Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2010/08/10/may-they-make-me-superfluous.html

The Linux
Foundation announced
today
their own
FLOSS license compliance program, which included the launch of a
few software
tools under a modified BSD license. They also have offered
some training
courses for those that want to learn how to comply.

If this Linux Foundation (LF) program is successful, I may get
something I’ve wished for since the first enforcement I ever worked on
back in late 1998: I’d like to never do GPL enforcement again. I admit
I talk a lot about GPL enforcement. It’s indeed been a major center of
my work for twelve years, but I can’t say I’ve ever
really liked doing it.

By contrast, I have been hoping for years that someone would eventually
come along and “put me out of the enforcement business”.
Someday, I dream of opening up the <[email protected]> folder and
having no new violation reports (BTW, those dreams usually become
real-life nightmares, as I typically get two new violations reports each
week). I also wish for the day that I don’t have a backlogged queue of
200 or more GPL violations where no source nor offer for source has been
provided. I hate that it takes so much time to resolve violations
because of the sheer magnitude that exist.

I got into GPL enforcement so heavily, frankly, because so few others
were doing it. To this day, there are basically three groups even
bothering to enforce GPL on behalf of the
community: Conservancy (with
enforcement efforts led by
me), FSF (with
enforcement efforts led
by Brett Smith),
and gpl-violations.org (with
enforcement efforts led
by Harald Welte).
Generally, GPL enforcement has been a relatively lonely world for a long
time, mainly because it’s boring, tedious and patience-trying work that
only the most dedicated (masochistic?) want to spend their time
doing.

There are a dozen of very important software-freedom-advancing
activities that I’d rather spend my time doing. But as long as people
don’t respect the freedom of software users and ignore the important
protections of copyleft, I have to continue doing GPL enforcement. Any
effort like LF’s is very welcome, provided that it reduces the number of
violations.

Of course, LF (as GPL educators) and Brett, Harald, and I (as GPL
enforcers) will share the biggest obstacle: getting communication going
with the actual violators. Fact is, people who know the LF exists or have
heard of the GPL are likely to already be in compliance. When I find a
new violation, it’s nearly always someone who doesn’t even know what’s
going on, and often doesn’t even realize what their engineering team put
into their firmware. If LF can reach these companies before they end up as
a violation report emailed to me, I’ll be as glad as can be. But it’s a
tall order.

I do have a few minor criticisms of LF’s program. First, I believe
the directory
of FLOSS Compliance Officers should be made publicly available. I
think FLOSS Compliance Officers at companies should make themselves
publicly known in the software freedom community so they can be
contacted directly. As LF currently has it set up, you have
to make a request of the LF to put you in touch with a company’s
compliance officer.

Second, I admit I’d have liked to have been actively engaged in LF’s
process of forming this program. But, I presume that they wanted as
much distance as possible from the world’s most prolific GPL enforcer,
and I can understand that. (I suppose there’s a good cop/bad cop
metaphor you could make here, but I don’t like to think of myself as the
GPL police.) I did offer to help LF on this back in April when they
announced it at the Linux Collaboration Summit, but they haven’t been in
touch. Nevertheless, I’ll hopefully meet with LF folks on Thursday at
LinuxCon about their program. Also, I was invited a few months ago by
Martin Michlmayr to join one subset of the project, the
SPDX
working group and I’ve been giving it time whenever I can.

But, as I said, those are only minor complaints. The program as a
whole looks like it might do some good. I hope companies take advantage
of it, and more importantly, I hope LF can reach out to the companies
who don’t know their name yet but have BusyBox/Linux embedded in their
products.

Please, LF, help free me from the grind of GPL enforcement work. I
remain committed to enforcing GPL until there are no violations left,
but if LF can actually bring about an end to GPL violations sooner
rather than later, I’ll be much obliged. In a year, if I have an empty
queue of GPL violations, I’ll call LF’s program a unmitigated
success and gladly move on to other urgent work to advance software
freedom.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2010/08/10/may-they-make-me-superfluous.html

The Linux
Foundation announced
today
their own
FLOSS license compliance program, which included the launch of a
few software
tools under a modified BSD license. They also have offered
some training
courses for those that want to learn how to comply.

If this Linux Foundation (LF) program is successful, I may get
something I’ve wished for since the first enforcement I ever worked on
back in late 1998: I’d like to never do GPL enforcement again. I admit
I talk a lot about GPL enforcement. It’s indeed been a major center of
my work for twelve years, but I can’t say I’ve ever
really liked doing it.

By contrast, I have been hoping for years that someone would eventually
come along and “put me out of the enforcement business”.
Someday, I dream of opening up the <[email protected]> folder and
having no new violation reports (BTW, those dreams usually become
real-life nightmares, as I typically get two new violations reports each
week). I also wish for the day that I don’t have a backlogged queue of
200 or more GPL violations where no source nor offer for source has been
provided. I hate that it takes so much time to resolve violations
because of the sheer magnitude that exist.

I got into GPL enforcement so heavily, frankly, because so few others
were doing it. To this day, there are basically three groups even
bothering to enforce GPL on behalf of the
community: Conservancy (with
enforcement efforts led by
me), FSF (with
enforcement efforts led
by Brett Smith),
and gpl-violations.org (with
enforcement efforts led
by Harald Welte).
Generally, GPL enforcement has been a relatively lonely world for a long
time, mainly because it’s boring, tedious and patience-trying work that
only the most dedicated (masochistic?) want to spend their time
doing.

There are a dozen of very important software-freedom-advancing
activities that I’d rather spend my time doing. But as long as people
don’t respect the freedom of software users and ignore the important
protections of copyleft, I have to continue doing GPL enforcement. Any
effort like LF’s is very welcome, provided that it reduces the number of
violations.

Of course, LF (as GPL educators) and Brett, Harald, and I (as GPL
enforcers) will share the biggest obstacle: getting communication going
with the actual violators. Fact is, people who know the LF exists or have
heard of the GPL are likely to already be in compliance. When I find a
new violation, it’s nearly always someone who doesn’t even know what’s
going on, and often doesn’t even realize what their engineering team put
into their firmware. If LF can reach these companies before they end up as
a violation report emailed to me, I’ll be as glad as can be. But it’s a
tall order.

I do have a few minor criticisms of LF’s program. First, I believe
the directory
of FLOSS Compliance Officers should be made publicly available. I
think FLOSS Compliance Officers at companies should make themselves
publicly known in the software freedom community so they can be
contacted directly. As LF currently has it set up, you have
to make a request of the LF to put you in touch with a company’s
compliance officer.

Second, I admit I’d have liked to have been actively engaged in LF’s
process of forming this program. But, I presume that they wanted as
much distance as possible from the world’s most prolific GPL enforcer,
and I can understand that. (I suppose there’s a good cop/bad cop
metaphor you could make here, but I don’t like to think of myself as the
GPL police.) I did offer to help LF on this back in April when they
announced it at the Linux Collaboration Summit, but they haven’t been in
touch. Nevertheless, I’ll hopefully meet with LF folks on Thursday at
LinuxCon about their program. Also, I was invited a few months ago by
Martin Michlmayr to join one subset of the project, the
SPDX
working group and I’ve been giving it time whenever I can.

But, as I said, those are only minor complaints. The program as a
whole looks like it might do some good. I hope companies take advantage
of it, and more importantly, I hope LF can reach out to the companies
who don’t know their name yet but have BusyBox/Linux embedded in their
products.

Please, LF, help free me from the grind of GPL enforcement work. I
remain committed to enforcing GPL until there are no violations left,
but if LF can actually bring about an end to GPL violations sooner
rather than later, I’ll be much obliged. In a year, if I have an empty
queue of GPL violations, I’ll call LF’s program a unmitigated
success and gladly move on to other urgent work to advance software
freedom.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2010/08/10/may-they-make-me-superfluous.html

The Linux
Foundation announced
today
their own
FLOSS license compliance program, which included the launch of a
few software
tools under a modified BSD license. They also have offered
some training
courses for those that want to learn how to comply.

If this Linux Foundation (LF) program is successful, I may get
something I’ve wished for since the first enforcement I ever worked on
back in late 1998: I’d like to never do GPL enforcement again. I admit
I talk a lot about GPL enforcement. It’s indeed been a major center of
my work for twelve years, but I can’t say I’ve ever
really liked doing it.

By contrast, I have been hoping for years that someone would eventually
come along and “put me out of the enforcement business”.
Someday, I dream of opening up the <[email protected]> folder and
having no new violation reports (BTW, those dreams usually become
real-life nightmares, as I typically get two new violations reports each
week). I also wish for the day that I don’t have a backlogged queue of
200 or more GPL violations where no source nor offer for source has been
provided. I hate that it takes so much time to resolve violations
because of the sheer magnitude that exist.

I got into GPL enforcement so heavily, frankly, because so few others
were doing it. To this day, there are basically three groups even
bothering to enforce GPL on behalf of the
community: Conservancy (with
enforcement efforts led by
me), FSF (with
enforcement efforts led
by Brett Smith),
and gpl-violations.org (with
enforcement efforts led
by Harald Welte).
Generally, GPL enforcement has been a relatively lonely world for a long
time, mainly because it’s boring, tedious and patience-trying work that
only the most dedicated (masochistic?) want to spend their time
doing.

There are a dozen of very important software-freedom-advancing
activities that I’d rather spend my time doing. But as long as people
don’t respect the freedom of software users and ignore the important
protections of copyleft, I have to continue doing GPL enforcement. Any
effort like LF’s is very welcome, provided that it reduces the number of
violations.

Of course, LF (as GPL educators) and Brett, Harald, and I (as GPL
enforcers) will share the biggest obstacle: getting communication going
with the actual violators. Fact is, people who know the LF exists or have
heard of the GPL are likely to already be in compliance. When I find a
new violation, it’s nearly always someone who doesn’t even know what’s
going on, and often doesn’t even realize what their engineering team put
into their firmware. If LF can reach these companies before they end up as
a violation report emailed to me, I’ll be as glad as can be. But it’s a
tall order.

I do have a few minor criticisms of LF’s program. First, I believe
the directory
of FLOSS Compliance Officers should be made publicly available. I
think FLOSS Compliance Officers at companies should make themselves
publicly known in the software freedom community so they can be
contacted directly. As LF currently has it set up, you have
to make a request of the LF to put you in touch with a company’s
compliance officer.

Second, I admit I’d have liked to have been actively engaged in LF’s
process of forming this program. But, I presume that they wanted as
much distance as possible from the world’s most prolific GPL enforcer,
and I can understand that. (I suppose there’s a good cop/bad cop
metaphor you could make here, but I don’t like to think of myself as the
GPL police.) I did offer to help LF on this back in April when they
announced it at the Linux Collaboration Summit, but they haven’t been in
touch. Nevertheless, I’ll hopefully meet with LF folks on Thursday at
LinuxCon about their program. Also, I was invited a few months ago by
Martin Michlmayr to join one subset of the project, the
SPDX
working group and I’ve been giving it time whenever I can.

But, as I said, those are only minor complaints. The program as a
whole looks like it might do some good. I hope companies take advantage
of it, and more importantly, I hope LF can reach out to the companies
who don’t know their name yet but have BusyBox/Linux embedded in their
products.

Please, LF, help free me from the grind of GPL enforcement work. I
remain committed to enforcing GPL until there are no violations left,
but if LF can actually bring about an end to GPL violations sooner
rather than later, I’ll be much obliged. In a year, if I have an empty
queue of GPL violations, I’ll call LF’s program a unmitigated
success and gladly move on to other urgent work to advance software
freedom.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2010/08/10/may-they-make-me-superfluous.html

The Linux
Foundation announced
today
their own
FLOSS license compliance program, which included the launch of a
few software
tools under a modified BSD license. They also have offered
some training
courses for those that want to learn how to comply.

If this Linux Foundation (LF) program is successful, I may get
something I’ve wished for since the first enforcement I ever worked on
back in late 1998: I’d like to never do GPL enforcement again. I admit
I talk a lot about GPL enforcement. It’s indeed been a major center of
my work for twelve years, but I can’t say I’ve ever
really liked doing it.

By contrast, I have been hoping for years that someone would eventually
come along and “put me out of the enforcement business”.
Someday, I dream of opening up the <[email protected]> folder and
having no new violation reports (BTW, those dreams usually become
real-life nightmares, as I typically get two new violations reports each
week). I also wish for the day that I don’t have a backlogged queue of
200 or more GPL violations where no source nor offer for source has been
provided. I hate that it takes so much time to resolve violations
because of the sheer magnitude that exist.

I got into GPL enforcement so heavily, frankly, because so few others
were doing it. To this day, there are basically three groups even
bothering to enforce GPL on behalf of the
community: Conservancy (with
enforcement efforts led by
me), FSF (with
enforcement efforts led
by Brett Smith),
and gpl-violations.org (with
enforcement efforts led
by Harald Welte).
Generally, GPL enforcement has been a relatively lonely world for a long
time, mainly because it’s boring, tedious and patience-trying work that
only the most dedicated (masochistic?) want to spend their time
doing.

There are a dozen of very important software-freedom-advancing
activities that I’d rather spend my time doing. But as long as people
don’t respect the freedom of software users and ignore the important
protections of copyleft, I have to continue doing GPL enforcement. Any
effort like LF’s is very welcome, provided that it reduces the number of
violations.

Of course, LF (as GPL educators) and Brett, Harald, and I (as GPL
enforcers) will share the biggest obstacle: getting communication going
with the actual violators. Fact is, people who know the LF exists or have
heard of the GPL are likely to already be in compliance. When I find a
new violation, it’s nearly always someone who doesn’t even know what’s
going on, and often doesn’t even realize what their engineering team put
into their firmware. If LF can reach these companies before they end up as
a violation report emailed to me, I’ll be as glad as can be. But it’s a
tall order.

I do have a few minor criticisms of LF’s program. First, I believe
the directory
of FLOSS Compliance Officers should be made publicly available. I
think FLOSS Compliance Officers at companies should make themselves
publicly known in the software freedom community so they can be
contacted directly. As LF currently has it set up, you have
to make a request of the LF to put you in touch with a company’s
compliance officer.

Second, I admit I’d have liked to have been actively engaged in LF’s
process of forming this program. But, I presume that they wanted as
much distance as possible from the world’s most prolific GPL enforcer,
and I can understand that. (I suppose there’s a good cop/bad cop
metaphor you could make here, but I don’t like to think of myself as the
GPL police.) I did offer to help LF on this back in April when they
announced it at the Linux Collaboration Summit, but they haven’t been in
touch. Nevertheless, I’ll hopefully meet with LF folks on Thursday at
LinuxCon about their program. Also, I was invited a few months ago by
Martin Michlmayr to join one subset of the project, the
SPDX
working group and I’ve been giving it time whenever I can.

But, as I said, those are only minor complaints. The program as a
whole looks like it might do some good. I hope companies take advantage
of it, and more importantly, I hope LF can reach out to the companies
who don’t know their name yet but have BusyBox/Linux embedded in their
products.

Please, LF, help free me from the grind of GPL enforcement work. I
remain committed to enforcing GPL until there are no violations left,
but if LF can actually bring about an end to GPL violations sooner
rather than later, I’ll be much obliged. In a year, if I have an empty
queue of GPL violations, I’ll call LF’s program a unmitigated
success and gladly move on to other urgent work to advance software
freedom.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2010/08/10/may-they-make-me-superfluous.html

The Linux
Foundation announced
today
their own
FLOSS license compliance program, which included the launch of a
few software
tools under a modified BSD license. They also have offered
some training
courses for those that want to learn how to comply.

If this Linux Foundation (LF) program is successful, I may get
something I’ve wished for since the first enforcement I ever worked on
back in late 1998: I’d like to never do GPL enforcement again. I admit
I talk a lot about GPL enforcement. It’s indeed been a major center of
my work for twelve years, but I can’t say I’ve ever
really liked doing it.

By contrast, I have been hoping for years that someone would eventually
come along and “put me out of the enforcement business”.
Someday, I dream of opening up the <[email protected]> folder and
having no new violation reports (BTW, those dreams usually become
real-life nightmares, as I typically get two new violations reports each
week). I also wish for the day that I don’t have a backlogged queue of
200 or more GPL violations where no source nor offer for source has been
provided. I hate that it takes so much time to resolve violations
because of the sheer magnitude that exist.

I got into GPL enforcement so heavily, frankly, because so few others
were doing it. To this day, there are basically three groups even
bothering to enforce GPL on behalf of the
community: Conservancy (with
enforcement efforts led by
me), FSF (with
enforcement efforts led
by Brett Smith),
and gpl-violations.org (with
enforcement efforts led
by Harald Welte).
Generally, GPL enforcement has been a relatively lonely world for a long
time, mainly because it’s boring, tedious and patience-trying work that
only the most dedicated (masochistic?) want to spend their time
doing.

There are a dozen of very important software-freedom-advancing
activities that I’d rather spend my time doing. But as long as people
don’t respect the freedom of software users and ignore the important
protections of copyleft, I have to continue doing GPL enforcement. Any
effort like LF’s is very welcome, provided that it reduces the number of
violations.

Of course, LF (as GPL educators) and Brett, Harald, and I (as GPL
enforcers) will share the biggest obstacle: getting communication going
with the actual violators. Fact is, people who know the LF exists or have
heard of the GPL are likely to already be in compliance. When I find a
new violation, it’s nearly always someone who doesn’t even know what’s
going on, and often doesn’t even realize what their engineering team put
into their firmware. If LF can reach these companies before they end up as
a violation report emailed to me, I’ll be as glad as can be. But it’s a
tall order.

I do have a few minor criticisms of LF’s program. First, I believe
the directory
of FLOSS Compliance Officers should be made publicly available. I
think FLOSS Compliance Officers at companies should make themselves
publicly known in the software freedom community so they can be
contacted directly. As LF currently has it set up, you have
to make a request of the LF to put you in touch with a company’s
compliance officer.

Second, I admit I’d have liked to have been actively engaged in LF’s
process of forming this program. But, I presume that they wanted as
much distance as possible from the world’s most prolific GPL enforcer,
and I can understand that. (I suppose there’s a good cop/bad cop
metaphor you could make here, but I don’t like to think of myself as the
GPL police.) I did offer to help LF on this back in April when they
announced it at the Linux Collaboration Summit, but they haven’t been in
touch. Nevertheless, I’ll hopefully meet with LF folks on Thursday at
LinuxCon about their program. Also, I was invited a few months ago by
Martin Michlmayr to join one subset of the project, the
SPDX
working group and I’ve been giving it time whenever I can.

But, as I said, those are only minor complaints. The program as a
whole looks like it might do some good. I hope companies take advantage
of it, and more importantly, I hope LF can reach out to the companies
who don’t know their name yet but have BusyBox/Linux embedded in their
products.

Please, LF, help free me from the grind of GPL enforcement work. I
remain committed to enforcing GPL until there are no violations left,
but if LF can actually bring about an end to GPL violations sooner
rather than later, I’ll be much obliged. In a year, if I have an empty
queue of GPL violations, I’ll call LF’s program a unmitigated
success and gladly move on to other urgent work to advance software
freedom.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2010/08/10/may-they-make-me-superfluous.html

The Linux
Foundation announced
today
their own
FLOSS license compliance program, which included the launch of a
few software
tools under a modified BSD license. They also have offered
some training
courses for those that want to learn how to comply.

If this Linux Foundation (LF) program is successful, I may get
something I’ve wished for since the first enforcement I ever worked on
back in late 1998: I’d like to never do GPL enforcement again. I admit
I talk a lot about GPL enforcement. It’s indeed been a major center of
my work for twelve years, but I can’t say I’ve ever
really liked doing it.

By contrast, I have been hoping for years that someone would eventually
come along and “put me out of the enforcement business”.
Someday, I dream of opening up the <[email protected]> folder and
having no new violation reports (BTW, those dreams usually become
real-life nightmares, as I typically get two new violations reports each
week). I also wish for the day that I don’t have a backlogged queue of
200 or more GPL violations where no source nor offer for source has been
provided. I hate that it takes so much time to resolve violations
because of the sheer magnitude that exist.

I got into GPL enforcement so heavily, frankly, because so few others
were doing it. To this day, there are basically three groups even
bothering to enforce GPL on behalf of the
community: Conservancy (with
enforcement efforts led by
me), FSF (with
enforcement efforts led
by Brett Smith),
and gpl-violations.org (with
enforcement efforts led
by Harald Welte).
Generally, GPL enforcement has been a relatively lonely world for a long
time, mainly because it’s boring, tedious and patience-trying work that
only the most dedicated (masochistic?) want to spend their time
doing.

There are a dozen of very important software-freedom-advancing
activities that I’d rather spend my time doing. But as long as people
don’t respect the freedom of software users and ignore the important
protections of copyleft, I have to continue doing GPL enforcement. Any
effort like LF’s is very welcome, provided that it reduces the number of
violations.

Of course, LF (as GPL educators) and Brett, Harald, and I (as GPL
enforcers) will share the biggest obstacle: getting communication going
with the actual violators. Fact is, people who know the LF exists or have
heard of the GPL are likely to already be in compliance. When I find a
new violation, it’s nearly always someone who doesn’t even know what’s
going on, and often doesn’t even realize what their engineering team put
into their firmware. If LF can reach these companies before they end up as
a violation report emailed to me, I’ll be as glad as can be. But it’s a
tall order.

I do have a few minor criticisms of LF’s program. First, I believe
the directory
of FLOSS Compliance Officers should be made publicly available. I
think FLOSS Compliance Officers at companies should make themselves
publicly known in the software freedom community so they can be
contacted directly. As LF currently has it set up, you have
to make a request of the LF to put you in touch with a company’s
compliance officer.

Second, I admit I’d have liked to have been actively engaged in LF’s
process of forming this program. But, I presume that they wanted as
much distance as possible from the world’s most prolific GPL enforcer,
and I can understand that. (I suppose there’s a good cop/bad cop
metaphor you could make here, but I don’t like to think of myself as the
GPL police.) I did offer to help LF on this back in April when they
announced it at the Linux Collaboration Summit, but they haven’t been in
touch. Nevertheless, I’ll hopefully meet with LF folks on Thursday at
LinuxCon about their program. Also, I was invited a few months ago by
Martin Michlmayr to join one subset of the project, the
SPDX
working group and I’ve been giving it time whenever I can.

But, as I said, those are only minor complaints. The program as a
whole looks like it might do some good. I hope companies take advantage
of it, and more importantly, I hope LF can reach out to the companies
who don’t know their name yet but have BusyBox/Linux embedded in their
products.

Please, LF, help free me from the grind of GPL enforcement work. I
remain committed to enforcing GPL until there are no violations left,
but if LF can actually bring about an end to GPL violations sooner
rather than later, I’ll be much obliged. In a year, if I have an empty
queue of GPL violations, I’ll call LF’s program a unmitigated
success and gladly move on to other urgent work to advance software
freedom.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2010/08/10/may-they-make-me-superfluous.html

The Linux
Foundation announced
today
their own
FLOSS license compliance program, which included the launch of a
few software
tools under a modified BSD license. They also have offered
some training
courses for those that want to learn how to comply.

If this Linux Foundation (LF) program is successful, I may get
something I’ve wished for since the first enforcement I ever worked on
back in late 1998: I’d like to never do GPL enforcement again. I admit
I talk a lot about GPL enforcement. It’s indeed been a major center of
my work for twelve years, but I can’t say I’ve ever
really liked doing it.

By contrast, I have been hoping for years that someone would eventually
come along and “put me out of the enforcement business”.
Someday, I dream of opening up the <[email protected]> folder and
having no new violation reports (BTW, those dreams usually become
real-life nightmares, as I typically get two new violations reports each
week). I also wish for the day that I don’t have a backlogged queue of
200 or more GPL violations where no source nor offer for source has been
provided. I hate that it takes so much time to resolve violations
because of the sheer magnitude that exist.

I got into GPL enforcement so heavily, frankly, because so few others
were doing it. To this day, there are basically three groups even
bothering to enforce GPL on behalf of the
community: Conservancy (with
enforcement efforts led by
me), FSF (with
enforcement efforts led
by Brett Smith),
and gpl-violations.org (with
enforcement efforts led
by Harald Welte).
Generally, GPL enforcement has been a relatively lonely world for a long
time, mainly because it’s boring, tedious and patience-trying work that
only the most dedicated (masochistic?) want to spend their time
doing.

There are a dozen of very important software-freedom-advancing
activities that I’d rather spend my time doing. But as long as people
don’t respect the freedom of software users and ignore the important
protections of copyleft, I have to continue doing GPL enforcement. Any
effort like LF’s is very welcome, provided that it reduces the number of
violations.

Of course, LF (as GPL educators) and Brett, Harald, and I (as GPL
enforcers) will share the biggest obstacle: getting communication going
with the actual violators. Fact is, people who know the LF exists or have
heard of the GPL are likely to already be in compliance. When I find a
new violation, it’s nearly always someone who doesn’t even know what’s
going on, and often doesn’t even realize what their engineering team put
into their firmware. If LF can reach these companies before they end up as
a violation report emailed to me, I’ll be as glad as can be. But it’s a
tall order.

I do have a few minor criticisms of LF’s program. First, I believe
the directory
of FLOSS Compliance Officers should be made publicly available. I
think FLOSS Compliance Officers at companies should make themselves
publicly known in the software freedom community so they can be
contacted directly. As LF currently has it set up, you have
to make a request of the LF to put you in touch with a company’s
compliance officer.

Second, I admit I’d have liked to have been actively engaged in LF’s
process of forming this program. But, I presume that they wanted as
much distance as possible from the world’s most prolific GPL enforcer,
and I can understand that. (I suppose there’s a good cop/bad cop
metaphor you could make here, but I don’t like to think of myself as the
GPL police.) I did offer to help LF on this back in April when they
announced it at the Linux Collaboration Summit, but they haven’t been in
touch. Nevertheless, I’ll hopefully meet with LF folks on Thursday at
LinuxCon about their program. Also, I was invited a few months ago by
Martin Michlmayr to join one subset of the project, the
SPDX
working group and I’ve been giving it time whenever I can.

But, as I said, those are only minor complaints. The program as a
whole looks like it might do some good. I hope companies take advantage
of it, and more importantly, I hope LF can reach out to the companies
who don’t know their name yet but have BusyBox/Linux embedded in their
products.

Please, LF, help free me from the grind of GPL enforcement work. I
remain committed to enforcing GPL until there are no violations left,
but if LF can actually bring about an end to GPL violations sooner
rather than later, I’ll be much obliged. In a year, if I have an empty
queue of GPL violations, I’ll call LF’s program a unmitigated
success and gladly move on to other urgent work to advance software
freedom.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2010/08/10/may-they-make-me-superfluous.html

The Linux
Foundation announced
today
their own
FLOSS license compliance program, which included the launch of a
few software
tools under a modified BSD license. They also have offered
some training
courses for those that want to learn how to comply.

If this Linux Foundation (LF) program is successful, I may get
something I’ve wished for since the first enforcement I ever worked on
back in late 1998: I’d like to never do GPL enforcement again. I admit
I talk a lot about GPL enforcement. It’s indeed been a major center of
my work for twelve years, but I can’t say I’ve ever
really liked doing it.

By contrast, I have been hoping for years that someone would eventually
come along and “put me out of the enforcement business”.
Someday, I dream of opening up the <[email protected]> folder and
having no new violation reports (BTW, those dreams usually become
real-life nightmares, as I typically get two new violations reports each
week). I also wish for the day that I don’t have a backlogged queue of
200 or more GPL violations where no source nor offer for source has been
provided. I hate that it takes so much time to resolve violations
because of the sheer magnitude that exist.

I got into GPL enforcement so heavily, frankly, because so few others
were doing it. To this day, there are basically three groups even
bothering to enforce GPL on behalf of the
community: Conservancy (with
enforcement efforts led by
me), FSF (with
enforcement efforts led
by Brett Smith),
and gpl-violations.org (with
enforcement efforts led
by Harald Welte).
Generally, GPL enforcement has been a relatively lonely world for a long
time, mainly because it’s boring, tedious and patience-trying work that
only the most dedicated (masochistic?) want to spend their time
doing.

There are a dozen of very important software-freedom-advancing
activities that I’d rather spend my time doing. But as long as people
don’t respect the freedom of software users and ignore the important
protections of copyleft, I have to continue doing GPL enforcement. Any
effort like LF’s is very welcome, provided that it reduces the number of
violations.

Of course, LF (as GPL educators) and Brett, Harald, and I (as GPL
enforcers) will share the biggest obstacle: getting communication going
with the actual violators. Fact is, people who know the LF exists or have
heard of the GPL are likely to already be in compliance. When I find a
new violation, it’s nearly always someone who doesn’t even know what’s
going on, and often doesn’t even realize what their engineering team put
into their firmware. If LF can reach these companies before they end up as
a violation report emailed to me, I’ll be as glad as can be. But it’s a
tall order.

I do have a few minor criticisms of LF’s program. First, I believe
the directory
of FLOSS Compliance Officers should be made publicly available. I
think FLOSS Compliance Officers at companies should make themselves
publicly known in the software freedom community so they can be
contacted directly. As LF currently has it set up, you have
to make a request of the LF to put you in touch with a company’s
compliance officer.

Second, I admit I’d have liked to have been actively engaged in LF’s
process of forming this program. But, I presume that they wanted as
much distance as possible from the world’s most prolific GPL enforcer,
and I can understand that. (I suppose there’s a good cop/bad cop
metaphor you could make here, but I don’t like to think of myself as the
GPL police.) I did offer to help LF on this back in April when they
announced it at the Linux Collaboration Summit, but they haven’t been in
touch. Nevertheless, I’ll hopefully meet with LF folks on Thursday at
LinuxCon about their program. Also, I was invited a few months ago by
Martin Michlmayr to join one subset of the project, the
SPDX
working group and I’ve been giving it time whenever I can.

But, as I said, those are only minor complaints. The program as a
whole looks like it might do some good. I hope companies take advantage
of it, and more importantly, I hope LF can reach out to the companies
who don’t know their name yet but have BusyBox/Linux embedded in their
products.

Please, LF, help free me from the grind of GPL enforcement work. I
remain committed to enforcing GPL until there are no violations left,
but if LF can actually bring about an end to GPL violations sooner
rather than later, I’ll be much obliged. In a year, if I have an empty
queue of GPL violations, I’ll call LF’s program a unmitigated
success and gladly move on to other urgent work to advance software
freedom.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2010/08/10/may-they-make-me-superfluous.html

The Linux
Foundation announced
today
their own
FLOSS license compliance program, which included the launch of a
few software
tools under a modified BSD license. They also have offered
some training
courses for those that want to learn how to comply.

If this Linux Foundation (LF) program is successful, I may get
something I’ve wished for since the first enforcement I ever worked on
back in late 1998: I’d like to never do GPL enforcement again. I admit
I talk a lot about GPL enforcement. It’s indeed been a major center of
my work for twelve years, but I can’t say I’ve ever
really liked doing it.

By contrast, I have been hoping for years that someone would eventually
come along and “put me out of the enforcement business”.
Someday, I dream of opening up the <[email protected]> folder and
having no new violation reports (BTW, those dreams usually become
real-life nightmares, as I typically get two new violations reports each
week). I also wish for the day that I don’t have a backlogged queue of
200 or more GPL violations where no source nor offer for source has been
provided. I hate that it takes so much time to resolve violations
because of the sheer magnitude that exist.

I got into GPL enforcement so heavily, frankly, because so few others
were doing it. To this day, there are basically three groups even
bothering to enforce GPL on behalf of the
community: Conservancy (with
enforcement efforts led by
me), FSF (with
enforcement efforts led
by Brett Smith),
and gpl-violations.org (with
enforcement efforts led
by Harald Welte).
Generally, GPL enforcement has been a relatively lonely world for a long
time, mainly because it’s boring, tedious and patience-trying work that
only the most dedicated (masochistic?) want to spend their time
doing.

There are a dozen of very important software-freedom-advancing
activities that I’d rather spend my time doing. But as long as people
don’t respect the freedom of software users and ignore the important
protections of copyleft, I have to continue doing GPL enforcement. Any
effort like LF’s is very welcome, provided that it reduces the number of
violations.

Of course, LF (as GPL educators) and Brett, Harald, and I (as GPL
enforcers) will share the biggest obstacle: getting communication going
with the actual violators. Fact is, people who know the LF exists or have
heard of the GPL are likely to already be in compliance. When I find a
new violation, it’s nearly always someone who doesn’t even know what’s
going on, and often doesn’t even realize what their engineering team put
into their firmware. If LF can reach these companies before they end up as
a violation report emailed to me, I’ll be as glad as can be. But it’s a
tall order.

I do have a few minor criticisms of LF’s program. First, I believe
the directory
of FLOSS Compliance Officers should be made publicly available. I
think FLOSS Compliance Officers at companies should make themselves
publicly known in the software freedom community so they can be
contacted directly. As LF currently has it set up, you have
to make a request of the LF to put you in touch with a company’s
compliance officer.

Second, I admit I’d have liked to have been actively engaged in LF’s
process of forming this program. But, I presume that they wanted as
much distance as possible from the world’s most prolific GPL enforcer,
and I can understand that. (I suppose there’s a good cop/bad cop
metaphor you could make here, but I don’t like to think of myself as the
GPL police.) I did offer to help LF on this back in April when they
announced it at the Linux Collaboration Summit, but they haven’t been in
touch. Nevertheless, I’ll hopefully meet with LF folks on Thursday at
LinuxCon about their program. Also, I was invited a few months ago by
Martin Michlmayr to join one subset of the project, the
SPDX
working group and I’ve been giving it time whenever I can.

But, as I said, those are only minor complaints. The program as a
whole looks like it might do some good. I hope companies take advantage
of it, and more importantly, I hope LF can reach out to the companies
who don’t know their name yet but have BusyBox/Linux embedded in their
products.

Please, LF, help free me from the grind of GPL enforcement work. I
remain committed to enforcing GPL until there are no violations left,
but if LF can actually bring about an end to GPL violations sooner
rather than later, I’ll be much obliged. In a year, if I have an empty
queue of GPL violations, I’ll call LF’s program a unmitigated
success and gladly move on to other urgent work to advance software
freedom.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2010/08/10/may-they-make-me-superfluous.html

The Linux
Foundation announced
today
their own
FLOSS license compliance program, which included the launch of a
few software
tools under a modified BSD license. They also have offered
some training
courses for those that want to learn how to comply.

If this Linux Foundation (LF) program is successful, I may get
something I’ve wished for since the first enforcement I ever worked on
back in late 1998: I’d like to never do GPL enforcement again. I admit
I talk a lot about GPL enforcement. It’s indeed been a major center of
my work for twelve years, but I can’t say I’ve ever
really liked doing it.

By contrast, I have been hoping for years that someone would eventually
come along and “put me out of the enforcement business”.
Someday, I dream of opening up the <[email protected]> folder and
having no new violation reports (BTW, those dreams usually become
real-life nightmares, as I typically get two new violations reports each
week). I also wish for the day that I don’t have a backlogged queue of
200 or more GPL violations where no source nor offer for source has been
provided. I hate that it takes so much time to resolve violations
because of the sheer magnitude that exist.

I got into GPL enforcement so heavily, frankly, because so few others
were doing it. To this day, there are basically three groups even
bothering to enforce GPL on behalf of the
community: Conservancy (with
enforcement efforts led by
me), FSF (with
enforcement efforts led
by Brett Smith),
and gpl-violations.org (with
enforcement efforts led
by Harald Welte).
Generally, GPL enforcement has been a relatively lonely world for a long
time, mainly because it’s boring, tedious and patience-trying work that
only the most dedicated (masochistic?) want to spend their time
doing.

There are a dozen of very important software-freedom-advancing
activities that I’d rather spend my time doing. But as long as people
don’t respect the freedom of software users and ignore the important
protections of copyleft, I have to continue doing GPL enforcement. Any
effort like LF’s is very welcome, provided that it reduces the number of
violations.

Of course, LF (as GPL educators) and Brett, Harald, and I (as GPL
enforcers) will share the biggest obstacle: getting communication going
with the actual violators. Fact is, people who know the LF exists or have
heard of the GPL are likely to already be in compliance. When I find a
new violation, it’s nearly always someone who doesn’t even know what’s
going on, and often doesn’t even realize what their engineering team put
into their firmware. If LF can reach these companies before they end up as
a violation report emailed to me, I’ll be as glad as can be. But it’s a
tall order.

I do have a few minor criticisms of LF’s program. First, I believe
the directory
of FLOSS Compliance Officers should be made publicly available. I
think FLOSS Compliance Officers at companies should make themselves
publicly known in the software freedom community so they can be
contacted directly. As LF currently has it set up, you have
to make a request of the LF to put you in touch with a company’s
compliance officer.

Second, I admit I’d have liked to have been actively engaged in LF’s
process of forming this program. But, I presume that they wanted as
much distance as possible from the world’s most prolific GPL enforcer,
and I can understand that. (I suppose there’s a good cop/bad cop
metaphor you could make here, but I don’t like to think of myself as the
GPL police.) I did offer to help LF on this back in April when they
announced it at the Linux Collaboration Summit, but they haven’t been in
touch. Nevertheless, I’ll hopefully meet with LF folks on Thursday at
LinuxCon about their program. Also, I was invited a few months ago by
Martin Michlmayr to join one subset of the project, the
SPDX
working group and I’ve been giving it time whenever I can.

But, as I said, those are only minor complaints. The program as a
whole looks like it might do some good. I hope companies take advantage
of it, and more importantly, I hope LF can reach out to the companies
who don’t know their name yet but have BusyBox/Linux embedded in their
products.

Please, LF, help free me from the grind of GPL enforcement work. I
remain committed to enforcing GPL until there are no violations left,
but if LF can actually bring about an end to GPL violations sooner
rather than later, I’ll be much obliged. In a year, if I have an empty
queue of GPL violations, I’ll call LF’s program a unmitigated
success and gladly move on to other urgent work to advance software
freedom.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2010/08/10/may-they-make-me-superfluous.html

The Linux
Foundation announced
today
their own
FLOSS license compliance program, which included the launch of a
few software
tools under a modified BSD license. They also have offered
some training
courses for those that want to learn how to comply.

If this Linux Foundation (LF) program is successful, I may get
something I’ve wished for since the first enforcement I ever worked on
back in late 1998: I’d like to never do GPL enforcement again. I admit
I talk a lot about GPL enforcement. It’s indeed been a major center of
my work for twelve years, but I can’t say I’ve ever
really liked doing it.

By contrast, I have been hoping for years that someone would eventually
come along and “put me out of the enforcement business”.
Someday, I dream of opening up the <[email protected]> folder and
having no new violation reports (BTW, those dreams usually become
real-life nightmares, as I typically get two new violations reports each
week). I also wish for the day that I don’t have a backlogged queue of
200 or more GPL violations where no source nor offer for source has been
provided. I hate that it takes so much time to resolve violations
because of the sheer magnitude that exist.

I got into GPL enforcement so heavily, frankly, because so few others
were doing it. To this day, there are basically three groups even
bothering to enforce GPL on behalf of the
community: Conservancy (with
enforcement efforts led by
me), FSF (with
enforcement efforts led
by Brett Smith),
and gpl-violations.org (with
enforcement efforts led
by Harald Welte).
Generally, GPL enforcement has been a relatively lonely world for a long
time, mainly because it’s boring, tedious and patience-trying work that
only the most dedicated (masochistic?) want to spend their time
doing.

There are a dozen of very important software-freedom-advancing
activities that I’d rather spend my time doing. But as long as people
don’t respect the freedom of software users and ignore the important
protections of copyleft, I have to continue doing GPL enforcement. Any
effort like LF’s is very welcome, provided that it reduces the number of
violations.

Of course, LF (as GPL educators) and Brett, Harald, and I (as GPL
enforcers) will share the biggest obstacle: getting communication going
with the actual violators. Fact is, people who know the LF exists or have
heard of the GPL are likely to already be in compliance. When I find a
new violation, it’s nearly always someone who doesn’t even know what’s
going on, and often doesn’t even realize what their engineering team put
into their firmware. If LF can reach these companies before they end up as
a violation report emailed to me, I’ll be as glad as can be. But it’s a
tall order.

I do have a few minor criticisms of LF’s program. First, I believe
the directory
of FLOSS Compliance Officers should be made publicly available. I
think FLOSS Compliance Officers at companies should make themselves
publicly known in the software freedom community so they can be
contacted directly. As LF currently has it set up, you have
to make a request of the LF to put you in touch with a company’s
compliance officer.

Second, I admit I’d have liked to have been actively engaged in LF’s
process of forming this program. But, I presume that they wanted as
much distance as possible from the world’s most prolific GPL enforcer,
and I can understand that. (I suppose there’s a good cop/bad cop
metaphor you could make here, but I don’t like to think of myself as the
GPL police.) I did offer to help LF on this back in April when they
announced it at the Linux Collaboration Summit, but they haven’t been in
touch. Nevertheless, I’ll hopefully meet with LF folks on Thursday at
LinuxCon about their program. Also, I was invited a few months ago by
Martin Michlmayr to join one subset of the project, the
SPDX
working group and I’ve been giving it time whenever I can.

But, as I said, those are only minor complaints. The program as a
whole looks like it might do some good. I hope companies take advantage
of it, and more importantly, I hope LF can reach out to the companies
who don’t know their name yet but have BusyBox/Linux embedded in their
products.

Please, LF, help free me from the grind of GPL enforcement work. I
remain committed to enforcing GPL until there are no violations left,
but if LF can actually bring about an end to GPL violations sooner
rather than later, I’ll be much obliged. In a year, if I have an empty
queue of GPL violations, I’ll call LF’s program a unmitigated
success and gladly move on to other urgent work to advance software
freedom.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2010/08/09/have-to-use.html

I often hear it. I have to use proprietary software, people
say. But usually, that’s a justification and an excuse. Saying have
to implies that they’ve been compelled by some external force to do
it.

It begs the question: Who’s doing the forcing? I don’t deny
there might be occasions with a certain amount of force. Imagine if
you’re unemployed, and you’ve spent months looking for a job. You
finally get one, but it generally doesn’t have anything to do with
software. After working a few weeks, your boss says you have to use a
Microsoft Windows computer. Your choices are: use the software or be
fired and spend months again looking for a job. In that case, if you
told me you have to use proprietary software, I’d easily
agree.

But, imagine people who just have something they want to do, completely
unrelated to their job, that is made convenient with proprietary
software. In that case, there is no have to. One doesn’t have
to do a side project. So, it’s a choice. The right phrase
is wanted to, not have to.

Saying that you’re forced to do something when you really aren’t is a
failure to take responsibility for your actions. I generally don’t
think users of proprietary software are primarily to blame for the
challenges of software freedom — nearly all the blame lies with
those who write, market, and distribute proprietary software. However,
I think that software users should be clear about why they are using the
software. It’s quite rare for someone to be compelled under threat of
economic (or other) harm to use proprietary software. Therefore, only
rarely is it justifiable to say you have to use proprietary
software. In most cases, saying so is just making an excuse.

As for being forced to develop proprietary software, I think it’s
even rarer yet. Back in 1991 when I first
read the GNU
Manifesto, I was moved by RMS’ words about the issue:

“Won’t programmers starve?”

I could answer that nobody is forced to be a programmer. Most of us
cannot manage to get any money for standing on the street and making
faces. But we are not, as a result, condemned to spend our lives standing
on the street making faces, and starving. We do something else.

But that is the wrong answer because it accepts the questioner’s
implicit assumption: that without ownership of software, programmers
cannot possibly be paid a cent. Supposedly it is all or nothing.

Well, even if it is all or nothing, RMS was actually right
about this: we can do something else. By the mid 1990s, these words had
inspired me to make a lifelong plan to make sure I’d never have to write
or support proprietary software again. Despite being trained primarily
as a computer scientist, I’ve spent much time building contingency plans
to make sure I wouldn’t be left with proprietary software support or
development as my only marketable skill.

During the 1990s, it wasn’t clear that software freedom would have any
success at all. It was a fringe activity; Cygnus was roughly
the only for-profit company able to employ people to
write Free Software. As such, I of course started learning the GCC
codebase, figuring that I’d maybe someday get a job at Cygnus. I also
started training as an American Sign Language translator, so I’d have a
fallback career if I didn’t get a job at Cygnus. Later, I learned how
to play poker really well, figuring that in a worst case, I could end up
as a professional poker player permanently.

As it turned out, I’ve never had to rely fully on these fallback plans,
primarily because I was hired by the FSF in 1999. For the last eleven
years, I have been able to ensure that I’ve never had a job that
required that I use, support, or write proprietary software and I’ve
worked only on activities that directly advanced software freedom. I
admit I was often afraid that someday I might be unable to find a job,
and I’d have to support, use or write proprietary software
again. Yet, despite that fear, since 1997, I’ve never even been close
to that.

So, honestly, I just don’t believe those who say they have to
use proprietary software. Almost always, they chose to use
it, because it’s more convenient than the other things they’d have to
do to avoid it. Or, perhaps, they’d rather write or use proprietary
software than write or use no software at all, even when avoiding
software entirely was a viable option.

In summary, I want to be clear that I don’t judge people who use
proprietary software. I realize not everyone wants to live their life
as I do — with cascading fallback plans to avoid using, writing or
supporting proprietary software. I nevertheless think it’s disingenuous
to say you have to use, support or develop proprietary
software. It’s a choice, and every year that goes by, the choice gets
easier, so the statement sounds more like an excuse all the time.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2010/08/09/have-to-use.html

I often hear it. I have to use proprietary software, people
say. But usually, that’s a justification and an excuse. Saying have
to implies that they’ve been compelled by some external force to do
it.

It begs the question: Who’s doing the forcing? I don’t deny
there might be occasions with a certain amount of force. Imagine if
you’re unemployed, and you’ve spent months looking for a job. You
finally get one, but it generally doesn’t have anything to do with
software. After working a few weeks, your boss says you have to use a
Microsoft Windows computer. Your choices are: use the software or be
fired and spend months again looking for a job. In that case, if you
told me you have to use proprietary software, I’d easily
agree.

But, imagine people who just have something they want to do, completely
unrelated to their job, that is made convenient with proprietary
software. In that case, there is no have to. One doesn’t have
to do a side project. So, it’s a choice. The right phrase
is wanted to, not have to.

Saying that you’re forced to do something when you really aren’t is a
failure to take responsibility for your actions. I generally don’t
think users of proprietary software are primarily to blame for the
challenges of software freedom — nearly all the blame lies with
those who write, market, and distribute proprietary software. However,
I think that software users should be clear about why they are using the
software. It’s quite rare for someone to be compelled under threat of
economic (or other) harm to use proprietary software. Therefore, only
rarely is it justifiable to say you have to use proprietary
software. In most cases, saying so is just making an excuse.

As for being forced to develop proprietary software, I think it’s
even rarer yet. Back in 1991 when I first
read the GNU
Manifesto, I was moved by RMS’ words about the issue:

“Won’t programmers starve?”

I could answer that nobody is forced to be a programmer. Most of us
cannot manage to get any money for standing on the street and making
faces. But we are not, as a result, condemned to spend our lives standing
on the street making faces, and starving. We do something else.

But that is the wrong answer because it accepts the questioner’s
implicit assumption: that without ownership of software, programmers
cannot possibly be paid a cent. Supposedly it is all or nothing.

Well, even if it is all or nothing, RMS was actually right
about this: we can do something else. By the mid 1990s, these words had
inspired me to make a lifelong plan to make sure I’d never have to write
or support proprietary software again. Despite being trained primarily
as a computer scientist, I’ve spent much time building contingency plans
to make sure I wouldn’t be left with proprietary software support or
development as my only marketable skill.

During the 1990s, it wasn’t clear that software freedom would have any
success at all. It was a fringe activity; Cygnus was roughly
the only for-profit company able to employ people to
write Free Software. As such, I of course started learning the GCC
codebase, figuring that I’d maybe someday get a job at Cygnus. I also
started training as an American Sign Language translator, so I’d have a
fallback career if I didn’t get a job at Cygnus. Later, I learned how
to play poker really well, figuring that in a worst case, I could end up
as a professional poker player permanently.

As it turned out, I’ve never had to rely fully on these fallback plans,
primarily because I was hired by the FSF in 1999. For the last eleven
years, I have been able to ensure that I’ve never had a job that
required that I use, support, or write proprietary software and I’ve
worked only on activities that directly advanced software freedom. I
admit I was often afraid that someday I might be unable to find a job,
and I’d have to support, use or write proprietary software
again. Yet, despite that fear, since 1997, I’ve never even been close
to that.

So, honestly, I just don’t believe those who say they have to
use proprietary software. Almost always, they chose to use
it, because it’s more convenient than the other things they’d have to
do to avoid it. Or, perhaps, they’d rather write or use proprietary
software than write or use no software at all, even when avoiding
software entirely was a viable option.

In summary, I want to be clear that I don’t judge people who use
proprietary software. I realize not everyone wants to live their life
as I do — with cascading fallback plans to avoid using, writing or
supporting proprietary software. I nevertheless think it’s disingenuous
to say you have to use, support or develop proprietary
software. It’s a choice, and every year that goes by, the choice gets
easier, so the statement sounds more like an excuse all the time.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2010/08/09/have-to-use.html

I often hear it. I have to use proprietary software, people
say. But usually, that’s a justification and an excuse. Saying have
to implies that they’ve been compelled by some external force to do
it.

It begs the question: Who’s doing the forcing? I don’t deny
there might be occasions with a certain amount of force. Imagine if
you’re unemployed, and you’ve spent months looking for a job. You
finally get one, but it generally doesn’t have anything to do with
software. After working a few weeks, your boss says you have to use a
Microsoft Windows computer. Your choices are: use the software or be
fired and spend months again looking for a job. In that case, if you
told me you have to use proprietary software, I’d easily
agree.

But, imagine people who just have something they want to do, completely
unrelated to their job, that is made convenient with proprietary
software. In that case, there is no have to. One doesn’t have
to do a side project. So, it’s a choice. The right phrase
is wanted to, not have to.

Saying that you’re forced to do something when you really aren’t is a
failure to take responsibility for your actions. I generally don’t
think users of proprietary software are primarily to blame for the
challenges of software freedom — nearly all the blame lies with
those who write, market, and distribute proprietary software. However,
I think that software users should be clear about why they are using the
software. It’s quite rare for someone to be compelled under threat of
economic (or other) harm to use proprietary software. Therefore, only
rarely is it justifiable to say you have to use proprietary
software. In most cases, saying so is just making an excuse.

As for being forced to develop proprietary software, I think it’s
even rarer yet. Back in 1991 when I first
read the GNU
Manifesto, I was moved by RMS’ words about the issue:

“Won’t programmers starve?”

I could answer that nobody is forced to be a programmer. Most of us
cannot manage to get any money for standing on the street and making
faces. But we are not, as a result, condemned to spend our lives standing
on the street making faces, and starving. We do something else.

But that is the wrong answer because it accepts the questioner’s
implicit assumption: that without ownership of software, programmers
cannot possibly be paid a cent. Supposedly it is all or nothing.

Well, even if it is all or nothing, RMS was actually right
about this: we can do something else. By the mid 1990s, these words had
inspired me to make a lifelong plan to make sure I’d never have to write
or support proprietary software again. Despite being trained primarily
as a computer scientist, I’ve spent much time building contingency plans
to make sure I wouldn’t be left with proprietary software support or
development as my only marketable skill.

During the 1990s, it wasn’t clear that software freedom would have any
success at all. It was a fringe activity; Cygnus was roughly
the only for-profit company able to employ people to
write Free Software. As such, I of course started learning the GCC
codebase, figuring that I’d maybe someday get a job at Cygnus. I also
started training as an American Sign Language translator, so I’d have a
fallback career if I didn’t get a job at Cygnus. Later, I learned how
to play poker really well, figuring that in a worst case, I could end up
as a professional poker player permanently.

As it turned out, I’ve never had to rely fully on these fallback plans,
primarily because I was hired by the FSF in 1999. For the last eleven
years, I have been able to ensure that I’ve never had a job that
required that I use, support, or write proprietary software and I’ve
worked only on activities that directly advanced software freedom. I
admit I was often afraid that someday I might be unable to find a job,
and I’d have to support, use or write proprietary software
again. Yet, despite that fear, since 1997, I’ve never even been close
to that.

So, honestly, I just don’t believe those who say they have to
use proprietary software. Almost always, they chose to use
it, because it’s more convenient than the other things they’d have to
do to avoid it. Or, perhaps, they’d rather write or use proprietary
software than write or use no software at all, even when avoiding
software entirely was a viable option.

In summary, I want to be clear that I don’t judge people who use
proprietary software. I realize not everyone wants to live their life
as I do — with cascading fallback plans to avoid using, writing or
supporting proprietary software. I nevertheless think it’s disingenuous
to say you have to use, support or develop proprietary
software. It’s a choice, and every year that goes by, the choice gets
easier, so the statement sounds more like an excuse all the time.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2010/08/09/have-to-use.html

I often hear it. I have to use proprietary software, people
say. But usually, that’s a justification and an excuse. Saying have
to implies that they’ve been compelled by some external force to do
it.

It begs the question: Who’s doing the forcing? I don’t deny
there might be occasions with a certain amount of force. Imagine if
you’re unemployed, and you’ve spent months looking for a job. You
finally get one, but it generally doesn’t have anything to do with
software. After working a few weeks, your boss says you have to use a
Microsoft Windows computer. Your choices are: use the software or be
fired and spend months again looking for a job. In that case, if you
told me you have to use proprietary software, I’d easily
agree.

But, imagine people who just have something they want to do, completely
unrelated to their job, that is made convenient with proprietary
software. In that case, there is no have to. One doesn’t have
to do a side project. So, it’s a choice. The right phrase
is wanted to, not have to.

Saying that you’re forced to do something when you really aren’t is a
failure to take responsibility for your actions. I generally don’t
think users of proprietary software are primarily to blame for the
challenges of software freedom — nearly all the blame lies with
those who write, market, and distribute proprietary software. However,
I think that software users should be clear about why they are using the
software. It’s quite rare for someone to be compelled under threat of
economic (or other) harm to use proprietary software. Therefore, only
rarely is it justifiable to say you have to use proprietary
software. In most cases, saying so is just making an excuse.

As for being forced to develop proprietary software, I think it’s
even rarer yet. Back in 1991 when I first
read the GNU
Manifesto, I was moved by RMS’ words about the issue:

“Won’t programmers starve?”

I could answer that nobody is forced to be a programmer. Most of us
cannot manage to get any money for standing on the street and making
faces. But we are not, as a result, condemned to spend our lives standing
on the street making faces, and starving. We do something else.

But that is the wrong answer because it accepts the questioner’s
implicit assumption: that without ownership of software, programmers
cannot possibly be paid a cent. Supposedly it is all or nothing.

Well, even if it is all or nothing, RMS was actually right
about this: we can do something else. By the mid 1990s, these words had
inspired me to make a lifelong plan to make sure I’d never have to write
or support proprietary software again. Despite being trained primarily
as a computer scientist, I’ve spent much time building contingency plans
to make sure I wouldn’t be left with proprietary software support or
development as my only marketable skill.

During the 1990s, it wasn’t clear that software freedom would have any
success at all. It was a fringe activity; Cygnus was roughly
the only for-profit company able to employ people to
write Free Software. As such, I of course started learning the GCC
codebase, figuring that I’d maybe someday get a job at Cygnus. I also
started training as an American Sign Language translator, so I’d have a
fallback career if I didn’t get a job at Cygnus. Later, I learned how
to play poker really well, figuring that in a worst case, I could end up
as a professional poker player permanently.

As it turned out, I’ve never had to rely fully on these fallback plans,
primarily because I was hired by the FSF in 1999. For the last eleven
years, I have been able to ensure that I’ve never had a job that
required that I use, support, or write proprietary software and I’ve
worked only on activities that directly advanced software freedom. I
admit I was often afraid that someday I might be unable to find a job,
and I’d have to support, use or write proprietary software
again. Yet, despite that fear, since 1997, I’ve never even been close
to that.

So, honestly, I just don’t believe those who say they have to
use proprietary software. Almost always, they chose to use
it, because it’s more convenient than the other things they’d have to
do to avoid it. Or, perhaps, they’d rather write or use proprietary
software than write or use no software at all, even when avoiding
software entirely was a viable option.

In summary, I want to be clear that I don’t judge people who use
proprietary software. I realize not everyone wants to live their life
as I do — with cascading fallback plans to avoid using, writing or
supporting proprietary software. I nevertheless think it’s disingenuous
to say you have to use, support or develop proprietary
software. It’s a choice, and every year that goes by, the choice gets
easier, so the statement sounds more like an excuse all the time.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2010/08/09/have-to-use.html

I often hear it. I have to use proprietary software, people
say. But usually, that’s a justification and an excuse. Saying have
to implies that they’ve been compelled by some external force to do
it.

It begs the question: Who’s doing the forcing? I don’t deny
there might be occasions with a certain amount of force. Imagine if
you’re unemployed, and you’ve spent months looking for a job. You
finally get one, but it generally doesn’t have anything to do with
software. After working a few weeks, your boss says you have to use a
Microsoft Windows computer. Your choices are: use the software or be
fired and spend months again looking for a job. In that case, if you
told me you have to use proprietary software, I’d easily
agree.

But, imagine people who just have something they want to do, completely
unrelated to their job, that is made convenient with proprietary
software. In that case, there is no have to. One doesn’t have
to do a side project. So, it’s a choice. The right phrase
is wanted to, not have to.

Saying that you’re forced to do something when you really aren’t is a
failure to take responsibility for your actions. I generally don’t
think users of proprietary software are primarily to blame for the
challenges of software freedom — nearly all the blame lies with
those who write, market, and distribute proprietary software. However,
I think that software users should be clear about why they are using the
software. It’s quite rare for someone to be compelled under threat of
economic (or other) harm to use proprietary software. Therefore, only
rarely is it justifiable to say you have to use proprietary
software. In most cases, saying so is just making an excuse.

As for being forced to develop proprietary software, I think it’s
even rarer yet. Back in 1991 when I first
read the GNU
Manifesto, I was moved by RMS’ words about the issue:

“Won’t programmers starve?”

I could answer that nobody is forced to be a programmer. Most of us
cannot manage to get any money for standing on the street and making
faces. But we are not, as a result, condemned to spend our lives standing
on the street making faces, and starving. We do something else.

But that is the wrong answer because it accepts the questioner’s
implicit assumption: that without ownership of software, programmers
cannot possibly be paid a cent. Supposedly it is all or nothing.

Well, even if it is all or nothing, RMS was actually right
about this: we can do something else. By the mid 1990s, these words had
inspired me to make a lifelong plan to make sure I’d never have to write
or support proprietary software again. Despite being trained primarily
as a computer scientist, I’ve spent much time building contingency plans
to make sure I wouldn’t be left with proprietary software support or
development as my only marketable skill.

During the 1990s, it wasn’t clear that software freedom would have any
success at all. It was a fringe activity; Cygnus was roughly
the only for-profit company able to employ people to
write Free Software. As such, I of course started learning the GCC
codebase, figuring that I’d maybe someday get a job at Cygnus. I also
started training as an American Sign Language translator, so I’d have a
fallback career if I didn’t get a job at Cygnus. Later, I learned how
to play poker really well, figuring that in a worst case, I could end up
as a professional poker player permanently.

As it turned out, I’ve never had to rely fully on these fallback plans,
primarily because I was hired by the FSF in 1999. For the last eleven
years, I have been able to ensure that I’ve never had a job that
required that I use, support, or write proprietary software and I’ve
worked only on activities that directly advanced software freedom. I
admit I was often afraid that someday I might be unable to find a job,
and I’d have to support, use or write proprietary software
again. Yet, despite that fear, since 1997, I’ve never even been close
to that.

So, honestly, I just don’t believe those who say they have to
use proprietary software. Almost always, they chose to use
it, because it’s more convenient than the other things they’d have to
do to avoid it. Or, perhaps, they’d rather write or use proprietary
software than write or use no software at all, even when avoiding
software entirely was a viable option.

In summary, I want to be clear that I don’t judge people who use
proprietary software. I realize not everyone wants to live their life
as I do — with cascading fallback plans to avoid using, writing or
supporting proprietary software. I nevertheless think it’s disingenuous
to say you have to use, support or develop proprietary
software. It’s a choice, and every year that goes by, the choice gets
easier, so the statement sounds more like an excuse all the time.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2010/08/09/have-to-use.html

I often hear it. I have to use proprietary software, people
say. But usually, that’s a justification and an excuse. Saying have
to implies that they’ve been compelled by some external force to do
it.

It begs the question: Who’s doing the forcing? I don’t deny
there might be occasions with a certain amount of force. Imagine if
you’re unemployed, and you’ve spent months looking for a job. You
finally get one, but it generally doesn’t have anything to do with
software. After working a few weeks, your boss says you have to use a
Microsoft Windows computer. Your choices are: use the software or be
fired and spend months again looking for a job. In that case, if you
told me you have to use proprietary software, I’d easily
agree.

But, imagine people who just have something they want to do, completely
unrelated to their job, that is made convenient with proprietary
software. In that case, there is no have to. One doesn’t have
to do a side project. So, it’s a choice. The right phrase
is wanted to, not have to.

Saying that you’re forced to do something when you really aren’t is a
failure to take responsibility for your actions. I generally don’t
think users of proprietary software are primarily to blame for the
challenges of software freedom — nearly all the blame lies with
those who write, market, and distribute proprietary software. However,
I think that software users should be clear about why they are using the
software. It’s quite rare for someone to be compelled under threat of
economic (or other) harm to use proprietary software. Therefore, only
rarely is it justifiable to say you have to use proprietary
software. In most cases, saying so is just making an excuse.

As for being forced to develop proprietary software, I think it’s
even rarer yet. Back in 1991 when I first
read the GNU
Manifesto, I was moved by RMS’ words about the issue:

“Won’t programmers starve?”

I could answer that nobody is forced to be a programmer. Most of us
cannot manage to get any money for standing on the street and making
faces. But we are not, as a result, condemned to spend our lives standing
on the street making faces, and starving. We do something else.

But that is the wrong answer because it accepts the questioner’s
implicit assumption: that without ownership of software, programmers
cannot possibly be paid a cent. Supposedly it is all or nothing.

Well, even if it is all or nothing, RMS was actually right
about this: we can do something else. By the mid 1990s, these words had
inspired me to make a lifelong plan to make sure I’d never have to write
or support proprietary software again. Despite being trained primarily
as a computer scientist, I’ve spent much time building contingency plans
to make sure I wouldn’t be left with proprietary software support or
development as my only marketable skill.

During the 1990s, it wasn’t clear that software freedom would have any
success at all. It was a fringe activity; Cygnus was roughly
the only for-profit company able to employ people to
write Free Software. As such, I of course started learning the GCC
codebase, figuring that I’d maybe someday get a job at Cygnus. I also
started training as an American Sign Language translator, so I’d have a
fallback career if I didn’t get a job at Cygnus. Later, I learned how
to play poker really well, figuring that in a worst case, I could end up
as a professional poker player permanently.

As it turned out, I’ve never had to rely fully on these fallback plans,
primarily because I was hired by the FSF in 1999. For the last eleven
years, I have been able to ensure that I’ve never had a job that
required that I use, support, or write proprietary software and I’ve
worked only on activities that directly advanced software freedom. I
admit I was often afraid that someday I might be unable to find a job,
and I’d have to support, use or write proprietary software
again. Yet, despite that fear, since 1997, I’ve never even been close
to that.

So, honestly, I just don’t believe those who say they have to
use proprietary software. Almost always, they chose to use
it, because it’s more convenient than the other things they’d have to
do to avoid it. Or, perhaps, they’d rather write or use proprietary
software than write or use no software at all, even when avoiding
software entirely was a viable option.

In summary, I want to be clear that I don’t judge people who use
proprietary software. I realize not everyone wants to live their life
as I do — with cascading fallback plans to avoid using, writing or
supporting proprietary software. I nevertheless think it’s disingenuous
to say you have to use, support or develop proprietary
software. It’s a choice, and every year that goes by, the choice gets
easier, so the statement sounds more like an excuse all the time.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2010/08/09/have-to-use.html

I often hear it. I have to use proprietary software, people
say. But usually, that’s a justification and an excuse. Saying have
to implies that they’ve been compelled by some external force to do
it.

It begs the question: Who’s doing the forcing? I don’t deny
there might be occasions with a certain amount of force. Imagine if
you’re unemployed, and you’ve spent months looking for a job. You
finally get one, but it generally doesn’t have anything to do with
software. After working a few weeks, your boss says you have to use a
Microsoft Windows computer. Your choices are: use the software or be
fired and spend months again looking for a job. In that case, if you
told me you have to use proprietary software, I’d easily
agree.

But, imagine people who just have something they want to do, completely
unrelated to their job, that is made convenient with proprietary
software. In that case, there is no have to. One doesn’t have
to do a side project. So, it’s a choice. The right phrase
is wanted to, not have to.

Saying that you’re forced to do something when you really aren’t is a
failure to take responsibility for your actions. I generally don’t
think users of proprietary software are primarily to blame for the
challenges of software freedom — nearly all the blame lies with
those who write, market, and distribute proprietary software. However,
I think that software users should be clear about why they are using the
software. It’s quite rare for someone to be compelled under threat of
economic (or other) harm to use proprietary software. Therefore, only
rarely is it justifiable to say you have to use proprietary
software. In most cases, saying so is just making an excuse.

As for being forced to develop proprietary software, I think it’s
even rarer yet. Back in 1991 when I first
read the GNU
Manifesto, I was moved by RMS’ words about the issue:

“Won’t programmers starve?”

I could answer that nobody is forced to be a programmer. Most of us
cannot manage to get any money for standing on the street and making
faces. But we are not, as a result, condemned to spend our lives standing
on the street making faces, and starving. We do something else.

But that is the wrong answer because it accepts the questioner’s
implicit assumption: that without ownership of software, programmers
cannot possibly be paid a cent. Supposedly it is all or nothing.

Well, even if it is all or nothing, RMS was actually right
about this: we can do something else. By the mid 1990s, these words had
inspired me to make a lifelong plan to make sure I’d never have to write
or support proprietary software again. Despite being trained primarily
as a computer scientist, I’ve spent much time building contingency plans
to make sure I wouldn’t be left with proprietary software support or
development as my only marketable skill.

During the 1990s, it wasn’t clear that software freedom would have any
success at all. It was a fringe activity; Cygnus was roughly
the only for-profit company able to employ people to
write Free Software. As such, I of course started learning the GCC
codebase, figuring that I’d maybe someday get a job at Cygnus. I also
started training as an American Sign Language translator, so I’d have a
fallback career if I didn’t get a job at Cygnus. Later, I learned how
to play poker really well, figuring that in a worst case, I could end up
as a professional poker player permanently.

As it turned out, I’ve never had to rely fully on these fallback plans,
primarily because I was hired by the FSF in 1999. For the last eleven
years, I have been able to ensure that I’ve never had a job that
required that I use, support, or write proprietary software and I’ve
worked only on activities that directly advanced software freedom. I
admit I was often afraid that someday I might be unable to find a job,
and I’d have to support, use or write proprietary software
again. Yet, despite that fear, since 1997, I’ve never even been close
to that.

So, honestly, I just don’t believe those who say they have to
use proprietary software. Almost always, they chose to use
it, because it’s more convenient than the other things they’d have to
do to avoid it. Or, perhaps, they’d rather write or use proprietary
software than write or use no software at all, even when avoiding
software entirely was a viable option.

In summary, I want to be clear that I don’t judge people who use
proprietary software. I realize not everyone wants to live their life
as I do — with cascading fallback plans to avoid using, writing or
supporting proprietary software. I nevertheless think it’s disingenuous
to say you have to use, support or develop proprietary
software. It’s a choice, and every year that goes by, the choice gets
easier, so the statement sounds more like an excuse all the time.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2010/08/09/have-to-use.html

I often hear it. I have to use proprietary software, people
say. But usually, that’s a justification and an excuse. Saying have
to implies that they’ve been compelled by some external force to do
it.

It begs the question: Who’s doing the forcing? I don’t deny
there might be occasions with a certain amount of force. Imagine if
you’re unemployed, and you’ve spent months looking for a job. You
finally get one, but it generally doesn’t have anything to do with
software. After working a few weeks, your boss says you have to use a
Microsoft Windows computer. Your choices are: use the software or be
fired and spend months again looking for a job. In that case, if you
told me you have to use proprietary software, I’d easily
agree.

But, imagine people who just have something they want to do, completely
unrelated to their job, that is made convenient with proprietary
software. In that case, there is no have to. One doesn’t have
to do a side project. So, it’s a choice. The right phrase
is wanted to, not have to.

Saying that you’re forced to do something when you really aren’t is a
failure to take responsibility for your actions. I generally don’t
think users of proprietary software are primarily to blame for the
challenges of software freedom — nearly all the blame lies with
those who write, market, and distribute proprietary software. However,
I think that software users should be clear about why they are using the
software. It’s quite rare for someone to be compelled under threat of
economic (or other) harm to use proprietary software. Therefore, only
rarely is it justifiable to say you have to use proprietary
software. In most cases, saying so is just making an excuse.

As for being forced to develop proprietary software, I think it’s
even rarer yet. Back in 1991 when I first
read the GNU
Manifesto, I was moved by RMS’ words about the issue:

“Won’t programmers starve?”

I could answer that nobody is forced to be a programmer. Most of us
cannot manage to get any money for standing on the street and making
faces. But we are not, as a result, condemned to spend our lives standing
on the street making faces, and starving. We do something else.

But that is the wrong answer because it accepts the questioner’s
implicit assumption: that without ownership of software, programmers
cannot possibly be paid a cent. Supposedly it is all or nothing.

Well, even if it is all or nothing, RMS was actually right
about this: we can do something else. By the mid 1990s, these words had
inspired me to make a lifelong plan to make sure I’d never have to write
or support proprietary software again. Despite being trained primarily
as a computer scientist, I’ve spent much time building contingency plans
to make sure I wouldn’t be left with proprietary software support or
development as my only marketable skill.

During the 1990s, it wasn’t clear that software freedom would have any
success at all. It was a fringe activity; Cygnus was roughly
the only for-profit company able to employ people to
write Free Software. As such, I of course started learning the GCC
codebase, figuring that I’d maybe someday get a job at Cygnus. I also
started training as an American Sign Language translator, so I’d have a
fallback career if I didn’t get a job at Cygnus. Later, I learned how
to play poker really well, figuring that in a worst case, I could end up
as a professional poker player permanently.

As it turned out, I’ve never had to rely fully on these fallback plans,
primarily because I was hired by the FSF in 1999. For the last eleven
years, I have been able to ensure that I’ve never had a job that
required that I use, support, or write proprietary software and I’ve
worked only on activities that directly advanced software freedom. I
admit I was often afraid that someday I might be unable to find a job,
and I’d have to support, use or write proprietary software
again. Yet, despite that fear, since 1997, I’ve never even been close
to that.

So, honestly, I just don’t believe those who say they have to
use proprietary software. Almost always, they chose to use
it, because it’s more convenient than the other things they’d have to
do to avoid it. Or, perhaps, they’d rather write or use proprietary
software than write or use no software at all, even when avoiding
software entirely was a viable option.

In summary, I want to be clear that I don’t judge people who use
proprietary software. I realize not everyone wants to live their life
as I do — with cascading fallback plans to avoid using, writing or
supporting proprietary software. I nevertheless think it’s disingenuous
to say you have to use, support or develop proprietary
software. It’s a choice, and every year that goes by, the choice gets
easier, so the statement sounds more like an excuse all the time.