[CLUE-Tech] GPL loopholes

[Art Reisman]

Fanstastic Discussion !

These are the moral delimma's of an open source
developer who needs to eat. Their Landlord, local
grocer don't give them free stuff because they
contribute to open source ? Other than college
students using open source development as a conduit to
the work force, somebody pays for the development. (I
guess even the college students pay through the nose
to their shools for the right to work for free) I have
a theory that quite a bit of this stuff comes from
Europe because of their highly Socialized education
system?  
--- Dave Hahn <dhahn at techangle.com> wrote:
> [snip]
> > What about when they have "Red Hat" embedded into
> some of their GPL
> > software?  Doesn't this nullify or make it more
> difficult to defend the
> > trademark?
> 
> There is a legal aspect here as well.  Red Hat has
> their name/logo
> trademarked.  U.S. trademark law stipulates that if
> you *do not* make
> efforts to defend and protect your trademark (i.e.
> defending against
> dilution, theft, inappropriate use, use by other
> parties with proper
> attribution, etc into a large legal mire), you *can
> not* have the privileges
> of a trademark.  So, they have to go down this road
> if they want legal
> protection from someone else calling their distro
> "RedHat".  May not seem
> nice, but, that's the way the law reads. IANAL, but,
> my best recollection.
> 
> > I don't think you should assume that all I want is
> a free ride.  The
> > spirit of GPL and Linux has always been sharing.
> 
> No, the spirit of the GPL was to insure that users
> of code had the
> availbility to modify the code to meet their needs. 
> Hence, you can build
> code, GPL it, and *only* sell it to people that you
> want to sell it to -
> free speech - not free beer.  The Linux community
> has had a history of
> sharing freely, but not the requirement,
> necessarily, to do so free of
> charge.  So, the community may be acting in the
> spirit of the "law", the GPL
> (and the other licenses used) are the letter of the
> "law".
> 
>   The fact that Red Hat
> > does share their source code could be even
> stronger grounds for
> > participating in sharing.  I mean after all, how
> much of Libranet uses
> > Red Hat's code?  Maybe none.  But either way,
> distros use code which
> > they didn't write.  From just a moral standpoint,
> if I used code that I
> > didn't write, I'd certainly at least give ANOTHER
> site my source code to
> > allow downloads.  You say "it costs them money to
> provide downloads" but
> > there are plenty of sites out there that are
> willing to provide space
> > for your code for free!
> 
> Sure, within reason and within their restrictions. 
> The argument still
> stands that bandwidth, server space, etc, costs
> *someone* money.  There is
> not way of getting around that.  Money has to move
> in some fashion to pay
> for these things.  Some are supported by
> advertising, some by product sales,
> some by corporate supporters, etc.  Sourceforge, I'm
> assuming, is one of the
> sites to which you are refering.  Remember, in order
> to make that space and
> bandwidth avaialble, they *sell* their software.
> 
> So even though legally it may be more sound to
> > say "at a reasonable price" the reality is people
> can often distribute
> > GPL code at no cost to themselves.  (e.g. Libranet
> can provide
> > linuxiso.org with images and not have to pay for
> the bandwidth it takes
> > for you to download them)
> 
> Still a head in the sand argument on the over all
> sense, linuxiso.org still
> pays money for their bandwidth.  Their way of
> getting that money is
> different.  However, a single model doesn't work for
> everyone.
> 
> > I guess I just don't like to see people out there
> being "stingy" with
> > their code when in order to write their software
> they had to use someone
> > elses.
> 
> "There is nothing new under the Sun" - What about
> authors of articles,
> books, etc.  Should an author that downloads
> software, reads the manuals and
> becomes familiar with the product, who then
> publishes a book, give it away
> for free because everything upon which they based
> their work came freely
> from someone else?  If so, I think you'd have a
> bigger gripe with O'Reilly
> then the Libranet guys.
> 
> > But most of all, my point is I don't want this
> software for
> > myself, I  just like to see people share code
> which they have borrowed
> > from others in the first place.  So please, don't
> say I'm just looking
> > for a free ride.
> 
> "Infomation yearns to be free" - true, but, freedom
> costs money to someone.
> I'm sure the Libranet guys will share the code they
> used - however, it is
> completely unfair to cause that be a financial
> strain in them.  Think about
> it, they downloaded that code in the first place,
> using bandwidth that they
> paid for - saved it to a hard drive that they paid
> for - burned/mastered it
> to a CD they paid for - and you want to force them
> to go through all this
> expanse, however small, and be forced to give it to
> you free?  Flatly, the
> economics don't work here at all.  If that was a
> requirement of the GPL, no
> one would bother.  The statement that the code must
> be provided "at a
> reasonable cost" is an acceptance by the architects
> of the GPL that this
> movement of data costs money.
> 
> Many people in our community do not like to face the
> fact that the things we
> do, the software we enjoy, the movement forward of
> ideals we support, costs
> time and money.  Kernel developers who works on they
> kernel because they
> love doing so - no arguement.  However, these people
> still need to eat, pay
> rent, buy gas, etc.  In order for kernel advancement
> to be a reality, money
> has to move.  Linus went to work for Transmeta.
> Transmets gave him a lot of
> freedom to work on the kernel while he was there,
> however, don't assume for
> a minute that they didn't make money while having
> Linus' skill and name
> associated with the company.  Last I recall, Alan
> Cox is paid by Red Hat.
> Red Hat has to have money coming in for money to be
> able to go out.  And,
> mind you, they have quite a few products that are
> pay for play only.  Even
> independant projects like Samba claim big money
> supporters. Paul "Rusty"
> Russell, the main IPTables developer, states he
> counldn't have contributed
> what he did without the support of comapnies that
> benenfit financially from
> Linux. Again, money has to move in order for us to
> enjoy what we enjoy from
> Linux.  These are but a few examples that show this
> fact.  So, if you want
> to continue to enjoy the benenfits of the software
> and the community do not
> begrudge those that are doing what must be done in
> order to keep the wheels
> moving.
> 
> It may not be pretty, it may not be utopian, but
> it's the truth.
> 
> >
> > Angelo
> >
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