Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to explain this to you

diveintomark.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 57 posts

Re: Thank you for giving me the opportunity to explain this to you

#41

Post by cschwarm »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #17
buugs wrote: post #3

This is what free software / free licenses needs, people who parade and exemplify it rather than compare it to non-free licenses or even hate on and fight against non-free software, by force.

I don't entirely understand his explanation though. All I understand is that Mark approves of what happened. I do not understand why it is a good thing and why he wants the world to work like this. He didn't explain that. The whole logic of what and how you are allowed to charge for in the free software/content world seems completely arbitrary to me, even though I have read so much about it.

That's because the propositions are arbitrary.

The definition of what is "Free Software" is arbitrary, because anyone could use a completely different definition and wouldn't be less right or wrong.

The proposition that "Free Software" is moral is also arbitrary, for there's no rationale. There's just some agreement because of the bandwagon effect and multiple meanings of words like "freedom", "sharing" and so on.

The simple truth is: It's sometimes useful and so is "non-free" software.

Re: Thank you for giving me the opportunity to explain this to you

#42

Post by spolsky »

petercooper wrote: post #35
patio11 wrote: post #5

I don’t know where that leaves you as a business. I suspect this leaves Apress at the "Require all further authors to contractually promise us, in writing, that they are assigning Apress the exclusive right to publish/distribute the content and have not written any legal landmines which contradict this clause into the sections we routinely don't read".

That is the standard Apress contract now. Mark made his initial contract with Apress quite a long time ago when it was a far smaller company where special deals could be made.

wrong, i still make special deals with apress all the time :D

Re: Thank you for giving me the opportunity to explain this to you

#43

Post by nuclear_eclipse »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #19
thristian wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a lawyer, but my layman's understanding is something like this: * If you wrote/created/designed it, you get to pick the license. You can give it to some people under the GPL, you can give it to other people under the BSD license, you can negotiate all kinds of crazy licenses for arbitrary recompense you dream up - it's up to you. * If you received a copy of some GPL'd code, freely or in exchange for money, yo…

If you wrote/created/designed it, you get to pick the license I do get that part. But it doesn't help me understand the merits of any particular license. Thanks for your attempt to explain the GPL to me. I already knew what the GPL says, I just don't see how it achieves its goals of increasing my freedoms. For instance, I'm not allowed to use the source code of some of the software google has linked to GPL code. Even…

If they let me download their code, they would have to let me use the source and sell it as well. But they can simply not let me download it and force me to run the code on their servers exclusively.

This is where the AGPL comes into play. It's a modified form of the standard GPL3 license, but with extra provisions specifically designed to include the of accessing the software from a remote server as distribution. By licensing web applications or server-based software with the AGPL, you then "force" the hosting entity to provide source code for any users of the service.

Re: Thank you for giving me the opportunity to explain this to you

#45

Post by ubernostrum »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #44

Im confused too; in my basic Contract Law class, there's something called Value Received. If I don't pay for something, there is by definition NO CONTRACT. So any words (gpl etc) printed on the thing are just decoration.

Which is why it's handy to remember that, while copyright licenses can be received as part of a contract, copyright licenses are not in themselves contracts.

Re: Thank you for giving me the opportunity to explain this to you

#46

Post by ubernostrum »

petercooper wrote: post #35
patio11 wrote: post #5

I don’t know where that leaves you as a business. I suspect this leaves Apress at the "Require all further authors to contractually promise us, in writing, that they are assigning Apress the exclusive right to publish/distribute the content and have not written any legal landmines which contradict this clause into the sections we routinely don't read".

That is the standard Apress contract now. Mark made his initial contract with Apress quite a long time ago when it was a far smaller company where special deals could be made.

They've done some other GFDL'd books more recently. Jacob and Adrian's Django book, for example.

Re: Thank you for giving me the opportunity to explain this to you

#47

Post by steveklabnik »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #17
buugs wrote: post #3

This is what free software / free licenses needs, people who parade and exemplify it rather than compare it to non-free licenses or even hate on and fight against non-free software, by force.

I don't entirely understand his explanation though. All I understand is that Mark approves of what happened. I do not understand why it is a good thing and why he wants the world to work like this. He didn't explain that. The whole logic of what and how you are allowed to charge for in the free software/content world seems completely arbitrary to me, even though I have read so much about it.

The reason is that this is desireable is because anyone who's willing to spread what Mark has written helps Mark. Think of it as free advertising.

This could be much, much longer. I actually spoke on a panel at my local PodCamp about all of this a few weeks ago... It's a very complicated topic. A lot of the ideas are very counter-intuitive to a lot of people.

You've read a lot about Free software, but have you read the primary source? The Free Software Definition (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html) would be a good place to start, if you haven't. Does that still not make sense? If not, I could try, but this is basically what I'd tell you, without some further context.

Re: Thank you for giving me the opportunity to explain this to you

#48

Post by RyanMcGreal »

ErrantX wrote: post #39
RyanMcGreal wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume Apress is constrained by their contract with Mark.

It's an interesting question though; such a contract must specifically remove any rights the GPLD gives Apress. Otherwise it's hard to see how they couldn't wiggle out of paying royalties?

>such a contract must specifically remove any rights the GPLD gives Apress

I assume the contract commits Apress to pay royalties to Mark based on their sales of the book's print edition. If they contractually agreed to pay royalties, they would be in breach of contract regardless of the licence under which Mark released his copyrighted content.

Notwithstanding the licence, Apress must have decided that they could make enough money on sales to justify the money they're paying to Mark.

Look at it this way: he might have released the book under a free document licence that another party could exploit, but he arguably wouldn't have written the book if not for his contract with Apress. So if they didn't agree to pay royalties, there would be no book to sell.

Re: Thank you for giving me the opportunity to explain this to you

#49

Post by afiske »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #44

Im confused too; in my basic Contract Law class, there's something called Value Received. If I don't pay for something, there is by definition NO CONTRACT. So any words (gpl etc) printed on the thing are just decoration.

You're describing the concept of "consideration" in contract law -- i.e., that each party to an agreement needs to exchange something of value in order for a valid contract to be formed. However, one doesn't need to pay money for something in order for there to be an exchange of value.

Here, the copyright holder (Mark) has clearly given you something of value -- a copy of the text of his book. In exchange, you give the him something of value, as well - your a promise to abide by the terms of the GNU FDL (as referenced on the book's copyright page). Your promise has value to Mark -- if it didn't, he (presumably) would have simply released his work into the public domain, rather than under a GNU license.

The enforceability of open source licenses turns on this issue. The implication of your statement is that an open source license is unenforceable whenever a work is distributed for free (and obviously, this kind of distribution happens all the time). While there were some in the legal community who took this view in the past, the courts have rejected it. Check out the 2008 Federal Circuit decision in Jacobsen v. Katzer (http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions/08-1001.pdf), which turned on the enforceability of the open source Artistic License. Some of the more salient quotes:

- "Traditionally, copyright owners sold their copyrighted material in exchange for money. The lack of money changing hands in open source licensing should not be presumed to mean that there is no economic consideration, however. There are substantial benefits, including economic benefits, to the creation and distribution of copyrighted works under public licenses that range far beyond traditional license royalties."

- "The choice to exact consideration in the form of compliance with the open source requirements of disclosure and explanation of changes, rather than as a dollar-denominated fee, is entitled to no less legal recognition."

Re: Thank you for giving me the opportunity to explain this to you

#50

Post by drubio »

RK wrote: post #14
kqr2 wrote: post #12

I did a search on Amazon, but couldn't find the non Apress version of the book in question. I wonder if Apress forced the book to get delisted.

http://www.amazon.com/Dive-Into-Python-Mark-Pilgrim/dp/14414...

Was anyone curious as to who this 'brazen' publisher was ?

Publisher: CreateSpace https://www.createspace.com/AboutUs.jsp "CreateSpace is a DBA of On-Demand Publishing LLC, a subsidiary of Amazon.com Inc."

Seems there are still priorities at Amazon if they suddenly stopped selling it.

Post reply on HN