ANN: Microsoft goes Open Source

[jmfbahciv]

Nonsense! Who do you think wrote most of that source code?
It wasn't HatRed!

I was commenting on a statement with the assumption that the
eliding was the reverse.
<snip>

/BAH

 

[jmfbahciv]

Interesting. So if you put a box of stuff outside your house with a
notice on saying "free to anyone who wants it, please take it if you
want", you'd consider than anyone who took it had stolen it?

If they replace all documentation that said it was my creation,
yes. That's stealing my intellectual property attributions.

AGAIN, please note that I'm talking about personal morality
attitudes and NOT legalities.

/BAH

 

[jmfbahciv]

No, it's not. First, while Red Hat has been good to Free Software,
the bulk of the software they distribute was developed by others.
They are fully aware that they are essentially giving away software
that they themselves copied and that can be copied by others, and that
their business model is based on providing support for that software.

So it is OK with you if some asshole takes all the TOPS-10 sources,
deletes all references to TW and JMF, replacing them with the
asshole's name?

No. That's stealing. This is a statement of my _opinion_ and
has nothing to do with what's legal.

/BAH

 

[Richard Bos]

We have met the enemy and they are us. == Walt Kelly

Quite. Which he wrote in 1970, and similar sentences much earlier, so
the FOSSils have no reason not to grok it.

Richard

 

[Richard Bos]

Then those zealots are users, not developers.

Wrong. I've seen OS developers _highly_ taken aback by the big OS
players' behaviour.

Richard

 

[Joe Pfeiffer]

So it is OK with you if some asshole takes all the TOPS-10 sources,
deletes all references to TW and JMF, replacing them with the
asshole's name?

Of course not -- but that's not what centos does, for two reasons:

(1) RedHat wrote very little of the software they distribute; they're
in the business of distributing and offering service on what is almost
all other people's software.

(2) You are required to leave the actual authors' (actually, copyright
holders') names and attributions intact; I've never heard an
accusation that centos is failing to do this.

A closer analogy would be to get a DECUS tape, remove all reference to
DECUS (but leave the authors' documentation, including attributions,
intact), and distribute it without the DECUS label.

No. That's stealing. This is a statement of my _opinion_ and
has nothing to do with what's legal.

What you're description up above ("so it is OK with you...") would be
stealing. The important point here is that that isn't what's
happening.

 

[Anton Erasmus]

The post said "change all references to Redhat trademarks...".
You do not replace your name for the name of the person who
did the real work. Period. Please note that I'm talking
about my personal morality and not anything about legality.

But they have to do it. No one except RedHat are allowed to use their
trademarks. They want to ensure that anyone knows when they have
a product produced and supported by RedHat and when they have the
same source compiled by someone else.

Below is a part of what RedHat has to say about this:
"
Use of Red Hat Trademarks
It occasionally comes to our attention that some companies or
individuals are producing CD-ROM and other
products that contain the software which Red Hat distributes as Red
Hat® Linux®. Although they are entitled
to do this under the GPL and other applicable licenses, they do not
have the right to use the name or brand their
products "Red Hat," or to use the Red Hat trademarks in any way on
their products or in related advertising,
except under certain limited circumstances (See the sections entitled
"Fair Use of Trademarks" and "Publish-
ing And Marketing Red Hat® Linux® That Has Been Modified"). Doing so
would cause confusion among the
customers who purchase those products, because they may believe they
are purchasing a product produced or
sponsored by Red Hat, Inc. but, in reality, it is a product of another
company altogether
"

So far from doing something wrong Centos is doing exactely what is
required from them. If you want RedHat then buy it from RedHat, if you
think that the Centos Compilation is good enough and you do not
require support from RedHat then use the Centos Distribution.

Regards
Anton Erasmus

 

[Keith Thompson]

(e-mail address removed) writes:
[snip]

If you're going to insist on continuing the off-topic discussion here
in comp.lang.c, at least have the courtesy to leave the subject header
alone so people can avoid reading it.

Better yet, take it someplace where it's topical.

 

[Steve O'Hara-Smith]

On Thu, 05 Apr 07 10:43:22 GMT

So it is OK with you if some asshole takes all the TOPS-10 sources,
deletes all references to TW and JMF, replacing them with the
asshole's name?

It would be fine with me - provided that those were the terms under
which the TOPS-10 sources were released. I rather suspect they weren't. I
consider that it is up to the owner of a piece of intellectual property
what terms they release it under and if those terms permit rebranding it
then so be it.

 

[jmfbahciv]

Of course not -- but that's not what centos does, for two reasons:

(1) RedHat wrote very little of the software they distribute; they're
in the business of distributing and offering service on what is almost
all other people's software.

(2) You are required to leave the actual authors' (actually, copyright
holders') names and attributions intact; I've never heard an
accusation that centos is failing to do this.

A closer analogy would be to get a DECUS tape, remove all reference to
DECUS (but leave the authors' documentation, including attributions,
intact), and distribute it without the DECUS label.


What you're description up above ("so it is OK with you...") would be
stealing. The important point here is that that isn't what's
happening.

OK. I misinterpreted the sentence. It's just a very sore point
with me.

Thanks for the correction.

/BAH

 

[jmfbahciv]

It would be fine with me

It is not fine with me. I abhor people who do nothing but take
credit for somebody else's work. But this is purely my personal
taste.

- provided that those were the terms under
which the TOPS-10 sources were released. I rather suspect they weren't. I
consider that it is up to the owner of a piece of intellectual property
what terms they release it under and if those terms permit rebranding it
then so be it.

Ptui. Laws have nothing to do with decency and honesty.

/BAH

 

[jmfbahciv]

Wrong. I've seen OS developers _highly_ taken aback by the big OS
players' behaviour.

We weren't talking about behaviour. I was talking about being
in the OS development business. If the development work is not
a hobby and we are expected to spend our day job hours on development,
then some kind of money flowing in has to happen so that the
developers don't have to go out to the fields to glean wheat nor
into the woods to shoot supper.

/BAH

 

[jmfbahciv]

(e-mail address removed) writes:
[snip]

If you're going to insist on continuing the off-topic discussion here
in comp.lang.c, at least have the courtesy to leave the subject header
alone so people can avoid reading it.

Son, I never change the subject header unless it has more than
three colons. Then I only delete the colons (bug in my software).

/BAH

 

[krw]

There is an active market for bridges and towers, such as Brooklyn,
Golden Gate, London, Tower, Eiffel. You just have to be selective
in your clientele. Some have even bought Vista!

Tell me about it. I should have spent the extra for XP.

 

[Steve O'Hara-Smith]

On Fri, 06 Apr 07 10:12:36 GMT

Ptui. Laws have nothing to do with decency and honesty.

Who said anything about laws ? My point was that if the people who
own the thing say they don't mind then why should I mind. If they do mind
then even if the law says it's OK it's wrong. IMHO.

 

[Richard Harter]

(e-mail address removed) writes:
[snip]

If you're going to insist on continuing the off-topic discussion here
in comp.lang.c, at least have the courtesy to leave the subject header
alone so people can avoid reading it.

IIANM it was Falconer that changed the subject header; at least that's
the way it shows up on my reader.

Better yet, take it someplace where it's topical.

Even better, don't continue the thread, or, if you must, set followups
appropriately. Note that you (and I) are both posting to
alt.folklore.computers,comp.arch.embedded,comp.lang.c,
comp.programming,comp.os.linux.misc.

Followups set to /dev/null.

 

[Van full of Teenage Girls]

But they have to do it.

http://www.pinktie.com/ explains it pretty well.

 

[Keith Thompson]

(e-mail address removed) writes:
[snip]

If you're going to insist on continuing the off-topic discussion here
in comp.lang.c, at least have the courtesy to leave the subject header
alone so people can avoid reading it.

Son, I never change the subject header unless it has more than
three colons. Then I only delete the colons (bug in my software).

My mistake; it was somebody else who added the word "Licenses" to the
subject header.

So the alternative remains: PLEASE STOP POSTING THIS STUFF TO
comp.lang.c!

(And don't call me "Son".)

Followups redirected appropriately.

 

[David Brown]

I used the word stealing, not theft.

You used both words, although I'm not sure there is a real distinction
(if you think there is, then please explain it).

They allow people who take their work and change the English ASCII
"Redhat" in sources to somebody else's name?

Yes. Redhat does three things - they write (or pay others to write)
open source code, they sell support services, and they provide branded,
tested, pre-packaged software (of which the various Red Hat Linux
distros are the best known).

The software in Red Hat Linux, including the installer and configuration
tools, is all open source under the GPL. This specifically gives other
people the right to copy it, and resell it if they want. They cannot
change the copyright notices of who wrote the code, but they can
repackage and resell the code. This happens all the time in the Linux
world (and open source world in general). When Red Hat makes a change
to the kernel, they know that Novel will use the change in Suse Linux
(assuming it's a useful change). Red Hat has specifically made a choice
to open source their installer and configuration utilities - it makes
economic sense for them as a company when viewed in the long term. Suse
choose to keep their installer and configuration utilities closed source
for a long time (it's open now) - that again was their choice.

What Red Hat is rightfully protective of, is their branding. It's
important to them that all things associated with "Red Hat" are of the
quality they stand for - you can't give out something that claims to be
"Red Hat" and expect to get away with it legally. It's also important
for their business that all commercial things "Red Hat" bring in money
to their company. Thus if you want to sell "Red Hat" support, expect to
pay them a fair share, or be sued - you are making money from their
branding.

What Cent OS have done, is take Red Hat's freely and openly available
software, and rebranded it. There is probably nothing legally that Red
Hat can do to stop this. It is also not something that Red Hat would
want to stop - it is not immoral or unethical, but clearly and expressly
allowed and encouraged by the GPL, which is the license that Red Hat
chose for their installer and tools. If they did not want Cent OS to be
able to do this, they would have picked a different license - after all,
Cent OS is not the first group to do this. But for Red Hat, the
existence of Cent OS has two benefits - one is that a group of smart
people are putting Cent OS together, so that they and their users add to
the testing and feedback for Red Hat - any changes to Cent OS will be
available to Red Hat (both because there is no choice, due to the GPL,
and because it is in the interests of Cent OS to improve Red Hat Linux).
The other benefit is that when Cent OS users want to look at something
bigger or more serious, Red Hat Enterprise Linux is the obvious choice -
it is advertising for Red Hat.

 

[jmfbahciv]

You used both words, although I'm not sure there is a real distinction
(if you think there is, then please explain it).

When I wrote it, I thought there was a distinction. BTHOOM what
I was thinking about.

Yes. Redhat does three things - they write (or pay others to write)
open source code, they sell support services, and they provide branded,
tested, pre-packaged software (of which the various Red Hat Linux
distros are the best known).

The software in Red Hat Linux, including the installer and configuration
tools, is all open source under the GPL. This specifically gives other
people the right to copy it, and resell it if they want. They cannot
change the copyright notices of who wrote the code,

So the attributes are not changed. That is what I was ranting
about. It's a sore point in my little neck of the woods.

but they can
repackage and resell the code. This happens all the time in the Linux
world (and open source world in general). When Red Hat makes a change
to the kernel, they know that Novel will use the change in Suse Linux
(assuming it's a useful change). Red Hat has specifically made a choice
to open source their installer and configuration utilities - it makes
economic sense for them as a company when viewed in the long term. Suse
choose to keep their installer and configuration utilities closed source
for a long time (it's open now) - that again was their choice.

What Red Hat is rightfully protective of, is their branding. It's
important to them that all things associated with "Red Hat" are of the
quality they stand for - you can't give out something that claims to be
"Red Hat" and expect to get away with it legally. It's also important
for their business that all commercial things "Red Hat" bring in money
to their company. Thus if you want to sell "Red Hat" support, expect to
pay them a fair share, or be sued - you are making money from their
branding.

Isn't branding equivalent to attributes, as in the copyright?
In our biz, the copyright didn't have the author of the code
because DEC owned it. Is it the custom now to place the
author's attributes in the copyright statement?

What Cent OS have done, is take Red Hat's freely and openly available
software, and rebranded it. There is probably nothing legally that Red
Hat can do to stop this. It is also not something that Red Hat would
want to stop - it is not immoral or unethical, but clearly and expressly
allowed and encouraged by the GPL, which is the license that Red Hat
chose for their installer and tools. If they did not want Cent OS to be
able to do this, they would have picked a different license - after all,
Cent OS is not the first group to do this. But for Red Hat, the
existence of Cent OS has two benefits - one is that a group of smart
people are putting Cent OS together, so that they and their users add to
the testing and feedback for Red Hat - any changes to Cent OS will be
available to Red Hat (both because there is no choice, due to the GPL,
and because it is in the interests of Cent OS to improve Red Hat Linux).
The other benefit is that when Cent OS users want to look at something
bigger or more serious, Red Hat Enterprise Linux is the obvious choice -
it is advertising for Red Hat.

Thar be dragons in that process. I sure hope it works out well.

<snip>

/BAH