Emacs violates GPL since 2009 • Hacker News Board

Re: Emacs violates GPL since 2009

#31

Post by ajross » Fri, Jul 29, 2011, 4:45 PM UTC

rbanffy wrote: post #18

for the tl,dr crowd: It was noticed a couple parsers included in the source tarball are generated from grammar files that are not. This means they are distributing the compiled version without the corresponding sources (although the parsers are human readable) and that is unacceptable. The situation is analogous to distributing a compiled program without its source or, say, a merged-minified version of a JavaScript l…

Yeah. It's important to point out that the bison sources are (apparently) available under the GPL. They're just not distributed with emacs, thus the distribution is in violation. The broken headlight analogy is a very good one. This is a bad "oops" moment. It's fixable via some elbow grease, better organization, and probably a review of a process or two.

Re: Emacs violates GPL since 2009

#32

Post by sedev » Fri, Jul 29, 2011, 4:46 PM UTC

losvedir wrote: post #12

Cue GOB's "I've made a huge mistake." As much as RMS gets on my nerves sometimes, I have to admire him here. I feel like his reactions are over the top sometimes, but this shows me that at least they're consistently so -- even when he's the one at fault.

Cue GOB's "I've made a huge mistake."

Unfortunately I doubt we're going to see RMS on a Segway.

Re: Emacs violates GPL since 2009

#33

Post by ajross » Fri, Jul 29, 2011, 4:48 PM UTC

cpg wrote: post #2

OK, it seems like it may have been an oversight (as in, not to hide anything or subvert someone else). The (over-)reaction by RMS may be a bit too harsh, when a simple README or something might suffice. Every church has to have its pope, though ... Edit: a simple README to point the issue in older tarballs might suffice -- though the issue has to be fixed going forward, no question on that.

A README isn't source distribution (though I suppose it would constitute a "written offer to provide source", which is allowable under the GPL). And it can't be retroactively applied to versions of emacs that are already distributed.

The goof here isn't that emacs is somehow "polluted" going forward; everyone agrees that this is easy to fix. The problem is that existing versions of emacs were/are distributed in a form that is a violation of its own license.

Re: Emacs violates GPL since 2009

#34

Post by meastham » Fri, Jul 29, 2011, 5:05 PM UTC

ithkuil wrote: post #3

cpg wrote: post #2

OK, it seems like it may have been an oversight (as in, not to hide anything or subvert someone else). The (over-)reaction by RMS may be a bit too harsh, when a simple README or something might suffice. Every church has to have its pope, though ... Edit: a simple README to point the issue in older tarballs might suffice -- though the issue has to be fixed going forward, no question on that.

"[..]We are, in essence, distributing binary blobs with Emacs" (Chong Yidong) Note the "in essence". They are not actually distributing binary blobs, they are distributing generated code made with a parser generator which they are not distributing, and they argue that this is equivalent of distributing binary code for all practical purposes, as the user "may neither fix nor extend the existing functionality."

The issue is not that they aren't distributing the parser generator, it's that they're not distributing the grammars that are the input to the generator.

Re: Emacs violates GPL since 2009

#35

Post by ezy » Fri, Jul 29, 2011, 6:02 PM UTC

ludwigvan wrote: post #24

Slightly related: For Stallman's views on JavaScript, read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html

Actually, that does bring up a question, is there a plugin available now that allows you to completely substitute your js for their js? Ignoring the Free software issue, this would be quite useful to have in general...

(If there is, RMS should probably be made aware of it, because that addresses half of his concern).

Re: Emacs violates GPL since 2009

#36

Post by drcube » Fri, Jul 29, 2011, 7:57 PM UTC

skrebbel wrote: post #5

I love how the GPL lets people not have the features they want because of nonsense like this. It's a clear case for more liberal licenses.

A lot of people think "source code" is a desirable feature.

Re: Emacs violates GPL since 2009

#37

Post by sedev » Fri, Jul 29, 2011, 8:53 PM UTC

sedev wrote: post #32

losvedir wrote: post #12

Cue GOB's "I've made a huge mistake." As much as RMS gets on my nerves sometimes, I have to admire him here. I feel like his reactions are over the top sometimes, but this shows me that at least they're consistently so -- even when he's the one at fault.

Cue GOB's "I've made a huge mistake." Unfortunately I doubt we're going to see RMS on a Segway.

I wish I could tell whether the downvotes were for "that's not funny," "you are slandering RMS" (who is by the way far smarter than I am and has done far better things for the hacking community, I am a nobody), or "that is a cheap-shot comment that does not fit the tenor of the desired discussions on HN."

Re: Emacs violates GPL since 2009

#38

Post by rcxdude » Fri, Jul 29, 2011, 10:14 PM UTC

ezy wrote: post #35

ludwigvan wrote: post #24

Slightly related: For Stallman's views on JavaScript, read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html

Actually, that does bring up a question, is there a plugin available now that allows you to completely substitute your js for their js? Ignoring the Free software issue, this would be quite useful to have in general... (If there is, RMS should probably be made aware of it, because that addresses half of his concern).

I would guess you could probably get greasemonkey to do that sort of replacement, but I don't know much about how it works.

Re: Emacs violates GPL since 2009

#39

Post by onedognight » Sat, Jul 30, 2011, 12:16 AM UTC

> Anyone redistributing those versions is violating the GPL, through no fault of his own.

This is not correct and I would expect RMS to call him out on it. You can distribute binaries without the sources. You just have to make them available when someone asks for them in writing. It seem that this is the first time that someone has asked for them, and they are being provided.

Re: Emacs violates GPL since 2009

#40

Post by Someone » Sat, Jul 30, 2011, 10:56 PM UTC

onedognight wrote: post #39

> Anyone redistributing those versions is violating the GPL, through no fault of his own. This is not correct and I would expect RMS to call him out on it. You can distribute binaries without the sources. You just have to make them available when someone asks for them in writing. It seem that this is the first time that someone has asked for them, and they are being provided.

I think this depends on why you call "ask for". I think going to gnu.org, clicking on a "download source code" link can easily be interpreted as "asking" for the source code (especially if a program or it's read me provide a URL near the place where it explains that one can get the source). If so, chances are that many people have asked for the source before, and got some (partly) intermediate product instead of the stuff the developers worked from.