OSNews

It's not really something very small.
In licensing, every tiny clause always (potentially) counts. It keeps people off the streets.

Edited 2007-01-08 18:57

"However, it won't hurt the main community. Few people use Gentoo/FreeBSD. Rather, Apple and MS may be worse hit -- both used much of BSD code in their own system, and exactly how many copyright violations they have made... (I've personally never seen any Apple or MS ad with the clause...) "

There is no ad required to show the clause, but that the clause be in the source code. The GPL strictly forbids the clause from being used.

"I have several customers who like Linux and enjoy the level of customization however say that the license disputes are making them consider either OS X or windows. "

Absolutely...and I suspect strongly that they get it from you. Its not like every program on OSX/Windows does not contain some serious restrictions that those EULA's http://www.eff.org/wp/eula.php, by its very nature is more of a minefield for the user.

"""...is the problem, again and again."""

Indeed, GPL is causing an increasing number of problems within the FOSS community itself. To make matters worse, as the FSF thinks it can get away with it, it tightens its grip. Even GPLv2 projects are vulnerable to the viral nature of the GPLv3 (draft).

I hate to admit it. But perhaps Balmer was right, and GPL really *is* a cancer.

Edited 2007-01-08 18:59

I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but the problem isn't caused by the GPL, but by an old and outdated BSD license with an advertising clause that everyone today agrees was a bad idea to begin with.

Nice try at spreading FUD though.

I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but the problem isn't caused by the GPL,

It appears the GPL is incompatible with the old BSD license-- not the other way around. Not placing the "blame", just making an observation.

but by an old and outdated BSD license with an advertising clause that everyone today agrees was a bad idea to begin with.

Everyone? NetBSD still uses the clause.

It appears the GPL is incompatible with the old BSD license-- not the other way around.

Yes Thom. Because the software under the GPL is in this cased linked against other software (and this software is under the old BSD license). If it were the other way around, we'd still have the same situation, only with reversed roles.

To sum it up, this observation is absolutely meaningless, unless if you want to spread FUD, as some people here, not you, tried to.

Everyone? NetBSD still uses the clause.
They do? I wasn't aware of that. Thanks for pointing it out.

This doesn't really change my point though, as now nearly everyone, with the notable exception of some NetBSD devs obviously, agrees with the advertising clause being a bad idea.

@Thom:

NetBSD uses the modified BSD License with one addition. The advertising clause requirement was removed by the Regents of the University of California.

"Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission."

Source: http://www.netbsd.org/Goals/redistribution.html

"""And please don't use the ridiculous argument that the developers know about BSD licence, it is morality in question here and if you are not moral to admit it,
there is always fdisk. !period!"""

Excuse me for asking this... but are you even sane?

Nice flame. You must be quite self-suffisent to impose your views on morality on others, especially when these BSD folks must have made far more contributions to the community that you ever did. Although I don't believe the BSD licence is ideal, I would certainly not question their choice. Everybody can benefit, including users of the GPL; if they don't mind commercial exploitation, then it's cool. I don't really understand why some people believe companies are inherently evil when they probably work for one, unless they are self-employed or a civil servant...

You mention that Microsoft borrowed the USB stack from FreeBSD. Show me.

As for the Gentoo/FreeBSD issue, I guess that shit happens. Perhaps it would be worthwhile to rewrite the affected utility. That said, re-read the story -- it looks like they have found a solution to continue development.

You are totally right. BSDs must turn to GPL, otherwise I will continue to feel on BSDs like working on Windows. I cannot understand the BSD licence. For example MS finds a bug in the USB stack it borrowed and fixes it. But it never returns the bugfix back. So MS has an advantage over FreeBSD.

I know that this is probably a troll, but it is a common stream of thought. I would like to point out that it misses a huge advantage of the BSD license: it creates standardized implementations. Basically everyone can integrate BSD code without cost and giving back to the community. This is such a low barrier that software vendors will often do this.

A good example is the TCP/IP stack of BSD and its decendants. Practically everybody uses it, or copied it (as in its design). Now, suppose that UCB had used a more restrictive license, many vendors, from the meriad of UNIX vendors that have existed over time, Microsoft, vendors of systems for embedded devices, etc. would probably have done their own implementation, with their own extensions and incompatibilities, leaving a huge "protocol hell".

The BSD license and comparable licenses are great for infrastructural code. Think TCP/IP stack, FFS/UFS, X11, IPsec, USB stack, etc. (in other words, most of the operating system) So, it makes a lot of sense to implement new protocols and technologies under the BSD license if you want to make them standardized.

(I think it's great for other software too, but that's just my humble personal opinion.)

I hate to admit it. But perhaps Balmer was right, and GPL really *is* a cancer.


The GPL is a tool and like all tools needs to be used properly to be effective.

Despite it's shortcomings, GPL v2 has proven to be the most popular and, arguably, the most effective license for encouraging reciprocal development for OSS projects.

Yes, if people taint GPL projects with non-compatible code, there will be a problem but that is by design. It's up to developers to understand the licensing.

As for v3, it is incompatible with v2 by design so simply becomes a new licensing alternative. It's impact on current v2 projects will be minimal to non-existent; most of the core projects that would have the ability to impact that type of paradigm shift in licensing will either stay v2 (ie. the kernel) or will adopt v3 but still retain LGPL licensing (ie. the GNU projects) which minimizes the "viral" nature of a transition. So gcc switching to v3 doesn't force developers using gcc to produce v3 apps, and libc switching to v3 doesn't restrict it's useage to v3 apps, for instance. Developers will simply select v2 or v3 based on their objectives, much as they choose between GPL and BSD or alternatives today.

But dismissing the GPL because of it's intentional incompatibility with less restrictive licenses is a bit of an overreaction when it has proven so successful despite that. That restrictiveness is likely part of the attraction for the majority of devs that select it.

But at least Richard Stallman doesn't throw chairs...but then again. :-)

"""But at least Richard Stallman doesn't throw chairs...but then again. :-)"""

If the greater community were somehow able to thwart Richard's ramrodding-through of his GPLv3, I suspect we'd see some Olympic Class chair throwing on his part.

Hey, I'd buy a ticket to watch. ;-)

"No other oss license is so restrictive and incompatible with other licenses".

restrictive for whom.

"GPL v3 makes things worse" GPL3 makes my life *less* *restrictive* that the point or have you not been keeping up. Seriously you should read about the license.

"Not even the FSF lawyers seem to fully understand the GPL, even v2."

I'm absolutely certain underlying premise to GPL is really simple...the only debate *ever* is how to get around it.

Edited 2007-01-08 19:33

"restrictive for whom."

Everybody, developers and users.

"GPL3 makes my life *less* *restrictive* that the point or have you not been keeping up. Seriously you should read about the license."

The GPL v3 doesn't give me the right to decide whether I want use DRM software or not. How is this not a ristriction? Gimme a break...

"
The GPL v3 doesn't give me the right to decide whether I want use DRM software or not. How is this not a ristriction? Gimme a break...
"
WRONG it restricts use on DRM'd hardware like Tivo and (probably Sveasoft's firmware for routers), that stops you from running modifications on it with the source they give. Look up "Tivoization". It has nothing to do with software DRM.

And yes GPL3 does stop the deal with Novell-- isn't that a good thing for the people who chose to license under it? The deal specifically leaves commercial vendors out of their patent blanket and open for suits.

"...is the problem, again and again. "

Perhaps but that has NOTHING to do with this news item. I'm no fan of the GPL either but I also dont want to see every damn thread take a turn for the worse into a license flamewar.

"Why don't the dimwits just take out the software causing the probs.?"

Because the software in question is integral to the functioning of the OS. If you take out the spark plugs in your engine, the motor won't run dimwit.

Nice rant, but I don't think you quite understand. In this case it was the authors of stop-start-daemon who used code from a 4-BSD licensed library and did not comply with the license.

"""In this case it was the authors of stop-start-daemon who used code from a 4-BSD licensed library and did not comply with the license."""

Indeed. It is a case of GPL authors being so used to sucking code from other OSS projects without having to give anything back that they did not even bother to check to see if they were stepping upon other people's toes.

Edited 2007-01-08 21:05

"Indeed. It is a case of GPL authors being so used to sucking code from other OSS projects without having to give anything back"

80% of OS projects use GPL Licence clearly GPL are not giving anything back.

Even with BSD its about sharing...Have a look for a company that uses BSD code and hasn't given it back, and perhaps vent your bile at them.

start-stop-daemon LINKS libkvm, nobody "used code" from the library

Do you understand what linking is?

i dont think you quite understand, i was commenting on those "oohhh noooeesss gpl viral death gplv3 sucks blablablabla" people, which are absolutely free to not use gpled stuff.

and as for this immediate issue, yes, someone overlooked the license for some software, and as a result cant distribute as it would violate the license, HOWEVER, seeing as this is a simple(well) mistake, and no one is deliberately trying to steal anyones work, they are naturally going to stop doing anything against the license of libkvm.

I understand it was a simple mistake. I still say there is no excuse whatsoever for it, but it was a mistake. I mean the damn BSD license is less than a page long and can be read in under 30 seconds. It almost definately took these devs longer to read the documentation on libkvm's functions than it would have to read the license end to end.

All that aside, what gets me is that the start-stop-daemon developers' use of the GPL is what caused the conflict. At no point did these guys consider not using the GPL where is doesn't fit or writing their own code to fill in for the functions used from libkvm. Nope their initial response was to try and get libkvm relicensed because they're arrogant enough to believe their license superceeds all.

1. UC Berkeley can do as they wish. libkvm is not copyrighted to UCB. It's authors willingly chose the 4-BSD license for their own reasons and as of yet have not given the waivers that UCB did.

2. The stop-start-daemon.c you linked to isn't the one in question. The one you linked to is 2 years old and the daemon has been rewritten under the GPL since then.

Edited 2007-01-08 20:59

Read the files. It's a Berkeley copyright:

Copyright (c) 1989, 1992, 1993
* The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.

This is true on all but two files (kvm_powerpc.c and kvm_arm.c). In the case of kvm_arm, they have contacted the author and removed the advertising clause. The only tainted file is thus kvm_powerpc.c, which isn't used in Gentoo anyway.

As for (2), I wasn't aware that there were multiple versions. Thanks for the correction.

http://www.osnews.com/permalink.php?news_id=16840&comment_id=19...

WOW now why would someone who makes pro Vista comments and anti-everything else like the BSD from the quote above get involved in a discussion like this...and make a statement like that.

Because BSD is a license not FreeBSD for your kind information:)

http://www.osnews.com/permalink.php?news_id=16636&comment_id=18...

Your colours are quite clear. Why when someone is...so passionate about Microsoft makes posts in an Open source License debate I must say I find it a little questionable.

Please state your reasons, I'm very interested.

Edited 2007-01-08 23:30

The reason is software ecosystem.

1. Universities do research and release code under BSD style license.
2. Many of these projects are very good and picked up by companies to commercialize them.
3. These companies (in turn software engineers in thse companies) makes money and make software engineering a lucrative discipline for students.
4. The companies donate some of the money back to universities.
5. Go to step 1.

This is the ecosystem promoted by BSD. GPL breaks that. If you ever read statistics, students are losing interest in computer science and once they see that it is not financial a good field to support their family, you will see even less people in this field.

That is why i like BSD and not Linux.

The all combined GPL based products have earned less money than even a handful of non-GPL products.

In a country like USA where a doctor charge 300$ for 30 minutes appointment, you need money to live a good life and GPL is not making software as an interesting field to make that kind of money.

I hope this explains well to you now.

Ditto!
And MIT also rocks!