Antonio Olivares wrote:

Code that is freely available doesn't need protection
as nothing can
happen to it other then someone else using and improving it
which is a
good thing regardless of what else happens to that copy

subsequently.
I am sure many would disagree with this, The code has to be protected in some way to ensure that someone/or a company cannot claim the code to be theirs and start selling it and not give anything back. This is the good side of the GPL if there is one.

Long ago it might not have been completely predictable that
many end
points of the longest-developed paths of unix development
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Unix_history-simple.svg)
would be
open-sourced but it was never out of the question either.
Having that
big chunk isolated by the GPL and unable to share
components is just bad
for everyone.



Unix is not GPL'd, Linux is or did I miss something here?


Open source, not GPL'd - they mean different but overlapping things.
The *bsd's have always been open sourced but all of the original unix
functionality from the AT&T underpinnings was re-written. OpenSolaris
should include as much of the originally proprietary work as they have
been able to release.



The components can be shared, you just have to use the GPL and license your work on it.


Some people might not choose to restrict their work that way and much
work that has already been done can't now be GPL'd.



This is like I scratch your back, but you will also scratch mine.


But the *bsd's scratch your back without making any demands - and would
consider them philosophically and morally wrong.


Cooperation is the key and interoperability between compnents like you have mentioned.


But the GPL concept of prohibiting redistribution unless requirements on
the 'work as a whole' are met makes this impossible in many cases,
especially at the kernel level where components like drivers and
filesystems become part of the 'whole'.


--
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell@gmail.com

--
fedora-list mailing list
fedora-list@redhat.com
To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list

Title: Re: Why is Fedora not a Free GNU/Linux distributions?









On Fri, 2008-07-18 at 12:31 -0700, Antonio Olivares wrote:

> > Code that is freely available doesn't need protection

> > as nothing can

> > happen to it other then someone else using and improving it

> > which is a

> > good thing regardless of what else happens to that copy

> > subsequently.

> I am sure many would disagree with this, The code has to be protected

> in some way to ensure that someone/or a company cannot claim the code

> to be theirs and start selling it and not give anything back.* This is

> the good side of the GPL if there is one.*



Sure, there is one, and that's exactly it.* The LGPL is one example of a

license that protects the code while permitting the creation of derived

works with mixed components.* The CPL is another.* There are several

more listed at opensource.org.* The MySQL open-source exception to the

GPL is another workable alternative (at least for the case where all

components are free[1]).



> >

> > Long ago it might not have been completely predictable that

> > many end

> > points of the longest-developed paths of unix development

> > (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Unix_history-simple.svg)

> > would be

> > open-sourced but it was never out of the question either.

> > Having that

> > big chunk isolated by the GPL and unable to share

> > components is just bad

> > for everyone.

> >

> Unix is not GPL'd, Linux is or did I miss something here?

>

> The components can be shared, you just have to use the GPL and license

> your work on it.* This is like I scratch your back, but you will also

> scratch mine.* Cooperation is the key and interoperability between

> compnents like you have mentioned.



If only we had control of all the pieces and could specify the

licenses...*



When we try to take free software components from other sources with

different (even free!) licenses and combine them to create new free

works, we are often stymied by the failure of the GPL to permit the

distribution of the result.* And it is not always possible (and almost

never easy) to resolve the conflicts.



[1] I think it also could be useful to be able to combine free and

proprietary software to create new works.



--

*************** Matthew Saltzman



Clemson University Math Sciences

mjs AT clemson DOT edu

http://www.math.clemson.edu/~mjs






--
fedora-list mailing list
fedora-list@redhat.com
To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list

> Open source, not GPL'd - they mean different but
> overlapping things.
> The *bsd's have always been open sourced but all of the
> original unix
> functionality from the AT&T underpinnings was
> re-written. OpenSolaris
> should include as much of the originally proprietary work
> as they have
> been able to release.
>
> Some people might not choose to restrict their work that
> way and much
> work that has already been done can't now be GPL'd.
>
> But the *bsd's scratch your back without making any
> demands - and would
> consider them philosophically and morally wrong.
>
> But the GPL concept of prohibiting redistribution unless
> requirements on
> the 'work as a whole' are met makes this impossible
> in many cases,
> especially at the kernel level where components like
> drivers and
> filesystems become part of the 'whole'.
>
> --

I like FreeBSD and I see that it has GPL'd code as well as BSD code. The Desktop environments KDE and GNOME are released as GPL code, but they are included in FreeBSD. They do not care that it is released as GPL, they still include it. Now if I get your point right, the GPL requires that since BSD uses KDE which is GPL'd to then release BSD under a GPL license because of its restrictions. I know that the above is not true, but it is an analogy of what the requirements would be.

I see many people got mad because of cdrtools had issues with GPL and Jorg released his code under the CDDL, which is a free/opensource license, but it cannot live with the GPL and thus had to produce a GPL'd one and they created the fork which now lives in many Linux distributions:

http://lwn.net/Articles/198171/

However, some distributions still use cdrtools from Jorg, they did not buy into the idea that the fork was needed and still release cdrtools with their products. Was it the GPL that forced cdrtools removal from many distributions, or what is more personal between Debian developers and Jorg?

Is this is an example of how the GPL messes up the freedoms to share and improve code?

Regards,

Antonio




--
fedora-list mailing list
fedora-list@redhat.com
To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list

> Sure, there is one, and that's exactly it. The LGPL is
> one example of a
> license that protects the code while permitting the
> creation of derived
> works with mixed components. The CPL is another. There
> are several
> more listed at opensource.org. The MySQL open-source
> exception to the
> GPL is another workable alternative (at least for the case
> where all
> components are free[1]).

Excellent, OpenOffice is released under the LGPL, with the L becoming Lesser GPL, which does not restrict the sharing of code. Can Linux be released under the LGPL? at least to allow the the mixing and sharing of code that is restricted by the real GPL.

> If only we had control of all the pieces and could specify
> the
> licenses...
>
> When we try to take free software components from other
> sources with
> different (even free!) licenses and combine them to create
> new free
> works, we are often stymied by the failure of the GPL to
> permit the
> distribution of the result. And it is not always possible
> (and almost
> never easy) to resolve the conflicts.
>
> [1] I think it also could be useful to be able to combine
> free and
> proprietary software to create new works.
>
> --
> http://www.math.clemson.edu/~mjs

I agree with [1] here. I believe Les agrees with you here as well

Regards,

Antonio




--
fedora-list mailing list
fedora-list@redhat.com
To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list

Antonio Olivares wrote:


Thank you for the link, a friend of mine has one in his classroom and it has 1969 as the birth of Unix, and in 1991/1992 the birth of Linux. Linux the kernel and combined with the GNU utilities started the Linux distribution. Another friend of mine also told me that many programs that are now in Linux, were either copied over from BSD/Solaris or ported to linux and were allowed to be shared across without restrictions However, we now now that there are GPL police out there and enforcing the GPL on people who modify the freely available code out there, but do not share their modifications


Is Novell the owner of Unix?


Maybe.. They bought the rights in the mid-90's from the company spun off
from AT&T to own it. It was called unixware at that point but was
basically SysVr4.2.



Is it SCO


Then they sold it to SCO, although it was a different company then -
subsequently portions were acquired by Caldera (who also bought DRDOS
and sued Microsoft over it) which later renamed itself to SCO. The
original SCO also had some other unix-related flavors but they were
mostly obsolete by then (the only advantage earlier was some esoteric
ISA-era PC device and print drivers).


What was actually sold is under dispute. SCO claims it owns the
copyright and associated licensing. Novell claims it was just a
licensing/resale arrangement - and this is still in appeals courts. The
first decision went to Novell, but that's been thrown out. I'm not sure
if anyone has gotten around to wondering how this affects OpenSolaris
parts of which Sun licensed from SCO and believes they have the right to
release.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO_Group ?

Does the GPL protect Linux users across the globe against malicious lawsuits claiming ownership of programs that are used?


No, since if there is prior copyright ownership, the GPL license can't
apply. But it is unlikely that anyone would attempt to recover any
damages from a small end user - or succeed if they tried. And so far
none of SCO's claims of copied code have been upheld and there isn't
much reason to expect that they will.


These are other questions that affect the status quo and what is done to correct issues.
I also wonder if the GPL is a true open source model? Some posts here are pointing that it is not , I am still confused because of too much jargon present.
http://www.opensource.org/


You can't take these arguments too seriously. The whole term 'Open
Source' was developed in reaction to the overzealous GPL and the
problems it poses when mixing with commercial/proprietary components -
or even less restricted open code.


According to the definition of Open Source,
http://www.opensource.org/docs/osd

The GPL then violates #9 in the definition

<quote>
9. License Must Not Restrict Other Software
The license must not place restrictions on other software that is distributed along with the licensed software. For example, the license must not insist that all other programs distributed on the same medium must be open-source software.
</quote>

or does it really violate it?


From the GPL perspective, it doesn't place restrictions on the other
software, only on the covered parts. That is, it can't stop you from
redistributing the other components but you can't include a GPL'd part
if the combination makes a 'work as a whole' that can't be completely
GPL'd. In practice, the effect is the same on a potential recipient,
but technically they can claim they aren't restricting the other parts.


The GPL would be more clear if it simply stated that you cannot
redistribute at all except under strictly limited conditions.


--
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell@gmail.com


--
fedora-list mailing list
fedora-list@redhat.com
To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list

Antonio Olivares wrote:



But the GPL concept of prohibiting redistribution unless
requirements on
the 'work as a whole' are met makes this impossible
in many cases,
especially at the kernel level where components like
drivers and
filesystems become part of the 'whole'.


--


I like FreeBSD and I see that it has GPL'd code as well as BSD code. The Desktop environments KDE and GNOME are released as GPL code, but they are included in FreeBSD. They do not care that it is released as GPL, they still include it. Now if I get your point right, the GPL requires that since BSD uses KDE which is GPL'd to then release BSD under a GPL license because of its restrictions. I know that the above is not true, but it is an analogy of what the requirements would be.


Copyright/licenses apply at the individual work level, not on the whole
distribution which may have thousands of different programs.


The first question you have to answer when GPL'd components are involved
is what is the 'work as a whole'. The traditional answer is that code
compiled/linked into the same process are part of a whole that might be
considered a derived work of any component, but separately executed
programs are not, even though they might interact closely through pipe
or socket connections. I don't believe there is any real legal
definition of this or court decision that might establish it, though.
Then, even if a GPL'd library is linked, if the compile or dynamic link
is done by the end user and there is a non-gpl'd alternative library
that might have been used instead, the result would not be a derivative.
Also, there is a different, less intrusive set of rules for LGPL'd
components that permit the other parts of the same program to have their
own license terms.




I see many people got mad because of cdrtools had issues with GPL and Jorg released his code under the CDDL, which is a free/opensource license, but it cannot live with the GPL and thus had to produce a GPL'd one and they created the fork which now lives in many Linux distributions:

http://lwn.net/Articles/198171/

However, some distributions still use cdrtools from Jorg, they did not buy into the idea that the fork was needed and still release cdrtools with their products. Was it the GPL that forced cdrtools removal from many distributions, or what is more personal between Debian developers and Jorg?


I think this particular thing is personal between Jorg and everyone else
(pretty common...) and relates partly to differences with kernel
developers about how devices should be handled.



Is this is an example of how the GPL messes up the freedoms to share and improve code?


Maybe - I don't understand the internals well enough to know why it
needed modification in the first place. Given decent interfaces, there
should be no need to modify a user level program to drive it from a GUI
on one side and talk to devices on the other, and if you don't need to
make modifications, there should be no issue with distributing a
standalone CDDL package in a mostly-gnu distribution. But, it does show
the potential for the problem.


--
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell@gmail.com




--
fedora-list mailing list
fedora-list@redhat.com
To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list

On Fri, 2008-07-18 at 13:41 -0700, Antonio Olivares wrote:
> > Sure, there is one, and that's exactly it. The LGPL is
> > one example of a
> > license that protects the code while permitting the
> > creation of derived
> > works with mixed components. The CPL is another. There
> > are several
> > more listed at opensource.org. The MySQL open-source
> > exception to the
> > GPL is another workable alternative (at least for the case
> > where all
> > components are free[1]).
>
> Excellent, OpenOffice is released under the LGPL, with the L becoming
> Lesser GPL, which does not restrict the sharing of code. Can Linux be

The FSF calls this the "lesser" GPL because they have
moral/philosophical objections to allowing this kind of sharing. The
LGPL (AKA the Library GPL) is a concession to the reality that some such
combined works are too useful to block. Imagine the state of GNU/Linux
and open source if only GPLed works could be linked with glibc.

> released under the LGPL? at least to allow the the mixing and sharing
> of code that is restricted by the real GPL.

Almost certainly not. The kernel is a prime example of the challenges
involved in getting the cooperation that Alexandre refers to. All
authors would have to agree. There are probably thousands of them and
at least some of them are GPL zealots who would never agree to such
terms.

>
> > If only we had control of all the pieces and could specify
> > the
> > licenses...
> >
> > When we try to take free software components from other
> > sources with
> > different (even free!) licenses and combine them to create
> > new free
> > works, we are often stymied by the failure of the GPL to
> > permit the
> > distribution of the result. And it is not always possible
> > (and almost
> > never easy) to resolve the conflicts.
> >
> > [1] I think it also could be useful to be able to combine
> > free and
> > proprietary software to create new works.
> >
> > --
> > http://www.math.clemson.edu/~mjs
>
> I agree with [1] here. I believe Les agrees with you here as well
>
> Regards,
>
> Antonio
>
>
>
>
>
--
Matthew Saltzman

Clemson University Math Sciences
mjs AT clemson DOT edu
http://www.math.clemson.edu/~mjs

--
fedora-list mailing list
fedora-list@redhat.com
To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list

Les Mikesell wrote:


What was actually sold is under dispute. SCO claims it owns the
copyright and associated licensing. Novell claims it was just a
licensing/resale arrangement - and this is still in appeals courts. The
first decision went to Novell, but that's been thrown out. I'm not sure
if anyone has gotten around to wondering how this affects OpenSolaris
parts of which Sun licensed from SCO and believes they have the right to
release.


It has not reached the appeals court. The final decision in the case
was only a couple of days ago, and neither Novell or SCO has filed
an appeal. Also, the decision that Novel kept the copyright has not
be thrown out. It ruled that the APA did not transfer the
copyrights. Besides that, there specific forms that need to be
filled out to transfer a copyright. (As opposed to licensing one.)


The court ruled that Novell has the option of voiding the Sun deal,
and that would set Sun up for copyright and contract violations.


Basically, SCO lost all its claims, and Novell won most of their
counterclaims. But SCO didn't end up owing Novell as much as most
people expected. Then again, I think Novell can also file for legal
fees, because they were the prevailing party. Those will be higher
then what Novell was awarded by the court.


Mikkel
--

Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons,
for thou art crunchy and taste good with Ketchup!

--
fedora-list mailing list
fedora-list@redhat.com
To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list

Matthew Saltzman wrote:



released under the LGPL? at least to allow the the mixing and sharing
of code that is restricted by the real GPL.


Almost certainly not. The kernel is a prime example of the challenges
involved in getting the cooperation that Alexandre refers to. All
authors would have to agree. There are probably thousands of them and
at least some of them are GPL zealots who would never agree to such
terms.


On the other hand, Linus was once widely quoted as saying that loadable
binary driver modules were not derivative works of the kernel - and I
believe that the initial popularity of depended on that interpretation
just as much as the wide use of glibc depends on it not claiming
programs that use it as derivatives. He has waffled on that position
more recently but there is no clear statement or legal precedent.


Personally I think it is very close to the claims SCO makes about jfs -
if a kernel component is a derivative of the kernel where it was
developed then things developed under other unix versions then ported to
linux may really belong to someone else.


--
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell@gmail.com

--
fedora-list mailing list
fedora-list@redhat.com
To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list

Les Mikesell wrote:

On the other hand, Linus was once widely quoted as saying that loadable
binary driver modules were not derivative works of the kernel - and I
believe that the initial popularity of depended on that interpretation
just as much as the wide use of glibc depends on it not claiming
programs that use it as derivatives. He has waffled on that position
more recently but there is no clear statement or legal precedent.


You have made similar statements in the past while providing no
references every single time in the discussion even when asked. If you
truly believe in what you are saying, I would ask you (again) to provide
a direct quote. If he was so widely quoted on this as you claim, this
should be no problem at all. I very much doubt you will.


Rahul

--
fedora-list mailing list
fedora-list@redhat.com
To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list