GNU GPL to get a face-lift
p2p news / p2pnet:- The GNU General Public License (GPL), developed by Richard Stallman almost a decade-and-a-half ago, is getting a major face-lift.
And the new draft, “may contain a proposal to penalize those companies which use digital rights management (DRM) software which protects songs and films against piracy, and which is seen as an anomaly by the free software association,” says Reuters.
In a world in which e-commerce firms such as Amazon.com have patented ‘one click ordering’ which prevents software makers from freely using such a feature in their programs, the license needs to be adapted, Reuters has Free Software Foundation Europe president Georg Greve saying.
“Software patents are clearly a menace to society and innovation. We like this to be more explicit.”
The idea is that if someone uses software patents against free software, that company or person loses the right to distribute that particular program and use it in their product, he added.
"We’re fundamentally opposed to DRM. We think it’s a dead end for society,” Greve said, adding all software should be free to use and that artists could be paid for their films and music by a general ‘taxation’ on Net connections.
"Free software is a matter of liberty not price," says the foundation.
You should think of ‘free’ as in ‘free speech’.
Stallman will write a draft version of the new GPL by December, says Reuters.
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See:-
Reuters – New free software license takes aim at patents, September 6, 2005
September 7th, 2005 at 9:14 pm
Why should those who work to stifle free software be able to benefit from free software products? I do not think they should. Those who wish to stifle free software should have to use proprietary software with all of its restrictions since this is exactly what these people wish to impose on the rest of the world.
Unfortunately, however, companies that patent software and sell closed source products will likely steal code from the free software community and use it in their closed source, proprietary programs. I personally refuse to use proprietary or closed source programs unless forced to do so.
September 7th, 2005 at 10:15 pm
Totally agree. I believe in the future all software will be free (atleast to the general public).
These companies can make revenues from support and other bespoke work.
I like the idea of open source software. If i want to tinker around with the source or customize it i can, thats whats so great about it.
DRM is the commercial monoliths attempt at clutching at straws. It has never worked in the past and never will in the future, they will simply place themselves out of the market because there will be transparent and safer alternatives.
September 8th, 2005 at 3:41 am
Somehow you have to recover R&D investment, wouldn’t you?
Also, if you spend a million to develop a product, wouldn’t want to prevent your competitor from ripping the benefit?
I do like the idea that if you used free tools to make your product, you should give back something by making a lite version and give that away for free.
September 8th, 2005 at 3:49 am
Software R&D, are you kidding?
There is no such a thing.
You don’t have to research anything, you have to code.
You don’t develop a product, you make copies.
Basically what you should pay for is support.
And only if you need it.
It’s not like it’s extremely expensible to code software.
Basically you pay the coders.
They code.
That is all.
September 8th, 2005 at 5:20 am
And if you’re in the US, you pay the lawyers.
They look to see if anyone else has already patented what you’re trying to make.
If not they patent absolutely everything and anything that could possibly be done by that program.
If someone has already got patents on your program (creative claims they invented the mp3 player interface on their website for example) the lawyers see what they can do about that.
September 8th, 2005 at 10:27 am
That’s why software patents are so stupid. Yet another attempt to control innovation and progress. They should get rid of software patents altogether. Then they wouldn’t need the stupid lawyers.
Free software and open source shows that you don’t need those to work.
R&D are also moot.
All you need are dedicated coders.
That’s all.
You don’t even need to pay them, people do it because they like it, and because they enjoy finding new solutions and new ways of doing things – and also, more importantly, because most O-Source coders want something to work, and work well.
September 12th, 2005 at 3:47 pm
This article is actually incorrect, as it references the reuters article… which was incorrect.
See here:
http://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/discussion/2005-September/005190.html