Sad Tale of Greed and Aspiration.

On Aug 28, 10:00*am, jb92563 wrote:
OPEN SOURCE..=...SOURCE CODE is freely available to modify and mess
with any way you want, just don't sell the
resulting product.

No, no, no.

"Open Source" is not one particular thing. There are many different
open source licenses, ranging from declaring your work to be "in the
public domain", to the BSD&MIT "you can do anything you like except
pretend you wrote it all", to the GPL and others.

There is nothing at all in the GPL that prevents you from selling the
product resulting from your modifications. Or even without
modifications -- just take the existing source code, package it up,
and sell it.

The *only* restriction is that you must provide the source code for
the entire product if it contains any GPL code at all.

If you don't like this restriction then don't use someone else's GPL
code. Simple.

Why would someone pay you money if they could just download the source
code and compile it themselves? The same reason that McDonalds
survives even though you can buy ingredients and make a better burger
at home yourself. Convenience and/or lack of skill. Perhaps also
technical support, in the case of software.


Purpose: So that people can modify and redistribute their own version
of the code as long as they are not profiting.

Profit has nothing to do with it. To quote RIchard Stallman, GPL is
free as in speech, not free as in beer.


Result: The source have been copied, modified and is not being
sold.....so what is the problem?

The problem is that the terms under which the original authors made
their work available are not being followed. They only asked for one
thing in exchange for the right to use their copyrighted work. That
one thing is not being done, therefore the LK8000 people have no right
to use their work.


Granted I don't think the source is available yet, but the developer
does not feel its ready yet....needs commenting, documentation etc
so in due course LK8000 should be fully in compliance with the
license. Lets give these amateur developers some slack
as they can not be expected to run like a corporation when 1 person is
doing the majority of the work.

It doesn't take any effort. They only have to make their CVS/SVN/git/
mercurial server on the internet. They probably do this anyway, for
their own convenience.


Now if it does go Commercial then they will have the crap sued out of
them, and they know it

No, there is no problem in them going commercial, as long as they
provide the source code.

On Aug 27, 9:10*pm, Mike Ash wrote:
In article
,
*Darryl Ramm wrote:

I should point out I was referring to GPL v3, I think XCSoar is
licensed under GPL v2 with the rider that it can be distributed under
later versions. So it is unclear to me what version of the GPL LK8000
is distributed under. Does anybody know?

If it follows the terms of the GPL, then it will include a copy of
whatever version it's being distributed under. If it doesn't include
one, it's not following either version, so that doesn't matter in that
particular case.

Since LK8000 includes XCSoar copyrighted code (not that it was really
in doubt and a quick Google shows the LK8000 developers publicly
confirming this) the LK80000 developers can legally now -

1. Either distribute under GPL 2
2. Choose to distribute under a more recent version of the GPL as
allowed for in the original XCSoar license.

If they choose neither they are in breach of the GPL license and then
simply in violation of copyright laws as they have no rights to make,
modify and distribute copies of any of the original XCSoar code.
(Which is what Mike may have meant by "it does not matter" -i.e. it is
in breach anyhow, not it does not matter and is allowed). I just
wanted to make that clear.

So does anybody know what version of the GPL LK8000 is distributed
under? i.e. what GPL license is bundled with the distribution?

[snip]

Darryl

In article
,
Darryl Ramm wrote:

If they choose neither they are in breach of the GPL license and then
simply in violation of copyright laws as they have no rights to make,
modify and distribute copies of any of the original XCSoar code.
(Which is what Mike may have meant by "it does not matter" -i.e. it is
in breach anyhow, not it does not matter and is allowed). I just
wanted to make that clear.

That is indeed what I meant. I can see how that could be misread, so
thank you for clarifying.

--
Mike Ash
Radio Free Earth
Broadcasting from our climate-controlled studios deep inside the Moon

On Fri, 27 Aug 2010 14:53:24 -0700, Darryl Ramm wrote:

This is not really irrelevant to the issue at hand of whether XK80000 is
meeting source code provision requirements of the GPL or not. I have
never made any comment about the provision of code changes to the the
original XCSoar project

Somebody up-thread said that not submitting changes constituted a GPL
violation. I thought that was you: consequently I apologise for the
misattribution.

Developers working with GPL code are mostly free to do whatever they
want, including things that original developers do not agree with - but
they need to make clear those changes have been made and they need to
provide the source code to the user community in the ways I've outlined
in other posts in this thread. That is the apparent issue here.

Agreed.

I've looked at the binary I have and can't work out what licensing
conditions apply, though GPL (version not specified) seems to be implied.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |

I'd like to point out something here..

"Bruce Hoult" wrote On Aug 28, 10:00 am,
The problem is that the terms under which the original authors made
their work available are not being followed. They only asked for one
thing in exchange for the right to use their copyrighted work. That
one thing is not being done, therefore the LK8000 people have no right
to use their work.

False. Owning and using a GPLd software has nothing to do with distribution.
GPL is about distribution. This thread started because a guy could not find
a distributed
copy of LK8000 on my web page, nor a download link.

Granted I don't think the source is available yet, but the developer
does not feel its ready yet....needs commenting, documentation etc
so in due course LK8000 should be fully in compliance with the
license. Lets give these amateur developers some slack
as they can not be expected to run like a corporation when 1 person is
doing the majority of the work.
It doesn't take any effort. They only have to make their CVS/SVN/git/
mercurial server on the internet. They probably do this anyway, for
their own convenience.

False again. It does take a lot of efforts, and months. It took almost an
year to 4 people so far.
I am doing it alone. I don't use cvs git etc. being alone, and this is
saving me time which I can dedicate to
development. In order to be useful to somebody, with a decent learning curve
to allow developers to contribute,
source code must be cleaned up and explained. And a development environment
has to be made too, and distributed as well.
Otherwise, I don't believe it will be good to anything else but for allowing
companies to sell PNAs running LK8000.
For sure, no contributions to the software itself.

When you say "it does not take any effort" you are for sure talking about
yourself, not me.
It never takes any effort, if you are not going to do it personally!

Now if it does go Commercial then they will have the crap sued out of
them, and they know it
No, there is no problem in them going commercial, as long as they
provide the source code.

Right. I could sell a PNAs at the price of 5000$. That would give the right
of asking for the source code ONLY to legal buyers.
Triadis did that, and the source code was released only after over 1 year.
Sadly, I myself in the meantime had rewritten most of what they had done in
the past, and byebye GPL spirit. And that's commercial GPL.

FYI
- 5.2.4 is out with no PNA binaries. My contribution to PNA version of 5.2.4
was clearly refused and no official release of 5.2.4 was ever made because
of that. I had worked for months on it. Now it is distributed unofficially,
not by me (It doesn't take any effort to create a PNA version, if you only
need to run a "makefile", and get the credits).
- I was told not to bother to send anything concerning lk8000 interface, by
the lead developer of xcs.
- The upcoming 6.0 is 100% different from 5.2.4 and thus from LK8000. No
code sharing possible.
- LK is free, and I refused to accept a single cent in donations. Not a
single cent. So nobody can say I made money of of it.
On the contrary, I remind I told someone to use the donate button on
xcsoar time ago.


paul

On Fri, 27 Aug 2010 21:24:19 -0700, Bruce Hoult wrote:

There is nothing at all in the GPL that prevents you from selling the
product resulting from your modifications. Or even without modifications
-- just take the existing source code, package it up, and sell it.

Agreed.

The *only* restriction is that you must provide the source code for the
entire product if it contains any GPL code at all.

No.

GPLv3, section 6 says that you must provide source for all the GPLed
sections of the Program, but not necessarily for any parts that you write
and choose not to release under the GPL. However, this doesn't apply to
modifications you make to GPLed code. Did I read that right, Darryl?

Distributing modified GPLed code is much less straight forward
contractually than including unmodified GPLed components in a Program.

GPLv3 clause 6c would also seem to apply: that it is permissible, though
frowned on, release source only on application to people holding a copy
of the object code.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |

Triadis is not selling a "PNA" of course, but a wonderful hardware with
sensors etc.
I did not meant "did that" as selling a PNA.

"PCool" ha scritto nel messaggio
...
Triadis did that, and the source code was released only after over 1 year.

On Aug 28, 1:28*pm, "PCool" wrote:
I'd like to point out something here..
[snip]
paul

Paul

Can you clarify what license are you distributing LK8000 binaries
under? And if it is the GPL what version of the GPL? You provided that
software to at least some original people, and they seem to be
redistributing it. So what license was it provided to those original
people under? Is source code available for download now or via other
ways to users of the software? If not can you explain how you are not
violating the GPL and the copyright rights of other XCSoar developers?

I'm not asking how hard something is, or criticizing your software
engineering or project goals, etc., which all seem pretty impressive.

What any XCSoar developer tells you about whether they like, dislike,
will or will not incorporate your code in the XCSoar project has no
relevance on the obligation you have under the GPL to make source code
publicly available (or at least available to all binary recipients).
The only thing that can release you from this requirement is a
separate non-GPL license grant from all copyright holders of their
code you incorporate in your software.

If you still have questions on the GPL and are unsure about your
compliance requirements I will be happy to discuss this offline with
you.

Thanks


Darryl Ramm

On Aug 28, 2:02 pm, Martin Gregorie
wrote:
On Fri, 27 Aug 2010 21:24:19 -0700, Bruce Hoult wrote:
There is nothing at all in the GPL that prevents you from selling the
product resulting from your modifications. Or even without modifications
-- just take the existing source code, package it up, and sell it.

Agreed.

The *only* restriction is that you must provide the source code for the
entire product if it contains any GPL code at all.

No.

GPLv3, section 6 says that you must provide source for all the GPLed
sections of the Program, but not necessarily for any parts that you write
and choose not to release under the GPL. However, this doesn't apply to
modifications you make to GPLed code. Did I read that right, Darryl?

Martin I suspect you are reading it pretty right, but the challenge is
when and where can you write code code and not be _required_ to
release it under the GPL? I'll try to cover that below.

Bruce's comment also look pretty much correct to me, it is much much
better than the misconceptions in the earlier post that he was trying
to correct in his reply. And I suspect he simplified this a bit to
make it easier to follow.

There are some corner cases but what is true is you cannot modify GPL
code and choose to distribute/convey it and not have that code
modifications covered by the GPL. The act of distributing the binary,
object or source code triggers the GPL to capture all your code
modifications to the original GPL licensed source code. A developer
can choose to license their changes under both the GPL and additional
compatible open source license. (e.g. Google "GPL compatible license")
but a developer cannot decide to not license their code changes under
the GPL if the object code/binary/source is distributed. This is the
core of the "viral" aspect of GPL that Microsoft tried so hard to
scare software developers with (including companies/projects I worked
for).

There are other specific cases where code can be created to add to a
project while remaining clearly separate from the GPL code and that
can be covered by a separate non-GPL or even non-GPL compatible
license, e.g. typically requiring separate operating systems processes
between each piece of code. That will not apply here to the LK8000
software.

An individual or legal organization/company can modify code and not
need to provide changes if it is used internally by that entity. But
distributing/conveying the binaries or code triggers the GPL
requirements. I expect what has been happening with the LK8000
binaries would easily meet legal test for being distributed (or the
more precise "convey" etc. wording in the GPL v3).

A developer can also modify code under contract to a client and as
long as that code is not distributed outside of the client they do not
need to license the code changes under the GPL. This is a bit of a
fuzzy line as I mentioned in a previous post, where I would argue some
testing type arrangements (but not what the LK8000 developers appears
to be doing) might be allowable, I believe the FSF and others open-
source organizations would disagree with some of my interpretations
there.

Distributing modified GPLed code is much less straight forward
contractually than including unmodified GPLed components in a Program.

Once you distribute the modified source/binary/object code then the
source modifications are covered by the GPL and that is usually pretty
straightforward. And it should be straightforward in the situation at
hand. Combining already GPL'ed code should often be straightforward,
but even that can get interesting with things like different GPL
license versions being incompatible with each other. So I rather think
the devil is always in the details of each situation, most should be
straightforward, some will be complex.

[snip]


Darryl

|

"Max Kellermann" wrote in message
...
snip

XCSoar, on the other hand, is 100% free software. If you don't like
it, just edit it. You don't need to ask for our permission, because
the GPL gives this permission to everybody.

snip

The chances of me managing to change XC Soar because I don't like something
about it and end up with a working bit of software are pretty much zero.
The same applies to many (probably most) other pilots.

even for people with the time and talent to do it, they will then be either
having to get you to incorporate their changes or reimplement them in each
new version that comes along - or stick with what they have regardless of
changes they might or might not want in the base software.

If all XCSoar developers suddenly lose interest in the project,
anybody may pick it up.

Or again they may not. Plenty of Open Source projects have died. IMHO it
depends really if the user base includes enough people with enough of the
right skills, the inclination and the time to spare, remembering that there
will be a steep learning curve initially.

If Paolo Ventafridda loses interest, the
project is dead, leaving all users without support.

Meaning of course the LK8000 project. Again, an assumption. If Paolo loses
interest he might pass it on - it wouldn't be a 'first'.