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Accident Forgiveness Comes to GPLv2
21–30 of 42 posts
Re: Accident Forgiveness Comes to GPLv2
#22Ok, I understand that this is trying to be decent and reasonable people here, in cases where it's truly an accident of including some GPL code. Shit happens, clean it up. If I were to do this with commercial code or assets, would they be so flexible in working with me, or do they go straight to shakedown? I'll give ye all a hint: go look at the MPAA and RIAA's views on that. I remembered when friends were back in the…
> I remembered when friends were back in the Napster times shook down for a few grand. RIAA asked infringers for about $2 per infringed song. That seems a pretty fair price--it's only about twice what it would have cost for the people to legitimately purchase copies of the music.
Really? CNN said it was closer to $80,000 when the Napster cases were breaking.[1]
Maybe they offered $2/song for the settlement, but according to this article the settlement offer was $5000 for 24 songs. The 2009 article says the statutory penalties were between $750 and $150,000 per willful infringement. I don't know where you're getting $2 from.
[1]: http://scitech.blogs.cnn.com/2009/06/19/downloading-mom-fine...
Re: Accident Forgiveness Comes to GPLv2
#23Alternate title: doubling down on not just doing the right thing and using GPLv3.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaKIZ7gJlRU Torvalds on GPLv2 vs GPLv3
I found his arguments either dishonest or ignorant. He basically said "Look, I don't have an ideology to push, I chose the license because it served MY needs, FSF is pushing an ideology is GPLv3 and I don't like that.". However, he certainly has an ideology which I call "The roman conception of freedom". It is favored by laze-faire free market types. This is not an "ideology-free" argument.
He is pushing an ideology just as much as the FSF is. At least the FSF is honest and clear about what that ideology is.
Re: Accident Forgiveness Comes to GPLv2
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaKIZ7gJlRU Torvalds on GPLv2 vs GPLv3
I found his arguments either dishonest or ignorant. He basically said "Look, I don't have an ideology to push, I chose the license because it served MY needs, FSF is pushing an ideology is GPLv3 and I don't like that.". However, he certainly has an ideology which I call "The roman conception of freedom". It is favored by laze-faire free market types. This is not an "ideology-free" argument. He is pushing an ideology…
Torvalds has always been very upfront that he doesn't care about software freedom. Note that choice of words very carefully: not "opposes" but "doesn't care about", one way or the other.
He has said from the beginning that the choice of GPL for Linux was a technical one that he thinks produces the best code, and that the GPLv3 offered no technical gains and thus wasn't worth switching to. Presumably if he thought switching to a different license altogether produced better code, he'd do that.
Is not having an opinion on software freedom an ideology? I don't have an opinion on most political questions in, say, Mongolia. Does that give me a particular ideology on whatever political spectrum Mongolia has?
Re: Accident Forgiveness Comes to GPLv2
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaKIZ7gJlRU Torvalds on GPLv2 vs GPLv3
I found his arguments either dishonest or ignorant. He basically said "Look, I don't have an ideology to push, I chose the license because it served MY needs, FSF is pushing an ideology is GPLv3 and I don't like that.". However, he certainly has an ideology which I call "The roman conception of freedom". It is favored by laze-faire free market types. This is not an "ideology-free" argument. He is pushing an ideology…
Isn't the question whether he is obliged to change license? It's not pushing ideology to sit on the license you are using.
Re: Accident Forgiveness Comes to GPLv2
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I remembered when friends were back in the Napster times shook down for a few grand. RIAA asked infringers for about $2 per infringed song. That seems a pretty fair price--it's only about twice what it would have cost for the people to legitimately purchase copies of the music.
Really? CNN said it was closer to $80,000 when the Napster cases were breaking.[1] Maybe they offered $2/song for the settlement, but according to this article the settlement offer was $5000 for 24 songs. The 2009 article says the statutory penalties were between $750 and $150,000 per willful infringement. I don't know where you're getting $2 from. [1]: http://scitech.blogs.cnn.com/2009/06/19/downloading-mom-fine...
$2 or so (up to maybe $4 in some cases) per song is what they asked for when they sent an initial settlement offer to infringers, before taking any legal action.
If the person would not settle and the RIAA went on to actually sue the person, the RIAA would only sue over a small fraction of the infringed songs.
In the case the article you linked is talking about, they caught her infringing over 1700 songs, and asked for $5000. $5000/1700 = ~$3/song.
When she would not settle, and they sued, they sued over 24 songs. I don't think I've ever seen an official explanation of why they only sue for a handful of songs, but a couple plausible reasons come to mind:
1. They will ask for statutory damages rather than actual damages [1]. Statutory damages are normally a minimum of $750 per infringed work, although that can be reduced to as low as $200 per infringed work if if the infringer was not aware and had not reason to be aware that they were infringing.
They only need 7 songs to win the amount they were willing to settle for when they sent their first letter, or 25 if they think there is any chance the defendant might get the reduced $200 rate.
2. For each song they include in the lawsuit, they have to make sure all the paperwork is in order with the copyright office proving ownership. Copies of that have to be introduced into evidence at the trial.
The defense is going to attack every one of these. The defense is going to ask for all the contracts with the artist and try to prove that the RIAA does not have the right to represent them.
All of this takes time and costs money for no real gain.
In the particular case you cited, the damage award went way above the minimum largely because the defendant tried to destroy evidence, tried to blame her children for the copying, and blatantly lied on the stand. The jury has wide discretion to pick the statutory damage amount from a range, and they picked from the high end of the range.
And do you know what the RIAA did after the jury awarded that large amount? They again offered to settle for a relatively small amount. (I don't remember the exact amount--I think it was around $15000, which based on 1700 songs they caught her infringing would be around $9/song).
That's been the pattern for every RIAA case that went to trial, I believe. (Only a handful went to trial, because most infringers were smart enough to realize that (1) they had no defense, and (2) minimum statutory damages were going to be way more than the RIAA was asking for, and so they settled early).
[1] Actual damages are very hard to determine in most non-commercial copyright infringement cases (and actually they are often very hard to determine in commercial infringement cases, too).
Re: Accident Forgiveness Comes to GPLv2
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
I found his arguments either dishonest or ignorant. He basically said "Look, I don't have an ideology to push, I chose the license because it served MY needs, FSF is pushing an ideology is GPLv3 and I don't like that.". However, he certainly has an ideology which I call "The roman conception of freedom". It is favored by laze-faire free market types. This is not an "ideology-free" argument. He is pushing an ideology…
Torvalds has always been very upfront that he doesn't care about software freedom. Note that choice of words very carefully: not "opposes" but "doesn't care about", one way or the other. He has said from the beginning that the choice of GPL for Linux was a technical one that he thinks produces the best code, and that the GPLv3 offered no technical gains and thus wasn't worth switching to. Presumably if he thought swi…
Also, Linux code is owned by whoever wrote it (or paid to have it written I guess), so it'd a major effort to try and change its license.
Re: Accident Forgiveness Comes to GPLv2
#28The funny thing is that gpl is mostly used by per profit companies creating a two licensing system. Gpl is great to test drive before buying a commercial license, but other than it’s pretty much ignored except maybe in academia.
Re: Accident Forgiveness Comes to GPLv2
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaKIZ7gJlRU Torvalds on GPLv2 vs GPLv3
I found his arguments either dishonest or ignorant. He basically said "Look, I don't have an ideology to push, I chose the license because it served MY needs, FSF is pushing an ideology is GPLv3 and I don't like that.". However, he certainly has an ideology which I call "The roman conception of freedom". It is favored by laze-faire free market types. This is not an "ideology-free" argument. He is pushing an ideology…
He's not arguing that the FSF shouldn't push an ideology. Nor is he arguing that he doesn't have an ideology-- he states it clearly in the video regarding his understanding of the GPLv2-- "I give you the source code, you give me back your changes, and we're even."
He is making a claim that FSF tried to persuade him that the GPLv3 would satisfy Linus' ideology under the reasoning that it allows him to invalidate the tivoization clause.
Here's a quote from Linus from that video:
"Yes the GPLv3 allows you to say tivoization is not an issue for us. But it allows somebody else to take the project and say, hey, the GPLv3 without tivoization is compatible with the full GPLv3. So I will make my own fork of this and I will start doing drivers that use the full version 3. And where am I stuck then? I'm stuck saying, hey, I gave you the source code and now I can't take it back (your changes). That's completely against the whole point of the license in the first place."
Basically Linus' only requirements-- "use and give back"-- are a subset of the FSF's requirements-- "use, give back and don't lock down." Linus is accusing the FSF of claiming that the GPLv3 could do a fine job supporting Linus' requirements when in reality it doesn't protect his software from gaining additional requirements which he explicitly stated he didn't want added. And what would protect his software from that? The very license that they were persuading him to change-- GPLv2. In other words, he's accusing some unnamed representative(s) of the FSF of lying to suit their own ends.
That's rather hard to believe IMO, as I've never read or heard anything from the FSF that is purposely deceitful in this manner. Additionally, I haven't read statements from Linus that are purposely deceitful, either.
I can only surmise that a tiny amount of doctrinal difference collided with enormous egos to create a pathetic waste of time, energy, and goodwill.
Re: Accident Forgiveness Comes to GPLv2
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
I found his arguments either dishonest or ignorant. He basically said "Look, I don't have an ideology to push, I chose the license because it served MY needs, FSF is pushing an ideology is GPLv3 and I don't like that.". However, he certainly has an ideology which I call "The roman conception of freedom". It is favored by laze-faire free market types. This is not an "ideology-free" argument. He is pushing an ideology…
Torvalds has always been very upfront that he doesn't care about software freedom. Note that choice of words very carefully: not "opposes" but "doesn't care about", one way or the other. He has said from the beginning that the choice of GPL for Linux was a technical one that he thinks produces the best code, and that the GPLv3 offered no technical gains and thus wasn't worth switching to. Presumably if he thought swi…
When you are effectively governing a large chunk of Mongolia, then yes.