Eric S. Raymond on GPL and BSD licenses. & Microsoft coming to Linux

[Steven Schveighoffer]

On Tue, 31 Mar 2009 02:02:03 -0400, Yigal Chripun <yigal100 at gmail.com>  
wrote:

> On 31/03/2009 00:36, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
>> No, it would not be reasonable. In fact that would just be a nice fat
>> paycheck for the plaintiff's lawyer (and probably the defendant's
>> lawyer) and nothing else.
>>
>> Nobody can expect someone to glimpse at machine code and later recall
>> how it was coded so they can use it in their own code. Not assembly,
>> machine code. This so-called defendant would have to specifically go
>> looking for code in random memory, then either disassemble it or
>> hand-parse the machine code. I've debugged plenty of code on Microsoft's
>> OS, and I haven't ever been sued, or had any worry of being sued,
>> because I accidentally saw some of their disassembled code. My
>> interpretation of the non-support from these developers was "we don't
>> like non-GPL'd software, so we aren't going to help you," not "Oh, well
>> if we look at this binary code someone might sue us." I think you are
>> reading an issue into this that doesn't exist.
>
> what if the defendant doesn't have/want to spend that money on lawyers?

It's typical to counter-sue for attorney fees.  That is generally what  
happens when a big fish goes after a little fish (and loses).

> even if the chance is tiny, it is not zero.

Ok, I guess you got me there :)

> besides, even if I'm completely wrong on this and you're completely  
> right (which I don't believe to be the case), you're forgetting that  
> those developers are all volonteers working on the project on their  
> spare time. They don't have to do anything at all. sure it sucks they  
> don't want to help you out but they are not under any obligation to do  
> so. That reminds me a phrase: "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth".

Yeah, they can do whatever they want, I understand that, but that actually  
makes their project less attractive to companies because one of the huge  
benefits of open-source development is the community support.  If they  
decide not to support you because of some reason unrelated to the problem  
at hand, then you are screwed.  As it turned out, we had a solution,  
simply GPL our driver.  Not the one I would have preferred, but it worked  
nonetheless.


>>> people in the US sued MacDonald's because their coffee was hot (and
>>> they even won the case!). other people sued a company since their
>>> peanuts contains nuts. why would a developer is free to assume he/she
>>> won't be sued for accidentally seeing the memory of that closed source
>>> driver in the debugger?
>>
>> Anyone can sue you for anything. To say that they will win is another
>> thing. Nobody's going to sue someone for seeing machine code in memory
>> that happens to be of proprietary software, not because they are nice,
>> but because they'd have no case.
>>
>> In the McDonald's case, the coffee was not just hot, the coffee caused
>> 3rd degree burns, which required skin grafting. The jury awarded
>> punitive damages in excess of 2.8 million *not* at the request of the
>> plaintiff, but because they believed McDonald's would not change their
>> policy (of making their coffee 20-30 degrees hotter than any other
>> vendor) unless they did so. That is what punitive damages are for. The
>> lady only sought to have her medical costs covered (which McDonald's
>> refused). This case has ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with copyright law, so
>> I have no idea why you brought it up. People always point to this case
>> as an example of ridiculous judgements, but this one actually strikes me
>> as fair.
>>
>> Other examples of lawsuits are definitely frivolous. If that peanut case
>> is true, I'd use that one instead (it sounds too ridiculous to be true,
>> I'd appreciate a citation). But let's not forget you are citing a small
>> number of bizarre cases in an ocean of lawsuits that actually make
>> sense. To worry that someone might frivolously sue you is like worrying
>> that you might trip over your shoelaces and so you don't ever wear  
>> shoes.
>
> I don't have a citation for this, sorry. In British law and therefore  
> our law in Israel (which was influenced by the British) there is a  
> concept of "a reasonable man", I'm pretty sure this also applies to  
> European law as well.

I don't know much about law theory, but I'm sure there are provisions like  
this in U.S. law.  At the very least, you have a right to a trial decided  
by 12 "reasonable men."

> The idea is that a reasonable man as understood by the law knows that  
> peanuts are a kind of nuts. therefore these kinds of frivolous cases are  
> dismissed and  will never reach court and waste time/money. this is  
> missing in the US where anyone can sue anyone else for anything.

It's a bad trend I think that lawsuits have become so common.  I think  
there are definitely problems with the liberal views that many judges have  
in our country, which fuels this kind of thing.  Here is a good example:  
Two border crossing agents shot a man who was smuggling 800 lbs of  
marijuana into the US from Mexico.  Those two agents got 12 years in  
prison for that, and the smuggler is suing the US government for 5 million  
(oh, he was given immunity for his smuggling activities).  This kind of  
shit makes me feel like we have huge issues in our justice system.

But I still would not be afraid of debugging code that had proprietary  
portions for fear of being sued.  I don't think anybody who is not  
unreasonably paranoid is afraid in this way.

>> My assertion is not that the GPL should be illegal or be forcibly
>> removed, my assertion (and ESR's as I interpret it) is that GPL'd
>> software doesn't foster as much productivity or usefulness as other open
>> source licenses, and therefore should be avoided. Why should anyone use
>> GPL when there are much less restrictive licenses available? The world
>> is full of for-profit companies using open source software, and the vast
>> majority of them don't touch GPL'd software unless they have to. Why is
>> that?
>
> you mix to separate things. a closed source company probably will not  
> want to be a *client* of GPL-like source, sure. that's different from a  
> company that uses GPL-like licenses for it's own products and code.

But isn't that the point of GPL?  To make developers who use it GPL  
everything that touches it?  I just think it's not a good move to GPL code  
unless you don't want it to be heavily used commercially, unless your  
project is the ONLY one out there that does what it does.  However, as  
soon as something comes along that is open source and NOT GPL, I'd be  
surprised if your project lasted much longer.

>> Sure, it is not the only project that is GPL'd, but it is one of the
>> only GPL'd projects out there that is the basis of a successful company.
>> I don't really know of any others. So here is a challenge, name 10 of
>> those companies.
>>
> come on.. why did Sun choose the GPL as the basis for almost all it's  
> products over less restrictive licenses as you say?
> Sun's products that are GPL'ed: Java, Netbeans, solaris, etc..  even the  
> specs for their CPU are open sourced!

The only one in this list (after doing some research) that is released  
under the GPL is Java.  The others are under CDDL, which does not forbid  
linking closed source software with CDDL licensed software.  It only  
requires that the CDDL software remain CDDL.  I don't consider this to  
have the same issues as GPL.

Why did sun release Java under GPL?  Probably due to community pressure  
(been there).  I wonder how much benefit Sun has gained from making Java  
GPL, they certainly did very well with Java when it was not GPL.

> that telephony project, asterix (IIRC), provides jobs for many  
> consultant companies on setting up your own telephony solution based on  
> that project.
> that's just of the top of my head without doing any search...

I'll give you that one, so that's 2 projects that make companies money,  
asterisk and Linux.  However, I'm not sure it's the license that makes  
these companies money, another less restrictive open source license  
probably would suffice.

-Steve