anyone but me has used it.
Let me know what you think or if you experience problems.
Ian.
Ok, temporarily up at: http://dodo.freenetproject.org:8280/Edit/servlet/com.cematics.edit.Main/
I like the idea of this. Sadly I got a 500 pretty sharpish.
http://dodo.freenetproject.org:8280/Edit/servlet/com.cematics.edit.Main/view document/testdoc?vote=-57015909
Any votes on "Test Document" give me a 500 status. Perhaps I'm supposed to be logged in, but still.
Again though, good idea. Pity it's in Java. ;)
adam
Nice , other than some strange navigation twists and turns (particularly when trying to get back to the front page) it was pretty stable for me. Plain old servlets or are you using anything fancy?
Quoting Ian Clarke ian@dodo.freenetproject.org:
On Thu, Sep 25, 2003 at 10:27:58AM -0700, Ian Clarke wrote:
It is more-or-less working on my computer, I just have to move it to a public server. As soon as I do I will email here with the URL (it will be http://3D17.org/) and you can all help me to beta-test it ;-)
Ok, temporarily up at: http://dodo.freenetproject.org:8280/Edit/servlet/com.cematics.edit.Main/
*PLEASE* remember that this is *very* alpha quality, in fact, this is the first time anyone but me has used it.
Let me know what you think or if you experience problems.
Ian.
-- Ian Clarke ian@locut.us Coordinator, The Freenet Project http://freenetproject.org/ Weblog http://slashdot.org/~sanity/journal _______________________________________________ Fsfe-ie mailing list Fsfe-ie@fsfeurope.org https://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/fsfe-ie
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It will take a few days to work out the kinks - it is servlets combined with jdbm for persistence and FrameMaker for templating.
Ian.
On Thu, Sep 25, 2003 at 11:46:30PM +0100, sean@odonnell.nu wrote:
Nice , other than some strange navigation twists and turns (particularly when trying to get back to the front page) it was pretty stable for me. Plain old servlets or are you using anything fancy?
Quoting Ian Clarke ian@dodo.freenetproject.org:
On Thu, Sep 25, 2003 at 10:27:58AM -0700, Ian Clarke wrote:
It is more-or-less working on my computer, I just have to move it to a public server. As soon as I do I will email here with the URL (it will be http://3D17.org/) and you can all help me to beta-test it ;-)
Ok, temporarily up at: http://dodo.freenetproject.org:8280/Edit/servlet/com.cematics.edit.Main/
*PLEASE* remember that this is *very* alpha quality, in fact, this is the first time anyone but me has used it.
Let me know what you think or if you experience problems.
Ian.
-- Ian Clarke ian@locut.us Coordinator, The Freenet Project http://freenetproject.org/ Weblog http://slashdot.org/~sanity/journal _______________________________________________ Fsfe-ie mailing list Fsfe-ie@fsfeurope.org https://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/fsfe-ie
This mail sent through IMP: http://horde.org/imp/
hi adam,
adam beecher wrote:
No, aside from the fact that these things would probably look better coming from an "association" or somesuch,
i dunno ... i thought this when i was sending it ... but then i thought it makes more sense hitting them with the same information over and over again from lots of sources ... a kinda DDOS
particularly in a case like this where
the MEP's are being hammered from the other side by associations, corporations and professional lobbyists. There's no doubt that the personal approach does work in some circumstances, but I think personal lobbying is best used to /enhance/ an organised campaign.
what we are doing now is an organised campaign - for me, it's organised via this email list and i think this is an appropriate method
Greenpeace and the EFF are perfect examples, and when you get right down to it we're just talking about a few forms and a web-fax gateway, something a bunch of techies like us should be able to procure and produce in a couple of hours.
... Tab-delimited spreadsheet of Irish MEP fax numbers attached
i take your point about the need to use the technology available to us ... i'll get together a list of the uk meps, emails for the next round
-- adam
The text of the ammendments that where accepted yesterday are here
http://www3.europarl.eu.int/omk/omnsapir.so/calendar?APP=PV2&LANGUE=EN (click on the 24th).
All in all it looks great to me, its hard to imagine what kind of software can be patented with those amendments, very little. The only down side are the first handfull of amendments that go on about how god himself gave us patents, gee arent they great and the EU commits itself to worshipping at the foot of the patent alter once a day and twice on sundays. If i where reading the bill i would read these sections as the intent of the bill, and the rest as the detail, if the finished product still conveys that impression then these declarations of intent/undying love could be used as a foundation for attacks on the 'detail' in the future.
Sean
#Quoting Adam Moran adam@diamat.org.uk:
hi adam,
adam beecher wrote:
No, aside from the fact that these things would probably look better
coming
from an "association" or somesuch,
i dunno ... i thought this when i was sending it ... but then i thought it makes more sense hitting them with the same information over and over again from lots of sources ... a kinda DDOS
particularly in a case like this where
the MEP's are being hammered from the other side by associations, corporations and professional lobbyists. There's no doubt that the
personal
approach does work in some circumstances, but I think personal lobbying
is
best used to /enhance/ an organised campaign.
what we are doing now is an organised campaign - for me, it's organised via this email list and i think this is an appropriate method
Greenpeace and the EFF are perfect examples, and when you get right down
to
it we're just talking about a few forms and a web-fax gateway, something
a
bunch of techies like us should be able to procure and produce in a
couple
of hours.
... Tab-delimited spreadsheet of Irish MEP fax numbers attached
i take your point about the need to use the technology available to us ... i'll get together a list of the uk meps, emails for the next round
-- adam
Fsfe-ie mailing list Fsfe-ie@fsfeurope.org https://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/fsfe-ie
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hi ciaran,
Ciaran O'Riordan wrote:
Any criticisms about the content of the letter?
none - i sent it as you wrote it - if i'd have got the chance i would have re-formatted it our company paper and sent it again - i think by re-badging it and sending it again it would have given it more weight ... nevertheless thanks for staying up late and producing the goods
all the best
-- adam