Bruce Perens Discusses Lawsuit Against Corel (UPDATED)

ac writes "It seems that Corel has made one mistake too many. Bruce Perens ^[?] is calling for a lawsuit against Corel on the behalf of Debian. The text of his message follows and should appear here soon. " Wow - check out the recent story regarding the 18 and older EULA. Update by RM: Bruce later backed off on the lawsuit threat. He reads Slashdot comments and takes them seriously, and he's a good dude at heart, okay?Update: 11/26 08:53 by H :And for all the people e-mailing me, mea culpa. Shoulda checked.

To: [e-mail]
Subject: Corel Lawsuit
Date: Fri, 26 Nov 1999 10:09:00 -0800 (PST)
From: [e-mail] (Bruce Perens)
Message-Id:

It's time for us to bring suit against Corel for this "can't download unless you're 18" stuff. That's not in our license and they know it. I've tried to help them several times, and they continue to be 100% clueless. I think at this point they are not representing Debian well, and should not distribute it. I'm not going to help them any longer.

Bruce Perens

minors and EULA's

[Barbarian]

The problem is the EULA on the Corel software--in Canada at least, you cannot sign a binding contract if you're a minor.

clueless

[matman]

well, he is right... corel does seem to be clueless. its like a kid being told by their parent to give something back to their sibling, but the kid only gives back part of it - like the remote control minus the batteries. hehe :)

Hopefully this'll be the proverbial spanking that they need :)

And why in the hell would they possibly say 18 only download? is it maybe because a minor can not enter into a legally binding contract or something?

Didn't Bruce Mention this in the earlier article?

[SgtPepper]

And he should be keeping us up to date...so why did an AC post this? BTW Bruce's earlier post is here [slashdot.org] Someone may want to link this in the article posting if they haven't all ready, personally i like seeing someone taking this inceiteve(sp), we won't take our rights being violating standing down. Normally i wouldn't care, but this a blantent violating of the GPL in the EULA as bruce pointed out in his earlier post. :)

Ick...my mistake.

[SgtPepper]

Got two posts confused, it was ottffssent's post i was refeering to here [slashdot.org] which i find more intresting and would really like to know more about the reply to :)

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Oh yeah -- way to support them

[davidu]

Let me first say that I agree, Corel has made _some_ mistakes. However, it is obvious that a big company with a huge legal department would have such problems.

We should NOT however alienate them. Do you think that they would have spent so much money into Linux and made such a huge booth at Comdex if they were just around for the hype? of course not.

We need to be forceful, yet forgiving in the way we handle the corel situation. If we alienate the first major company to support Linux then we may be jeoperdizing our future.

I think Bruce Perens simply misses the spotlight. I respect him for what he has done and accomplished, but a lawsuit will not solve anything for Linux users and for the image of Linux.

Bruce: you really ought to give this some more thought.

-Davidu

Woah... Back up.

[wilkinsm]

What "other stuff"? Help them "several times"?

This "over 18 stuff" has already been discussed - it just the same "minors can'y enter into legal agreements stuff." Is this really so horrible that it's "the last straw?"

You have to rememeber that businesses can't move as fast as individuals. Remember the Comdex thing? Give them a little room to think, and I think this will be fixed.

Lawsuits

[Tony]

Yes, Corel is clueless about the Free Software licensing schemes. However, there is a catch to all this:

In the US, you have to be of a certain age to be legally bound to any agreement you make. Since the GPL is a legal agreement, it is possible someone could circumvent the agreement and avoid any consequences, simply based on being a minor.

What could a minor do with GPL'd software that isn't covered by the GPL? Beats me. Perhaps use the code in a non-GPL program. How does this affect Corel? It doesn't. So, it's rather senseless for them to include this in their license agreement.

But I suspect that is the reasoning for this little bit of silly legalese. And this is yet another example of how our world is changing beyond our current society.

Suing does not show gratitude to Linux dev's

[Paolo]

Regardless of how many mistakes Corel has made, suing is not the answer. Suing does not make Corel feel very happy about spending dollars developing for a platform that only turns around and hits them with a lawsuit. Instead, try contacting Corel's legal department civilly about the concerns. It'd be a mistake to ruin development for the community.

Re:Oh yeah -- way to support them

[boletus]

has the gpl ever been tested in court?

Re:minors and EULA's

[ewhac]

...you cannot sign a binding contract if you're a minor.

Which is precisely why license "agreements" of any kind are not only monsterously unethical, they are stupid. Do the clerks at EBX check your ID before selling you a copy of Unreal Tournament (which comes with a shrinkwrap "license")? Are we to suppose that such instruments should be enforceable against a minor's parents or guardian?

Please, stop deluding yourselves into believing that you're purchasing a "license." You are purchasing a copy, and enjoy all the rights and responsibilities afforded to you by copyright law. Any other responsibilities imposed by any so-called "agreement" are fictional.

Gratuitous link to my editorial on shrinkwraps. [best.com]

Schwab

I'm sure he doesn't mean this to come to court...

[Paul Crowley]

I can only read this as "Perens calls for Corel to be sent signal that Debian's patience has limits". Debian would surely win if they sued, so I guess perhaps he's come to the conclusion that threats are the only language Corel's lawyer's speak. In other words, if all you recognise is "cover your ass" thinking, then you'll have to cover your ass from GPL violations too.

I'm surprised, and I advocated showing patience to Corel earlier, but maybe Bruce is right: maybe it is time to say that the GPL demands attention and has backup if it's needed.
--

Just sent this to Bruce (Possible flaw in GPL?)

[trims]

Following is a letter I just sent to Bruce. I'm wondering if this is more a problem with the GPL than Corel; the GPL is not sacred folks, and it may indeed have flaws that need to be fixed. Anyway, we're getting ahead of the deal.

I'm getting tired of the community going off half-cocked. Less than 24 hours after a problem DOES NOT MEAN we've looked at the things from all sides. Have we gotten REAL legal advice? From at least 3 different sources? Are we SURE of what we're doing? I'm getting really suspicious of the "witchhunt" mentality everyone someone screams "GPL violation!!!" Hysteria is bad for us, and I want us to think things through before we jump with both feet into the quicksand....

-Erik

Letter follows:

Bruce,

This is a followup to my thread on /. (found here [slashdot.org]) about the possibilities that an age restriction might be necessary to uphold the GPL.

On further thought, I was wondering about this:

The GPL requires that in order to use the software, I agree to the term (the contract) that forces me to distribute it to anyone who asks. And I must insure that the code is passed along with the GPL.

Implicit in this is that I must insure that the person I'm passing the code to must uphold (or at least legally agree to uphold) the GPL. If they cannot, or willnot, I cannot pass the code to them, since I would be responsible for breaking my contract.

This, however, is a catch-22 (or paradox) when talking about minors. The GPL requires that I give it to anyone who asks; however, I cannot give it to a minor, since I cannot insure that they abide by the contract (indeed, I have foreknowledge that they CANNOT), which is a further condition of the GPL.

Paradoxes in contract law are EXTREMELY BAD, as it immediately invalidates the contract.

Is this a flaw? Does the GPL need to be modified?

Also, here is another pertinent question: suppose I am restricted from distributing the program due to content it contains. I've looked at sections 7 & 8 of the GPLv2, and it's not clear as to what the ramifications are in this situation. My reading is that any legally required restriction on code makes that code ineligible for coverage by the GPL (in otherwords, the author cannot GPL the program, nor can GPL'd code be included in the program).

Have we got ourselves a serious problem here?

Interesting point (on contracts and 18)

[ebrandsberg]

Basically, the way I see it, if Canada law says that you can't enter into a binding agreement, and even a GPL license is an agreement, than that means that in Canada, an 18 year old can't agree to honor the GPL. As such, Corel is insuring that anybody that downloads has to otherwise agree to all the license requirements, including GPL. If they are correct, then any minor can break the GPL and use the software however, and whereever they want, without having to return modifications, etc.

Re:Lawsuits

[tgd]

Yes and no. As a minor you're not legally bound by contracts you agree to, but your parents can be if it can be shown that your acceptance of a contract or ability to accept a contract is the result of negligence by the parent.

Ie, if you vioilate a EULA under 18, and it can be shown that your parents knowingly allow you to install software on your PC, your parents can be held liable.

That'd be an extreme case, but a valid one.

Hold on

[copito]

IANAL, but it seems to me that any restriction Corel places on the original download of their distribution is legal. The GPL allows me to distribute software for money or with a warranty, and AFAIKT, any further restrictions that do not restrict the ability of my customers to redistributing the binary and source.

Corel could refuse to sell their software to anyone other than Tibetan monks between the ages of 65 and 70. They just can't keep those monks from redistributing the GPLed portions.

So in short, Corel's actions may not be in keeping with the spirit of Free Software, but I see nothing in the GPL to prevent them.
--

Let them explain themselves.

[Tyrell Hawthorne]

Make sure Corel has explained why they have added this clausule, and check whether they might change it. If not, do *something* about it (still not sure suing is the answer, see post below), but don't be too quick with a lawsuit. My two cents...

3 strikes and you're out

[Nodatadj]

Is this the rule we're playing by in the Open Source community? Make 3 mistakes and then we get the big guns on you and stop being friendly?

Every other time Corel arsed up their licenses they complied without any fuss, why is this time any different?

I think his lawsuit threat will scare people off rather than make them release open source stuff

Iain

Hmm ... GNU shows some teeth?

[RNG]

I'm sure Corel has had enough contact with people like BP (and Linux folk in general) that there's really not much of an excuse for being contiunally clueless ... I was (or still am) willing to give Corel the benefit of the doubt about their Linux/OpenSource romance but things like these make me very skeptical ... I think it's about time they wised up and manage to produce a licence without any obvious problems ... this is not rocket science and should be an achievable goal for a company that manages to writes pretty good software ...

On the other hand, maybe a GNU inspired lawsuit against something as obvious a violation of the GPL as this one, might actually make other potential offenders think twice about actually doing so.

Who's gonna sue?

[Bitscape]

So whose shoulders would it fall on to enforce the license, when push comes to shove? I suppose since the Free Software Foundation owns a lot of the code, they could press the issue, but I don't see someone like Linus (or any small time developer) wanting to spend time in a lengthy court battle over this stuff. I certainly wouldn't.

"Minors can't enter into legal agreement" BS

[roystgnr]

IANAL, and I don't know what the law literally states... but there's absolutely no way that the software industry would let a "minors aren't bound by software licenses" precedent be set. What, is it OK to be a warez dude as long as you're under 18? Does CompUSA have to start checking IDs before it sells the next Kings Quest installment?

Re: Hey, minor doesn't mean bad person!

[greed]

however, I cannot give it to a minor, since I cannot insure that they abide by the contract (indeed, I have foreknowledge that they CANNOT), which is a further condition of the GPL.

Well, I think this is a bit strong. Although a minor cannot be compelled, by Canadian law, there is no reason why a minor cannot act in good faith and uphold the contract even though he is not legally bound to do so.

I think this is well demonstrated by the number of minors making successful contributions to GPL projects.

Re:here they come. nail in the coffin

[Anonymous Coward]

Mistake #1: Slashdot is NOT THE LINUX COMMUNITY. Slashdot is a locker-room full of nitwits and posers who like flicking the towel at whoever passes by. (This is sure to get me 'moderated' down or whatever)

Mistake #2: Yah, as if going back to Microsoft is going to magically make anything better. You think that by 'going back to Microsoft' you're going to avoid the lawsuit morass? Are you living under a rock or something?

Re:Just sent this to Bruce (Possible flaw in GPL?)

[copito]

This, however, is a catch-22 (or paradox) when talking about minors. The GPL requires that I give it to anyone who asks; however, I cannot give it to a minor, since I cannot insure that they abide by the contract (indeed, I have foreknowledge that they CANNOT), which is a further condition of the GPL.

I see nothing in the GPL that requires me to give software to anyone that asks. I just can't restrict further redistribution.

As for a danger in giving the software to a minor, the GPL states:

5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying the Program or works based on it.

It seems to me that a minor would simply not be able to redistribute GPLed software, since they can't agree to a contract.


--

Re:Just sent this to Bruce (Possible flaw in GPL?)

[copito]

Sorry about the formatting.

This, however, is a catch-22 (or paradox) when talking about minors. The GPL requires that I give it to anyone who asks; however, I cannot give it to a minor, since I cannot insure that they abide by the contract (indeed, I have foreknowledge that they CANNOT), which is a further condition of the GPL.

I see nothing in the GPL that requires me to give software to anyone that asks. I just can't restrict further redistribution.

As for a danger in giving the software to a minor, the GPL states:

5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying the Program or works based on it.

It seems to me that a minor would simply not be able to redistribute GPLed software, since they can't agree to a contract.


--

Re:Lawsuits

[ewhac]

Since the GPL is a legal agreement, it is possible someone could circumvent the agreement and avoid any consequences, simply based on being a minor.

This is true for shrinkwrap "agreements" (which are a legal fiction, anyway), but not true for the GPL.

Normal shrinkwrap "licenses" offer an array of ludicrous restrictions and covenants to which you are expected to agree before the vendor will "allow" you to use the software.

The GPL, however, is different. It acknowledges the fact that, as a copyrighted work, the right to use software is concomitant with lawful possession and, thus, you are free to make use of the software as you will. What the GPL does is stipulate the conditions you must fulfill if you want to make copies of the software.

Note the distinction: Shrinkwraps purport to offer a license to use. The GPL offers a license to make copies.

Copyright law is criminal as well as civil law. Minors are not exempt from criminal statutes. Thus, a minor making and distributing copies of GPL'd software, but not meeting the terms of the GPL, would therefore not be granted a license to make those copies, and would be criminally liable for copyright infringement.

So, no, being a minor does not escape you from the GPL.

Schwab

I'll chill out now, thanks

[Bruce Perens]

Guys, I am having a real bad morning and I spoke too soon. I meant to open a discussion on a mailing list, not to be on top of Slashdot by sending one email. Everybody else on the list said it's too soon for a lawsuit.

Bruce

Re:Just sent this to Bruce (Possible flaw in GPL?)

[Zach Baker]

The GPL requires that in order to use the software, I agree to the term (the contract) that forces me to distribute it to anyone who asks.

This is a common misconception. The GNU GPL restricts modification and/or distribution, not use. This is not a minor distinction. For your edification, Term 5 of the GPL, italics mine:

5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying the Program or works based on it.

Re:Oh yeah -- way to support them

[hadron]

Either it's valid, or everyone is violating copyright law due to it not being valid. All it does is allow you to do stuff you would not normally be able to do legally.

Corel and other sue-phobic companies

[mr_organic]

As more publicly-traded companies try to get in on the popularity of Linux, we are going to have more problems like this. The basic problem is that companies are shared shitless of getting sued, and will always try to put in contractual language to limit their liability. This, unfortunately, is completely at odds with the tenets of Free Software (particularly the DFSG). I think what has got Bruce Perens so angry is that he has *repeatedly* dinged Corel on this issue, and apparently they have ignored his cautions. In essence, Corel has violated the DFSG by the restrictive language in the EULA. This has happened before -- Corel linked the apt package (a GPL'd component) to the QT library (non-GPL'd) and had to get special dispensation from the apt author to do this. It just depresses me because I had hoped that Corel *really understood* the DFSG and what it meant to the community. I'd like to think that this was just an oversight, but it would have to be pretty gross negligence on Corel's part to let this get by. At the very least, it shows that Corel has been sloppy in their technical understanding of the DFSG, which is unforgivable given that they have had the direct cooperation of Bruce Perens for several months. Corel should be given to understand in no uncertain terms that this kind of behavior is unacceptable.

Re:here they come. nail in the coffin

[Bruce Perens]

Look, I'm frustrated because I have tried to help them with this stuff twice and they keep making the same mistake. I sent mail to a Debian mailing list looking to open a discussion, not to be in a Slashdot article about it. Everybody else on the list said it was too soon for a lawsuit and I dropped it there.

Thanks

Bruce

Re:Oh yeah -- way to support them

[dufke]

This depends greatly on your definition of success. If your definition is that the software is working, you can get it, it's legal, and a lot of people are helping make it, then yes.

But my definiton of success is that my friends will ask me to install Linux instead of Win98 on their gaming and schoolwork boxes. And every single game/chat/hardware they could download/buy would be available and supported for. (I'm not saying that there shouldn't be any competitors - long live the BeOS! :)

Of course, there is no 'correct' definition, but one has already been achived... I'd like to go for the other one, wouldn't you?

-

Idealistic people

[fizik]

This reminds me of the controversy surrounding the kid who couldn't get into Comdex. They don't check for ID at Comdex, go and have a good time. The same applies in this case. If you're a minor and you want a copy of Corel Linux, go and buy, go and download it, I really doubt the 'EULA Police' are going to come to your door and bash it down and confiscate your computer.

I think we need to step away from this 'holier the thou' attitude and take a closer look at the situation. Companies like that don't get into the position they are currently in by leaving themselves wide open to stupid lawsuits. Judging by the amount of posts on Slashdot regarding the whole 'if user x is a minor, then x cannot legally accept the GPL therefore . . . ', i'd say that the entire issue is very grey and Corel is just covering their ass.

As for the people at Debian, chill the hell out, Have you tried to contact Corel and ask them their reasons for putting such a clause in their EULA. One thing I appreciate about the open source community is that fact that people are willing to look at problems from a variety of angles. However, it seems to me that everyone automatically has a problem with Corel because they are a company that 'GASP' actually makes money by selling commercial software. Instead of jumping all over them, why isn't a little constructive criticism offered. If I was running the Corel Linux development I would seriously get discourged by having the Linux community try to bite me in the ass every time I took a step.

My point is this, the issue is obviously somewhat complicated because it doesn't seem like anyone on Slashdot has posted a definitive legal opinion on the matter. Lets take a bit of time and analyze things before we start making accusations.

Apology to Corel

[Bruce Perens]

Oh darn, I have really screwed up this morning. I'd better admit it and control the damage before it gets worse.

I got frustrated with Corel because I have worked to smooth these things out twice before. I sent a message asking if it was time for a lawsuit to a Debian mailing list. I did not expect that message to be posted to Slashdot. The people on the Debian list told me to chill out, which was good advice.

So, Corel folks, I apologize. You need to sort our some issues with the community, but any talk of a lawsuit at this time is way out of proportion.

Bruce Perens

Re:Our "leaders" ...

[Bruce Perens]

No, I no longer lead the Debian project, and when I did we didn't count votes. And I got a little too upset this morning and said stuff I should not have.

Bruce

Flaw in the 'Must be 18'!

[DanaL]

There is one little flaw in the 'Must be 18 so they cannot agree to the GPL' argument...plenty of software is sold to minors under various lisences. I bought DOS and a couple of compilers when I was minor and even though there was a EULA, no one asked me for ID. When I bought WordPerfect from Corel, no one checked to see if I was of age. Why are they treating their Linux differently? I've downloaded browsers by clicking on 'Yes I agree' buttons, never asked if I was 18.

(Side note: does that then mean my little newphew can make illegal copies, and de-compile games because he cannot be bound by the EULA?)

Dana

Bruce, that makes no sense.

[Roberto]

What Corel is doing, is that they are NOT giving binaries to anyone under 18.

The GPL does NOT say that you have to give binaries to anyone who asks you. It simply says that if you give them binaries, you have to give them source.

Now, As long as you are 18, you can get binaries from Corel, and you can also get sources from Corel.

In what specific way are they breaking any license?

They are just not redistributing their GPL-based product, which is a long stablished right: consider in-house packages based on GPLd code.

Further, does Corel say that if you are over 18 and get their package you can not give it to a minor?

Changes on http://linux.corel.com????

[FPhlyer]

Just wanted to let everyone know, I pointed netscape over to corel's linux site and guess what?? The html is there, but it brings up a blank page. I have a feeling that Corel is gearing up for an apology (or explanation) for their EULA.

Re:Just sent this to Bruce (Possible flaw in GPL?)

[sreeram]

Implicit in this is that I must insure that the person I'm passing the code to must uphold (or at least legally agree to uphold) the GPL

Dude, there is no such implicit statement in the GPL. If you want to distribute GPL'd software (say, to Joe), then the GPL says that you must distribute it under the GPL. It does not say that it is your responsibility to make sure that the GPL is honoured by Joe.

Let me say that again: You have to abide by the GPL. It is not your responsibility to see whether or not others do. If Joe does not uphold the GPL, then it is none of your business. It is upto the copyright holder to sue Joe (if you hold copyright on parts you modified, then yeah, you may want to sue Joe too). If Joe is a minor, and thus by definition, is not legally bound to abide by the GPL, then yeah, maybe he can't be sued. But that doesn't make you liable. As someone pointed out, if the minor is not liable, then the liability falls on the minor's parents. Not you.

Someone pointed out that, just because Joe (a minor) is not bound to obey the license, he cannot modify and redistribute at will. If Joe does not abide by the GPL, then he doesn't have any rights at all. All the rights are reserved (by default) by the copyright holder, and the GPL is the only thing that gives you the right to modify/distribute. There is no danger that a minor can make a proprietary version of GPL'd software.

Someone else wrote:

Corel could refuse to sell their software to anyone other than Tibetan monks between the ages of 65 and 70.

Partly true. The GPL says explicitly that you agree to provide source code to any third party who asks. Some say "third party" here refers to anyone and everyone in general. But others say it refers to whoever you distributed the binaries to. In any case, if Corel sold Joe a copy of GPL'd software, then Corel must give Joe the source if he asks. Of course, Corel can refuse to sell the software altogether to Joe, but they cannot give only the binaries and withhold the source. The GPL doesn't force you to distribute to anyone. You can choose who to give/sell the software. But if you do give/sell it, then the source must be part of it.

Sreeram.

Re:Slashdot's irresponsible "news" reporting

[platypus]

I agree with you, slashdot this was one of the occurences where slashdot has to decide whether they want to be pure journalists or journalists with a positive relation to linux/opensource.
If they decide to be the latter, they should have rechecked this, because bruce seemed to be a little too fast in this case.
But this shows that one has to doublecheck what he posts in public/semi-public forums, cause there's _no_ privacy.
That was Bruce's fault and could have led to a zdnet headline without slashdot.
OTOH slashdot shouldn't have been the first to carry this in the public.

Re:Just sent this to Bruce (Possible flaw in GPL?)

[Bruce Perens]

Erik,

Agree that the witch-hunt mentality is bad for us. I headed it off twice before. I just got too darned frustrated about heading it off yet another time. Stupid me, I didn't realize that one message posted to an obscure Debian mailing list would mean a slashdot headline.

Regarding the GPL, it's not a tear-open license that constitutes a contract like some other Open Source licenses. It's a straight copyright permission. So your objection might not apply.

Thanks

Bruce

Re:I'll chill out now, thanks

[Eg0r]

Dear Bruce,

You're a respected figure as far as the free software Ultimate Goal is concerned, same whenever you talk about Debian, GNU or Linux and are also admired by billions of people who read /.

"look at his karma maaaaaaan, who is he? Is he... God??"

Besides, you can't just go around and say stuff like

"I think it's time to start talking lawsuit."

As usual, you got moderated up because you spoke, and Your Words made the exclusive /. news 5 minutes later, and MSNBC, MSBBC, MSCNN or MSTimes the day after... Hell I'm sure you'd get moderated up to +5 insightful if you posted your shopping list or something...

So be careful,

"having a real bad morning"

...is definitely no excuse :-)

But anyway, who am I to dare talking to You?

---

Re:Just sent this to Bruce (Possible flaw in GPL?)

[Jonas Öberg]

Why did you send this to Bruce? It should be perfectly obvious that it's better to contact the FSF about issues regarding possible flaws in the GPL. If your conclusion would have been right (I don't think it is), the FSF lawyer could have looked at it together with RMS to draft a change.

Re:I'll chill out now, thanks

[Bruce Perens]

Point taken. I guess "I screwed up" is no excuse either, but there isn't much more I can say.

Besides, I don't have Ulitmate Karma on Slashdot. Sig11's is higher than mine (I just happened to look at his user record a while back), probably other people as well.

Thanks

Bruce

Normal reactions

[Jonas Öberg]

This seems to be the way our community works now that we have "news" agencies such as Slashdot to focus our attention to specific issues. You're busy hacking for 12 hours and when you return to the world, perhaps looking quickly at Slashdot, all hell has broken loose. I trust Bruce, RMS and others to handle these situations perfectly well and there's no need for me to get particularly upset about it. I'd rather spend my energy on writing free software instead, wouldn't you?

Re:Oh yeah -- way to support them

[Bruce Perens]

Point taken - anything I say or do may end up being publicized way out of proportion and I'd better be more careful about it.

I get enough of the spotlight, don't worry about that. There's no chance that I'd miss it at this point - in fact I am fully aware of its disadvantages.

I think that you have to count Red Hat as a major company now.

Thanks

Bruce

Contracts and Minors

[youngsd]

I am a lawyer, but what follows is off the top of my head; don't quote me and don't rely on this as legal advice.

My recollection is that the general rule regarding contracts entered into by minors is that they are not void but are voidable. This means that minors can decide, after entering into an agreement, that they no longer want to be bound by the agreement. They are released from their obligations under the agreement, but they also give up any rights and benefits they obtained under the agreement.

That means that Corel doesn't have any legitimate reason to be worried about minors downloading their distribution. If a minor decides to void the EULA, the minor loses the rights granted under the EULA. At that point, the distribution is covered by background copyright law, so the minor is not legally permitted to copy the distribution. Only the EULA gives someone the right to copy the distribution. It makes sense, really. If the minor agrees to be bound by the EULA, the minor is permitted to do all of the things that Open Source is all about. If the minor rejects the agreement, the distribution is protected by copyright just like any other software.

I don't think Corel has any justifiable reason to be worried about minors downloading their distribution. And, of course, even if they did have a good reason to be worried, they do not appear to have the right under the GPL to add this clause to their EULA.

-Steve

Re:Apology to Corel

[Bruce Perens]

Well, Nick, we have Red Hat stock at over US$200 today from its original $14. That is going to convince some companies that it's worth it. I doubt there is much I can do to stop them. :-)

Bruce

Another More Serious Problem.

[the eric conspiracy]

It seems to me that the Corel EULA has problems in addition to the 'minor' business. In particular this little gem:

B. PROPRIETARY RIGHTS:

All right, title and interest in the Software Programs, including source code, documentation, appearance, structure and organization, are held by Corel Corporation, Corel Corporation Limited, and others and are protected by copyright and other laws.

How can Corel just paste in something like this? They don't own any such rights to the bulk of what constitutes Corel Linux. To pass through something like seems to me to be an indication of total lack of clue.

Re:I'll chill out now, thanks

[tgd]

Hey Bruce,

It sucks this happened on here, its yet another example of how /. has really been going downhill in the last six or nine months. It used to be the worst things that got posted were stories posted as new info that were duplicates of things posted in the past by other /. honchos.

Since the beginning of the year, that seems less of a problem, and a bigger problem is poorly researched stories being posted and thus given validation when they're wrong, or cases like this when things get blown way out of proportion.

Its like seeing Newsweek turn into the Enquirer.

Parser error!

[Bald Wookie]

Man, I must need more caffiene. Am I the only one who misread this sentence?

can't download unless you're 18"

Whoa, you need to be really well hung to use Corel Linux!

No, but seriously folks. Lets not go off half cocked on a (USA centric) holiday weekend. Obviously Corel's legal staff needs some clues. The standard boilerplate just isn't going to work alongside the GPL. A lawyer who is trusted by the community and a master of open source legal issues could make a killing right now. Corel really needs an expert on their staff. On the other side, the Free Software community needs to politely and firmly correct them. Keep the lawyer on speed dial, but don't make it the first button you hit.

They need to be given some time to be able to resolve the issue and explain themselves. Have they made a statement? Hell, linux.corel.com is 404ing right now. The power of the Internet may be rapid communication, but evicerating a company over a long weekend is not its best use. Personally, I'd rather not force them into making hasty decisions about matters of legal importance. Lets give their semi-clued lawyers a day or two to figure things out and make a statement before heading to Canada with pitchforks and torches.

-BW

Its all moot

[BigDaddy]

Frankly, the whole issue is moot. Here is why: 1. If one is 18+ yrs old, then the clause does not apply to him or her and that person can download the software with both a clear conscience and a legal right to do so. 2. If the person is less than 18, the agreeing to the contract is pointless because a minor cannot be held responsible anyway. In either case, the clause serves no purpose because either it doesn't apply because of age, or because of age, the responsibility is negated. This is not to say, that I support Corel. I think they were wrong to add this clause. But I think the real point is being missed. The question is not why are minors being licensed, but rather, why is anybody being licensed? Each individual piece of software has its own license. Be it GPL, BSD, or Corel. Why included the EULA at all?

Re:Oh yeah -- way to support them

[davidu]

1:
Bruce Writes: I think that you have to count Red Hat as a major company now.

Of course, but they are a 'major' company that already understands the premise of Free/Open/GPL software; that comment didn't help your point at all.
2:
I am shocked that so many people are taking the offensive and getting pissed at Corel. Like another poster said, sure we don't need big companies to keep Linux around in the server arena (I question that, but I'll give it to you) but for the workstation arena, we NEED support. Games like QuakeIII would have no chance if there weren't drivers for things like 3D cards and sound cards. Do you want to play Q3A in software render mode?...I think not! :)

-Davidu

Karma Inflation

[LL]

Bruce Perens [slashdot.org] wrote
Besides, I don't have Ulitmate Karma on Slashdot. Sig11's is higher than mine (I just happened to look at his user record a while back), probably other people as well.

Well, IMHO the absolute karma becomes rather meaningless after a while. I think what is more important is the relative karma/post ratio, ie some sort of median of how often your score goes up relative to the postings you make per week. I suspect people goes through a number of stages, initially posting lots to get the +1 bonus. Then more strategically (e.g. very early on in the thread to get noticed early) to race against the competition in running up your karma. Then I suppose the boredom stage sets in or your time runs out when more important things intrude in your life like an SO.

The biggest problem is that because you can create unlimited karma, the whole process gets out of control (can we say unbounded feedback loop?) and the whole system becomes inflated beyond recognition. To paraphrase Peter Drucker's saying that governments only do two things well, wage war and inflate the currency, I'd toss in the contention that /.ers only do two things well, initiate flamewars and inflate their karma :-). Don't know what the solution is, perhaps introduce a new rule that once your karma reaches 100 (tribal elder status?) you can moderate at any time and simultaneously post iff you're willing to sacrifice your existing karma. The alternative is to make sure that karma moderations on average sum to zero (or 1) (more difficult) so that people have an equal chance of going up/down and that the total karma doesn't tend to infinity and thus become overinflated (and thus devalued).

Ahhh ... the fun of designing a social currency.

LL

Shameless ploy

[scumdamn]

I think the whole thing is a ploy by Bruce to get Karma points ;> He got four for just apologizing!

Re:Apology to Corel (needs the BS removed)

[BDaniels]

You may not have expected that message to be posted to SlashDot, but you _DID_ put your "I'm not working with Corel any more and I'm thinking of suing" message as the first item on your site (technocrat.net).

Now you've removed it from Technocrat and you're trying to make it sound like /. reposted a private email. Sorry, but that's BS. You posted it publicly, you even trumpeted it on your site, and you should have known that such a dramatic statement would draw attention.

This morning you wanted the world to know. You regret your words now, fine. But you can't rewrite what happened to make it sound like you were victimized by /. Try taking responsibility for your messages _and_ your site.

--Brian

Lawsuits are inevitable unless we change course.

[Brett Glass]

The GPL, by its very nature, creates conflicts between open source developers and honest businesses -- large and small -- by putting them at odds with one another. It doesn't take more than a few minutes' reading at the FSF Web site -- in which Stallman repeatedly issues a call to arms against "proprietary" software (i.e. software which one can make money by licensing) to see the antagonism. (His essay in which he renames the Library GPL the "Lesser GPL" is an especially good example of this attitude.) A movement whose focus is the destruction of people's businesses and livelihoods can only lead to a battle -- no, rather, to a war consisting of many battles and many casualties.

Everyone -- businesses and the open source community -- would be better off if we adopted the win/win, "live and let livee" approach of other software licenses, such as the BSD license, the MIT X license, and the Artistic License.

Open source that's reusable by all -- such as the BSD TCP/IP stack -- is responsible for the growth of the Internet and the success of the World Wide Web. Instead of threatening lawsuits based on overly restrictive licenses such as the GPL, we should say, "Use this code as you will. You can't un-publish what's already been published for the world to see, so you can't 'take' it; you can only use it to avoid tediously reinventing the wheel. Now, let's see what you can do wih it! If you do not choose to publish the source to what you build with it, good luck to you -- it's not easy to make a living that way. If you are good enough to do it you deserve success."

Bruce, in the past you have had the strength and foresight to opt out of movements and groups which have become dogmatic and/or territorial. Perhaps it is time to reconsider your support of the GPL.

It seems that the only thing that the GPL has done which less restrictive licenses have not is to alienate and hurt people. (The GPL hasn't "forced" the opening of any code; people who don't want to publish their source, such as Be, have merely worked around it or reimplemented the algorithms themselves.) It even appears to violate Point 6 of the Open Source Definition -- which you helped to write! -- by discriminating against a field of endeavor: the creation of software which does not happen to be open source.

I realize that this would be a bold move, to be sure, but you're one of the few people I've encountered who has the guts to make it. Let's end the conflict, the bitterness, and the spite. It's time to get on with writing software, and to publish it in a way that quells conflicts rather than creating them. We will all be more productive, and happier, if we do.

--Brett Glass

Well, on reflection-

[Chris Johnson]

It's all very well to be calm and rational and reasonable. However, in the event of someone calmly and rationally taking actions to basically weaken the GPL by setting a precedent to alter pre-existing licenses on the grounds of convenience, I would calmly and rationally have their head for it :)
More accurately, since I _have_ read the GPL, do have a reasonable idea of what it requires, and have released software under it based on my desire for my licensing terms to be _just_ _like_ _that_, I will calmly and rationally suggest that Corel not only has to either recant quickly or lose their permission to redistribute GPLed software, I would also suggest that this 'worsening of the signal to noise ratio' is harmful. It is harmful because the more this is allowed, the more will happen. I would suggest (calmly and rationally) that it is very much a bad thing that Corel is permitted to blunder in this manner. Their mistakes make it appear that the GPL isn't really a license, or doesn't really bind, or doesn't really mean what it says. Never mind that no commercial vendor would _want_ licenses in general to be questioned- that their own EULAs and agreements depend on the same respect for the wording of licenses- the reality is that for Corel's legal people and many other people in their position, 'some are more equal than others' if they can get away with it. And that's not something that can be encouraged.
In other words: yes, somebody at Corel would have no problem with simultaneously arguing that the GPL doesn't really need to be taken literally, yet the Corel EULA _does_ need to be taken literally. Hence this confusion, and this problem. The central irony is this: in order for Linux to be properly protected, Linux has to _demand_ equal protection for its intellectual property under the law, and equal respect for its licenses. On the other hand, the people responsible for endangering this IP protection are the people who _most_ depend on it. The logical consequence is that Microsoft ought to donate huge sums to the FSF in order to fight Corel in court over the GPL, because then Microsoft is rid of Corel, and the GPL is finally tested in court and given the same protection as EULAs and such. It's nuts, but it's logical. Who better to protect the rights to IP than corporations? And what is this but a challenge by Corel (intentionally or not) that risks weakening the GPL's right to impose terms on IP? Calmly, rationally, this nonsense has to stop.

License proliferation

[maroberts]

I did mention in this post [slashdot.org] that I couldn't see the reason for the proliferation of licenses. I still can't see why there are just a few standard licences that we're all familiar with. I wouldn't have to read the Norton License, the Mozilla licence, Corel license etc if they just simply stuck to one of the more common license agreements out there. I'm sure we could get it down to about 3-4 different licenses in the end. Another good thing about cutting down on the number of licenses is that we are more likely to get litigation which hopefully would validate these licenses in law courts i.e. create precedents. AFAIK, we STILL don't know if the GPL is legally binding and effective. As far as I can see, Corels' 18 year old license restriction would have little effect anyway; since minors can't be bound by licenses in Canada, the term itself is paradoxically invalid. It MAY be valid in other countries though.

Re:Karma Inflation (leaving topic)

[cdlu]

Well...looking at the karma system I have an idea.

All users with positive karma should always be allowed to moderate. But every time they moderate, they lose one point of karma. They gain it back, or lose more, depending on how well they faired at metamoderation.

The only catch is that Signal 11's 270 or so karma points will be enough to moderate this entire discussion. :)

Re:here they come. nail in the coffin

[norton_I]

I am generally anti-lawsuit, so I sure how I feel about this idea, but look at it this way. Linux was not created to be a huge corporate phenomenon. It was not created with the intent that everyone would use it. Nor was it created with the intent that people should be excluded. I am perfectly willing to let anyone play with my toys, as long as they play by my rules. The rules are simple: Let others play as well.

Now, I believe that Corel honesty is trying to "do the right thing" and respect those rules, but is having a hard time getting used to our rules. If I thought that Corel was really trying to proprieterize Linux and other free software, I would be the first to sign up on a suit. A corporation that doesn't play fair is not welcome. As it stands, I am unsure. Their intentions may be good, that does not excuse their behavior.

The license is at the root of the conflict.

[Brett Glass]

I don't like debating licenses either. However, we must face facts: licensing is the root of the problem here. The only way to resolve this conflict -- and many others past, present, and future -- is to adopt a license which admits itself to fewer conflicts.

Any license which requires a developer to give up the value of his work in order to adapt or adopt freely available open source will inevitably cause friction between authors of open source and those who publish software for a living. The LGPL, which you mention above, is far less extreme than the GPL in terms of what it demands. However, because it still attempts to appropriate the work of others (some would say "confiscate," though I think the term is a bit strong), it is problematic and subject to serious legal questions. And these questions will cause court battles. (I don't want to go into this in great depth here, but the most serious problem with a license that requires disclosure of modifications under the same license is that it is a "contract to execute a contract," which -- according to basic contract law -- is per se unenforceable.)

I do not believe that many people are really so spiteful that they would withhold their code altogether, as you suggest above, just because someone else could use it to construct his or her own product. Apache -- which with 50%+ market share is arguably the most successful open source project of all -- has no problems obtaining code. And it uses the most liberal open source license of all -- in fact, it's a hair's breadth away from putting the code in the public domain.

We will all have the opportunity to prosper as the base of code that's truly free grows. While Stallman, and others, attempt to fan the flames of petty jealousy, I am inclined to believe that most people will be able to see past this appeal to childish spite and pettiness and recognize that it hurts rather than helps. I believe that all programmers will ultimately come to recognize the benefits of universally reusable open source -- code with no strings attached. Let's start now by consigning the GPL to history and moving on.

--Brett Glass

Re:Hold on

[IIH]

IANAL, but it seems to me that any restriction Corel places on the original download of their distribution is legal

I'm not so sure - From the GPL (emphasis mine):
"You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License"

Corel could refuse to sell their software to anyone other than Tibetan monks between the ages of 65 and 70. They just can't keep those monks from redistributing the GPLed portions.

Hold on, either Corel can add any restriction (like you said), or they can't. What if one of the restrictions was "You may not redistribute any of the enclosed software." Would you still regard that as legal?

If a precedent like this is set, what would stop a company trying to add "The program is covered by the GPL, but before we allow you to download it, you must agree to waive your GPL given-rights"?

Not as far fetched as you might think, and the thin edge of the wedge is always easier to stop, if you see it coming.
--

Re:Hold on

[copito]

You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License"

This is a bit ambiguous, I agree. But I think "all third parties" means all third parties to whom you have distributed the derivative program, any other meaning is too onerous.

Hold on, either Corel can add any restriction (like you said), or they can't. What if one of the restrictions was "You may not redistribute any of the enclosed software." Would you still regard that as legal?

Hold on, yourself. I said they could do most any restriction except preventing their customers from redistributing GPLed software. This obviously puts severe practical restrictions on their power, but it does not preclude them from restricting primary access.
--

Re:Lawsuits are inevitable unless we change course

[Bruce Perens]

There's not a chance that I'll opt out of the GPL. Businesses have to realize that free software is something we share with them. Red Hat does just fine with this, other businesses have to learn how.

Bruce

Thoughts on Corel

[PigleT]

Hmmm.
Good on you, I guess...

Some thoughts from me: I downloaded and tried this last week, and was frankly disgusted. It took too long to boot into the GUI. The package selection was foul - clicking 2 levels of trees to find only one package where I *know* the real debian has masses. Then the worst insult of all - repartitioning. No, you can't assign a mountpoint to an existing partition, you have to delete and recreate it. No, when you recreate it you specify a size in megs and it uses that as the cylinder difference instead. Then it complains that there's not enough space to install your selected packages. Having gone through this rigmarole twice, at about 15mins apiece, the CD hit the opposite wall with a satisfying thud, although it still works (worse luck) - oh, and I posted to my favourite local Linux newsgroup with a flame of a review and forwarded a copy to the Corel feedback email address.

It says it all that I've not even had an acknowlegement of the email I sent them, let alone the time I wasted one evening setting it all up.

I *have* gone back to the real Debian, and intend to stay with it for a while - on both desktops (the home one has just been reinstalled) and my notebook.

So as for these petty licensing derangements - Corel can indeed go to hell. I'm totally in favour of boycotting them, especially given what it says for the real debian.

Re:You guys can't see the forest for the trees....

[PigleT]

Yes, thanks for the pointer in the direction of normality!

But.. it's not by sitting on one's communal derriere that we've got to the state of play where we can challenge corporations like that. Something needs saying, sensibly / rationally / presentably / pointedly, to Corel, with the weight of the community's backing behind it - then there's no excuse for them not to change it.
They *will* *have* to change it. Not everything is got right the first time round, but I expect things to right themselves in time too.

Minors *are* covered by licenses

[Morgaine]

That's rubbish, because if it were true then minors wouldn't be bound by the licenses in shrink-wrapped games either.

Now just go and ask games manufacturers whether their licensing binds minors as well. I don't think you'll find any disagreement or hesitation in their answers.

Eliminating conflict

[Brett Glass]

My comments weren't at all posted as flamebait. My goal in posting here is, in fact, to head off conflict -- the conflict we are sure to see as a result of the problematic provisions of the GPL. Our world is tumultous and chaotic enough; the last thing we need is to divide programmers into multiple warring camps.

Alas, the FSF seems eager to do this. Via the GPL, it attempts to turn code into a weapon and set up a battle -- open source vs. closed source -- which need not be. The two can, and should, coexist gracefully and complement one another.

The only way that this can happen, however, is if we eliminate licenses with so-called "copyleft" provisions. These provisions truly do discriminate against the creation of software which does not happen to be open source. This is a field of endeavor -- in fact, a whole industry. By discriminating against it the GPL truly does violate the Open Source Definition. What's more, as I've mentioned earlier, "copyleft" restrictions are almost certein be ruled unenforceable by any court, because by agreeing to them one is making a contract to make a contract (in fact, to make many contracts).

The problematic provisions of the GPL stem from author Richard Stallman's having declared war on the very concept of intellectual property -- the coin of the realm in the electronic age. But no one bemefits from war. What we need instead is a positive, cooperative, synergetic relationship between open source -- truly open source -- and closed source. Between free sharing and the fundamental needs of creative people to be compensated for their work. The incident we see here is just one of the many possible problems we can avoid if we return to the classic, unencumbered form of open source that was pioneered at MIT and Berkeley long before the GPL.

--Brett Glass

Can you blame him?

[Inoshiro]

I know he's backed off now, but I agree with his actions. Corel must be held accountable.

Corel has dropped the ball so much recently. They must have some lawyers -- did it ever occur to them to consult with these lawyers? If they did, why did the lawyers not stop them?

First, they break the GPL by trying to be the same old closed-source company. Why did we accept this? Because they were new, and a mistake is OK the first time.

Next, they decided to link in GPLed code with code that does not share a similar licence. Why? There was no excuse for this one, but we forgave them because they were well intentioned. Heck, I've worked on a GPL program that uses libraries that are not GPLed. However, I did check to see if the licence permitted it (it did).

And now, they seem to have decided that only people who can be held responsible for using a free as in freedom operating system shall have it. IT IS FREE! FREEDOM! Who do they think they are? How do they think they can dictate fair usage of FREE, OPEN code?

I'm Canadian, and so are they. Corel makes me feel ashamed to be in the same country. Why? Because they are too apathetic to even get a Linux distribution done correctly. Hopefully Linux One, and a similar slew of "We have a distro, too!" companies won't make the same screwups, otherwise we're in for a hellish new year.
---

Re:Lawsuits are inevitable unless we change course

[Brett Glass]

Businesses have to realize that free software is something we share with them.

There's no conflict between this notion and that of moving to a license which is not antagonistic to business.

"Sharing" does not mean demanding something unreasonable in return -- which is, alas, what the GPL does. "Sharing" must be done willingly. If you start by demanding things in return, you are not sharing; you are negotiating a transaction. You are being adversarial, not cooperative.

And, yes, individuals and businesses will and do give back, as has been shown in every open source software project which uses a license other than the GPL. Why? Because it is in their interest to do so. Who wants to maintain thousands of tiny enhancements through different versions of an open source program? The only thing which businesses will keep private -- and they are justified in doing so! -- are major creative works for which they deserve the chance to be compensated. So, things sort themselves out properly without the need for undue restrictions -- or for lawsuits.

Self-interest is a far stronger and more pleasant motivator than any license.

--Brett

Re:Slashdot's irresponsible "news" reporting

[Imperator]

Big difference: ZDNet wouldn't have known who Bruce Perens is. Slashdot knows and places too much emphasis on it.

Re:Can you blame him?

[Imperator]

LinuxOne just did a s/Red Hat/LinuxOne/ over the entire RH6.0 CD and called it a distro. It's just a make-money-fast scheme. Many of the other me-too distros will be the same way.

Debian/Slashdot paparazzi ?

[Morgaine]

So, somebody on that Debian list is your typical paparazzi and someone in Slashdot is your typical sensation-seeking news editor. Doesn't that just make one feel all warm and fuzzy? ;-(

What annoys me more though is that people are making silly interpretations of the GPL instead of examining Corel's stuff. I would have thought that the relevant statement in the GPL was clear enough: 'You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works.' How can that leave any doubt that there is no requirement in the GPL for contractual binding, since the GPL is not a contract binding its signatories but a legal copying and distribution constraint binding the software, and that therefore contract law is irrelevant? And as if that weren't enough, anyone with half a clue can see that games licenses do not lose validity when games are sold to minors, else the games industry would be in utter shambles. So what is there to discuss? About the GPL, nothing as far as I can see.

But about the EULA there's plenty to discuss so let's discuss it, without throwing irrelevant contractual nonsense about the GPL into the works.

Re:minors and EULA's

[Brett Glass]

Which is precisely why license "agreements" of any kind are not only monsterously unethical, they are stupid.

Good point, Leo. However, this begs the question: is any license which comes attached to a product and unilaterally imposes onerous requirements upon someone who uses it for a particular purpose likewise "monstrously unethical?"

If so, it is possible to argue that the GPL, too, is monstrously unethical. Like the shrinkwrap license, it unilaterally imposes serious (and possibly unenforceable; we don't know yet) restrictions. Just like a spreadsheet license which said that the software vendor owned all the data you processed with the spreadsheet, the GPL stakes a claim upon the code of developers who wish to reuse code and avoid reimplementing the wheel. It is, in some fact, worse than the shrinkwrap license, in that shrinkwrap licenses are not (at least in any situation I've seen) "viral."

I think that the real cause of conflict in this situation is, in fact, the GPL.

--Brett

Apologies.

[Chris Johnson]

I'm seeing quite a bit of sentiment indicating that Linux users and GPL-using authors should ask Corel to apologize, to say 'oops', and then should sit back and trust them.

Well... of course somebody at Corel will be told to say 'oops'. That's his job. Its name is 'Public Relations'.

There's also people there whose job it is to figure out the next testing of the outside of the envelope. They are called 'lawyers'.

Forget that they have PR people for a minute, and also forget about their lawyers, and let's just look at their ACTIONS, okay? Their actions have consistently been causing problems. It doesn't matter that there's somebody to say 'oops'. That is a PR person, that's their job, it does not mean as much as people would like to believe.

I personally have a lot more respect for Bruce Perens for momentarily _refusing_ to listen to the PR flacks and looking at what Corel is repeatedly doing. I'm not sure if people realise that permitting such abuses of the GPL is very similar to letting people talk about xeroxing documents...

If you do that, the Xerox people _will_ speak to you and make sure you are aware that you are using their registered trademark as if it were a generic term, that other companies have lost their trademarks over just such weakening of the mark, and that Xerox (r) does not intend to weaken its mark in such a manner.

Well, the behavior by Corel obviously weakens the GPL- to the extent that it goes unchallenged. Anybody picking a fight with the GPL will be able to point at the Corel actions involving it, and the community responses to it. They will be able to truthfully say to a judge or jury, "This is not actually binding, because it is not obeyed or respected by even the people who use it. Look, here are 500 slashdot posts saying that Corel should not be penalized in any way for their alterations of the license, because Corel will benefit the community. Isn't it true that the GPL is a legal fiction that is not actually intended to be followed- as seen by these posts effectively waiving it in the court of public opinion... and therefore, shouldn't it be declared null and void?"

That's a perfectly legitimate approach for a lawyer to take, to invalidate the GPL. It's Corel above all who are making that argument possible, by repeatedly adding and altering conditions- and it's Linux users who are helping, by assenting to this alteration of the license, and making the argument that Corel should not be held responsible to the terms of the license.

I'm sorry, but I don't assent to the alterations of the license. I have software out there under the GPL, and I don't remember giving Corel permission to alter, challenge and weaken the license for their own convenience. I'm not concerned with how quickly a PR flack can be found and made to say 'oops'. These changes need to stop, or Bruce Perens' hasty reaction will be the only sensible course of action in the long run.

I _realize_ people want to be nice and not seem threatening or combative, but this is not fantasyland, or high school: this is the real world, there are consequences, and allowing a widely used agreement like the GPL to be defined differently in practice than it is in writing is bad. It makes an argument possible that the written version isn't really the applicable one- just as we need to look at Corel's _action_, so the courts will assuredly look at the Linux community's _action_ to ascertain how valid the GPL is when challenged. Do we, seriously, want to establish the precedent that you get to do whatever you want as long as you don't keep doing it for so long that it gets annoying? More relevantly, how many people advocating that Corel be let off easy have themselves written GPLed software- which of these people don't actually have anything to lose?

I think if attention is paid to the Linux community's wishes as to how closely the GPL must be followed, the attention needs to go to the people who have written software that uses it. I don't think it's at all helpful for people who aren't actually using the license on their own work to say 'Take it easy, maybe they don't have to obey this license that closely'. I think most people who do use the GPL on their own work would not wish legal precedent to be set that the license isn't really real, that in practice it's customarily altered and bent to fit situations. I certainly do not. From Bruce Perens' initial reaction, I don't think he wishes that conclusion to be drawn either.

Re:Lawsuits are inevitable unless we change course

[DaemonDownTheHall]

"Sharing" does not mean demanding something unreasonable in return -- which is, alas, what the GPL does. "Sharing" must be done willingly. If you start by demanding things in return, you are not sharing; you are negotiating a transaction.

You are mistaken here. "Giving" is done willingly, without demanding something in return. "Sharing" is done with the expectation that the other person will "share" back.

Demanding something unreasonable in return is neither of those, and nor does it pertain to the GPL. The GPL enforces sharing, the BSD license expects the other person to want to share. The businesses I have worked with in the past have absolutely no intention of ever sharing code, so I release under the GPL. If businesses in general were willing to share, I'd put my code in the public domain.

You are being adversarial, not cooperative.

No, I'm being realistic. If your experience with businesses and other people leads you to view the world as rosey, then feel free to BSD your code. I have a less-rosey view of businesses, so I GPL mine.

Re:Eliminating conflict

[Menthos]

To me, your comments make absolutely no sense.

I think that there's no "conflict between licenses" in the first hand. The BSD-stylish licenses and copyleft licenses (à la GPL) can coexist gracefully. Each of them has their own purposes, goals, and it's up to each developer to choose a license that fits them.
You say too that they can, and should, coexist gracefully. But in the next sentence you want to "eliminate" all copyleft licenses??

Let me ask why copyleft discriminates open source? Copyleft is just "hey, here's the code, do what you want, but let it be free, just like it were to you". I don't think that's discriminating. If you find a piece of code that you want to use, you have to accept the rules before you use it. In this game, the rule is the license. If you don't accept it, don't use it. Write your own code, or find another one. But don't complain about what's given to you.

What you fail to see is also that many developers prefer GPL style licenses over BSD style licenses. This is because they want to be sure that their code never gets hidden away in a closed source commercial package. I think you should respect these developer's desiscions.
Many others prefer BSD style licenses, because it insures them that their code will get used and wide-spread now and forever. Each of them have their own philosophy, and uses.

You think that there's a war going on. I see no war. I don't think there's a war, nor will there be, unless people like you, ranting and shouting that the GPL is evil and only BSD is the truly Open Source license, get too noisy. Grow up.

Re:minors and EULA's

[ewhac]

...is any license which comes attached to a product and unilaterally imposes onerous requirements upon someone who uses it for a particular purpose likewise "monstrously unethical?"

In the general case, yes, this is my opinion. I have yet to be shown a situation where a vendor has any ethical, moral, or even economic claim to the kinds of restrictions found in shrinkwrap "agreements."

If so, it is possible to argue that the GPL, too, is monstrously unethical. Like the shrinkwrap license, it unilaterally imposes serious (and possibly unenforceable; we don't know yet) restrictions.

As I outlined in another Slashdot post [slashdot.org], the GPL differs significantly from all other shrinkwrap licenses. Nearly all shrinkwraps attempt to constrain use; the GPL constrains copying. The GPL in no way constrains your ability to use the code for your own purposes. If, however, you wish to make and distribute copies, then the GPL stipulates the conditions under which you will be granted a license to do so.

Schwab

ummm

[/]

Star Division had produced a linux port of star office long before Sun bought them out. If you step out of the past conditional and start talking about future development, then your point would be correct. Still, I would not tie my continuing linux use to Corel if I were you; they have a history of jumping onto bandwagons without following through. Hopefully this time will be different, but such hope is no reason to be rash.

Re:Lawsuits are inevitable unless we change course

[dennisp]

I agree. Each to his or her preferred license. I'll say outright that I prefer the BSD license and dislike the GPL definition of free -- but I am very willing and happy to reinvent the wheel if I do not agree with the license put forth.

I think Brett's problem is that he views the GPL as an evil disease that will eventually take over the software industry if not combatted by his presentation of logic. Truthfully though, when push comes to shove, if livelihood is damaged, then people will stop using a particular license.

There is also no risk of widespread GPL "infection". Really, the GPL, BSD, and some other licenses aren't particularly compatible with many types of software. Really.

What I don't like, is the license zealots trying to force others into their license preference. If sun were to GPL all their software (their OS in particular) -- as some would have it -- then there is nothing stopping people from integrating that code into linux (or whatever), partly eliminating their hardware advantage, as we could then probably easily scale x86 smp, and whatever else to competitive levels.

Lawsuits are inevitable, period.

[DragonHawk]

The GPL, by its very nature, creates conflicts between open source developers and honest businesses ... by putting them at odds with one another.

That is, unfortunately, an inevitable result of the restrictions the GPL places on how you can redistribute code based on GPL'ed software. Many people like the benefits of the GPL, and they will have to live with those conflicts.

It doesn't take more than a few minutes' reading at the FSF Web site ... to see the antagonism.

The GPL has a number of advantages to many people. Just because the people who originated it are somewhat, shall we say, vocal in their opinions, does not mean we should abandon it. When I evaluate the GPL, I look at the words in the license, not the rhetoric on the FSF website.

Everyone ... would be better off if we adopted the win/win, "live and let livee" approach of other software licenses...

There is some debate over that issue (to put it mildly).

People have made the very good point that the GPL helps prevent the forking we've seen with Unix. The lack of restrictions on the BSD license lead to the fragmentation of BSD into tens of free and commercial OSes, all mutually incompatible with each other.

There is also the "Free Ride" syndrome. The GPL seeks to encourage open source development by preventing people from taking open code and using in their closed products, with no return to those who wrote the original code.

I often think of this as an alternative form of payment. With commercial software, you pay a fee to use source code. With GPL software, you are required to give something back to the community to make use of the GPL code. You are always free to not use the GPL code, of course.

The GPL hasn't "forced" the opening of any code...

You are certainly correct there. The GPL cannot force you to do anything. Again, it comes down to what you are willing to "pay". If you are willing to open your own code, to the benefit of the community, the GPL is fine. Otherwise, you will have to invest time and money in reimplementing what the GPLed code would have done for you. This is no different then any other software license; if you are not willing to pay the price, you don't use the software.

The reason I say lawsuits are inevitable, period, is because so many are sue-happy these days. What if some company decides that you are using a patented algorithm in your BSDL'ed code? A lawsuit, I am sure. Will the GPL lead to more lawsuits then the BSDL? Possibly. But those who use the GPL will doubtless say that the lawsuits are worth it.

Corel can do okay

[craw]

Another tempest in a teapot. Corel can easily save face and win nex converts if they respond to this "crisis" in a the proper manner. If they made a mistake, the they should say so in a gracious manner. Like Bruce said, mea culpa. If Corel has a legitimate point, but if it is not in keeping with the spirit of the GPL, then they should explain their decision. A stupid mistake would be to hide behind the wall of the legal system. If Corel mainly uses this, then they don't understand, nor appreciate, the open source concept.

If Corel does the right thing, then could come out of this thing like angels. Remember when IBM went after CmdrTaco for trademark violations? After the storm receded, IBM clearly explained their view; /.'s logo was not correct. But here's the correct logo, and /. is clear to use it.

Billy Carter was right.

Bruce is right! Arm yourselves!

[gregm]

Assuming that Canadian law demands that Corel discriminate against minors:

Read section 7 of the GPL, here's an excerpt.

"7. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent
issues), conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this
License, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your
obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the Program at
all."

Seems pretty straightforward to me. My interpretation:

If you can't follow the rules for whatever reason you can't play.

Section 8 says:

"8. If the distribution and/or use of the Program is restricted in certain countries either by patents or by copyrighted interfaces,
the original copyright holder who places the Program under this License may add an explicit geographical distribution limitation excluding those countries, so that distribution is permitted only in or among countries not thus excluded. In such case, this
License incorporates the limitation as if written in the body of this License."

Now if Corel won't or can't change their EULA then we must act swiftly and brutally. If we give an inch, we set precedent that will eternally weaken the GPL. If Canada is indeed the culprit then Section 10 might be a way out for Corel:

"10. If you wish to incorporate parts of the Program into other free programs whose distribution conditions are different, write to
the author to ask for permission."

If Canadian law isn't the bad guy here and Corel is just totally clueless then we need to be hit them as hard and as fast as possible because they're testing the waters. According to many of the articles here on slashdot we're loosing our rights left and right :) We're loosing these rights IMHO because we're too lazy to keep our governments at bay. Same thing here people if we let this slide then Corel or someone else will keep chipping away at the GPL like the American government has been chipping away at constitution of the US.

Re:What the GPL constrains

[Brett Glass]

As you observe, the GPL says -- in effect -- "Some uses are more allowed than others." And programmers, in particular, get the short end of the stick: the uses from which they could benefit most are prohibited unless they give away the farm.

--Brett

Re:What the GPL constrains

[Brett Glass]

He goes farther. Stallman suggests banning high pay for programmers so as to encourage them to stay in low-paying jobs -- e.g. in academia. He says:

For more than ten years, many of the world's best programmers worked at the Artificial Intelligence Lab for far less money than they could have had anywhere else. They got many kinds of non-monetary rewards: fame and appreciation, for example. And creativity is also fun, a reward in itself.

Then most of them left when offered a chance to do the same interesting work for a lot of money.

What the facts show is that people will program for reasons other than riches; but if given a chance to make a lot of money as well, they will come to expect and demand it. Low-paying organizations do poorly in competition with high-paying ones, but they do not have to do badly if the high-paying ones are banned.

--Brett Glass

Re:Lawsuits are inevitable unless we change course

[dennisp]

When I see GPL software taking over traditional software such as quicken, notes, photoshop, anything with a limited market and high profit margins and/or very complex software, any number of productivity business solutions, industry specific software such as 3d studio max, lightwave, and softimage, I might believe you. Until then, no way. Things like games, of course, will likely always remain closed.

Visiting freshmeat, there aren't many particularly innovative products. You can find anything there, and 100x better in the commerical software world. This may just be because this way of doing things is in its infancy, but I wouldn't hold my breath. There are only so many things that can be done in this recipricol or symbiotic manner. This becomes particularly apparent when making typical easy to use end-user software.

Re:Slashdot's irresponsible "news" reporting

[platypus]

In an ideal word you were right, unfortunately here someone from could easily construct an article with qoutes from slashdot which would give a very negative impression about the whole thing.
Think of a headline like "Prominent open source advocat threatens to sue corel corp.".
I know this could happen with other slashdot articles too, but in this case it's so easy for a clueless reporter to f*ck up.

Why I disagree with your disagreement

[ToastyKen]

I'm a pretty big fan of free speech, and I can tell you why I do NOT believe /. moderation is censorship.

Slashdot is not suppressing anyone's opinion to the point of making them unheard. It's merely giving you a suggestion.

Do you have a problem against positive moderation? I think it's one of the most useful systems I've seen. Do you think it's also censorship because increasing the score of one post inherently devalues the other posts to some degree (since the more high-score posts a person reads, the fewer normal-scored posts they're likely to read).

Think of -1 scores not as negative scores, but as giving everyone else a positive score.. In a way, it's just saying, "I think everything else is more worthwhile than this."

Imagine if we all started out with default thresholds of -1, and people had to manually set their thresholds to 0, just like some people set their thresholds to 2 or 3 or more. Do you still think that'd be censorship?

But the main point remains that you can very very easily read the -1 comments, and thus they are not being suppressed. In fact, quite to the contrary, Slashdot employs multiple mechanisms to facilitate your reading -1 comments. That's hardly suppression!

Re:Slashdot's irresponsible "news" reporting

[platypus]

From Marriam-Webster dictionary:

Main Entry: journalism
Pronunciation: 'j&r-n&l-"i-z&m
Function: noun
Date: 1833
1 a : the collection and editing of news for presentation through the media b : the public press c : an academic study concerned with the collection and editing of news or the management of a news medium
2 a : writing designed for publication in a newspaper or magazine b : writing characterized by a direct presentation of facts or description of events without an attempt at interpretation c : writing designed to appeal to current popular taste or public interest

They don't mention the need to do background research, I fear that is your idealistic interpretation of the word.
You can't avoid it, even when you post just links to other news-stories, you are still _selecting_, that means editing, and that means journalism.
I guess you and me wouldn't be reading slashdot if they would emphasize on windows nt success stories.

And - this special case wasn't even one of the 99% you mention.

You're dead wrong on copywrite law

[alexhmit01]

Trademark Law and Copywrite Law are VERY different. There is NO dilution of a copyright, like there is with a trademark.

Trademarks protect a company that utilizes a name from others profitting on that good will. If the term ceases to be specific to the company, than it is considered diluted and not trademarked.

This does NOT apply to copyrights (or patents, another point that ./ers miss). If I create an artistic expression, it is copyrighted. It is MY work. I can do whatever I want. I can license it as arbitrarily as I want, because it IS mine.

If I create a name for my business that becomes synonymous with the industry, then that word no longer refers to my business, so my trademark goes away.

Do you understand the difference? It doesn't matter if the copyright owners do nothing 90% of the time and everyone on /. says "do nothing," if any copyright owner complains when his copyright is violated, he can sue. There is NO concept of dilution of a copyright.

Alex

You are being silly...

[Per Abrahamsen]

The GPL doesn't create conflicts. It demonstrates, like all licenses, that conflicts of interest exists. If there were no conflicts of interest, there would be no need for licenses.

The conflict of interest that justify the GPL, is the interest of (some) free software programmers to ensure that all public enhancements to their code remain free, as opposed to some companies interest in keeping their enhancements to the code unfree.

One way to resolve this conflict would be, as you suggest, for the free software programmers to give up their right, and let these companies keep their enhancements unfree. This particular brand of conflict resolution is called "unconditional surender."

Another way to solve the conflict would be to note that the interest of the free software programmers are in no way helped by the unfree enhancements, while making free enhancements have proven valuable to many companies. This leads to to potential conflict resolutions: One is that the company ignore the free software, in which neither part have lost anything. The other is that the company makes free enhancements to the code, in which case both parts win.

This later way of resolving the conflict is, to me, much prefereable than your suggestion which basically amounts to telling the free software programmers to "bend over and let them bugger you".

You have nailed it!

[Brian Knotts]

I don't spite, nor begrudge my colleagues, Brett. Rather, I say, use what works for you. You, on the other hand, *DO* begrudge any and all who use the GPL. You insist that all people coding open source software release it in a way *YOU* can take and make money on. I don't suppose you feel any desire to then funnel a fair amount back to the coders, do you? No. You'd rather that coders just give you stuff, to hell with their rights, time, etc.

This is one of the best summaries of how the anti-GPL people come off to GPL people. They rant and rave about "freedom," when in fact what they really want is the "freedom" to restrict what others can do with software (i.e., restrictive binary licensing). But, what's worse is that they want a free ride from Free Software authors while doing so.

If that isn't downright despicable, I don't know what is.

Look, I have no problem with the BSD License, and similar licenses, as a general rule. It's not what I prefer, but I understand that some people prefer them. The GPL advocates I see posts from seem to feel the same way Now, if we could just get the remaining few rabid anti-GPL advocates to take the same view, everyone can be happy.


Interested in XFMail? New XFMail home page [slappy.org].

Re:Lawsuits are inevitable unless we change course

[dmaxwell]

"not antagonistic to business"


Why is there this insistance that Open Source has to be particularly sensitive to business? Most academic institutions can play by GPL rules; most nonprofits have no problem with it and most individual users have no problems with it. It seems that the only people who think the GPL is a "restrictive" license are pro business zealots. I have no problems with business using this stuff and even pitching in a hand. Even RMS doesn't have a problem with business using the software.


A business has no special right to Embrace and Extend community code. If a sufficiently large and powerful business were to Embrace and Extend free code then that version would become "canonical". This would impose restrictions...that word again..that the community users and developers would find intolerable. Why must we sanction attempts by large and powerful organizations to usurp this code? That is the freedom you are so ardently defending.


You are defending a paradox. Does your concept of freedom include the freedom to sell yourself into slavery? If so, then there is a problem. No reasonable concept of freedom will countanance slavery. You argue a related case. That developers should be free to let bigger fish steal their code. This is not freedom. You mention "major creative works" for which business has the right to demand compensation. This may be so but what if this "major creative work" is based on code that is the product of the sweat of others? They have no pride of place in this context. That is what the GPL prevents. The GPL insures that in the very worst case...say Microsoft having untrammeled power to borg the entire industry..that there is a base of software immune to the tactics necessary for this to take place.

Re:You're dead wrong on copywrite law

[Chris Johnson]

I don't agree that it's that guaranteed. Perhaps what I'm saying is that I don't have the faith you have that this is the case- especially when we're talking about a community-used license going up against the lawyers of big corporations. You do realise that if (to use the most extreme example I can think of) somebody bribed the judge to make an exception and find the GPL 'not really a license', in other words defining it by usage rather than by the language, that would be the legal precedent? I really, really don't have the faith in the virtuous and incorruptible judicial system you do. I'm damn glad it works as advertised a lot of the time, but I'm simply not ready to assume that people can use the GPL differently than the wording of the license and not raise the question of later consequences. I think we will have to disagree there.

Re:BSD "forking" a myth. But Linux forks abound...

[DragonHawk]

Actually, contrary to Raymond's "Halloween document," there hasn't been a new fork of the BSDs in several years.

I wasn't quoting Eric Raymond, and I was not referring only to the past few years. Don't reply to ESR or RMS; reply to me, if you please.

BSD forked into many, mutually incompatible systems. There are the three major "free" forks: FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD. IIRC, they all derive from a 386BSD project which is now defunct. Furthermore, many (most?) commercial Unixes trace their roots to those original, source available without restrictions, Unixes from AT&T and UCB.

That is what I am refering to when I say BSD forked. Unix could have been the universal future of interoperability between all computers; instead, it turned into a bunch of petty turf wars between Unix vendors. As others have put it, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

However, there are now a couple of dozen forks of Linux, and more are appearing all the time.

There are? I was not aware of any. Perhaps you refer to the various projects like RT-Linux, HA-Linux, ucLinux, and so on? There is a difference here between those and your typical BSD fork.

What we have here are a number of side projects. A bunch of people have a particular need or see a particular problem. To maximize development efficency, they start hacking in a high-density, limited system. Their work remains freely available -- because of the GPL -- and in every case I know of, they are ideally aiming to remerge with the Linux kernel proper. If not, the mainstream kernel people can take ideas they like and incorporate them back into the main kernell. The GPL ensures that nobody can make a propriatary, closed Linux variant. That is the major selling point of the GPL. Yes, it causes problems with some people, but many others feel it is worth it.

Hence, the fragmentation of Linux into many incompatible distributions.

I would like to call that FUD, but I was called out for over using that term, so I will instead call it an outright lie.

As far as I know, there is not one single Linux distribution which is not compatible with every other Linux distribution out there (platform specific dependcies aside -- don't complain that LinuxPPC doesn't run on your Alpha).

Do problems occur because someone's pre-compiled, third-party binary was dynamically linked against a different C library then which it was compiled for? Yes, that is not unheard of. But the problem comes from user X's system being out of date. Try to run a modern FreeBSD binary on a first-release 386BSD system, and I suspect you will have similar problems. You can hardly expect libraries to magically distribute themselves.

I am not saying the GPL is the end-all and be-all of all existance, like certain people (*cough* Stallman *cough*) do. I am simply asserting that, like any license, it has its strengths and weaknesses, and that many people believe the strengths are worth the weaknesses.

Re:Depends on what your motives are...

[Le douanier]

If your motive is to create an alternative OS to take on Microsoft, you can forget about it.

Isn't that what Linux is doing? (you didn't mention making money while taking on MS in this phrase, so it is valid ;))

Re:Depends on what your motives are...

[Le douanier]

"I don't think .25% of the market is all that signifigant."

It is not significant on the desktop yet but it is eating NT's lunch, that is Unix companies that would have switched to NT of there wasn't Linux, so it must be very frustrating for MS.

The desktop will follow soon. Last year (Xmas 98) I was explaining to some friends what Linux was and I was telling them that it wasn't ready for the desktop yet but in two years time it very probably would be. This year I think that we are very close to the desktop level, we just need some more polishing, an easier config, USB supported more broadly and a few more killer applications (like Gnucash, KOffice,...).

Re:Just sent this to Bruce (Possible flaw in GPL?)

[Gleef]

copito wrote:

I see nothing in the GPL that requires me to give software to anyone that asks. I just can't restrict further redistribution.

In general, this is true. In this particular case the software in binary form can be distributed without regards to age, but when a minor goes to retrieve the source code, as per the GPL, the 18+ restriction comes to play.

----

Re:"Minors can't enter into legal agreement" BS

[cduffy]

Yes, it's OK to be a warez dude as long as you're under 18.

That's what the law states; That's How It Is.

Now, the software publishing companies would really rather be ignoring that fact...