DrDOS Inc Breaking GPL 460
Bob Dobbs writes "DR-DOS 8.1 (DrDOS Inc) came out at the begining of this month, however instead of an upgrade to DR-DOS 8.0 the new product is based on work available on the internet.
The work includes shareware utilities, a badly patched version of the kernel work by Udo Kuhnt, drivers (Samsung, ESS) and utilities from FreeDOS and others (e.g. pkzip). Full information on the FreeDOS site. (Cheers FreeDOS!)"
People use DOS? (Score:3, Insightful)
--
http://blogs.sun.com/javawithjiva [sun.com]
Re:People use DOS? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This is bad? (Score:5, Insightful)
The incredulous part of the whole thing is that the page makes it sound like a major step back for Dr. DOS. Instead of moving forward on the source base they have, they're moving backwards by kit-bashing a bunch of old OSS software and then trying to sell it. Or at least, that's what I got out of TFA.
Re:This is bad? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:People use DOS? (Score:3, Insightful)
DOS is still a real-work (tm) operating system unlike windows.
linux is starting to take over in the embedded OS arena simply because you can do much more than you can in dos.
windows = plaything. DOS = real work OS.
Re:mod me redundant but... (Score:5, Insightful)
And if you RTFA, you'll see that's PRECISELY the issue. Not only are they not releasing the source code with the FreeDOS binaries they've included, they're not even mentioning that they're GPLed.
Re:This is bad? (Score:4, Insightful)
The ultimate point of all this nonsense about information wanting to be free is that no one wants to pay anything for anything so ANY license makes the information less free because a license automatically signifies it is in some way tied to someone who owns it more than anyone else. Truly free information has no owners. We used to call that public domain. The GPL and so on is just a way for the cheapskates in amature socialist garb to have their cake and eat it too, but eventually the dogma generates the karma that runs it over.
Calling anything free with a license is just self-deception and there because those using it want to have the power of Intellectual Property OWNERSHIP and still look cool because they are LETTING people not pay money. It's not free as long as someone has to LET me use it.
How is this illegal? (Score:3, Insightful)
It sounds like DRDOS's latest version is just a bunch of software that can be downloaded free from the internet. A collection of GPL'd or other OSS licensed software. They are trying to charge $45 for what would otherwise be free.
But why would this be illegal? If they have not modified any of the software, how would this even violate the licenses?
I don't get it. Apologies in advance if I'm being dumb.
--Barry
Re:This is bad? (Score:4, Insightful)
In the case of public domain, a person using the code is Free because they can do anything they want to it, including restricting others from Freely using their changes.
In the case of the GPL, the code itself is Free, because all parts of it are Freely available.
Re:This is bad? (Score:2, Insightful)
People use DOS? Yes! (Score:2, Insightful)
Scott Cooper
http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/ [ultimatebootcd.com]
Jumping the Gun (Score:3, Insightful)
So they gave a company 4 days to respond to something having to do with a legal license? So they were given 4 days to talk to read the email (I've taken 2 days off in a row before), talk to their lawyers (or FIND a lawyer if they didn't have one already), come up with a solution, and respond to the email? Seems like someone jumped the gun on this one.
Many companies don't really understand the GPL, but will follow its guidelines if they're explained to them. But companies WON'T use GPL software if they see OSS bulldogs going after a company publicly when that company hasn't had a sufficient amount of time to respond.
At least give them 10 days or so to get their stuff in order, THEN post about how they're screwing stuff up.
Re:This is bad? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you, an insignificant individual, do those things, at least you're behaving consistently (if not necessarilly legally).
If a commercial software vendor does those things, while at the same time demanding that people pay for *their* goods and abide by *their* licenses, then they are being big hypocrites.
Re:Hmmm.... (Score:3, Insightful)
use your brain: it was an obvious typo
> Also, your story about how MS-DOS beat out CPM/86 is just misinformed.
use google:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DR-DOS [wikipedia.org] - provides some general history
http://www.digitalresearch.biz/HISZMSD.HTM [digitalresearch.biz] - describes some history of the DR blowoff of ibm
I was a heavy user of DR DOS when Microsoft was struggling to close the gap between ms dos 4.1 & dr dos 5.0. And got to watch first hand as Microsoft killed a superior product.
Re:It's too damned early here (Score:2, Insightful)
they see fit?
Well, generally, the author of a derived work retains copyright in the work he created, i.e. the parts he created and how they fit in with the base work. The author of the original work has no rights on the modifications except by agreement.
If TFA is true, I don't have a really high opinion of these guys (charging $45 for a couple of 3rd-party kernel inhancements and distributing GNU software illictly -without source); but look back at the original license for the kernel source and I bet you ten to one that there is a clause in there which allows this behavior by the owner of the DR DOS code base.
If the code really was released under GPL and the FreeDOS people used only GPL code, there was no such clause. The GPL has no such clause.
Re:Jumping the Gun (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't agree with this. In my opinion, they started screwing up at the point when they started trying to assimilate GPLed software into their commercial product. They could have read the GPL at that point and understood the requirements of the licence and then decided whether they still wanted to proceed. There must have been a significant amount of time between starting the process of creating DRDOS 8.1 and actually releasing the software; if there's a clock ticking, it starts when they started, not when the FreeDOS guys found them out. I don't think that the thing about not understanding the GPL holds water for a commercial company - it beggars belief that you would create a product based on code from someone outside the organisation without involving a lawyer at some point to check it out.
Re:Illegal vs. Against the terms of the license (Score:4, Insightful)
But yeah, it's still not "illegal" because copyright infringment is not a criminal offense (for now, anyway).
There is no doublestandard (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This is bad? (Score:3, Insightful)
That's the point that many are missing. It doesn't matter if you consider the GPL invalid. If you consider the GPL invalid, that simply means nothing gives you the right to distribute that code without explicit permission of the author. The GPL works because it gives you privileges that would not have existed otherwise. Remove the GPL and you remove all permissions to distribute derived works, except those derived under the principle of fair use.
Co-opting a short function or a couple lines of code--especially generic code--might constitute fair use. Annexing entire programs does not.
--JoeRe:This is bad? (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem (assuming it's a problem and not a deliberate choice) is the insistence of Stallman and the FSF on redefining existing words for their own purposes and then insisting that everyone else is misusing them.
Re:Illegal vs. Against the terms of the license (Score:3, Insightful)
No. The term license has been abused by EULA writers, but an actual license gives you permission to do things that are normally forbidden by copyright law. Typically there will be a contract that goes with the license, e.g. "you pay us $2000 per developer who works on the derivative you are creating in return for licenses to distribute binaries of said derivative to third parties", but in the case of the GPL there is no contract, just a unilateral grant of a limited license. You can break a contract, e.g. by lying about how many developers worked on the thing, or simply not paying, in the first case, and you're correct in that that would not be illegal but would have consequences, probably the loss of the licenses in this case. However, you can also violate the license - or, more correctly, infringe the copyright holder's copyright by doing something they have an exclusive right to without having a license from them to do so - e.g. by redistributing source in the first case, or distributing gpl programs without source in the second. And that isn't breach of a contract, it's just straightforward copyright infringement, and fully illegal.
Re:This is bad? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not theft, but it's not okay (there are lot of things that aren't theft that are still both illlegal and wrong), and they should comply with the GPL, and people shouldn't download stuff illegally from P2P applications.
Note that none of that means that the music industry isn't stupid for understanding the competition they face from illegal downloads and addressing it reasonably (you can be within your legal rights but still be stupid), or that it's not legitimate to legally buy your music from overseas where it's cheaper.
Re:This is bad? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:There is no doublestandard (Score:3, Insightful)
If you believe the GPL should hold water, the only ethically consistent position is to respect the licenses of other authors (either by paying their fee and not redistributing illegally or by not using their software at all). Otherwise, there is a double standard.
Richard Stallman and the FSF folks understand this. They find non-free/libre licenses to be abhorrent so they refuse to use software so distributed.
Re:This is bad? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not free to who? The person who gets to use it, or the person who has to let the other person use it? Every freedom is a tradeoff... swinging fists and noses and all that jazz. I bet the slaveowners were upset about their lost freedom when their ex-slaves found theirs.
"Information wants to be free" means "no one wants to pay anything for anything" as much as "lets start a company" means "I want to embezzle millions". Sure, some people who say one thing mean the other, but that doesn't define either movement.
Isn't it funny that you call the people using the GPL license as "cheapskates" when the only real cheapskate here is the people who took code other people wrote and called it their own product instead of investing their own time and money to develop a product that was truly theirs?
Re:This is bad? (Score:3, Insightful)
It's about fighting copyright, fighting fire with fire.
The GPL does not use copyright law on a _moral_ or _ethical_ basis, it just uses it as a tool.
The whole idea of the GPL is keeping free stuff free. When someone want to keep free software from being free, you can use copyright law, as a tool against them.
Of course, the GPL would be useless in a world without copyright, but of course, it wouldn't be necessary, because that's the kinds of world the creators of the GPL want.
Re:There is no doublestandard (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:bah, here we go again (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:But they're different companies now! (Score:3, Insightful)
d((x0,y0),(x1,y1)) = |x1-x0| + |y1-y0|
You can think of it as 1st in the series of metrics
d((x0,y0),(x1,y1)) = ( |x1-x0|^p + |y1-y0|^p )^(1/p)
where for p=1 you get this metric and for p=2 you get the traditional Euclidian one.