unite to make an OS

[kerravon]

I am not aware of any lawsuit initiated by the FSF against... presumably you mean AdaCore when you say "the GNAT people"?

I don't know the details, other than someone sued someone over Ada.

You can't predict the future.

I can make a fair guess that the sun won't explode tomorrow. The FSF is quite clear on their opinion that their own license terms can not possibly imbue the output of any GPL program with GPL license restrictions on its own: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#GPLOutput

Yeah, and I've seen someone release freeware, and then I became dependent on it, and he decided to withdraw it, and my derivative was still dependent on it, so I released his product myself, and he kept issuing takedown notices, and those takedown notices were honored, and I was in a difficult situation, and he was going after me, and I said he doesn't have the right to release freeware and withdraw that, he had a different opinion and I said "see you in court".

He declined to take me to court, but he was successful with the takedown notices, so he won anyway.

I wouldn't trust the FSF as far as I can throw them. You'll find that their "quite clear" has an "implied" "well not that far obviously" when they take me to court. And I don't trust the Australian High Court to also pull some "implied right" out of their @$$ that the FSF retained - "look - it clearly says copyright - they clearly are retaining their rights, and you clearly knew that before you used their code - you understand the concept of copyright don't you, you don't dispute that they are the copyright holder, do you?". Not interested.

I used to trust the American people's firm commitment to democracy too. I was horrified when all those people lined up to dispute the election results, attempting to usher in America's first dictator. Australia hasn't been tested.

I hope I can no longer be surprised by anything anymore. If the Sun does explode tomorrow, I'll just yawn and say "oh, so that's the next surprising thing, is it?".

Sorry, you get the FSF to release their software as public domain, listen to their excuses as to why they aren't willing to do that, and meanwhile I'll be busy getting rid of my dependence on other people's copyrighted code.

[Schol-R-LEA]

Wrong question. What's wrong with public domain?

The fact that, unless the code was initially under a registered copyright and then placed in PD, then anyone who wants to can claim copyright on the program, and the actual developer would have no legal recourse - the developer would, technically speaking, be in violation of copyright on their own code.

And yes, this has happened before. It was one of the primary motivations for Richard Stallman developing the GPL in the first place.

Also, at least at the time when Stallman was first proposing the idea of placing all programs into public domain, many organizations had rules against using programs which lacked a copyright, mostly for legal CYA reasons. I don't know if this is still true anywhere, but apparently it wasn't uncommon at one time.

Placing programs in public domain was the default practice at the MIT AI lab in the 1960s and early 1970s, but that worked mainly because they were often one-off programs which were pretty much of limited interest outside the lab itself. They were happy to let others just access their code, as there were only a few hundred PDP-10 systems around in the first place. It was a matter of pride for several of the AI lab workers, including Stallman, who saw themselves in opposition to the commercial software in the mainframe world (the early home computer market, which was a mix of commercial software such as MS BASIC, and hobbyist programs mainly published in magazines such as Byte or Dr. Dobbs' Journal, was largely ignored by the MIT crowd at the time),

Once the programs written at the AI came to be seen as having value in themselves - largely due to the rise of the Lisp Machines, or rather, the commercial production thereof by LMI and Symbolics, and the resulting competition between the two companies - people started adding copyright notices, and even started demanding royalties. In some cases, this was on code that was written in part or in whole by someone else, as I already said. Stallman tried to convince people that software should be public domain as a matter of policy and ethics, but the lab shut him down on that, on the basis that public domain software "couldn't be trusted" or "wasn't supported", despite it being the common practice up to that point.

Public licenses aren't a good solution, but it does prevent even worse abuses. Or at least that's the theory - I don't know what, if any, legal tests have upheld the concept.

[iansjack]

The problem with making code public domain, rather than using one of the licences that do essentially the same thing, is that to many people this equates to “abandonment”. People will be less likely to use this code as no-one claims responsibility for it or - apparently - has any investment in the continuing quality of the code. They have abandoned it.

So, if you don’t care whether anyone uses your code, don’t want to claim any responsibility for it, aren’t prepared to improve it if people suggest improvements…. If that’s your stance then by all means abandon it. But you make it more difficult for people to use your code; it’s more restrictive than a good licence.

[kerravon]

Wrong question. What's wrong with public domain?

The fact that, unless the code was initially under a registered copyright and then placed in PD, then anyone who wants to can claim copyright on the program, and the actual developer would have no legal recourse - the developer would, technically speaking, be in violation of copyright on their own code.

No, that's not true. "public domain" doesn't mean "unowned", it means "owned by the public".

And yes, this has happened before. It was one of the primary motivations for Richard Stallman developing the GPL in the first place.

No, he just didn't like someone creating a closed-source derivative.

I don't mind people creating closed-source derivatives of my work. It's exactly what almost all software companies do, because they think that is best for them.

I'm happy for companies to do whatever they think is best for them.

[kerravon]

The problem with making code public domain, rather than using one of the licences that do essentially the same thing, is that to many people this equates to “abandonment”.

People who think that way are not my target market. My target market is sensible companies who want lower input costs and zero restrictions or attempts to claim ownership of part of their finished product.

So, if you don’t care whether anyone uses your code, don’t want to claim any responsibility for it, aren’t prepared to improve it if people suggest improvements…. If that’s your stance then by all means abandon it. But you make it more difficult for people to use your code; it’s more restrictive than a good licence.

No, that is people doing it to themselves. Whether a product is maintained or not is a completely independent concept to the license, or lack of license, on the product.

[iansjack]

Have you ever worked for a “sensible company”? I can assure you that a responsible IT department values accountability above vague ideas of freedom.

It’s true that it is people who will choose not to use the code but it is you who gives them the motivation to make that choice. That’s fine if you don’t care about your code being used.

[kerravon]

Have you ever worked for a “sensible company”? I can assure you that a responsible IT department values accountability above vague ideas of freedom.

I have no idea what you are talking about. Accountability doesn't change depending on whether something is released as public domain or a virus license.

And regardless, accountability is exactly why I make my code public domain - so that someone who wants to make it commercial quality can do so without any restriction, which can then be sold to the above people desiring accountability.

It’s true that it is people who will choose not to use the code but it is you who gives them the motivation to make that choice. That’s fine if you don’t care about your code being used.

I care about my code being used by people who I consider to be sensible. ie if I was a company, what sort of code would I accept? Public domain - no problem, but I will have to maintain it myself, and perhaps commercialize the solution. Commercial code - sure, there is someone who will fix bugs, hopefully for free, instead of expecting me to pay unlimited contract rates to some clown on the internet whenever I have a problem.

So I have a particular target market in mind, and that is why I wish to minimize my involvement with virus-licensed code. If I have a problem, I expect to either fix it myself with the possibility of close-sourcing and selling the solution, or I expect a vendor to fix it for free. This concept of a software author releasing buggy software and then expecting an individual sucker to pay him an hourly contract rate to fix the bugs is something I want to avoid.

This discussion arose not because I was trying to convince others to be sensible by my definition of sensible, but because others were attempting to get me to adopt their/FSF philosophy.

[iansjack]

I have no idea what you are talking about.

At least we can agree on something.

[iansjack]

This concept of a software author releasing buggy software and then expecting an individual sucker to pay him an hourly contract rate to fix the bugs is something I want to avoid.

Which is exactly what public domain allows an author/redistributor to do. As they are not constrained to supplying source code along with the software - or their variation of it - they can prevent users from fixing bugs themselves. That they will fix bugs for free is a great concept, but a little naive in real life.

[kerravon]

This concept of a software author releasing buggy software and then expecting an individual sucker to pay him an hourly contract rate to fix the bugs is something I want to avoid.

Which is exactly what public domain allows an author/redistributor to do. As they are not constrained to supplying source code along with the software - or their variation of it - they can prevent users from fixing bugs themselves. That they will fix bugs for free is a great concept, but a little naive in real life.

Then you can choose to only use public domain software that has source code available.

That's not a disadvantage to public domain that I can see.

But regardless, different people have different opinions, and you're welcome to pay contract rates to someone on the internet whenever you have a bug, instead of the model I prefer, which is (hopefully cheap - but no-one knows what the free market will produce) commercial software derived from zero cost public domain source.

[iansjack]

I don’t need to pay contract rates to someone to fix bugs. The software that I prefer includes the source as part of its licence allowing me to fix bugs myself.

Public domain software may, or may not, include source code.

[kerravon]

I don’t need to pay contract rates to someone to fix bugs. The software that I prefer includes the source as part of its licence allowing me to fix bugs myself.

If you're happy with doing that, that's fine.

Personally I don't want to debug other people's copyrighted software. If the owner of the software was willing to pay me full western contract rates to fix their own property, that would be fine.

Public domain software may, or may not, include source code.

And you can choose to only use public domain software that includes source, as all of mine does.

A derivative is by definition owned by whoever modified it, and effectively commercial software, and unlikely to be released as public domain. I think I've only run across one or two bits of public domain software that was released binary-only.

The most major public domain software I know of is sqllite, which comes with source.

[iansjack]

Am I happy having control over the software I use?

You betcha I am.

[kerravon]

Am I happy having control over the software I use?

You betcha I am.

You can do that with public domain software too.

You can modify sqlite and/or pdos to your heart's content.

Am I happy that if I do the above myself, and then with my newfound knowledge/experience I can choose to commercialize a derivative?

You betcha I am.

[iansjack]

We’ll have to agree to differ on this point.

But I’m afraid that it is childishly immature to refer to the licence you choose not to use as a “virus licence”. If I were still choosing software to use in business I would discard without a further thought anything produced by someone using such childish language.