Re: [gentoo-user] Re: License issues [was:Daniel Robbins' come back ?]

[Etaoin Shrdlu]

On Monday 14 January 2008, James wrote:

> Etaoin Shrdlu <shrdlu <at> unlimitedmail.org> writes:
> > The GPL does allow to sell your product (as opposite to giving it
> > away for free). Why should Montavista be sued if they respect the
> > GPL? As long as they distribute the source code with their products
> > (which admittedly I don't know), they are fine. Just because the
> > sources are not downloadable from their site, does not mean that
> > they should be sued.
>
> Ummm, I guess you are new to a space that I have worked in for a very
> long time.  Let's make this simple. Why don't you just pose as
> a company that need MV's EL (embedded linux) and ask for a listing of
> all of the wonderful thing you can do with MV EL that are superior
> to the public offerings  of EL. Then ask them from their sourcecode
> to these 'enhancements'. They are not alone, they are just
> one of the companies selling a RTOS based on EL.....

Have you ever used their products? Do you know for sure they don't give 
you the code? (I'm just curious here, I don't want to be unnecessarily 
polemic) I'm asking because in their site they say that they also give 
you some development modules (for eclipse) and tools for rebuilding the 
system, so this would seem to imply they also give you the source code.

> > It seems to me that the difference is not between small or big
> > companies, but rather between those who obey the GPL and those who
> > do not.
>
> Naive, you are!  Big companies have lawyer, lobyist and often
> politicians in their pocket. Over the years most people, at least in
> countries that pretend to have democracy, have seen this.  Remember
> how the Democratic politicians and state where going after MS and then
> most of the issues got settled by republican. Yet the EU still slapped
> MS with lawsuits and punitive damages?  If you think small companies
> are treated just like big one, you are very naive and no amount of
> evidence will change your mind..... Just ask most anyone that's been
> in small business before.

What I know is that big companies have had their defeats too, and if that 
has happened some times in the past it might happen again. This does not 
mean, of course, that it will actually happen (I'm not *that* naive).
And, IMHO, carrying on with bad practices just because the world around 
you behaves that way does not make you a trustworthy company (but it's 
true that it does let you make lots of money).

> You are talking about device drivers here, not products that have  a
> hidxden OS and use linux as the RTOS inside the product. Verifying
> what is acutally inside of a close (RTOS) system is difficult, at
> best, and often impossible it the firmware engineer wants to make it
> difficult for other to analyze.

I don't have enough knowledge of the embedded world to speak here, so you 
might very well be correct about this.

> There is a group of firmware engineers that have publically stated
> that they write for free any device driver for any company using EL.
> To paraphrase that person, <the problem is not finding coders to write
> device drivers, it's convincing companies to open source their drivers
> or allow their products to inter-operate with OS drivers>

Agreed. But a closed source driver can be released either by a big 
company or by a small one. 
And if linux gains popularity, refusing to open source a driver might 
actually turn out to be a bad thing for the company, since they will 
lose interoperability (read: customers) more and more (at least for 
general-purpose hardware modules; for embedded or specialized hardware 
things might be different).

> > Other companies have been sued or notified, but not just because
> > they were big or small, but because they failed to obey the GPL
> > (xterasys, monsoon, fortinet, d-link...you can find tons of cases
> > just by googling a bit), someone even admitted their faults,
> > In some cases, the companies were declared guilty.
>
> true, but it does not affect the point I'm trying to make. What you
> are talking about is a drop of rain, in an ocean.

Maybe.

> > > What the GPLv3 is doing is effectively keeping the little guys
> > > from building products ~100% based on linux and open source. They
> > > have not stopped a single well funded company (or an entire
> > > country like China) from using linux and open source as they
> > > choose.
> >
> > Why should they have been stopped?
>
> I'd just like the charade to end. GPL keeps the serfs on 'massa farm'
> It does not stop billion dollar entities from doing whatever they want
> with EL or any other OS (open source) software.

Again...why should these billion dollars be forbidden to circulate, or do 
whatever, as long as the open source software rules are respected?
You seem to imply that a (free) software license is a way to stop people 
from investing or making money.

> > Making money, even lots of money, with linux is not prohibited. What
> > is wrong is when someone does not obey the GPL, and that's what LJ
> > wants to do: to discover companies that try to benefit from the work
> > of the linux community without giving anything back (I think you are
> > referring to the "linux incognito" initiative here).
>
> OK, then why does the GPL not make a simple rule change. If you have
> grossed over 1 million dollars on your linux product or service, then
> you have to open source your code.

The GPL states that you must open source your code (more exactly: you 
have to provide access to the sources along with the binaries, which 
does NOT mean that the source code must be opened to the general 
public), no matter if you grossed 1 dollar, 100 dollars, 1 million, or 
gave it away for free.

> That way the little guys can make some money on an idea and a little
> bit of code before having to publish their work. Beside how much
> useful code do you think a small entrepreneur really has?

That's the point. The small entrepreneur who focuses only on the code is 
doomed to failure. As you noted, there are lots of hungry coders out 
there that can code the same things better and in less time, even 
without looking at your code. Code needs maintenance and upgrading, and 
for the small entrepreneur with little resources that is all wasted 
time. It's better IMHO to let the community do the dirty work (thus 
opening the code and letting the coders play), and focus on the value 
added services that can be offered for that piece of software (for 
example, customization, training, technical support, etc.). For a small 
entrepreneur, this is (IMHO) a way to stand out from the crowd, rise 
above the others and give a brighter image of himself, rather than just 
writing some code and keeping it secret, hoping that nobody else steals 
your "idea".

> The kernel is full of expert coder that are pushing to get their code
> into the kernel. There is not a shortage of code or coding experts.
> What the GPL has effectively done is keep the serfs on the farm
> shoveling manure, IMHO.

Many (albeit not all) of those "serfs" actually work for big companies 
which make big money with open source.

> Remember I espouse this opinion as one who has had financial success,
> works out of his garage, and picks his next business ventures, as I
> please. I'm not some unemployed college kid looking for my first
> job......

Neither am I. Neither are all the people who have studied the topic and 
have written articles or books about the economy of open source. Neither 
are all the people who work for companies that make money with open 
source (redhat, novell, and, more and more, sun, ibm, intel...).

> > > The very best way (IMHO) to promote democracy and freedom is for
> > > the people to have a way to make money as entrepreneurs and small
> > > business people. Keeping Linux bottled up, via the GPL is just
> > > plain nuts! Besides that, Linux only bottled up for the little
> > > guys, HP, IBM, and thousands of other companies used linux every
> > > day in products or high end services, such as phone/networking
> > > gear. Who is suing them?
> >
> > Nobody, because they obey the GPL.
>
> *(WRONG)*

Can you elaborate?
Among the biggest player today in the linux world are ibm, intel, and 
sun. They are increasingly migrating towards opening their code (see eg 
java). Although not always GPL, they are releasing a lot of their code 
under OSI approved licenses.

> Your naive to the point of being astounding.  If you think that the
> Industrial Military Complex has not modified you precious GPL code,
> then we are all in Deep Doo. You might want to find some old farts
> that have been around the track a few times and have some private
> conversations with folks that have experienced technology in a deeper
> environment that you obviously have not experienced.
>
> Beside how do you think the US government is dealing with the
> 'informational security threat' posed by the internet? Here's one
> piece of code the US government did publish (and fund)  SELINUX. Ever
> heard of that? Common, use your imagination and connect the dots......

What you're saying here is not a secret, in fact these are all more or 
less well-known facts. Yes, they probably did violate some open source 
license. However, I don't see how having had closed source products 
would have prevented them from doing what they wanted to do anyway.
And furthermore, what does all this have to do with "making money with 
open source"?
-- 
gentoo-user@l.g.o mailing list