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RE: Clarification on my call for license change
by Patrik Stridvall 16 Feb '02

16 Feb '02

> > of it is not possible. If just somebody in the world realizes > > the flaw he can contact the companies in question and > > point this out to them and for a fee do the work of recompiling > > their application for them. > > You are assuming here, that any given customer will sit and > wait until a > suitable patch is released. That may be true for many and > that's what I > wrote about my earlier job in my previous mail. But if this is an > important feature than he will pay for it because he needs to. If this > is released for others this is no problem because for others > apparently > it may not be that vital otherwise they would have paid for it in the > first place. If you can get the fully cost from the first customer, yes. But often you can't. So you develop it for say 50% of the cost and hope that the rest of your customers will pay the rest. Usually this will work out fine. However with the GPL this is impossible. You almost must have the full cost upfront which means that you have to spend more time negotiating to get the whole cost covered. Worse sometimes you miscalculate how must something costs, but that it not that bad if the code is proprietary. Now when you know the cost you know what to charge the rest of your customers. > Another implicit assumption here is that customers pay for a > given piece > of code. In my opinion they are often not doing that. Instead they pay > for a service. They pay for the service that they have > someone whom they > can contact and who will code if neccessary. That is absolutely correct. However using the GPL would force me to charge everybody that calls the full cost for each improvement. Often the cost will not outweigh the benefit for them so no deal unless I can reduce the price somehow. With the GPL this is impossible. > So even if they use an OS > code that doesn't imply that they never again will pay for any service > based on the assumption that any given functionality they > will need will > turn up sooner or later. Of course not, but some smaller customer might not have so much money so they often hope somebody else will have the same problem and pay for it. > Most larger customers (and I think that's the > one who are intersting for business models) are not willing > to bet their > business on the fancy of some developers. They want to have plans they > can follow so they in turn can tell their customers when and > how a given > problem will be solved. That's why xGPL also works for companies. The problem is not whether it works or not the problem is the drawbacks. As I have said before sometimes this is worth it, sometimes it is not. > I was once arguing with collegues because they maintained that if MS > gave their code for Word to OS then nobody would buy Word anymore and > they couldn't make any money from it. I stil say, and that is > the point > here as well, that this is not true. Private indivudals won't pay > anymore, but usually they are not the money anyway. Really large > companies, with their own development staff might also choose > to develop > and maintain themself, and there may be some loss. But the majority of > smaller companies would still pay for the service of maintainence and > for adding features they need and I bet that even bigger companies who > could afford their own development wouldn't choose to do that. Why > should they? It's more sensible to let somebody develop that who know > about it. The code is there as an insurance should the > developer ever go > down, but not for developing by everybody else. Yes, sometimes this will work out fine, but as I said it comes with a cost and the GPL limits want and how you can offer things to market quite severly. The problem with things like Word processors is that few users use or need new features so the market for enhancements will be quite limited.

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RE: BSD, Gav, LGPL, Jeremy, and business
by Patrik Stridvall 16 Feb '02

16 Feb '02

> Patrik Stridvall <ps(a)leissner.se> wrote: > > > > WINE should rise above this agenda and not become an > > > agent of it. > > What agenda? > > > > The GPL/LGPL works in ways that are almost the dual to fair use. > > Very simplified: It uses copyright to extend fair use. > > No. If anything, it seems to be using licencing rules > to negate copyrights. It really wants to make a copyright > into "a right to copy it". Even taking what you say, if you > extend what is "fair" use, you obviously must be making it > less fair somewhere else.... As I said, very simplified. What I meant is that the mechanism that forces release of the extension of the LGPL (read: copyleft) is similar to the case where fair use is extended so I take legally take the work instead. Of course fair use requires the use of "pull" which my be of less use if the work is compiled into a binary. The copyleft mechanism forces "push" of the source code which is better in the case of software. I observed that there are some theoretical similarites between fair use and copyleft. So seeing copyleft as some sort of contracted or licensed fair use makes sense. This suggest that a too broad fair use have similar problem that a too broad application of copyleft. And indeed both have the freeloader problem for example. I by this wanted to illustrate that copyleft is not something inherantly "evil" as Brett Glass are apparently crusading against. Like the case for fair use a little copyleft is good as long as you don't get to much.

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LGPL, and real World
by Hetz Ben-Hamo 16 Feb '02

16 Feb '02

Gentlemen, I do not wish to interrupt the nice email party going on here, but I wish to bring an example in real life which might let people re-think their decision.... I'll try to be a simple as I can. The following case is totally fiction. For the sake of this email, lets say I'm a lead developer in a company caled qwerty-wine, and one of my customers want me to develop a software for his palm top tun Visio XP on it, for the field engineers. For the sake of this example, lets say I'm checking out wine cvs today. Now - lets say that now is May, Codeweavers had decided to switch to LGPL and lets say that I am their competitor and I just had become aware of a DLL which is not implemented, but it is (according to a co- developer) implemented in Wine under the LGPL tree, so it means I'm 2 "cvs" commands from getting their implementation... Now - what if my product is totally a closed source one and my client doesn't want to reveal a single source code line? then I have 2 choices regarding this DLL: 1. I can Ignore the DLL in the Wine tree and re-implement it from where it was before the license has been changed and I keep the changes since it already implemented in Wine tree (and my customer doesn't want to reveal code). 2. I can "steal" this code from the new LGPL wine tree, and saving myself 90% of headache how to implement it, and invest 10% of the time to change the code cosmetically to look different, so if CodeWeaver's wine DLL looked like: 1+2+3+4=10 Then my code will look like: 5+5=10 So the code is different, but it does same thing, and I still keep my code closed... Who's loosing here? CodeWeavers. I used their code and no one got nothing out of this. Nada. Zilch. Zero. All their investment on that DLL implementation went down, they'll have hard time to re-cap this investment. Lets say that CodeWeavers could drag me to court and I'll be happy to show the code to the Judge or any 3rd party mediator - what he'll see? he'll see completly 2 different implementations which give same results. I win the case and I can collect damages from CodeWeavers. I repeat again - all the above is a FICTION. I'm not a developer (I'm unemployed at the moment) and the whole case - I made it up (although I heard some people were interested to see Wine on Embedded). But you wouldn't know if your competitor will use this trick with your code, will you? TransGaming probably won't do it, but others? So yes, CodeWeaver have their full right to move their code to LGPL or whatever. Is it a smart move for the Wine development move? yes. Is it a smart move business wide? IMHO - no, but CodeWeavers is a private company, and it's Jeremy full right to decide what to do with their code. I support CodeWeavers (bought their crossover even if I used it for 2 days), Transgaming (I subscribed, even if their code doesn't make my games work yet), and Lindows (I'll keep my Redhat and multi user approach, thank you!) and I plan to continue to do so - but will CodeWeaver exists due to this move? for a long term - I'm not sure, although I surely hope to be wrong here.. Just food for thought... Hetz Ben Hamo

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RE: Clarification on my call for license change
by Patrik Stridvall 16 Feb '02

16 Feb '02

> Patrik Stridvall wrote: > > > They turn to their respective distributor say Red Hat and > say that they > > are prepared to pay $XXX per year for a better supported Wine. > > Red Hat in turn hires me (or some other on this list) to do > this and I do: > > > > cvs update ; ./configure ; make install > > > > That is your problem. > > I fail to see why this should be a problem. Once the code is > written is > (basically) free to use by the one who wrote it (or ordered it, > depending on the agreements). Red Hat got his money in that > case because > it agreed to create that code. I was talking about the 100+ seat support contract CodeWeavers wanted. > You got your money because you > were hired > by Red Hat. If Red Hat chooses now to release the code it > still has the > money and you still have your money. The only problem would be if it > didn't release the code and some other customer would come along and > asks for the same thing to be developed. In that case it > might be worse > (but for Red Hat) because it can now get paid a second time, while it > won't get paid if the code is released. But that is a general > problem of > GPLed code and not specifically to Wine. I think that > companies working > with GPL code are well aware of that fact and their busines model must > accomodate that fact. The point is: - The 100+ seat company gains. (They get support). - Red Hat gains. (They get money). - I gain. (I get money). - But CodeWeavers, that did a lot of work on Wine, doesn't gain anything and they are becaused of the LGPL been forced to release all of their work. Sure they might gain back a few bug fixes if I had to do in order to fix a few small flaws, but then Red Hat probably would have let me release it anyway.

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RE: Clarification on my call for license change
by Patrik Stridvall 16 Feb '02

16 Feb '02

> Roland wrote: > > > I just don't understand one thing: > > How does your company expect to make money once WINE is > xGPLed? If all your > > code has to be contributed back, why should I buy it from > your company? > > The same way many companies work also with their properiteary > code. You > know your code needs a feature but you don't have the time for > implementation because you have no customer who says he > really needs it. > Of course many customers may be gald to have it, but none is > willing to > pay for it. The someday a customer turns up who says he needs > that stuff > badly and he wants to know how much you charge for it. Then you > implement that feature, you might have implemented anyway > some day, and > once it is available you can give it to all your customers, or you can > charge a price that others are willing to pay even though > they wouldn't > have paid the develeopment price. I worked for a company that worked > exactly that same way Actually I work for a company that works this way as well for some of our products. > and this works also for GPL code as well. No, it won't. There is nothing save ignorance that would make the other customers pay for it when can have it for free. Granted most customers are ignorant (as far as software development is concerned). But building a viable business model of it is not possible. If just somebody in the world realizes the flaw he can contact the companies in question and point this out to them and for a fee do the work of recompiling their application for them.

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RE: BSD, Gav, LGPL, Jeremy, and business
by Patrik Stridvall 16 Feb '02

16 Feb '02

> At 10:47 AM 2/16/2002, Patrik Stridvall wrote: > > >> If users are fully informed about what a Trojan horse REALLY does, > >> they may think twice about "running" it. > > > >Obviously everybody should be carefully before using a tool > >and study and understand for yourself what it really does > >an not rely on what other people say about it. > > > >But that doesn't mean that the tool inherits any > >"evil" purpose that the creator of it had in the > >process of creation. > > I disagree. A Trojan horse that, for example, trashes hard > disks or creates zombies for DoS attacks is fundamentally > bad. This is why it's called "malware." Compare the trojan to a weapon. It is the person that uses the weapon that does something illegal (or evil), regardless of whether the weaponed manufacturer had "evil intent. However regardless of whether the user or the manufacturer or both had "evil" intent the weapon is not "evil". A trojan for example might be used to make havoc in the enemys computer system. This is an act of war and is neither illegal nor "evil". > >I think the difference is that I don't consider Stallmans > >agenda unethical, only unrealistic. > > > >Forcing people to releasing small bug fixes is one thing > > It's a start down a slippery slope -- toward appropriating > any or all of their code at will. Well, if you are worried about the license of the C library that close to all Linux application links, you don't have to use it. I think it is entirely reasonable if a find a bug in the C library and fix it that I publish the fix as thanks for having privilage of using it for free. > >Yes, because the motor ways that can transport troups > >can also transport trade goods or people visiting > >other countries in friendship. The more trade the > >more interdepence and the less risk for war. > > Ah, but the government's terms won't let commercial > vehicles on the road. And why should they do that? And what is the analogy with either Nazi Germany or the GPL. > >> Yes, it can. You can forfeit your fair use rights via > >> a contract. And the FSF licenses are profferred contracts. > > > >That remains to be decided in court. > > Actually, no. Fair use rights can be signed away. > Non-disclosure agreements, for example, prevent people > from doing things that might otherwise be allowed > as fair use. Yes, but that have nothing to do with copyright or fair use for that matter. If you get hold of some work in trust you must of course keep that trust, but this have nothing to do with copyright at all. But claiming that some freely available work that I happend to download from site on the Internet that have a file with a license contains some obscure paragraph means that I have been entrusted that work is quite absurd and only in the US would a court even consider such absurd charges. Same if I would have bought the work in a shop. > >> >I don't think they will have much luck though, > >> >they have already tried to stretch the boundaries > >> >of copyright law with the GPL, > >> > >> This is another reason why the GPL is likely to be > >> ruled invalid. An attempt to use copyright law to > >> do anything beyond the purposes stated in the US > >> Constitution can be invalidated as "copyright abuse." > >> (This argument has been made in the Napster litigation > >> and Judge Patel has taken it quite seriously.) Certainly, > >> "turning copyright on its head" (these are Stallman's own > >> words for what a "copyleft" license does) would qualify > >> as copyright abuse. Hence, all "copyleft" licenses are > >> probably invalid and unenforceable. > > > >I think saying that the GPL is copyright abuse it taking > >it little far. > > Not at all. Read the case law. Type "copyright abuse" into > any search engine. I'm not particulary intrested. If you wish to invalidate the GPL fine, for me it is enough that Wine doesn't choose LGPL.

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RE: BSD, Gav, LGPL, Jeremy, and business
by Roger Fujii 16 Feb '02

16 Feb '02

Patrik Stridvall <ps(a)leissner.se> wrote: > > WINE should rise above this agenda and not become an > > agent of it. > What agenda? > > The GPL/LGPL works in ways that are almost the dual to fair use. > Very simplified: It uses copyright to extend fair use. No. If anything, it seems to be using licencing rules to negate copyrights. It really wants to make a copyright into "a right to copy it". Even taking what you say, if you extend what is "fair" use, you obviously must be making it less fair somewhere else.... -r

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RE: BSD, Gav, LGPL, Jeremy, and business
by Patrik Stridvall 16 Feb '02

16 Feb '02

> At 03:50 AM 2/16/2002, Patrik Stridvall wrote: > > >Note that when Wine fully works (close to 100% of all Windows > >applications run) it will not matter what license we have, > >there will be no money in anything except support anyway > >and the LGPL will not hurt that. > > WINE is not likely to work more than 90% ever, due to > the facts that Windows is a moving target True, but useful application have little reason to use new Windows API unless it gives them something substantial so I don't imagine this will be a large problem once we are close to completion. As the Windows application market slow moves to Linux with the help of Wine, the Windows application writers are likely to avoid using new Windows API because of portabillity reasons. > and that > Microsoft is likely to patent defensively. That is an orthogonal problem to licenses. Of course with the LGPL various companies can't even make a deal with Microsoft, but then Microsoft are not likely to make any deals anyway. > >It is the way there that worries me. Note that > >we can always choose LGPL later, but after we > >have choosen it we can't go back. > > This is a concern. Indeed. > >> Their place, and purpose, has been stated by Stallman. > >> (Not in the licenses themselves, which are designed > >> to be deceptive, but in Stallman's words in his more > >> candid moments.) It is to turn publicly available > >> software into a weapon in his lifelong, personal > >> vendetta. Again, he has stated this explicitly > >> himself, and it is also well documented by third parties > >> such as Levy. > > > >Please, now you are fear mongering again. > > No, I am stating historical fact. A tool is a tool. As every tool it can be use for good or evil. The purpose of the creator is irrelevant in the real world. Only in fairy tales like the Lord of the Rings can tools be inherently evil. Like the One Ring that answers to his master Sauron alone and corrupts everybody else to evil. Therefore I have a half serious question to you: Do you believe that the GPL is like the One Ring that answers to his master Stallman alone, and corrupt everybody else to evil? "One License to rule them all, One License to find them. One License to bring them all and in darkness bind them" You don't seriously believe this do you? > >I care not whether I support Stallman or not. > >I care ONLY about what is good for Wine. > > Ethics, consumer choice, and the future of programming > as a profession all matter as well. It is not ethical > to focus only on the interests of one project. Ah, perhaps I shouldn't have formulated myself better. What I meant was that just because somebody is "evil" supporting _some_ of the things they support doesn't make you "evil" or unethical. Hitler supported building new autobahns (motor ways). I support build new autobahns (motor ways). However this doesn't make me "evil". > >The GPL/LGPL works in ways that are almost the dual to fair use. > >Very simplified: It uses copyright to extend fair use. > > The opposite is true. It attempts to deny fair use by programmers. No license can deny fair use. I think even in people in the LGPL camp agrees with me in this. > And GPL V3 will attempt to deny fair use by ASPs. I'm not sure that "fair use" is the correct term. First of all I personally make a difference between non-infringing use and fair use. At lot of people call both things fair use. What they are trying to do is to make some use that is tradionally considered non-infringing use to be infriging use. I don't think they will have much luck though, they have already tried to stretch the boundaries of copyright law with the GPL, so I predict that they will fail, it is not no much a question on how they formulate the license, it is more question on where the boundaries of copyright really is.

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wine and debian - what's up?
by Dan Kegel 16 Feb '02

16 Feb '02

http://lwn.net/daily/woody-release.php3 says > From: Anthony Towns <aj(a)azure.humbug.org.au> > To: debian-devel-announce(a)lists.debian.org > Subject: [2002-02-16] Release Status Update > Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2002 12:23:18 +1000 > > Hi guys, > > The good news, and the bad news. > > The good news is that base is back in good shape. glibc, base-passwd and > rsync have all had their RC bugs fixed which is very pleasing. ... > > The bad news is that this means we're probably releasing soon, and that of > the hundreds of less important packages with RC bugs (eg, bugzilla, craft, > crossfire-{client,server}, epic4, fvwm95, gmc, gnome-admin, intuitively, > kdepim, moon-lander, tkdesk, wine, and xosview) will be getting randomly > ripped out of testing (in the case where bugs apply to the version in > testing, anyway). What this means, is that if packages you're interested > in have accumulated RC bugs (ie serious, grave or critical) you've almost > run out of time to get them fixed if you want them released. What bugs are they talking about with wine? I only saw one marked as grave: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=133540&repeatmerged=yes but this one looks worth responding to, too: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=98661&repeatmerged=yes It might be good for wine developers who like debian to have a look at the debian bug tracking system. The main problem appears to be being addressed, but a little overkill never hurt. - Dan

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RE: BSD, Gav, LGPL, Jeremy, and business
by Patrik Stridvall 16 Feb '02

16 Feb '02

> >A tool is a tool. As every tool it can be use for good or evil. > >The purpose of the creator is irrelevant in the real world. > > Not so. When one is reverse-engineering a virus or Trojan horse, > for example, it helps a great deal to know what the creator > intended. > > And the GPL is, in many ways, a Trojan horse. (It's viral, too, > but that's another issue.) > > Programmers see the rhetoric at the top claiming that the license > will promote "freedom," and place it upon their code -- whereupon > its terms and conditions promote Stallman's agenda instead. > > If users are fully informed about what a Trojan horse REALLY does, > they may think twice about "running" it. Obviously everybody should be carefully before using a tool and study and understand for yourself what it really does an not rely on what other people say about it. But that doesn't mean that the tool inherits any "evil" purpose that the creator of it had in the process of creation. Sure there are trojan horses in the world intend or not intended and you should be careful what you use, that goes without saying. > >Therefore I have a half serious question to you: > >Do you believe that the GPL is like the One Ring that > >answers to his master Stallman alone, and corrupt > >everybody else to evil? > > You're being overly dramatic (and a bit silly) here. It was meant to be. I was just testing you. If you had answered yes, I would have known that further discussion was meaningless. > >> >I care not whether I support Stallman or not. > >> >I care ONLY about what is good for Wine. > >> > >> Ethics, consumer choice, and the future of programming > >> as a profession all matter as well. It is not ethical > >> to focus only on the interests of one project. > > > >Ah, perhaps I shouldn't have formulated myself better. > > > >What I meant was that just because somebody is "evil" > >supporting _some_ of the things they support doesn't > >make you "evil" or unethical. > > Alas, by using Stallman's licenses -- which are designed > to further his agenda to some extent no matter WHERE > they are used -- one is promoting something unethical. > One may not be doing so intentionally (just as one is > not being unethical if one votes for a corrupt politician > whom one does not know to be corrupt). But if you know > that you're supporting unethical activities and continue > to do so, then you are yourself not acting ethically. I think the difference is that I don't consider Stallmans agenda unethical, only unrealistic. Forcing people to releasing small bug fixes is one thing but forcing people to contribute considerably more will soon find that the willingless to contribute will decrease unless some external factor exists. > >Hitler supported building new autobahns (motor ways). > >I support build new autobahns (motor ways). > > > >However this doesn't make me "evil". > > I could invoke Godwin's Law here, but I won't. ;-) > > In the analogy above, suppose you find out that the > autobahns in question won't actually go anywhere that > citizens (including you!) want to go, but are designed > to support military invasions of other countries in > which many innocent people will be needlessly hurt > or killed. Do you still support them? Yes, because the motor ways that can transport troups can also transport trade goods or people visiting other countries in friendship. The more trade the more interdepence and the less risk for war. You can't have the good without the bad. > >No license can deny fair use. > > Yes, it can. You can forfeit your fair use rights via > a contract. And the FSF licenses are profferred contracts. That remains to be decided in court. Anyway such considerations are close to meaningless a license can only binding to anybody buying or downloading a work. IIRC a judge suggested that if somebody found a piece of work lying on the street he could do whatever he pleased with it. I can for example have my friend do it and access the work over the network on his computer or however. As far as fair use is concerned it will not consider how you got hold of whatever you claim fair use on. > >I don't think they will have much luck though, > >they have already tried to stretch the boundaries > >of copyright law with the GPL, > > This is another reason why the GPL is likely to be > ruled invalid. An attempt to use copyright law to > do anything beyond the purposes stated in the US > Constitution can be invalidated as "copyright abuse." > (This argument has been made in the Napster litigation > and Judge Patel has taken it quite seriously.) Certainly, > "turning copyright on its head" (these are Stallman's own > words for what a "copyleft" license does) would qualify > as copyright abuse. Hence, all "copyleft" licenses are > probably invalid and unenforceable. I think saying that the GPL is copyright abuse it taking it little far. As far as the viral aspects of it maybe, but not as a whole.

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