Rick Moen is censoring the SVLUG email list - Fwd: Oh, grow up
giovanni_re
guy.
I don't know what has gone wrong with him over the past maybe 5 years.
: (
No problemo over here on BTIP, though.
Free speech is welcome here. : )
== Smartphone Debian: http://wiki.debian.org/Smartphone
Join in the Global monthly meetings, via voice, about all Free SW HW & Culture
http://sites.google.com/site/berkeleytip/
----- Original message -----
From: "Rick Moen" <ri...@linuxmafia.com>
To: volun...@lists.svlug.org
Cc: "Mark S Bilk" <ma...@cosmicpenguin.com>, "John Regan"
<joh...@fastmail.us>
Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2011 13:42:26 -0800
Subject: Oh, grow up
I really don't have time for you two chuckleheads. Your ability to post
will be restricted for a time, and, if I fail to notice that one of your
postings isn't rubbish and expires out of the Mailman admin queue before
Mark Weisler or I approve it manually, I'm not even going to feel sorry.
----- Forwarded message from svlug...@lists.svlug.org -----
Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2011 08:49:40 -0800
From: svlug...@lists.svlug.org
To: svlug...@lists.svlug.org
Subject: [Mailman-owner] svlug post from ma...@cosmicpenguin.com requires
approval
As list administrator, your authorization is requested for the
following mailing list posting:
List: sv...@lists.svlug.org
From: ma...@cosmicpenguin.com
Subject: Linux vs Fascism -was: Help Occupy Oakland get electricity,
lights, Linux etc ...
Reason: Post to moderated list
At your convenience, visit:
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to approve or deny the request.
Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2011 09:01:47 -0800
From: Mark S Bilk <ma...@cosmicpenguin.com>
To: sv...@lists.svlug.org
Message-ID: <20111114170...@isis.cosmicpenguin>
References:
<1321190275.10409...@webmail.messagingengine.com>
<cf4a56ed-5772-41c9...@email.android.com>
In-Reply-To: <cf4a56ed-5772-41c9...@email.android.com>
Subject: Linux vs Fascism -was: Help Occupy Oakland get electricity,
lights, Linux etc ...
The domination and exploitation of the world's people by the
ultra-wealthy and their corporations, governments, and media
have a strong negative effect on Linux and other free software.
Linux adoption is only a tiny fraction of what it would have
been without Microsoft's years of lying propaganda, $100,000,000
fraudulent SCO lawsuit, media censorship by threat of withdrawal
of advertising, bribed columnists and analysts, secret contracts
with OEMs forbidding sale of computers with dual-booting, etc, etc.
At the same time, the people of the World Community are gradually
waking up to the political and economic realities mostly because
of information transmitted via the Internet, which runs on free
software. GNU/Linux and other free software are necessary for
people around the world to communicate and organize, especially
in the face of increased government/corporate efforts to censor
the Net. We need complete user control over our software, not
corporate control as with Microsoft products.
The U.S. and allied governments have been invading and smashing
other nations and murdering millions of people in the last ten
years, using the 9/11 false-flag attacks as their false pretext.
The laws, agencies, and concentration camps are already in place
in the U.S. for its transformation to a total police state,
with arbitrary arrest, torture, and murder of American citizens.
Linux needs and is needed by the people in the U.S. and around
the world who are fighting for freedom and survival.
This conflict is by far the most important thing going on in the
world at this time. Our species can either go down into an
eternal night of world fascism and death under control of
ultra-wealthy psychopaths, with 1% of the population continuing
to own 99% of the wealth, or by education and action we can
advance our civilization and technology so that work and its
products and profits are shared much more equally, and everyone
lives successfully.
This is the reality in which we live! Human history is at
a turning point. We must become aware of what's going on and
consider its implications for everything. It is truly a matter
of life or death!
Mark S Bilk
On Mon, Nov 14, 2011 at 06:30:38AM -0800, Lisa wrote:
>Regardless of anyone's political leanings, I would like to ask if this sort of post belongs on a Linux users' group's mailing list.
>
>We have gone down the political path one way or another before and in usually ends up in an argument and someone suggesting we "get back on topic."
>
>So, this time, I am immediately suggesting that non-linux, political, supportave of any political groups that are not directly addressing software issues, are not appropriate here... regardless of how many on this list would be expected to side with the cause.
>--
>giovanni_re <joh...@fastmail.us> wrote:
>
>A great bunch of wonderful people. I've been by a few hours the past
>few weeks.
>
>I'm working to help them get holiday light strings on every tent - that
>will make it safer to walk around the tents, look brighter & more
>inviting, & beautiful.
>
>Bring a string of holiday lights to donate - even a 99 cent one is
>great. :)
>Donate an extension cord.
>
>Donate a 7" Coby tablet running android linux, $88 this week at frys, -
>would be
>great help to the media/web/network people, if you've got that much
>money.
>
>14th & Broadway, heart of the business district, right outside city
>hall. 14 th st BART station.
>
>The police stole their bike electric generator - like this one also
>stolen by the police in SF, IIRC.
>http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/10/13/occupysf_bofh_protest_pedal_power/
>
>You ( everyone there) gets to vote in the general assembly meeting about
>6-8pm.
>www.occupyoakland.org
>- see the calendar for event times.
>
>They are facing eviction at any moment by the powers that be. But they
>are very resilient , & bringing lights & linux will help them out.
>
>Whatever your skills are, they will be useful. :)
>
>Oakland is my home town. If u can't make it here, help your local
>Occupy people.
>http://www.occupytogether.org/actions/
>
>[I haven't even made it up to Cal's new event, yet.]
>
>Bring the kids.
>http://www.berkeleyside.com/2011/11/08/a-mom-goes-to-occupy-oakland-with-her-7-year-old-twins/
>
>More news
>http://berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2011-11-12
>http://www.dailycal.org/
>
>I hope to see you there. :)
>
>== Smartphone Debian: http://wiki.debian.org/Smartphone
>Join in the Global monthly meetings, via voice, about all Free SW HW &
>Culture
>http://sites.google.com/site/berkeleytip/
>
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Shawn Adams
Not sure if Mr. Bilk is reading our list here.
Greatest respect for his taking time to post something thoughtful
I may not agree with all of it, but I will defend his right to freely
express.
It is an interesting parallel - what I call today's "in search of a
monolith".
Number of years ago, I worked on a SW development project with a group
of young coders who found microslop products as cumbersome, and
inefficient as I have.
The new application was to replace a proprietary windows-only
application, which the whole team complained vehemently about - the
closed source, the limitations of the OS - the complexity of the APIs,
the customer dissatisfaction that they could not run this application on
a more efficient OS of their choice.
The new application was designed to run on *NIX, various factors pushed
an intelligent decision to Linux. The initial goal was that the
application would hold closely to open source, IEEE and RFC standards,
and would run on the largest variety of OS as possible, within reason.
Testing was done on OpenSuse, Fedora, CentOS, Red Hat, an a number of
others.
As the product developed, i was astounded to learn they had gradually
reduced the "supported" number of OSs.....to ONE....
Listening to the reasoning, some of which made sense, but which also cut
out a large potential market share.
What hit me is a bit of what Mr. Bilk refers to - these young coders
began citing all their reasoning for having reduced the project to run
on only 1 OS, and in fact - was dependent on ONE library, commercially
owned by the purveyor of ONE of the OSs, reintroducing the dependencies
which had been cited as a limiting factor of the preceding application.
Their arguments sounded *exactly* like those of the team which had
developed the original application.
- everyone knows OS X
- OS X has the largest useage base -"everyone uses it"
etc....
Over time, various code was added to the product to "ensure" it would
only run on the chose OS X
In search of a comfort zone ? In search of the one true god amongst many ?
In search of another monolith, which in time, would be criticized and
replaced with exactly the same argumentation that had brought the
original in disfavor.
I realized it didn't matter what OS X was, as long as they could choose
one and be comfortable, at the expense of all others, at the expense of
creativity, and at the expense of free choice.
My interpretation of Mr. Bilk's writing - the 1% whether
it be in politics, sociology, or the IT business - they want us to
choose the ONE, keep the wealth rolling in their pockets...and stop that
damn thinking for yourself....
On 11/15/2011 06:50 AM, giovanni_re wrote:
> This is my true belief - Ten years ago I used to think he was a great
> guy.
>
> I don't know what has gone wrong with him over the past maybe 5 years.
> : (
>
>
> No problemo over here on BTIP, though.
> Free speech is welcome here. : )
>
>
>
>
>
>
> == Smartphone Debian: http://wiki.debian.org/Smartphone
> Join in the Global monthly meetings, via voice, about all Free SW HW& Culture
>> inviting,& beautiful.
>>
>> Bring a string of holiday lights to donate - even a 99 cent one is
>> great. :)
>> Donate an extension cord.
>>
>> Donate a 7" Coby tablet running android linux, $88 this week at frys, -
>> would be
>> great help to the media/web/network people, if you've got that much
>> money.
>>
>> 14th& Broadway, heart of the business district, right outside city
>> hall. 14 th st BART station.
>>
>> The police stole their bike electric generator - like this one also
>> stolen by the police in SF, IIRC.
>> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/10/13/occupysf_bofh_protest_pedal_power/
>>
>> You ( everyone there) gets to vote in the general assembly meeting about
>> 6-8pm.
>> www.occupyoakland.org
>> - see the calendar for event times.
>>
>> They are facing eviction at any moment by the powers that be. But they
>> are very resilient ,& bringing lights& linux will help them out.
giovanni_re
said:
>
>
> Not sure if Mr. Bilk is reading our list here.
>
> Greatest respect for his taking time to post something thoughtful
I ve invited him to join this btip list. Dont know if he has yet.
:)
I too thought it was an great post. Sadly, the tragic (imo) rick moen
apparently blocked that post, and censored svlug members ability to
read that useful info. :(
== Smartphone Debian: http://wiki.debian.org/Smartphone
Shawn Adams
Free speech indeed.
As long as they agree with my monolith....
Mark S Bilk
> On Wed, 16 Nov 2011 23:41:42 +0000, "Shawn Adams" <shawn_ad...@web.de> said:
> > Not sure if Mr. Bilk is reading our list here.
>
> > Greatest respect for his taking time to post something thoughtful
>
> I ve invited him to join this btip list. Dont know if he has yet.
> :)
Yup, just did! Hi all!
Glad you liked my post. It's taken me a while to understand
the level of evil among the rulers of our planet -- mostly
ultra-wealthy businessmen. They are total psychopaths.
They lie, rob, and murder on a huge scale without the slightest
remorse. There's no doubt they did the 9/11 attacks (see
the links in the 9/11 section of cosmicpenguin.com if you have
any doubts), and then they murdered 2,000,000 people in
Afghanistan and Iraq using 9/11 as the false pretext. They
just destroyed the nation of Libya, which had socialism and
direct participatory democracy. That's why they destroyed it,
plus they wanted the oil.
There is such a powerful hypnotic Matrix pouring from the
mainstream media, that most people can't even think about
what's really going on even if you tell them. In a conversation
with a neighbor yesterday, after I'd mentioned the two million
people the US govt had murdered (recently), and he hadn't
responded, I asked him directly, "Don't you care about them?"
He said no.
I could go on about they means they use to program people
like this -- no metal rod stuck into the brain like in the movie
-- but better that I put it on cosmicpenguin.
> I too thought it was an great post. Sadly, the tragic (imo) rick moen
> apparently blocked that post, and censored svlug members ability to
> read that useful info. :(
He did it to me and others before. See the bottom of this page:
Shawn Adams
Mark,
while I may not agree with everything you write, I defend your write to
think, say, and write it.
Bravo!
Never stop thinking...
Best regards,
Rick Moen
as per standard, misrepresenting the truth to claim martyrdom of the
The Man Is Keeping Him Down variety. He posted:
> He did it to me and others before. See the bottom of this page:
> http://cosmicpenguin.com/IsraelInfoCensored.html
Where one reads the claim:
> Moen kicked me off the list, calling me a "psychoceramic nutcase".
> Emulating the Ministry of Truth in Nineteen Eighty-Four,
> Moen then removed my message from the list archive, while
> retaining those from the Zionist.
Actually, I told him I was forcibly subscribing him (to get his
attention that he'd screwed up with his grand-global-conspiratorial
political-advocacy screed on Oct. 11, 2010) but that he was welcome to
resubscribe. Absolutely nothing prevents him from doing so. I gather
from his posting here that he must have left, but I must confess I
didn't miss his {ahem} contributions.
http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/conspire/2010-October/005785.html
http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/conspire/2010-October/005784.html
Oh, wait, Mark actually _was_ aware of being welcome to unsubscribe,
because he _posted again+ after seeing the above (prompting a second
publicly documented removal, but the same 'you're welcome to
resubscribe' still applies as explained) -- but he sees fit not to
mention on his Web page that he's NOT banned and remains free to come
and go as he pleases. Imaginary martyrdom being so much more convenient
than ones with any basis in reality, I imagine.
> When another list member wrote in thanking me for posting the
> information, Moen threatened to throw her off the list too.
This is flat-out dissembling. I said (and did) nothing of the sort.
My friend Darlene Wallach the monomaniacal Hamas-supporter (username
'freepalestin'), who is literally never seen in public without her
kaffiyah and PLO t-shirt and who, along with her sister Donna, cannot
seem to ever talk about anything else, _did_ post 'Thank you! Very much
needed for people to be informed!'
http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/conspire/2010-October/005786.html
To which I replied: 'Not on this mailing list. And I _will_ throw
people off for that sort of plainly unacceptable behaviour, and then
point and laugh -- while cleaning the spew out of the archives.'
http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/conspire/2010-October/005787.html
As was obvious from context to everyone except possibly Mark, I meant
that behaviour like _Mark's_ would get someone who misbehaves that
badly thrown off and laughed at. Darlene had done nothing wrong, and I
neither intended nor expressed nor implied any criticism of her.
Darlene has remained a very much a welcome presence, and, actually, when
notorious problem poster Ruben Safir of Brooklyn (he whose family were
driven out of their ancestral town of Hebron, and who can't shut up
about it) attempted to troll her about her Hamas support and behaved
pretty badly, I told him 'You know you're picking a fight, right? (I'll
probably ignore it for a few rounds, and then kill it.)'
http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/conspire/2011-June/006319.html
To Darlene directly, I said:
I wouldn't hold it at all against you or Donna if you took a
return shot or two. I'm no saint: I would.
Basically, they have carte blanche to take a few shots at Ruben in the
future, and I've told them so -- and specifically invited their doing so.
When Ruben continued his asshole-like behaviour and attempted to insist
that *I* pick fights with Darlene, I set him straight:
In general, Darlene and other CABAL attendees have grown over the years
aware that my house (and this mailing list) is a hospitable place where
we do not gratuitously alienate others on grounds of politics, and that
all well-behaved people are welcome.
http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/conspire/2011-June/006326.html
So, I particularly resent Mark lying about my 'threatening' Darlene.
Fortunately, it's very easily disproved.
Anyway, getting back to the so-called 'giovanni_re' who operates (for
hands-off and non-technical values of 'operate') this mailing list: Did
anyone else notice he never posts his actual name? It's John Regan.
There's a classic story that I still think's pretty amusing:
http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/conspire/2009-April/004725.html
I think it's great that John and Mark have a mailing list where they
can both do their respective things. (John's able to outsource all the
actual technological work to Google, which is a good thing, because,
man, I can't offhand imagine anyone less fit to administer software.)
The two of you should be... synergistic?
Anyway, have fun, kids! I'm taking off, again. (Oh, the SVLUG rule
being applied is the 'major eruptions of offtopic spew' one documented
on http://www.svlug.org/policies/list-policy.php - and all SVLUG
list-administrative action is publicly documented on the public SVLUG
Volunteers mailing list, because we don't do anything in backroom
fashion.)
--
Cheers, "Science editors: There are no such things as
Rick Moen 'indigo children.' The correct term is 'Jedi'."
ri...@linuxmafia.com -- FakeAPStylebook
McQ! (4x80)
Christopher Miller
> ...
I think what we have witnessed here is the intellectual equivalent of a public pepper-spraying.
Rick Moen
> I think what we have witnessed here is the intellectual equivalent of
> a public pepper-spraying.
Christopher! Where you been, man? I'm glad I got busy and neglected to
unsubscribe.
I wanted to thank John Regan for approving my post, despite it ribbing
him a bit. That speaks to him being a good guy, for real. (Postings to
this list from new members are held for moderator approval.)
Two other addenda:
(1) John said (about Mark's sweeping global-conspiracy 'Linux vs.
Fascism' posting to sv...@lists.svlug.org) that I 'censored svlug
members ability to read that useful info'. Yes and no: Mark's posting
triggered an antispam filter and was held for review, and thereafter
neither I nor any of SVLUG's other volunteers cared to take action to
approve it. So, basically not one of about a dozen active volunteers
lifted a finger to manually approve his held posting. Which might kinda
make you wonder, for starters.
However, I _did_ manually forward the entirety of Mark's attempted
posting to the separate and equally public volun...@lists.svlug.org,
where it is enshrined for eternity and able to be admired by all:
http://lists.svlug.org/archives/volunteers/2011q4/003881.html
John's own greatly milder 'Help Occupy Oakland get electricity, lights,
Linux etc.' posting, of course, went through unimpeded:
http://lists.svlug.org/archives/svlug/2011-November/057431.html
So, John's bit about 'Rick Moen is censoring the SVLUG email list' turns
out to refer to two postings, one of which went out to the entire huge
sv...@lists.svlug.org list membership and is archived publicly, and the
other to which I did nothing whatsoever except (along with _all_ of
SVLUG's other volunteers) ignore it in the admin queue. Oh, wait, I
didn't do nothing whatsoever with that: I publicly posted it. So,
'censoring' turns out to mean, in one case, doing nothing whatsoever and
letting sail right through. In the other case, doing nothing and
_reposting_.
I do growl as listadmin on sv...@lists.svlug.org about notable bouts of
misbehaviour (if and only if it violates one of the posted rules), and
usually get ignored for my pains. In extreme cases, I put the moderated
flag on some individuals' subscriptions to sv...@lists.svlug.org for a
brief time. There have been three people who've ever gotten that
treatment, two of them currently and one many years ago.
(2) Mark claimed on this mailing list 'He did it to me and others
before.'
The 'others before' is, once again, to be _extremely_ charitable, a
careless untruth.
Both on CABAL's cons...@linuxmafia.com mailing list and all of SVLUG's
mailing lists, I have never banned anyone.[1] I also have never before
Mark's two global-conspiracy-and-Zionists-ate-my-lunch postings to
cons...@linuxmafia.com, never had occasion to retroactively expunge
any posting from any mailing list archive except for outright commercial
spam and virus postings.
[1] Right around 2005, a fellow posting under the pseudonym 'Blue Boar'
tried to pick some sort of dumb fight with me on cons...@linuxmafia.com
about the contents of my essay on Unix malware at
http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/faq/index.php?page=virus in which he
outrageously misrepresented what I'd said there. I replied saying I was
too busy at work to deal with trolling, didn't appreciate the
misrepresentations, and wasn't even going to bother dissecting what he'd
said until I had more time. He escalated. I manually unsubscribed him
while saying this was purely because he'd pissed me off by attempting
low-level character assassination under a fake name, but that he was
_perfectly welcome to resubscribe_ using something at least appearing to
be a real name rather than something from a role-playing game. He
resubscribed as 'Ryan Russell', behaved himself a bit better, and ended
up as an example in http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/faq/index.php?page=virus
of yet more doubtful assertions about Unix malware from the security
industry.
--
Cheers, find / -user your -name base -print | xargs chown us:us
Rick Moen
ri...@linuxmafia.com
McQ! (4x80)
Christopher Miller
> Quoting Christopher Miller (lordsauro...@gmail.com):
>
>> I think what we have witnessed here is the intellectual equivalent of
>> a public pepper-spraying.
>
> Christopher! Where you been, man?
Utah. List-wise I un-subbed SVLUG because (as interesting as our arguments were) I felt they were unproductive and brought out the childishness in me.
And for the record (re:GPLv3) I'm still avoiding that little patent-bugger like the plague, and have been somewhat religiously releasing all that I can in a MIT/BSD dual-licensing in order to eat my own dogfood as much as possible. Just thought you might appreciate/find amusement at that little fact.
> I'm glad I got busy and neglected to
> unsubscribe.
Oh no...
> I wanted to thank John Regan for approving my post, despite it ribbing
> him a bit. That speaks to him being a good guy, for real. (Postings to
> this list from new members are held for moderator approval.)
It's an anti-spam measure, I think. Google Groups have this fun habit of getting flooded by spambots, so if you moderate new members you can catch the bots and then mark the real people as being able to get through.
Rick Moen
> And for the record (re:GPLv3) I'm still avoiding that little
> patent-bugger like the plague, and have been somewhat religiously
> releasing all that I can in a MIT/BSD dual-licensing in order to eat
> my own dogfood as much as possible. Just thought you might
> appreciate/find amusement at that little fact.
Any licence is simply a legal instrument to achieve some particular
personal goal the copyright owner wishes to achieve, so, if that
licensing does what you have in mind, good for you. The people I get
amusement from are those going around preaching about what _others_
should/must/mustn't do in licensing their own creations, because the
speaker has somehow failed to figure out that it's really none of his or
her business.
(I'm _also_ amused that most objections they then invent to licences
employed by other people concerning those other people's own property
tend overwhelmingly to be based on serious blunders about how copyright,
patent, and trademark law do and don't work.)
That having been said, I'm curious what in tarnation you think that
'MIT/BSD dual-licensing' could possibly accomplish that either of those
alone, especially the former, cannot, given that they are permissive
licences. It seems to me that proclaiming an instance of a work to be
available under the recipipent's choice of MIT X licence or BSD licence
(irrespective of whether you mean the 2, 3, or 4-clause version) is
functionally equivalent to just saying MIT X licence.
I have no recollection about what your particular beef with GPLv3 is,
but am glad you figured out in the fullness of time that your optimal
reaction to any and all licences that don't achieve your desired goal is
to simply avoid using them.
> It's an anti-spam measure, I think.
I'm sure.
--
Cheers, "That scruffy beard... those suspenders... that smug ex-
Rick Moen pression.... You're one of those condescending Unix users!"
ri...@linuxmafia.com "Here's a nickel, kid. Get yourself a real computer."
McQ! (4x80) -- Dilbert
Poster's address, rot26-encoded for Web archives, is: rick @ linuxmafia . com .
Christopher Miller
> Quoting Christopher Miller (lordsauro...@gmail.com):
>
>> And for the record (re:GPLv3) I'm still avoiding that little
>> patent-bugger like the plague, and have been somewhat religiously
>> releasing all that I can in a MIT/BSD dual-licensing in order to eat
>> my own dogfood as much as possible. Just thought you might
>> appreciate/find amusement at that little fact.
>
> Any licence is simply a legal instrument to achieve some particular
> personal goal the copyright owner wishes to achieve, so, if that
> licensing does what you have in mind, good for you. The people I get
> amusement from are those going around preaching about what _others_
> should/must/mustn't do in licensing their own creations, because the
> speaker has somehow failed to figure out that it's really none of his or
> her business.
While I disagree with GPLv3 licensing, I do respect the rights/wishes of others who choose to use it. I will never "steal" someone else's property by doing something as base as re-licensing it under my own name.
I'm an idiosyncratic realist, not a thief! ;-) (Please note the sarcasm in that statement - I'm using self-deprecation to lighten the mood of an otherwise touchy topic).
> (I'm _also_ amused that most objections they then invent to licences
> employed by other people concerning those other people's own property
> tend overwhelmingly to be based on serious blunders about how copyright,
> patent, and trademark law do and don't work.)
As an iOS developer, I couldn't care less how it "does" work. I know that I can get sued for everything I have if I don't play my cards carefully. (Lodsys, anyone?)
The reality is that you have to be very careful around copyright and patents because it takes a lot of money and time to resolve any issues with those.
The reality of the situation differs greatly from what you tend to describe, and while a completely OSS-world would be nice (a little concerning, because I observe the most innovation for things that matter to the end-user in proprietary software), I still live and work in reality. And I give those sensitive and costly issues a wide berth.
> That having been said, I'm curious what in tarnation you think that
> 'MIT/BSD dual-licensing' could possibly accomplish that either of those
> alone, especially the former, cannot, given that they are permissive
> licences. It seems to me that proclaiming an instance of a work to be
> available under the recipipent's choice of MIT X licence or BSD licence
> (irrespective of whether you mean the 2, 3, or 4-clause version) is
> functionally equivalent to just saying MIT X licence.
I use 2-clause BSD. I'm partial to 2-clause BSD, but I have had employers which refuse to allow it due to unspecified reasons. They do accept the MIT license, however. So any dual-licensing of the two becomes OK.
Personally I'd just use 2-clause BSD all the time, but as I said, if I want to use any of my work in more than one product for different employers, it needs to be MIT for some of them. So there comes in dual-licensing. They can use it in their products without fear of any repercussions, I can save time and deliver a better product, and I hopefully get to stay employed more!
> I have no recollection about what your particular beef with GPLv3 is,
> but am glad you figured out in the fullness of time that your optimal
> reaction to any and all licences that don't achieve your desired goal is
> to simply avoid using them.
I was perfectly content to use GPLv2 software, and even contributed to a GPLv2 project once, and added a little feature to it that I'm sure approximately 2.5 people care about. (sleep-quit messages to Colloquy chat).
My beef with GPLv3 is the patent-crazy-ness of it. Or not as much it as much as "it+my employers." This is another "reality versus what's written on the page" thing.
On the page GPLv3 is a perfectly convoluted piece of legalese bullcrap I'm perfectly content to ignore. When I contribute Open-Source stuffs, I know that I'm signing rights away to the owner, and he or she can license it away however he or she wishes. I hopefully get my code included and my feature/fix is there, and I'm happy.
GPLv3's licensing surrounding software patents is a direct assault on my ability to work.
By reading any GPLv3 code, I become a "tainted coder." Anything I write from that point on has the capacity to be re-using a patented technique - big deal. It's usually a silly patent which can be thrown out, anyways. Kind of like that moron that patented the for-loop a few years back. The issue with GPLv3 patents, however, is the retroactive clauses which then GPLv3-ify the rest of the code-base, and therefore open-source any other patents in the current product's portfolio. It's dangerous to my ability to provide services to those constructing proprietary software. If I am not careful with what I read, I can become a liability.
I become unemployable.
Now, in reality I'm pretty darn good at segregating what I know. I can hop between contracts and not cross any lines. But the problem still exists that some patent/copyright troll might come along and use me as a wedge to try and separate my employer from his or her product.
Nobody wants to be "that guy."
So, to try and put it in the most simple terms, GPLv3 hate is based on several parts:
- GPLv2 and GPLv3 does not support mixed-license environments. While (and I'm putting this in here because I know you take things very literally) While I know that it's the right of the Author to license the Work in whatever way He or She sees fit, as a coder, I gotta say it's a little disappointing. From my chair, I see someone saying "hey, look at this cool thing I wrote! I hope it can make your life easier and the lives of everyone who uses it better!" My thought then becomes "sweet, I can save time and reduce costs by using this! But augh! It's GPLvX! I can't include this because then all my work becomes GPLvX!" I'm not always certain that is the direct intention of the Author, which is why it's sad. If it's the actual intention that all Derivative Works remain GPLvX Forever and Ever and that all Works which use this Work Shall Be GPLvX or Later, well, that's a cognizant decision on the part of the Author and I respect that. It just limits what I can do with it. But in the back of my mind, I wonder "Do you know what the full implications of that license are? I wanted to use that, and when I use stuff I try and see if I can improve it and give back for everyone, but because of that license I can't touch it." It makes me wonder about licensing education and whether things are being licensed under what the Author means, instead of what's most accessible or "cool." Because at their core I think that open-source folks are really free and open, and don't mind stuff getting used in proprietary applications. I'm that way - I want people to use my code. I hope it can help them and make their lives easier, whether they're building proprietary or open-source software. I suspect most people of being the same way: building software to solve problems, and open-sourcing the software in hopes that it can benefit everyone. I do not suspect most people of saying "But I really just don't want anyone to use this in a proprietary product. That would be so bad!" I really honestly do not think that most people think that way. So that causes me to wonder. I hope that you can begin to understand that line of thought. (I'm still not totally sure I know how to articulate that kind of thinking - and articulation is the first step to communication!).
- GPLv3 is a anti-patent torpedo into Open-Source. For the record, I completely agree that software patents are Bad and Evil and need to be destroyed. I do not patent my own work, I will not patent my own work. (My employer might, but that's not my problem - I provide a service and then he/she owns that work; it's a little disappointing and I'll definitely think twice about accepting a contract from them again, but there's only so much that I can do). However, I have a job to do and that involves navigating a minefield of copyrights and patents. To utilize the minefield illustration, MIT/BSD is like a little fox that is so light and tiny that he can step on a mine and not get blown to bits (most of the time). He's fast and he gets through the minefield quickly, which gets my job done and the product finished and there we end. Contrast GPLv3! GPLv3 is like this gigantic minefield clearing machine you might have seen on the Discovery Channel before. It's huge and loud and finds every single last mine in its path and purposefully explodes them. It's very slow. Overall clearing out all the mines is obviously the correct approach, but having the frontline developers being that approach is wrong (in my opinion). It slows down innovation and makes it take longer to get useful, life-improving software to market. I think that working with our politicians (as messed up as they are) and the USPTO to get software patents thrown out is the correct way to go. In the mean time, as a self-described little fox (with all the negative connotation that includes), I avoid patents and try not to exacerbate the problem so that the big mine-clearing machine can keep moving. It's useful and amusing to me, but I decline to participate on that level due to my next problem:
- GPLv3 coders are tainted. It's not a direct fault of GPLv3, but it is a side-effect of the war on software patents. If you want to work for a company which has a patent portfolio, you can't have any GPLv3 experience. If you do, and you write some code for them, suddenly any patent troll can accuse you of having injected a protected (opened) patent into that product. This creates long legal proceedings and generates overall Bad Stuff. It's safer to NOT read or write GPLv3 code if you're planning (or keep that option open) to code for a larger organization which does have patents. Or has to deal with patents!
Intellectual property is a pain in the rear and most of the concepts are flawed. My overall opinion on the whole matter is:
- Copyright is useful for protecting the idea-inventions of creative individuals so they can monetize it to support themselves (and hopefully invent something more!)
- Copyright in the United States is a grossly abused thing, and copyright lasts for far too long. I think the duration of copyright needs to be reduced drastically, probably to about ten to twenty years. There's a significant case for an even shorter copyright duration due to the increased ability to create new works granted by modern technologies. Ah, compare the days before mechanical reproduction, when copyright was simply irrelevant!
- Patents are (in my view) a copyright on a mechanical or otherwise physical invention. I don't deal with hardware problems, so I don't have a very educated opinion on this. I do think that it's wholly inappropriate to patent software. I acknowledge the claim that software is just like a mechanical invention: after all, software is ideas that conform to a framework, just as a set of gears are ideas that conform to the framework of the laws of physics. However, I don't think that software lends itself to that particular kind of system because of its inherent reusability and the ease with which it can be reused. I think they're similar, but the ease of digital reproduction renders them wholly incomparable. A patent on a car part is useful because it protects the original inventor of that device from being undercut by someone who can manufacture that part for less - for a time. Software can be sold for tens of thousands of dollars (Big-Ass Databases and stuff) or $0.99 (the App Store). How low will an unscrupulous person go to undercut? Rather, I think that it's more appropriate to copyright the whole work to prevent verbatim stealing instead of patenting the underlying bits as well to frustrate the process of producing "clones."
It's not a very consistent opinion and I don't claim that it holds much water, but it's mine and I'm sticking to it until something changes sufficient to change my mind. :)
>> It's an anti-spam measure, I think.
>
> I'm sure.
Suit yourself. In my many years as a list admin on Google Groups (not this list, but another higher-traffic one) I've only ever not accepted spammers. (Or people that behaved so un-sophisticatedly as to be indistinguishable from spammers).
More amusingly we (on that other list) tend to get people advertising for other Linux conferences. After some discussion among the two co-owners and the admin team, we decided to classify that as spam. We can't have geographically-dependant conference adverts going out to 4,000 people all over the world every week!
Rick Moen
> I'm using self-deprecation to lighten the mood of an otherwise touchy
> topic).
It continues to amaze me that software licensing is regarded by some as
a 'touchy' subject, given that it is simply a legal instument of the
licensor's intentions. Does the licence selected achieve what the
licensor wanted to do? If yes, good. If not, the poor sod ought to go
back and read more carefully.
See? There's literally nothing that even _can_ be argued about other
than whether the licence achieved the licensor's desired goal -- unless
you have some crazy conviction that it's become your business what terms
of usage people choose to offer their personal creative works to others
under.
> ...I disagree with GPLv3 licensing...
This _looks_ like the English language, coming supplied with a subject,
active verb, and a compound noun as object. (In that regard, it has all
the virtues of Prof. Chomsky's famous example of a syntactically valid
sentence with zero semantic payload, 'Colorless green ideas sleep
furiously.') However, on a semantic level, I cannot seem to make sense
of it.
That is, one might have a conversation as follows:
A: That barn is red.
B: I disagree with your allegation, Friend Citizen. That barn is, in
fact, puce.
In the above conversation, B asserts that he or she 'disagrees' with A
in the sense that A asserts a thing and B holds the view that the facts
asserted within A's sentence are untrue.
By contrast, it is unclear whaat 'disagree with GPLv3 licensing' means,
because 'GPLv3 licensing' is not a person. To the extent that 'GPLv3
licensing' can be metaphorically be seen to have said something, it has
said a large number of things, all of them in fact either grants of
permission from the copyright holder or duties required of anyone before
those rights are conveyed.
So, with whom were you holding a conversation, and about what were you
disagreeing with that person?
Perhaps an example would help: the Samba Project.
Jeremy Allison, Andrew Tridgell, and sundy other developers write code,
and choose to offer it to the public under the terms of GNU General
Public License version 3. You can elect to redistribute that code,
create derivative works, or perform other actions requiring legal rights
normally reserved to copyright owners _if_ you accept the terms of
GPLv3. If you do not, as with copyrighted works generally, you have
limited rights by statute, e.g., implied licence to download and use the
code, but lack access to reserved rights, because they're the copyright
owners and you didn't agree to their conditions. Using the reserved
rights without permission would be a tort (not, FYI, 'theft', which is a
crime rather than a tort).
You might, however, write to Jeremy and Andrew and say 'I'll pay you
$1000 and buy you two dinner at Sardi's if you permit me to redistribute
derivative works of Samba with no other obligations.' They might
accept. They might not.
Anyway, what in that picture does 'disagree with GPLv3 licensing' mean?
How in tarnation can you 'disagree with' a licence, given that it is
incapable of holding discourse with you, let alone expressing a
declaration of fact?
Does it merely mean that you choose not to accept the terms of other
people's works who use that licence? If so, OK, glad you worked that
out for yourself, though I'm unclear on why you think mailing lists
benefit from knowing about your personal policy.
> As an iOS developer, I couldn't care less how it "does" work. I know
> that I can get sued for everything I have if I don't play my cards
> carefully. (Lodsys, anyone?)
1. If you wish to be unable to be sued, I have extremely bad news for
you: Anyone can be sued at any time by any other person, over anything.
(Some such complaints will get quickly dismissed and the judge will
bounce you down the courthouse steps. Others, not so much.)
2. Indeed, last I checked, Apple, Inc's iPhone Developer Program
License Agreement, section 5 required that developers' licensing "not
purport to require Apple (or its agents) to disclose or make available
any of the keys, authorization codes, methods, procedures, data or other
information related to the Security Solution, digital signing or digital
rights management mechanisms utilized as part of the Program".[1]
Consequently, _if_ you develop iOS code using information and tools
subject to that licence agreement (currently the only practical way),
then you cannot use GPLv3 terms without breaching your contract with Apple.
_However_, it is equally true that -=any other=- open-source licensing
terms would ALSO breach your contract with Apple, for exactly the same
reasons, including the 'MIT/BSD dual-licensing' you say you like.
3. Actually, you certainly _do_ care how copyright, patent, and
trademark law do and don't work, if you have any common sense
whatsoever.
Lodsys is a classic patent troll, those being a plague on all sorts of
development effort, both open source and proprietary.
> The reality is that you have to be very careful around copyright and
> patents because it takes a lot of money and time to resolve any issues
> with those.
I will be fascinated to hear how, as a software developer writing your
own code you could plausibly commit copyright infringement accidentally.
Patents are an entirely different issue, and I find it revealing that
you lump them together.
> The reality of the situation differs greatly from what you tend to describe,
Oh, _do_ tell. I've worked in proprietary software (among other)
companies only since the 1980s, so I probably have a lot to learn.
> and while a completely OSS-world would be nice
Who on _earth_ was talking about that?
> I use 2-clause BSD. I'm partial to 2-clause BSD, but I have had
> employers which refuse to allow it due to unspecified reasons. They do
> accept the MIT license, however. So any dual-licensing of the two
> becomes OK.
If it makes you happy, good. However, it _is_ completely redundant.
> They can use it in their products without fear of any repercussions....
Well, as long as they preserve your copyright notice and agree that there
is no warranty. ;-> There are people who allege with a straight face
that MIT X License is coercive and not free enough. Ditto the
(functionally exactly equivalent) 2-clause BSD licence.
> GPLv3's licensing surrounding software patents is a direct assault on
> my ability to work.
Please clarify: Are you expressing opinions about what terms are
acceptable for other people to choose to apply to publicly issued
instances of _their_ creative works? Why is this suddenly your business?
> By reading any GPLv3 code, I become a "tainted coder."
Case citation, please.
I suspect this assertion is delusional. (In fact, when you get to
specifics, below, it did turn out to be delusional.) However, more to
the point, you are free to avoid reading such code, and, to the best of
my ability to tell, nobody has wronged you by crafting creative works
whose terms you decline to accept.
> Anything I write from that point on has the capacity to be re-using a
> patented technique - big deal. It's usually a silly patent which can
> be thrown out, anyways. Kind of like that moron that patented the
> for-loop a few years back. The issue with GPLv3 patents, however, is
> the retroactive clauses which then GPLv3-ify the rest of the
> code-base, and therefore open-source any other patents in the current
> product's portfolio.
It is clear that you do not understand software law. Neither GPLv3 nor
any other software licence, proprietary or open source, has the power to
do that. We will get into specifics below.
> Now, in reality I'm pretty darn good at segregating what I know. I can
> hop between contracts and not cross any lines. But the problem still
> exists that some patent/copyright troll might come along and use me as
> a wedge to try and separate my employer from his or her product.
That's not the way the law works.
> GPLv3 hate is based on several parts:
>
> - GPLv2 and GPLv3 does not support mixed-license environments.
Sure they do. They're compatible with any licence that doesn't
impose additional restrictions on users. If that doesn't meet your
needs, don't use the other guy's property (works covered by that
licence). If nothing yet exists that meets your needs, you're free to
write it yourself or commission its creation.
I cannot understand why people purporting to 'disagree with' [sic]
other people's software licences concerning those other people's work
cannot seem to comprehend the concept of 'not yours'.
> - GPLv3 is a anti-patent torpedo into Open-Source.
If you don't like it, don't use it. That'll save you a lot of
hyperventilating. However, when you cease hyperventilating, you might
notice that all a licensor or redistributor ('conveyer') is said to
covenant about patents in a GPLv3 grant is that he or she is granting a
royalty-free licence to his or her own patented methods that are
strictly required for the conveyed work to function. That's it, c'est
tout, that's the shootin' match.
However, let's get specific:
You've conjured up in your head a fantasy scenario in which a judge is
asked to order royalty-free access to a patent a 'conveyer' didn't
intend to licence. But this probably makes sense to you only because
you haven't actually read relevant caselaw. In actual software caselaw,
the remedy of specific performance (remedies in equity) are not
available to plaintiff other than a court order to cease infringement.
Beyond the latter, only remedies at _law_ (as opposed to equity) are
available, i.e., monetary damages.
That's why I said 'Case citation, please': You will find no cases ever
showing the scenario you claim. They don't exist, as that's just not
the way civil law works.
Let me go over that a second time in layman's terms, using an example.
A party publishes an instance of codebase Foo under GPLv3 terms. Your
employer lets you work on it. Suddenly, a Foo copyright holder sues
your employer asking the judge to coerce your employer to make one of
its patents available royalty-free, asserting it's necessary to use the
modified Foo you created.
Your employer will immediately file a 'demurrer' motion, which is what I
call an 'If so, so what?' motion, pointing out that, even _if_ modified
Foo requires its patented method, that the copyright holder's only
recourse is to attempt to declare your employer's Foo licence void _if_
he/she can prove infringement. If the copyright is registered at the
Library of Congress Copyright Office (and most aren't), then very small
statutory damages ($100 or so) can be claimed, especially if the
infringer plausibly claims accidental infrigment, which you employer
would do. In any event, the demurrer would point out that access to its
patents is just not a standard remedy and should not be granted.
Plaintiff loses, probably on summary judgement around day 3.
Your fantasy scenario is actually a 21st C. update of the _prior_ GPLv2
fantasy scenario, in which it's claimed that users of GPLv2 code would
be ordered by judges to open-source their codebases 'tainted' by it.
That doesn't happen for similar reasons, and the polite response was
always 'Case citation, please' to that, too.
> If you want to work for a company which has a patent portfolio, you
> can't have any GPLv3 experience. If you do, and you write some code
> for them, suddenly any patent troll can accuse you of having injected
> a protected (opened) patent into that product.
If you say some corporate employer thinks that, then I believe you,
because I've heard even crazier things than that.
However, that is not the way that either GPLv3 or any other software
licence works (beyond Rule Zero of the civil litigation system, the ones
that says that anyone may sue anyone at any time over anything).
> Intellectual property is a pain in the rear and most of the concepts
> are flawed. My overall opinion on the whole matter is:
[...]
And I'm sure all that would be very, very important to us all if only
you were declared Philosopher-King.
> > > It's an anti-spam measure, I think.
> >
> > I'm sure.
>
> Suit yourself.
Dude, I _agreed_ with what you said. Sheesh.
[1] That was among the contract terms a few years ago. Later, the
agreement was moved behind a software wall so as to no longer be
publicly accessible. I'm not presently finding a public copy of the
current text.
--
Rick Moen "The plural of 'Pokemon' is 'vermin.'"
ri...@linuxmafia.com -- FakeAPStylebook
McQ! (4x80)
giovanni_re
<lordsauro...@gmail.com> said:
> .... In my many years as a list admin on Google Groups (not
> this list, but another higher-traffic one)
Which group?
I've only ever not accepted
> spammers. (Or people that behaved so un-sophisticatedly as to be
> indistinguishable from spammers).
>
> More amusingly we (on that other list) tend to get people advertising for
> other Linux conferences. After some discussion among the two co-owners
> and the admin team, we decided to classify that as spam. We can't have
> geographically-dependant conference adverts going out to 4,000 people all
> over the world every week!
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