Anti-GPLv3, FSF, and RMS rant.

[lost_in_c]

Copyright only exists because, in every other situation, the only answer any sane legal authority can give you is: you shouldn't have shared it then!

Only when you have no option but to share it in order to make a business out of it does the law acquiesce, and with heavy caveats.

 

[sidetone]

Copyright isn't the same as licensing. When a work is copyrighted, that text combination belongs to them. They created it, they get protections on it.

The creator chooses to license it, to share it, or to gain subversive benefits from other contributors. The first time, it automatically becomes dual licensed: between the copyright owner and to the license. The copyright and various licenses together are snapshots of that code or work.

Work X is copyright. Author licenses it to MIT, someone adds more MIT code to it. GPL takes it in and adds code around it. Those are 3 different snapshots, the combination the author made, the combination with MIT, and the combination GPL made. If I want to use the combination that MIT made, I have to find that version with the license, and use it. Parts of it overlap with GPL code, so only the part that's MIT only, I can use with MIT code. Let's say someone made an MPL2.0 derivative off of the MIT code. The author gets to add to their code, without it being under the GPL or MPL, because that was a different snapshot around the original and MIT code.

For a second, I saw that GPL's function in that worked. I see something fishy now, other contributors add to GPL code, while that's not the original contribution of the author. The original copyright owner, according to the GPL should lose their added code. The additional contributors are forced to give to GPL and to the proprietary code, when they contribute to something someone else is the copyright owner? How come they're not the copyright owner?

To clarify, the contributors are the originators of added code, so why does the original author get their personal authorship, which lies outside of the GPL? When someone adds to MPL code or any other open source licensed code, that code snapshot isn't required to go into GPL; let's say if derivative MPL code and derivative GPL code came from the same MIT code base. However, when someone adds to GPL, MPL or derivative code under any other license, the original author gets the code of contributors which they didn't author, while the MIT derivative doesn't either.

I think GPL played the semantics game, and then that false ideology became a faulty standard way of doing things. Unless the terms of all copyright is, anything you contribute to another codebase which was allowed through a license, isn't your own authorship.

When a company writes a code, their workers contribute to it under that company's authorship. That makes sense when the only contributors are authors by that company's authorship. They put out some of their codebase into open source, then it makes sense that what wasn't put out, and added by their workers belongs to that company. They can dual multi license it. Someone's contributions outside of the company adds to the licensed code, and the company gets authorship of that? Between different open sourced license derivatives, derivative code isn't force shared between those licenses, but all of that is forced to go to an author which didn't author additions. Something is fishy.

Apache seems noble. When contributing to their code under their code base, they ask, if you agree to give your code to Apache Foundation terms. If someone doesn't, they say, please remove your code from Apache. If you would still like to use Apache code, disclose your modifications, or link to Apache code. Did you add something not meant for Apache licensed code, remove it or disclose it. GPL says, give me all your code: You link, you lose, You link, you lose. I think "derivative work" is the hook." It should just mean, you cant link your code. In OSL, derivative work means work linked isn't considered a derivative work.

Also, we need to understand what wording/clause of the GPL constitutes the tivolization clause.

This further shows why dynamic linking needs to be allowed to and/or from code to be considered open source. GPL gets you through dynamic linking. They absorb not only one code set that was dynamically linked, they go beyond that, and take the rest of your dynamically linked code. Instead, they could make you stop using their code, like Apache does, and leave the rest of your own authored code alone.

While I believe that dynamic linking restrictions from a code base should be allowed in one direction, the GPL terms to steal code, instead of simply making you cease linking or cease using their code is a problem.

If GPL took my code, and suing didn't work, I would license my authored taken code to MPL, EPL and OSL to remove their monopoly on it. Unless their license overtook authorship of my code.

Time to do away with GPL.

 

[lost_in_c]

This "creator" you are talking about doesn't exist. The law only sees an owner. A creator, designer, whatever, applies for a copyright licence. On the basis of ownership. This is granted on the basis of busniess value. If a "creator" sells his rights, he ceases to exist in the eyes of the law vis a vis the work, only the owner exists. Of course, the owner can licence the work to others while retaining ownership. That is a separate issue. You cannot at the same time disclaim ownership and retain licencing rights. You either own it or you don't (or lease it). If you "own" it, you can sue anybody who infringes on your rights to benefit financially from it. If it is copied but it does not affect you financially, the law offers no protection.

Again, there is no "creator." The purpose of copyright is not for some random person to decide what is right or what is wrong. It is to protect the rights of copyright owners. Those rights are intrinsically financial (and regarding authorship, that also).

If a "licence" disowns a copy, or rights to benefit financially from them, then it is no longer a legal licence, it has no legal grounds to allow for prosecution of any kind of use of the copy. This is without even taking into account the measures that the law presumes you will take to protect your rights first before you sue. If you don't post a "private property" sign, you cannot sue for trespassing.

At least that is how it was for centuries until some communist (Stallman) invented some randome copy"left" (leftism=socialism, in case you forgot) and decided that owners have limited rights, but random peoplke who own nothing can dictate the actions of other random people or limit them.


In the case where the Stockfish developers sued chess.com over the use of Stockfish code for their proprietary chess engine, even though it was in a German, EU court, which is already kind of lefty and inclined to have a flexible view of private ownership and a government's right to intervene on people's rights ex machina, the judge strongly implied that the parties should come to an agreement, implying that if it came to court, the judge wasn't sure at all the licence had serious legal footing and didn't want to be the one to have to test those waters. I am pretty sure that the settlement they did reach was more to do with chess.com's desire to avoid the bad publicity than any belief on their part that they would have lost the suit. Even in the EU, they probably would have won.

It's an economy of blackmail, because there is no legal precedent, and everybody kind of knows the non-proprietary licencing is bogus and everybody knows it would probably fail in court, but it is still there and a court case will still have to be sued and money spent and bad publicity provoked and some risk that it will hold. Just blackmail.

 

[sidetone]

Copyright owner.

If you distribute your own work with GPL code included, that whole piece of work becomes under the GPL license. The Copyright owner still owns the copyright to their parts without the GPL code they didn't own? So there are supposed to be 2 versions, so far. AGPL is worse, that if you distribute it on intranet, your work combination with theirs (or snapshot for a term that I visualize better) that becomes under the GPL.

Ok, so maybe that could fly. However, why is it that, the other content owners within that GPL code have more rights, than the copyright owner who lost licensing rights of code forced to go under GPL? Here is the serious issue. That doesn't fly. It seems like the copyright owner is losing more rights than only licensing terms of their code distributed under that code combination! Other copyright owners are getting more copyright rights of code that wasn't theirs?

So, why do the other copyright owners who distribute dual licensed code between GPL and proprietary get to keep their code? If one owner has to give up their rights, so do they. Because they each owned proprietary code, and used it with GPL.

Either of the above, while one scenario if true is worse, is why there should be absolutely no GPL code in X server and X client, for example!

Another point is, if someone releases code under MIT, then someone else inserts that code into GPL, those owners don't lose their code to GPL, bc they distributed their work with MIT, which GPL took in. If that license doesn't work across the board both ways for all, it shouldn't exist. One copyright owner gets to keep their code, while all others don't.

The one with their copyright name in the GPL license gets the code? Shouldn't be that way. No one should or everyone should have to give up their code.

Also, if a company loses their code to the GPL, do they still have rights to their own lost code, to put it under MPL, CDDL, Apache or EPL?

Also, what if a company has rights to distribute proprietary code by another company with their code. And one company distributes another company's with GPL? Does that other company lose its code too?

Aside from this major problem, the only way GPL can be useful is for non profits and for individuals who intended to give their code away anyway. They're still giving away their code to too much of a restriction by choosing GPL.

Before, I argued that, GPL needs a minor version upgrade to allow dynamic linking in, so it can use any library, and not force its viralness downwards. After realizing this, it's better to not want the GPL to get that improvement and to leave it to rot.

I'm questioning even using a run interface layer that GPL can be behind, but GPL is so viral they might try to take that code too. Maybe fill userland below the interface emulation layer away from GPL with all kinds of nonviral licenses, so if FSF wants to challenge everyone for using an interface or syscall layer, they would have to sue everyone: Eclipse Foundation, Mozilla Foundation, Apache Foundation, IBM, Microsoft, Apple, Oracle and lose.

To compare why for OSL to consider works distributed on an Intranet as belonging to OSL is ok, is because linked code isn't considered a derivative work. They don't lose that.

Further case why MPL, CDDL, OSL, Apache, MsPL and EPL are business friendly. They don't force you to lose your dynamically linked code.

Apache 2.0's main argument is, if you interfere with code under it, you lose rights to use Apache code, and stop using it for breaking our terms. It's not eager to steal others code, if copyright holders should happen to make a mistake.

I thought I had it figured out, but this thread made me see even more of what's inherently wrong with GPL, aside from its creator arguing the case for PDF file.

At least that is how it was for centuries until some communist (Stallman) invented some randome copy"left" (leftism=socialism, in case you forgot) and decided that owners have limited rights, but random peoplke who own nothing can dictate the actions of other random people or limit them.

GPL has to go! The PDF file Stallimn.pdf can follow. There's a need to tolerate LGPL, however.

 

[lost_in_c]

Frankly, I'm going to have to go look into some case history for this. Becuase the real question here is: is GPL, or any "licence" that attempts to claim restrictions on copy for which no rights are retained on a financial basis , actually legal? Anywhere (other than Cuba and other such dictatorships)?

Even authorship, which is the correct legal term for "creator," is legally protected solely on the basis that it provides value over the proprietary work. That's why when you sell your rights over copy, you also sell the right to claim authorship, even if the purchaser didn't technically "author" the work!

So by what basis can GPL, or any other non-proprietary licence, claim legal grounds?

The more I think about this, the more I suspect I will find few actually succesful suits on the basis of these types of licences.

And if I do find any, it is clearly a travesty, or at the very least a legal novelty that did not exist at any point before and with nebulous links to preceding copyright law.

 

[lost_in_c]

The only way you used to be able to get legal restrictions placed on intangible goods that you did not claim ownership of was by making them public goods.

Is that the claim here? That these licences are making the copy a public good? And that the authors of the licences have unilateral legal authority to determine the restrictions implicit in that transference to public ownership (a right traditionally reserved for the state)?

 

[RetroComputingCollector]

(leftism=socialism, in case you forgot)

Nah, I would not call Center-Of-Left politics socialism. Call me old-fasioned but I don't think that believing in Social Security and medicare make you a commie. There is no mass nationalization. It's just a pension and insurance plan. There are plenty of people who can't survive without a pension, and some employers will not offer a pension. And it's not a "ponzi scheme" as there is no profit incentive. It is just the government doing something many employers do.

 

[sidetone]

Becuase the real question here is: is GPL, or any "licence" that attempts to claim restrictions on copy for which no rights are retained on a financial basis , actually legal?

That's why when you sell your rights over copy, you also sell the right to claim authorship, even if the purchaser didn't technically "author" the work!

So by what basis can GPL, or any other non-proprietary licence, claim legal grounds?

In this case, there's an Authorship who owns the work. When they license it out, it's a standard right for anyone else to use under those terms. The Authorship chose to allow others to use that code under the terms of that license. Authorship can allow others to use their code under a license, without giving up authorship.

The only way you used to be able to get legal restrictions placed on intangible goods that you did not claim ownership of was by making them public goods.

A lot of code licensed to Opensource is meant for public good.

Is that the claim here? That these licences are making the copy a public good? And that the authors of the licences have unilateral legal authority to determine the restrictions implicit in that transference to public ownership (a right traditionally reserved for the state)?

The licenses are a permission, not ownership. Ownership never transfered. Most licenses are for making some copy for the public good. I doubt GPL is.

The reason others are able to use a code under license, is because that Owner of that work chose to lease it indefinitely to the terms of a license, often for public goods. The exception may be if a license like GPL says one must lose their code or forced license of their code to GPL, bc they distributed it with GPL.

 

[astyle]

Might as well throw my own hat into the ring here... I created the Licensing Rant / Debate thread (Thread licensing-rant-debate-thread.90051) that is basically meant to explore what a license is, what it's not, and to air / correct some misconceptions and misunderstandings. The thread has quite a few links to explanations and examples.

My 2 cents here: I did read Stallman's explanations - but they left me unsatisfied, because his rhetoric is all over the place AFAICT.

 

[sidetone]

The discussion on these threads helped me see more than what I already knew about the problems with GPL.

Seeing how bad GPL is, and remembering how someone in these forums wrote about a reluctant acceptance of GPL. After realizations from these threads, LGPL is the codebase that needs reluctant acceptance. GPL needs to be phased out. Even if GPL is fixed with minor versions to allow it to use dynamically linked libraries, it started from lousy beginnings. It's obvious there are too many other problems with it to be salvageable. I'd make a GPL replacement which otherwise is incompatible with it. It would be simple, and allow it to use other code though dynamic linking.

When I wrote back then to one of the making lists, that code in Xorg compiled without GPL parts in, they insisted, it needed to stay, because "it's a part of the ecosystem." Now, I see there's an urgency that, it needs to go, bc it threatens code of anyone who uses X server. It won't go, bc it's now under freedesktop.org, a Linux Foundation project. That's dishonest to claim it's permissive, when a few pieces of GPL contaminate it, that sneakily challenge others code. There are 2 down streams with changes, one with with a full BSD compiler and another with the default install having no GPL code. NetBSD and OpenBSD's customizations of X server.

Libre X? I'd advocate for GPL before I advocate for that. Political zealotry supporting someone so airheaded.

I started Thread open-source-licensing-which-allows-linking.99062, which also details weak copyleft and permissive licenses. Then it compares a few for use with GPL.

From that thread:

CDDL 1.1 isn't widely used, mostly limited to a few products by Oracle.

And me

So this gives some background into what he said here.

I gladly use a license that makes my code incompatible with the GPL. This is my own contribution to making open source fun again.

 

[hardworkingnewbie]

This whole discussion is pointless, because we all got the freedom of choice.

You dislike the GPLv3? Feel free to pick another license from the myriad of choices and be happy with it.

You want to contribute to an established project? Well, you've got to stick with the decision once made. Or create your own project from scratch.

 

[sidetone]

It's not pointless at all. We need to see the licenses pushed upon people for what they are and discuss it. We got to the root of what's wrong with it. Now people can choose better licenses, which a lot of projects are behind. What's the point in not discussing, so the flaws in a bad license can be hidden, and people can continue to keep making the same mistakes of using a bad license. Stallman pushed his license, and helped run Sun MicroSystems and CDDL1.0 into the ground.

If we hadn't discussed them, who would know to choose OSL, Apache 2.0, MPL, EPL for their projects? Not as many. Stallman could still pull the wool over more people's eyes, if we didn't discuss this and figure out more.

 

[rbranco]

It's not pointless at all. We need to see the licenses pushed upon people for what they are and discuss it. We got to the root of what's wrong with it. Now people can choose better licenses, which a lot of projects are behind. What's the point in not discussing, so the flaws in a bad license can be hidden, and people can continue to keep making the same mistakes of using a bad license. Stallman pushed his license, and helped run Sun MicroSystems and CDDL1.0 into the ground.

If we hadn't discussed them, who would know to choose OSL, Apache 2.0, MPL, EPL for their projects? Not as many. Stallman could still pull the wool over more people's eyes, if we didn't discuss this and figure out more.

Licenses are irrelevant. Even the "incompatibilities" are being made irrelevant by the Linux projects that ship OpenZFS and the myriad of OCI images that mix Apache 2.0 with GPLv2.

 

[astyle]

Well, one of the points I was making is that I need my software to run, dammit. If somebody else tries to take control of that, I'm just gonna pick another project. If I can't use somebody's template because his license prohibits me from sharing or using it in certain situations, I'm just gonna pick something else. My machine, my choice what to use. It's a different ballgame at $JOB.

 

[sidetone]

From a software point of view, which combinations can be used, and how to place good code to work together, it's important. From a user point of view, bc software is put together in a better way, that it runs better.

OpenZFS and the myriad of OCI images that mix Apache 2.0 with GPLv2.

That's good, bc how ZFS works with GPL is, ZFS isn't distributed with it. It maybe have a bootstrap which installs it for the user. Maybe Apache2 and GPL2 are used the same way.

Respecting those license terms is important, and they can be used together, while at the same time keeping a clear separation for those boundaries.

If I were to build a system for distribution, one repository would include LGPL, permissive and weak copyleft without GPL. A GPL repository/ports system would go on top of that, perhaps through bootstrap, so they're not distributed together, but available. That's perfect, and keeps licenses respected, while offering clear distinctions, and a wide array of programs to use.

There's also a case of, what if there's a GPL kernel, and code not compatible with GPL is needed, so that distribution bootstraps non GPL compatible code for hardware. Someone else distributes that combination, because they have to remove it, and didn't.

We've put together what's wrong with the GPL aside from that, and we discussed most of it. It's discussion for people to see. If it's there about software, it needs to be discussed.

 

[lost_in_c]

You're mixing up terms and ideas here.

A public good is not something that is good for the public. It is an asset that has no owner except the state, like a national park. The point is that copyright implies ownership. Ownership has to be claimed. And, at least historically, ownership over copy, in lieu of a tangible asset, is not recognized as full ownership, but a specific right that has to do with compensation for authorship. An author at no point actually owns the copy, he simply sues for and is granted the right to restrict its use under protection by the law. This right is granted on the basis of financial gain.

Otherwise, there are no grounds, philsophical or legal, to claim ownership of information. You can own, for example, infrastructure on which information is stored (a server), but you can't own the information. That would be ludicrous. What you can own, by purchasing it from the government, is the right to control its distribution on the basis of financial gain. For a limited period of time, after which not even that (ask yourself this: when is a GPL licence supposed to expire?).

If you author a work, and want to file for rights over its copy, you must retain ownership of the copy. If this copyright is infringed, and you sue, you sue on the basis of damages. The only damage you can claim is financial, unless certain security concerns are involved, etc.

If I take a copy you made public, disclaimed any rights to profit from, and disclaimed any ownership of, what damages can you claim if I do anything I want with it?

The only possibility is that you are not claiming personal damages, but damages to the public. In which case it would be a public good. In which case you would still have no rights to place restrictions, because those rights would pass to the state, which is the only legal administrator of public property.

 

[lost_in_c]

Well, you've got to stick with the decision once made. Or create your own project from scratch.

This is not clear at all. On what legal grounds do you have to stick with what decisions? Be specific.

If I just copy paste your open source project and modify it at will, and put it to what purpose I desire, what problem (legally) is it of yours?

 

[lost_in_c]

This is wikipedia's list of open source copyright litigation. I have no idea how exhaustive it is, but let's take it as a starting point. To our purposes, the relevant list is the first one, involving copyright infringement.

Open source license litigation - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Of those cases, only one seems to have reached an actual courtroom and gone in favour of the copyright holders. That case was in the US and did not reach the Supreme Court, which means the Supreme Court has not given any guidance to the viability of this new licencing model.

All the other cases were settled out of court, indicating that what I wrote earlier, about blackmail rather than legal force being the driver behind the effect of these licences, is correct.

In Germany, one case reached court, and that court cleverly deferred giving an actual opinion on the issue by claiming that the defendant did not even qualify as an author.

Most of the settled cases where started as damage claims, as I had written above. It would be interesting if one of those cases made it to court what damage a party can claim when they have explicitly renounced the right to profit or restrict distribution. Maybe one day.

The legality of these licences is extremely far from clear.

 

[hardworkingnewbie]

As German let me tell you this: you are talking bullshit here.

So far all open source trials brought before court in Germany were won by its authors and therefore copyright holders. Of course if you are thinking otherwise feel free to get yourself a bloody nose.

 

[T-Aoki]

Not limited with this thread, but in many license related discussions / rants, one point is often forgotton.
An example:

• I file a PR with patches to fix something on FreeBSD (yes, BSD-licensed).
• I myself don't distribute it to anywhere others, as it's just a fix.
• I have no commit bit, thus, cannot decide the patches to be accepted or not.

In this example, my code in the patch is distributed only when it is accepted and committed. But if not, never!

In the example above, if I state my code in the patch to be GPL'ed, FreeBSD cannot incorporate it in base. If anyone finds it really needed, any of the commtter would ask me to make the codes in the patch to be dual or more licensed, including BSD-compatible license to commit. Otherwise, not.

Not at all my work, though, if I understand correctly, if_iwlwifi.ko and some other WiFi staffs are in base because the original authors of the drivers kindly made their originally-GPL'ed codes to be licensed under BSD-compatible license, too, in addition to GPL. It's allowed for the authors!

So license matters for anyone having non-zero possibilities to provide patch (or anything more).
Mathematically, 0 is not exactly equals to lim0. And in many cases, probabilities of most "unlikely" cases would be lim0, not exact zero.

 

[rbranco]

Not limited with this thread, but in many license related discussions / rants, one point is often forgotton.
An example:

• I file a PR with patches to fix something on FreeBSD (yes, BSD-licensed).
• I myself don't distribute it to anywhere others, as it's just a fix.
• I have no commit bit, thus, cannot decide the patches to be accepted or not.

In this example, my code in the patch is distributed only when it is accepted and committed. But if not, never!

In the example above, if I state my code in the patch to be GPL'ed, FreeBSD cannot incorporate it in base. If anyone finds it really needed, any of the commtter would ask me to make the codes in the patch to be dual or more licensed, including BSD-compatible license to commit. Otherwise, not.

Not at all my work, though, if I understand correctly, if_iwlwifi.ko and some other WiFi staffs are in base because the original authors of the drivers kindly made their originally-GPL'ed codes to be licensed under BSD-compatible license, too, in addition to GPL. It's allowed for the authors!

So license matters for anyone having non-zero possibilities to provide patch (or anything more).
Mathematically, 0 is not exactly equals to lim0. And in many cases, probabilities of most "unlikely" cases would be lim0, not exact zero.

If you're submitting a patch you're agreeing to the terms of the file's license.

Some projects, FreeBSD too, require the additional step of by adding `Signed-off-by: Charlie Brown <charlies@email.com>` to the commit message.

 

[T-Aoki]

If you're submitting a patch you're agreeing to the terms of the file's license.

Basically, yes. But if the bugtracker require to do so.

Some projects, FreeBSD too, require the additional step of by adding `Signed-off-by: Charlie Brown <charlies@email.com>` to the commit message.

FreeBSD project doesn't force "Signed-off-by:" line. At least via Bugzilla and Phablicator. Not sure about GitHub pull requests (I never used, and don't have an account).

 

[rbranco]

Basically, yes. But if the bugtracker require to do so.


FreeBSD project doesn't force "Signed-off-by:" line. At least via Bugzilla and Phablicator. Not sure about GitHub pull requests (I never used, and don't have an account).

The Github CI would yell if you don't do it:

freebsd-src/.github/workflows/checklist.yml at main · freebsd/freebsd-src

The FreeBSD src tree publish-only repository. Experimenting with 'simple' pull requests.... - freebsd/freebsd-src

github.com