Crosbie:

I am certain you know the difference, however many here seem to forget that GPL is a voluntary contract, not some kind of regulation, and they wail and gnash their teeth as if the GPL was some kind of–God forbis–statist intrusion on their freedom when it is nothing of the kind.

Sorry if I was cutting hairs too thin in my previous comment–it was a fine point.

As for the GPL not working without copyright, read my post again – where I say it evaporates in a puff of smoke.

The GPL requires licensees to ensure source can be made available to legitimate recipients of their published GPL software. This is all I was referring to in terms of subversion.

Apologies for not being sufficient precise, but it should be widely understood here that the GPL primarily governs the copying or modification of GPL code – it doesn’t attempt to require that licensees forsake proprietary software development, or even abstain from its use.

The GPL doesn’t create a special class of copyrighted material or software. It’s simply a standardised license that people can provide with the software that they publish.

1) It nullifies the suspension of the public’s liberty by copyright and patent law.

Not really true, the GPL won’t work without copyright.

2) It subverts the inclination of proprietary minded software developers to publish binaries without source code.

No, they can still write their own proprietary code, and keep the source locked up in vault on the darkside of the moon, if that is their wont.

Now, if Crosbie had prefaced his comment with the phrase “The GPL creates a special class of copyrighted material, in which….” then his comments would be more correct.

But it is the all important fact that the GPL creates a special class of software, and compells no one, that makes the rhetoric here that continues to proclaim that the GPL 3.0 takes away freedom all the more wrong.

1) It nullifies the suspension of the public’s liberty by copyright and patent law. 2) It subverts the inclination of proprietary minded software developers to publish binaries without source code.

Essentially the GPL contrives a community that can behave TODAY as if copyright and patent law had already been abolished.

In other words if you abolish copyright and patent law: 0) the GPL evaporates in a puff of smoke 1) the public has its liberty restored 2) there is no longer an incentive to publish binaries without source code

Recognising 0 is easy. Recognising 1 is only hard for the brainwashed. Recognising 2 is difficult (for many).

Anyway, the GPL’s requirement for source code to be published if binaries are published is only necessary whilst copyright law remains.

Once copyright is abolished, there is no need to create a new law to compel the publication of source code.

The GPL may not seem very libertarian to some, but then it has to be restrictive precisely in order to counter the highly unlibertarian copyright and patent law.

The shibboleth for libertarianism among the free software fraternity is to ask the advocate whether they are in favour of the abolition of copyright and patent law. If instead of abolition they favour retention in order to achieve the ‘four freedoms’, especially to compel surrender of source code, then they have lost sight of libertarianism in pursuit of dogmatism.

There’s some influence on the Creative Commons stuff Lessig is doing, but I think you have cause and effect reversed.

GPL3 is so very way-too-clever it’s as if Lessig had a hand in the drafting.

You’re also butting up against another philosophical paradox of Libertarianism – when is it permissible to complain about the terms of a contract? Usually take-it-or-leave it is used by the powerful against the weak, and it’s a demonstration about how much Libertarianism is in fact business-worship, that so many are flaming out when some tables are turned here (fun scripture rant: “Hey, you don’t like the GPL, don’t use the software – how dare you whiners try to restrict a CONTRACT, you fascist collectivists! Shows how much you really care about freedom, you interferers with free people making free choices!” )

Tim, can you clarify, perhaps by noting how:

1) FOSS DRM is illegal,
2) “unauthorized” has been treatd in DMCA 1201 case law,
3) repealing the DMCA is necessary given that you are wrong with the first two points.

Here is a start. First, qualify what you mean by DRM. If you mean DRM generally, then you’re obviously wrong; FOSS technologies can leverage encryption, a form of DRM. Second, “unauthorized” in the DMCA anticircumvention cases has pertained to systems breaking the intent of the circumvented DRM (by allowing unauthorized use or copying of media) rather than to the circumvention device being unauthorized. Third, can you offer a real reason to repeal the DMCA in terms of how it harms consumers or innovation; rather than Stallman’s four freedoms, which judging by your incessant rants against the DMCA, you hold dear to heart.

Tim, can you clarify, perhaps by noting how:

1) FOSS DRM is illegal, 2) “unauthorized” has been treatd in DMCA 1201 case law, 3) repealing the DMCA is necessary given that you are wrong with the first two points.

Here is a start. First, qualify what you mean by DRM. If you mean DRM generally, then you’re obviously wrong; FOSS technologies can leverage encryption, a form of DRM. Second, “unauthorized” in the DMCA anticircumvention cases has pertained to systems breaking the intent of the circumvented DRM (by allowing unauthorized use or copying of media) rather than to the circumvention device being unauthorized. Third, can you offer a real reason to repeal the DMCA in terms of how it harms consumers or innovation; rather than Stallman’s four freedoms, which judging by your incessant rants against the DMCA, you hold dear to heart.

I don’t think that’s correct–the GPL 3.0 is just trying to keep GPL code from becoming unfree, that is, stolen from the GPL commons. GPL 3.0 software can still interact with non-free software.

The problem that Stallman’s new license illustrates is that freedom is a complex issue, and it’s therefore possible to define it in a number of ways. The perverse definition GPL3 seems to stress the idea that free software only wants to consort with free software, and the freedom of the software to avoid contamination is more important than any actual, you know, utility it might have in the real world of users and diverse kinds of software. It strikes me that this is not only ideologically rigid, it’s naive and unrealistic.

The fact remains that the BSD license, which puts no restrictions on how BSD code can be combined and re-used, is more free than any form of GPL. That is, it’s free from the developer’s standpoint. Stallman wants to handcuff developers in order to impose his vision of end-user freedom on them. I don’t see that winning much support, as end-users aren’t legitimately entitled to the freedom to steal, commit acts of terrorism, and do all sorts of other things.

It’s sad enough when engineers try to play god, but when foundation heads do it it’s pathetic.

That is an excellent analogy, and I used to often wondered why some libertarians seem to be anti-freedom when it comes to the GPL.

That was until I started reading Tim’s postings, and realized that some other libertarians were using libertarian ideology as a smokescreen–only favoring freedom when it allowed corporations to increase power, and then, as soon as a freedom popped up that denied large corporations power, watch out–gotta crush that freedom. See IPCentral for many examples of that.

In the interests of full disclosure, I am ethnically Mennonite, which is a group related to Amish.

This is manifestly NOT true.

The only restrictions in GPL are there to present someone from doing something that would remove GPL softwarwe or a derivative from the GPL commons, or to put it another way, the restrictions are only there to prevent someone from stealing that GPL code, and making it unfree.

If someone does not like the GPL, JUST don’t use it.

1) There is no public domain – it is not a legal concept. 2) Either works are protected by copyright, or they are not. 2b) It is very difficult for a work not to be protected by copyright. 3) It is the protection offered by copyright that is supposed to incentivise publication. 4) It is the publication that is supposed to progress the science and arts – not the expiry of copyright’s protection (as some might understandably assume) 5) It’s all a most unethical racket.

In other words, as I said previously, the GPL respects the freedom of users to choose whether to use proprietary software alongside free software, as long as free software isn’t incorporated into proprietary software. If Stallman considered this a “loophole,” why didn’t he add language to the GPLv3 to prevent bundling proprietary software on the CD?

What you’re missing is that achieving interoperability with proprietary software OFTEN requires the USE of proprietary software. DVD player software is just one instance that requires the use of properietary code to achieve interop. It is the reason while you will NEVER see a Free Software version of a legal DVD player. And yes, he has objected to the creation of any Free Software that includes DRM technology…and interoperability is often a function of being able to use/read DRM. Even if you hate DRM, you must admit that it is a form of interoperability that Stallman is clearly against.

This is completely backwards. Free software DRM is illegal because organizations like the DVD-CCA won’t license it, and under the DMCA it’s illegal to build unauthorized DRM software. Repeal the DMCA, and Linux distributions would start bundling DVD players with their software in a matter of weeks. How is that Stallman’s fault that proprietary software vendors lobbied for legislation that effectively makes it illegal for free software that accesses DRMed content?

Moreover, there are proprietary DVD players that are shipped with particular Linux distributions (Linspire and TurboLinux, I believe), and as far as I know, the FSF has never tried to get them to stop doing so. Got any other examples?