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Leaked Samsung exFat driver relicensed as GPL

lists.gpl-violations.org

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Re: Leaked Samsung exFat driver relicensed as GPL

#201

Post by foobarbazqux »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #200
foobarbazqux wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's still not quite correct. A license is a contract. It requires two parties. Every time somebody gives GPL software to somebody else, the contract is entered into and the license is granted. Giving away the first copy only establishes a license between you and the first recipient. That recipient in turn grants a license to whoever he gives it to, if and when he chooses to do so. In particular, I cannot demand th…

> Giving away the first copy only establishes a license between you and the first recipient. That recipient in turn grants a license to whoever he gives it to, if and when he chooses to do so. That's a logical way of looking at it, but it disagrees with the GPL FAQ. Note especially "If the version has been released elsewhere, then the thief probably does have the right to make copies and redistribute them under the G…

The thief "probably" has the right to make copies because the diff between what he stole and what is readily available elsewhere for free is nil, and he can go and grab a copy with almost zero effort. But if A gives a copy only to B (it has still been "released elsewhere"), B keeps his copy to himself, and the thief steals a copy from A, the thief does not have any rights simply because B has a copy. That would be absurd! The FSF lawyers use the word "probably" because they believe this is what the court would find if a thief distributed something like an unmodified version of Linux taken off of a stolen hard drive.

However I was wrong about contracts vs. licenses. Obviously I am not a lawyer.

http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20031214210634...

Re: Leaked Samsung exFat driver relicensed as GPL

#202

Post by scotty79 »

read_again wrote: post #191
scotty79 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then there's science. People are paid to work on things or do it because they want to do it. Once they do something valuable they publish it and everyone can build upon their work. Openness gave us modern world. Copyright gave us Hollywood and Sony Music. Property is inherent thing. Not only human. Monkeys also want to own things and they don't like thieves. But extending physical property qualities to creations…

> some rich people did to get richer As I said, it all comes from scarcity. Things that are abundant are monetary worthless, and if everything is free, then people don't need to make money, ergo no copyright anymore (there's a slight simplification here actually, because copyrights also grant control, which is actively thought). That said, while the system is mostly used by the richest, poor people can profit from it…

Copyright is creating artificial scarcity for copies and using price abnormally elevated by this scarcity to finance art makers (in theory) and scarcity creators (in practice).

Same way I could create scarcity on your oxygen supply and use artificially elevated oxygen price to finance myself and my efforts to create and uphold this scarcity and also finance cute puppies to mask what horrible thing I am actually doing.

Patenting and copyright clearly doesn't make any sense. It's just a tool for creating revenue stream by holding information and commercial freedom hostage. There are much less harmful ways to create revenue streams.

Re: Leaked Samsung exFat driver relicensed as GPL

#203

Post by phaemon »

reginaldjcooper wrote: post #195
phaemon wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's like saying if you disagree with slavery, you're free not to own slaves. Copyright places a restriction on what I can do with information I legally have in my possession. It is a restriction on my freedom of expression. You might argue that the restriction is worth it in order to encourage artists, but don't pretend it doesn't exist.

First of all, it's completely ridiculous to compare copyright with slavery. You were never going to express yourself in exactly that manner, so from a practical standpoint copyright isn't preventing you from doing anything at all. It's a good compromise; how else do we prevent publishers and software companies from grabbing up indie work and selling it without compensating the creator? I don't understand being totall…

> First of all, it's completely ridiculous to compare copyright with slavery.

An analogy is not an equivalence. Please learn the difference.

From a practical viewpoint, copyright constrains what I can do with information, and you even admit it's a compromise yourself! I don't accept it's a good compromise. I'd prefer to do without than accept it. I acknowledge that most people (such as yourself) feel differently.

Re: Leaked Samsung exFat driver relicensed as GPL

#204

Post by reginaldjcooper »

phaemon wrote: post #203
reginaldjcooper wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First of all, it's completely ridiculous to compare copyright with slavery. You were never going to express yourself in exactly that manner, so from a practical standpoint copyright isn't preventing you from doing anything at all. It's a good compromise; how else do we prevent publishers and software companies from grabbing up indie work and selling it without compensating the creator? I don't understand being totall…

> First of all, it's completely ridiculous to compare copyright with slavery. An analogy is not an equivalence. Please learn the difference. From a practical viewpoint, copyright constrains what I can do with information, and you even admit it's a compromise yourself! I don't accept it's a good compromise. I'd prefer to do without than accept it. I acknowledge that most people (such as yourself) feel differently.

> An analogy is not an equivalence. Please learn the difference.

It's an appeal to emotion by comparing it with something so different it barely makes sense, if you prefer to argue from emotion instead of reason, then by all means. Preventing you from emailing a .pdf or .mp3 is nothing like taking away all your basic human rights, treating you like you are subhuman, and forcing you to labor in the fields.

What rights should an author have with their work, then? When have you wanted to, but were unable to, share information that wasn't just "I want it for free"?

EDIT: Reflecting on it, this sounds confrontational, but I genuinely wish to know how copyright is impacting you. I hate all the patent trolls, I hate the patent system, I hate copyright trolls, so maybe I hate the copyright system as well, and just don't know yet.

Re: Leaked Samsung exFat driver relicensed as GPL

#205

Post by tbrownaw »

teddyh wrote: post #193
tbrownaw wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That FSF page also claims that Perl programs that use GPL'd Perl modules are required to be licensed under the GPL, and assorted other absurdities (hint: if there is no copying or modification of something copyrighted, there can be no copyright violation). Contrary to the FSF's apparent belief, dependency has nothing to do with derivation.

Since FSF for years has had (and still have) lawyers advising them that this is indeed the case, what is your authority to claim otherwise? Or, in other words, citation needed.

Firstly and most obviously, the FSF is clearly the only group that believes this garbage. Stop a minute and think about the consequences if coding to an interface made your program a derivative of whatever (first) implemented that interface... have these actually happened? does anyone even act as if they take the possibility seriously (outside the FSF's FUD)?

Remember the story of how IBM-compatible PCs came to be, with the clean-room reimplementation of the BIOS? That would be a copyright violation, except it clearly wasn't (or the clones would have been shut down). WINE and ReactOS would be copyright violations, and especially so given wanting to implement undocumented/non-public interfaces. Samba would be a copyright violation.

Any Win32 program that Microsoft didn't like, could be shut down as a copyright violation. So the browser wars would have been conducted rather differently. WordPerfect could have been blocked or forced to pay for licenses, instead of hindered by sneaky means.

IIRC the FSF claims support based on one case, where someone made singing children's toys and someone else made replacement ROMs (or maybe it was the whole electronic module?) to make them sing differently; the replacement parts were found to be a copyright violation because the performance that the toy put on, was found to be a derivative of the original performance. Which is still ridiculous (and IIRC other districts have found differently in a few similar cases involving video games), but even so does not support the FSF's extreme interpretation.

Re: Leaked Samsung exFat driver relicensed as GPL

#206

Post by teddyh »

tbrownaw wrote: post #205
teddyh wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since FSF for years has had (and still have) lawyers advising them that this is indeed the case, what is your authority to claim otherwise? Or, in other words, citation needed.

Firstly and most obviously, the FSF is clearly the only group that believes this garbage. Stop a minute and think about the consequences if coding to an interface made your program a derivative of whatever (first) implemented that interface... have these actually happened? does anyone even act as if they take the possibility seriously (outside the FSF's FUD)? Remember the story of how IBM-compatible PCs came to be, w…

> [...] FSF is clearly the only group that believes this [...]

So, it should be no trouble for you to provide a citation from an legal authority which states otherwise?

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