RMS Condemns "UnitedLinux" per-seat License 749
dep writes "Likening the practice to Windows, Richard M. Stallman has issued a brief statement condemning the per-seat licensing that it appears will be employed in the "UnitedLinux" core distribution. He calls upon developers to refuse to allow their work to be used by such a distribution."
RMS objecting to the GPL? (Score:0, Interesting)
I find it amusing that RMS and the other GPL zealots want unlimited freedom, unless of course such freedom would result in a choice or course of action that they might disagree with...
Aaron
United Gentoo (Score:5, Interesting)
Isn't that what the `emerge united-linux` command will be for?
I guess Gentoo Linux [gentoo.org] becomes more and more important everyday.
Re:He's right... (Score:5, Interesting)
I hope RedHat and Mandrake and Slack and (insert you distro here) avoid this like the black plague. It's unfortunate, SuSE is a really nice distro. I hope they don't shoot themselves in the foot here.
JB
Linux and Seat Licenses Don't Mix (Score:2, Interesting)
Hasn't Caldera been losing buckets of money since they switched to a per seat licensing scheme?
This whole concept of United Linux reeks of desperation. These four companies are going to collaborate on United Linux while continuing to put out their own distros? What a muddle.
Reading about United Linux has done nothing except make me decide to go check out Red Hat again.
Re:What the? (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, having met him a couple of times, I'd say that he's an idealist and difficult to see eye to eye with. But a loony extremist? No - he's way too sussed for that. He's just someone who's been in the business for so long, he's seen way too many people got screwed over on this altar of intellectual property.
However, without more information, I can't tell if the "Per Seat" license covers the 'United Linux' material only, or which. United Linux -needs- to make money. And if a "$50 per seat" license is how they get it, who am I to say its a bad idea. This does not affect me, I don't run any derivative of Linux. (I'm one of those naughty BSD people. boo. hiss.)
Not naughty at all - there's room for everyone. From what I read about United Linux, there won't be a UL "distribution" - it's more like a compliance statement. That is, write an app and it gets certified for any UL compliant distro. So the per-seat stuff will continue to apply to Caldera, but not necessarily to SuSE, or TurboLinux, or whatever.
I've got to say that I too think the per-seat crap is doomed to die. It's exactly what so many IT departments buy into M$'s pool-based licensing system to avoid! They have to employ more expensive people just to chase down the licenses. Screw that.
Personally, I think the whole UL thing is a good idea - but I still see Red Hat dominant a year or two from now (if they can stay in business
--Ng
Selling CDs != per seat licensing (Score:5, Interesting)
What you are missing is that the GPL allows (and encourages) selling free software [gnu.org], but it forbids taking away the rights of the recipient to further modify or redistribute the software. Caldera (UnitedLinux, by this philosophy, shows that they are just Caldera; Caldera has always done this) can't get around the GPL so I presume what they are doing is distributing source to all the GPL'd parts of the system and noting your rights in fine print somewhere while adding a few proprietary parts such that the whole integrated product cannot be redistributed and you have to pay a per-seat license. This means you're really just paying the license for a tiny amount of the product and not the whole OS.
Re:huh? (Score:3, Interesting)
> Okay, so this "per-seat licensing" consists of them not offering the binaries for free download.
If it was, it wouldn’t be per-seat. Per-seat means each potential user has to pay to have the right to use. Even if it’s binaries, GNU GPL software can’t have its use restricted in this way. Distributing GNU GPL’d software under such a condition automatically revokes your rights to use and distribute GNU GPL’d software, thus making such lincensing illegal.
> The source will still be "freely available".
Unless it’s available in a manner compliant with the GNU GPL, that is not enough.
> it's RMS, so the problem must be someone might make money off of software
Don’t put words in anyone’s mouth. RMS doesn’t object to people making money, he (and I) does object to restricting other people’s freedom.
No Collapse... (Score:3, Interesting)
Untrue. You would just have to get job using your skills in real problem domains.
The shrinkwrapped office productivity software market is done. Excel and Word haven't gotten significantly better since 1997.
The only interesting shrinkwrapped software nowadays are multimedia (audio, digital video), and web-authoring software. Frankly, these are going to reach a 'good enough' dead-end RSN.
Games are probably the only category of software which still has a long long path of improvement. IMHO, games have been driving much of the increase in desire for computer power (For example, Black & White won't run on my 2.5 year old iMac, but I can still run all the software I need.)
The dirty little secret is that once all you hundreds of thousands of people are out of work of all the GPLd software, there will be jobs waiting for you in Government and Industry. These groups will have a little extra money (because they're not paying the Microsoft Tax) and they'll be willing to hire programmers who can solve problems in their own domain. Imagine the brains that have honed Amazon's transformation of bookselling turned on health care record management, or Pre-fire planning, or Building-department workflow.
And there's also XML. Serious SGML people know the benefit of properly-constructed document. The current wealth of free XML tools will mean that small businesses will be able to apply XML to their knowledge. You think MaryJo in accounting is doing to design an XML invoice schema?
In other words, the job won't be "writing software to sell", it will be "other stuff with software". You see that in the Microsoft Ads already: "1 degree of separation" isn't about how groovy Word is or how easy WindowsXP is, it's all about how custom-made software will solve your business's problems.
I'm a NRA and ACLU card carrying member (Score:2, Interesting)
You said:
"What's your standing on the Right to Bear Arms
Not only I'm a NRA card carrying member, I'm also an ACLU card carrying member.
Hope that'll clear your suspicion.
Re:Hmmm... let me ask a question... (Score:3, Interesting)
So the GPL does make no claims as to running the program, but it also says that you can't redistribute it with additional restrictions.
What Per-Seat License? (Score:3, Interesting)
Not that I disagree with the sentiment, quite the opposite. I know that I would go out of my way to not support a Linux vendor using per-seat licensing, and I think we've already seen that most of the Linux community feels the same. Frankly, after the beating Caldera took for bringing up the idea of a per-seat license, I'd be extremely surprised if anyone even considered such a scheme again, especially Ransom Love (he does give the impression sometimes that he just doesn't get it, though, so who knows).
This per-seat licensing thing is just a totally unsubstantiated rumor! Get over it, people!
There are plenty of other reasons to complain about the project, though. The fact that it's server only seems to me to be monumentally stupid. Linux seems to be doing just fine in the server market, and I don't see how this standardization effort will make much difference in that arena. Linux on the desktop, however, would derive incredible benefit from an innitiative like this. In fact, the lack of an innitiative like this is really the only thing standing in the way of Linux becoming viable on the desktop. If there were a serious effort to standardize for desktop distros, I bet we'd quickly see some of those missing apps being ported to that standard.
Re:Well that settles it! (Score:3, Interesting)
The problem is... (Score:2, Interesting)
The problem with a GNU/Linux distribution that has a per seat license for the non-GPL'd parts is that if you want to burn a copy of the CD for your friend without paying for another seat - you can't. Yeah, you can pull out the GPL'd parts and copy that, but if you're going to go to the trouble to do that why not just make your own distro? So, yes, it restricts your freedom of use, you can't just copy the CD and give it away. I think this is RMS' beef with it.
Gee...now that we know where RMS stands on... (Score:3, Interesting)
Missing the Point/Analysis of UnitedLinux Plans (Score:2, Interesting)
Interestingly, there IS a clear violation of the GPL however that RMS does not mention -- the restruction by UL to non-commercial use.
As I understand it, UL is intending to (a) provide a common Linux+GNU distribution that will be bundled with several proprietary business applications developed and presumably owned by members of UL; and (b) make the source code (and object code?) of at least the Linux+GNU portion (e.g., the GPL'd stuff and the open source stuff, but not the proprietary stuff) of the distro available without cost BUT only (i) for non-commercial use, and (ii) the UnitedLinux trademark cannot be used in connection with redistribution of the resulting distro that may be freely downloaded.
If that is what they are doing (and assuming they provide both source and object code of GPL'd stuff for free download), I don't see that they are violating the GPL EXCEPT for the non-commercial use restriction (if in fact that is what they try to impose as is SUGGESTED by the FAQ on UL's web site).
Section 2(b) of the GPL says that you have to license the Program and any derivative thereof without cost. It appears that UL will be providing at least the source code for the GPL'd core Linux+GNU distro. They should also have to provide the object code, since object code is merely a derivative work from the source code (and hence, covered by 2(b).
It is also not a problem that UL wants to prevent others from using its trademark. Nothing in the GPL speaks to trademark rights. And it is a GOOD thing. Having the ability to trademark a particular distribution means that UL can (and should) be able to certify that any distro called UNITEDLINUX will have certain attributes. Companies can rely on that trademark as a quality assurance. This doesn't mean you can't use UL's GPL'd parts, and modify the sources, and redistribute it. BUT, you have to use your own name for the distro.
But UL runs into trouble with the non-commercial use restriction. Section 6 of the GPL clearly prohibits adding a new restriction to use of GPL'd code and derivatives thereof. I do not see how they get around this, except if they only apply the non-commercial use restriction to non-GPL'd programs like XFree86.