[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread] 

List:       busybox
Subject:    Re: Amusing article about busybox
From:       Felipe Contreras <felipe.contreras () gmail ! com>
Date:       2012-08-13 15:31:41
Message-ID: CAMP44s1V=40DjSGvbFG9RSs81TxCAGcGSr5xfsVuwqM_V9Jn3w () mail ! gmail ! com
[Download RAW message or body]

Hi,

I neglected this mail and only now realized I hadn't replied.

Anyway, it's not surprising that more permissive licenses are on the
rise, presumably because of the kind of thinking that you show:
http://blogs.the451group.com/opensource/2011/12/15/on-the-continuing-decline-of-the-gpl/

On Tue, Feb 28, 2012 at 1:06 PM, Ralf Friedl <Ralf.Friedl@online.de> wrote:
> Felipe Contreras wrote:
>>
>> On Wed, Feb 15, 2012 at 5:46 PM, Ralf Friedl <Ralf.Friedl@online.de>
>> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Let's get some facts straight.
>>> Sony wants to avoid the GPL busybox not because of busybox itself, but
>>> because they fear that they can be forced to comply with the GPL on
>>> Linux,
>>> and they want to avoid that. They know that they break the license, and
>>> they
>>> want to replace busybox so that they can continue to break the kernel
>>> license. There are different opinions about this behavior. You want to
>>> defend Sony's god given right to violate the kernel license, I think it's
>>> a
>>> shame that the kernel license isn't enforced by the developers
>>> themselves,
>>> but the fact is that Sony intends to continue to violate the kernel
>>> license
>>> and replacing busybox is just a means to the end.
>>
>> I already explained why this view is wrong. I am not going to repeat it.
>>
>
> A view is not wrong because it is not yours.

No, it's not because it's not mine, it's because it's wrong.

> And my point here was to check whether we agree on the fact that Sony wants
> to violate the kernel license, which seems to be true, otherwise you would
> have mentioned it. In fact, in another email you wrote very clearly th

You keep talking about "Sony" as a single entity, so it's pointless to reply.

>>> I already mentioned that it is not possible to enforce copyright without
>>> consent from the copyright holders, and you repeat it here anyway, so it
>>> seems that inconvenient facts don't influence your opinion.
>>
>> Do you have explicit consent from Linux developers? No. Is enforcement
>> for their pursued despite this? Yes.
>
> I already mentioned that I'm not from SFC.
> And no, nobody except the copyright holder can enforce the license, or we
> wouldn't have this discussion.

Yes you can; by proxy.

>>> Again you imply that Sony might contribute something at some point, so I
>>> ask
>>> you: why would Sony suddenly start to contribute to busybox or toybox on
>>> a
>>> voluntary base, when they don't want to contribute to the kernel despite
>>> their obligation to do so?
>>
>> Why did any company did? Because new developers pushes for a culture
>> change
>>>
>>> Well, maybe some companies learned that they should avoid the GPL,
>>> others,
>>>
>>> even those that were the targets of enforcement probably learned that it
>>> is
>>> a license they have to comply with (gasp!), just like all their other
>>> licenses and contracts.
>>
>> Companies are not people.
>
> Yes, you wrote that again and again. Companies consist of people. Some of
> these people are in a position to make decisions for the company. Those new
> developers pushing for the change are not in this position most of the time.

Companies are more complex that a bunch of people; they have laws and
by-laws, and policies, and culture, and different units.

>>> You might consider the bare minimum to be be almost worthless, but
>>> without
>>> enforcement the bare minimum is zero and therefor completely worthless.
>>
>> I prefer my code being used by millions of users even if I get no
>> contributions, rather than few users, and a few lines contributed, or
>> a totally unusable patch dumped somewhere.
>
> Your preferences are up to you. It just seems BSD would fit your preferences
> better. Encouraging contributions under the pretense of using the GPL is
> just dishonest.

No, it wouldn't, and you can't decide my preferences for me. Nor the
ones of the Linux kernel contributors.

>>>>> If you say the the code is licensed under the GPL, but you promise to
>>>>> never
>>>>> enforce the license, you might as well call it public domain.
>>>>>
>>>
>>> I didn't tell you what to expect from a license, so please leave your
>>> straw
>>> men at home.
>>>
>>
>> You just said that if I don't expect the same as you do, I shouldn't
>> be using the license.
>>
>
> No, I didn't say that here. What I said was:
>
>>> I said that there is in effect no difference between "public domain,
>>> please
>>> please share your modification" and "GPL, but I won't do anything if you
>>> violate it".
>>
>> I just explained that there is.
>
> No, you didn't.
> What is the practical difference between public domain with a plea to share
> and GPL with a promise to ignore violations?

A stronger incentive; abide by the law.

>>> By your own definition, Sony is not a good member of society. And please
>>> provide examples where the bad publicity has resulted in code
>>> contributions.
>>
>> Android.
>
> By your own definition Android is not a contribution at all, so how is it
> now an example for code contributions as a result of bad publicity?

Android got bad publicity because it's not Linux, and Android
developers tried to push their stuff upstream. To this day they are
still trying, and from the time you wrote that mail, we are closer
now, as a lot of code is in staging.

>>> I know of enough examples where vendors provide source for GPL programs
>>> because they have to, and don't provide source for BSD programs because
>>> they
>>> don't have to.
>>
>> So? Who cares.
>>
>
> I care, obviously. More important, it shows that your theory that companies
> will contribute code if left alone long enough is not supported by the
> facts.

No, it doesn't. Even if what you said is true, that could be explained
by other reasons.

>>> By the way, which code is it where it is up to you to decide which
>>> license
>>> you want to use? You remember, you as in "we, the developers"?
>>
>> My own.
>>
>
> I guessed so. The question was what your codes happens to be. As I
> mentioned, I didn't find your name in the Busybox sources, and we are on the
> Busybox list here,
> Am I free to use any code you wrote for Nokia as I wish?

Under the GPL license, yeah. And no, if you are a big company an a
unit used my code by mistake I'm not going to sue you and screw the
rest of your units.

>>> Of course it's up to you whether you care or not. But you are strongly
>>> advocating that others shouldn't care.
>>
>> I am not advocating anything, that is already the case, that's why you
>> don't have hordes of people saying "please, please, enforce my code!".
>> I am merely explaining why.
>>
>
> Strange. I had the impression that you don't want the Busybox developers to
> enforce the license for their code.

No, I'm explaining why the Linux kernel developers don't want that. I
do hope the Busybox developers see the light as well, but I'm not
holding my breath.

>> Again, you don't seem to have an idea of what a company is. It's a
>> *collection* of people. And there's *plenty* of people that can write
>> good patches, and they are in many companies. You must not follow
>> Linux development, where *tons* of clean patches come from all kinds
>> of companies.
>>
>> The reason Android changes are not in the kernel is that they are not
>> part of the community. They don't communicate what they are doing,
>> they don't communicate what they plan to do, they don't try to send
>> patches first, they don't know the culture, etc. Plenty of other
>> companies do. BTW Android is not a company, it's main a team within
>> Google, but there are many other companies involved, some which
>> contribute directly to the kernel. And and other teams within Google
>> also contribute.
>>
>> Again, a company as a single entity is a myth.
>>
>
> Yes, by now we know that most companies consist of many people. In fact I
> never claimed otherwise. I also never called Android a company.
> I'm even sure that there are many good developers in many companies. They
> just aren't in the position to define the culture of the company, and most
> of the time their managers prefer the bare minimum over the extra effort to
> do things right.

This is still an over-simplification. Different units have different
managers and different culture.

>>> Another nice straw man.
>>> Yes, companies typically consist of many people. Yet, most of the time
>>> they
>>> can do what has to be done. It may not be as efficient as you would like,
>>> but that is another point.
>>> Suppose, Sony (or Nokia) had to license a patent where they have to pay a
>>> certain amount for each device produced. At regular times they must
>>> report
>>> "we produced X devices, at Y$/device this means Z$, here is your check".
>>> Now
>>> suppose, instead of this report, they write "Companies are not single
>>> entities, it is so difficult to count all these devices, let's just
>>> ignore
>>> this license agreement". What do you think would happen?
>>> So, somehow companies are able to write such reports and send the checks
>>> at
>>> the right time. I'll also give you a hint why this is so: they dedicated
>>> people to this task (whether full time or not). Yes, doing so costs
>>> money.
>>> But it would cost them more to not comply with the license.
>>
>> And again you show how you don't understand how big companies work.
>> The software on big companies is no different as the open source
>> software in how easily it can step unto a patent mine. They most
>> definitely don't pay *all* the patent royalties, and sometimes it's
>> even deliberate: we know there's patent X, but we would rather risk a
>> lawsuit than pay it; it's a simple game of chances and gain. Sometimes
>> they don't agree with the patents and are willing to fight in court.
>> There's many different scenarios.
>>
>
> And again you imply that everybody who doesn't share your view is just too
> stupid or ignorant.
> My point here was not about patents, but about contracts. But while you once
> again sidestep my question, you prove my underlying point: Companies
> deliberately ignore the GPL, because they know it's cheaper for them.

Wrong. I'm not going to bother explaining again why "Companies" is an
over-simplification.

>> Plus, open sourcing stuff is not that easy. The company would have to
>> check first that there's no IP been leaked by the released code, and
>> if they think there might be, there would need to be some effort to
>> rewrite some code. All this takes a lot of resources.
>>
>
> I never claimed that it doesn't take resources. Complying with other
> contracts also takes resources. Does that mean that everybody should be free
> to ignore contracts? I assume you expect to by paid by Nokia. Think of all
> the resources they need to do the payroll processing. Not to mention the
> money they spend on their employees. It's really unfair that they have to do
> that.

This has nothing to do with the point at all.

>> You are supposing they *never* miss any patents, which is clearly not
>> true. Having so many moving parts is not an excuse, but it's one
>> reason for these mistakes, but missed patents are not difficult to
>> resolve; here's X amount of money. Done.
>>
>
> I'm not talking about mistakes here, and you know that. I'm talking about
> deliberate contract violations.
> Besides, GPL violations are also easy to resolve. Just comply the the
> license.

This is nonsense. People make mistakes. Companies have bad units. Bad
units are negligent sometimes. I already explained that complying with
the license is not that easy, specially after a produce is launched.
If you have a bad unit that screwed up, and this affects the products
of good units; that's not good. But you don't seem to get the point at
all.

>> The intent of the GPL (according to you) is X
>>
>
> It's the intent of the GPL according to the GPL itself.

The GPL is a legal document, it's not a sentient being. Different
sentient beings would interpret this document differently, and
different courts of law will interpret it differently.

What *you* think the GPL intent according the GPL itself is, is irrelevant.

>>>> No, it's not, because Sony (or rather some people inside Sony) knows
>>>> _exactly_ how to retaliate, and Microsoft knows that.
>>>
>>> Now this is funny, even more so then "Sony the good corporate citizen".
>>> Actually, it was (is?) common that OEMs must buy a Windows license for
>>> every
>>> machine, whether they use it or not. And you want to tell me that people
>>> inside Sony knew _exactly_ how to retaliate, but for some reasons didn't?
>>
>> Ah, you mean for end-user software. I don't see what laws could
>> possibly allow Microsoft to force this, but most likely would only
>> apply in the U.S. which has crazy laws, and even there I don't think
>> that's possible.
>>
>> If you seriously think that's more likely, I don't think you have a
>> good grip on reality.
>>
>> If Microsoft could seriously do that, why don't they? More money is more
>> money.
>>
>
> Are you serious with what you write? It is well known that Microsoft had
> such contracts, it's not a hypothetical "if they could seriously do that".
> There is no law that allows Microsoft to to that, it is probably against the
> law. What allows them to do it is that they can get away with it, and that
> is what makes your "Sony knows _exactly_ how to retaliate" so funny.
> By now, they probably have it no longer in the contracts because of the anti
> trust cases, but Sony know what Microsoft wants, and if they don't comply,
> maybe they don't get as good prices as their competitors, there are
> unfortunate delays when they get updates so they are later to the market and
> so on.

As usual you over-simplify. Politics is not a straight-forward game.

>>> Ok, I'll qualify that statement. It is easy to comply for a company of
>>> any
>>> size, if it is seen as important enough. That means, as long as the cost
>>> for
>>> complying is lower then the cost of not complying. Note that this implies
>>> to
>>> any license or contract. And the cost to comply with the GPL is less then
>>>
>>> most other licenses. If their lawyers don't realize that, there is also a
>>> cost associated with bad legal advice.
>>
>> You are wrong. It's not easy. It takes resources,
>>
>
> Yes, I know that it takes resources. I think that it should be clear from my
> statement "the cost to comply with the GPL" that there is a cost. As you
> wrote yourself, they just deliberately ignore the license, and the at is not
> because it is "too difficult" to comply, but because you propose that the
> cost for not complying should be zero.
>
> You do realize that you contradict yourself?
> On the one hand you say that it takes resources or is a net loss to the
> company to comply with the GPL.
> On the other hand you say that they will eventually contribute because it is
> a net win to comply with the GPL.

It's only contradictory if you insist in an over-simplified view of a
"company" as a single entity.

>>> Did it occur to you that if SFC could enforce busybox compliance without
>>> consent from the busybox develpers, they could also enforce Linux
>>> compliance
>>> without consent from the Linux develpers?
>>
>> You only need explicit request of *one* GPL component to use it as a
>> proxy for all the others without explicit request.
>>
>
> That is not true. SFC can't force anybody to comply with the kernel license
> unless they act on behalf of the copyright holders of the kernel.
> They can just convince the companies that it is cheaper for them to comply
> with the kernel license.

They can do it as a proxy.

>> I already mentioned one example: TI, and for that matter Nokia as
>> well, and the carrot is all the advantages that being a community
>> member brings; free top-notch code-review, easier maintenance, better
>> talent is attracted by the development model. I mean, this is obvious.
>> There's tons of people trying to convey these messages to people
>> working on companies, in conferences, documents, etc.
>>
>
> If the benefit of complying with the GPL is so obvious, you should be glad
> that someone helps them to move in that direction.
> Actually I know of TI kernel modules for which they don't provide source,
> which crash when unloaded and so on. They could really use some top-notch
> review.

I don't know of such modules. Most of the TI modules that I'm aware of
are open source, many are in upstream kernel. TI is one of the top
contributors nowadays.

>>> Nobody relies on Stockholm syndrome. It's just that the companies realize
>>> that it is cheaper to use Linux, even if they have to comply with the
>>> license, then to use any of the BSD alternatives or develop something
>>> themselves. And Linux is cheaper, even if they are not allowed to ignore
>>> the
>>> license completely.
>>
>> Bullshit. You have been explained the situation *over and over*, it
>> seems you are just not willing to listen; *nobody* is trying to ignore
>> the license completely. I'm not going to explain it again.
>>
>
> You have repeated your view, yes, it's a pity that others dare to disagree.

It's not my view it's a fact. And even if it wasn't you are assuming
in the sentence below (and everywhere), that *your* view is the fact.

> In fact, you have explained *over and over* that your view is that everybody
> should be free to ignore the license completely. The strange thing is that
> you now deny it.

No. Either you are deliberately ignoring what I'm saying, or you are
being intellectually dishonest, or you are simply trolling. But I
never said anything like that.

> On 22 Feb 2012 00:33:37 +0200, Felipe Contreras wrote:
>>>
>>> thats very interesting... so i can use linux in my product and not
>>> tell anyone about it?
>>
>> Huh? It doesn't matter if people know that you are using Linux or not.
>> In order for a lawsuit to get started, I'd assume it has to be started
>> or blessed by the damaged parties; the copyright owners. Since the
>> copyright owners, Linux developers, have no interest in any of this,
>> you can't sue a company for not distributing Linux's sources, unless
>> you do it by proxy through some other component that is GPL, and that
>> the copyright owners explicitly blessed this legal proceeding; busybox
>> developers.
>>
>> Just tell your ex-boss not to use busybox.
>
> You just advise him that his ex-boss is free to do with Linux whatever he
> wants, ignoring the license completely. And as you don't know who his
> ex-boss is, this advice applies to everybody. He just should stay away from
> developers who dare to wish that their license is respected.
> You are of course entitled to your opinion, but it would be nice if you
> didn't deny this opinion after you have expressed it so clearly.
>
> The Busybox developers are also entitled to their opinion, and I'm glad that
> their opinion is different from yours.
>
> And as already mentioned, nobody can sue a company for not distributing
> Linux's sources except for the Linux copyright owners, whether they use
> Busybox or not.

There's no need to ignore the license. Companies follow the GPLv2
license, yet they avoid busybox for obvious reasons, that apparently
you are never going to understand. The real world is beyond your
grasp.

>> What big companies will end up doing is _publish_ as much as it's
>> legally required, contribute as much as the internal culture has
>> managed to convey it's useful, and avoid legally troublesome
>> components (busybox) just to be safe.
>>
>
> If they do what is legally required, they are safe, whether they use Busybox
> or not.

"They" is not what you think it is. So no, they are not safe, even if
they do what is legally required. But you can't understand what "they"
means.

Cheers.

-- 
Felipe Contreras
_______________________________________________
busybox mailing list
busybox@busybox.net
http://lists.busybox.net/mailman/listinfo/busybox
[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread]