May 10, 2011

Episode 0x0F: Why Samba Switched to GPLv3

Summary

This episode is a recording of Jeremy Allison's talk, Why Samba Switched to GPLv3 from the 2011 Linux Collaboration Summit, with some commentary from Bradley and Karen on the talk.

This show was released on Tuesday 10 May 2011; its running time is 01:00:51.

Show Notes

Ironically (or perhaps appropriately), Bradley was at Samba XP with Jeremy the day this show was released. So, there he wasn't able to get show notes together in detail for this show.

However, Jeremy's slides from the talk are available (in PDF), and also ODP format. So, you can follow along with it in the talk.

Also, you may be interested to read Bradley live-dent'd Jeremy's talk, so the discussion there might be useful to read as well.

Tags: faif, GPL, licensing

March 29, 2011

Episode 0x0C: Disturbing Debates

Summary

Bradley and Karen discuss two debates going on in the free and open source software community. One recent and seemingly inflated, and one long and confusing.

This show was released on Tuesday 29 March 2011; its running time is 00:43:18.

Show Notes

Segment 1 (03:12)

• Bradley wrote a blog post about the Bionic issues that were raised. (03:44)
• On the old oggcast, Karen and Bradley discussed the Android/Linux system and Bionic specifically. (04:09)
• Karen mentioned an old oggcast where permissive vs. copyleft licensing was discussed. (06:19)
• Jake Edge wrote an LWN article that discussed Bionic (07:58)
• Bradley mentioned Raymond Nimmer's blog that started the debate (10:52)
• Bradley also mentioned Edward Naughton's blog post and paper on Bionic. (11:38)
• Raymond Nimmer is not David Nimmer, who is known for writings on copyright (18:10)
• There is now an disturbing group on identica, which is more disturbing than a tag about disturbing. (19:15)
• Joe Brockmeier did some research on Edward Naughton's ties to Microsoft. (20:05)
• Karen mentioned a paper on deep legal analysis of header files and on originality requirements in copyright (24:40)

Segment 2 (26:07)

• Karen wanted to clear up some confusion about the discussion last episode about the “Open Source” and “Free Software” terminology.

Tags: faif, GPL, licensing, mobile, copyright

March 1, 2011

Episode: 0x0A: Windows Mobile Windows Phone 7 Series Application Store

Summary

Bradley and Karen discussed the Windows Phone 7 Application Store terms and conditions which prohibit GPL'd and other copylefted software in the application store.

This show was released on Tuesday 1 March 2011; its running time is 00:38:13.

Show Notes

Segment 0 (00:35)

• Karen and Bradley discussed the Microsoft Phone Marketplace agreement, which was heavily covered in news and blogs. (02:50)
• Karen quoted directly from the § 1(l) from the Windows Phone Marketplace Application Provider Agreement (03:20)
• Bradley credited Jello Biafra with coining the term “punditocracy”, but it seems to have been first used by Charles Reynell in The Economist in 1989 and popularized by Eric Alterman in his 1992 book, Sound & Fury: The Making of the Punditocracy.
• Bradley mentioned the brouhaha about the order of succession after Regan was shot in 1981. (Bradley incorrectly said 1980 on the show.) (09:47)
• Karen and Bradley previously discussed the Apple Online Store agreement on FaiF Episode 0x03.
• Bradley mentioned that the arm port of Windows 7 isn't even done (21:30)
• According to a Canalys study quoted on Wikipedia's Smartphone entry, RIM is only 14% of the market now, when it was previously much larger. Symbian is still the largest, surprisingly. (25:21)
• K-9 Mail is a fork of the last Free Software version of Google's Android Mail application. (30:21)
• Bradley compared what's happening with Android to the history of X Windows (31:40)
• Bradley joked about the naming length controversy for the Windows Phone 7. (33:00)
• Steve Ballmer strangely kept saying: The operating system is called Windows while talking to market analysis back in July 2010. (36:04)

After the show was recorded, there was an announcement that Microsoft would allow employees to build their own companies writing Windows 7 Series Windows Mobile applications.

Tags: faif, GPL, licensing, microsoft, mobile

February 15, 2011

Episode 0x09: Copyleft, -or-later, and Basics of Compatibility

Summary

Bradley and Karen discuss types of copyleft generally and introduce the basics of license compatibility and -or-later clauses.

This show was released on Tuesday 15 February 2011; its running time is 00:41:57.

Show Notes

Segment 0 (00:38)

• This show discusses copyleft and basic issues of license compatibility (04:09)
• Karen mentioned an episode of the old Software Freedom Law Show, Episode 0x08, where Bradley and Karen discussed selecting a FLOSS license and what the various options are. (04:45)
• license compatibility 06:28
• Bradley incorrectly said that the original Emacs license didn't have the word General in it. However, the other explanations appear to be correct. There's a useful history page that someone wrote about the history of GPL. It appears the non-general GNU copylefts existed from 1984-1988. (06:57)
• Karen noted that the Library GPL was renamed to the Lesser GPL which happened in 1999. (09:30)
• Bradley mentioned that when he and RMS worked on the GNU Classpath Exception, Bradley suggested it be called the Least GPL. (10:38)
• GPL doesn't have a choice of law clause. If another copyleft does, it surely is incompatible with the GPL. (14:17)
• AGPLv3 § 13 and GPLv3 § 13 explicitly make themselves compatibility with each other, which Bradley calls compatibility by fiat. (15:40)
• Karen mentioned that the Mozilla Public License § 13 has a section about multiple licensed code (16:50).
• Bradley mentioned that Mozilla Firefox uses a combinatorial license: (GPL|LGPL|MPL), which is a disjunctive tri-license. (19:00).
• Bradley mentioned that the old Software Freedom Law Show Episode 0x17 discussed compatibility of permissively licensed software and copylefted software. (20:22)
• Apache Software License 2.0 was likely the first FLOSS license to have an explicit patent licensing provision (23:40)
• Bradley and Karen discussed the fact that -only vs. -or-later are options with the GPL, while they are not with other copylefts, such as CC-By-SA. (30:11)

Tags: faif, GPL, licensing

January 18, 2011

Episode 0x07: Revoked?

Summary

Bradley and Karen discuss a few corrections from previous shows, and then discuss misunderstandings about the GPL regarding “revocation” of the GPL.

This show was released on Tuesday 18 January 2011; its running time is 00:44:54.

Show Notes

Segment 0 (00:34)

• Bradley issued a correction regarding FaiF 0x06. Christopher Allan Webber mentioned that FSF sometimes accepts copyright assignments in cases where the entire code base is not assigned. (02:40)
• Karen issued a correction regarding FaiF 0x04 about women being hired to be at the party, but in fact that was not the case, despite being mentioned in this article.
• Karen's paper on Medical Devices was linked to from a ZD Net UK blog. (05:48)
• Bradley mentioned this Android bug regarding mis-sent SMS, which was widely covered in the press. Apparently the bug has been resolved upstream, somewhat disproving Bradley's point. (08:40)

Segment 1 (12:19)

• Bradley is quoted in an article about revocation of the GPL (12:35).
• The story was originally covered on slashdot. (13:17)
• The WinMTR site now says: By popular request, WinMTR will be available under GPL v2. (19:50)
• Karen mentioned the FSF's GPL FAQ. (29:27)
• Bradley mentioned the four rationale documents. There's also one for AGPLv3 draft 2 and LGPLv3 draft 2. (30:13)

Tags: faif, GPL

January 4, 2011

Episode 0x06: GRUB, Zulu Foxtrot Sierra

Summary

Bradley and Karen discuss the inclusion of ZFS GPLv2-or-later code inclusion into GNU GRUB.

This show was released on Tuesday 4 January 2011; its running time is 00:47:58.

Show Notes

Segment 0 (00:35)

• Bradley and Karen discussed the inclusion of ZFS code now included in GRUB, as the GRUB Project announced and was covered at LWN by Jonathan Corbet.
• It's not mandatory that GNU projects have assignment to the FSF. The GNU Maintainer's guide discuss the requirements when items are assigned to FSF. (14:40)
• FSF requires that the entire codebase be assigned once GNU project maintainers choose to assign copyrights. Conservancy's policy on copyright assignment differs here; Conservancy will accept partial copyright assignment. (16:07)
• Bradley mentioned the COBOL front end to GCC that is not in the main GCC codebase because it is not copyright assigned to FSF. (17:40)
• Bradley and Karen discussed the Squeak relicensing last call. (25:49)
• Bradley posted a comment to Corbet's article. (32:30)

Final (45:45)

• The calendar Bradley was thinking of was the International Fixed Calendar, which Wikipedia confirms, with a sourced link, was used by the Eastman Kodak Company from 1928 to 1989.

Tags: faif, GNU, GPL, FSF