Stop Microsoft
Miscellaneous => The Lounge => Topic started by: iustitia on 10 June 2002, 08:45
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Hello Fellow hackers and/or M$ haters:
I just realized something. How does the FSF enforce the GPL. I was wondering what would happen if a propietery company stole a bits and peices program that was licensed under the GPL. Since most of those types of companies only realease binaries of their software, it would be certian that no one would notice, especially becuse most End User licenses forbid reversing. This is probally been brought up here before, but I just realized it and found it an especially haunting prospect. There could be thousands of software companies that are stealing large portions of code from hackers who believed they were coding in defiance of Corperate America, when in fact they were helping it. The prospect scares the crap outa me.
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Good question. If a proprietary company such as M$ were to use GPL believe me, sooner or later someone from the inside would squeal. Sort of like software piracy. Companies usually do not pirate software because sooner or later a disgruntled employee would rat them out. There is an email address that violations can be reported. For more information see:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/enforcing-gpl.html (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/enforcing-gpl.html)
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YEs good point. As Void has pointed out a few times, M$ has incorporated many portions of free BSD into the NT kernel.
Tho they wont admit to it. Bastards!
EDIT:
Err.. hehe.. I didn't notice I posted right after the man himself :D
Anyway, I think he suggested... hmm.. hey Void, what was your theory behind M$ swiping GPL code? If you remember that is (http://smile.gif)
[ June 10, 2002: Message edited by: psyjax ]
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Well, BSD code is not GPL code. M$ is actually free to incorporate any BSD code into their OS that they wish (and I wish they would incorporate more to be honest, would be a hell of a lot better product). The BSD license allows you to "steal" code and do whatever you want with it, including modifying/selling and not releasing the source code. Under the GPL you are allowed to modify and sell but you must also release your source code and allow the same freedoms to your customer. I have read that M$ has used the BSD TCP/IP stack, and we all know they stole Kerberos and hacked it up until it didn't work with anything but other M$ products. And of course IE was originally created from Mozaic, also open source (but not GPL).
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I keep hearing windows uses the BSD TCP/IP stack. Is there anyway to verify that or is it rumor status?
I allso heard that the NT kernel is OS/2.
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Voidmain:
That article from the FSF has been somewhat reassuring. However, I still think it impossible enough reversersing is going on that would find code under the GPL. Especially when one considers the amount of code under the liscense, and the majority of shrink-wrap liscenses that forbid reversing. Especially because we know of frequent stealing of things like kerbos, Mosaic, Screwing over netscape, spyglass, and java, and the TCP/IP thing which has been my most recent learning of the offence. And M$ is just one company out of the thousands of "innovators"!
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From what I recall it was starting with Win2k that they went with the BSD stack. As you probably know, every version of Windows prior to Win2k the TCP/IP stack was absolute crap. NT was better so maybe it was with NT they started using BSD code. I'll do some searching and see what I can find.
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Here I see someone else referencing it:
http://old.lwn.net/2001/0607/a/esr-big-lie.php3 (http://old.lwn.net/2001/0607/a/esr-big-lie.php3)
quote:
Other open-source licenses -- such as the BSD license in the TCP/IP
stack that Microsoft adapted for Windows -- will never infect
anybody's code or data, because they're designed not to. But Ballmer
wants businesspeople and the public to fear them all, because only if
open source is general is discredited will Microsoft maintain its
monopoly.
And here's one that would make it appear that
M$'s FTP client and more was robbed from BSD:
http://www.daemonnews.org/200108/dadvocate.html (http://www.daemonnews.org/200108/dadvocate.html)
Very interesting...
In fact I just ran a "strings" on my ftp.exe and sure enough, the copyright is there, plain as day!
[ June 10, 2002: Message edited by: VoidMain ]
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The GNU LGPL is fully legal.... If somone stole your source... you just sue them for copyright infringement.
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yes but the question is how would you know their binaries were from your source, if they didn't release their source for you to check it against?
Voidmain was saying they don't do that purely because somebody on the inside would leak it. That's what money's for though, and finding articles on the web does not a lawsuit make unfortunately.
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Depends on the source i geuss.
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oh come on, microsoft never stole or lied, ever, honest! nor did intel ever screw over amd and motorola and ibm and cyrix! i swear! and internet explorer was written in little ones and zeros by bill gates dog with a pencil shoved in it's asshole! it was something else, you should have been there...
o wait, they have all profited from unpaid talent and then rheamed them.
expressedly, the thieving corporations are the stink, but open source is the shit!
(if this is uniquely an american euphanism, being the shit is a good thing errrrrrrrr derp!)
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quote:
Originally posted by Calum:
Voidmain was saying they don't do that purely because somebody on the inside would leak it.
Thanks for clearing that up Calum.
[ June 11, 2002: Message edited by: iustitia ]
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Actually guys M$ DOES use open source software in the development process. Perl for example is used by M$ developers. They simply do not include ANY open source code in their final products. Its a case of using GPL'd "TOOLS" not using GPL'd code in your products.
Example(real): a M$ developer writes a Perl script to help him debug his C++ code.
Chew on that...read the GPL and see if you can find a hole....good luck
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quote:
Originally posted by dbl221:
Actually guys M$ DOES use open source software in the development process. Perl for example is used by M$ developers. They simply do not include ANY open source code in their final products. Its a case of using GPL'd "TOOLS" not using GPL'd code in your products.
Example(real): a M$ developer writes a Perl script to help him debug his C++ code.
Chew on that...read the GPL and see if you can find a hole....good luck
I had alreay known that. I was just wondering about releases.
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I guess you guys didn't read the thread. They *DO* include some open source code in their OS. They use at least SOME BSD code. All of the executables I list above have open source BSD code in them and I am sure that they use it in other areas. Now, that does not break the BSD license, they are perfectly legal in "stealing" BSD code and including it in Windows. Remember, open source != GPL. GPL is one of many licenses used in open source, BSD is another, X11 is another, etc. Microsoft only has a beef with GPL because they can't steal it, distribute/sell it and claim they wrote it without including the source for said code. Now they *can* include it in their code as long as they don't release that particular code without including the source code. They can freely use GPL code in house for development as long as they don't distribute it.
I found at least 5 EXE files in C:\WINNT on Windows 2000 that have the BSD copyright in them.
[EDIT] Where did my post go that listed all the EXE files??? From memory it was something like, FTP.EXE, RSH.EXE, NSLOOKUP.EXE, and a few others...
[ June 13, 2002: Message edited by: VoidMain ]
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that's right, the original X Windows has that licence too, you can take the source for free, then change it, release it as binary only and charge a mint for it, if you want.
I think that's grossly unfair. No wonder Microsoft likes that idea so much, they don't need to hire so many developers, developers, developers, developers.
I prefer the GPL. It seems like progress to me. Out of interest, are the newer BSDs GPL? or are they all under the BSD licence as well?
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im pretty sure that all BSD's use the bsd license, they all use bsd code and have to keep it under the bsd license, im not sure but one could always read through the licensing info of the bsd cdroms.
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do they have to keep it BSD? i thought the whole point of the BSD licence was that you could release the modified code under a different licence, that, i thought, was the major difference between it and the GPL (and the reason the GPL came into being). I may need to go and look that up now...
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BSD license and GPL are two different "heavyweight" open source licenses. They each have their own philosophy. Generally people in the BSD camp do not like the restrictiveness of the GPL and people in the GPL camp do not like the "stealability" of the BSD license. One is not likely to merge with the other. At least anytime within the next 20 years....
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i don't mean they may merge, but consider:
the BSD licence allows people to take (and modify if they wish) BSD code and shove it in with their own code. They can then use the code in any way they like, yes? so they can distribute binaries only, they can charge for them and so on. The idea is that if BSD can be got for free anyway, that'll check the balance and it won't run away with itself.
The GPL however states that the source code comes with the binaries, if binaries are provided at all. with GPL, everybody has a right to see the exact source code for whatever anybody is running. And the modified code must assume the licencing conditions of the original code (the GPL) So people cannot redistribute any modified code without including the actual source code. They can sell it, they can provide binaries, but they must allow the source code to be freely distributed as well, if there's any GPL stuff in there.
This would seem like an easier model to negotiate when it comes to copyright and intellectual property.
SO: let's take this example...
I get all the BSD code i can find, from all four versions of BSD, and i make my own shitkickin' muthafuckin' version of BSD that i love with it's own superflash installer program and tons of cool stuff, which i can do because i got all the source code for free. THEN i release it onto the market and call it 'FabBSD' or 'KickassBSD' or something, and i sell it for $99 or whatever, providing only precompiled binaries for whatever system i want it to run on. THIS is legal as far as i can see.
SO: let's rewind a bit, i still have my shitkickin' muthafuckin' version of BSD, but instead of only distributing binaries and charging whopping amounts of bread for other people's work (which seems to be the acceptable way of doing it...) I decide "NO! I have a conscience" so i decide to release my new BSD under the GPL.
I still sell it, and i still make a mint, except that i distribute my code, and people make tons of great chenges and fixes really fast which make it kick even more shit and fuck even more muthas than before! Also, any variant of this 'AceBSD' code will also be GPL, but it will a lot of it be able to run natively on other versions of BSD as well!
anybody could legally do this tomorrow as far as i can see, and within months the BSD and GPL communities would have effectively been brought leagues further towards each other, and there would be a GPL version of BSD out too...
Have i missed something? because that seems legally sound to me.
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I see your question now. You are asking, since BSD doesn't have the restrictions of GPL, why can't one take the BSD code, claim it for their own and turn it into GPL code. Is that what you are asking?
Well, I am not as familiar with the BSD license but I think you have prompted me to read into it farther. I do believe, however, that this can not be done. I don't believe the BSD license is *that* lax. In fact I think you must at least provide the copyright/credits in your code if you include some or all of the BSD code (which is why you find the BSD copyright in some of the M$ executables). I'll try and do some more digging on this tonight (read the license, and do some other research) and I'll let you know what I find out. I would also suggest you do the same. Let me know your conclusions...
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Okay, this is a very interesting subject. I just read the BSSD license at opensource.org
Question - Is that all it is, a copyright statement and three clauses (one since recinded)?
On this basis, Calum, I don't think you can GPL release the BSD code. The reason is Copyright law. If you got a letter from the copyright owners (berekley) stating you could release this under a GPL then the code would forever enter into GPL domain. It appears to be an issue of Intellectual property. You have a right to use the code as long as you apply copyright statements to released product.
The real crux appears to be the GPL license. It forbids claiming ownership of the code. You can assign credit statements, but NOT copyright statements, or the code would illegally enter the proprietary software arena, which is what the GPL is designed to prevent.
No-one owns the GPL'd software, and you cannot have a ownership mark in the license, which is what a copyright statement is (whether or not it's freely available for use).
I think this is right. Maybe you should write to them and ask them if you can. They would in effect have to give up the requirements for copyright notice, they could insist on a statement of credit though, as that does not seem to cross the GPL. Write a statement of credit in to the GPL, and Bob's your uncle.
Anyone any other thoughts?
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why can't i just release the new OS under the GPL while allowing the original writers to retain the copyright? the GPL allows copyright to be retained anyway does it not? here's the BSD licence that is included with my copy (FreeBSD 4.5):
quote:
# $FreeBSD: src/COPYRIGHT,v 1.4 1999/09/05 21:33:47 obrien Exp $
# @(#)COPYRIGHT 8.2 (Berkeley) 3/21/94
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If Microsoft can release parts of the BSD system under their own EULA, so long as they recognise copyright, then why can't i do the same with the GPL?
[ June 15, 2002: Message edited by: Calum ]
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So having re-read the GNU GPL I see I may have miss thought this. Okay the issue is whether you can include someone else'e Copyright software.
You could use the code under a GPL license, but you would have to include the BSD license for that BSD code. It would be like sending out a GPLd Linux dist. with proprietary software, you can but licenses have to be included, and license requirements met (star office is a good example, I think). You cannot change a license without the authors express consent.
I think my confusion was I like the GPL because it forces the developers of code released under GPL to remain GPL, BSD does nothing of the sort, you can use BSD much as you want as long as copyright is mentioned. The BSD code, though, will not change, it will remain under the BSD license, you do not have the right to change another license, without the authors express permission.
M$ could not stop you from taking the BSD out of their software, because they do not own the copyright, in fact it is a matter for further debate maybe, but maybe M$ are actually required to insert a copy of the BSD license for the BSD code?
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i beg to differ. Microsoft can and do stop me from taking the BSD code from their software, by not making those parts open source. Are they doing so illegally? Or is it a situation where they can claim that i can get the BSD code that they used from it's original source, so no rights have been infringed?
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quote:
Originally posted by Calum:
i beg to differ. Microsoft can and do stop me from taking the BSD code from their software, by not making those parts open source. Are they doing so illegally? Or is it a situation where they can claim that i can get the BSD code that they used from it's original source, so no rights have been infringed?
Look at the BSD license. I think thats the name of the license under which BSD unix falls, but Im not sure. Says nothing about having to share the code after using it. Youre thinking of GPL, which does. In fact, most public licenses dont say anything like the GPL, the GPL is quite restrictive as things go. Thats why M$ and other corperatios were able to steal from mozilla and kerbos from MIT.
-Justice
psedit: Whoops, didnt notice the license on the previous page.
[ June 16, 2002: Message edited by: iustitia ]
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i do not agree that the GPL is restrictive, it just recognises the rights of the writers of and contributors to any program. The BSD licence may be great for cherry pickers, but it walks all over the people who wrote the code. Fine if they agree, but they should have the choice to go GPL as well.
quote:
M$ could not stop you from taking the BSD out of their software
That's what i was replying to above... I said they could stop me taking the BSD out of windows, by not releasing the source.