Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2015/07/04/did-you-read.html

I’m seeing plenty of people, including some non-profit organizations along
with the usual punditocracy, opining on
the USA
Supreme Court’s denial for a writ of certiorari in the Oracle v. Google
copyright infringement case. And, it’s not that I expect everyone in
the world to read my blog, but I’m amazed that people who should know
better haven’t bothered to even read the lower Court’s decision, which is
de-facto upheld upon denial by the Supreme Court to hear the appeal.

I wrote at great
length about why the decision isn’t actually a decision about whether
APIs are copyrightable, and that the decision actually gives us some
good clarity with regard to the issue of combined work distribution
(i.e., when you distribute your own works with the copyrighted material
of others combined into a single program). The basic summary of the blog
post I linked to above is simply: The lower Court seemed genially
confused about whether Google copy-and-pasted code, as the original trial
seems to have inappropriately conflated API reimplemenation with code
cut-and-paste.

No one else has addressed this nuance of the lower Court’s decision in the
year since the decision came down, and I suspect that’s because in our
TL;DR 24-hour-news cycle, it’s much easier for the pundits and
organizations tangentially involved with this issue to get a bunch of press
over giving confusing information.

So, I’m mainly making this blog post to encourage people
to go back and read
the decision and my blog post about it. I’d be delighted to debate
people if they think I misread the decision, but I won’t debate you
unless you assure me
you read
the lower Court’s decision in its entirety. I think that leaves
virtually no one who will. :-/

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2015/07/04/did-you-read.html

I’m seeing plenty of people, including some non-profit organizations along
with the usual punditocracy, opining on
the USA
Supreme Court’s denial for a writ of certiorari in the Oracle v. Google
copyright infringement case. And, it’s not that I expect everyone in
the world to read my blog, but I’m amazed that people who should know
better haven’t bothered to even read the lower Court’s decision, which is
de-facto upheld upon denial by the Supreme Court to hear the appeal.

I wrote at great
length about why the decision isn’t actually a decision about whether
APIs are copyrightable, and that the decision actually gives us some
good clarity with regard to the issue of combined work distribution
(i.e., when you distribute your own works with the copyrighted material
of others combined into a single program). The basic summary of the blog
post I linked to above is simply: The lower Court seemed genially
confused about whether Google copy-and-pasted code, as the original trial
seems to have inappropriately conflated API reimplemenation with code
cut-and-paste.

No one else has addressed this nuance of the lower Court’s decision in the
year since the decision came down, and I suspect that’s because in our
TL;DR 24-hour-news cycle, it’s much easier for the pundits and
organizations tangentially involved with this issue to get a bunch of press
over giving confusing information.

So, I’m mainly making this blog post to encourage people
to go back and read
the decision and my blog post about it. I’d be delighted to debate
people if they think I misread the decision, but I won’t debate you
unless you assure me
you read
the lower Court’s decision in its entirety. I think that leaves
virtually no one who will. :-/

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2015/07/04/did-you-read.html

I’m seeing plenty of people, including some non-profit organizations along
with the usual punditocracy, opining on
the USA
Supreme Court’s denial for a writ of certiorari in the Oracle v. Google
copyright infringement case. And, it’s not that I expect everyone in
the world to read my blog, but I’m amazed that people who should know
better haven’t bothered to even read the lower Court’s decision, which is
de-facto upheld upon denial by the Supreme Court to hear the appeal.

I wrote at great
length about why the decision isn’t actually a decision about whether
APIs are copyrightable, and that the decision actually gives us some
good clarity with regard to the issue of combined work distribution
(i.e., when you distribute your own works with the copyrighted material
of others combined into a single program). The basic summary of the blog
post I linked to above is simply: The lower Court seemed genially
confused about whether Google copy-and-pasted code, as the original trial
seems to have inappropriately conflated API reimplemenation with code
cut-and-paste.

No one else has addressed this nuance of the lower Court’s decision in the
year since the decision came down, and I suspect that’s because in our
TL;DR 24-hour-news cycle, it’s much easier for the pundits and
organizations tangentially involved with this issue to get a bunch of press
over giving confusing information.

So, I’m mainly making this blog post to encourage people
to go back and read
the decision and my blog post about it. I’d be delighted to debate
people if they think I misread the decision, but I won’t debate you
unless you assure me
you read
the lower Court’s decision in its entirety. I think that leaves
virtually no one who will. :-/

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2015/06/26/john-oliver-gets-it-wrong.html

I’ve been otherwise impressed with John Oliver and his ability
on Last Week Tonight to find key issues that don’t have
enough attention and give reasonably good information about them in an
entertaining way — I
even lauded
Oliver’s discussion of non-profit organizational corruption last
year. I suppose that’s why I’m particularly sad (as I caught up
last weekend on an old episode) to find that
John Oliver
basically fell for the large patent holders’ pro-software-patent rhetoric on
so-called “software patents”.

In short, Oliver mimics the trade association and for-profit software
industry rhetoric of software patent reform rather than abolition
— because trolls are the only problem. I hope the worlds’
largest software patent holders send Oliver’s writing staff a nice gift
basket, as such might be the only thing that would signal to them that they
fell into this PR trap. Although, it’s admittedly slightly unfair to blame
Oliver and his writers; the situation is subtle.

Indeed, someone not particularly versed in the situation can easily fall
for this manipulation. It’s just so easy to criticize non-practicing
entities. Plus, the idea that the sole inventor might get funded
on Shark Tank has a certain appeal, and fits a USAmerican
sensibility of personal capitalistic success. Thus, the first-order
conclusion is often, as Oliver’s piece concludes, maybe if we got rid of
trolls, things wouldn’t be so bad.

And then there’s also the focus on the patent quality issue; it’s easy to
convince the public that higher quality patents will make it ok to restrict
software sharing and improvement with patents. It’s great rhetoric for a
pro-patent entities to generate outrage among the technology-using public
by pointing to, say, an example of a patent that reads on every Android
application and telling a few jokes about patent quality. In fact, at
nearly every FLOSS conference I’ve gone to in the last year, OIN has
sponsored a speaker to talk about that very issue. The jokes at such talks
aren’t as good as John Oliver’s, but they still get laughs and
technologists upset about patent quality and trolls — but through
carefully cultural engineering, not about software
patents themselves.

In fact, I don’t think I’ve seen a for-profit industry and its trade
associations do so well at public outrage distraction since the “tort
reform” battles of the 1980s and 1990s, which were produced in part
by George H. W. Bush’s
beloved M.C. Rove
himself. I really encourage those who want to understand of how the
anti-troll messaging manipulation works to study how and why
the tort
reform issue played out the way it did. (As I mentioned on
the Free as in
Freedom audcast, Episode
0x13, the
documentary film Hot Coffee is a good resource for
that.)

I’ve literally been laughed at publicly by OIN representatives when I
point out that IBM, Microsoft, and other practicing entities do
software patent shake-downs, too — just like the trolls. They’re
part of a well-trained and well-funded (by trade associations and
companies) PR machine out there in our community to convince us that trolls
and so-called “poor patent quality” are the only problems.
Yet, nary a year has gone in my adult life where I don’t see a some
incident where a so-called legitimate, non-obvious software patent causes
serious trouble for a Free Software project.
From RSA, to the codec
patents,
to Microsoft
FAT patent shakedowns, to
IBM’s
shakedown of the Hercules open source project,
to exfat
— and that’s just a few choice examples from the public tip of the
practicing entity shakedown iceberg. IMO, the practicing entities are just
trolls with more expensive suits and proprietary software licenses for
sale. We should politically oppose the companies and trade associations
that bolster them — and call for an end to software patents.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2015/06/26/john-oliver-gets-it-wrong.html

I’ve been otherwise impressed with John Oliver and his ability
on Last Week Tonight to find key issues that don’t have
enough attention and give reasonably good information about them in an
entertaining way — I
even lauded
Oliver’s discussion of non-profit organizational corruption last
year. I suppose that’s why I’m particularly sad (as I caught up
last weekend on an old episode) to find that
John Oliver
basically fell for the large patent holders’ pro-software-patent rhetoric on
so-called “software patents”.

In short, Oliver mimics the trade association and for-profit software
industry rhetoric of software patent reform rather than abolition
— because trolls are the only problem. I hope the worlds’
largest software patent holders send Oliver’s writing staff a nice gift
basket, as such might be the only thing that would signal to them that they
fell into this PR trap. Although, it’s admittedly slightly unfair to blame
Oliver and his writers; the situation is subtle.

Indeed, someone not particularly versed in the situation can easily fall
for this manipulation. It’s just so easy to criticize non-practicing
entities. Plus, the idea that the sole inventor might get funded
on Shark Tank has a certain appeal, and fits a USAmerican
sensibility of personal capitalistic success. Thus, the first-order
conclusion is often, as Oliver’s piece concludes, maybe if we got rid of
trolls, things wouldn’t be so bad.

And then there’s also the focus on the patent quality issue; it’s easy to
convince the public that higher quality patents will make it ok to restrict
software sharing and improvement with patents. It’s great rhetoric for a
pro-patent entities to generate outrage among the technology-using public
by pointing to, say, an example of a patent that reads on every Android
application and telling a few jokes about patent quality. In fact, at
nearly every FLOSS conference I’ve gone to in the last year, OIN has
sponsored a speaker to talk about that very issue. The jokes at such talks
aren’t as good as John Oliver’s, but they still get laughs and
technologists upset about patent quality and trolls — but through
carefully cultural engineering, not about software
patents themselves.

In fact, I don’t think I’ve seen a for-profit industry and its trade
associations do so well at public outrage distraction since the “tort
reform” battles of the 1980s and 1990s, which were produced in part
by George H. W. Bush’s
beloved M.C. Rove
himself. I really encourage those who want to understand of how the
anti-troll messaging manipulation works to study how and why
the tort
reform issue played out the way it did. (As I mentioned on
the Free as in
Freedom audcast, Episode
0x13, the
documentary film Hot Coffee is a good resource for
that.)

I’ve literally been laughed at publicly by OIN representatives when I
point out that IBM, Microsoft, and other practicing entities do
software patent shake-downs, too — just like the trolls. They’re
part of a well-trained and well-funded (by trade associations and
companies) PR machine out there in our community to convince us that trolls
and so-called “poor patent quality” are the only problems.
Yet, nary a year has gone in my adult life where I don’t see a some
incident where a so-called legitimate, non-obvious software patent causes
serious trouble for a Free Software project.
From RSA, to the codec
patents,
to Microsoft
FAT patent shakedowns, to
IBM’s
shakedown of the Hercules open source project,
to exfat
— and that’s just a few choice examples from the public tip of the
practicing entity shakedown iceberg. IMO, the practicing entities are just
trolls with more expensive suits and proprietary software licenses for
sale. We should politically oppose the companies and trade associations
that bolster them — and call for an end to software patents.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2015/06/26/john-oliver-gets-it-wrong.html

I’ve been otherwise impressed with John Oliver and his ability
on Last Week Tonight to find key issues that don’t have
enough attention and give reasonably good information about them in an
entertaining way — I
even lauded
Oliver’s discussion of non-profit organizational corruption last
year. I suppose that’s why I’m particularly sad (as I caught up
last weekend on an old episode) to find that
John Oliver
basically fell for the large patent holders’ pro-software-patent rhetoric on
so-called “software patents”.

In short, Oliver mimics the trade association and for-profit software
industry rhetoric of software patent reform rather than abolition
— because trolls are the only problem. I hope the worlds’
largest software patent holders send Oliver’s writing staff a nice gift
basket, as such might be the only thing that would signal to them that they
fell into this PR trap. Although, it’s admittedly slightly unfair to blame
Oliver and his writers; the situation is subtle.

Indeed, someone not particularly versed in the situation can easily fall
for this manipulation. It’s just so easy to criticize non-practicing
entities. Plus, the idea that the sole inventor might get funded
on Shark Tank has a certain appeal, and fits a USAmerican
sensibility of personal capitalistic success. Thus, the first-order
conclusion is often, as Oliver’s piece concludes, maybe if we got rid of
trolls, things wouldn’t be so bad.

And then there’s also the focus on the patent quality issue; it’s easy to
convince the public that higher quality patents will make it ok to restrict
software sharing and improvement with patents. It’s great rhetoric for a
pro-patent entities to generate outrage among the technology-using public
by pointing to, say, an example of a patent that reads on every Android
application and telling a few jokes about patent quality. In fact, at
nearly every FLOSS conference I’ve gone to in the last year, OIN has
sponsored a speaker to talk about that very issue. The jokes at such talks
aren’t as good as John Oliver’s, but they still get laughs and
technologists upset about patent quality and trolls — but through
carefully cultural engineering, not about software
patents themselves.

In fact, I don’t think I’ve seen a for-profit industry and its trade
associations do so well at public outrage distraction since the “tort
reform” battles of the 1980s and 1990s, which were produced in part
by George H. W. Bush’s
beloved M.C. Rove
himself. I really encourage those who want to understand of how the
anti-troll messaging manipulation works to study how and why
the tort
reform issue played out the way it did. (As I mentioned on
the Free as in
Freedom audcast, Episode
0x13, the
documentary film Hot Coffee is a good resource for
that.)

I’ve literally been laughed at publicly by OIN representatives when I
point out that IBM, Microsoft, and other practicing entities do
software patent shake-downs, too — just like the trolls. They’re
part of a well-trained and well-funded (by trade associations and
companies) PR machine out there in our community to convince us that trolls
and so-called “poor patent quality” are the only problems.
Yet, nary a year has gone in my adult life where I don’t see a some
incident where a so-called legitimate, non-obvious software patent causes
serious trouble for a Free Software project.
From RSA, to the codec
patents,
to Microsoft
FAT patent shakedowns, to
IBM’s
shakedown of the Hercules open source project,
to exfat
— and that’s just a few choice examples from the public tip of the
practicing entity shakedown iceberg. IMO, the practicing entities are just
trolls with more expensive suits and proprietary software licenses for
sale. We should politically oppose the companies and trade associations
that bolster them — and call for an end to software patents.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2015/06/26/john-oliver-gets-it-wrong.html

I’ve been otherwise impressed with John Oliver and his ability
on Last Week Tonight to find key issues that don’t have
enough attention and give reasonably good information about them in an
entertaining way — I
even lauded
Oliver’s discussion of non-profit organizational corruption last
year. I suppose that’s why I’m particularly sad (as I caught up
last weekend on an old episode) to find that
John Oliver
basically fell for the large patent holders’ pro-software-patent rhetoric on
so-called “software patents”.

In short, Oliver mimics the trade association and for-profit software
industry rhetoric of software patent reform rather than abolition
— because trolls are the only problem. I hope the worlds’
largest software patent holders send Oliver’s writing staff a nice gift
basket, as such might be the only thing that would signal to them that they
fell into this PR trap. Although, it’s admittedly slightly unfair to blame
Oliver and his writers; the situation is subtle.

Indeed, someone not particularly versed in the situation can easily fall
for this manipulation. It’s just so easy to criticize non-practicing
entities. Plus, the idea that the sole inventor might get funded
on Shark Tank has a certain appeal, and fits a USAmerican
sensibility of personal capitalistic success. Thus, the first-order
conclusion is often, as Oliver’s piece concludes, maybe if we got rid of
trolls, things wouldn’t be so bad.

And then there’s also the focus on the patent quality issue; it’s easy to
convince the public that higher quality patents will make it ok to restrict
software sharing and improvement with patents. It’s great rhetoric for a
pro-patent entities to generate outrage among the technology-using public
by pointing to, say, an example of a patent that reads on every Android
application and telling a few jokes about patent quality. In fact, at
nearly every FLOSS conference I’ve gone to in the last year, OIN has
sponsored a speaker to talk about that very issue. The jokes at such talks
aren’t as good as John Oliver’s, but they still get laughs and
technologists upset about patent quality and trolls — but through
carefully cultural engineering, not about software
patents themselves.

In fact, I don’t think I’ve seen a for-profit industry and its trade
associations do so well at public outrage distraction since the “tort
reform” battles of the 1980s and 1990s, which were produced in part
by George H. W. Bush’s
beloved M.C. Rove
himself. I really encourage those who want to understand of how the
anti-troll messaging manipulation works to study how and why
the tort
reform issue played out the way it did. (As I mentioned on
the Free as in
Freedom audcast, Episode
0x13, the
documentary film Hot Coffee is a good resource for
that.)

I’ve literally been laughed at publicly by OIN representatives when I
point out that IBM, Microsoft, and other practicing entities do
software patent shake-downs, too — just like the trolls. They’re
part of a well-trained and well-funded (by trade associations and
companies) PR machine out there in our community to convince us that trolls
and so-called “poor patent quality” are the only problems.
Yet, nary a year has gone in my adult life where I don’t see a some
incident where a so-called legitimate, non-obvious software patent causes
serious trouble for a Free Software project.
From RSA, to the codec
patents,
to Microsoft
FAT patent shakedowns, to
IBM’s
shakedown of the Hercules open source project,
to exfat
— and that’s just a few choice examples from the public tip of the
practicing entity shakedown iceberg. IMO, the practicing entities are just
trolls with more expensive suits and proprietary software licenses for
sale. We should politically oppose the companies and trade associations
that bolster them — and call for an end to software patents.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2015/06/15/apple-is-not-our-friend.html

Apple announced last week that its Swift programming language — a
currently fully proprietary software successor to Objective C — will
probably be partially released under an OSI-approved license eventually.
Apple explicitly stated though that such released software will not be
copylefted. (Apple’s pathological hatred of copyleft is reasonably well
documented.) Apple’s announcement remained completely silent on patents,
and we should expect the chosen non-copyleft license
will not contain a patent grant.
(I’ve explained at
great length in the past why software patents are a particularly dangerous
threat to programming language infrastructure.)

Apple’s dogged pursuit for non-copyleft replacements for copylefted
software is far from new. For example, Apple has worked to create
replacements for Samba so they need not ship Samba in OSX. But, their
anti-copyleft witch hunt goes back much further. It began
when Richard
Stallman himself famously led the world’s first GPL enforcement effort
against NeXT, and Objective-C was liberated. For a time, NeXT and
Apple worked upstream with GCC to make Objective-C better for the
community. But, that whole time, Apple was carefully plotting its escape
from the copyleft world. Fortuitously, Apple eventually discovered a
technically brilliant (but sadly non-copylefted) research programming
language and compiler system called LLVM. Since then, Apple has sunk
millions of dollars into making LLVM better. On the surface, that seems
like a win for software freedom, until you look at the bigger picture:
their goal is to end copyleft compilers. Their goal is to pick and choose
when and how programming language software is liberated. Swift is not a
shining example of Apple joining us in software freedom; rather, it’s a
recent example of Apple’s long-term strategy to manipulate open source
— giving our community occasional software freedom on Apple’s own
terms. Apple gives us no bread but says let them eat cake
instead.

Apple’s got PR talent. They understand that merely announcing the
possibility of liberating proprietary software gets press. They know that
few people will follow through and determine how it went. Meanwhile, the
standing story becomes: Wait, didn’t Apple open source Swift
anyway?. Already, that false soundbite’s grip strengthens, even though
the answer remains a resounding No!. However, I suspect that
Apple will probably meet most
of their
public pledges. We’ll likely see pieces of Swift 2.0 thrown over the
wall. But the best stuff will be kept proprietary. That’s already happening
with LLVM, anyway; Apple already ships a no-source-available fork of
LLVM.

Thus, Apple’s announcement incident hasn’t happened in a void. Apple
didn’t just discover open source after years of neutrality on the topic.
Apple’s move is calculated, which
led various
industry pundits like O’Grady and Weinberg to ask hard questions (some of
which are similar to mine). Yet, Apple’s hype is so good, that
it did
convince one trade association leader.

To me, Apple’s not-yet-executed move to liberate some of the Swift 2.0
code seems a tactical stunt to win over developers who currently prefer the
relatively more open nature of the Android/Linux platform. While nearly
all the Android userspace applications are proprietary, and GPL violations on
Android devices abound, at least the copyleft license of Linux itself
provides the opportunity to keep the core operating system of Android
liberated. No matter how much Swift code is released, such will never be
true with Apple.

I’m often pointing out
in my recent
talks how complex and treacherous the Open Source and Free Software
political climate became in the last decade. Here’s a great example: Apple
is a wily opponent, utilizing Open Source (the cooption of Free Software) to
manipulate the press and hoodwink the would-be spokespeople for Linux to
support them. Many of us software freedom advocates have predicted for
years that Free Software unfriendly companies like Apple would liberate
more and more code under non-copyleft licenses in an effort to create
walled gardens of seeming software freedom. I don’t revel in my past
accuracy of such predictions; rather, I feel simply the hefty weight of
Cassandra’s curse.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2015/06/15/apple-is-not-our-friend.html

Apple announced last week that its Swift programming language — a
currently fully proprietary software successor to Objective C — will
probably be partially released under an OSI-approved license eventually.
Apple explicitly stated though that such released software will not be
copylefted. (Apple’s pathological hatred of copyleft is reasonably well
documented.) Apple’s announcement remained completely silent on patents,
and we should expect the chosen non-copyleft license
will not contain a patent grant.
(I’ve explained at
great length in the past why software patents are a particularly dangerous
threat to programming language infrastructure.)

Apple’s dogged pursuit for non-copyleft replacements for copylefted
software is far from new. For example, Apple has worked to create
replacements for Samba so they need not ship Samba in OSX. But, their
anti-copyleft witch hunt goes back much further. It began
when Richard
Stallman himself famously led the world’s first GPL enforcement effort
against NeXT, and Objective-C was liberated. For a time, NeXT and
Apple worked upstream with GCC to make Objective-C better for the
community. But, that whole time, Apple was carefully plotting its escape
from the copyleft world. Fortuitously, Apple eventually discovered a
technically brilliant (but sadly non-copylefted) research programming
language and compiler system called LLVM. Since then, Apple has sunk
millions of dollars into making LLVM better. On the surface, that seems
like a win for software freedom, until you look at the bigger picture:
their goal is to end copyleft compilers. Their goal is to pick and choose
when and how programming language software is liberated. Swift is not a
shining example of Apple joining us in software freedom; rather, it’s a
recent example of Apple’s long-term strategy to manipulate open source
— giving our community occasional software freedom on Apple’s own
terms. Apple gives us no bread but says let them eat cake
instead.

Apple’s got PR talent. They understand that merely announcing the
possibility of liberating proprietary software gets press. They know that
few people will follow through and determine how it went. Meanwhile, the
standing story becomes: Wait, didn’t Apple open source Swift
anyway?. Already, that false soundbite’s grip strengthens, even though
the answer remains a resounding No!. However, I suspect that
Apple will probably meet most
of their
public pledges. We’ll likely see pieces of Swift 2.0 thrown over the
wall. But the best stuff will be kept proprietary. That’s already happening
with LLVM, anyway; Apple already ships a no-source-available fork of
LLVM.

Thus, Apple’s announcement incident hasn’t happened in a void. Apple
didn’t just discover open source after years of neutrality on the topic.
Apple’s move is calculated, which
led various
industry pundits like O’Grady and Weinberg to ask hard questions (some of
which are similar to mine). Yet, Apple’s hype is so good, that
it did
convince one trade association leader.

To me, Apple’s not-yet-executed move to liberate some of the Swift 2.0
code seems a tactical stunt to win over developers who currently prefer the
relatively more open nature of the Android/Linux platform. While nearly
all the Android userspace applications are proprietary, and GPL violations on
Android devices abound, at least the copyleft license of Linux itself
provides the opportunity to keep the core operating system of Android
liberated. No matter how much Swift code is released, such will never be
true with Apple.

I’m often pointing out
in my recent
talks how complex and treacherous the Open Source and Free Software
political climate became in the last decade. Here’s a great example: Apple
is a wily opponent, utilizing Open Source (the cooption of Free Software) to
manipulate the press and hoodwink the would-be spokespeople for Linux to
support them. Many of us software freedom advocates have predicted for
years that Free Software unfriendly companies like Apple would liberate
more and more code under non-copyleft licenses in an effort to create
walled gardens of seeming software freedom. I don’t revel in my past
accuracy of such predictions; rather, I feel simply the hefty weight of
Cassandra’s curse.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2015/06/15/apple-is-not-our-friend.html

Apple announced last week that its Swift programming language — a
currently fully proprietary software successor to Objective C — will
probably be partially released under an OSI-approved license eventually.
Apple explicitly stated though that such released software will not be
copylefted. (Apple’s pathological hatred of copyleft is reasonably well
documented.) Apple’s announcement remained completely silent on patents,
and we should expect the chosen non-copyleft license
will not contain a patent grant.
(I’ve explained at
great length in the past why software patents are a particularly dangerous
threat to programming language infrastructure.)

Apple’s dogged pursuit for non-copyleft replacements for copylefted
software is far from new. For example, Apple has worked to create
replacements for Samba so they need not ship Samba in OSX. But, their
anti-copyleft witch hunt goes back much further. It began
when Richard
Stallman himself famously led the world’s first GPL enforcement effort
against NeXT, and Objective-C was liberated. For a time, NeXT and
Apple worked upstream with GCC to make Objective-C better for the
community. But, that whole time, Apple was carefully plotting its escape
from the copyleft world. Fortuitously, Apple eventually discovered a
technically brilliant (but sadly non-copylefted) research programming
language and compiler system called LLVM. Since then, Apple has sunk
millions of dollars into making LLVM better. On the surface, that seems
like a win for software freedom, until you look at the bigger picture:
their goal is to end copyleft compilers. Their goal is to pick and choose
when and how programming language software is liberated. Swift is not a
shining example of Apple joining us in software freedom; rather, it’s a
recent example of Apple’s long-term strategy to manipulate open source
— giving our community occasional software freedom on Apple’s own
terms. Apple gives us no bread but says let them eat cake
instead.

Apple’s got PR talent. They understand that merely announcing the
possibility of liberating proprietary software gets press. They know that
few people will follow through and determine how it went. Meanwhile, the
standing story becomes: Wait, didn’t Apple open source Swift
anyway?. Already, that false soundbite’s grip strengthens, even though
the answer remains a resounding No!. However, I suspect that
Apple will probably meet most
of their
public pledges. We’ll likely see pieces of Swift 2.0 thrown over the
wall. But the best stuff will be kept proprietary. That’s already happening
with LLVM, anyway; Apple already ships a no-source-available fork of
LLVM.

Thus, Apple’s announcement incident hasn’t happened in a void. Apple
didn’t just discover open source after years of neutrality on the topic.
Apple’s move is calculated, which
led various
industry pundits like O’Grady and Weinberg to ask hard questions (some of
which are similar to mine). Yet, Apple’s hype is so good, that
it did
convince one trade association leader.

To me, Apple’s not-yet-executed move to liberate some of the Swift 2.0
code seems a tactical stunt to win over developers who currently prefer the
relatively more open nature of the Android/Linux platform. While nearly
all the Android userspace applications are proprietary, and GPL violations on
Android devices abound, at least the copyleft license of Linux itself
provides the opportunity to keep the core operating system of Android
liberated. No matter how much Swift code is released, such will never be
true with Apple.

I’m often pointing out
in my recent
talks how complex and treacherous the Open Source and Free Software
political climate became in the last decade. Here’s a great example: Apple
is a wily opponent, utilizing Open Source (the cooption of Free Software) to
manipulate the press and hoodwink the would-be spokespeople for Linux to
support them. Many of us software freedom advocates have predicted for
years that Free Software unfriendly companies like Apple would liberate
more and more code under non-copyleft licenses in an effort to create
walled gardens of seeming software freedom. I don’t revel in my past
accuracy of such predictions; rather, I feel simply the hefty weight of
Cassandra’s curse.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2015/06/15/apple-is-not-our-friend.html

Apple announced last week that its Swift programming language — a
currently fully proprietary software successor to Objective C — will
probably be partially released under an OSI-approved license eventually.
Apple explicitly stated though that such released software will not be
copylefted. (Apple’s pathological hatred of copyleft is reasonably well
documented.) Apple’s announcement remained completely silent on patents,
and we should expect the chosen non-copyleft license
will not contain a patent grant.
(I’ve explained at
great length in the past why software patents are a particularly dangerous
threat to programming language infrastructure.)

Apple’s dogged pursuit for non-copyleft replacements for copylefted
software is far from new. For example, Apple has worked to create
replacements for Samba so they need not ship Samba in OSX. But, their
anti-copyleft witch hunt goes back much further. It began
when Richard
Stallman himself famously led the world’s first GPL enforcement effort
against NeXT, and Objective-C was liberated. For a time, NeXT and
Apple worked upstream with GCC to make Objective-C better for the
community. But, that whole time, Apple was carefully plotting its escape
from the copyleft world. Fortuitously, Apple eventually discovered a
technically brilliant (but sadly non-copylefted) research programming
language and compiler system called LLVM. Since then, Apple has sunk
millions of dollars into making LLVM better. On the surface, that seems
like a win for software freedom, until you look at the bigger picture:
their goal is to end copyleft compilers. Their goal is to pick and choose
when and how programming language software is liberated. Swift is not a
shining example of Apple joining us in software freedom; rather, it’s a
recent example of Apple’s long-term strategy to manipulate open source
— giving our community occasional software freedom on Apple’s own
terms. Apple gives us no bread but says let them eat cake
instead.

Apple’s got PR talent. They understand that merely announcing the
possibility of liberating proprietary software gets press. They know that
few people will follow through and determine how it went. Meanwhile, the
standing story becomes: Wait, didn’t Apple open source Swift
anyway?. Already, that false soundbite’s grip strengthens, even though
the answer remains a resounding No!. However, I suspect that
Apple will probably meet most
of their
public pledges. We’ll likely see pieces of Swift 2.0 thrown over the
wall. But the best stuff will be kept proprietary. That’s already happening
with LLVM, anyway; Apple already ships a no-source-available fork of
LLVM.

Thus, Apple’s announcement incident hasn’t happened in a void. Apple
didn’t just discover open source after years of neutrality on the topic.
Apple’s move is calculated, which
led various
industry pundits like O’Grady and Weinberg to ask hard questions (some of
which are similar to mine). Yet, Apple’s hype is so good, that
it did
convince one trade association leader.

To me, Apple’s not-yet-executed move to liberate some of the Swift 2.0
code seems a tactical stunt to win over developers who currently prefer the
relatively more open nature of the Android/Linux platform. While nearly
all the Android userspace applications are proprietary, and GPL violations on
Android devices abound, at least the copyleft license of Linux itself
provides the opportunity to keep the core operating system of Android
liberated. No matter how much Swift code is released, such will never be
true with Apple.

I’m often pointing out
in my recent
talks how complex and treacherous the Open Source and Free Software
political climate became in the last decade. Here’s a great example: Apple
is a wily opponent, utilizing Open Source (the cooption of Free Software) to
manipulate the press and hoodwink the would-be spokespeople for Linux to
support them. Many of us software freedom advocates have predicted for
years that Free Software unfriendly companies like Apple would liberate
more and more code under non-copyleft licenses in an effort to create
walled gardens of seeming software freedom. I don’t revel in my past
accuracy of such predictions; rather, I feel simply the hefty weight of
Cassandra’s curse.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2015/06/03/lyons-silicon-valley.html

I watched the most recent Silicon Valley episode last night.
I laughed at some parts (not as much as a usual episode) and then there was a
completely unbelievable tech-related plot twist — quite out of
character for that show. I was surprised.

When the credits played, my draw dropped when I saw the episode’s author
was Dan Lyons.
Lyons (whose work has been
promoted by the Linux Foundation) once compared me to
a communist
and a member of organized crime (in, Forbes, a prominent
publication for the wealthy) because of my work enforcing the GPL.

In the years since Lyons’ first anti-software freedom article (yes, there
were more), I’ve watched many who once helped me enforce the GPL change
positions and oppose GPL enforcement (including allies who once received
criticism alongside me). Many such allies went even further —
publicly denouncing my work and regularly undermining GPL enforcement politically.

Attacks by people like Dan Lyons — journalists well connected with
industry trade associations and companies — are one reason so many
people are too afraid to enforce the GPL. I’ve wondered for years why the
technology press has such a pro-corporate agenda, but it eventually became
obvious to me in early 2005 when listening to yet another David Pogue Apple
product review: nearly the entire tech press is bought and paid for by the very companies
on which they report! The cartoonish level of Orwellian fear across our
industry of GPL enforcement is but one example of many for-profit corporate
agendas that people like Lyons have helped promulgate through their
pro-company reporting.

Meanwhile, I had taken Silicon Valley (until this week) as
pretty good satire on the pathetic state of the technology industry today.
Perhaps Alec Berg and Mike Judge just liked Lyons’ script — not even
knowing that he is a small part of the problem they seek to criticize.
Regardless as to why his script was produced, the line between satirist and
the satirized is clearly thinner than I imagined; it seems just as thin as
the line between technology journalist and corporate PR employee.

I still hope that Berg and Judge seek, just as Judge did in Office
Space, to pierce the veil of for-profit corporate manipulation of
employees and users alike. However, for me, the luster of their achievement
fades when I realize at least some of their creative collaborators
participate in the central to the problem they criticize.

Shall we start a letter writing campaign to convince them to donate some
of Silicon Valley‘s proceeds to Free Software charities? Or, at
the very least, to convince Berg to write one of his usually excellent
episodes about how the technology press is completely corrupted by the
companies on which they report?

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2015/06/03/lyons-silicon-valley.html

I watched the most recent Silicon Valley episode last night.
I laughed at some parts (not as much as a usual episode) and then there was a
completely unbelievable tech-related plot twist — quite out of
character for that show. I was surprised.

When the credits played, my draw dropped when I saw the episode’s author
was Dan Lyons.
Lyons (whose work has been
promoted by the Linux Foundation) once compared me to
a communist
and a member of organized crime (in, Forbes, a prominent
publication for the wealthy) because of my work enforcing the GPL.

In the years since Lyons’ first anti-software freedom article (yes, there
were more), I’ve watched many who once helped me enforce the GPL change
positions and oppose GPL enforcement (including allies who once received
criticism alongside me). Many such allies went even further —
publicly denouncing my work and regularly undermining GPL enforcement politically.

Attacks by people like Dan Lyons — journalists well connected with
industry trade associations and companies — are one reason so many
people are too afraid to enforce the GPL. I’ve wondered for years why the
technology press has such a pro-corporate agenda, but it eventually became
obvious to me in early 2005 when listening to yet another David Pogue Apple
product review: nearly the entire tech press is bought and paid for by the very companies
on which they report! The cartoonish level of Orwellian fear across our
industry of GPL enforcement is but one example of many for-profit corporate
agendas that people like Lyons have helped promulgate through their
pro-company reporting.

Meanwhile, I had taken Silicon Valley (until this week) as
pretty good satire on the pathetic state of the technology industry today.
Perhaps Alec Berg and Mike Judge just liked Lyons’ script — not even
knowing that he is a small part of the problem they seek to criticize.
Regardless as to why his script was produced, the line between satirist and
the satirized is clearly thinner than I imagined; it seems just as thin as
the line between technology journalist and corporate PR employee.

I still hope that Berg and Judge seek, just as Judge did in Office
Space, to pierce the veil of for-profit corporate manipulation of
employees and users alike. However, for me, the luster of their achievement
fades when I realize at least some of their creative collaborators
participate in the central to the problem they criticize.

Shall we start a letter writing campaign to convince them to donate some
of Silicon Valley‘s proceeds to Free Software charities? Or, at
the very least, to convince Berg to write one of his usually excellent
episodes about how the technology press is completely corrupted by the
companies on which they report?

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2015/06/03/lyons-silicon-valley.html

I watched the most recent Silicon Valley episode last night.
I laughed at some parts (not as much as a usual episode) and then there was a
completely unbelievable tech-related plot twist — quite out of
character for that show. I was surprised.

When the credits played, my draw dropped when I saw the episode’s author
was Dan Lyons.
Lyons (whose work has been
promoted by the Linux Foundation) once compared me to
a communist
and a member of organized crime (in, Forbes, a prominent
publication for the wealthy) because of my work enforcing the GPL.

In the years since Lyons’ first anti-software freedom article (yes, there
were more), I’ve watched many who once helped me enforce the GPL change
positions and oppose GPL enforcement (including allies who once received
criticism alongside me). Many such allies went even further —
publicly denouncing my work and regularly undermining GPL enforcement politically.

Attacks by people like Dan Lyons — journalists well connected with
industry trade associations and companies — are one reason so many
people are too afraid to enforce the GPL. I’ve wondered for years why the
technology press has such a pro-corporate agenda, but it eventually became
obvious to me in early 2005 when listening to yet another David Pogue Apple
product review: nearly the entire tech press is bought and paid for by the very companies
on which they report! The cartoonish level of Orwellian fear across our
industry of GPL enforcement is but one example of many for-profit corporate
agendas that people like Lyons have helped promulgate through their
pro-company reporting.

Meanwhile, I had taken Silicon Valley (until this week) as
pretty good satire on the pathetic state of the technology industry today.
Perhaps Alec Berg and Mike Judge just liked Lyons’ script — not even
knowing that he is a small part of the problem they seek to criticize.
Regardless as to why his script was produced, the line between satirist and
the satirized is clearly thinner than I imagined; it seems just as thin as
the line between technology journalist and corporate PR employee.

I still hope that Berg and Judge seek, just as Judge did in Office
Space, to pierce the veil of for-profit corporate manipulation of
employees and users alike. However, for me, the luster of their achievement
fades when I realize at least some of their creative collaborators
participate in the central to the problem they criticize.

Shall we start a letter writing campaign to convince them to donate some
of Silicon Valley‘s proceeds to Free Software charities? Or, at
the very least, to convince Berg to write one of his usually excellent
episodes about how the technology press is completely corrupted by the
companies on which they report?

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2015/06/03/lyons-silicon-valley.html

I watched the most recent Silicon Valley episode last night.
I laughed at some parts (not as much as a usual episode) and then there was a
completely unbelievable tech-related plot twist — quite out of
character for that show. I was surprised.

When the credits played, my draw dropped when I saw the episode’s author
was Dan Lyons.
Lyons (whose work has been
promoted by the Linux Foundation) once compared me to
a communist
and a member of organized crime (in, Forbes, a prominent
publication for the wealthy) because of my work enforcing the GPL.

In the years since Lyons’ first anti-software freedom article (yes, there
were more), I’ve watched many who once helped me enforce the GPL change
positions and oppose GPL enforcement (including allies who once received
criticism alongside me). Many such allies went even further —
publicly denouncing my work and regularly undermining GPL enforcement politically.

Attacks by people like Dan Lyons — journalists well connected with
industry trade associations and companies — are one reason so many
people are too afraid to enforce the GPL. I’ve wondered for years why the
technology press has such a pro-corporate agenda, but it eventually became
obvious to me in early 2005 when listening to yet another David Pogue Apple
product review: nearly the entire tech press is bought and paid for by the very companies
on which they report! The cartoonish level of Orwellian fear across our
industry of GPL enforcement is but one example of many for-profit corporate
agendas that people like Lyons have helped promulgate through their
pro-company reporting.

Meanwhile, I had taken Silicon Valley (until this week) as
pretty good satire on the pathetic state of the technology industry today.
Perhaps Alec Berg and Mike Judge just liked Lyons’ script — not even
knowing that he is a small part of the problem they seek to criticize.
Regardless as to why his script was produced, the line between satirist and
the satirized is clearly thinner than I imagined; it seems just as thin as
the line between technology journalist and corporate PR employee.

I still hope that Berg and Judge seek, just as Judge did in Office
Space, to pierce the veil of for-profit corporate manipulation of
employees and users alike. However, for me, the luster of their achievement
fades when I realize at least some of their creative collaborators
participate in the central to the problem they criticize.

Shall we start a letter writing campaign to convince them to donate some
of Silicon Valley‘s proceeds to Free Software charities? Or, at
the very least, to convince Berg to write one of his usually excellent
episodes about how the technology press is completely corrupted by the
companies on which they report?

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2015/02/26/award-karen.html

I know this decision is tough, as all the candidates in the list deserve
an award. However, I hope that you’ll chose to vote for my friend and
colleague, Karen Sandler, for
the 2015 Red
Hat Women in Open Source Community Award. Admittedly, most of Karen’s
work has been for software freedom, not Open Source (i.e., her work has
been community and charity-oriented, not for-profit oriented). However,
giving her an “Open Source” award is a great way to spread the
message of software freedom to the for-profit corporate Open Source
world.

I realize that there are some amazingly good candidates, and I admit I’d
be posting a blog post to endorse someone else (No, I won’t say who 🙂 if
Karen wasn’t on the ballot for the Community Award. So, I wouldn’t say you
backed the wrong candidate you if you vote for someone else. And, I’m
imminently biased since Karen and I have worked together
on Conservancy since its
inception. But, if you can see your way through to it, I hope you’ll give
Karen your vote.

(BTW, I’m not endorsing a candidate in the Academic Award race. I am just
not familiar enough with the work of the candidates involved to make an
endorsement. I even abstained from voting in that race myself because I
didn’t want to make an uninformed vote.)

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2015/02/26/award-karen.html

I know this decision is tough, as all the candidates in the list deserve
an award. However, I hope that you’ll chose to vote for my friend and
colleague, Karen Sandler, for
the 2015 Red
Hat Women in Open Source Community Award. Admittedly, most of Karen’s
work has been for software freedom, not Open Source (i.e., her work has
been community and charity-oriented, not for-profit oriented). However,
giving her an “Open Source” award is a great way to spread the
message of software freedom to the for-profit corporate Open Source
world.

I realize that there are some amazingly good candidates, and I admit I’d
be posting a blog post to endorse someone else (No, I won’t say who 🙂 if
Karen wasn’t on the ballot for the Community Award. So, I wouldn’t say you
backed the wrong candidate you if you vote for someone else. And, I’m
imminently biased since Karen and I have worked together
on Conservancy since its
inception. But, if you can see your way through to it, I hope you’ll give
Karen your vote.

(BTW, I’m not endorsing a candidate in the Academic Award race. I am just
not familiar enough with the work of the candidates involved to make an
endorsement. I even abstained from voting in that race myself because I
didn’t want to make an uninformed vote.)

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2015/02/26/award-karen.html

I know this decision is tough, as all the candidates in the list deserve
an award. However, I hope that you’ll chose to vote for my friend and
colleague, Karen Sandler, for
the 2015 Red
Hat Women in Open Source Community Award. Admittedly, most of Karen’s
work has been for software freedom, not Open Source (i.e., her work has
been community and charity-oriented, not for-profit oriented). However,
giving her an “Open Source” award is a great way to spread the
message of software freedom to the for-profit corporate Open Source
world.

I realize that there are some amazingly good candidates, and I admit I’d
be posting a blog post to endorse someone else (No, I won’t say who 🙂 if
Karen wasn’t on the ballot for the Community Award. So, I wouldn’t say you
backed the wrong candidate you if you vote for someone else. And, I’m
imminently biased since Karen and I have worked together
on Conservancy since its
inception. But, if you can see your way through to it, I hope you’ll give
Karen your vote.

(BTW, I’m not endorsing a candidate in the Academic Award race. I am just
not familiar enough with the work of the candidates involved to make an
endorsement. I even abstained from voting in that race myself because I
didn’t want to make an uninformed vote.)

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2015/02/26/award-karen.html

I know this decision is tough, as all the candidates in the list deserve
an award. However, I hope that you’ll chose to vote for my friend and
colleague, Karen Sandler, for
the 2015 Red
Hat Women in Open Source Community Award. Admittedly, most of Karen’s
work has been for software freedom, not Open Source (i.e., her work has
been community and charity-oriented, not for-profit oriented). However,
giving her an “Open Source” award is a great way to spread the
message of software freedom to the for-profit corporate Open Source
world.

I realize that there are some amazingly good candidates, and I admit I’d
be posting a blog post to endorse someone else (No, I won’t say who 🙂 if
Karen wasn’t on the ballot for the Community Award. So, I wouldn’t say you
backed the wrong candidate you if you vote for someone else. And, I’m
imminently biased since Karen and I have worked together
on Conservancy since its
inception. But, if you can see your way through to it, I hope you’ll give
Karen your vote.

(BTW, I’m not endorsing a candidate in the Academic Award race. I am just
not familiar enough with the work of the candidates involved to make an
endorsement. I even abstained from voting in that race myself because I
didn’t want to make an uninformed vote.)

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2015/02/10/node-foundation.html

It’s amazing what we let for-profit companies and their trade associations get away with.
Today, Joyent
announced the Node.js Foundation, in conjunction with various
for-profit corporate partners and Linux Foundation (which is a 501(c)(6)
trade association under the full control of for-profit companies).

Joyent and their corporate partners claim that the Node.js Foundation will
be neutral and provide open governance. Yet, they don’t
even say what corporate form the new organization will take, nor present
its by-laws. There’s no way that anyone can know if the organization will
be neutral and provide open governance without at least that information.

Meanwhile, I’ve spent years pointing out that what corporate form you
chose matters. In the USA, if you pick a 501(c)(6) trade association (like
Linux Foundation), the result is not a neutral non-profit
home. Rather, a trade association simply promotes the interest of the
for-profit businesses that control it. Such organizations don’t have
the community interests at heart, but rather the interests of the
for-profit corporate masters who control the Board of Directors. Sadly,
most people tend to think that if you put the word “Foundation”
in the name⁰, you magically get a neutral home
and open governance.

Fortunately for these trade associations, they hide behind the
far-too-general term non-profit, and act as if all non-profits are equal. Why
do trade association representatives and companies ignore the differences
between charities and trade associations? Because they don’t want you to
know the real story.

Ultimately, charities serve the public good. They can do nothing else,
lest they run afoul of IRS rules. Trade associations serve the business
interests of the companies that join them. They can do nothing else, lest
they run afoul of IRS rules. I would certainly argue the Linux
Foundation has done an excellent job serving the interests of the
businesses that control it. They can be commended for meeting their
mission, but that mission is not one to serve the individual users and
developers of Linux and other Free Software. What will the mission of the
Node.js Foundation be? We really don’t know, but given who’s starting it,
I’m sure it will be to promote the businesses around Node.js, not its
users and developers.

⁰Richard Fontana recently
pointed out to me that it is extremely rare for trade associations
to call themselves foundations outside of the Open Source and Free
Software community. He found very few examples of it in the wider
world. He speculated that this may be an attempt to capitalize on
the credibility of the Free Software Foundation, which is older
than all other non-profits in this community by at least two
decades. Of course, FSF is a 501(c)(3) charity, and since there
is no IRS rule about calling a 501(c)(6) trade association by the
name “Foundation”, this is a further opportunity to
spread confusion about who these organization serve: business
interests or the general public.