[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Re: Copyright Misuse Doctrine in Apple v. Psystar
From: |
David Kastrup |
Subject: |
Re: Copyright Misuse Doctrine in Apple v. Psystar |
Date: |
Sun, 22 Feb 2009 10:03:37 +0100 |
User-agent: |
Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/23.0.60 (gnu/linux) |
"amicus_curious" <ACDC@sti.net> writes:
> "Alan Mackenzie" <acm@muc.de> wrote in message
> news:gnq384$27ef$1@colin2.muc.de...
>>
>> You could make the same sort of argument about any "petty" peccadillo.
>> Why bother prosecuting a fare dodger for a 2 Euro fare? Seems a bit
>> disproportionate, doesn't it?
>>
> Do they arraign and prosecute people for this in your town?
After a number of repetitive offenses, this actually happens. Yes. I
should be surprised if things are much different at your place.
>> It's straightforward enough that you barely even need to consult a
>> lawyer. You need to put a tarball of your source code up on your
>> company's website. Half a day's work to read the GPL, understand it,
>> create the tarball and put it on the site.
>>
>> And if, somehow, you manage to get even that wrong, you can put it
>> right on receiving that dreaded letter from the SFLC, or from the
>> copyright holders.
>>
> How big a deal is it to just ignore it? Even less work.
Sure. You can also ignore the rights of a supermarket owner when
visiting it, but you need not expect that either the workers or law
officers find that overly amusing.
Ignoring laws comes at a price.
>>> They just complain to the manufacturer and maybe their needs are
>>> taken care of in a subsequent release, maybe not. Who can afford to
>>> learn enough about Linux or OO or any other big program to the point
>>> where they can effectively make modifications?
>>
>> Me. David Kastrup, too.
>>
> Well, maybe you are that inefficient, but I think you are just
> bluffing.
Hm? We _are_ the "manufacturers" for a lot of free software. And yes,
I have patched proprietary software (drivers, Pascal runtimes and
others) in the binaries for removing bugs that were hampering my work
flow. It is a nuisance to debug using only binaries. It is not a
matter of efficiency: if you think you can tell somebody like Digital
Research to please fix a system call from some driver DLL, you are
simply deluded about your influence and their response time and response
style.
>>> Stallman is living in the 70s or worse.
>>
>> Yet, somehow, the GPL remains the most popular license, by an
>> overwhelming margin. If your notions on the GPL were accurate, it
>> would by now have dwindled to unimportance and been superseded by a
>> BSD license, or whatever. There're no signs of that happening.
>>
> Linux uses it, but not the latest version, apparently the copyright
> owner has some problems with that.
There are several thousands copyright owners if you are talking about
the kernel. You need all their agreement for a license upgrade. The
FSF has its own opinion about just how smart that was. If you are
talking about the user land, a lot of it is migrating to GPLv3. After
all, large portions are (c) FSF anyway.
> Apache has something else, I know. Ditto PHP. I'm not so sure MySQL
> is even open anymore. I don't bother with it, but Sun seems to be
> locking things down.
Hm? I thought they were opening up the parts previously proprietary.
>> Have you compared the sort of "hassle" a user might get from SDLC
>> with what he might get on violating some other type of license, say a
>> proprietary one from Microsoft, or Oracle, or some other major
>> software maker?
>
> That is very hard to do, I think. Other than illegally copying the
> binaries, how are you going to violate their licenses? Certainly
> people have made illegal copies galore and generally get away with the
> act. If they use it commercially, though, they are often found out
> and prosecuted. It is hardly a hassle, it is a serious amount of money
> whereas the need to post yet another copy of BusyBox is much more of a
> trivial irritation, particularly when offered as part of a lawsuit.
Serious amount of money when done commercially? More likely serious
jail terms. It is somewhat disconcerting that copyright violations tend
to get longer jail terms than manslaughter and rape.
--
David Kastrup
- Re: Copyright Misuse Doctrine in Apple v. Psystar, (continued)
- Re: Copyright Misuse Doctrine in Apple v. Psystar, amicus_curious, 2009/02/21
- Re: Copyright Misuse Doctrine in Apple v. Psystar, David Kastrup, 2009/02/21
- Re: Copyright Misuse Doctrine in Apple v. Psystar, amicus_curious, 2009/02/21
- Re: Copyright Misuse Doctrine in Apple v. Psystar, David Kastrup, 2009/02/21
- Re: Copyright Misuse Doctrine in Apple v. Psystar, amicus_curious, 2009/02/21
- Re: Copyright Misuse Doctrine in Apple v. Psystar, Alan Mackenzie, 2009/02/21
- Re: Copyright Misuse Doctrine in Apple v. Psystar, amicus_curious, 2009/02/21
- Re: Copyright Misuse Doctrine in Apple v. Psystar,
David Kastrup <=
- Re: Copyright Misuse Doctrine in Apple v. Psystar, amicus_curious, 2009/02/22
- Re: Copyright Misuse Doctrine in Apple v. Psystar, David Kastrup, 2009/02/24
- Re: Copyright Misuse Doctrine in Apple v. Psystar, amicus_curious, 2009/02/24
- Re: Copyright Misuse Doctrine in Apple v. Psystar, Alan Mackenzie, 2009/02/22
- Re: Copyright Misuse Doctrine in Apple v. Psystar, amicus_curious, 2009/02/22
- Re: Copyright Misuse Doctrine in Apple v. Psystar, Alan Mackenzie, 2009/02/23
- Re: Copyright Misuse Doctrine in Apple v. Psystar, amicus_curious, 2009/02/23
- Re: Copyright Misuse Doctrine in Apple v. Psystar, Hyman Rosen, 2009/02/23
- Re: Copyright Misuse Doctrine in Apple v. Psystar, Rjack, 2009/02/23
- Re: Copyright Misuse Doctrine in Apple v. Psystar, Doug Mentohl, 2009/02/23