Talk:Problems with free software and open source models

I still cannot see a problem in this. If the backend stuff is GPL and the frontend (Delievery Engine) is under Consumerium Software License then there are theoretically no problems of skewed software. And besides keeping the majority of stuff forkable makes it more easy to manage operations without fierce flame wars. Juxo 00:57, 15 Dec 2003 (EET)

Well this page is about general problems of these licenses for any project in a healthy signal infrastructure. Maybe it should be more of a pros and cons thing - a problem with a CSL that is not say a Green Software License that many groups use, is that it will not be as easy to integrate with those other parts. So there's at least an argument for seeking Consortium license wherever we can, if only to work closely with essential projects that for whatever reason aren't using the GFDL or free software models.

Avoiding flame wars by enabling bad copy problem is a poor tradeoff. I tend to agree that if the delivery engine is under a Consumerium Software License that the Consumerium Governance Organization controls, then the most obvious worst cases go away, and many threats seem more manageable even if free software problems infest the rest. Problems are:

1. that license doesn't exist yet, and many people will argue "it isn't needed, just GPL everything" which is an ideological position that doesn't come from any analysis, just from a vague belief that "free is good, open is good" etc. So we need this page just to convince people we have a problem that the CSL would solve.

2. just because we think it's good enough, doesn't mean it is. Keeping our analysis transparent to let anyone see it and add to it, like this page and worst cases especially, makes it harder for us to be totally blind-sided

3. a lot of jerks just "fork for the sake of forking", leaving 3000 versions of Linux that the end user can't tell from each other.

Issue #2 in the main article is not valid. Where does anybody get the idea that nobody can sue under the GPL? The copyright holder has the power to sue. Just like under any other license. (IANAL, etc.) Eric119 209.145.192.46 05:14, 24 Mar 2004 (EET)

Who "the copyright holder" is, and where they get the money or help to sue, is often up in the air. FSF doesn't pursue every case, and has no grounds to even ask contributors to GPL projects to help it contribute. The "power" to sue is not real if there is no resource base, no self-funding. Yes this could be better stated, but don't pretend that FSF actually really sues people and ever gets them to cease or desist anything. The point is valid even if the wording is not. There are many known GPL abusers and the FSF simply has no power to stop them, and that's in part due to lack of self-funding.

It's true though that GFDL makes the copyright holder even more ambiguous and really does make it quite impossible to sue. At least according to James Day and other lawyers who've looked at the problem. A lot of people now prefer Creative Commons for this very reason, as it has at least a minimal consortium put together.

(Sorry for taking so long to respond to this, but for the past month or so I was told this wiki was broken. Just today I discovered that it was at a new URL.) The FSF disagrees with you that it cannot stop GPL violators [1]. It is quite true there have been no lawsuits, but that it because everyone the FSF talked to decided to stop without one. They also say they are quite capable of suing if anyone should dare to break the copyright on FSF software. Who exactly are these GPL abusers that the FSF is ignoring?

Your comments discuss only the FSF, which I did not mention. Even if the FSF had problems, it would not mean that all people who hold GPL copyrights had problems. There is no apparent connection with a company having the funds to sue and the licenses of its software products. The GFDL is also irrelevant to the matter. Eric119 209.145.192.46 00:50, 28 Apr 2004 (EEST)