GNU vs LINUX vs UNIX vs DEBIAN
lokesh walase
alankar padman
Dinesh Lokhande
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Mihir Khatwani
Good Post Lokesh
Mihir Khatwani
अभिजित Abhijit
1. It is a .xls file !
2. whenever you write something, which is not a program, publish it by declaring it as public domain or using some freedom giving license like creative commons.
अभिजित अ. मी. Abhijit M.
Phone: +91 9422308125
--
Praveen A
> Hi friends , myself Lokesh Walase( SY-COMP ). I ve attached a file which
> contains some discussions regarding the topic : “GNU vs Linux vs Unix vs
> Debian”
> Needless to mention , all the information has been obtained from the
> Internet . There is a chance of some incorrect information or incorrect view
> being expressed in it , which I ve tried my best to avoid . Nevertheless any
> feedback is really really welcomed & expected . I expect the fdbk in one of
> the following forms : correction of some incorrect info , any doubt or
> objection , any important addition to the topic , any valuable suggestion ,
> & ofcourse like/dislike........and so on .
> I feel that whatever information we collect from the Internet( atleast some
> of it ) should be discussed in this way with one & all . No need to think @
> the response one may get from others , if one feels to do so , JUST DO IT !!
Hi Lokesh,
Thanks for this, some comments for discussion. Overall really great
arguments and nicely written. I really appreciate the time taken to go
this detail. Well researched and well argued.
1. Curious as to why did you chose xls format? It is for spreadsheets.
Also I would suggest we use Open Document formats.
2. To be precise , we must say , “GNU/ Linux OS”
Even though I completely agree with the concept, I prefer to give the
choice to everyone with full information and arguments. In this case,
we can say, why we think the system should be called GNU/Linux and say
we prefer it to be called GNU/Linux and we call it GNU/Linux. But when
we insist, people might not like it. It is my personal view, you can
disagree.
3. God knows why are they taking it is so long - regarding GNU Hurd.
Because the main motivation of creating a Free Operating System is
already ful filled with GNU/Linux. Now the motivation for bringing
credit to GNU or technically superiour kernel is not as strong as a
creating a Free Operating System.
You can post this as blog so it is easy for others to find it.
Internet has opened up the possibility of directly talking to the
world and enabled us to publish our thoughts without help from enyone
else. We all should be writing more about our thoughts and ideas.
(Reminder to myslef to update my blog regularly). Lets use the
potential of blogs to influence things and people around us.
4. End user can be he or she :) Same for 'common man'
5. I like the way you emphasis the need for building our own view of
the world. Lets all remake the world as we see fit, why should we let
the world decide how we should be? Everyone should be personally
convinced - not just because Abhijit sir told you. Question him when
he does not make sense, until you are satisfied. We have to develop
that spirit of questioning everything untill we are satisfied.
6. Now a counter question. When you say distribute applications you
develop for free, how would programmers earn a living? Well you asked
the question later. So lets see the arguments from others before I
give my answers.
7. Luckily you cannot patent a language. Patents are for ideas,
probably they could have copyrighted it. Copyrights are for expression
of an idea.
8. What happens if the book is digital - say PDF, how much does it
cost and for what tasks? Would you still want to deny this "priceless"
invention to someone who cannot pay 100 rupees?
9. There is a flow in the C language example. Because when you write a
program, it is expression of you idea. So Ritchie and Kerningham
cannot have any say on it. Though they could still claim copyright on
individual building blocks of the c program, similar to how Oracle
sued Google for Java.
10. Idea of Freedom should not only be extended to Knowledge but to
culture too. See www.chambaproject.in for how we take this idea to
Free Culture.
11. GPL and copyleft gets its power from copyright law, ironic? It is
one of the most beautiful hacks of our times. Using copyright law to
make copyleft.
12. FSF cannot sue you for copyright violation if they are not the
copyright owner. Only copyright holder can sue anyone for GPL
violations, because only copyright holder has such right under
copyright law.
13. FSF does not hold copyright to all GPL licensed software. Your
statement D.4 is completely false. FSF hols copyrights for software
which GNU project creates, that too not all of them.
14. There are many falvours of Unix and there are proprietary variants
as well as Free variants. HP-UX and IBM AIX and examples of
proprietary Unixes but BSDs and Open Solaris are Free Unixes.
15. E.1 does not match with F.1 Unix name is a trademark and is used
by HP-UX, AIX, Solaris etc.
16. E.3 is not completely correct. When you make a distribution it is
a collection, not a derivative work. GPL does not apply to
collections. Just look at any distribution and you can see not all
software is under a GPL-compatible license. GPL can go only so far as
copyright law allows. For people who want to have more restrictions
that what copyright provides goes for EULAs where they make you agree
to a contract to give up even those rights you have under just
copyright law - one example is preventing you from reverse
engineering, which is allowed under copyright law, but most EULAs
prevents it.
Unix is a trademark, not copyright. Copyrights, patents and trademarks
are all different and each has its own way of working. It is easy to
confuse between them and there is a deliberate attempt to keep it
confusing by using terms like intellectual property for all these laws
together.
17. You might want to check our arch linux, which is a rolling
distribution - means no releases, but continuous updates. It is
getting popular these days.
18. H.4 Only first part is considered by FSF as a problem in
reccomending Debian. Integrity of Author's source code is not a reason
for this decision.
19. H7 is not correct. Free & Open Source is not based on the source,
but based on a philosophy of considering both Free Software and Open
Source movements. It is not a technical decision.
20. Linus Torvalds is not a founder of OSI. It was founded by Eric S
Raymond and Bruce Perens.
21. I7 resoning is not correct. There is only one license, reciprocal
license, that is approved by OSI but not approved by FSF. And
practically I don't think anyone uses this license. So practically all
Open Source Software is also Free Software. In theory if someone
releases a software under reciprocal license, it will be considered
Open Source but not Free Software. I don't think this has any impact
on any practical discussion on differences between Open Source and
Free Software.
Your section J questions.
1. Now that there is Free Software and Open Source movements, some
people started referring to both of them or does not want to take any
side using FOSS, which stands for Free and Open Source Software or
FLOSS Free/Libre and Open Source Software. Libre means Freedom in most
European languages.
2. Copyleft means, derivative works need to use the same license as
original work. There is strong copyleft, GPL and weak copyleft, LGPL.
GNU compatible does not make any sense. May be you meant GPL
compatible, which means you can combine a software released under GPL
compatible license with GPL licensed software to make a derivative
work.
3. Free of Open Source differs only in philosophy, there is no
practical, leagal or technical differences. We can have a separate
discussion on Free Software business models later. We will be having
this discussion in FOSS elective for final years. We can make it as an
open session.
4. Basically there is a spectrum of licensed which offers 4 Freedoms
defined by RMS but how it protects itself differes. At one end we have
AGPL or Affero GPL and other end we have public domain. All other
licenses come in between. GPL means you can chose not to release the
source code to your changes if you are not distributing the code. It
was good enough for personal computers, now with clud computing
becoming common, does google has to release any changes to GPL
software they use? No, not as per pure GPL. So now AGPL is created for
web based software. AGPL says anyone using the software via a network
should get access to source code. Public Domain means no copyright, do
whatever you want. Now BSD or MIT license adds one more condition,
keep the copyright notice, but do whatever you want with it. Then MPL
or Mozilla Public License adds more restrictions, says if you modify
any code you release it, but if you create new files you don't have to
release it (writing this from memory, not that clear cut on MPL have
to read more on it). LGPL adds more restrictions but still a weak
copyleft, it says if you use this in your program release changes made
to this, but keep any license for code you write. Then GPL come which
strong copyleft, says any derivative work has to be GPL. And then AGPL
with even more strict conditions than GPL itself. Public Domain end of
the spectrum is called permissive license (do whatever you want, even
make it proprietary) and GPL end of the spectrum is called protective
licenses (it always protects itself, it will always remain Free).
5. Those are BSD variants, different version of BSD focussed on
specific use cases. For example Open BSD is focused on security, Open
SSH is part of Open BSD project. Net BSD is popular in embedded
systems, it has a port for almost all architecures. Now there is
Debian GNU/kFreeBSD :) Think about it!
6. Creative Commons is another organisation focused on Free Cultural
Works, music, movies, photos etc. Not all Creative Commons licenses
are compatible with Free Software. Creative Commons By Attribution
Share Alike (CC-BY-SA) is a copyleft license similar to GPL, but for
creative works. Now see Copyheart copyheart.org , which Chamba project
uses. Which says Copying art is an act of love. Love is not subject to
law.
7. See answer to 4. FDL is designed for documentation. Debian
considers FDL as a non-free license because it allows specifying some
invariant sections (which cannot be modified). So even though 8
distributions that FSF says are 100% Free Software are not fully Free!
8. It is again about philosophy. GNU started this whole movement and
when you leave out GNU from name people get a wrong histroy. Like
Linus Torvalds wrote a kernel as his college project and suddenly he
found so many tools out of no where, it was combined to make Linux OS,
it doesn't give justice to history. Also if we already won the battle
or Linus also values Freedom, it would not have been an issue. We need
to focus on Freedom and keep reminding people about GNU, because the
battle is still on. We can't relax!
Amazing work! Let the debate continue... Thanks a lot again for taking
your time and coming up with nicely researched article. Start
maintainig a blog. I suggest the big heading be made individual
topics.
Cheers
Praveen
--
പ്രവീണ് അരിമ്പ്രത്തൊടിയില്
You have to keep reminding your government that you don't get your
rights from them; you give them permission to rule, only so long as
they follow the rules: laws and constitution.
Praveen A
> There are two things bad about it:
>
> 1. It is a .xls file !
> 2. whenever you write something, which is not a program, publish it by
> declaring it as public domain or using some freedom giving license like
> creative commons.
Abhijit,
Though I agree with the idea, it is completely disregarding the amount
of work he has done and it can be discouraging if you find only
faults. I suggest you go through the document, because we have reverse
engineered xls format and Open Office can read it, and give your
comments. It is his choice what license he would like for his work,
which no one else can demand, we can only suggest. There is no one
license called creative commons.
अभिजित Abhijit
Praveen has already given lot of feedback (which I've not yet read completely, due to lack of time!) on the content. Still I stick to my criticism. I don't agree with Praveen on the use of .xls format. On a free software users group, we can ofcourse demand for using open standards. Extending on Praveen's argument means we should not even urge people to use Linux instead of Windows.
--
Praveen A
> this group. People have been discussing how to "fix things" for quite some
> time. This is the first writeup on non-technical issues related to FOSS.
>
> Praveen has already given lot of feedback (which I've not yet read
> completely, due to lack of time!) on the content. Still I stick to my
> criticism. I don't agree with Praveen on the use of .xls format. On a free
> software users group, we can ofcourse demand for using open standards.
> Extending on Praveen's argument means we should not even urge people to use
> Linux instead of Windows.
My criticism was not about questioning use of xls format, which I also
did in my reply. But just giving that, without even bothring to check
what is actually written.
For me, Free Software is more important than Open Standards. We have
many Free Formats which does not have any spec even, gimp xcf format,
but only a Free implmentation, on the contrary Microsoft Office also
support Open Document formats. In these contexts which one do we
prefer?
Though it is better if we have both. Open Standards should not be used
as an excuse for promoting proprietary software (not in this
discussions, but for many companies, pushing Open Standards may mean
selling their proprietary implementation, Oracle Star Office, Google
Office, and IBM Lotus Symphony for example)
sanket mehta
Very well written and increased my knowledge about "GNU/LINUX"..
--
Devwrat More
@ Praveen:
Please elaborate on how Copyright is used for CopyLeft and who OWNS copyleft... ( really smart thing!!! )
Also you did not answer about how one earns his living with Free softare. (I could not understand what Lokesh has written about earning and No warranty ... does it mean programmer earns by MAINTAINING a software ????? )
अभिजित Abhijit
The GPL license itself is a copyrighted document by the Free software Foundation. So others can't change it. If they change, FSF will charge them in court under copyright law.
Each piece of software that you write, and release under GPL, will carry your copyright notice. Note - GPL itself is a copyright notice, which says, everyone has a right to copy and this right can not be changed. Now if someone gives away your software without the source (or by violating some of the freedoms) then you can charge them in court for violating your copyright.
Programmers earning money by "maintainance" is slightely wrong. In FOSS world, people can get paid for developing a software or for maintaining (which means - fixing bugs, adding improvements) to an existing software. Why should they be paid if everything is free and open source? - they get paid because they know how to do it. Compare it to a plumber. Why do you pay a plumber, becauase she/he knows how to fix your water tap. You pay a mechanic, because she/he knows how to fix your bike. You even pay the a shoe-maker for making and repairing your shoes. Similarly you can pay a programmer for writing the software that you need to be written and maintained. It is the cost of labour being paid and not the cost of monopoly of knowledge of the software.
अभिजित अ. मी. Abhijit A. M.
Phone: +91 9422308125
Praveen A
> Really nice one lokesh.....:) :)
> @ Praveen:
> Please elaborate on how Copyright is used for CopyLeft and who OWNS
> copyleft... ( really smart thing!!! )
Copyright law says copyright holder (author of a creative work) has
all rights to his or her work. Nobody else can use, distribute or
remix the work without his permission.
Now with copyleft, the author gives such a permission (called a
copyright license), it can be GPL, LGPL, AGPL etc (difference copyleft
licenses with slightly different conditions, will explain the
difference below). which says you have all the freedoms, but when you
give the work to others they are also entitles to all the freedom you
got in the first place.
GPL (General Public License) - strong copyright, any work that uses a
GPL covered work (derivative work) should also be GPL. For example you
use a shared library (.so file on unix systems and .dll on windows
systems) in your code and if that library is released under GPL, then
your code also should be GPL. quid-pro-quid. Take my code, but give
back what you write. gnu readline is an example.
LGPL (lesser General Public License) - weak copyleft, any change to
the code covered under the license need to be released, but if you are
just linking to it, you decide license for your code. GNU C Library
(glibc) is an example. You write C programs and it uses functions from
GNU C Library like printf, scanf etc. You include these functions when
you say #include <stdio.h>. If glibc were under GPL, you would have to
release any code that uses these libraries also under GPL.
Between GPL and LGPL, the decision is a strategic one. If the code we
write is a new feature, our interest is to give advantage to Free
Software developers, we may use GPL. But if what you write is already
available and there is no advantage to Free Software developers, you
may chose LGPL so that more people may use the work. Read more details
about this case written by RMS
"Which license is best for a given library is a matter of strategy,
and it depends on the details of the situation. At present, most GNU
libraries are covered by the Lesser GPL, and that means we are using
only one of these two strategies, neglecting the other. So we are now
seeking more libraries to release under the ordinary GPL.
Proprietary software developers have the advantage of money; free
software developers need to make advantages for each other. Using the
ordinary GPL for a library gives free software developers an advantage
over proprietary developers: a library that they can use, while
proprietary developers cannot use it.
Using the ordinary GPL is not advantageous for every library. There
are reasons that can make it better to use the Lesser GPL in certain
cases. The most common case is when a free library's features are
readily available for proprietary software through other alternative
libraries. In that case, the library cannot give free software any
particular advantage, so it is better to use the Lesser GPL for that
library."
Complete article is http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-not-lgpl.html
AGPL (Affero General Public License) - stronger copyleft than GPL
itself, if you use the code as a website, all of its users should have
access to its code. Example statusnet, silpa, launchpad, diaspora etc.
Designed for web-based applications. I heard this story from someone,
about bc (binary calculator). It goes like this, there was a known bug
in bc and some people were curious and tried the same operation on
google search box (in addition to web search google search box works
as calculator, currentcy convertor and many other things). They found
the same bug in google as well. After some time, they tried the same
thing again and found google has fixed its site, but bc was still
buggy, meaning google did not give back to the community. Current GPL
implementation does not cover this case because web services were not
common when it was written and it would be considered as normal use of
the program. Just to reiterate, you don't have to accept GPL if you
are just using the program or even making private modification. GPL
starts only when you give the software to someone else.
So what happens when someone does not follow the conditions of GPL?
That is very common case for many embedded hardware like routers.
Authors of the software (most of the time it is linux kernel
developers, note this point carefully, only the authors can file a
case, not you, me or even FSF can file a case if we don't have
copyright. You or me can notify the authors, if we see violations. FSF
sues companies which violates code that FSF has copyright on like
binutils - basic commands like ls, cat etc are part of binutils).
When the violator says, I did not read GPL, court asks show me the
license. They don't have any other license than GPL itself so it is a
clear violation of copyright law. Distributing copyrighted work
without a license - pay fine, stop distributing etc. Now if we say
they don't agree with GPL or they don't like GPL, they again don't
have any other license, which means clear copyright violation. So if
you are distributing GPL covered software, you have only two options
1. Agree with GPL and follow all its conditions
2. Don't agree and stop distributing.
So you can go to court and enforce one of these conditions. And it has
been proved in court.
Ask if you are not clear, because it is a very important and commonly
mistaken concept.
For more legal savvy folks, read the court judgement against D-Link
http://www.jbb.de/judgment_dc_frankfurt_gpl.pdf
See http://gpl-violations.org/ for more details on how GPL is enforced.
> Also you did not answer about how one earns his living with Free softare. (I
> could not understand what Lokesh has written about earning and No warranty
> ... does it mean programmer earns by MAINTAINING a software ????? )
Abhijit has explained one way of making money, provide services,
charge for your expertise etc. This is used by many compnies including
my employer Red Hat. The concept is similar to how we pay a plumber or
a lawyer. We can fix our taps or we can pay someone to fix it. We can
argue our case or pay a lawyer on behalf of us. Same way you can fix
the code yourself or you pay someone for it. It might not be
financially feasible to hire programmers to fix such large a codebase.
So you opt for paying someone who has expertise on the entire code
base and can help fix things when it breaks. Some big companies can
afford to have their own programmers and they don't buy these support.
But then again that is another model, those compies are employing Free
Software developers.
Another option is dual-licensing model. It is commonly used with GPL
license. You take the code, it is GPL, but you have to make your code
also GPL. If you don't agree, pay us and you can keep your code
proprietary. So the software itself will always be Free under GPL, and
any other Free Software developers can use that code, but proprietary
compies who want to use the code has to pay. So proprietary companies
fund such Free Software projects! How brilliant! MySQL uses such a
model, QT used follow this model, now after Nokia aquired TrollTech -
the company which developed QT, they changed QT license from GPL to
LGPL. Now Nokia wants everyone to use QT, they have lot of money and
don't have to depend on proprietary companies for funding. For mobile
companies the choice may be between Android and QT. If they don't have
to pay for Android, and pay some money to Nokia for QT, they might not
want to use QT.
For some hardware companies, all they care is about selling their
hardware, so they employ developers to write drivers, test on Free
Operating Systems etc. HP develops drivers for many of its printers
and scanners this way. They employ developers to write drivers, it is
released as Free Software. HP cares about selling more printers and
not about drivers itself.
There are many other models we will discuss more on this as part of
our foss elective, we will keep the session open for every one.
The basic idea is this, the old model of developing a software,
marketing it, restricting it and charging huge moeny for each copy if
obsolete now. It opens up new opportunities for everyone to make
money. So a Free Software business model is only limited by every
one's imagination.
I am sure, if you see something is not working in Free Software and
realise people are ready to pay to get it repaired, that is an
opportunity for you. Its completely upto you how you want to make
money with Free Software.
And remember this too, many developers have other day jobs and write
Free Software because they like doing it. So there is absolutely no
requirement for you to get a Free Software job to contribute to Free
Software. If you like doing it, just do it. Look for a career else
where.
Cheers
Praveen A
> For more legal savvy folks, read the court judgement against D-Link
> http://www.jbb.de/judgment_dc_frankfurt_gpl.pdf
Can anyone or team volunteer to read this document and present
significant parts of this lawsuit to everyone? This is a real example
of how copyright works. It will provide great insight into how
copyrights and licenses work. When your write code in future you might
have to make a choice of license and you may even have to sue some
violators :)