[tlug] RE: GPL V3

[<burlingk@example.com>]

> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 3
> Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2006 00:47:19 +0900
> From: stephen@example.com
> Subject: [tlug] GPL V3
> To: Tokyo Linux Users Group <tlug@example.com>
> Message-ID: <87hcxo30jc.fsf@example.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
> 
> burlingk@example.com writes:
> 
>  > What are people's oppinions about the discussion draft for GPL V.3?
> 
> Gag me.  Ah, you can't.  So I guess I'll speak.
> 
> GPL v.2 is a better document, with a lot of problems that should have
> been fixed in a GPL v2.1.  That will never happen, now.  :-(
>
<snip>
> 
> The only saving grace is the attempt to bring sanity to the patent
> license by providing an explicit no-action covenant rather than
> depending on an implicit license.  But the current draft really screws
> the pooch there.  The first paragraph (including the definition of
> "essential patent claims" in the preamble) of section seems to allow a
> patent worded as 
> 
>     Claim 1.  A foo for frobbing bars.
>     Claim 2.  A foo as in Claim 1, with a GUI for viewing baz.
> 
> to be embodied in such a way (eg, a library implementing only foo)
> such that a GUI foo cannot be implemented in free software.  That
> seems reasonable to me, but the froth I've seen around the web
> suggests that very few FS advocates like it.
> 
<snip>

Ok, I am snipping a LOT of this, because if I leave everything worth
replying to in, I would have to leave the whole message.

As I said, I don't quite like the license yet. :P  It has a LONG ways to
go in my opinion.

1.  I am among the people that do not like the way they are trying to
merge software related restrictions and hardware related restrictions.
I personally do not mind the idea of a commercial company making
commercial use of GNU products.  GPL v2 encouraged that.  The average
commercial product is not going to be designed so that the average user
can open it up, and change it's insides.  The average user wants a sleek
box that the only obvious inputs/outputs are the ones going from the
cable line to the back of the box, and from the box to the TV.

If TiVo wants to make a product that isn't easily modifiable, then why
should we freak out.  The device was not designed to be changed
regularly.  It was designed to work with their system, in a specific
manner.

If you want to download their code, do something with it, and make it
work on your PC or similar, then fine.  But I don't think people should
freak out because they can't make the modified code work with the
unmodified TiVo. ^^  I am mainly using TiVo as an example, because it is
the one that was used most often when discussing the GPL v3 discussion
drafts. :P  Someone at one point even used the term TiVo clause. ^_^

2.  Yes, their patent clauses are kind of scary looking.  I think I
understand that part though.  They are trying to cater them in a manner
to work with the current state of American Patent law.  For those of you
that actually know patent law, don't get up in arms just yet till you
read the next few sentences. :)

The patent laws themselves are solid, sound, and leave few loopholes for
people to screw things up.  That is not the problem.  The problem is the
judges that are passing out patents at the moment.  They are totally
ignoring patent law.  They are passing out patents on things that are
either already patented, or are unpatentable under American law by
virtue of the fact that they are already basic components of existing
projects/products/works.

Under American patent law, a person cannot patent things such as "a
button to confirm a selection," or "a widget to create a button to
minimize or maximize a screen," or anything of that nature, because
those things are already pre-existent and commonly used parts of
existing works.  They are parts of almost every existing work since
about 1993 or so.  However, judges are passing out patents on just that
sort of thing.

Because this sort of patent has been being handed out left and right for
the last five years or so, they are trying to word the license in such a
way as to be solid and valid even if it comes up against patents that
are effectively illegal.

3.  The license is trying to cope with all the broken things that have
been taking place in American copyright and patent laws for the last ten
years.  Again, the laws themselves are not so badly written, but the
ways they are being enforced is strange and bizarre.  The DMCA does not
say half of what the hype says.  It doesn't even really change copyright
law.  It just restates what has been stated in past in a more plain
English manner.  That is why it is called an act instead of a bill or a
law.  It doesn't really change any rules, it just enforces action based
on the rules.  HOWEVER, the judges and lawyers dealing with the DMCA are
not acting on the law itself, but on the hype that has been in the media
since about 1997 or so (a year before the act was passed).  Before the
Act was ever passed, there were a lot of people yelling and screaming
about what it was going to say.  That hype caught on in the free
software movement, and on the proprietary side of things.  All those
rights that the hype claims we lose to the act, have somehow become the
defacto law.  Because the people believed that was the law, and allowed
themselves to be pushed around long enough to form precedents.  At least
this is what the hype says.  I do not know how many "innocent victims"
there have been of the DMCA, but I have heard just as many reports
saying that there have been very few people prosecuted under it as I
have heard otherwise.  I think I will research this when I get proper
internet access.  If anyone else wants to look into it, I would love to
hear any real details.

To make a long story short, it would seem that American copyright law is
being superceded by hype.  It is getting scary.  Trying to write a
license to protect against that is an act of desperation, and a road to
insanity.

This hype seems to be the driving force behind the GPLv3. :/