opinion on Willem programmer?

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Re: opinion on Willem programmer?

by Byron Jeff :: Rate this Message:

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On Thu, May 08, 2008 at 04:14:13PM -0400, M. Adam Davis wrote:

> On 5/8/08, Mark Rages <markrages@...> wrote:
> > While your software is open source in the sense that the source code
> > is available for reading, it does not meet the Open Source
> > Initiative's definition: (http://www.opensource.org/docs/osd) nor does
> > it embody the four freedoms of the FSF.
> > (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html).  Therefore is not "open
> > source" in the accepted usage of the term.
>
> It's true that some of his open source software does not meet the
> criteria defined by these two groups.
>
> That doesn't mean it's not open source.  It means that if they had
> their way the term "Open Source" would be trademarked and owned by
> either of them and they could prevent its usage outside of their
> _very_ narrow definition.
>
> Olin can call it open source all he wants.  He makes it clear in the
> license what is open about his source and what is closed.  Even the
> two organizations mentioned above encourage people to read and abide
> by the license included with any software.

Where's the license? I looked on EmbedInc's software page, and downloaded
the development software. The only license reference I found was in the
aspic files:

;   ***************************************************************
;   * The contents of this file may be used in any way,           *
;   * commercial or otherwise.  This file is provided "as is",    *
;   * and Embed Inc makes no claims of suitability for a          *
;   * particular purpose nor assumes any liability resulting from *
;   * its use.                                                    *
;   ***************************************************************

There was no separate license file that I could find and no such text in
the .pas files.

>
> Unless someone has it trademarked and enforces it, then there's no
> need to force everyone to adopt a particular definition, especially
> when that definition is so narrow given that the words are merely
> "open" and "source".  If they want to force a particular usage, they
> need to get a trademark on a phrase they can control, use it, enforce
> it, and settle down instead of telling everyone what open source is
> and isn't.

OSI did. They trademarked 'OSI certified' according to the Open Source
wikipedia entry. They attempted to get a service mark for "Open Source" but
failed in the effort.

BAJ
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Re: opinion on Willem programmer?

by Byron Jeff :: Rate this Message:

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On Thu, May 08, 2008 at 07:48:26AM -0400, Olin Lathrop wrote:
> Xiaofan Chen wrote:
> > Just read my reply to Olin and you will know I was just talking
> > based on the popular definition of "open source".
>
> Then you misunderstand the popular definition.

(thought to self: Do I REALLY want to wade into this?)

> I think the general
> consensus of "open source" means you can look at it.

All common definitions of open source deals with modification and
redistribution. From the Wikipedia entry (emphesis mine):

----------------------------------------
Open source software is computer software for which the human-readable
source code is made available under a copyright license (or arrangement
such as the public domain) that meets the Open Source Definition. THIS
PERMITS USERS TO USE, CHANGE, AND IMPROVE THE SOFTWARE, AND TO REDISTRIBUTE
IT IN MODIFIED OR UNMODIFIED FORM. It is often developed in a public,
collaborative manner.
----------------------------------------

It's not about being able to read the source.

>  In most cases you can
> do more, usually much more.  But some restrictions, like GPL or my
> copyright, don't disqualify it from being "open source".

Again where is your license? I couldn't find it on this page:

http://www.embedinc.com/picprg/sw.htm

Also I downloaded the source bundle. While the aspic files had an "any use"
clause in it, I didn't see any licensing information with the .pas files.

> There are probably others listening in wondering what the fuss is about.
> Here is the copyright notice of the source files that do not directly
> implement a programming algorithm or are part of the USB framework:
>
> ***************************************************************
> * Copyright (C) 2008, Embed Inc (http://www.embedinc.com)     *
> *                                                             *
> * Permission to copy this file is granted as long as this     *
> * copyright notice is included in its entirety at the         *
> * beginning of the file, whether the file is copied in whole  *
> * or in part and regardless of whether other information is   *
> * added to the copy.                                          *
> *                                                             *
> * The contents of this file may be used in any way,           *
> * commercial or otherwise.  This file is provided "as is",    *
> * and Embed Inc makes no claims of suitability for a          *
> * particular purpose nor assumes any liability resulting from *
> * its use.                                                    *
> ***************************************************************

That's the one that I found on the top of the .aspic files. The .pas files
didn't have this notice.

>
> Geesh guys, all I'm asking for is to be credited in the source, and you
> don't even need to show it to your customers or anyone else.

The latter part is usually the tipping point between the "free software"
FSF style advocates and the "open source" advocates.

>  This is a
> *way* less restrictive than the GPL.  By the way, all my PIC development
> environment (http://www.embedinc.com/pic) code either has this same
> copyright or none at all.

It's the none at all that's the real problem. Without a license, no one has
any right to do anything with the source for your software. Definitely not
open source by any definition.

> The USBProg USB framework modules or modules that implement programming
> algorithms are more restricted:
>
> ****************************************************************
> * Copyright (C) 2008, Embed Inc (http://www.embedinc.com).     *
> * All rights reserved except as explicitly noted here.         *
> *                                                              *
> * Permission to copy this file is granted as long as this      *
> * copyright notice is included in its entirety at the          *
> * beginning of the file, whether the file is copied in whole   *
> * or in part and regardless of whether other information is    *
> * added to the copy, and one of the following conditions is    *
> * met:                                                         *
> *                                                              *
> *   1 - Any executable derived from the this file is only run  *
> *       on a Embed Inc product.                                *
> *                                                              *
> *   2 - Any device that contains executable code derived from  *
> *       this file is not sold, not distributed for commercial  *
> *       advantage, and not more than 10 (ten) instances of the *
> *       device are created.                                    *
> *                                                              *
> * To copy this file otherwise requires explicit permission     *
> * from Embed Inc and may also require a fee.                   *
> *                                                              *
> * The information in this file is provided "as is".  Embed Inc *
> * makes no claims of suitability for any particular purpose    *
> * nor assumes any liability resulting from its use.            *
> ****************************************************************
>
> Basically I don't want my hard work coming back and competing with me, and
> if someone else is going to make a buck from it I want a make some too.  I'm
> not trying to stop anyone that is truly doing personal projects, and note
> that any hacking of a USBProg is explicitly allowed.  You could even add a
> feature to the USBProg and sell your modified firmware for profit without
> disclosing the code, which is something you couldn't do under the GPL.

But it fails the OSI definition of open source on several fronts:

http://www.opensource.org/docs/osd

Now I feel the need to be very clear on a couple of points. The first and
most important, Olin, is that it's your code and you can license it any way
that you want. I think that your are very generous to give hackers an
opportunity and the code to hack on your programmers. More importantly IMO
is that you've given the specifications for the host protocols so that
others can develop software under other licenses if they so choose.

I know a lot of free software advocates feel that all software must in fact
be free. I'm not one of them.

> But the main point is, restrictions or not, it's still "open source" by
> common usage of that term.

The only point is that because your license above specifically limits
redistribution both in number of copies and the devices the code can be
used on, that it isn't open source by any common definition that the open
source community in general uses.

So it's not open source. But frankly that's a pendantic semantic point.

BAJ
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Re: opinion on Willem programmer?

by Byron Jeff :: Rate this Message:

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On Thu, May 08, 2008 at 08:00:33AM -0400, Olin Lathrop wrote:

> Mark Rages wrote:
> >> If you require that "open" also means totally free to use
> >> for whatever you want in any way you want, then most of what is
> >> commonly referred to as "open" isn't, including everything from the
> >> Open Software Foundation.
> >
> > Your last sentence is incorrect.
> >
> > Freedom 0 is the freedom to use the software for any purpose.
>
> But the GPL doesn't give you that freedom without additional restrictions.

It does. As pointed out earlier in the thread, the GPL only deals with
modification and redistribution of software. It can be used for any
purpose.

BAJ
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Re: opinion on Willem programmer?

by Byron Jeff :: Rate this Message:

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On Sat, May 10, 2008 at 08:14:28AM -0400, Xiaofan Chen wrote:

> On Sat, May 10, 2008 at 3:46 PM, Byron Jeff <byronjeff@...> wrote:
> >> > Freedom 0 is the freedom to use the software for any purpose.
> >>
> >> But the GPL doesn't give you that freedom without additional restrictions.
> >
> > It does. As pointed out earlier in the thread, the GPL only deals with
> > modification and redistribution of software. It can be used for any
> > purpose.
> >
>
> ******************************************************
> >From http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/quick-guide-gplv3.html:
>
> Nobody should be restricted by the software they use. There are four
> freedoms that every user should have:
> the freedom to use the software for any purpose,
> the freedom to share the software with your friends and neighbors,
> the freedom to change the software to suit your needs, and
> the freedom to share the changes you make.
> When a program offers users all of these freedoms, we call it free software.
> ******************************************************
>
> To me GPL itself does not meet the 3rd condtion. BSD and
> Modified BSD does. So personally I like Modified BSD license
> better than GPL.
>

We were talking about the first freedom, not the third.

There's no point in getting into another GPL vs. BSD debate. That debate
hinges on the rights of the developer vs. the rights of the user. If you
believe that the BSD license is better then you also believe that the
rights of the developer should superceed the rights of the downstream user.

That's a belief. I'm not going to bother trying to refute it.

> On the other hand, from FSF's point of view, the agenda is
> more important than the above "freedom". And imposing
> limit of the modification and redistribution does help on
> its agenda. On this perspective, it is more suitable for FSF.

That's also a belief. I'm not going to bother to refute it either.

> In the end, it is perfectly right for the owner of the software
> to use any license they see fit. So it is perfectly ok for
> FSF to use GPL on the software that it oversees.

That's probable the one thing we actuall agree on.

> Olin's license on his software is very good and I think it is
> Open Source (kind of modified BSD).

It doesn't meet the common definition of the community or the OSI tenant.
It doesn't mean that it isn't a good license.
It doesn't mean that Olin doesn't have the right to put any license he see
fit onto his software.
It doesn't mean that the GPL or BSD license is better or worse than other
licenses.

It only means that it doesn't fit the community definition of open source.
Nothing more, nothing less.

> Olin's licnse on his USBprog firmware and USB host driver
> is more restrictive than his other software. But it is still
> perfectly ok and reasonable to me.

It's OK and reasonable to me too. It's just not open source by the
community definition because of the restrictions that it places.

(thought to self: I KNEW it was a bad idea to wander into this thread!)

It's a pendantic point. One that's really not worth debating.

BAJ
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Parent Message unknown Re: opinion on Willem programmer?

by Olin Lathrop :: Rate this Message:

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Byron Jeff wrote:

> Where's the license? I looked on EmbedInc's software page, and
> downloaded the development software. The only license reference I
> found was in the aspic files:
>
> ;   ***************************************************************
> ;   * The contents of this file may be used in any way,           *
> ;   * commercial or otherwise.  This file is provided "as is",    *
> ;   * and Embed Inc makes no claims of suitability for a          *
> ;   * particular purpose nor assumes any liability resulting from *
> ;   * its use.                                                    *
> ;   ***************************************************************
>
> There was no separate license file that I could find and no such text
> in the .pas files.

The licenses are in the form of copyright notices in the individual files.
You must have found a really old one.  The one above isn't even a copyright.
The normal copyright for PIC source lets you use it any way you want but you
have to propagate the copyright notice at the start of the file unaltered.
In other words, I get credit in the source code, and any modified versions
fall under the copyright.

I'm not sure exactly what you downloaded, but to get the USBProg source go
to http://www.embedinc.com/picprg/sw.htm and download the Development
Software release.  The source files that are specific to the USBProg will be
in the SOURCE > PICPRG directory with names EUSB*.aspic and
PICPRG_*.INS.ASPIC.  For example, the EUSB_AD.ASPIC (A/D handler) module has
the normal copyright, and PICPRG_F30.INS.ASPIC (dsPIC programming algorithm)
module has the more restricted copyright.

The A/D handler is just general PIC code.  It's a nice example of how to do
interrupt driven A/D measurements, filtering, then reading the current value
and scaling it to fixed units on demand.  It's not a big deal, and I've
described the techniques in various places before.  Therefore I let people
use it any way they want as long as I retain the copyright and am thereby
credited in the source code.

The dsPIC programming algorithm module on the other hand took many hours of
reading the spec and experimenting to figure out how the parts really
worked.  I also developed my own techniques for handling a dsPIC which are
quite different from the brute force methods described in the programming
spec.  Creating a programmer for dsPICs is not trivial and thereby provides
a sortof barrier to entry into the market.  I don't want to see my code used
in someone else's product come back and compete with me, hence the more
restrictive copyright.


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Re: opinion on Willem programmer?

by Xiaofan Chen :: Rate this Message:

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On Sat, May 10, 2008 at 3:46 PM, Byron Jeff <byronjeff@...> wrote:
>> > Freedom 0 is the freedom to use the software for any purpose.
>>
>> But the GPL doesn't give you that freedom without additional restrictions.
>
> It does. As pointed out earlier in the thread, the GPL only deals with
> modification and redistribution of software. It can be used for any
> purpose.
>

******************************************************
>From http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/quick-guide-gplv3.html:

Nobody should be restricted by the software they use. There are four
freedoms that every user should have:
the freedom to use the software for any purpose,
the freedom to share the software with your friends and neighbors,
the freedom to change the software to suit your needs, and
the freedom to share the changes you make.
When a program offers users all of these freedoms, we call it free software.
******************************************************

To me GPL itself does not meet the 3rd condtion. BSD and
Modified BSD does. So personally I like Modified BSD license
better than GPL.

On the other hand, from FSF's point of view, the agenda is
more important than the above "freedom". And imposing
limit of the modification and redistribution does help on
its agenda. On this perspective, it is more suitable for FSF.

In the end, it is perfectly right for the owner of the software
to use any license they see fit. So it is perfectly ok for
FSF to use GPL on the software that it oversees.

Olin's license on his software is very good and I think it is
Open Source (kind of modified BSD).

Olin's licnse on his USBprog firmware and USB host driver
is more restrictive than his other software. But it is still
perfectly ok and reasonable to me.

Xiaofan
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Re: opinion on Willem programmer?

by Olin Lathrop :: Rate this Message:

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Byron Jeff wrote:
> It's the none at all that's the real problem. Without a license, no
> one has any right to do anything with the source for your software.

Are you really sure?  I am not a lawyer, but if there are no restrictions
listed then it seems to me there are no restrictions.  Many things on the
internet have no explicit copyright and are routinely copied.  I don't
remember anyone claiming that something without a explicit copyright was
illegally copied.

In fact I remember a case around 1984 when I was at Raster Technologies.  We
made display controllers.  At the time these were 20K$ rack mounted boxes
that recieved commands over RS-232 or DR-11W and produced RGB video.  We had
a quick reference card that briefly listed all the commands.  A competitor,
Vermont Microsystems Inc, made a stripped down display controller and
decided to use our command set to claim "Raster compatible".  They even
produced a quick reference card that was clearly a copy of our card.  Then
someone looked at our card carefully and realized we had forgotten to put a
copyright notice on it anywhere.  VMI hadn't broken any laws.  All
subsequent cards we produced had a copyright notice on them though.


> The only point is that because your license above specifically limits
> redistribution both in number of copies and the devices the code can
> be
> used on, that it isn't open source by any common definition that the
> open source community in general uses.

Apparently there is wide variation on what people consider "open source".
Perhaps FSF is trying to push it in a restrictive (and self-serving)
direction, but that doesn't make it so.  These are two ordinary english
words they don't get to redefine.  To me, "open" means it is for all to see,
as in "open book".  If they want a label that means you can not only see the
code but can also do what you want with it (except for their own favorite
set of restrictions, of course) then they need to create a trademark or
something.  Note that they tried and failed to trademark "open source", so
apparently the government agrees they don't get to define what that means.


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Re: opinion on Willem programmer?

by Olin Lathrop :: Rate this Message:

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Byron Jeff wrote:
>> But the GPL doesn't give you that freedom without additional
>> restrictions.
>
> It does. As pointed out earlier in the thread, the GPL only deals with
> modification and redistribution of software. It can be used for any
> purpose.

So it doesn't have some kinds of restrictions but does have others.  The
point is that there are still restrictions.  It's funny how it's supposed to
be "open source" only with their set of freedoms and restrictions.

Again, "open source" means it's open for all to see.  If you call it "free
source", then I expect no restrictions.  Neither my source nor GPL source
qualifies for that.  If someone wants a label that allows for their own
favorite mix of freedoms and restrictions, then they need to come up with a
better and more descriptive term, and would also need to trademark it to
keep control over the definition.

I stand by my statement that the USBProg code is "open source".


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Re: opinion on Willem programmer?

by Olin Lathrop :: Rate this Message:

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Xiaofan Chen wrote:

>> From http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/quick-guide-gplv3.html:
>
> Nobody should be restricted by the software they use. There are four
> freedoms that every user should have:
> the freedom to use the software for any purpose,
> the freedom to share the software with your friends and neighbors,
> the freedom to change the software to suit your needs, and
> the freedom to share the changes you make.
> When a program offers users all of these freedoms, we call it free
> software.

Note that they specifically left out the freedom to make changes and NOT
share the source.  Once again, they are trying to allocate common words to
their agenda.  "Free software" means exactly that.  If it's truly free then
you don't need to explicitly list the freedoms you have.  I agree that my
USBProg source is not free, but neither is GPL source.  However, much of my
Pascal host code has no restriction at all, and is "free source".

> On the other hand, from FSF's point of view, the agenda is
> more important than the above "freedom". And imposing
> limit of the modification and redistribution does help on
> its agenda. On this perspective, it is more suitable for FSF.

I see what they're doing and why, and agree they have every right to impose
whatever restriction they want on software they own.  What bugs me about the
FSF is that they are trying to appropriate common english words to their
narrow and self-serving meaning, and they tend to claim some sort of moral
superiority.  They've got a agenda, just like everyone else.


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Re: opinion on Willem programmer?

by Xiaofan Chen :: Rate this Message:

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On Sat, May 10, 2008 at 6:40 PM, Byron Jeff <byronjeff@...> wrote:

>> ******************************************************
>> >From http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/quick-guide-gplv3.html:
>>
>> Nobody should be restricted by the software they use. There are four
>> freedoms that every user should have:
>> the freedom to use the software for any purpose,
>> the freedom to share the software with your friends and neighbors,
>> the freedom to change the software to suit your needs, and
>> the freedom to share the changes you make.
>> When a program offers users all of these freedoms, we call it free software.
>> ******************************************************
>>
>> To me GPL itself does not meet the 3rd conditions. BSD and
>> Modified BSD does. So personally I like Modified BSD license
>> better than GPL.
>>
>
> We were talking about the first freedom, not the third.
>
> There's no point in getting into another GPL vs. BSD debate. That debate
> hinges on the rights of the developer vs. the rights of the user. If you
> believe that the BSD license is better then you also believe that the
> rights of the developer should superceed the rights of the downstream user.

I just want to say that FSF's own GPL does not meet its
own definition of "free". In this aspect I think BSD meets
FSF's definition of "free" better than GPL.

On the practical side, BSD is very successful. On the other
hand you can say GPL is even more successful. So in the
end both have its places. And proprietary software has
their places as well. I do not believe that Open Source
is the only future for software. But it is certainly good since
it provides one more choice for people. To have one more
choice is always good to me.

> That's a belief. I'm not going to bother trying to refute it.

I agree with you. There is no point saying which license
is better.

As I said before, I am a pragmatist. I do not really care about
which OS is better, which license is better. But I do have
my own opinions on them.

To me all things in existent must have their reason of existence.
So even though I may or may not agree with them, I would think
they must have some reasons to exist.


Xiaofan
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Re: opinion on Willem programmer?

by Mark Rages :: Rate this Message:

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On Sat, May 10, 2008 at 7:14 AM, Xiaofan Chen <xiaofanc@...> wrote:

> On Sat, May 10, 2008 at 3:46 PM, Byron Jeff <byronjeff@...> wrote:
>>> > Freedom 0 is the freedom to use the software for any purpose.
>>>
>>> But the GPL doesn't give you that freedom without additional restrictions.
>>
>> It does. As pointed out earlier in the thread, the GPL only deals with
>> modification and redistribution of software. It can be used for any
>> purpose.
>>
>
> ******************************************************
> >From http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/quick-guide-gplv3.html:
>
> Nobody should be restricted by the software they use. There are four
> freedoms that every user should have:
> the freedom to use the software for any purpose,
> the freedom to share the software with your friends and neighbors,
> the freedom to change the software to suit your needs, and
> the freedom to share the changes you make.
> When a program offers users all of these freedoms, we call it free software.
> ******************************************************
>
> To me GPL itself does not meet the 3rd condtion. BSD and
> Modified BSD does. So personally I like Modified BSD license
> better than GPL.
>


Can you explain how the GPL does not allow you to change the software
to suit your needs?

Regards,
Mark
markrages@gmail
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Midwest Telecine LLC
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Re: opinion on Willem programmer?

by Herbert Graf-2 :: Rate this Message:

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On Sat, 2008-05-10 at 13:40 -0500, Mark Rages wrote:
> Can you explain how the GPL does not allow you to change the software
> to suit your needs?

I suppose it depends what your needs are.

GPL has often been considered very "virus" like, it's presence in your
project effects much more then just the chunk of GPL code you're using.

If your needs are keeping your projects' code closed (i.e. a very common
situation is NDA agreements restricting how open you can be with your
code), there are very few ways you can make use of any GPL code.

TTYL
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Re: opinion on Willem programmer?

by Byron Jeff :: Rate this Message:

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On Sat, May 10, 2008 at 08:35:43AM -0400, Olin Lathrop wrote:
> Byron Jeff wrote:
> > It's the none at all that's the real problem. Without a license, no
> > one has any right to do anything with the source for your software.
>
> Are you really sure?
>  I am not a lawyer, but if there are no restrictions
> listed then it seems to me there are no restrictions.  

IANAL for sure, but yes. If there is no license granted then one is held to
copyright law. And that gives the copyright holder exclusive rights to
copy.

> Many things on the
> internet have no explicit copyright and are routinely copied.  I don't
> remember anyone claiming that something without a explicit copyright was
> illegally copied.

It was illegally copied. It's just that with no one to enforce the
copyright violation, nothing gets done.

>
> In fact I remember a case around 1984 when I was at Raster Technologies.  We
> made display controllers.  At the time these were 20K$ rack mounted boxes
> that recieved commands over RS-232 or DR-11W and produced RGB video.  We had
> a quick reference card that briefly listed all the commands.  A competitor,
> Vermont Microsystems Inc, made a stripped down display controller and
> decided to use our command set to claim "Raster compatible".  They even
> produced a quick reference card that was clearly a copy of our card.  Then
> someone looked at our card carefully and realized we had forgotten to put a
> copyright notice on it anywhere.  VMI hadn't broken any laws.  All
> subsequent cards we produced had a copyright notice on them though.

Copyright is granted as soon as it is expressed, copyright notice or not.
The problem is proving when the expression occurs. That's really what
copyright notices are about.

> > The only point is that because your license above specifically limits
> > redistribution both in number of copies and the devices the code can
> > be
> > used on, that it isn't open source by any common definition that the
> > open source community in general uses.
>
> Apparently there is wide variation on what people consider "open source".

There really isn't. Generally open source arguments surround whether or not
users that are downstream from developers have the right to gain access to
open source work.

> Perhaps FSF is trying to push it in a restrictive (and self-serving)
> direction, but that doesn't make it so.

This isn't the FSF. The general tenants of what constitutes open source
comes from OSI, which often is in opposition to the FSF and the GPL.

>  These are two ordinary english words they don't get to redefine.
>  To me, "open" means it is for all to see,
> as in "open book".  If they want a label that means you can not only see the
> code but can also do what you want with it (except for their own favorite
> set of restrictions, of course) then they need to create a trademark or
> something.  Note that they tried and failed to trademark "open source", so
> apparently the government agrees they don't get to define what that means.

I wasn't dealing with the service mark, which I stated failed. The
trademark that OSI has is "OSI Certified".

I knew that walking in here and saying that your license wasn't open source
was going to somehow intimate that the license is not good or not fair. I'm
not saying that. It's yours. It's good. It's fair. It makes sense.

But when you have a term that has been used in a specific way in a large
community for over 10 years, and you attempt to redefine it, you're going
to run into problems not because what your are redefining is not good in
some way, but simply because of inertia, everyone has a specific perception
of what it means.

It's the same kind of issue that occurs in the US when soccer fans talk
about "football". To Americans the term "football" has a very specific
meaning that runs counter to everyone else in the world. It's not an
indictment of either sport, just that after all this time, in the American
context, the word has a specific meaning.

This page describes the history of the coinage of the term "Open Source"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_terms_for_free_software

Any to close up shop on this one: your software license limits commercial
use, and limits use on non EmbedInc products. So there are issues with
points 1, 8 , and 10 of the OSI definition. Each are major points on what's
considered Open Source software.

But to quite Jerry Seinfeld: "There's nothing wrong with that!"

BAJ
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Re: opinion on Willem programmer?

by Mark Rages :: Rate this Message:

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On Sat, May 10, 2008 at 1:54 PM, Herbert Graf <mailinglist4@...> wrote:

> On Sat, 2008-05-10 at 13:40 -0500, Mark Rages wrote:
>> Can you explain how the GPL does not allow you to change the software
>> to suit your needs?
>
> I suppose it depends what your needs are.
>
> GPL has often been considered very "virus" like, it's presence in your
> project effects much more then just the chunk of GPL code you're using.
>
> If your needs are keeping your projects' code closed (i.e. a very common
> situation is NDA agreements restricting how open you can be with your
> code), there are very few ways you can make use of any GPL code.
>
> TTYL

You are talking about distribution.  You are still free to change the
GPL software to suit your needs.  You are required to provide source
code only if you distribute derived works.

Regards,
Mark
markrages@gmail
--
Mark Rages, Engineer
Midwest Telecine LLC
markrages@...
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Re: opinion on Willem programmer?

by Byron Jeff :: Rate this Message: