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Why Oracle Wants LibreOffice to Succeed
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Comments (31)
11 earlier comments in the full thread.
@azerthoth: I'm not saying that you cannot sell copyleft code. You can. It's just that Oracle can't sell StarOffice under a copyleft license. After the first sale they'd loose any feature advantage they have over the free OOo version or over LO.
Thanks for the clarification Sander.
vorbote, your suffering from a common misconception, not only can you sell copyleft code, you can also charge again for the source code, it needs not be supplied free of charge. Nor is there a prohibition on setting that cost at a point where the requester withdraws the request. This may be contrary to the philosophy but its been a glaring loophole in the GPL for a very very long time.
vorbote, your suffering from a common misconception, not only can you sell copyleft code, you can also charge again for the source code, it needs not be supplied free of charge. Nor is there a prohibition on setting that cost at a point where the requester withdraws the request. This may be contrary to the philosophy but its been a glaring loophole in the GPL for a very very long time.
@az, according to the FAQ I linked above:
And from the GPLv2 itself:
Quoting:Except in one special situation, there is no limit on what price you can charge. (The one exception is the required written offer to provide source code that must accompany binary-only release.)And from the clarification:
Quoting:Except for one special situation, the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL) has no requirements about how much you can charge for distributing a copy of free software. You can charge nothing, a penny, a dollar, or a billion dollars. It's up to you, and the marketplace, so don't complain to us if nobody wants to pay a billion dollars for a copy.http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html
The one exception is in the case where binaries are distributed without the corresponding complete source code. Those who do this are required by the GNU GPL to provide source code on subsequent request. Without a limit on the fee for the source code, they would be able set a fee too large for anyone to pay—such as a billion dollars—and thus pretend to release source code while in truth concealing it. So in this case we have to limit the fee for source in order to ensure the user's freedom. In ordinary situations, however, there is no such justification for limiting distribution fees, so we do not limit them.
Sometimes companies whose activities cross the line stated in the GNU GPL plead for permission, saying that they “won't charge money for the GNU software” or such like. That won't get them anywhere with us. Free software is about freedom, and enforcing the GPL is defending freedom. When we defend users' freedom, we are not distracted by side issues such as how much of a distribution fee is charged. Freedom is the issue, the whole issue, and the only issue.
And from the GPLv2 itself:
Quoting:3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following: ... b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange...http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html (Emphasis mine.)
@azerthoth
No. I don't have that misconception but my line of discourse didn't make that evident at all.That's one of the problems with the GPL: It is multidimensional. It is very difficult to convey the real meaning and implications of the GPL in economically enough words so that most of the people out there will be able to grasp the basics of the license.
That would be my only critique to the GPL (1.2 or 3); that it is too subtle for most people out there. On the other hand, what are lawyers for but to muddle ideas? gus3 has already given the legal arguments, in this line of argumentation and the general case .
No. I don't have that misconception but my line of discourse didn't make that evident at all.That's one of the problems with the GPL: It is multidimensional. It is very difficult to convey the real meaning and implications of the GPL in economically enough words so that most of the people out there will be able to grasp the basics of the license.
That would be my only critique to the GPL (1.2 or 3); that it is too subtle for most people out there. On the other hand, what are lawyers for but to muddle ideas? gus3 has already given the legal arguments, in this line of argumentation and the general case .
Quoting:This may be contrary to the philosophy but its been a glaring loophole in the GPL for a very very long time.
It's not a loophole at all. It's quite deliberate. I have sold GPL code, and for quite a lot of money too. The problem is building a business model around it, because the first person you sell it to can turn around and distribute it for free if he so wishes.
Quoting:It didn't happen, yet the fact that the LibreOffice project doesn't require copyright assignment to a controlling party means that the product they put out can evolve faster than whatever Oracle puts out in the wild, if and only if the DF can attract more hackers than Oracle can put money into human resources for their OSS project. I guess that's what we all FOSS supporters are rooting for. :-)
I think your assertion here is unproven at best and possibly incorrect. Many hackers are willing to assign copyright. Fedora and Ubuntu both require it and participation certainly hasn.t stopped. Further, most of the major OpenSource projects have corporate backing and the key developers are on the corporate payroll. In this sense Oracle is no different than Red Hat or Novell.
Please don't claim to speak for "all FOSS supporters." I am not rooting for LO to beat out OOo or vice versa. I see competition as a good thing and I wish both projects well.
[devil's advocate]
Quoting:Many hackers are willing to assign copyright.Maybe it's time to start trumpeting Oracle's behavior as a "caveat donator". [/devil's advocate]
@Gus the phrase which you selected is ambiguous, and the assumption that I cant charge what I wish is based on the premise that I am limited in some manner for setting a value level on my time. As there is no such restriction it is entirely feasible for me to charge at lawyer rates or higher, that and become the model of inefficiency while doing so.
As dino would have pointed at, and has, intent be damned, that's what it actually says.
As dino would have pointed at, and has, intent be damned, that's what it actually says.
@gus3: Being smart about assigning copyright is good advice in any case. Your caveat is not a bad idea. Look at the brouhaha around Ubuntu's copyright assignment and why it has raised hackles when copyright assignment documents used by the FSF and Red Hat / Fedora have not. The key is always to read what you (virtually) sign and decide if you can live with the terms.
@az:
Which phrase is ambiguous? "No more than your cost of physically performing source distribution"? Come on, what does it come down to besides providing it at cost? Ten or fifteen minutes work, one CD or DVD, and postage, all handled in the office. The executable program can be a profit center, but not the source code (including build files such as Makefiles) for same.
Only a lawyer would think that the labor cost of such a trivial act as burning a CD or DVD is justifiably more than the cost of any other ten minutes' work, especially considering the background nature of CD/DVD burning. The FSF has lawyers on board, as well, and I suspect they will be more than happy to counter that specious argument. It holds about as much weight as SCO saying the Asset Purchase Agreement didn't really say what it said.
Which phrase is ambiguous? "No more than your cost of physically performing source distribution"? Come on, what does it come down to besides providing it at cost? Ten or fifteen minutes work, one CD or DVD, and postage, all handled in the office. The executable program can be a profit center, but not the source code (including build files such as Makefiles) for same.
Only a lawyer would think that the labor cost of such a trivial act as burning a CD or DVD is justifiably more than the cost of any other ten minutes' work, especially considering the background nature of CD/DVD burning. The FSF has lawyers on board, as well, and I suspect they will be more than happy to counter that specious argument. It holds about as much weight as SCO saying the Asset Purchase Agreement didn't really say what it said.
Too bad thats not what it says though isnt it. And if you think lawyers are going to argue against charging incremental time at exorbitant rates I think you might be in for a shock.
*edit* not saying that I don't agree with you, just pointing out that what we might want something to be doesn't mean that it is that way. Playing the devils advocate and all. */edit*
*edit* not saying that I don't agree with you, just pointing out that what we might want something to be doesn't mean that it is that way. Playing the devils advocate and all. */edit*
Okay, you make the assertion. Prove it, in a way that won't run afoul of any state bar.
Your asking me to prove a negative ... that's a fools game. Your not a fool, don't take me for one.
Proving that a billion dollars for the Linux kernel source on DVD is allowed under the GPL? How is that a negative?
Caitlyn: I think copyright assignment means some administrative overhead. LO can pull in any GPL-patch they "like at first sight", and move on.
OTOH,I also believe Sun's stance on the issue about being able to defend _all_ code is valuable as well.
I tried to look into the issue a bit (because my earlier post clearly shows I only understood 30% of the discussion), and found out it's "shared copyright" these days. MySQL and BerkelyDB require the same 'contributor agreement' it seems.
So the 'shared assignment' probably is a minor threshold. But only if developers trust your company, and that seems Oracle's current problem.
---
about the copying cost of some source code: I'd love to hear what a judge would say about these conflicting viewpoints. Given the recent fine of Ms. Thomas, I'm pretty sure US judges count in a different way than I do.
OTOH,I also believe Sun's stance on the issue about being able to defend _all_ code is valuable as well.
I tried to look into the issue a bit (because my earlier post clearly shows I only understood 30% of the discussion), and found out it's "shared copyright" these days. MySQL and BerkelyDB require the same 'contributor agreement' it seems.
So the 'shared assignment' probably is a minor threshold. But only if developers trust your company, and that seems Oracle's current problem.
---
about the copying cost of some source code: I'd love to hear what a judge would say about these conflicting viewpoints. Given the recent fine of Ms. Thomas, I'm pretty sure US judges count in a different way than I do.
Ms. Thomas copied without permission, and has been fined (but how much is still a question).
The GPLv2 requires copying the source code, at no profit, upon the request of the recipient of the executable form. Refusing to do so, i.e. distributing executable form while refusing to distribute the buildable source form, immediately terminates the right of the distributor to distribute the program. Only after doing that, would the distributor be in the same camp as Ms. Thomas, and possibly subject to the same type of fine.
The GPLv2 requires copying the source code, at no profit, upon the request of the recipient of the executable form. Refusing to do so, i.e. distributing executable form while refusing to distribute the buildable source form, immediately terminates the right of the distributor to distribute the program. Only after doing that, would the distributor be in the same camp as Ms. Thomas, and possibly subject to the same type of fine.
> So the 'shared assignment' probably is a minor threshold. But only if developers trust your company, and that seems Oracle's current problem.
The partial solution to that is a shared assignment with no resale/transfer rights. With that, the rights wouldn't have gone to Oracle when they bought Sun. That doesn't solve the problem of a change in management though. Assigning your copyrights to Caldera would have been a very bad idea, for instance.
The partial solution to that is a shared assignment with no resale/transfer rights. With that, the rights wouldn't have gone to Oracle when they bought Sun. That doesn't solve the problem of a change in management though. Assigning your copyrights to Caldera would have been a very bad idea, for instance.
keep banging that no profit gus3, know another way that its legal to distribute source? in print out form, so the n there is not only the time factor, but the cost of paper, ink, and monetizing wear an tear on the printer. No where does it say at no profit, If you refuse to see time as a commodity in the same manner of any other portion of the transaction, and that time, just like a DVD costs as a market rate then you will never understand the difference between at cost and theft.
Not when the license specifically stipulates "machine-readable." OCR, even on a good day, is a dodgy proposition at best, and it includes no mechanism for ECC the way magnetic/optical storage, or even paper tape and punched cards, do. It can't count as "machine-readable" by any stretch of the imagination.
And charging for the time is not forbidden, but charging a billion dollars US per hour for recording a CD when the normal going rate is, say, $350/hour (or whatever) for normal services, would once again be something that only a lawyer would think he could get away with. Throw in the likelihood that it'll be the lowest-paid secretary on the pool's seniority list, who is doing the copying, and that argument only confirms what most people already believe about lawyers:
It's 99% of the lawyers that give the other 1% a bad name.
And charging for the time is not forbidden, but charging a billion dollars US per hour for recording a CD when the normal going rate is, say, $350/hour (or whatever) for normal services, would once again be something that only a lawyer would think he could get away with. Throw in the likelihood that it'll be the lowest-paid secretary on the pool's seniority list, who is doing the copying, and that argument only confirms what most people already believe about lawyers:
It's 99% of the lawyers that give the other 1% a bad name.
ambiguous again, the source is machine readable the format is not.
*edit* GPLv2 actually stipulates any medium. */edit*
*edit* GPLv2 actually stipulates any medium. */edit*
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