>aggressive stance SFC takes with busybox GPL violations
I would hardly call enforcing their license an "aggressive stance". When a company enforces their right against those that violate the terms of their proprietary license it's considered "normal" but if a Free Software developer does the same thing it's considered being "aggressive"?
Sony never originally intended to comply with the requirements of the GPL. They did violate the terms of the GPL. That isn't speculation. The reason they ever complied is because they were forced to.
For those saying that there isn't a problem as long as the original authors are not willing to go to court over the violation. Think about what you are saying for a minute. You are basically saying "it's OK to pirate someones work as long as they don't enforce their license on me personally". Yes it's "piracy" as the same companies have defined it -copyright infringement-.
Let me try to be precise: I'm not characterizing enforcing the busybox license as aggressive. I'm saying that using a busybox license violation to bootstrap an investigation (and potential enforcement) related to GPLed code for which SFC does not hold the copyright is aggressive. That doesn't mean it is wrong, or even unreasonable, it is just aggressive.
Let me try an analogy: Suppose that, as part of a BSA settlement, they didn't just require you to come to terms with any BSA members whose licenses you were violating, but also with any non-BSA members whose licenses they judged you were violating. Having never had dealings with the BSA they may well do this (in the interests of drumming up new members or something). Nevertheless, I would characterize that in exactly the same way: not wrong, or even unreasonable, just aggressive.
I realize I'm not your target user-base, (I browse with no-script and don't own any social media accounts) but you should know that without javascript to load your fonts the default "cursive" font for most people is going to be (what appears to be) comic sans....
Where I live you can walk into a shop, buy a smart phone, then pop in a sim card and be off. Can you not do this in the US?
You don't pay any monthly service and I don't see how the carrier you have chosen to buy a sim card from has any basis for claiming that the phone I'm using is somehow not owned by me.
Since I purchased my first mobile phone around ~11 years ago this is how I have always done it.
You can do that in the US, but it isn't common because of carrier subsidies. Even worse, sometimes when you pay full price for a phone you still wind up with something that is carrier-locked anyway. Plus there are all sorts of technical incompatibilities (e.g. AT&T vs T-Mobile 3G bands) even if your phone is otherwise unlocked. And so on...
Surely when you get a contract for your phone & service you pay X for Y months and this should cover the cost of the phone anyway. So even if you switch the phone to a different carrier you're going to be paying the contract amount anyway.
I could unlock my phone and use a different carrier (considered doing this after the o2 fiasco yesterday) but it wouldn't make economic sense to me.
I think that is opening up a can of worms I would rather not see opened. Technically caching could be seen as copyright infringement.
Quite a few ISP's run transparent proxies for caching and technically every time you visit a website you are creating a copy of it on your local drive. If I disable javascript or run other scripts (like via grease-monkey) I am also technically creating "derived work".
Does this mean that as soon as I run something on a network (or just the internet?) I am required to push my changes back upstream immediately?
Warning: If any of the following is incorrect, I would really appreciate someone correcting me. I use the AGPL, and if I'm incorrect, I would like to know.
You never have to push your changes back upstream. I'm not aware of any license that requires you to submit your changes back to the original author. You just have to make it accessible to your users.
Just like the GPL, you can run AGPL code on a private network and not have to publicly release the source code. It's when the network is public that you have to make the source code available.
If I visit your website, enter in some data, a script/lib licensed under the AGPL does something with it and returns a result. You must release the source code of "everything that it touches".
If you have a business and on the company Intranet you have the same script, while the employees (users) are entitled to have a copy of the source code, you are not required to publicly release the source code. Of course, other laws prevent those employees from also releasing the source code to the public and AFAIK they "trump" copyright laws eg.NDA.
Since a lot of OSS code is contributed by companies, they don't really have any incentive to contribute to an AGPL project (in most cases).
I don't know, companies contribute to GPL licensed code even when they don't explicitly have to. Just off the top of my head, tarsnap comes to mind, he contributes back to libarchive even though he is not required to do so.
That doesn't mean I don't see your point though. You could just as easily suggest that if libarchive was licensed under the AGPL that tarsnap wouldn't have used it in the first place due to the fact he would have to release the source of the entire stack.
So I think you argument should really be "Why should companies even use software under the AGPL" not "Why should they contribute back". I don't really have an answer for that, but the same argument was made about the GPL and companies still use GPL licensed software. I'm sure if you asked rms that question he would say something about not caring about companies that want to restrict his freedom....
You are correct about the AGPL, just be careful with wording it like "everything that it touches". I don't think that is true at all - if you have a website and use AGPL code, the AGPL states that your users have a right to see that code. It cannot make a judgment on other software that may be licensed in a different way. For instance, if you have a website that uses AGPL code to produce an HTML page and non-AGPL code to provide a PDF from that HTML page, the two packages would indeed touch, but there would be no obligation to release the non-AGPL code, just the AGPL code.
As for requirements to push back changes - of course not. The only license I know of that does something similar is the SMF - Simple Machines Forum - license[1]. Yuck.
The argument between GPL and AGPL is similar to the one between BSD (or similar) and GPL on the desktop. My own position is that yes, I expect humans to be inherently good, kind and sharing souls and thus the BSD should be the license of choice. However, I have to be pragmatic and say - if we all assume that humans act like that, what's the harm in writing that down into the license? All it can do is make it hard for people who don't want to give back. So in my eyes, that's an important feature to have.
You are correct about the AGPL, just be careful with wording it like "everything that it touches".
Yeah, sorry. I think that was a poor choice of words on my part.
For instance, if you have a website that uses AGPL code to produce an HTML page and non-AGPL code to provide a PDF from that HTML page, the two packages would indeed touch, but there would be no obligation to release the non-AGPL code, just the AGPL code.
Interesting, in your example, if your application calls the AGPL code that is used to generate the HTML wouldn't your application also have to be released under the AGPL? Or do you only have to make available the AGPL "HTML generation library" and the changes you have made to it (if any)?
I thought that it had already been established that if you use a library under the GPL any code that uses/calls that library must be released under the GPL. The only reason companies can use GPL code server side is because it is not run on the user's machine (technically not "releasing it"), which was the basis for the creation of the AGPL, to "fix" this "loophole".
edit:
Thanks skore, yeah I think your example still stands. Specifically, in the wikipedia article you linked this part:
By contrast, pipes, sockets and command-line arguments are communication mechanisms normally used between two separate programs.
To continue the original example, if your program just runs the HTML generation program and supplies user data via a command line argument then it need not be released under a compatible license. But on the other hand if you were to "copy and paste" the functions from that program into yours, it would need to be licensed under a compatible license.
I think my example holds because it would be possible to replace either part of the process without the other one failing. That would be the argument by dependency.
Wikipedia has a pretty good section on the more broad legal background:
My understanding is that every GPL except LGPL infects your code. If you distribute code "linked" to GPL'd code (where AGPL defines distribute as being accessed), you must make your code available. It does get confusing when your PDF library is proprietary and not yours, which is why companies tend to frown on using AGPL'd code.
> To continue the original example, if your program just runs the HTML generation program and supplies user data via a command line argument then it need not be released under a compatible license.
I wonder what would happen if you modify the GPLed command line program. Would that mean you'd be required to release such changes? I would say no.
On one hand, it conjures up pictures of a real slimeball, the typical "snake oil salesman".
On the other, I get the impression he is a really charismatic individual. It certainly takes some skill to stand up in front of a bunch of people, take away something from them and convince them that they are better off.
Once upon a time I used to love zenhabits. I used to look at what Leo had accomplished (losing weight, living minimally, doing what you love (blogging) and building a business around it etc.) and thought he was worth listening too.
Over time I started noticing that you could pretty much pick anything published on his blog and find an earlier post contradicting it. Try it for yourself, find a post you like on the blog and then google "[subject] site:zenhabits.net" and smile as you see the contradictions that appear.
Life isn't straight forward and if it was as easy as following simple step by step instructions the "self-help" industry would be redundant. Life is difficult, do whatever it is that works for you and if anyone says they have found the "secret to success" take it with a grain of salt.
I agree with your conclusion (life isn't straightforward, do what works for you, don't trust "secret to success"-pushers), and having never really read zenhabits before I'll believe your premise that a lot of the content there contradicts other content there.
Looking for the least-malicious way of explaining that though, you could say maybe the author is someone who is able to change their mind, even if it makes them look dumb. I think that's probably a good thing.
I think a better way to look at it is that life is full of challenge. You can either learn how to get comfortable dealing with certain challenges and stick to those, or dig into new territory.
If you're comfortable with the challenges you expose yourself to on a regular basis then it really wouldn't be difficult - sadly for me, I get bored easily and so far I've not found a way to stick to doing the same for very long.
I would hardly call enforcing their license an "aggressive stance". When a company enforces their right against those that violate the terms of their proprietary license it's considered "normal" but if a Free Software developer does the same thing it's considered being "aggressive"?
Sony never originally intended to comply with the requirements of the GPL. They did violate the terms of the GPL. That isn't speculation. The reason they ever complied is because they were forced to.
For those saying that there isn't a problem as long as the original authors are not willing to go to court over the violation. Think about what you are saying for a minute. You are basically saying "it's OK to pirate someones work as long as they don't enforce their license on me personally". Yes it's "piracy" as the same companies have defined it -copyright infringement-.