A
Arne Vajhøj
Maybe, but you will not get rich by selling $40 software.
Arne
[A bit rambling] Open source licensing being questioned byanti-copyright types
Maybe, but you will not get rich by selling $40 software.
Arne
A
Arne Vajhøj
If you want to make it work, then you can make it work.
Use a linking exception.
Use GPL V3.
Distribute the source and ask the users to get Clojure themselves
and build.
Make a very narrow definition of how GPL should be interpreted. The
point is that the two copyright holders you and Clojure will not
bring you to court.
If you want to see a problem, then you can definitely find problems.
Not much Java code intended for inclusion in other programs are GPL.
And "similar" is not specific.
"someone", "vague enough" and "otherwise had loopholes" is just empty
words.
I would not be concerned over those.
Since open source requires copyright then no copyright means
no open source.
So the existence of open source does not prove that copyright is
not necessary.
I have my doubts whether Against Monopoly (run by a pair of degreed
economists) and Techdirt (run by a successful dot-com entrepreneur) are
"from teenagers that want to be able to download everything for free and
have parents to pay the bills".
Given that you do not provide links or names or anything, then
the teenager guess is as good as any.
There may be many different ways to use copyright.
But copyright works identical for all - open source or closed
source.
In fact open source are some of the fiercest enforcer of copyright,
because:
* they need it even more when they hand out source code
* a large fraction of open source people do not believe in
patents, so they only have copyright
Arne
A
Arne Vajhøj
Actually it does a lot more.
Open source means a lot more than access to the source code.
For custom software the difference between open source and closed
source are not that important.
But for consumer software it is bigger, because they will never
want it customized.
Bullshit.
If the open source is distributed for free, then there are no
incentive for users to redistribute.
But if it is distributed for a cost (above pocket change), then
there sure is an incentive.
Let us say that your favorite Linux distro was sold for $1000
and you bought a copy. I am pretty sure that you would be willing
to provide your brother and your best friend with a copy. And
they would also be willing to provide it to a few people.
This is again custom software not consumer software.
Arne
M
Mike Schilling
Nigel said:
Right. The GPL is viral, resulting in restictions on the code you add to
it.. BSD is not.
B
Bent C Dalager
If open source "requires" copyright then it is only because in the
current legal regime copyright is mandatory.
It does help, of course, that copyright is such a huge and
indiscriminate sledgehammer you can use it to kill just about
/anything/, including copyright. Open source will tend to use the best
tool for the job even if that tool is copyright.
This doesn't make much sense. Open source doesn't use copyright to
protect its source from being copied and so they do not "have
copyright" in the sense that copyright is protecting their business
model. To the extent copyright is used as a tool at all in open source
licenses it tend to be used to force the source to remain open but
this then is an ideological goal, not a means with which to protect
one's business in any way.
Neither patents nor copyright are needed for software development to
thrive so it seems to me your conclusion is based on false premises.
Cheers,
Bent D
L
Lew
False. They do use copyright to give them legally assertable authority to
determine the rules under which source can be copied, and they therefore use
copyright to protect source from being copied outside the boundaries of the
license.
Arne never proffered the premise that patents or copyright are needed for
software development, so that does not apply. He only said they need it more
when they give away source code, clearly because of the need for all the legal
ammunition at your disposal when you give things away freely.
What Arne did suggest was that, in fact, open-source licenses rely on
copyright for their enforceability, and that copyright holders do, in fact,
rely on that legal theory to enforce their rights, and they are, in fact,
fierce enforcers of their copyright rights. All these are evident in the
world as a matter of record.
Whether it's true or relevant that a "large fraction of open source people do
not believe in patents, so they only have copyright [to protect their
interests]" is debatable, and you'd be justified to challenge Arne on both the
evidence of the assertion and the applicability to the use of copyright law to
enforce open-source licenses. The statement itself is not very far-fetched,
so I'm willing to accept that many "open-source people" favor copyright
protection over patent protection. They probably have very well thought-out
reasaons for this preference, no doubt well founded in legal and tactical
concerns.
I believe Arne could also make a very strong case for relevance. His stated
premises seem at least plausible, certainly not worthy of dismissal out of
hand, his conclusions are strongly explained and his asserted facts are mostly
in evidence.
There's a difference between an assertion that copyright law is used to
enforce ownership rights, which is quite clearly so, and an assertion that
there is no better way to enforce those rights. Perhaps you mean to assert
that there is such a better way, which is an interesting proposition in itself
depending on how one proposes to go about it.
A
Arne Vajhøj
Copyright is not mandatory.
It is perfectly legal to put code in public domain.
Open source chose not to do so.
Because they want to have some license conditions.
No copyright => no license conditions => no open source.
Open source does not kill copyright. They just use copyright for
a different purpose than MS, IBM, Oracle etc. (or should I say for
those companies close source offerings - they do have open source
offerings as well).
Copyright is a tool.
That tool is used for different purposes:
- traditional closed source - to make money
- open source - give end users certain rights and limit
some responsibilities
- Roedy - make sure that the code is not used for military purposes
etc.
Copyright may have been invented for the first purpose, but copyright
is copyright no matter what purpose it is used for.
Neither traditional closed source nor open source would be possible
without copyright.
I am not aware of any company making a living from public domain
software.
Based on that I am very skeptical about software industry in a world
with no copyright.
I don't think anyone would miss software patents if they disappeared.
That is anyone in software. The lawyers would definitely miss it.
Arne
R
Roedy Green
With copyright there is no problem with someone creating a similar
work -- unlike patent, so for example nobody can corner the market on
"how to program in Java" books.
It is required or it would be almost impossible to make money writing
books or programs. Custom programs would survive, but no one-size-fits
all.
A
Arne Vajhøj
Obviously it is.
But there are lots of examples of it.
A couple of very high profile open source personalities:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/stallman-mec-india.html
http://news.techworld.com/applications/3059/torvalds-joins-in-anti-patent-attack/
Arne
B
Bent C Dalager
How do you propose to do this? The Berne Convention clearly says that
all works that can be covered by copyright are covered by default. The
only mention of the public domain in the convention is in saying that
expired works enter into the public domain. There is no provision for
explicitly entering a work into the public domain before its expiry
date.
Furthermore, my own national laws stipulate that a subset of the
privileges offered by copyright are inalienable, that is you could not
sign them away even if every fibre of your being trembled with desire
to do so: The law won't let you.
I do not see that there is any way for an author to put his work into
the public domain. He might write "this work is in the public domain"
on the front page of course but it is not clear that this holds any
legal weight at all and indeed my own country says you still keep
certain inalienable copyright privileges over it.
The only apparent way to mitigate the impact of copyright over one's
own work is to write very generous license terms for it. As you point
out, this means that your work is still protected under copyright
however generous you are. This is as it must be under the current
legal regime.
I believe it is rather that they realize they /must/ write a license
because the law effectively requires it of them and then they tend to
tag on a pet provision or two after the "use as you wish" bit of the
open source license.
Why is it that software which has the most generous license term
possible under the law (that is, no conditions), cannot be "open
source"? Surely if it were /possible/ to release source code into the
public domain then this would be just as open as an open source
license is?
Open source developers certainly have a varied set of motivations for
their chose of license; some would prefer to have their license
destroy copyright while others believe copyright is essential for them
to earn a living.
But of course they would: closed source would be protected as a trade
secret, which is effectively what is happening already anyway, and any
source that anyone actually distributed would be open source by
default.
While the estimates vary, around 80% of the software industry consists
of various in-house projects: Customer tracking, inventory management,
project reporting, niche expert systems, etc. This 80% of the industry
would benefit greatly from the absence of copyright since they don't
need it anyway: their software is only applicable to, distributed
within, and used by their own organisation. The absence of copyright
would make their job much easier - and less expensive - by not forcing
them to reinvent the same wheel that hundreds of others have already
designed to death time and time again before them.
Shelfware might or might not be impacted by the absence of copyright,
I suspect that for the most part that would redesign their business
model slightly and keep on earning money.
That is certainly one thing we can agree about
Cheers,
Bent D
C
ClassCastException
Of course it is. It's the *classic* example of successfully competing
with free!
By idiots. The studies' results are what they are, even if many refuse to
accept them.
Anyone who clings to a theory despite a growing weight of contrary
evidence has ceased to practice science and has become a pseudoscientific
quack at best and a religious nut at worst.
Correction: usually have at least *one* revenue stream be selling
support. It need *not* be the *only* one.
If that were true, then Aquafina would have to sell more than just
bottled water to prosper.
C
ClassCastException
I don't think so. Open source with the BSD or Apache license has so
little restriction on distribution that if all software code was public
domain, the BSD license and Apache license using development/business
models would pretty much be unaffected.
If copyright disappeared tomorrow, the whole software industry would
eventually reorganize along the lines of such projects.
Note that the world's premiere web server software is one of those
projects. So I doubt we would want for software or software development.
I noticed a rather abrupt, borderline-rude tone in several of your recent
posts to this thread. And now this. It boggles the mind. I gave two
specific names, a quick Google of either leads to links, and I posted a
link to one of them at the very start of this thread, and yet you accuse
me of providing neither -- *while quoting the names*?!
What the hell is the *matter* with you? I get the distinct feeling that
you might be arguing purely for the sake of arguing. Or that any
questioning of copyright sends you into a violent, negative, emotional
response so powerful as to render you incoherent and reduce your capacity
for either reason or restraint (and thus diplomacy).
If the latter, you have some issues that need working out. It's not like
it's a matter of life or death or something!
Now, since you seem to need some real hand-holding here, I'll post the
links:
http://www.againstmonopoly.org/
http://www.techdirt.com/
HTH.
Most open source licenses do not actually enforce anything crucial to the
business model, so to the ability to profit from the software
development. Arguably even the GPL doesn't, but particularly most of the
non-"copyleft" ones just ask for attribution and maybe one or two other
minor things. Trademark law and laws against misrepresentation and fraud
could probably be used to cover such needs, and they can probably be done
without.
C
ClassCastException
That is the popular misconception, yes, but there's mounting evidence
that it simply isn't true.
For one thing, authors made money long before there was copyright.
There's only been copyright for about 300 years, but people have been
writing (and being paid to write) for thousands.
Lots of software development, including "one-size-fits-all", occurs under
the aegis of very liberal licenses like BSD and Apache. This development
includes a fair bit that's for-profit and not one dime of their revenue
came from copyright enforcement. Still more such development is non-
profit in character. The Linux kernel itself was written as a hobby, for
example. Copyright was not needed to incentivize this.
The question about copyright now, realistically, is not whether it is
*needed* or *nothing* will get created, but what amount will maximize
creation and access to the results. It's becoming clear that that amount
is much lower than what we currently have -- perhaps two or so years with
broad fair-use exemptions, enough for books, movies, and new software
versions to make the bulk of the money they will ever make -- and quite
possibly zero.
A
Arne Vajhøj
I don't know french law.
Some software are put in public domain.
Example:
http://www.sqlite.org/copyright.html
Arne
D
David Lamb
I know nothing about the particular studies in question, but a non-quack
could object to the methodology used to carry out the study or the
assumptions on which it was based. Not really an objection; just
feeling contrarian today.
D
David Lamb
What country is that?
It has been a long time since I looked at anything even semi-official,
but once upon a time, under the national laws of the USA and Canada, the
originator could certainly declare "this work is in the public domain."
I don't think we used to have any inalienable privileges, and would be
delighted to find out we now do.
B
Bent C Dalager
Norway. The English (non-authoritative) version of the law is here:
http://www.regjeringen.no/upload/KK...ns/Aandsverkloven_engelsk_versjon_nov2008.pdf
in particular para 3:
(...)
"The author may not waive his rights under the first and second
paragraphs, unless the use of the work in question is limited in
nature and extent."
"(...) This right may not be waived by the author."
also para 38c:
(...)
"The right under the first paragraph can be neither waived not
transferred. (...)"
and para 39e:
(...)
"Any agreement that to the detriment of the author significantly
deviates from the provisions of the second, sixth and seventh
paragraph cannot be applied. The author may not waive his right
pursuant to the fifth paragraph."
(...)
There may be other examples, these are the ones I could easily find by
searching on "waive" in the document. Not all of the above may apply
to software, I didn't check. Some specifics of software are treated in
paras 39g,h,i.
Cheers,
Bent D
A
Arne Vajhøj
Back when copying meant writing the same by hand, then the cost
of copying created a natural barrier.
But a lot of the people working on these projects are working for
companies that makes a huge part and in some cases the majority
of their money on software licenses.
It is not particular clear.
This is just statements without any facts.
Arne
A
Arne Vajhøj
Bullshit.
All the serious economic science expect there to be some effect
but consider it very difficult to estimate it.
For a summary of where science stands read:
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d10423.pdf
No. But it is by far the largest for most of the wellknown open
source companies.
You can probably sell GPL software for the same price as a bottle
of bottled water.
But that will not make the software industry prosper.
Arne
A
Arne Vajhøj
There are slightly different rules for copyright around the world,
but the fact is that public domain software is almost universal
de facto recognized.
They could have chose public domain.
Some code writer do choose that.
Some choose an open source license.
Because the open source license gives some rights.
Would it be a material change to protect closed source by
trade secret instead of copyright?
The problem is that even though a lot of software is only used
inhouse, then most companies do not want to reject the possibility
to at some later point in time sell the software to external
customers.
Otherwise corporations would rarely have a problem with GPL!
Arne