Attorney Dan Ravicher on Open Source Legal Issues 155
Attorney Interview Disclaimer:
Legal opinions posted on Slashdot are for general information purposes only and should not be taken as specific legal advice. If that's what you need, you should consult a lawyer familiar with the laws in your jurisdiction about your situation. Also, please remember that everything you read here represents Dan's personal opinion, which is not necessarily shared by his employer, Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison LLP, or any of Brobeck's nearly 1000 other attorneys.
Now the interview itself...
When will source code be considered speech?
by LordNimon
Every programmer knows that source code is speech, and should be protected
like any other speech. However, the courts just don't seem to realize
that,
probably because none of the judges have ever been programmers. What would
it take for the court system to generally acknowledge that source code is
speech, and how long will it take for that to happen? What do you think
will
be the biggest ramifications if/when it does happen?
Dan
SHORT ANSWER
Source code is speech, but not all speech receives the same amount of First Amendment protection. Due to its functionality, source code cannot receive the highest form of First Amendment Protection. But source code that is expressive in nature may receive some First Amendment protection.
LONG ANSWER
I have some good news and some bad news.
The good news is that the few courts to consider the issue concluded that source code is speech. Further, in the DeCSS case, it seems as though the federal appeals court in New York will uphold the lower court judge who also concluded that source code is speech. However, the bad news is that the First Amendment's protection of speech is not absolute and not all speech gets the same amount of First Amendment protection.
The amount of protection given particular speech depends upon it's content. While some speech can easily be categorized as political, commercial, verbal acts or otherwise, First Amendment analysis often looks at the speech's expressiveness as opposed to its functionality to determine the corresponding level of protection. Purely expressive speech regarding public affairs, politics and government (think "F--- the draft!" on the back of a jacket worn by an individual with no intent to cause imminent lawlessness) gets heightened First Amendment protection, while purely functional speech (think "Do you have any drugs?" to an undercover police officer or "I accept" to a party which has offered a contract) gets little First Amendment protection. This leaves speech which is both expressive and functional, such as commercial speech (think "Eat at Joe's!"), lying somewhere in the middle. Further, indecent speech (think adult porn) gets very little protection while obscene speech (think child porn) gets no protection whatsoever.
Since source code is by its nature functional, it seems unlikely that any court would ever find that it is purely expressive. However, the courts which have addressed the issue have concluded that source code can also be expressive. In fact, in 1999 a federal court in California wrote, "While source code can be easily compiled into object code by a user, ignoring the distinction between source and object code obscures the important fact that source code is not meant solely for the computer, but is rather written in a language intended also for human analysis and understanding." Therefore, there is no universal answer to the question of how much First Amendment protection applies to source code. Rather, the issue depends in part on the particular expressive versus functional nature of the source code in question.
However, although the speech involved may be an important element, the true focus of First Amendment analysis is whether a particular law unconstitutionally abridges free speech. Courts ask whether a particular law violates the First Amendment, not whether particular speech deserves First Amendment protection. Therefore, speech can not be looked at in isolation. Rather, a particular law must be looked at to determine how it affects speech. Laws aimed at speech with a certain message are deemed "content-based" and most often receive heightened scrutiny. On the other hand, laws which are "content-neutral", such as time-place-manner restrictions, most often receive less scrutiny. For instance, in the DeCSS case, the court is looking at the Digital Millenium Copyright Act to determine what level of scrutiny it shall receive in relation to its regulation of speech.
Another issue which deserves attention is the fact that the First Amendment rights we all have are alienable. That is, we can bargain away those rights through a contract. Confidentiality agreements are a prime example of one party giving up their right to speak which are routinely enforced. This issue as it relates to license agreements and their prohibition against publishing reviews or benchmark test results is addressed in response to question 8 below.
OFF TOPIC RESPONSE TO COMMENT
Lastly, I just wanted to respond briefly to your comment about judges not being computer programmers. While this is true, so is the fact that most computer programmers are not lawyers. However, this doesn't prevent computer programmers from understanding difficult legal issues. Likewise, judges are generally capable of understanding computer programming issues.
No funds, no change of winning?
by antis0c
I'm a freelance programmer, and like most programmers I do it for the love
of the "art", and because of that most of my creations are licensed under
GPL.. However, my question is, what would happen if Big Corporation X were
to take my code, integrate it into a proprietary system, and sell it for
millions, ignoring all demands to release source to the modifications (and
thus breaking the GPL). What could I honestly do besides writing letters
threatening legal action?
I obviously don't have the funds to compete in the courtroom with Big Corporation X, and even if I were to try, the expense and time alone would set me into debt for probably the greater part of the rest of my life. What chance does the GPL or any other Open Source licensed software have, if a good part of it's development team is composed of just average guys with bills, debt and little free time?
Dan
SHORT ANSWER
Keep writing good code.
LONG ANSWER
You are correct; without substantial resources, it is extremely difficult to successfully enforce your intellectual property rights against a major software company. However, I strongly urge you to not underestimate the power that individuals and small organizations have to cause change.
For instance, you could assign your rights to an entity who is sympathetic to the open source movement and who has the resources to vindicate your interests. Many large entities in the open source world (including the Free Software Foundation and Sun) ask developers to assign their interests back to them. This coalesces the ownership into one entity which has the resources to bring legal actions to assert the copyright interests in the code. [Note: This is discussed further in response to question 9 below.] Further, it might be possible to find a law firm willing to take a copyright infringement case on a contingent fee basis. This prevents the "little guy" from being denied "his day in court."
Also realize that the courtroom is not the only place (in fact not even the most important place) you can compete with Big Corporation X. The court of public opinion often favors the David over the Goliath. The key here is to make sure the general public knows how you are helping them, and that "hacker" is not a negative term. Small businesses are often noted for better customer service, better product and better innovation than their multi-national counterparts. Further, publicity is very inexpensive and can be extremely helpful. For example, just today (June 4, 2001) a New York Times article with the headline, "Open-Source Movement Advances," presented the free software movement and the open source concept in a very positive light.
In the meantime, it is my view that the best thing you can do is keep writing code. And not just any code, write the best damn code you can. Write code that is pioneering and revolutionary and causes the entire software development community to recognize it as singly that of the open source realm. Write code that solves problems closed source developers don't even know exist. Spend your valuable time addressing programming issues, not legal ones. After all, you chose to be a programmer, not a lawyer.
Now, this may lead to your code being more desirable in the eyes of those with bad faith intent, but it will also be more attractive to those with good faith intent. I encourage you to be receptive to all who wish to learn about and support your programming, including non-programmers such as business people, lawyers, students, etc. Once there's a gathering of individuals around your code (or a project which your code is part of), it won't be as hard to organize an effective intellectual property defense scheme. Odds are that someone in this group will have the legal, business, public relations, or other training and experience to worry about those issues while you continue to write damn good code. If you, the other developers, and the supporting folks pool resources, you may soon have sufficient capability to vindicate your combined interests.
Further, I urge you to not be overly cynical about our justice system. Yes, there are flaws which subject our legal system to manipulation and abuse and, yes, things move slowly and sometimes backward for periods, but I truly believe that our system is pretty good and eventually produces the correct results.
Public Domain
by Flying Headless Goku
A common justification for choosing an open source license, and putting up
with all the license-compatibility issues, over simply releasing the code
into the public domain is fear of litigation. Do you believe that the
creator of public domain software (perfection disclaimed, use at own risk)
is at any greater legal risk than the creator of open-source licensed
software in the case of costly software failure? (I'm especially
interested
in any relevant precedent you are aware of)
Dan
SHORT ANSWER
Yes.
LONG ANSWER
Yes, one who releases code into the public domain has greater litigation exposure than one who only releases the code through valid contracts (licenses) which include limitation of liability and disclaimer of warranty terms. The default rules for relationships amongst parties (the ones that apply in the absence of a valid contract) are based in tort and include negligence, warranties and other basis of liability. However, when the parties enter a valid contract, the contract's terms supercede the default rules unless the terms violate a statute, a constitution or public policy. Limitation of liability and warranty disclaimers contained in valid contracts (which are used to limit risks to the developer) are routinely upheld by courts.
However, whether mass-market public software licenses (such as the GPL, MozPL, IBMPL, etc.) are enforceable has yet to be addressed, or even litigated. This is why I wrote my paper; the uncertainty surrounding the enforceability of such licenses causes inefficient waste by those parties who wish to use such licenses in that they will have to assume risk associated with this uncertainty.
Microsoft Licensing
by Alien54
In your detailed paper, you note:
I am interested on the implications of the fact of Microsoft's monopoly in as it applies to licensing. While it can be argued that the two issues are separate, and one is not relevant to the other, many people look at the practices of Microsoft in this regard and view it with horror and contempt. Are there instances where such licensing practices impose a non-legitimate enforcement of "rights", and in fact constitute improper maintenance of a monopoly? Or do people have these separate issues confused, when they should be treated separately?37. For instance, under the first sale doctrine, an owner of a piece of software can transfer her program to whomever and for whatever she desires. The use of a license prevents this doctrine from applying, which allows computer programming firms to price-discriminate between customer characteristics. If Microsoft wants to give Windows software to public schools at a cost blow the production cost and the transaction consummates a sale, the first sale doctrine would apply, and the school could resell the programs at a higher price to a corporation, retaining the difference. This would cause Microsoft to charge all customers one price, either by lowering its price, forcing it to run at a loss, or raising its price, thus making the program unavailable to schools and other meagerly funded organizations. This result is economically inefficient and would most assuredly be politically unpopular.
Dan
SHORT ANSWER
Yes, intellectual property licensing implicates antitrust law. License provisions which have a net anticompetitive effect are illegal.
LONG ANSWER
Yes, since intellectual property licensing can be anticompetitive, antitrust law is implicated. Antitrust law holds that any anticompetitive effects of intellectual property licensing are permissible only if they are outweighed by their procompetitive effects. One highly important factor in this analysis is the market power of the parties involved, specifically if either party is a monopoly.
As you mention, the Department of Justice deemed Microsoft ("MS") to have a monopoly in certain markets and to have engaged in licensing with net anticompetitive effects. MS first came under scrutiny for its licenses with OEM's that were designed to achieve long term exclusivity. That time a settlement was reached by which Microsoft agreed to reduce the term of it's agreements and allow for OEM's to install other operating systems on their computers. The second round of scrutiny currently under review by a federal appeals court in Washington involves MS requiring the bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows and is still being litigated. The dispute in that case centers around whether MS has monopoly power and whether the intellectual property licensing provisions at issue have a net anticompetitive effect.
Images and Sounds
by K45
How does the GPL affect non-sourcecode files that are part of an
application?
Specifically, I'm concerned about the images and sounds that are included with a game I'm working on.
Does the GPL "contaminate" these other files that are included? If so, how do "source" and "binary" distribution apply to images and sounds.
Dan
SHORT ANSWER
The GPL may "contaminate" sound and image files if they are part of a whole work, and that work is based on a GPL licensed program.
LONG ANSWER
The relevant part of the GPL reads,
Therefore, under the GPL, if the non-source code files are "distributed as part of a whole which is a work based on the [GPL'd] program," then the whole application, including those non-source code files, must be distributed under the GPL. However, if the non-source code files are not "based on the [GPL'd] Program" and are "merely aggregated" with the GPL'd program for distribution, then those non-source code files do not have to be distributed under the GPL. This means that the issue lies in how the non-source code files are incorporated into or with the GPL'd program.If identifiable sections ... are not derived from the Program, and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it. ... the intent is to exercise the right to control the distribution of derivative or collective works based on the Program. In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under the scope of this License.
If no source code exists for parts of the work, section 3 of the GPL states that "the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it," must be distributed in order to satisfy the "source" distribution requirement. Since I have very little technical knowledge, I'm not sure exactly what is "the preferred form" for making modifications to image and sound files.
There are also two other issues which you might want to think about. First, no court has yet ruled on the validity of the GPL. Therefore, the above section may be held unenforceable. Second, if you are the complete owner of all the copyrights in either the non-source code files or the program, you have the ability to license those copyrights under both the GPL and other licenses, if you so choose. Say for instance, a GPL'd game comes your way and you wish to add graphic X. You create graphic X in a way which creates in you all its copyrights. If you then incorporate graphic X into the game, the enhanced game must be distributed under the GPL. However, you can also distribute your graphic X under other licenses, including closed source.
Helping avoid contributory and vicarious liability
by cworley
Fred von Lohmann wrote a White Paper for the EEF concerning avoidance of
"contributory and vicarious copyright infringement" (being liable for
writing software that promotes "fair use", but can be used for copyright
infringement).
In that, he states guidelines for developers. One of the guidelines is: "Be open source".
I would think Open Source would set you up for liability in such matters: anybody who modified your code, making it able to infringe on copyrights, would make you vicariously liable for opening the code in the first place.
Or, take for example, TiVo. Their systems are open source, they've posted their kernel and tool modifications on their web site (as per the GPL). Now they're worried that someone could use that to easily create code that will allow MPEG extraction from the unit (and widespread distribution of copyrighted materials).
I'm not sure how being open source can protect a software developer from such litigation.
Can you explain this?
Dan
SHORT ANSWER
Whether one is liable for contributory and vicarious copyright infringement is an extremely fact specific inquiry. Being open source, by itself, does nothing to absolve one of liability for contributory and vicarious liability.
LONG ANSWER
For those who have not had the opportunity to read von Lohmann's paper, let me restate the underlying law regarding contributory and vicarious copyright infringement before addressing your question.
Neither contributory nor vicarious copyright infringement claim that the defendant violated any copyright; rather they claim the defendant helped or benefited from someone else's copyright infringement. First and most obvious, both forms of liability require the copyright owner to show actual copyright infringement by someone. Whether or not the source code of the program is released to the public won't make a difference on the finding of this element.
Along with the showing of actual infringement, contributory infringement requires the plaintiff copyright owner show (1) the defendant actually knew or reasonably should have known of the direct infringement at the time (2) the defendant induced, caused or materially contributed to the direct infringement. For instance, one can be liable for contributory infringement if they release a software product that is used to infringe copyrights without any substantial non-infringing uses. Vicarious infringement requires the plaintiff copyright owner to show (1) the defendant could control or oversee the direct infringement and (2) the defendant received benefit from the infringement. Since element (2) for both of these tests has been relaxed by the courts, the discussion properly focuses on the knowledge element for contributory infringement and the control element for vicarious infringement.
Being open source in and of itself most likely won't make any difference for these elements. However, being open source, as opposed to proprietary, may make it easier for the initial developer (or one way upstream from the current version) to argue lack of control or knowledge, especially if the project undergoes significant development by downstream developers without any involvement or control by the original author. This requires the open source code to be entirely released without any continuing control, monitorization or ownership at a point well before the time that the code is known to have infringement capabilities. [Note: reasons why open source developers may want to keep control and/ or ownership over their projects are discussed in the responses to Questions 2 and 9.]
Therefore, if the open source developer retains control over the program or if the version of the program used to commit copyright infringement is similar to the version of the program originally released by the open source developer, being open source does nothing to reduce potential contributory or vicarious copyright infringement. Other actions, such as providing maintenance or support, might also support a finding of contributory or vicarious copyright infringement.
Without putting words in his mouth, what I think von Lohmann was trying to say was not "be open source", but rather "be extremist" by selecting either "total control or total anarchy" as he puts it. He advocates either retaining complete and entire dominion over your code and the users of your code so that you can prevent any copyright infringement or, at the other extreme, releasing the code entirely to the public without any ability to control or determine how it develops. In order to decide which is better for a project, this benefit of a potential reduction in liability exposure should be measured against the associated consequences of loosing all ability to control or receive financial benefit from the project.
RELATED DISCUSSION
Lastly, when thinking about contributory and vicarious liability, open source developers should also consider the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. 1201). The DMCA isn't directly concerned with copyright infringement, rather it addresses the technological measures that some copyright owners use to control access to their works. For instance, a court recently held (and the issue was not appealed) that CSS is a technological measure that effectively controls access to movies. In essence, the main copyright laws protect the property, while the DMCA protects the fence which the property owner erects around her property.
Specifically, the DMCA states that as of Oct. 28, 2000, "No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work." Further, the DMCA says the following:
As the DeCSS case demonstrates, these provisions expose software developers to potential liability if they create programs which can be used to defeat technological measures.No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide or otherwise traffic in any technology, product service, device component, or part thereof, that -(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work;
(B) has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work; or
(C) is marketed by that person or another acting in concert with that person with that person's knowledge for use in circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work.
Big ballpark hypothetical
by wrinkledshirt
Okay, some unknown hacker creates his/her foo application and releases the
source under GPL. Something occurs that leads him/her to suspect that the
foo source has been incorporated into a
commercial product that isn't following the terms of the GPL with regards
to
rereleasing the source. Furthermore, the things that lead him/her to
suspect
this aren't basic paranoia -- someone with a conscience and access to the
suspect source has leaked information about it or whatnot. Or maybe
something else -- point is, there is a case that could be made.
From a PRACTICAL standpoint, what sort of things would this unknown hacker have to do to make their case? Would it be possible from a practical point of view under (eg) the United States legal system for this unknown hacker to take the company to court? What sorts of costs would he/she incur? What sort of time-frame would it take to achieve resolution? What sorts of potential rewards or compensation could he/she expect? Are there any precedents that are analogous to this situation?
Dan
SHORT ANSWER
It would be difficult, but not impossible for an individual computer programmer with little or no money to vindicate her copyright against a major corporation. Resolution could take between several months and several years. If successful, she can enjoin the infringing activity and receive money damages.
LONG ANSWER
Practically speaking, the unknown hacker should seek legal counsel who is familiar with litigating copyright law in the context of software source code. And, yes, it is possible for an individual to take on a major corporation, such as by enlisting the help of others (possibly even a friendly corporation) or, in the rare instance, by a law firm taking the case on a contingency fee basis. [For more discussion of this, see the answer to question 2 above.] Such a copyright case can last anywhere from several months (if settled during or shortly after discovery) to several years if the case goes to trial and appeal.
Copyright Infringement occurs when someone other than the copyright owner exercises one or more of the exclusive rights of the copyright owner. An unauthorized use of the copyrighted material exposes the infringer to criminal and/ or civil liability under U.S. copyright law. Further, the copyright holder in a civil case does not have to prove intent to infringe by the defendant, but only that the act of infringement occurred. The defendant corporation would likely defend the case vigorously by, among other things, asserting a variety of defenses including the affirmative defense of fair use.
Once a copyright holder proves copyright infringement, she can recover actual damages and lost profits if they can be adequately proven. Otherwise, if the copyrighted work was properly registered, the copyright owner can get attorney's fees and statutory damages, which can be as high as $150,000, without any requirement of actual proof of harm. Copyright holders can also seek an injunction to prevent the alleged infringement from continuing during or after the litigation.
Also, as a side note, it would be difficult for a case to rely entirely on individuals "with a conscience and access to the suspect source." For one reason, they are probably in violation of their employee confidentiality agreement by telling anyone about what they know to be in the suspect source code, so they may not want to come forward to testify. Consequently, it would be helpful to discover other evidence (documents, sworn testimony, etc.) supporting the allegations.
As for precedent, in the case LMP v. Universal Lighting, a law firm took a technology-related case for a couple of garage inventors on a contingency fee basis and won a $92 million judgment. Although it took several years and a couple appeals, the plaintiffs eventually had their rights vindicated.
Supremacy Clause and shrinkwrap "no review" terms.
by coats
Daniel, you write,
How does this square with shrinkwrap license clauses that demand no one publish reviews or benchmarks without permission? Both Microsoft and Oracle employ such clauses, for example. It would seem to me that this conflicts with the original (1823?) Supreme Court decision that established the "fair use" doctrine -- the Court declared that Congress might not pass a copyright law so stringent as to restrain freedom of speech nor freedom of the press... and benchmarking and publishing the results certainly is a legitimate exercise of the latter! And the subject would seem to me to be precisely a Supremacy Clause argument...59. There is a huge flaw with this core of these Supremacy Clause preemption arguments. The underlying rationales given for performing a separate Supremacy Clause preemption analysis are exactly the same arguments made for finding the license procedurally or substantively unconscionable under state contract law.
Dan
SHORT ANSWER
The rights given to individuals by the Constitution and Congress are mere default starting positions which can be freely transferred by contract. As long as a contract is validly formed, the Supremacy Clause will not undo the bargain struck by the parties.
LONG ANSWER
The Supremacy Clause of the Constitution preempts any state law which "stands as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and objectives of Congress." Some argue that state contract law which enforces software license provisions such as prohibitions against publishing benchmarks or reviews circumvents the doctrine of fair use and the first amendment and, as such, should be preempted by the Supremacy Clause. Those who advance this argument believe that parties should not be allowed to use contracts to undo the congressional fair use balance struck between the right of copyright owners to control the use of their works and the Constitutional right of individuals to the freedom of speech. However, the accepted view is that individuals have the right to contract around the fair use balance struck by Congress. Therefore, copyright law and the Constitution supply mere default rules, which only apply in the absence of an agreement between the parties.
The Constitution also gives us the right to give up our rights (think Miranda warning, "You have the right to remain silent; If you choose to waive that right and talk, we can use what you say against you."). We can also exchange the rights we are given initially for other rights (think confidentiality agreements which say "I agree to restrict my right to tell people what you show me, if you also agree to restrict your right to tell people what I show you."). Validly entered contracts are the vehicle by which rights are exchanged. And although there are some differing points of view, the widely accepted theory is that the Supremacy Clause has no application to validly entered contracts. Therefore, as long as they are part of a validly entered into license agreement, the anti-publication of benchmarks or reviews provisions are completely legal and enforceable.
RELATION TO OPEN SOURCE LICENSING
Contrary to what I sense is your feeling, it is my view that the open source community should be encouraged by this result for the simple reason that several provisions in the most common public software licenses (the GNU General Public License and the Mozilla Public License) could also be deemed to limit the fair use rights of licensees. For instance, the GPL requires the licensee to license under the GPL any future work which includes part of the licensed work. This arguably prevents someone from making a fair use of GPL'd code (for example, by taking a small line of code and incorporating it into a million line program which is part of a doctoral thesis). However, by entering into the GPL, the licensee possibly waives her right to make any such fair use. If the Supremacy Clause was to preempt this provision, the intent and strength of the GPL would be seriously thwarted. Therefore, it is good for the free software community that the Supremacy Clause does not strike provisions of validly entered software licenses.
Further, there is another reason why the open source community may be benefited by the anti-publication of benchmarks or review provisions of closed-source licenses. Assume two software products compete in a market, one is closed source and licensed under terms which include the anti-publication provisions mentioned above while the other is licensed under a public software license, such as the GPL. The open source product will presumably be or become the subject of published benchmark reports and reviews, while the closed source product will not. Educated consumers may be less likely to purchase the closed source product because they have no available information regarding its performance or quality. Further, even if there are published benchmarks and reviews for the closed source software, educated consumers may recognize that those reports and reviews were only published with the consent of the closed source company. This fact will detract from the reliability and value of the report or review to the consumer. So at least in theory, the anti-publication provisions may actually hinder the closed source product's ability to compete with open source products in the marketplace.
Contributor Agreements
by dood
I'm one of the lead developers on the Open Source project Jive. Many of
our
contributors work on the project as part of their job duties at their
place
of employment. In light of that, we've been considering a mandatory
Contributor Agreement for all code that is submitted to the project
(excluding one-liners).
We want the agreement to accomplish three things:
1. Stipulate that the code is being released to the project under the project's license (for our project this is the Apache License).
2. Ensure that the contributor has permission to release the intellectual property to the project, including any necessary permission from their employer.
3. Make sure that the contributor does not apply for patents for the code that they're submitting.
My question is:
1. Do you see legal value in this sort of agreement?
2. Do you know of any boilerplate agreements that exist?
3. Shouldn't more Open Source projects be worried about IP issues that a contributor agreement seeks to prevent?
Dan
SHORT ANSWER
Yes, there is legal value in this sort of agreement. Yes, there are "boilerplate" agreements available, but I strongly advise against relying on them entirely. Yes, the managers of open source projects should consider the intellectual property issues involved with their project and consider the appropriateness of a contributor agreement.
LONG ANSWER
From a purely legal standpoint, such an agreement provides several benefits to open source projects. The potential for your project to incorporate submitted code that actually belongs to someone else (namely the contributor's employer) creates a risk for your project. Requiring contributors to confirm that they have permission to release the code to your project helps to reduce your exposure to third party intellectual property infringement claims. In addition to having the agreement for legal reasons, it could also be helpful to also post a detailed FAQ about why such an agreement is needed and who a contributor can contact if they (or their employer) have issues or questions.
It should please you to know that several members of the open source community, including the Free Software Foundation and Sun, already go about protecting their open source projects by requiring contributors to complete similar type agreements. However, one difference between what I've seen and what you propose is that such agreements do not forbid the contributor from applying for patents; rather they require the contributor to grant a license to any future patents she receives to the project as well.
As for "boilerplate" agreements, at the risk of sounding self serving, I encourage you to have a lawyer review any documents before using them for your project. The time and money you invest will ensure that the agreement complies with the specific laws of your jurisdiction while also addressing and satisfying the specific needs of your project.
How Can We be More Effective?
by bwt
The open source community interaction with law and politics to date has
been
almost completely reactive. Typically some company or government
institution
has or is about to do something draconian before we are able to mobilize.
Sometimes we get there in time, sometimes not. Examples are: DMCA, UCITA,
and
hundreds of software patents, Microsoft's embrace and extend campaign of
the
week, ... the list goes on.
What can we do as a community to be more effective in protecting ourselves. I'm someone who has joined the EFF, written letters to the copyright office, participated heavily on Openlaw, and written letters to my Congressmen. Many of us are involved in these ways, but somehow we've got to take it up a notch. What's the next step?
Dan
SHORT ANSWER
I strongly believe that the free software movement has been and continues to be incredibly successful in the only arena that matters, the market place.
LONG ANSWER
I think you don't give yourself enough credit. The impact free software has had in such a short period of time is simply amazing, especially when one considers the economic disadvantage open source supporters have in relation to those who oppose them. Being reactive is not necessarily a bad thing; it's much better than being alienated, indifferent or complacent. But, since you asked, I make a few suggestions below, which may help the free software movement continue to progress at its already extremely productive rate.
My first suggestion is to recognize what has been accomplished. Often it is easy to focus on what has not been done or what has gone wrong, but every once in a while, it is necessary to appreciate the achievements of the past. Although you believe the open source movement lost certain legal battles (such as DMCA, UCITA, software patents, etc), what matters is the war in the marketplace. In my opinion, open source development has been galvanized, not thwarted, by these "losses." To support this conclusion, I simply point to the amount of press open source software has received to date and to the number of major corporations, including IBM, HP and Netscape, who have made severe commitments to the ideas behind the free software movement.
My second suggestion is for open source developers to keep writing good code. After all is said and done, people care about getting the best product they can at the cheapest price. The free software community has already proven to many people that it provides a competitive and sometimes superior alternative to proprietary software development. Although legal issues are important to the success of an open source project, they should always come second to the technical development of the code. It is my opinion that law does not lead the market, rather the market leads the law. Therefore, winning in the marketplace will lead to winning in the legal system, not vice versa.
My last suggestion is to encourage the open source community to take advantage of the marketplace of ideas. Although some individuals deserve a little more credit than others for the achievements of the free software movement, the key to the success of open source software development has been the involvement of vast numbers of individuals. To this end, I would encourage those in the free software movement to welcome varying points of view. Limiting the amount and kind of ideas which are presented and discussed will serve a great disservice to the movement. Only through (sometimes heated) debate will the most merit-worthy principles reveal themselves.
But again, I reiterate that it is my sincere opinion that the accomplishments of the open source movement to date can only be described as remarkable.
"Special Guest Comment"
by Richard M. Stallman
I'm glad that people are interested in asking about the GNU GPL, but while
asking, please keep in mind that the GPL was not developed by the Open
Source Movement, and really has no connection with it.
The Open Source Movement was founded in 1998 by people who disagreed with the Free Software Movement's idealistic goals. Many open source developers use the GNU GPL for pragmatic reasons--to make sure that their programs won't be "embraced and extended" into proprietary versions. Anyone is welcome to use the GPL, for whatever reason. But in order to understand the GPL, you need to think of it as a free software license, not as an open source license.
I wrote the GPL in the 1980s as part of the Free Software Movement. The goal of the Free Software Movement is to give computer users the freedom to share and change the software that they use. The GPL is designed specifically to achieve that goal--to make sure every user of a GPL-covered program has the freedom to share and change it.
Dan
Mr. Stallman is indeed correct. However, since the practical, as opposed to theoretical, legal differences between free software and open source are minimal in comparison to their collective differences with proprietary software development, my responses above use the terms interchangeably. By doing so, I do not intend to imply that all public software licenses are the same; just as I do not intend to imply that all proprietary software licenses are the same by also grouping them together in my answers. Lastly, Mr. Stallman's point that the GPL differs from other open source licenses reinforces my suggestion above that individuals should seek specific legal advice for their specific circumstances.
Re:misconception (Score:1)
Re:Software Engineer: oxymoron (Score:1)
Servlets. In essence, they are just plugin components for J2EE webservers, not fundamentally different from apache modules (which are OO, but written in C not Java).
How the 'little guy' can win the mentioned cases (Score:2)
hmm (Score:4)
And I thought one of the reasons to use Free Software was to avoid complex licensing issues? The GPL seems to have as much controvery as any other license, whether or not it is even enforceable hasn't been proven yet in court. I hear all the time that using Linux "avoids all the licensing crap of MS". Well, after reading this, I'm not so sure about that. The GPL seems just as complex and irritating, if not more, than any of those lame EULA I click "agreeing" to.
Re:Programming is mostly solo (Score:2)
Hello in there, Chris. What color is the sky in your world?
It's fair to disagree with the way the system works, but retreating into the little fantasyland of your own imaginary world isn't a really good way to go about it (much less wasting bandwidth by shooting your load all over Slashdot). I mean, I think that rock stars shouldn't get the Supermodels and that I should, but that's not happening, either.
Besides, if you're doing most of your programming solo, you're probably in the minority. In my experience (and I do tend to work for places that make appliances, not straight hardware), software development is massively collaborative.
----
Jeez... (Score:3)
----
Re:Confusion (Score:2)
The GPL is for extending to _every_ end user the CAPACITY to become another coder or distributor. Without exception. To free software there is NO such thing as an 'end user' distinct from a developer. This is a sharp difference from proprietary software, to say the least...
For that reason, the GPL applies to the end user in the sense that, at ANY point the end user can become a developer or distributor, with no further authorization than the GPL itself. Any or all end users can do this and are encouraged to.
That's why this confusion arises: to the GPL and those who wrote it, there's no such thing as a passive end user. It is a philosophical distinction that rejects the idea of a 'consumer' and instead asserts that every person who comes in contact with the software may have something to offer and thus needs to be included in the licensing arrangement in case they feel like lending a hand.
So, it's true that you can use GPLed stuff all day without being bound by the terms of the GPL, just by not doing ANY activities that the GPL makes available to you- but to a large extent this misses the point, and more importantly you always have the _option_ of adding those activities and accepting the terms with which they're granted. At no point are you ever limited to 'consumer' interaction, no matter how stubbornly you avoid coding or distributing. Getting more involved is always an option, and if you do, the terms become relevant to your situation.
Re:An idea to prove the GPL. (Score:3)
But you don't have to agree to the GPL... (Score:1)
Complexity begets complexity (Score:4)
If you look at the GPL, add all its parts up, subtract the IP-circumvention bits, you end up with one simple philosophy:
I will share with you if you share with me.
It's simple, it's beautiful, it's fair.
Who stands to gain the most from BSD licenses? Anyone who takes a BSD-licensed product and makes it proprietary, that's who. For instance, Microsoft's ip stack (and many of the programs) were taken straight from BSD-licensed code. What did MS gain from this? Everything. What did the people who wrote the code in the first place gain?
Nothing.
The fragmentation of Unix came about because of the BSD-licensed code that Scott McNeally used to create SunOS. IBM, HP, et al soon followed suit. If they had used GPLed code instead, they could have contributed back to a common core and differentiated themselves on hardware instead (which is what really counted to start with).
The BSD is great only if you don't mind that your code is taken by someone else to make money. Personally, I don't want that to happen.
Re:An idea to prove the GPL. (Score:2)
What's really needed is a small time software company that has admitted to "borrowing" a piece of GPLed software for inclusion in its commercial product, and who is still dumb enough to not cave in to the Free Software Foundations demands.
The /. story about VirtualDub seemed to me like a good case (unfortunately the FSF isn't the copyright holder).
Here's to hoping that the folks who "borrowed" the virtualDub software are dumb enough to actually go to court.
Re:...but some animals are more equal than others (Score:2)
"The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic." -- Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Small line of code (Score:2)
There must be a point where you can't tell if a small chunk of code is derived from a specific work or just common knowledge. What is it?
__
Re:Confusion (Score:1)
What the statute means is that given a preexisting legal copy - the CD you get from the store, for instance - you can copy directly off of that to HD, and from that to RAM, and from that bits to cache and CPU, etc. without fear because copyright is inapplicable to those copies.
At the very least, I'd say you were stretching it in your example. I wouldn't expect that it would be legal.
Re:Confusion (Score:2)
I too have found that the GPL is utterly irrelevant for actual usage. Additionally, I find the mere existance of software licenses in nearly all cases - with an exception for the GPL's as it pertains only to copying - abhorent and unecessary.
I would also like to point out that you are utterly and demonstrably WRONG. Term 0 of the GPL states:
Now, if everything I've read about the GPL is incorrect, including the GPL itself, I'll be pretty surprised, I can tell you that.
The GPL explicitly applies only to the modification of the software and the creation of copies and distribution therof. Furthermore, for a user who does not agree to the license, the statutory exceptions of 17 USC 117 permit him to make whatever copies are necessary (e.g. copies to RAM) in order to run the software, and to make backups. The copyrights of software publishers have not applied to those matters for AFAIK over two decades. Indeed, one wonders how legal a license that dealt with such matters would be given that the copyright holder is not a factor anyway.
Refusal of the GPL does not require an alternate form of permission from the copyright holder in order to obtain a copy. In order to make this clear, as it's difficult to express, I will employ an example.
Although this appears to be a copyright violation - Bar made a copy w/o agreeing to the license - it is not. Because Foo has permission to grant permission to others to make copies as a function of his duty to distribute it. Additional copies made by Bar would be infringing, except when permitted by law, such as in the case of backups and incidental copies needed to run it. But any copies he downloads are perfectly legal.
Your statement "Take this program..." is accurate, but usage is a whole different matter and thus what you say here is not really germane to this thread. Your next paragraph is wholly in the wrong, however. The license, again, specifically has no bearing on use. Indeed, as a rule copyrighted materials can be used for any purpose under the sun provided that such use does not include the creation and distribution of copies, except where exceptions are made by Congress or the courts.
Posession of a legally acquired piece of GPL software, use thereof, transfer to another - these are all legal and have nothing whatsoever to do with the license. Indeed, one wonders if a license that exclusively dealt with such issues would be at all legal, as it would involve absolutely no consideration by the copyright holder. (i.e. "You agree not to do anything that you're legally allowed to do, except what I say you could do, but which you could have done anyway")
If you disagree, please feel free to point out precisely where in the GPL or in copyright law you find support for your argument. Meanwhile, I'm going to continue to encourage people to use MS software w/o agreeing to the EULA as it is a useless, potentially illegal, after-the-fact license which restricts the rights the user already enjoys having paid for the software prior to opening the box. The GPL at least has a redeeming feature in granting rights one didn't have in the first place.
Re:Confusion (Score:2)
Basically, if I'm a user, so longs as I legally obtain a copyrighted work, I can do anything I want with it, barring making copies, (except in certain cases, such as backups or quotations) making works so derivative that they constitute an infringement, (except in certain cases such as parodies) putting on public performances, (except in certain cases, such as manditory licensing of music) and from distributing said copies.
There is no significant difference for the purpose of this discussion between software and a book. I'd bet money that you do not as a matter of course agree to licenses explicitly or implictly that govern what you may do with a book. OTOH, you are bound by laws which do govern what you may do, but that isn't a contract. You are not licensing the content within the book, and it would be a grave mistake to think so.
Re:Jeez... (Score:2)
--
Re:Quotation (Score:1)
Re:hmm (Score:2)
Compared to those EULA's, the GPL is much simpler. You can use the program, make copies for personal use, reverse engineer the software, publish reviews of the software, modify the source, and use the modifications yourself. All without agreeing to the GPL at all. You only need to agree to the GPL when you want to redistribute the program to other people. So far, without even agreeing to the GPL you've avoided all sorts of complex licensing issues. No legal weirdness at all. Basic copyright law. Nothing legally uncertain at all.
Now, for the privledge of redistributing the software to others, you have to start paying attention to the GPL. Sure, it's a bit of a pain, but with most software protected by EULA, you can't redistribute it at all.
So, as an end user, using GPL software is perfectly safe.
Re:Software Engineer: oxymoron (Score:1)
We're planning on releasing much of our work as open source. If you're interested in hearing more, you can contact me at blackturtle@saraandshmuel.com
(OT) This comment was funny, unfairly modded down (Score:1)
(Score:-1)
by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 05, @12:37PM EST
With a Beowolf cluster of Attorney Dan!
Now, cmon, that's funny!
--
Re:Quotation (Score:2)
I was also impressed by this recurring advice. Another thing that I liked was how often he batted down "this license abridges speech" arguments. He didn't exactly advertise it, but it brings up the extremely important point that people voluntarily enter into these agreements. Ok, maybe you can make an argument that a business these days is, in fact, forced into using MS stuff (but he (and the courts) have addressed that, as well), but as far as things like DVDs go, no one of forcing you to buy that stuff.
It's easy to blame the big corporations, but it's about as responsible as blaming the Jews. The real problem isn't the RIAA/MPwhoever, it's the unthinking public that will go ahead and buy a DVD that they can't use in a way they want to. All of these problems would be solved if we just said--"what, it's formatted in a way that means I can't legally make a backup copy? No, thnks! I won't buy it!".
Turn your anger toward the consumers. Think "politician : people that vote for them" :: "corporations : people that vote for their practices with their money". The thoughts are equally frustrating. But they are valid.
If you are going to throw your effort at solving a problem, solve the problem of getting people to think (and, possibly the harder part, act based on that thought).
--
Re:hmm (Score:2)
Neither has the mortgage agreement you signed when you bought your house, or the leasing agreement you signed to rent your apartment.
Like those documents, however, it was based on sound legal principles, and contains verbiage that is taken from documents that HAVE held up in court.
The GPL seems just as complex and irritating, if not more, than any of those lame EULA I click "agreeing" to.
It's complex, there's no getting around that. It has to be, to work in the United States, which has so many laws that a man can't carry them unaided, much less understand them.
-
Benchmark restrictions: Nice try, but too simple. (Score:2)
The open source product will presumably be or become the subject of published benchmark reports and reviews, while the closed source product will not. Educated consumers may be less likely to purchase the closed source product because they have no available information regarding its performance or quality. Further, even if there are published benchmarks and reviews for the closed source software, educated consumers may recognize that those reports and reviews were only published with the consent of the closed source company. This fact will detract from the reliability and value of the report or review to the consumer. So at least in theory, the anti-publication provisions may actually hinder the closed source product's ability to compete with open source products in the marketplace.
Unfortunately, not only will the closed/proprietary software product only be the subject of glowing reviews and benchmarks (probably ones that don't even compare it to the Free product), but the public won't know that the benchmark was rigged. The maker of the non-Free product will refuse to allow publication of any review that mentions the no-bad-reviews-or-benchmarks restriction. Any magazine or web site that wants to be allowed to publish tests in the future will know better even than to push their luck by trying to get such language past the cens^H^H^H^Hpropag^H^H^H^H^H^Hmarketing people. Only the very savviest (and most cynical) market-watchers will ever be the wiser.
Re:...but some animals are more equal than others (Score:2)
This is not new, though, and in fact probably more speech receives First Amendment protection now than it did 200 years ago. Back then you wouldn't have seen courts upholding the rights of unpopular groups to demonstrate, the right to unpopular forms of protest like burning draft cards and flags, etc. I agree that some things are less free than they were (for economic, social, and political reasons), but speech doesn't seem to me to be one of them.
Now all we need is an amendment prohibiting frivolous anti-flag-burning amendments, and we'd be all set on the free speech front :)
Caution: contents may be quarrelsome and meticulous!
The GPL's very long, but is it hard to get around? (Score:2)
Whenever someone I know has some code that they want to take from a GPL'd work, I just give them the following pointers for getting around it legally without having to redistribute their own source code.
Take whatever source you want to, but in your final project, slip in a few Easter eggs (I've got a few canned routines which are tiny that I give to my friends). If someone stumbles upon them, they get a pop-up dialog of a picture of Richard Stallman's face (with a little extra bit of rabid look in his eyes, thanks to a little Photoshop manipulation), along with a random silly quote of his, like "Security might make sense with banks and military facilities, but in a computer lab, that is a sign of a social breakdown," or him advocating piracy. No sound effects, but suggestions are welcomed. For console based apps, the random quote is just send to stderr — yeah, not nearly as fun, I know, but some mocking of him needs to be present.
Why the mocking? Well, because that's the basis for using the GPL'd source in the first place. You're just taking the GPL'd code as fair use in your parody of GNU software. See, you're not really selling an Emacs clone with enhancements but no source. You're really selling a RMS parody, with the ostensible joke being that it's GNU software that mocks RMS. It just so happens that it works as a utility, but if anyone asks, that wasn't your point at all, you were just out to have a few laughs. And the GPL certainly has no business applying to parodies, so feel free to improve away or distribute all your want without ever distributing a single line of source. :)
Cheers,
Re:One comment new lawyer (Score:2)
Pointing to extraordinary circumstances as a "failure" of an entire system is pretty fallacious.
The legal system works, in the long run, for 99.999999% of the cases it handles. The rest, eventually, will cause changes in the law, because those extraordinary circumstances offend us.
Yes, that particular offender may never be punished, but that is an individual case, not a systematic one.
comments like that are an insult to and injured public
Your knowledge of the past is pretty weak if you can claim that modern american citizen are by any relative measure "injured". We are the single most privleged, protected, and secure society that has ever existed on planet earth, bar none.
Are we perfect? Of course not. We do get better, and looking at the legal past and the legal present provides such a contrast that it would seem foolish not to believe that the legal future will be even closer to the ideal we're pursuing...
---------------------------------------------
Re:One comment new lawyer (Score:2)
Yes, i am serious, no I'm not joking, and yes I've lived in the US for some time now and am well aware of the current state of the union. "Us" is the population of the US, collectively.
The current state of America is that it is the most prosperous, diverse, respected nation on earth, with the fairest judicial system (note that it is a relative term) in the world. Guilty people go free far more often than innocent ones are convicted, an unacceptable idea to most other governments.
Where every group want's to have their voices heard instead of us speaking as a nation.
And this is different than the past? This is more true now than in the past? I think not -- we were a far more fragmented society at our founding than we are today, by any measure. Even the notion of "speaking as a nation" was considered a BAD THING except in the most official sense until the later 2/3rds of the 20th century. We had no desire to speak as a nation, we wanted to be states and cities and ignore everyone else around us, especially those people "over there" with different skin or language or customs.
We are far less fragmented today than ever before -- we focus on differences more (and more vocally), but thats in part because we quite frankly have so few differences left between us that many think they are losing "identity".
I attribute this to the fact that you are a white anglo saxon protestant male who has seen the legal system only work and not fail. Why don't you go down to the Brooklyn DA's office and ask about murders, burgularly and theft, missing persons who they know the culprits for but they aren't jailed. They walk the street.
While you are a bit presumptious on some statements, I couldn't agree with you more -- many times, guilty people go free! Frequently, and that is a great thing! Because it means that we have gotten to the point where protecting the innocent is more important than punishing the guilty. What is the alternative? Throw people in jail because "the DA is REALLY sure he's guilty, there's just no proof"? Lynch mobs? Posses?
Unfortunately, every rule about procedures and evidence is there because at some point, an overzealous DA or cop threw an innocent person in jail abusing that procedure. Which is why we changed the law to say you couldn't that. As I said, in the long run we adjust.
We are the single most privileged? Depends on what you mean my privleged. I'd rather be free.
What do i mean? I mean you can work anywhere, do anything, travel freely, speak your mind, associate with who you like, and love as you see fit. Those go in pretty well with "free", too. You may have in your mind some utopian ideal of what a free society is like, but compared to actual, functioning governments right here on Earth, the US is the most "free" by pretty much any measure. Canada and many European nations are on a par in many ways, better in some, worse in others. It may be a wash depending on your priorities, but when it comes especially to free speech, we continue to baffle even other first-world nations with our strange concept of being able to say and write whatever you like.
Protected? That's not it; it's just that any other country hasn't become extremely pissed off yet. The 310th MP battalion can tell you alot about that. Secure?! You obviously don't know what you're talking about, seriously you just don't know what you're talking about
You seem to equate security/protection with military (even though I didn't mean it that way) but it is still true. We, as a nation, are eminently capable of defending ourselves. More importantly, as Sun Tzu advised some time ago, we are pretty good at avoiding military conflict with most anyone who could actually give us a fight. I can't tell what your actual disagreement is, as it seems to boil down to "you just don't know what you're talking about", and I confess that I don't have a clue why the 310th seems to think that the only reason we haven't been defeated is because we haven't pissed off enough countries yet. I suspect being surrounded by huge bodies of water has something to do with it, but I'm not a military strategist by any means.
Regardless, what I meant by security and protection was on a persoanl level -- if you walk into a hospital,, you'll be treated. If you are short of food, you can get some. If you have nowhere to live, you can get help. If you call the police or an ambulance, you've got a pretty good chance of them actually showing up. Try to get permits or applications filled out -- while it will take forever, the chances of being shaken down for a bribe or extorted by the very government official whose job is to "help" you are pretty slim. This may sound like basic stuff to most americans, but try showing up in a hospital without money overseas and see how long it takes for them to kick your ass out.
If you believe that last statement about the legal future being closer to the ideal "we're" pursing you really need to take a class in law
I assume then that it would surprise you that I have long studied law, particularly the history and development of western legal systems and theories.
The legal system is nowhere near what the founding fathers called the ideal system..
I don't necessarily disagree with you, although the founding fathers were all over the map in what they believed was the ideal anything. Transported to today, they would probably marvel and the shuddering beaurocracy of the whole thing, but I doubt they would be disappointed in the legal directions we've taken (though certainly surprised at many). Their biggest disappointment would likely be the federalization of everything, but given the history I suspect they would understand its necessity -- they would be split, in all likelyhood, on whether the strong judiciary was a good or bad thing. Even they would be amazed at how far we have taken the concept of individual libety -- they talked a good game of ideals, but in reality the early US was not particularly good at concerning itself with individual liberties (they might say it was simply the weakness of the government, not of the will, that kept it from this). In any event, we are closer to the IDEALS they espoused, though they themsleves might not recognize their ideals in fruition, because their concept of contemporary practicality prevented them from even imagining some of the extents to which free speech or due process could take when given a few hundred years to continue to develop.
Not to insult you but please go read a book on the history of our law and then compare to our current state of affairs
Sure -- I would recommend "Quarrels that Have Shaped the Constitution", though I can't remember the editor. It focuses on the major supreme court cases through our history, discussing the personal and political (as well as legal) factors that led to the decisions that pushed us to where we are. Much more readable than a textbook, and most people will be astounded at the notion of how difficult it was to establish what we consider today to be fundamental liberties (speech, trade, association, etc). These liberties were nowhere near as extensive a hundred, two hundred, or three hundred years ago as they are today.
That's why I say, despite rampant cynicism, that we are a nation of perfectionists who just don't recognize that we've come a long way because we're always so unforgiving of ourselves...
---------------------------------------------
Re:One comment new lawyer (Score:2)
I'm not talking about 5 or 10 or 20 years, but over 50-100 or 200 years, we have more individual freedom today, and take them legally for granted, than any humans in any society before. The same was true of those 500 years ago compared to the ones 1000 years ago -- less likley to be called up by the king, less likely to have their property overrun, more likely to be defended from disaster, etc. It's pretty tough to die of starvation or exposure today in the US (and most other 1st world countries), something that wasn't true even 100 years ago. It would be shocking for someone to lose their home because someone stronger felt like moving in. It bothers us to hear about cases such as Diallo in NYC, when even 50 years ago that sort of thing was just considered "good fun" by a large part of the country.
---------------------------------------------
Re:An idea to prove the GPL. (Score:2)
However, usually, the US Federal courts don't like collusive lawsuits. One reason for the dislike is that the US Constitution only gives the courts the power to judge "cases and controversies", so if there's no real controversy between the two parties, it's not the court's business. Another reason is that US courts use an adversary system, and so they depend on each side being motivated to bring up all the evidence and argument that would prove its point.
One of the classic friendly-lawsuit cases is Chicago & Grand Trunk Railway Company vs. Wellman [findlaw.com]. Michigan passed a law regulating fares on railroads; the railroad had fares higher than the regulated rate; Wellman tried to buy a ticket at the regulated rate, was turned down, and sued. At trial, the railroad claimed that if it couldn't charge more than the regulated maximum, it would default on its loans, and Wellman said nothing to dispute this argument (there's the collusion). Then the railroad asked the court to declare that the fare-setting statute was unconstitutional. The trial court, the appeals court, and the US Supreme Court all refused to play along.
--
Re:An idea to prove the GPL. (Score:3)
Re:excellent (Score:1)
-- Michael Chermside
Re:Would he be willing to comment on issues... (Score:1)
I, for one, will certainly contribute. (And you can send me email to remind me that I offered...)
-- Michael Chermside
Re:...but some animals are more equal than others (Score:1)
If you think the answer is simple, you need to look a little closer.
Re:hmm (Score:2)
Frankly, the GPL is one of the most complex, lengthy and restrictive license you could devise and still manage to squeak into the "free" category. As a user, I am glad that GPL programs are free. As a developer, I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot lawyer.
Re:hmm (Score:2)
The GPL is designed to create "a community to cooperate on the commons of software" (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/apsl.html). Ignoring the real history of village commons (owned solely by a manorial noble and rented out to villagers in exchange for serfdom), there is some valuable insights to be gained from this poor analogy.
GPL software is a commons in a village. Only the serfs of the village have access to the commons. All else can bugger off. Before you can utilize the commons for your own production, you must first swear fealty to the lord.
But software released under unrestricted licenses, like the BSD, MIT or Apache, is like a market square in a town. Anybody can make use of it, regardless of their citizenship. And no matter what a travellers sells in the square, it will still be available to everyone else.
I license my own code under the BSD license. Over the past year, three other independent projects have decided to utilize portions of my code in their own software. Two of these are GPLd projects, and one is a BSDd project. If I had used the GPL instead, then one third of these projects would have had to reinvent the wheel.
Interesting and Good Stuff (Score:1)
Kudos to Dan for a great bunch of responses
HT
Re:One comment new lawyer (Score:2)
Justice is always a gift you can only give yourself.
Re:Constitutional confusion (Score:2)
We are born with total freedom. We relinquish some of those freedoms for the right to live in a society. You want all your freedoms back, leave society. (Unfortunately, freedom to starve is one of them)
Because a man lives under a dictator, does he still not have the ability to say anything he wants?? Yes. It may get him killed, jailed, etc... The constitution states, "You can still say what you want, and unlike most places, we won't shoot you for it."
The ratification of the constitution was America's chance to say "We will relinquish X number of liberties in exchange for the promise of National Defense and the welfare of our nation."
I'm sure if you took the time to read about the history of the constitution and the evolution of American law you would understand that this is not only true, but was the original intention of the framers.
Washington, Jefferson, et. al. were considered criminals by England for what they said and did. When they drafted the Constitution, they made sure that it protected criminals and advocated their rights as well.
Actually, read "The Prince" by Machiavelli, it's a much better description of American law.
Re:Question 2 - No funds, no chance of winning (Score:2)
The software sucks. It will only run on AMD systems with a via chipset. It crashes once every half-hour, it's slow, half of the features don't work, and it saves in Office format, but it's incompatible with most Office versions. (Yeah, it's XP... just kidding!)
Now, you cannot review the software because of the license, so you cannot tell other people what a raging piece of crud this is. The license also absolves me of any liability for the product not being usable, etc...
Sure, the license is right there on the box in 4 pt. Arial.... You read the "No Review" clause, but it didn't pretain to you. But when you post to an online forum, you can be sued, and my company calls the board admins and refreshes them on the legal remedies unless they remove the post.
Now according to what I just read, UpYers Inc. has done everything legal, etc... Does this sound screwy to anyone else???
This is sad...
By the Way, how can a company claim $100,000 in damages from the e-mail being down for an hour, but I can't claim a nickel when MS Update auto-magically makes my Hard Drive disappear?? BTW, my computer is used to make me money, so that arg stands.
Rock on MoFo's....
Longer than Katz... (Score:1)
--
Re:An idea to prove the GPL. (Score:4)
Many posters have mentioned that this is illegal, but if the legal system does not allow us to test a contract "before it matters" then it is flawed! What would happen if the GPL were to be declared unfit right now? What would happen if it were to occur a year from now? People are putting too much effort in if it could all be dashed!
Somebody needs to figure out how to make the community sure, beyond a reasonable doubt, that open source licenses are real.
excellent (Score:5)
Re:Quotation (Score:2)
First, it would be difficult to prove damages, except for a few things. Let us say that Linus and Linus alone coded every single line of the Linux source code. He could easily choose to license code under the GPL, but make the code available to MicroSoft under a different license. Let's say that he wants $10 per copy of derivative works, or just a flat $1 million fee. M$ balks, and does the work anyway with the GPL code. There is a 'loss' right there.
Another situation: my project is available as GPL. I don't offer an additional license. M$ takes my code, compiles it, and sells it for $100 per copy. I get a copy of the software, and ask for my copy of the code. They refuse. I assume that they have made $1 million worth of improvements to the code. There is my loss. (I include purchasing it, because they have to distribute to violate the GPL).
The losses are not direct, but any creative lawyer/accountant/MBA should be able to contrive a scenario that equates to a loss. You may also ask for punitive damages and attorneys' fees.
My biggest concern is the David vs. Goliath scenario that you mentioned and that was mentioned in the original article. That's why FSF is around. Sure, they aren't M$ big, but they are a hell of a lot bigger than I am. The only problem is that many people aren't going to assign the rights to their code to the FSF. I haven't read the agreement in over a year, but if I remember, it's not a bad one. The only loss I remember is that you would be unable to license your own code to M$ for a charge. This could matter to some projects, but it seems that these are very rare.
I agree that Free/Open Software CAN win on technical merits. But with the embrace and extend policy, it's going to be a constant battle, and frequently a defensive battle. I am truly amazed that the Samba team is still going. How can they (even in the face of fresh group members) keep updating to correct for Microsoft's protocol changes?
For the second edge of that sword, look at how patents seem to work in the US (and by extension, much of the western world). What is to stop Microsoft from extending... HTML5, creating a browser that only works with their codes, and then patenting every last bit of it? If you own the desktop and a good portion of the server space (hey, lots of people use Apache, but lots of people use IIS as well) alternatives are in it up to their eyeballs. (Of course, anti-trust litigation should take care of these sorts of things, but that is certainly a crap-shoot) Fair use and copyrights usually let things like Samba get by; patents can 'correct' that 'mistake'.
Let's look at the actual text of the 1st Amendment (Score:1)
> Amendment's protection of speech is not
> absolute and not all speech gets the same
> amount of First Amendment protection.
>
> The amount of protection given particular
> speech depends upon it's content.
What part of "Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press" doesn't the Supreme Court understand? When the Constitution prohibits any law that so much as "abridges" the freedom of speech, that sounds pretty damned absolute to me.
All of these exceptions to the First Amendment that the Supreme Court has carved out have no basis whatsoever in the actual text of the Constitution. You can go over the Constitution with a magnifying glass, and you won't find any trace of them. They are simply craven excuses for outright usurpation.
Incorrect answer (Score:1)
In response to the shrink-wrap question, he said:
The GNU GPL is an optional contract -- you can make fair use of the code without accepting its terms. Therefore, I can always take a small line of code from a GPL'd program without worry.
The answer being requested was whether shrink wrapping is/should be a valid way of entering a contract. IMHO, it shouldn't, especially for things where it says "By opening this box you agree to the terms inside." I can't give consent to something I can't see.
If I buy your software and you're not satisfied with the normal licensing terms you get by default under copyright, you should require me to sign and mail you an actual contract.
Re:An idea to prove the GPL. (Score:1)
Re:...but some animals are more equal than others (Score:3)
Oh thats scary, isnt this exactly what happened in the book animal farm? This slow chipping away is beginning to unnerve me. Really I believe animal farm is almost as important if not more important to our present day politics as 1984.
I don't think it's all that bad. Most forms of speech that have been restricted are that way for good reasons. He even talks about it just below the quote you picked. Stuff like yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater, reneging on contractual agreements, etc. Remember: the First Amendment was set up primarily to protect political speech, and it still holds up marvelously when judged against that yardstick. I can say "Busch is a moron" until the cows come home with no (realistic) fear of retribution coming from the White House.
This isn't to say that we shouldn't keep our guard up, because we most certainly should.
- Rev.Re:...but some animals are more equal than others (Score:3)
The point he was trying to get to was that not all speech is protected (like the above) and some speech is indeed more protected than others (like the truth, if you haven't forfieted your right to tell it through a non-discloser agreement). Each case is looked at individually.
One more example, along the lines of IP: If you create a better mouse trap, you can patent the design and the plans to make one. If someone reads your plans - do they have the right to tell the world how to make their own better mouse trap using what they remember of your design? That's the kind of 'speech' that's not protected because it would take your idea and destroy it's fiscal value to you, the creator of the mouse-defigulator.
That's how the mpaa see's DeCSS - as the posting of their better mouse-trap design, and to some degree they're right. Personally, I think the inventor of said 'mousetrap' should concentrate on building the trap with quality materials and creating brand recognition, but that's me. I mean hell, it works for Nike - you can get tennis shoes for $15 bucks, but people still buy air-Jordan's for $115.
Ctimes2
Re:hmm (Score:2)
Now, I don't agree with the philosophy behind this, but I do prefer to use the LGPL. The code I write should be free, but what you link to it can be whatever you choose to be. Mr Stallman, doesn't care for this license, and that's why he changed it from "Library General Public License" to "Lesser General Public License" to try to prevent people from choosing it as the default. I think that more should go under the LGPL since the code itself won't be legally used in closed form, but it still can be used with other parts of code that is closed.
One last point, and this goes with some things that Dan mentioned. Is the GPL legally enforceable? If I were to write code that interacts directly with the GPL and shrink wrap it and make it only proprietary, but it does not use any GPL code itself, but links to GPL code. If I ship it without the GPL part, and just tell users to link it with a GPL library (not LGPL). Have I done anything legally wrong?
The point I'm making is that if I wrote a program, that can be linked to a GPL library, but did not use any GPL code, could I sell it and tell users how to link to the GPL part. I would do nothing to link to the GPL, that would be the users doing. So if anything, the user would break the GPL and not I. For those that talk about the headers I used, I could just write my own, like Lesstif did with Motif. I'm not sure you can restrict the API. So if you can't limit the API, then you really can't limit the linking.
This is just hypothetical, but I've always been curious to what would happen if this did go to court. I'm not sure if the GPL can enforce this part of the license, unless the DMCA had something to do with it.
Steven Rostedt
Re:*Everyone* makes compromises (Score:1)
There, take that! Oh, darn, I made a post to the discussion....
Effective access controls (Score:2)
I infer that the court in question is the Southern District of New York, and the case is Universal v. Corley. If not, oops.
The case itself is under appeal, and although there were no arguments heard on the "effective TPM" issue that was at least in part because the lower Court refused to allow arguments on that point. The matter is, if I read the appeals briefs correctly, being challenged by way of objection to the lower Court's ruling on the matter without testimony or argument.
Re:hmm (Score:2)
If you are worried about liability issues stemming from your software, the BSD license gets you to the total anarchy side, while the GPL leaves you stranded in the middle.
Lest the flames jump onto this thread, I will point out that the choice of license depends on your goals. If you are doing a contracting job and making some in-house software for a company, but you're afraid they'll try to hijack the software for a product, then maybe you need the GPL. But if you want to avoid complications and liabilities, you'll need to give up control. Such is the price of ownership.
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Re:s/pub/prison/ if you stoop to their level, dumb (Score:2)
Bill Clinton during the waning days of his administration passed the roadless wilderness protection act (I don't remember the exact name of the bill but the intent was to stop building roads in roadless areas of the forests). The State of Idaho sued to prevent this law from taking effect. By the time the suit arrived in court it was up to the Bush Justice dept to defend the bill (which of course they did not like one bit). The Ashcroft Justice dept filed a two sentence brief in defence of the act. When it came to argue before the judge they used up four minutes of their allocated thirty and then sat down.
The net effect of course was that the Judge (who also was a republican) was able to stop the enactment of the bill.
This kind of shenanigans goes on at the highest levels of our govt and commerce. Do you honestly think that the Ashcroft Justice Dept will pursue MS with the same zeal that the Reno Justice dept did? Of course not.
Trademark infringement (Score:1)
-Dan Risacher
Re:An idea to prove the GPL. (Score:1)
s/pub/prison/ if you stoop to their level, dumbass (Score:3)
So, if we're too scared that OSS can't win a legitimate victory, we resort to fraud?
Isn't this the exact same thing that Microsoft and its ilk do? Instead of competing in the software arena, make your point by pulling dirty tricks in court?
Re:One comment new lawyer (Score:1)
Seriously now, a lawyer (person who deals with law and the justice system as his/her profession) is going to know a lot more about the American justice system than you. Just 'cause you read about a few instances of outrageous things happening in the media (who make a living off of reporting outrageous things) doesn't mean that the American legal system is flawed.
That is not true, the fact of it is that there are good lawyers and bad lawyers (in my eyes good and evil exist as well). The media only picks up on some of these cases so you have to wonder how many others go unheard. To be frank, "Outrageous" isn't the correct word, tantanum to murder is a phrase that sums it up for me and I sincerely wish it was only a few incidents however, that simply just isn't true.
One comment new lawyer (Score:3)
You're too new of a lawyer to make a comment like that. Considering the past and present I can't be cynical enough about our justice system! Unarmed men being shot down for no reason and their murderers get 6 months in jail. Here in NYC in 1999 a cop shot a 15 yr old kid from running from him. The max time he can serve is 1 yr on the misdemanor charge, He'll serve if convicted probably about 4-5 months max.
Your justice system and mine are two different justice systems. For me past, present and I hope not but most likely future have proven that. I applaud you for your love of the system but comments like that are an insult to and injured public.
Re:An idea to prove the GPL. (Score:2)
------
Re:Software Engineer: oxymoron (Score:2)
Jiazzi (java version of Units)
Subject Oriented Programming and its successor HyperJ, at IBM.
JADE and PIROL
Java modules by Ancona and Zucca (possibly unimplemented)
AspectJ isn't quite as pluggable as you are looking for, I don't think, but is very mature.
I have a project under construction that should be added to the list, but it isn't quite ready for limelight yet.
For just papers, see recent work by Lieberherr and Mezini (various papers also with Seiter and Lorenz), Ian Holland's Ph.D. thesis on contracts.
Re:Confusion (Score:2)
I think that you're assuming that to use (install and execute) a program you need a license contract with the copyright holder. This is not true any more than if you were talking about a music CD. You don't need a license to play a CD; you own a copy and you can do whatever you want with it privately. Copyright is copyright.
Didn't you ever notice that few GPLed programs have a license-acceptance screen during installation? If you didn't sign, click, or otherwise agree to a contract, you're not bound by it. That doesn't mean that you're infringing anything, because the only rights reserved for the copyright holder are copying and creating derivative works (and a few others like "translation" that are meant for literature and not software). Since "use" is not a right reserved for the copyright holder, anyone can use copyrighted software without agreeing to anything.
Your description of the "essence of the GPL" is absolutely correct; but note that when somebody else wants to distribute software that is copyrighted by a third party, then you're talking about copyright infringement, because now we're beyond use and into copying and derivative works. Only then does a contract become necessary and then the GPL is required. But it's a contract between the copyright holder and the distributor/modifier, not the end-user.
The main point is that copyright laws don't say "you have to have X's permission to use X's copyrighted software". Shrink-wrap and click-wrap "contracts" are only used on proprietary software, and the GPL doesn't work the same way. It's disturbing that so many people have accepted the idea that they can somehow be bound by contracts they haven't signed, agreed to, or even seen... that's just not true. (proprietary software won't install unless you click "I agree"; that's how they attempt to get a binding contract with you.)
I recommend you go and read how copyright law actually works; it's actually quite different than what you perceive it to be.
--
Re:Confusion (Score:3)
Note that's an agreement between the copyright holder and another coder or distributor. It benefits the end-user, of course, but nowhere in that arrangement did the end-user ever enter into any kind of contract. That's why end-users can't sue companies in violation of the GPL; only the copyright holder can.
Go and read section 5 of the GPL, and it should be obvious that you're not bound by the GPL unless you're looking to modify or distribute GPLed code.
--
Confusion (Score:4)
This is contrary to everything I've ever read about the GPL.
The GPL isn't a contract between the copyright holder and an end-user, it's a contract between the copyright holder and a (prospective) author of derivative works, or anyone who wants to make copies of the software.
The GPL even says: You are not required to accept this License.
You seem to be under the impression that the GPL applies to anyone who uses free software. It doesn't, and that's intentional.
--
Re:An idea to prove the GPL. (Score:2)
1. That's what lawyers are for. The "test before it matters" is taking it down to a lawyer versed in the law and asking if it will hold up. In this case, however, the lawyer says, "maybe".
2. Have Congress clear it up. They can pass an addition to copyright law that, e.g., clears up whether a contract can be binding if the software is free.
Re:An idea to prove the GPL. (Score:2)
--
Lord Nimon
Re:...but some animals are more equal than others (Score:2)
Yes they do. What's illegal is to actually build and sell said mouse trap. You're confusing patent and copyright.
-------------
The following sentence is true.
Re:An idea to prove the GPL. (Score:2)
I suppose you could purposely go out to thieve some GPL'd source code, and wait for someone to sue you (the FSF is pretty good about protecting its rights for example) and let the blocks fall where they may. It could be an expensive hobby though (intentionally infringing on registered original works can bring IIRC treble damages plus all attorneys fees.)
Really though you don't need to martyr yourself or your company in this way. While it is true that GPL hasn't been tested in court, it does have quite a bit of established precedent. Many companies have been in violation of various aspects of the GPL at some point, and have voluntarily come back in compliance when the problem was pointed out to them, and that precedent helps other violators understand the potential risk in violating the license.
Re:An idea to prove the GPL. (Score:3)
You don't think people have already thought of using that approach to bugger the system? It is illegal for two parties not genuinely at odds to use the courts in that way, and if they figure out what is going on you'll soon be in the middle of a criminal rather than civil proceeding.
Re:hmm (Score:2)
Re:hmm (Score:2)
The GPL is _not_ a "Free" or "unrestrictive" license in any way shape or form.
BSD licensed software is effectively worry free. Paste in the banner into your about box, done.
But to a traditional software company, the GPL is the most frightening thing ever. Nearly every aspect of it is legally dubious.. including the extent and conditions of its viral nature. To those organizations that are currently IP-focused for revenue, the prospect of a court randomly deciding to strip them of their assets is easily reason enough to not bother.
For a number of reasons, which Dan and others have hinted at or expressed directly, "safe" GPL development from a traditional software company is very tricky, and needs lots of spendy lawyers to sort through specific issues on a case by case basis.
The situations where GPL is a worry free endeavour are few and far between. That it hasn't gotten anyone into serious trouble yet doesn't mean it wont.
Re:An idea to prove the GPL. (Score:2)
Then the judge finds out that a bunch of people manipulated his court in bad faith.
Then your lawyers get disbarred. So where's the bad part ;) ?
Re:Confusion (Score:2)
This is contrary to everything I've ever read about the GPL.
If this statement is, in fact, true, I would submit that everything you've ever read about the GPL is incorrect. By it's own terms, the GPL controls the totality of a licensee's rights with regard to the object (program/document, what-have-you) to which it applies, just as Microsoft's "shrink-wrap" license does. The difference is that the GPL makes a very broad and sweeping grant of rights as opposed to the highly restrictive grant by Microsoft and other closed-source/unfree software developers.
The GPL isn't a contract between the copyright holder and an end-user, it's a contract between the copyright holder and a (prospective) author of derivative works, or anyone who wants to make copies of the software.
The GPL even says: You are not required to accept this License.
This is true, however, failure or refusal to accept the license requires that one either negotiate a one-off personal license or infringe the original developer's copyright. The essence of the GPL is "take this program for free and do what you will with it, however, if you choose to modify it or improve on it, the cost of me giving it to you free is that you have to share your modifications and improvements just as I did."
You seem to be under the impression that the GPL applies to anyone who uses free software. It doesn't, and that's intentional.
The GPL does, in fact, apply to everyone who does anything with free software because the license governs the terms under which you have permission to use it. The license is a document that grants anyone other than the original developer the right even to possess the software. The fact that the few restrictions imposed by the licensee only impact those who develop derivative works is irrelevant.
In short, you're wrong.
Regards,
Re:An idea to prove the GPL. (Score:3)
Then you brag about it on Slashdot.
Then the judge finds out that a bunch of people manipulated his court in bad faith.
Then your lawyers get disbarred.
Then you get to spend quite a while sitting in a really bad state-run hotel trying to avoid the big guy who likes to call you "Sweety."
Question 2 - No funds, no chance of winning (Score:5)
This question brings to mind a case from Houston a couple of decades or more ago. While I can't remember the particulars (I think it had to do with racial discrimination and voting rights), I do remember that the plaintiff's lawyer made waves with an elegant hack on the legal system. Having no funds for a protracted battle and wanting to get to the Supreme Court in as short a time as possible, he filed suit in small claims court and claimed less than USD$25 in damages. He lost immediately.
Then he appealed. Now, under Texas law, any claim that small may not be appealed through the state courts. Literally the first available level of appeal was the U.S. Supreme Court. He appealed and prevailed in what was, for a Supreme Court decision, an incredibly short period of time and for a pittance in legal fees.
Anybody have any good test cases in mind?
Re:Can you imagine... (Score:5)
Nullified NDA? (Score:2)
Also, as a side note, it would be difficult for a case to rely entirely on individuals "with a conscience and access to the suspect source." For one reason, they are probably in violation of their employee confidentiality agreement by telling anyone about what they know to be in the suspect source code, so they may not want to come forward to testify.
Consider this: You take a job at a company that specializes in "entertainment web sites" and you sign the typical "confidentiality agreement." During the course of your assigned work, you discover that one of the company's most popular revenue producers is a kiddie-porn site (that masquerades as a legal adult-porn site on the accounting books). Can the company successfully sue you for "violating the confidentiality agreement" if you report their illegal activities? It seems to me that if the company in question is violating the law (copyright infringement of GPL'd work) then that company's "confidentiality agreement" would effictively be nullified. Is there any truth to this, or am I just letting my IANAL colors shine too bright?
Re:Compromises (Score:2)
I must say that this is something I can't completely understand either. I'm now working in 'QA -- quality assurance'. What this means in a practical sense is often anything but assuring quality. We instead rubber stamp hasty patches made to meet deadlines, with no consideration given by the developer or management on what this change will have on the overall operation of our product.
We recently ended up accepting a solution which protects the user from an underlying flaw in the database schema, but does not resolve the underlying limitation in the database. All done rather quickly, in order to meet a deadline, with no real consideration on the impact this has on the overall system. And I can't say I blame the developer, or my erstwhile colleague who accepted the original patch. The problem is a lack of design from higher up (management or project lead), and really their only fault is succumbing to customer demands.
And the ironic thing is, the new fix is to reverse the original one.. sigh.
Software Engineer: oxymoron (Score:3)
"Software engineering" as it is commonly practiced is not "engineering" in the same sense as civil engineering, electrical engineering, etc.
First, the state of the art in software does not approach that in the world of things. Let's face it. We have been building things longer than we have been building software.
Second, as alluded to by the previous poster, software developers very often do not (or are not allowed to) apply the same level of discipline to a project as say, the builders of a physical structure. Again, there are some spectacular exceptions to this norm...think Challenger.
Funny, but I have lately moved more toward the lego master picture of myself. I have been steeped in OO design and development the last few years, but have recently been exposed to some "component-oriented" techniques that go beyond the object-oriented approach I had used. I am currently looking for references to such pluggable, component-oriented development techniques, especially using Java. Post 'em if ya got 'em.Re:Constitutional confusion (Score:2)
The Constitution places limitations on government, not on individual rights.
Constitutional confusion (Score:4)
It always brings me down to see lawyers--especially ones as bright and honest as this one seems to be--making this mistake.
The Constitution grants nothing to us. It acknowledges that we have the rights, and those rights can't be taken away by the government. But it doesn't give us those rights, and, as the 9th Amendment clearly states, isn't meant to limit our rights in any way whatsoever.
The Constitution is a limitation on government, not the people.
Re:Confusion (Score:2)
Re:Quotation (Score:2)
Since the quote came from one of a small band of illiterate craftsmen who wished to overthrow the rule of law, disagreeing with that quote and taking the opposite viewpoint is akin to siding with Truth, Justice, and the American Way.
Just goes to show how the lawyers can put a spin on just about anything. ;)
Re:Quotation (Score:4)
Dan Ravicher, from this "interview", strikes me as a decent lawyer and probably a decent person as well. It's fun to lump lawyers into the "bad" group, especially since the more laws they pass, the more we all end up paying lawyers for things we shouldn't have to pay lawyers for. But it's easy to forget that not all computer programmers are automatically "good" guys either-- think Bill Gates.
To me what's interesting is the recurring theme in the answers Mr. Ravicher gave that point up how utterly futile it may be to take on a Goliath if one is only a David. The enormous cost of litigating professionally in such a way so that a judge will take the case seriously seems to be a major factor in preventing progress. Businesses and groups like MS, IBM, RIAA, MPAA have a lot of money and staff lawyers who can easily do things like file for temporary restraining orders and injuctions and whatnot-- even when they don't expect to be awarded damages, they can offset the lawyers' expense by ruining their competition (or whatever). But to even start a copyright infringement case against a company like MS would require any programmer to convince a judge to compel MS to turn over source code to a 3rd party for review. Without such a review, any injunction is going to be short-lived, let alone the prospect of damage awards. And really, with GPL software how exactly do you measure damages (since right now most GPL software is available for the price of a download)?
Mr. Ravicher is right, open source isn't going to win because it has a license with the legal kryptonite to undo proprietary software. It's going to win when users get tired of exaggerated license fees and bizarre EULA's and because it's technologically superior. He's right, the state of open source is impressive. Look at where Microsoft is after 10 years of dominating the desktop OS/office market and buying up or undercutting their competition and having all major hardware vendors except Apple specifically tailoring workstation hardware to run various flavors of Windows. Then compare the state of GNOME, KDE, and Linux and how much the groups responsible for each have accomplished in less than a decade, often meeting complete apathy or heavy resistance from larger manufacturer's on various fronts.
misconception (Score:3)
advantage of current misconception that programmers
are engeneers and you need engeneer mindset,
to be programmer. Many in programmer classes are
taught engeneering concepts, math and such other
things, where actual writing and text composition
courses would benefit programmers more than ever.
Back to beginning, programmers are writers, not
composers. Engeneers do build bridges and use
only well known ways to do things and very very
rarely allowed to deviate from the common path,
where in programming it is one of the rules to
follow so you become a successful programmer.
Often programmers told to scrap the project and
redo it with their new knowlege. Where do you
see engeneers do that? And timelines timelines.
It is ok to make compromises in code, when dead
line is due. Think airplane engeneer makes
compromises when the deadline is due.
Programmers are writers and want to be considered
as that, but not all. Engeneer is more prestigious.
Back to my point this guy is right about code being
paragraphs of letters than building blocks.
Of course when you write a large book, novel,
you have to fit the text chunks together,
sometimes rewrite or adjust them. Here's the
catch engeneers don't lay brick and mortar,
programmers job however is beginning to the
end job, make structure, and fill it in with the
content.
I rather be considered a code poet than lego code
designer and implementer.
Re:misconception (Score:2)
Eh?
Okay, so I follow best practices [in my job, they're NASA standards, specifications, etc.], but I have to use a fair amount of creativity. Only engineers who're re-inventing something--say, a bridge--"never deviate from a common path". [My roommate, a grad student in CivEng, would kick my arse if he read that, but I hold that it's true--he's just building me a target.] Yeah, we've got a bag of tricks, but engineers have to be creative in solution-finding as well.
Or did you miss that great scene from Apollo 13 where NASA engineers were tasked to "make this fit into the area designed for this with all of this"?
I crack up every time I watch that scene. Working in an aerospace project office is a lot like that. You just keep faking it and hope no one notices...and you have a guy fiddling in the corner while Rome is burning. =)
Good news (Score:4)
Much thanks for all the work.
Bar Raised (Score:3)
So hop to it;)
Thoughts: (Score:4)
Thoughts:
Criticism of RMS -- Many people who have not taken the time to understand the issues criticize Richard Stallman. The fact that he is criticized a lot should not make you think that the criticism is valid.
Richard Stallman does the community a great benefit by making sure the movement doesn't drift off course. This requires a serious effort because most people don't take the time to understand the finer points of the law.
Sharing -- The GNU GPL license represents the efforts of many smart people to enforce a simple idea: I will share with you if you will share with me.
It doesn't matter how many clauses it takes to accomplish that result; the number of clauses required and the length of the contract is unimportant. What is important is the very simple result.
See Tony's excellent comment #87 for more about this.
Radical Idea? I Think Not. -- Anyone who is logical and patient and careful enough to write good code and debug it is capable of understanding the law.
Programmers should not take a passive attitude toward the law. You can understand the issues discussed here in far less time than it takes to learn how to program in C++. The fact that you are a programmer shows that you have the mental ability to be logical.
Yes, the law is not always logical. But programs are not always bug-free. If you can deal with bugs in programs you can deal with bugs in the law.
It might be possible under some circumstances, for example, to prepare a case yourself, and then take it to a lawyer to catch any shortcomings in what you wrote. Arguing a case yourself is allowed by the courts.
There is a useful comparison between GNU free software and do-it-yourself free litigation. Programmers pay for their hardware and give their time freely to produce an excellent product. Litigation requires the payment of court costs, and the same attention and intelligence might also produce similarly excellent results.
Note that those who make money from litigation might criticize this idea the way Microsoft's Steve Ballmer criticizes the GNU GPL and free software. Also note that I am not saying that prosecuting a case yourself would be easy. But since you already do difficult things every day, you are prepared for difficult efforts.
Thanks Dan -- I thought that Dan Ravicher's comments were excellent and extremely well written.
Great Comments -- See gmhowell's comment #110 for thoughts about damages.
See benenglish's comment #32 for an example of creative litigation.
Re:excellent (Score:3)
What is nice is the way he piles Free Software folk right into the heap with Open Source folk, quite gracefully smoothing over a trivial politicization within the movement that has been needing to happen for a long time. I also do not make the distinction between the two groups which others make, and use the terms "free" and "open" interchangeably in this context.
Stallman is working very hard to maintain a sense of clarity that he presciently held way back in the 1980s, but the fact is, the point is made. Hundreds of thousands of people around the world have gotten his point, and have extended it in many directions. The idea behind the GPL is infused in all the other "free" licenses, and anyone can choose whichever flavor suits them best. No need to say one is "better" than the other, which I think Stallman seems to tend toward. It is what it is. What do we have, about a dozen major free licenses to choose from? I am grateful for this entire FAQ, but most grateful for the closing lines responding to Stallman's question, where an attorney does the opposite of "divide and conquer."
I also enjoyed learning details about the Supremecy Clause. That's good stuff to know about, in many contexts.
This is depressing... (Score:2)
Of course, this highlights the importance of membership in the EFF. The more dosh they have, the more lawyers they can buy to help people like Avery [pair.com].
An idea to prove the GPL. (Score:5)
Get a few friends together. Split into two groups and form two companies. Call one "Good Software Inc." and call the other "Evil Software Inc.".
Now Good software Inc release some software, no matter how lame, under the GPL. Evil Software Inc (remember they're just friends), take the software and sell it as part of their proprietary application (perhaps even keeping the about box!). Hire two lawyers, one to represent Good, the other Evil. Go to court. Good puts forth the GPL Free Software case, Evil deliberately *loose* the case and pay punitive damages of, oh say, $100.
The GPL has had its debut in court and wins ! (And it'll always be known as the Good vs Evil 2001 GPL case).
Then you all go down the pub (if you're English, at least).
Re:Law as code? (Score:2)
mmmmm....
The problem is... (Score:2)
This is great! (Score:2)
Rick
P.S. anyone know how to clone this guy? if i ever need a lawyer, i want someone like him :-)
Re:One comment new lawyer (Score:2)
You're too new of a lawyer to make a comment like that.
Oh, and you are so much more qualified! I mean, you listen to/read some major American news media! That obviously puts you way ahead of this lawyer dude. Sure, we all know lawyers are all lying sleazebags anyway.
Seriously now, a lawyer (person who deals with law and the justice system as his/her profession) is going to know a lot more about the American justice system than you. Just 'cause you read about a few instances of outrageous things happening in the media (who make a living off of reporting outrageous things) doesn't mean that the American legal system is flawed.
As a rule, the news media take all of the most outrageous incidents scattered across the country and report them, because no one wants to hear about the millions of everyday boring cases where the American justice system actually worked quite well. Don't let a few incidents color your perception of the whole system (even though the incidents themselves are quite bad).
Re:One comment new lawyer (Score:2)
A knowledgable person? On Slashdot?!?
I must be dreaming :-)
The media only picks up on some of these cases so you have to wonder how many others go unheard.
You do have to wonder, don't you. In Reader's Digest every month there is a column called "That's Outrageous" that deals with dumb cases. They never seem to have a shortage of material. I do believe that the media catches almost all of the worst ones. There's nothing they love more than a juicy story, and outrageous law cases, when they are bad enough, are pretty juicy. (BTW, I think outrageous is the perfect word - outrage is defined as a violent or shameful act)
What really makes me think that the situation isn't out of hand is that there haven't been that many of those "Special Reports" that the media likes to make. If the situation was really as bad as you seem to think it is, the media would be ALL over it in two seconds. The special reports would be flying ("Did the executed killer actually commit the crime? Is our justice system going down the tubes? Find out at 11!"), and public opinion would begin to weigh on Congress to do something.
I'm not trusting the media to report all the facts accurately here, I'm just trusting their profit motive and their nose for a juicy story (both of which are pretty reliable).
I'd like to talk a little about the specific case you mentioned, though.
Here in NYC in 1999 a cop shot a 15 yr old kid from running from him. The max time he can serve is 1 yr on the misdemanor charge, He'll serve if convicted probably about 4-5 months max.
There IS a reason that the penalty is light. If cops got 20 yrs to life for shooting someone in error, they would be terrified to draw their guns. What if they hit someone by accident? What if the person they were facing was only pretending to have a gun? If cops were terrified to draw their guns, criminals would be more bold. The effectiveness of law enforcement would be reduced in situations where guns were really needed.
I am not in any way condoning the shooting of an unarmed 15-yr old, and I wish that the cop in question would get a longer sentence. My point is that there IS a reason why the law is the way it is. There isn't really a way to change the law in such a way that it is 100% fair all of the time, and the lawmakers do the best they can. It might be easy in hindsight to propose a modification to this law that might have saved this case, for example making a much stiffer penalty for shooting minors. But that modification might have other effects. How is a cop to tell, in a few seconds, whether the person he is about to shoot is a minor or not? You see the difficulty.
*Everyone* makes compromises (Score:2)
Everything in life is full of compromises. Ironically, one of the things edging us out of the compromise trap is computers. Using genetic algorithms we can find superior or possibly optimal solutions for a given set of constraints, and do it very quickly. When one of your compromises is time-to-market which is determined by the amount of engineering work required, this is a very big deal.
--
Re:Quotation (Score:2)
"The first thing we do is kill all the lawyers." Henry VI
Contrary to popular belief, the proposal was not designed to restore sanity to commercial life. Rather, it was intended to eliminate those who might stand in the way of a contemplated revolution -- thus underscoring the important role that lawyers can play in society.
Stolen blatently from http://www.spectacle.org/797/finkel.html
Educational licensing -- there are other solutions (Score:3)
Wow! What a great article!
One thing I'd like to comment on, however, is the "Microsoft Licensing" question. The justification for licenses which prohibit resale given here is that this prevents persons or organizations who are eligible to receive a less expensive license from reselling it. That's true, but preventing resale is not the only way of doing this.
Some of you might know that the highest german court has recently ruled that reselling OEM software is legal (unless of course you have signed a contract with the software vendor that prohibits you to do so).
Still, the court has agreed that there might be different types of usage for a software, and a product may be sold for one specific type of usage only. For example, it is still illegal to sell or use a single user software as a network software, or an educational version as a standard version.(In fact, the court has simply denied that OEM versions are a seperate type of usage. OEM versions are considered a special low price offer that anyone is of course free to make, however that doesn't give the vendor any additional rights.)
This allows software vendors to have lower pricing for schools (or higher pricing for network versions), while still allowing customers to resell the software -- i.e., one school may sell its software to another school, but not to a business.
I'm not saying the one or the other system is better (though the no-resale licensing seems less consumer friendly to me), I just wanted to point out that there are alternative solutions as well.