Richard Stallman is responsible for the shrinking economy -- PART 2

Can you provide some evidence of this? The only lawsuit I am aware of is the Cisco one, and from the looks of it they simply could not be bothered to comply with the licencing terms.

Meanwhile, other companies are using GPL'ed software according to the licence terms and remain unbothered by FSF, for example Amazon and TiVo:

In message , DJ Delorie writes

I though that as you were going on about it you knew what you were talking about.

I do.

Based on a lot of information

True it is basically the majority of commercial users ignore the licensing either through intent or ignorance. Many believe that you can just use FOSS and you don't have to do anything else

I thinks that is probably true. Court cases are expensive and, to be honest a bit of a lottery.

That seems to bge a pattern in general They will release the source, if pushed, but long after it is of any commercial use.

Sounds sensible.

Actually a hell of a lot more than that.

It's a bad idea (tm). I have met him a few times. We exchanged "emails" too and it has been often frustrating.

However the man (and the posture he tries to maintain) is not the whole thing. He is good at a few things and you can't deny this. At the very least, he keeps people thinking.

You again confused 2 things : the GNU GPL and the FSF. (and your trolling brain added a bit of easy RMS bashing in the mix). Using the GPL to distribute software is NOT a gift of your rights to the FSF. This is a very important distinction that you have missed.

Anecdote : The FSF once asked someone I know to "assign them the copyright" (or something like that) of a nice piece of code that was already under GPLv2. He refused. There was no obligation, and the GNU project has recoded much larger parts than that already, so it was not a big issue. Read the damned GPL text and nowhere will you see that you give your rights to the FSF. Now, if this guy's code is "misused" or the terms of the GPL are broken, he has much less power than the FSF to protect his work. But it's his choice and there is no reason or means to make him change his mind. This is where "intellectual property" takes sense.

It's your right to ignore the whole picture and the fine details, but then don't come and claim or pretend things like the above lines.

Your goals and the GNU project's are different, hence different means. Nobody forces you to use the GPL to protect and/or disseminate your work.=

Don't keep others from doing it, though.

--=20

Op Tue, 28 Apr 2009 10:09:39 +0200 schreef Chris H :

Oh no! It's contagious!

;)

Aside from the fact that they don't sue users: you're implying that it were an increadibly malicious act to sue people who keep violating licenses, which Good Proprietary Software companies of course would never do.

So why is Autodesk threatening to sue people who used 100% legal LT-Extender? Why do I keep hearing about companies that confiscate other companies' products at trade fairs or at the customs? Why do companies like Oracle have whole departments whose sole raison d'etre is to visit clients and check that they're not overusing their licenses?

Sueing people who don't comply with licenses is a perfectly legal, perfectly legitimate last(!) resort.

Stefan

Cisco?

I did not. Where did you get that idea from?

Your bias is showing again as I never mentioned that either.

No idea? Why did FSF take Crisco to court?

You seem to hear a lot of voices.

They sued Cisco as a distributor, not Cisco as a user. Cisco's distribution was violating their license terms, and Cisco refused to comply. After years of negotiations, the FSF decided that as a last resort they had to sue Cisco to *protect* the users of Cisco's product.

The FSF did *not* sue any *users* of Cisco's products.

It may seem like a minor point to you, but wrt the GPL there's a *big* difference between a "user" and a "distributor". Users have nearly unlimited rights to do as they please with GPL'd software. Distributors must comply with the GPL's redistribution terms. Cisco was not sued because they used GPL'd software themselves, but because they redistributed it in a way that violated the license.

In message , DJ Delorie writes

It does

So that would mean that most if not all people who use FOSS at work are distributors.

Perhaps that is the problem.

That depends on what *you* mean by *use*?

I *use* Linux (Fedora Core 7) as a host development platform at work. That is *not* use as a distributer.

I *use* GCC to compile for many different targets at work. That is *not* use as a distributer.

I *use* Firefox as a web-browser at work. That is *not* use as a distributer.

I *use* Thunderbird as an e-mail client at work. That is *not* use as a distributer.

I *use* the Linux Kernel 2.6.x on an embedded target at work. That *is* use as a distributer, since we sell the target.

I use the OpenWrt Linux distribution on a router at work. That is *not* use as a distributer.

I have extended a GPL'd AVR simulator and let others within my organization use the simulator. That is

Um, no? I don't understand how you came to this conclusion. If you're using software at work, you're a user. If you create a product that itself includes software, and sell (or otherwise distribute outside your company) that product, then you're a distributor. The fact of one does not at all imply the fact of the other.

I just don=92t understand why people find DRM such a problem. I think it is the same mentality that Richard S cant comprehend that business can license software however they choose.

It=92s simple: You pay zero and get the music that you like on radio

You pay 15 pounds a month and get unlimited use to a catalogue as long as you play it through the defined player.

You pay around 10p per track and get it with DRM

You pay about 70p per track and get it without DRM

For those that want to break the license agreement the game is still the similar, you can copy these with varying levels of copy quality. Copy from internet radio means that the copy might have trailers and maybe no mp3 tags, DRM is copied through analogue route and non-DRM is copied well. At some online stores you can pay even more and get it in lossless format.

On the whole DRM is a good thing for the masses; we can now buy many many popular albums for ~=A34 or 5, which used to require us to spend 8 pounds in a shop. For most people DRM is clear what you can and can not do and is not a hidden surprise. Most people are happy for this as they have one mp3 player that they use to listen to and they can now listen cheaper and the internet brings convenience.

It=92s like going to BMW and buy a 1 series and go back and complain that it=92s not as big or as fast as a 7 series and demand that they fix the issue.

You can't *buy* anything which has DRM, only lease it on terms which may not be fully disclosed and may be amended retroactively.

When looked at from a business perspective, DRM is just a technique to protect IP. From this perspective, DRM is not unfair because you get what you pay for. But music and movies and other forms of art, are not merely IP; they get into your head and define you as a person. They have been a welcome part of human culture for thousands of years (replace 'movies' with 'vivid storytelling').

The ability to record and distribute art has largely expanded the reach of artists, but it hasn't changed the nature of their artforms as something that should be transfered and shared. This became clearer during the period that transfering (and hence recording and distributing) became easier. Apparantly a need was filled by these technological advances.

Now that transfer is easy and cheap, people no longer have the need for large corporations to enslave or hire artists and exclusively distribute their material, yet these corporations choose to lie to the public and abuse their power in order to maintain their position. So DRM is not the problem. There's nothing wrong with DRM in the same way as there is nothing wrong with guns.

In many countries you pay the government implicitly or explicitly for the right to listen to the radio in a private atmosphere. Besides, given yesteryear's technology, the radio is a _very_ poor method of introducing people to the music that they really like.

Nobody has claimed that DRM doesn't have enough advantages to be a viable business tactic.

It's more like not being able to sit in your mate's BMW 7 series because you are only licensed for the 1 series.

DRM as implemented has some extreme deficiciences.

If I buy an something on physical media, I can sell it or give it to somebody else. I can play it in any piece of equipment I own.

With DRM as it currently exists, I can not sell a copy I've purchased. I can not play it on any piece of equipment I own. I can not put the media onto a server and I can not play it on my own equipment unless it is locked down and owned by the likes of microsoft. Not only that, if I have to replace a piece of failed equipment, I have to renew the license and if the issuer no longer exists, I'm screwed out of my investment.

I have no problem with DRM. But until it is transferable, able to be played on ANY piece of equipment owner by the holder of the materials, and is transferable, I want nothing to do with it.

We have the technology to made DRM have all the attributes I would require. All that would be necessary would be a little less selfishness on the part of companies like microsoft and the recording industry.

Note that in this reply I'm talking about DRM as use for music and movies, and to some extent popular software such as games - protection mechanisms for high-end professional software is a different matter entirely.

The big media companies are never going to give you something like that

- the market for reasonable, fair and customer-friendly DRM (if such a thing could exist) is almost exactly zero, as are the number of potential suppliers for such systems.

Customers are divided into two groups - there are those who don't understand, or don't care, or will simply put up with whatever they are told. Thus the majority of customers buy music from sites like itunes, because that's what everyone else does, and it works on their player. Then there are those that hate DRM and everything it stands for - either from principle, or because they've been bitten by DRM problems (such as being unable to transfer music from an old player to a new player).

I think the group of "DRM would be okay if it worked" is actually quite small. The whole concept of DRM is fundamentally flawed - you are giving people coded data, and the key to decode that data, and then hoping that they will only decode and use that data as you want. The fact that every commonly used DRM system (to my admittedly limited knowledge) has been cracked should be a clue here. If you add to this mix your requirements for transferability, you are looking at standardisation of the software, and removing the only security the current systems actually have - security by obscurity. Thus a "DRM that worked" is basically no protection at all from people trying to make unlawful copies, and is still a pain and irritation for legal purchasers. Everybody would lose.

Suppliers of media want to keep as much control as they possibly can. But the no-DRM market is an increasing proportion, so they are now also providing for that market (at higher cost, and higher quality). I can't see any reason to target a half-way market of DRM media with less control.

That's the whole point of DRM.

That would defeat the purpose of DRM.

DRM isn't intended as a "copy prevention" mechanism. It's intended to replace one-off purchases with a rental model.

Consumers still prefer to purchase, so DRM-controlled products are still marketed as purchases rather than rentals, but the the DRM is designed to minimise the lifespan of the product. It often can't be transferred between people, or between different types of device (or even between individual devices of the same type), or between formats, or backed up in case of hardware failure.