On Tue, Mar 13, 2007 at 11:03:19PM +0900, Rick DeNatale wrote: > On 3/12/07, Chad Perrin <perrin / apotheon.com> wrote: > >On Tue, Mar 13, 2007 at 07:31:23AM +0900, Rick DeNatale wrote: > >> On 3/11/07, Chad Perrin <perrin / apotheon.com> wrote: > > >> The more I think about this though, I'm not sure I want someone's > >> binaries without the source. The thrust of the FSF and for that > >> matter the open source movement is *open source*, not gratis > >> distribution of binary software. Having the source available with the > >> binaries also provides for at least a minimal audit trail to the > >> licensing terms of those binaries. If you just download the binaries, > >> and you can't tie them to source, how to you as a user show that you > >> have a license to the software? > > > >How do you feel about people having a (legally protected) right to > >distribute Linux LiveCDs without having to push several CDs full of > >source code on the recipients at the same time? > > That's not requred by the GPL, the requirement is that if you > distribute such a live CD, you need to make the source used to create > it available. You don't need to deliver it concurrently. No . . . but it's *easier* to distribute it immediately, for a single lone individual, than to maintain a publicly-available point of contact with source code archives and redundant backups for a period of no less than three years' time after the date of the last binary distribution of the software. Your objection is a bit like saying that if you get an infected cut, you don't have to use Bactine or iodine on it -- you can always just saw off your arm. Thank you, Doctor, I think I'd rather use Bactine, or *not get cut*. > > >There's a difference between downloading software with the source > >available, then later finding that the source for that exact version of > >the binary went away, and downloading software when no source is > >available. I don't believe that conflating the two situations helps > >clear up the legal ramifications of the situation at all. > > So stop conflating them, the GPL doesn't. . . . In light of the history of this discussion, that's pure sophistry. Thank you for divesting my statement of any context, then reversing my meaning. Congratulations. > > >> The real selling proposition of open-source is that it provides better > >> protection to the person or organization using the software that it > >> will continue to be available and maintainable. If only the binaries > >> are available, due either to neglect by or the future absense of the > >> distributor, this advantage is lost. Witness the recent suggestions > >> for a 'living will' for the owner of an open source project, it's > >> motivated by the same idea which is to keep the project alive past the > >> disinterest or the demise of the originators. > > > >In practice, the source of BSD-licensed software is as easily available > >as the source of GPLed software, generally speaking. If the source > >disappears, however, you now can't do anything with the binary at all, > >except continue to use it -- and, at that point, you have to ensure you > >don't accidentally "distribute" it sans source. That's my point. > > The strength of the GPL here is that it requires mechanisms to ensure > that the source continues to remain available. . . . and the weakness of it (as I said) is that in many cases the GPL's requirements impose a minimum limit on the resources one must have available to distribute software. Those mechanisms often are not free (as in beer). > > >> >Of course, I find both annoyingly limited in applicability to a single > >> >form of copyrightable work, and the BSD license's applicability to > >> >derivative works is ambiguous. I still prefer the BSD license over the > >> >GPL, especially considering recent examples of the FSF threatening legal > >> >action against small community Linux distributions for debatable > >> >violations of GPL terms. > >> > >> Or one could view it as a wake-up call that keeping open-source open > >> requires distributing open source. > > > >A social revolution loses some ethical purity when enforced at the point > >of a gun -- and that's what the law is: a gun to one's head. > > Another way of looking at it is that the law is a tool for protecting > the interests of people in society. The GPL is carefully crafted with > knowledge of global intellectual property law, so as to protect the > right to distribute software with the assurance that others will have > the right to run, modify, and redistribute it in a way such that those > rights will be preserved. The law is a tool of protection because of the force with which it is backed up. When that force is applied to those innocent of wrongdoing, the gun to the head is a bad thing; when applied to those guilty of wrongdoing, it's protective of the innocent. I wasn't saying the law is necessarily bad -- just that it's a gun to the head. Some people need a gun to the head. Some do not. The GPL makes some assumptions about who needs a gun to his or her head that I find profoundly disturbing in its implications. By the way, as I said in another subthread, the FSF, with the GPL as its weapon, is pushing "freedoms", not rights. One need not have possession of a thing to have the right to redistribute it -- only to have the ability, which one might consider a component of the "freedom" to redistribute depending on how one defines "freedom". Please don't confuse "right" with "ability" or "freedom". > > And we've probably argued this to the point where most who hang out > here are no longer interested, if they ever were. ;-) Heh. Well, yes, that's likely the case. That's what threading mail user agents and email clients are for, though. > > My blog on Ruby > http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/ I just noticed this. I'll have to check it out. -- CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ] This sig for rent: a Signify v1.14 production from http://www.debian.org/