30 Jan
2008
30 Jan
'08
6:24 p.m.
On Jan 30, 2008 6:14 PM, Paul Davis <paul(a)linuxaudiosystems.com> wrote:
Ok. You say - only deals with copying, modifying, distributing.
Perfectly clear. Nothing else, commercial use including.
But then, you may charge(!). But we don't deal with that?
Neither have you when you considered switching away from the GPL?
Neither will those who will consider switching away for the very same reason?
This is a big problem IMO.
No Paul i'm sorry to say that but you haven't read my other mails ,
we've been through this with some other person discussing this(don't
remember who it was).
How so? Giving back code is already explicitly covered.
No there' no such thing as limiting view and demonstrative view.
There's casual and comprehensive enumeration.
You may charge for distribution is no casual enumeration.
I gave an extensive interpretation of the GPL(as opposed to a
restrictive one, which everyone likes to prefer, to their of
disadvantage i believe).
Marek
On Wed, 2008-01-30 at 17:05 +0100, Marek wrote:
Stop right there. It really seems to me that you haven't read my
emails. Declaration of will. Not FSF.
Also, search for 'we believe' in their FAQ.
"You may charge for physical act of
transferring a copy":
Your interpretation of this clause is at odds with the FSF's, and indeed
GPLv3 has been reworded to clarify that the GPLv2 phrasing did not mean
"You may ONLY charge for the physical act of transferring a copy". GPLv3
now makes it clear(er) that distribution simply by making the source
code available on the net will satisfy both the GPL's requirement that
distribution of the program be accompanied by the availability of source
code *AND* the meaning of "distribution" itself.
You mean by saying "You may charge any price or no price for each copy
that you convey," ? :)
Please read my interpretation of the v2 again.
The FSF also makes it
abundantly clear on their web site that you may charge any amount
whatsoever for whatever you want.
Do i say something else? I say, for the act of physical transfer, or
distribution, yes. Otherwise, no.
Specifically, on the same page that equates "selling software"
explicitly with "distributing software" (with no room for ambiguity at
all, the FSF says "Actually we encourage people who redistribute free
software to charge as much as they wish or can."
Redistribute. Sigh. Please read my other email about this(about using
bad wording).
So let's rephrase the statement:
Activities other than copying, distribution and modification ...
whether or not a third party is charging for such copying,
distribution, or modification in order to make profit or cover the
costs for doing so.
No, lets not rephrase because there is no need. The GPL already makes it
perfectly clear. The fact that you want to explicitly make it even
clearer doesn't change that. You also missed the most important part:
"are not covered by this license".
Charging. Is not covered...is covered....?
Paul, this is the General Public License, not
General Public Labour.
And in fact, you' might be the one working your as* off in order to
fuel profit of others. And they might not give back.
If someone rips of parts of ardour in order to build a 24 track hw
recording machine (for example)
he won't even bother to release the parts.
What will you do?
Sue him? Time and money consuming, what do you get as a poor
opensource developer?
This is the potential risk of using the GPL. A 3rd party redistributes
GPL'ed software, refuses to release their source, as required by the
GPL. They are in violation of at least one law in most jurisdictions. Do
you (or I) as a developer, want to risk having to prosecute this kind of
situation? If the answer is "no", then (a) don't use the GPL (b) don't
write useful software. (b) matters because the evidence so far suggests
that the use of the GPL doesn't significantly alter the likelihood that
useful source code will be pirated.
But this has *always* been the case. The FSF understands this, I
understand this, almost everyone who releases software under the GPL
understands this. The LS guys may or may not have fully thought through
the implications of producing very useful and potentially lucrative
software under the GPL, but the implication was *always* there that this
could happen. Seriously though, give me at least 10 links.
You have been given links to the FSF website which make their position
very, very clear. I think you just don't basically believe that any
sane
person would use a license that could potentially allow a law-evading
3rd party to profit from their work. You're wrong. Unless I'm insane and
so too are all the other people who have chosen to use the GPL knowing
clearly that this is a risk (albeit with any open source and even some
closed source projects, GPL or not)
That's the woodstock POV(which i am not opposed to), but then again a
few years back you considered to switch away from GPL to alladin.
If a company makes profit with opensource
software as a *third party*,
and is required to invest part of its profit into development of the
opensource product, either by paying or by coding, how much does such
fact make the software less free?
Nothing in the GPL nor any other "open source" or "free software"
license can require this. You're talking about distribution, under the
terms of GPL.
You can charge for distribution of software licensed under the terms
of GPL, not *for software* licensed under the terms of GPL.
There is no clause in the GPL that says this. You take a limiting view
of the clause that begins "You may charge a fee for ..." ; most others
taken an demonstrative view of it.