DrDOS Inc Breaking GPL 460
Bob Dobbs writes "DR-DOS 8.1 (DrDOS Inc) came out at the begining of this month, however instead of an upgrade to DR-DOS 8.0 the new product is based on work available on the internet.
The work includes shareware utilities, a badly patched version of the kernel work by Udo Kuhnt, drivers (Samsung, ESS) and utilities from FreeDOS and others (e.g. pkzip). Full information on the FreeDOS site. (Cheers FreeDOS!)"
And this Suprises anyone HOW ? (Score:5, Interesting)
The funny thing is DrDOS was Sued , pre Caldera, and won, then Sued MS once (or right before) Caldera Bought it, I think Caldera pulled something like 200 Mil if I remeber out of the suit against MS
Maybe we should have taken it as a sign of things to come
But they're different companies now! (Score:5, Informative)
DRDOS
379 South 520 West
Lindon, UT 84042
The SCO Group Corporate Headquarters
355 South 520 West
Suite 100
Lindon, UT 84042-1911
Re:But they're different companies now! (Score:5, Funny)
Does the City of Lindon, UT have some kind of freaky Euclidean or Cartesian layout plan?
That at least would make it easy to calculate absolute distances between addresses. Especially if you memorized all the easy Pythagorean triangles.
Wes
Re:But they're different companies now! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:But they're different companies now! (Score:4, Funny)
You would think that they would know where everything in their car is.
Re:But they're different companies now! (Score:3, Informative)
You misspelled "outside New England". I've always lived in states touching the Mississippi River or west of it and had assumed that every place assigned addresses logically. I never realized that some zipcodes use a cryptographically-strong PRNG to dole out house numbers until I met someone who'd lived in Boston.
Re:But they're different companies now! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:But they're different companies now! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:But they're different companies now! (Score:3, Insightful)
d((x0,y0),(x1,y1)) = |x1-x0| + |y1-y0|
You can think of it as 1st in the series of metrics
d((x0,y0),(x1,y1)) = ( |x1-x0|^p + |y1-y0|^p )^(1/p)
where for p=1 you get this metric and for p=2 you get the traditional Euclidian one.
Re:But they're different companies now! (Score:3, Informative)
The city of Sapporo of Sapporo has a grid like this, with streets just numbered East/West or North/South. This is said to be because it was laid out by American engineers in the late 19th century.
Re:But they're different companies now! (Score:5, Informative)
People use DOS? (Score:3, Insightful)
--
http://blogs.sun.com/javawithjiva [sun.com]
Re:People use DOS? (Score:2)
I use CNC machines that were built around DOS-based PCs.
Re:People use DOS? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:People use DOS? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:People use DOS? (Score:2)
Re:People use DOS? (Score:2)
Re:People use DOS? (Score:4, Funny)
Somehow, that just reads...
Re:People use DOS? (Score:2)
The BIOS update actually gets applied at the next reboot, where it prompts me to make sure the notebook is plugged in with a fully charged battery, but there's no DOS in there as far as I can tell (it's an interface wi
Re:People use DOS? (Score:3, Insightful)
DOS is still a real-work (tm) operating system unlike windows.
linux is starting to take over in the embedded OS arena simply because you can do much more than you can in dos.
windows = plaything. DOS = real work OS.
Re:People use DOS? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:People use DOS? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:People use DOS? (Score:3, Informative)
Canon Digital Cameras (Score:4, Funny)
Re:People use DOS? (Score:2)
Re:People use DOS? (Score:3, Informative)
That publishing company has grown and now has a multi-user LTSP system running, and my little DOS program has gro
Every time I prep a new machine (Score:3, Informative)
With a seriously screwed-up machine, it's often much faster to fix Windows from a
bah, here we go again (Score:5, Informative)
Re:bah, here we go again (Score:5, Informative)
s/ or / to
From the GPLv2, section 0:
"Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope."
Re:bah, here we go again (Score:2)
Re:bah, here we go again (Score:5, Interesting)
Dell? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Dell? (Score:2)
Re:Dell? (Score:2)
Yeah, I just looked and couldn't find any DrDos PCs in Dell's online catalog either. Who knows. Maybe they just do consulting for Dell.
Re:Dell? (Score:2)
DrDos Source Code (Score:3, Interesting)
"Email sales@drdos.com" regarding source code so the site says. However, if there's no GPL file included then it'd be a breach.
Additionally, from TFA, it'd be interesting to see whether the distribution breaks the terms of the two shareware products that have apparently been included. (Ranish Partition Manager 2.44 & PKZIP 2.04g by PKWARE)
Re:DrDos Source Code (Score:3, Informative)
How is this illegal? (Score:3, Insightful)
It sounds like DRDOS's latest version is just a bunch of software that can be downloaded free from the internet. A collection of GPL'd or other OSS licensed software. They are trying to charge $45 for what would otherwise be free.
But why would this be illegal? If they have not modified any of the software, how would this even violate the licenses?
I don't get it. Apologies in advance if I'm being dumb.
--Barry
Re:How is this illegal? (Score:3, Informative)
They are trying to charge $45 for what would otherwise be free. But why would this be illegal? If they have not modified any of the software, how would this even violate the licenses?
You're confusing "free as in beer" with "free as in freedom." The online utilities they are copying and trying to sell are "free as in freedom" and they cost only a small service, that is if you redistribute them you have to include the original copyright info, license, and offer to provide a copy of the source. That is the
Re:How is this illegal? (Score:3, Informative)
What part of
"The kernel is a badly patched copy of the Enhanced DR-DOS kernel old version 7.01.06 without any credit to its author Udo Kuhn..."
and
"The other programs and drivers included are old versions of some popular open source, freeware and shareware products without licenses, documentation or even credit to their authors, namely..."
and
"I understand these are provided in BINARY FORM ONLY without source code provided. To my knowledge, DRDOS does NOT
It's too damned early here (Score:5, Interesting)
1)OpenDOS is released circa 1996 by Caldera, with source code for the kernel included. Not sure under what license, but I don't think it was GNU/GPL (correct me if I'm wrong).
2)Someone starts independent work on the OpenDOS source code and creates several revisions.
But relicenses under the GPL
3)A company named Device Logics comes along, buys the rights to DR-DOS from Lineo (who was split off from Caldera a couple of years before they became SCO) and releases a new version (8)
4)THe guy independently working on the kernel releases Fat32 inhancements, which are snatched (against the terms of teh GPL) by DR-DOS nee' Device Logics
5)According to the letter by Jim Hall ITFA they also distribute two FreeDOS programs without providing source (this is cut and dried; the maintainers of those programs clearly have a case there; but I'm mentioning this for completeness).
SOooooooo, what I wonder is this: if the Original IP belonged to Caldera (and now, through aquisition, DR-DOS inc) aren't they free to do with it -and with derived products as
they see fit?
If TFA is true, I don't have a really high opinion of these guys (charging $45 for a couple of 3rd-party kernel inhancements and distributing GNU software illictly -without source); but look back at the original license for the kernel source and I bet you ten to one that there is a clause in there which allows this behavior by the owner of the DR DOS code base.
Re:It's too damned early here (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:It's too damned early here (Score:3, Informative)
Unless I read TFA wrong, the only way that FreeDOS enters into the picture is that two of the GNU programs distri
Re:It's too damned early here (Score:3, Informative)
they see fit?
Not necessarily. Despite popular understanding/opinion, if you create a copyrighted work and someone else creates a derivitive based on it you do NOT automatically get the copyright on that derivitive work. Each of you still owns their own contributions and neither of you can do anything with the derivitive without some
Re:It's too damned early here (Score:3, Informative)
The OpenDOS license also doesn't seem to be GPL. (Score:3, Informative)
Jumping the Gun (Score:3, Insightful)
So they gave a company 4 days to respond to something having to do with a legal license? So they were given 4 days to talk to read the email (I've taken 2 days off in a row before), talk to their lawyers (or FIND a lawyer if they didn't have one already), come up with a solution, and respond to the email? Seems like someone jumped the gun on this one.
Many companies don't really understand the GPL, but will follow its guidelines if they're explained to them. But companies WON'T use GPL software if they see OSS bulldogs going after a company publicly when that company hasn't had a sufficient amount of time to respond.
At least give them 10 days or so to get their stuff in order, THEN post about how they're screwing stuff up.
Re:Jumping the Gun (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't agree with this. In my opinion, they started screwing up at the point when they started trying to assimilate GPLed software into their commercial product. They could have read the GPL at that point and understood the requirements of the licence and then decided whether they still wanted to proceed. There must have been a significant amount of time between starting the process of creating DRDOS 8.1 and actually releasing the software; if there's a clock ticking, it starts when they started, not when the FreeDOS guys found them out. I don't think that the thing about not understanding the GPL holds water for a commercial company - it beggars belief that you would create a product based on code from someone outside the organisation without involving a lawyer at some point to check it out.
Re:Jumping the Gun (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, it is dealt with. If they're not bundling the source code with the binaries they distribute, they must:
"Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than [their] cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange" -- GPL 2.0, Section 3.
So they're perfectly allowed to charge separately for the source code, but only if they offer it to anyone interested at cost.
His name! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:His name! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:um (Score:2, Funny)
Re:um (Score:2)
Re:umYeah... hehe... hehe... (Score:2)
My God.
And when I think they tried to get rid of Family Guy.
Re:This is bad? (Score:2)
Not find a naked man running around your house with a butcher knife bad, but bad nonetheless.....
Re:This is bad? (Score:5, Insightful)
The incredulous part of the whole thing is that the page makes it sound like a major step back for Dr. DOS. Instead of moving forward on the source base they have, they're moving backwards by kit-bashing a bunch of old OSS software and then trying to sell it. Or at least, that's what I got out of TFA.
Re:This is bad? (Score:2)
To use the words of the Information-wants-to-be-free movement: "It's not stolen! Mr. Kuhnt is not deprived of his work! It is Copyright infringement, not piracy or theft!"
Re:This is bad? (Score:3, Informative)
They're depriving their customers of the ability to see their changed code and improve and learn from it, and share it with their friends. The GPL's a bit unusual in that the payment the author asks for in return for being allowed to redistribute his work goes not to the author himself but to the people t
Re:This is bad? (Score:4, Informative)
Wrong. They distributed a binary, so they have to make source code available to any third party that asks for it. This is covered under 3.b:
Re:This is bad? (Score:3, Insightful)
It's about fighting copyright, fighting fire with fire.
The GPL does not use copyright law on a _moral_ or _ethical_ basis, it just uses it as a tool.
The whole idea of the GPL is keeping free stuff free. When someone want to keep free software from being free, you can use copyright law, as a tool against them.
Of course, the GPL would be useless in a world without copyright, but of course, it wouldn't be necessary, because that's the kinds of world the creators of the GPL
There is no doublestandard (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:There is no doublestandard (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:There is no doublestandard (Score:3, Insightful)
Not exactly. For example, I do support the GPL because I believe it's the only reasonable approximation to what things would be like if there were no such thing as copyright at all (and I would very much like to see copyright go). Simply put, I
Re:This is bad? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not theft, but it's not okay (there are lot of things that aren't theft that are still both illlegal and wrong), and they should comply with the GPL, and people shouldn't download stuff illegally from P2P applications.
Note that none of that means that the music industry isn't stupid for understanding the competition they face from illegal downloads and addressing it reasonably (you can be within your legal rights but still be stupid), or that it's not legitimate to legally buy your music from overseas where it's cheaper.
Re:This is bad? (Score:5, Informative)
This is one of three things that they can do to be compliant. There are two others, which given their commercial nature they may decide to undertake:
1 - stop distribution, remove all GPL code from their application immediately and rewrite those parts before distributing again
2 - negotiate an alternative (commercial?) license with the copyright holders of the GPL portions of code. This can be problematic when there's a lot of authors, but it can be done.
Generally if a company effed up in (mis)using GPL code they should be given the opportunity to fix their mistakes. If this is an intentional misuse and they do not intend to correct things they may open themselves up to a lawsuit.
Any way you slice it, of course, the GPL software is still copyrighted. Without the GPL it doesn't become public domain. Eliminating the GPL means that you don't have *any* permission to use the code.
Re:This is bad? (Score:3, Insightful)
That's the point that many are missing. It doesn't matter if you consider the GPL invalid. If you consider the GPL invalid, that simply means nothing gives you the right to distribute that code without explicit permission of the author. The GPL works because it gives you privileges that would not have existed otherwise. Remove the GPL and you remove all permissions to distribute derived works, except those derived under the principle of fair use.
Co-o
Re:This is bad? (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, it means you don't have any permission to distribute the code. You don't have to agree to the GPL in order to use GPL code, only if you intend to distribute it (or modifications to it) to others.
Re:This is bad? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This is bad? (Score:3, Informative)
Don't be ridiculous.
AllofMP3.com has songs which have never been authorized for internet distribution by any site -- for example, The Beatles have never signed on with iTunes, Napster, or any o
Re:This is bad? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is bad? (Score:2)
To be precise, violating the GPL makes the information more free but less Free, while violating most copyrights makes the infomation more free but equally Free.
It astonishes me that we're in the 21st century and people are still confused by this.
Re:This is bad? (Score:2)
Re:This is bad? (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem (assuming it's a problem and not a deliberate choice) is the insistence of Stallman and the FSF on redefining existing words for their own purposes and then insisting that everyone else is misusing them.
Re:This is bad? (Score:4, Insightful)
The ultimate point of all this nonsense about information wanting to be free is that no one wants to pay anything for anything so ANY license makes the information less free because a license automatically signifies it is in some way tied to someone who owns it more than anyone else. Truly free information has no owners. We used to call that public domain. The GPL and so on is just a way for the cheapskates in amature socialist garb to have their cake and eat it too, but eventually the dogma generates the karma that runs it over.
Calling anything free with a license is just self-deception and there because those using it want to have the power of Intellectual Property OWNERSHIP and still look cool because they are LETTING people not pay money. It's not free as long as someone has to LET me use it.
Re:This is bad? (Score:4, Insightful)
In the case of public domain, a person using the code is Free because they can do anything they want to it, including restricting others from Freely using their changes.
In the case of the GPL, the code itself is Free, because all parts of it are Freely available.
Re:This is bad? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not free to who? The person who gets to use it, or the person who has to let the other person use it? Every freedom is a tradeoff... swinging fists and noses and all that jazz. I bet the slaveowners were upset about their lost freedom when their ex-slaves found theirs.
"Information wants to be free" means "no one wants to pay anything for anything" as much as "lets start a company" means "I want to embezzle millions". Sure, some people who say one thing mean the other, but that doesn't define either movement.
Isn't it funny that you call the people using the GPL license as "cheapskates" when the only real cheapskate here is the people who took code other people wrote and called it their own product instead of investing their own time and money to develop a product that was truly theirs?
Re:This is bad? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:This is bad? (Score:2)
Re:This is bad? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you, an insignificant individual, do those things, at least you're behaving consistently (if not necessarilly legally).
If a commercial software vendor does those things, while at the same time demanding that people pay for *their* goods and abide by *their* licenses, then they are being big hypocrites.
Re:I'm confused (Score:2)
Re:mod me redundant but... (Score:4, Interesting)
sorry but you cant SELL the sourcecode under the GPL, you have to give it to me freely. and that webpage talks about pricing for access to the sourcecode. Most likely for their closed source items.
nowhere do they offer the sourcecode to the GPL products nor admit that any gpl items in DRDOS exist.
Re:mod me redundant but... (Score:3, Informative)
The site says "email for price quote". Have you asked what the price is? I don't know what the magical number is. $8 would be reasonable, $1000 would not.
Re:mod me redundant but... (Score:2)
Aside from that, yeah, you're right: the page for the source code says "Email sales@drdos.com for price quote" whereas the 8.1 binary page has "1 User License $45.00" and a pick that says "buy now" and has Visa and MasterCard logos. Obviously, that implies that the source code is
Re:mod me redundant but... (Score:4, Informative)
In particular, this also means that you (or me, or anyone) is not automatically entitled to receiving the source code; if the source code or a written offer to send it, as well as the text of the GPL license, accompanies the product, that's enough to be in compliance with the GPL. You do not have to make the source code available to random third parties who did not receive the product from you.
Of course, once someone has the source code, they are free to put it up on their own web page for all the world to download, for example. But if noone does that, then you cannot go to the company who sells the product and demand the source code unless you have bought the product yourself.
HTH. And JBTW, IANAL, of course.
Re:mod me redundant but... (Score:5, Insightful)
And if you RTFA, you'll see that's PRECISELY the issue. Not only are they not releasing the source code with the FreeDOS binaries they've included, they're not even mentioning that they're GPLed.
Re:mod me redundant but... (Score:2)
Re:Hmmm.... (Score:5, Informative)
> Which turned into...SCO!
No, DR DOS was originally owned by Digital Research. These were the guys that IBM originally was going to buy their dos from, but their CEO at the time blew off IBM and went sailing instead(!). He was fired soon thereafter.
Anyhow, DR DOS 5 was a fine product - *far* better than MS or PC DOS. It was a completely compatible replacement to DR DOS that worked great with windows. If I remember correctly, it also included a very cool disk cache and set of memory management utilities. Anyhow, in reaction to its reviews & success, Microsoft:
- upgraded its MS DOS from 4.1 (a horrible product) to 5 (a reasonable one)
- dropped price for MS DOS from over $100 to something like $19
- generated fake compatibility error messages that DR DOS users would get when using Microsoft applications
- etc, etc, etc
Microsoft never did release a dos as good as DR DOS - with its conditional config.sys lines, online command help, etc, etc. But it did kill the product through illegal competition. Eventually, Caldera bought it out - just for the opportunity to sue microsoft over it. And won.
Re:Hmmm.... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Hmmm.... (Score:5, Informative)
That was Gary Kildall [wikipedia.org].
If you are going to repeat a computer industry myth at least get it right.
He was out flying his aeroplane not sailing and he wasn't fired, he later sold the company to Novell for 120 million.
Re:Hmmm.... (Score:3, Insightful)
use your brain: it was an obvious typo
> Also, your story about how MS-DOS beat out CPM/86 is just misinformed.
use google:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DR-DOS [wikipedia.org] - provides some general history
http://www.digitalresearch.biz/HISZMSD.HTM [digitalresearch.biz] - describes some history of the DR blowoff of ibm
I was a heavy user of DR DOS when Microsoft was struggling to close the gap between ms dos 4.1
What is this? (Score:2)
Re:What is this? (Score:3, Funny)
THE GPL IS NOT AN EULA! (Score:5, Informative)
GPL is not an EULA (Score:5, Informative)
You can download and use GPL software without agreeing to any part of the GPL whatsoever.
The only time the GPL applies is if you wish to negotiate extra rights beyond those to download and use the software--specifically, the right to copy and re-distribute it yourself. In which case, the GPL is merely one possible set of terms for such redistribution; often the copyright owner has other terms available too.
The GPL is basically a convenience document saying "Hey, by the way, if you want to copy and distribute this, I'll tell you in advance that you're allowed to do so under these terms. No need to contact me and ask. If you want other terms, go ahead and ask. If you don't want to copy and distribute, ignore all this."
Re:eula and gpl (Score:5, Informative)
Let me try to answer this. Other people may do a better job. The GPL and most commercial EULAs are not the same type of animal. EULAs seek to restrict the user's freedoms. "Open source fan boys" tend to object to the EULAs because of this, and even more so because many EULAs attempt to impose restrictions outside the immediate scope of the software to which they are attached (e.g., mandating spyware, no benchmarking, etc., there was a story here earlier). The GPL, on the other hand, places no restrictions on use: you can do whatever you damn well like to the software so long as you keep it free. This, I believe, is the crux. "Open source fan boys" don't like people taking GPL'd code, locking it up where others can't get to it, and worse still (in some cases) claiming ownership of it.
There is no hypocrisy in asking that the GPL (which in my opinion is very reasonable, and anyone who thinks otherwise is probably trying to build a baby mulching machine) be respected whilst denouncing these jackbooted EULAs.
Re:eula and gpl (Score:2, Interesting)
search "Eben Moglen" for more...
Re:Illegal vs. Against the terms of the license (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Illegal vs. Against the terms of the license (Score:4, Insightful)
But yeah, it's still not "illegal" because copyright infringment is not a criminal offense (for now, anyway).
Re:Illegal vs. Against the terms of the license (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Illegal vs. Against the terms of the license (Score:3, Insightful)
No. The term license has been abused by EULA writers, but an actual license gives you permission to do things that are normally forbidden by copyright law. Typically there will be a contract that goes with the license, e.g. "you pay us $2000 per developer who works on the deri