General Linux Politics

So everybody can put his thoughts in here. This thread is for taking the heat out of other threads. I think as long as this is not getting to personal one can also debate points more heated. Not every point can be cleared in harmony.

To make mine clear:

1. I think it is generally good to open source software. This is what Linux is about and what made it strong. Also I think the GPL is much better than licenses like the BSD style license because in fact BSD style licenses enable companies to make free code to their own property again. I thin WINE would be maybe much more ahead if they have chosen GPL or LGPL. Companies like Transgaming make their money with user contributions but are only giving back to users who pay, not those who contribute in ideas and bug reports.

2. Why should the SL client be free? Because it brings the users more freedom. T obe a trustful client it should be possible for users to look how it is build. Also the development would go much more faster if OSS development will be established. I See the technology of LL generally as an enabling technology of a new form like once the first browsers like Mosaic were. The web and the internet were successfull because nobody was able to control the protocols. there was no monopoly. Trying to monopolize SL will kill SL!

3. So there we come to SL technology in general. I also think that the software should be open. Why? Why is Apache the best web server out? Because the ppl who use it are the developers themselves.

4. What is the role of LL? LL is leading a revolution in technology and interaction via computers. They have a prominense that they will sustain. Prominense in technology media visibility, experience in different fields. they should help companies getting in the boat. if they fail to deliver SL will once be know only as one of the first companies that have tried. I am confident that they can do it. But I think their priorities are not allways good for the project, but good for their finances in the short run.

I don't see this just as a "make some Linux users happy". It is a more general question of where SL technology will go. And if we still use it and talk about it in 3 or 4 years. Open source itself does not alone helps getting things done. Sure there must be quality and good ideas. But I think SL has many ppl that are very creative. There is so much room and so many talks inside SL.

So I see this as: Do good for the users and for yourself (LL).

To come back to the general Linux question: The only real problems I have and had are and were with proprietary software (take closed source nvidia drivers for example). With open source every problem will be solved - with closed source you mostly will have to take it or leave it. I have never seen a resolution of any of a bug report of me in proprietary software. In OSS I have seen thousands, most of them in days or weeks after the report.

I don't see things like: Let everybody do what he wants - I am argumenting for a specific approach that I find more helpful for me as a user and for progress in software. Ppl may turn their backs on the arguments but I want to vocalise them. With "everything is oK" there is no direction. SL will never have started their business if they have thought that they can do it or leave it. Leaving things as they are is always easier. And if i speak out I know there are always people that either have observation that can be resolved or do take the opposite position, though i would not expect this from Linux developers who make their living because Linux is NOT Windows. Linux is much more than an Windows that may be copied. Many ppl use illegal copies of Microsoft, so this is not the difference.


Enough for now.


Vinci

To set the record straight here, Wine is indeed LGPL, and the reason we switched to it from the previous X11 license is largely because of TransGaming (and Lindows, but we don't talk about that much).

I'd largely agree with the rest of what you say. I think SL or something like it has the potential to become fundamental infrastructure for our society much as the internet or mobile phones have become. And fundamental infrastructure should not be owned by private corporations for various economic and social reasons.

That said, SL is far from actually _being_ that important So for now I don't really care.

I'm actually responding to Vinci's points from the FAQ thread... but I think my point will get across.

It seems to me that your argument centers around "because people have built tools that were free, using open protocols, we should have the source code to SL". But the IP for SL belongs to LL (god that was fun...), and I'm pretty sure the agreement you sign to play the game waives your right to "reverse engineering for compatibility purposes". Legally, that's a key difference between this program and, say, SMB support in Linux.

More importantly, Linus didn't write Linux by reverse-engineering Unix. *That* would have been copyright violation. He based Linux on Minix, for which the source was freely available.

I agree completely that companies should open source their code, in general. However, it's the company's code, to do with as they please. Legally, they don't *have* to open source anything. And it's your right, as a consumer, to choose not to use their product. In this case, however, the SL server and SL client are both part of the "product", and as no alternatives can (currently) legally be used without violating the DMCA, it comes down to this: If you don't like that it's closed, don't play the game.

Now, it's pretty clear to me that SL would improve if it were open source. However, the initial open sourcing *would* make a lot of vulnerabilities easier to find, and this is a special case: unlike Apache (or indeed, *most* software), where users can choose not to use the product until they feel it's secure, the SL client must always be usable. The world can't just go down for months while the bugs get worked out, people would be outraged.

Now... a related problem, but not aimed at your words directly: Open source software is a model of software development. I believe it's a better one than the closed model. But when you turn open source into a fanatical movement, you turn people off of using it. Companies are less likely to do something if you focus on "You must do it because it's RIGHT!" and more likely to do something if "you should do it because it WORKS BETTER". Arguing the first point will blind the people you're trying to convince such that they can't see the second point.

I think alot of us are under the impression, and have been supported in that impression that LL intends to make SL at least OS, if not to go so far as to GPL it.

I for one am only here because i can get here via linux, and am likely to stay largely because i belive (at the moment anyway) that the stated intention to make this technology open is real. As long as the current closedness is an artifact of the need to have their core coders in control of their clients money so they can pay for the infrostructure. All this i think is great and fine, allow people to use it as they would ant proprietary product and use that money to fund development of what seems to be a new direction in large scale VR human interaction.

BUT I think if/because LL is/does really take the OS path seriously it needs to move there at least a little. And while we are running the alpha on the main grid their seems very little that will be open any time soon. LL has created a system which handles money, and that in part is the problem, but i think the concern for that has excuded moving in a direction that would seem, perhaps to a lawyer to be a slippery slope.

I see "they should open it" and "they don't have to open it", but what i would like to see more is " this little thing if made accessabel would allow us to co-develop using an open development stratagy". I think this should be the API for the User interface, and that it should be left open on the client and documented so that FOSS developers could make tools which interoperate with SLClient wihtout requiring any explicite Opening of code. I agree that we often get to ideological in these discussions, I would like to see a common project that could benifit Linux Alpha client users ( Open development of an interface which works in linux [cut and past anybody?]) and that would aid LL in delivering new and interesting tools to all their users, even if some of those tools are destributed under the GPL and are not LL projects as such.

At the end of the day the grid, the L$ bank and all that are on the hands of LL, that is the infrastructure on which their business model is based, and they need to keep that tightly in hand, untill they are CERTAIN that it is safe from any but the most minimal of disturbances. I would like to see all this free as in speech and have people build all kinds of interesting modifications to it, but SL as a physical object must still exist, and must be paid for, or else all this nice code is worthless.

I think LL has done a great job, by creating something that encourages creativity, and I would like to see them all make good money continuing to do so, I would also like to see the system become stable enough that security by obscurity is no longer part of the management stratagy, and in that vain some of us on the outside are going to have to start being creative with it in RL and write code in something other the lsl, because open sourcing a proprietary system is not something that should be done all in one foul swoop.

-dan

Amen to that.

IIRC, I remember reading an article which stated that anti-circumvention schemes can be reverse engineered if it is used for compatibility purposes (eg. reverse engineering the swf format to produce a flash player, see: Gnash). Despite the DMCA, you cannot be made to give up your right to reverse-engineer a product to produce a competing product. Any company that would try to enforce such a thing would be slapped with anti-trust lawsuits so fast their heads would spin.


It would only be a copyright violation if he copied the code. Just because Minix's source was freely available doesn't mean it was free to use (in fact, there was a small fee and restrictive license you needed to adhere to):

Remember, Open Source != Free to copy

This is great, if it is held up by the courts

I have read so much on DMCA becoming TOTALLY Big Business Controlled, that I was really getting fed up

If what you say is correct, I have hopes that we may YET get a computing society, instead of ending up as Consumers Of The Holy Products, as Miscrosft etc would really like

DeCSS. I think "DVD playback in Linux" counts as a competing product. DMCA comes into effect because 2600 Magazine published the source code and was found guilty of violation of the DMCA.


I bow to your superior knowledge.

And OTOH: I don't live in the states, so I can not follow the rules of the DMCA because that would be a violation of the german and EU(european union) laws.

I can not fullfill every rights of every country in the world. This would mean that I also have to follow the rules of the chinese government. LL follows the DMCA the users follow the rules they agree and their local legislation.

International law totally rocks. I still wonder about whether it's possible for a contract to waive something guaranteed by law. For example, signing an NDA limits your right to free speech. Since you agreed to LL's terms when you created your account, can that override your law-given right to reverse engineer?

This one is also funny. I think in Germany, a contract may not interfere with legal rights, in a lot of cases. In other cases, it can. Very confusing

In any case, it is not the same in all countries, so don't count on anything, when your agreements go international!

This one is also funny. I think in Germany, a contract may not interfere with legal rights, in a lot of cases. In other cases, it can. Very confusing

In any case, it is not the same in all countries, so don't count on anything, when your agreements go international!

On copyright violations and reverse engineering:

Copyright violation is copying sourcecode (in the computer program realm).

Reverse engineering is taking a program, figuring out how it works, and write a compatible program. RE *can* include disassmbly, but it needn't. If you want to be safe from lawsuits, you have to do it clean-room, which means, in the extreme case, that the people writing the new code don't even have access to the application being RE'd. At the very least, access to source, or disassembly/decompiling is a big *NO-NO*. Take a look at Samba, because they had to RE (no sufficient public documentation on the SMB protocol).

On the "waving of rights":

Depends on your jurisdiction. For example, you cannot "transfer copyright" in Germany. The copyright owner ("Urheber", very roughly = "creator" are you, and that's it. The only exception is when you do the work as an employee, then the copyright owner is your employer.

And, also according to german law, you cannot waive some rights. But that's pretty much universal (just *which* rights you cannot give up, which restrictions are unenforceable, differs from country to country). For that very reason, most contracts include clauses to the effect that if any one clause is unenforceable, at the very least, it is just considered as if it's not there at all, without rendering the whole contract/license/whatever void.

According to a book I read on Computer Ethics, the object file is actually what's copyrighted with proprietary software. The source code is a trade secret. I didn't buy that, though, because of what I've seen in practical experience. Anyone know why that claim would have been made? I think the book is "Ethics for the Information Age"...

Bringing back a dead thread, but there are over a dozen incorrect statements in it with no corrections made. For example the DeCSS case was lost by 2600 because the specific program named DeCSS was (at the time) determined by the courts to be created solely for the purpose of making and distributing illegal copies of DVDs. 2600 was not hosting, but linking to several sites that hosted this software and the court determined that linking to this illegal software was in itself, illegal. Several highly controversial precedents made in that case, but none of them reversed the reverse engineering exceptions found in the DMCA, one of which includes reverse engineering for platform compatibility. For example, the reverse engineering of the second life protocol will allow Second Life chat software on mobile phones.