Posted on 02/23/2006 7:31:29 AM PST by N3WBI3
Who could be upset by a scheme that allows free use of software? Well, Gervase Markham has found one Trading Standards officer who is
Who could possibly be upset with the Mozilla Foundation for giving away its Firefox browser?
One of my roles at the Mozilla Foundation relates to copyright licensing. I'm responsible for making sure that the software we distribute respects the conditions of the free software licences of the underlying code. I'm also the first point of contact for licensing questions.
Most of the time, this job involves helping people who want to use our code in their own products understand the terms, or advising project members who want to integrate code from another project into our codebase. Occasionally, however, something a little more unusual comes along.
A little while ago, I received an e-mail from a lady in the Trading Standards department of a large northern town. They had encountered businesses which were selling copies of Firefox, and wanted to confirm that this was in violation of our licence agreements before taking action against them. * Click here to find out more!
I wrote back, politely explaining the principles of copyleft – that the software was free, both as in speech and as in price, and that people copying and redistributing it was a feature, not a bug. I said that selling verbatim copies of Firefox on physical media was absolutely fine with us, and we would like her to return any confiscated CDs and allow us to continue with our plan for world domination (or words to that effect).
Unfortunately, this was not well received. Her reply was incredulous:
"I can't believe that your company would allow people to make money from something that you allow people to have free access to. Is this really the case?" she asked.
"If Mozilla permit the sale of copied versions of its software, it makes it virtually impossible for us, from a practical point of view, to enforce UK anti-piracy legislation, as it is difficult for us to give general advice to businesses over what is/is not permitted."
I felt somewhat unnerved at being held responsible for the disintegration of the UK anti-piracy system. Who would have thought giving away software could cause such difficulties?
However, given that the free software movement is unlikely collectively to decide to go proprietary in order to make her life easier, I had another go, using examples like Linux and the OpenOffice office suite to show that it's not just Firefox which is throwing a spanner in the works.
She then asked me to identify myself, so that she could confirm that I was authorised to speak for the Mozilla Foundation on this matter. I wondered if she was imagining nefarious copyright-infringing street traders taking a few moments off from shouting about the price of bananas to pop into an internet cafe, crack a router and intercept her e-mail.
However, the more I thought about it, providing a sensible reply to that question is somewhat difficult. How could I prove I was authorised to speak for the Foundation? We're a virtual organisation – we have three employees, one in Vancouver, one in Virginia and one in leafy North London, with no office or registered trading address in the UK. As far as the Mozilla part of my life goes, my entire existence is electronic.
In the end, I just had to say that the fact that I am capable of receiving and replying to e-mail addressed to licensing@mozilla.org would have to be sufficient. She would just have to take it on trust that I was not a router-cracking banana merchant. She must have done so, as I never heard from her again.
While the identity verification aspect of this incident is amusing, what is more serious is the set of assumptions her e-mails implied. It demonstrates how the free software model disrupts the old proprietary way of doing things, where copying was theft and you were guilty until proven innocent.
In a world where both types of software exist, greater discernment is required on the part of the enforcers. I hope this is the beginning of the end of any automatic assumption that sharing software with your neighbour must be a crime.
Gervase Markham says that he works for the Mozilla Foundation, a non-profit organisation dedicated to promoting choice and innovation on the internet. Of course, he may just be a banana seller. His blog is Hacking For Christ
heh--yet another hammer to wield...
Lie #1. I posted 10-15% percent, which is an average of 12.5%, not "only 10%" as you claimed.
when pushed for a source
Lie #2. You never pushed for a source, I provided the link to the source in the original post in question.
Note to others. If you see the other post and following thread, it was obviously a mistype since I provided the source, and I quickly admitted it was. Let that stand in stark contrast to the obvious and intended distortions posted above. Also expect poor little newbi3 to cry to his moderator friend and have this post pulled just like he did the other day when this same exact subject came up.
Demonstrate where any commercial software company has confiscated more code from any user than the Free Software Foundation has.
No. I told you on numerous occasions the links were completely irrelevant and didn't suggest to back up anything you claimed. I, as well as others, have tried to offer a few hints that would make yourself appear at least halfway credible on these threads.
But instead of taking to heart the constructive criticism and work to improve the quality of your posts, you just simply find it more convenient to put up circular arguments that you hope stick, and failing that, you resort to insulting not only me on these threads, but other posters as well via FR's features such as the mail system.
And finally for the record, I bought the computer off of him--part of it came from birthday and Christmas money, the rest from hard-earned cash I saved up. Now I own it--and I successfully got the dual-boot I wanted.
How's that?
Demonstrate where the FSF has. The thing about copyright infringers of GPL code is that it's much cheaper to just give up the added code than pay possibly millions in damages at court. Luckily for these copyright infringers, free software gives them that option, which so far everyone has taken. In the proprietary world they just have to pay up.
No you didn't, you said the links didn't work or took you to unrelated topics. I'll be glad to point your lies out later as well and link those posts if you don't come clean now.
Your links didn't work because they didn't back up your point. They don't work when you're presenting an opposing view.
In case you don't know--irrelevant means unrelated.
How about you come clean--are you really an MS shill?
And, please, demonstrate where any open source license (as defined and accepted by opensource.org) attempts to quash the freedom of speech of the users the way Microsoft does.
Linux's Hit Men (Forbes)
http://www.forbes.com/2003/10/14/cz_dl_1014linksys.html?
No you didn't, you said my links were taking you to unrelated topics, why don't you just admit it? That's how it came out you're just a kid who is/was using his dad's computer.
I don't work for Microsoft, that's just what these losers try to smear me with since they can't debate honestly. My position is no different than many others outside Microsoft who recognize the danger of Richard Stallman and his army of fanatics place on the US software industry.
Forbes, a magazine known for making ill-informed hit pieces on free software. But notice nobody was forced to give up source. Cisco was given the option to rip out Linux and use another OS, which they now do in their latest WRT54G router (VX Works, which they have to pay for, but runs in a smaller footprint so the routers are cheaper to manufacture, more than making up the cost).
The moral: Don't redistribute another person's copyrighted work without first gaining permission.
Second, as an Associate degree candidate, I highly resent being labelled a kid. My twelve year old brother is a kid.
Third, I didn't say you worked for MS. I asked if you were a shill. You don't have to work for MS to be a MS shill.
I'm not talking about rank, but whether the site shows up at all.
Suppose I need an application to do something that no existing applications do. If feasible, and if the task is not too complex, I would write such an application for myself. The costs of my writing the software are borne of necessity--I need the software, so I write it.
If the software is such that other people find it useful, I have three basic options:
Choice #1 may offer cashflow benefits if I invest enough startup money into it, but otherwise likely not. Choice #3 offers no particular benefit. Choice #2 doesn't offer me any direct renumeration, but may offer some other benefits, since other people may examine my code, make enhancements to it, and then give me back those enhancements.
The basic principle behind open-source software is a lot of software is developed for the use of its creators which would also have utility to other people. If someone writes a simple program and then someone else comes along and adds some enhancements, then both people can get the benefit of having an enhanced version of the program without either of them having had to write the whole thing.
You're the one that's not making any sense, and should just let me and anti-R who is fully educated and experienced debate. So far, we seem to agree that Richard Stallman is a "rabid anti-capitalist" and 75+ percent of "open source" is released under his license. If you have any problems with those so far agreed to facts, take them up with him instead.
" It also represents an unsustainable economic idea: give something away free so that somebody else can make a buck on it. The problem is that development and maintenance of open source code involve real costs. The Open Source model assumes that those costs will always be absorbed by good-hearted programmers, for free to everybody else. Over time, however, the desire for stability within a company's code base, coupled with divergence from Open Source as companies modify Open Source for their own needs, ends up killing the model. Eventually, somebody simply grabs the Open Source, locks it down as a baseline, and starts selling their own modifications to all comers."
The point of the patent system was to allow inventors limited exclusive use of their invention to encourage innovation but then to open it to the public to improve on it. If you stymie opening the info infinitely through perversions of the patent laws intended by the Founders, you are stopping humanity from building upon prior generations' works.
At some point innovation has to be open to be improved upon. I don't understand the visceral reaction some here have to the whole idea of open source, as if it will bring the walls of capitalism tumbling down. Voluntary charity hasn't screwed the planet yet, to my knowledge.
I'm talking about your yenta-like posting of circular arguments, manifested through contradictory posts and worthless links.
I'm not talking about RMS--but here's my two cents' worth. AFAIC, he's a raving, nutty tool. His v.2 license isn't that political. IIRC, it was written in 1991--before he completely lost it and became the dirty anti-capitalist. Therefore, the GPL v.2 license says nothing about OSS being anti-capitalist.
My rather limited knowledge of GPL v.3 is that the current draft is anti-capitalist fringe rhetoric. IMO, it'll be shunned by much of the OSS community--making it worthless except for a few programmers.
Simple, the "father" of free software and primary open source license, Stallman, claims his "ultimate goal" is to wipe proprietary software off the earth. Add to that his radical supporters who constantly twist the truth like we see on this very thread, and some serious questions and opposition naturally emerge.
Then why are you fighting with me for speaking out against him and his obvious radicals? He is the face of open source, and it's finally been admitted on this thread that as much as 80 percent of all open source software uses his licences. Don't waste your breath claiming none of that matters.
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