Re: [tlug] Free versus open: a rant

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

>>>>> "ben" == ben konrath <ben@example.com> writes:

    ben> On Thu, Jul 08, 2004 at 01:37:30AM +0900, Stephen J. Turnbull
    ben> wrote:

    >> *sigh* You could have said that in the first place, you know.

    ben> I think that I should take some of the blame here. I probably
    ben> wasn't clear enough. When I said that gnomemeeting requires a
    ben> quicknet card, I meant that it only requires a quicknet card
    ben> to interact with the PSTN service.

Well, yes and no.  Yes, I was confused about whether the requirement
was for all capabilities, or just for the optional GnomeMeeting<->PSTN
feature, and I did want that cleared up.

But no, it doesn't matter.  B0Ti seems to think that as long as _some_
purpose of the software can be fulfilled without calling any
proprietary functions it's free software, but that's wrong.  If _any_
part of a GPLed work calls a proprietary function, even if the use of
the function is optional, the _whole work_ is legally redistributable
only with permission of all copyright owners.[1]  Cf the Ghostscript/
readline incident.  (file:///usr/share/doc/gs-afpl/Make.htm#GNU_readline
in Debian, season to taste for your distribution of Ghostscript.)  So
in fact, what really mattered was not the "new" information that
PC-to-PC doesn't require G.723.1, but his confirmation of Shawn's
statement that PC-to-PSTN _does_!

This is why I got sharp with him.  He regularly gives the information
that _he_ considers important---here, that _some_ GnomeMeeting
function is independent of proprietary warez, while not giving a
thought to what the reader is interested in---whether _any_
GnomeMeeting functions depend on proprietary warez.  Or considering
that he doesn't know everything that his audience knows.

It's not his job to know everything, of course, nor is it even his job
to figure out what it is that I'm thinking about.[2]  That's why I
requested an URL.  All he has to do is provide an URL, then I can
either take his word for it or investigate myself.  Shawn provided one
URL, you provided four!  I bet this list averages better than an URL
per post (not including Mailman administrivia and the TLUG footer);
providing such references is just common courtesy on TLUG.  You tell
me, and we'll both know.  It's the fundamental principle in team
debugging.

It's not just an issue of courtesy, either.  It's self-interest, too.
Lyle mentioned that nobody showed any interest in helping debug his
NEC installation problems.  Well, that's natural.  One model of the
way a forum like this works is a puzzle-solving race.  Ie, you need a
puzzle big enough to be interesting (the easy ones typically get the
reply "RTFM"), but you also need enough pieces of the puzzle already
in place that people can afford to work on it "for fun".

So there's poor Lyle, who is _not_ an "idiot", but who doesn't yet
know what to report to make the puzzle look like fun (cf B0Ti's
network problem which probably was more work to solve but had lots of
attractive "teasers", and ended up with a thread of a couple dozen
posts), and here are the TLUG sempai, who will do it out of _noblesse
oblige_ (cf Josh's post)---but _fun_ puzzles you can't help thinking
about _before_ settling in at your desk or while you're on coffee
break, while the pro bono service stuff comes _after_ work--- you have
to psych yourself up a bit for it.  Guess who gets all the attention?
The guy who doesn't need the help as much!

*****

I should clear up the possible impression I leave that GnomeMeeting is
not legally distributable under the GPL.  In this case it should be
letter-of-the-law OK because of the hardware boundary[3] between the
GPLed work and the patented algorithm, but that's a pretty disturbing
concept, don't you think?[4]  Ie, just embed a patented algorithm in
hardware and you can distribute a derivative of a strong copyleft
program specialized to that "hardware", emasculating the GPL, no?

Also, suppose Shawn were to spend JPY 1 million to acquire a
commercial license for the algorithm, and wrote a software driver,
which he most generously plans to give away, libre and gratis.  Guess
what?  _He can't._  He has to buy the whole patent (well, the right to
distribute it as free software, which is effectively the whole
patent), or he can't distribute the driver under GPL.  But if it's
hardware, it's OK!

What a sad mess.


Footnotes: 
[1]  Of course with a properly modular structure you can easily delete
the problematic code.  The point is that copyright law doesn't grok
modules; it figures out what the "whole work" is, including parts that
may not be included in the present distribution, and then aggregates
to give the distribution conditions.

[2]  Lyle Saxon's opinions on who was really rude notwithstanding, I
consider B0Ti's consistent misjudgement of my intentions somewhat
discourteous---but he could sidestep all that by simply disagreeing
and providing the URL, then it's on me to do the research.

[3]  Another brain fart, the one that actually matters:  because Shawn
mentioned a software implementation I was thinking "library", not
"peripheral hardware".

[4]  Actually, it doesn't bother me---I prefer permissive licenses
anyway (LGPL for security-relevant stuff, otherwise MIT/BSD), it's an
accident of history that I work mostly on a GPL project.  But I do
want GPL to "work" as people who want strong copyleft would want it to
work; they should have the option to an effective copyleft license if
they want to distribute that way.

-- 
Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences     http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp
University of Tsukuba                    Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN
               Ask not how you can "do" free software business;
              ask what your business can "do for" free software.