Free software? You can't just give it away

Times Online ^ | February 21, 2006 | Times Online

[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

[antiRepublicrat]

Obviously, as we are now seeing.

We are? Stallman is pretty adamant about the code signing thing, and so is Linux 180 degrees opposite. It's a deal breaker if it gets left in.

Remember, we have two opposing views here: religious and practical. Linus used GPL2 because it could be used in a practical sense if the licensor wants to. So far GPL3 appears to be designed around a religious POV, incompatible with Linus' practical desires.

It all depends on how much Stallman will budge. From what I've seen of him, he'd have no problems with the flagship GPL product not using the GPL3. He's the "Okay, I'll take may candy and go home" type of person.

[antiRepublicrat]

""

The smartest post you've made all day. ;^)

[LibertarianInExile]

"According to Stallman's website their "ultimate goal" is "to make proprietary software obsolete". Sounds pretty straightforward to me."

Repetitious posting of the same quote without properly setting the quote in context, i.e., letting Stallman also explain WHY he wants to make proprietary software obsolete (found in the GNU Manifesto). If you consider quote-mining straightforward, then I guess we have nothing more to discuss. I don't know everything to know about Stallman, and I do think he's a tad crackers. But I do think that he clearly states that his intention is real competion in the marketplace and real capitalism, not simply the monopolistic 'competition' the Microsoft world has delivered to personal computing. You may disagree with his method, but his intentions seem honestly capitalist enough for me, at least as far as the manifesto is concerned.

[rzeznikj at stout]

You can't dual-boot OSX and Windows as it stands. OSX isn't using BIOS--so OSX has to be hacked to use BIOS.

AFAIK, this is supposed to be in Leopard, which is scheduled to ship in time for Christmas--right alongside Vista.

[Halfmanhalfamazing]

------------LMAO! From your very own source, which you yourself quoted!

^^^^^^Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned.^^^^^^^^^-------------

*yawn* If one wishes to give away their private property, that is their right as an individual. Did you notice how their emblem says individual rights and not property rights? You've already lost the argument so now you are simply ignoring the word *INCLUDING* which is what I said.

If open source was based on socialism or communism(as you keep stating) that choice would never be made.

You should stop this charade before it gets much worse. All you are doing is proving that you don't even understand the economic system you so profess. To limit capitalism down simply to property rights(and money) is a bastardization of the system.

Individual rights includes but is not limited to property rights.

[Halfmanhalfamazing]

^^^^^^^^^^^Giving products away is anticompetitive^^^^^^^^^^^^

Not necessarily. In your example it clearly is. IBM has many resources at it's disposal that most others probably wouldn't have. In the OS space, absolutely not. There have been quite a few OS competitors to windows to sprout their heads up and have been squashed by microsoft through various means none of which involve a better product.

Apple/macOS is the only which has managed to stick around.

Giving away your software for free has been the only way to enter the market. All other roads have been blocked.

When it is the only way, it is by definition not anti-competitive. It was the only way to be competitive.

Ultimately Microsoft brought this upon themselves.

[N3WBI3]

So ignore that part you made a statement that has no place in reality and insult me... Typical..

[Golden Eagle]

You mean Mr. "I've been becoming increasingly unhinged lately" Dvorak?

No, I mean the guy that predicted Apple would be switching to Intel in the first place.

Linux is nowhere a danger to Windows or OS X on the public desktop for the near future. The user experience is too fragmented for Joe User.

You mean it shouldn't be a threat, because it's basically a crappy confusing client. But you're somehow forgetting Linux has all these fanatics that go around claiming it's better than everything else, and pushing users to use it, although I'm not sure how you could forget since we see it everyday on this very site.

Apple had ample opportunity to be afraid of Linux already since Linux has been running on PPC for a while. Linux Torvalds' preferred machine is Linux on a PowerMac.

Most users want to run Windows, and a few of them occasionally some version of nix on the same box. Before the switch to Intel, OSX wasn't an option. As for Torvalds, he just wanted an IBM chip and the right to claim Apple's software is qoute "crappy", as he has been known to do.

[Golden Eagle]

letting Stallman also explain WHY he wants to make proprietary software obsolete

Sorry, I don't find that any more interesting than reading why Marx thinks why we should be giving more than just software to the community.

[Golden Eagle]

If one wishes to give away their private property, that is their right as an individual.

I never said it wasn't, I was ridiculing your contention that act was "the very definition of capitalism", which remains ludicrous.

[antiRepublicrat]

No, I mean the guy that predicted Apple would be switching to Intel in the first place.

That's been rumor for about the last four years.

But you're somehow forgetting Linux has all these fanatics that go around claiming it's better than everything else, and pushing users to use it,

That works for grandma's Linux-loving grandson setting it up, but those numbers are tiny. It doesn't work well for where most consumer computers are sold: retail and big-name online.

Before the switch to Intel, OSX wasn't an option.

It still isn't an option unless you do some serious hacking.

[LibertarianInExile]

"Sorry, I don't find that any more interesting than reading why Marx thinks why we should be giving more than just software to the community."

Anyone debating ideas should be prepared to defend his statements, especially when he's misconstruing the purpose or point of the person he's debating with. If someone points out that you're taking Stallman's comments and cherrypicking them, to say that you don't find the purpose behind his comments 'interesting' is indicative of just how well you understand his statement in the first place, and how much credence we should give your quoting him. And comparing his statements to Marx's is applying silly guilt-by-association tactics. He may well be a Marxist. But simply saying that he prefers the idea of free software to proprietary software doesn't prove that, nor does saying he's just as uninteresting as Marx prove that, especially when there are capitalist, market-opening reasons to want proprietary software sales in their current form broken, and there are lots of people as boring as Marx that aren't Marxist at all. A Newt Gingrich speech is as boring as watching paint dry, but that doesn't make him a Commie.

[Halfmanhalfamazing]

^^^^^^^^^^^I was ridiculing your contention that act was "the very definition of capitalism"^^^^^^^^^^

Being as capitalism is a system based on individual rights, my statement was accurate.

^^^^^^^^^which remains ludicrous.^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

That you keep up with this futile argument is what's ludicris.

[Golden Eagle]

Trying to use Newt Gingrich's name to defend Richard Stallman? LMAO, that's like saying giving your property away is the definition of capitalism! You guys sure are desperate to steal conservative terms and names to promote your "copy"leftist views.

[Golden Eagle]

ludicris

LMAO, you can't even spell the term after I already provided it! "Ludicrous" is claiming capitalism is based on giving your property away for free, stupidest theory I ever heard whether it's your own ignorant will or not. Even your own links blew you out of the water, ROFL.

[LibertarianInExile]

"Trying to use Newt Gingrich's name to defend Richard Stallman? LMAO, that's like saying giving your property away is the definition of capitalism! You guys sure are desperate to steal conservative terms and names to promote your "copy"leftist views."

First off, I don't think Newt qualifies as a conservative any more. He is as Beltway as they come. Second, I'm not using Newt Gingrich's name for anything. I was picking a person I consider boring to listen to, that is clearly not a Commie--I could have used Wm F. Buckley. As usual, you can't defend your own posts so you cherrypick and misconstrue those of others. I'm sad people like you consider yourselves conservatives. Truly, you must be a pathetic ambassador for the movement when you are faced with anyone who disagrees with you, if you treat them as you treat those who are arguing with you here, lying about their posts and motivations. You cannot help but drive people away from your point of view with such a feeble ability to debate ideas--even if you were right, you couldn't demonstrate it logically.

[Golden Eagle]

Simply because I see zero value in your argument, which you haven'togically expounded on in the least. Proprietary software has spawned 2 of the 10 richest men in the world, and your (or Stallman's who you are defending) stated goal of making all software free will certainly destroy them, and prevent anyone else in that industry from ever achieving it again. You call your theory of giving away software as "market expanding", when it would obviously be "market destroying".

Take an example, like Apache web server software. Where are the profits for those that develop and distribute the software? Answer: there are none. As in zero (0).

Yet this is the model you propose for the entire industry? You call that market expanding? Then wonder why I laugh at you instead of further debate? Why should I, when you can't grasp the simple concept of ANYTHING > zero.

[Golden Eagle]

"haven'togically" = haven't logically. It's the weekend and this is a PDA.

[rzeznikj at stout]

Simply because I see zero value in your argument,

Coming from the king of zero-value arguments. Continue, DUmmie GE.

and your (or Stallman's who you are defending) stated goal of making all software free will certainly destroy them, and prevent anyone else in that industry from ever achieving it again

Um, he didn't state such a goal. And I don't think he's defending RMS. Again, throwing dirt and hoping it will stick.

Take an example, like Apache web server software. Where are the profits for those that develop and distribute the software? Answer: there are none. As in zero (0).

It's called freeware. The developers released it for free. That was his choice. Could they have sold it and made the source available under the terms of one of the many recognized open-source licenses? Absolutely.

But releasing Apache was their choice. That choice is what OSS strives for. The goal is to coexist along with proprietary software, giving rise to innovation and still giving the consumer more options in the market.

Yet this is the model you propose for the entire industry?

And how many times have you been told that innovation is the lifeblood of the tech industry, and coexistance is the only way the industry can continue to stay afloat at its current rate into the long-term.

Why should I, when you can't grasp the simple concept of ANYTHING > zero.

You fail to realize that with Windows, zero is what you get. If you claim that he doesn't know anything is greater than zero, you're sadly mistaken. I use both Windows (including OSS) and Linux. And I can say I've gotten more from Linux and OSS software on Windows than by Windows alone.

Man doesn't live on Microsoft Windows alone...

OSS gets more from Windows. It's been shown in front of your eyes. What will it take for you to realize this?

[Golden Eagle]

The goal is to coexist along with proprietary software

Why must you continue to lie and distort the obvious facts? I've already given a link direct from the GNU where the stated goal is to quote "make proprietary software obsolete." Yet you deny what is in writing on their own website, and which has already been linked in this discussion. Guys like you are exactly why your "movement" has such a terrible reputation for honesty and integrity, and until you can come to grips with reality that is not about to change.