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Nicolas George wrote:
> Thorsten Froehlich wrote in message <44de0995$1@news.povray.org>:
>> yet prohibits unethical types of commercial exploitation.
<snip>
> It is up to you to decide if you would rather ease the life of people who
> like your soft and build a community, or fight Big Bad Capitalists.
Well, it seems clear you do not really know what I was talking about, or
what the "real world" actually looks like. Just two *examples* which
triggered specific changes to the license:
- A few years ago some company started putting POV-Ray on a CD and selling
it as modeler solution. There was no mention that POV-Ray is a free
download, yet people were asked to pay iirc $20 for a CD hardly containing
anything justifying the amount paid for the CD. Obviously this was a case of
commercial exploitation, and clearly unethical as it cheated the customer.
Further, the CDs did not contain any contact information for the maker of
the CDs. The license did not require it. The only contact information for
buyers was the POV-Team as maker of POV-Ray. But without an address to
contact the company making the CDs, the only option would have been to go
after the retailers to find out about the company making the CDs. In
response we had to change the license, and now it includes the requirement
to include a valid postal address of the distributor/maker.
- Many years ago a magazine included POV-Ray on a floppy disk. They wanted
to cut costs and as POV-Ray did not fit on a single disk if documentation
and such was included, they just removed it. The POV-Team then got flooded
with support requests and complaints as people who bought the magazine did
not realize they could get the documentation, or the fact that it was
removed by the makers of the magazine. That is how the old magazine
inclusion clause came to be, as did the whole distribution clause.
If you follow the current debate of the GPL 2 Linux license and the attempt
to prevent the unethical commercial exploitation built into the GPL 3 drafts
(i.e. the patent clauses) as well as the SCO "case" against Linux, you
cannot honestly say the licenses used for Linux are clear, or prevent abuse.
If they cannot prevent a three year multi-million dollar trial, they clearly
have a problem. Our license may not be perfect, but neither are those core
Linux "Copyleft" licenses you are so vigorously promoting.
Thorsten, POV-Team, but just stating *MY* opinion
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Thorsten Froehlich wrote in message <44ded80c@news.povray.org>:
> Nicolas George wrote:
>> Thorsten Froehlich wrote in message <44de0995$1@news.povray.org>:
>>> yet prohibits unethical types of commercial exploitation.
> <snip>
>> It is up to you to decide if you would rather ease the life of people who
>> like your soft and build a community, or fight Big Bad Capitalists.
>
> Well, it seems clear you do not really know what I was talking about, or
> what the "real world" actually looks like. Just two *examples* which
> triggered specific changes to the license:
>
> - A few years ago some company started putting POV-Ray on a CD and selling
> it as modeler solution. There was no mention that POV-Ray is a free
> download, yet people were asked to pay iirc $20 for a CD hardly containing
> anything justifying the amount paid for the CD. Obviously this was a case of
> commercial exploitation, and clearly unethical as it cheated the customer.
> Further, the CDs did not contain any contact information for the maker of
> the CDs. The license did not require it. The only contact information for
> buyers was the POV-Team as maker of POV-Ray. But without an address to
> contact the company making the CDs, the only option would have been to go
> after the retailers to find out about the company making the CDs. In
> response we had to change the license, and now it includes the requirement
> to include a valid postal address of the distributor/maker.
>
> - Many years ago a magazine included POV-Ray on a floppy disk. They wanted
> to cut costs and as POV-Ray did not fit on a single disk if documentation
> and such was included, they just removed it. The POV-Team then got flooded
> with support requests and complaints as people who bought the magazine did
> not realize they could get the documentation, or the fact that it was
> removed by the makers of the magazine. That is how the old magazine
> inclusion clause came to be, as did the whole distribution clause.
Requiring explicit responsibility statements of distributions and changes is
not a problem; most of the licenses, including widely-used Free software
licenses, do it at various level. Including pretty high levels, like "if you
change the soft, you have to change the name".
The major problem with POV-Ray's license is the non-commercial clauses. That
is what is preventing POV-Ray from being included in Linux distributions.
But there is another point (I re-quote your message):
> - A few years ago some company started putting POV-Ray on a CD and selling
> it as modeler solution. There was no mention that POV-Ray is a free
> download, yet people were asked to pay iirc $20 for a CD hardly containing
> anything justifying the amount paid for the CD. Obviously this was a case of
> commercial exploitation, and clearly unethical as it cheated the customer.
I Let us leave aside all questions of responsibility and support. Yes, that
is cheating the customer, but that is a problem between the company selling
the CD and the customer. Technically, _you_ (the POV-Ray authors) come to no
harm because of that: you give POV-Ray for free, so you are not losing
money; there is no risk that a cheated customer would sue you. You are less
an accomplice than, for example, the company that pressed the CD.
Of course, it upsets you specifically. But that is psychological. It is the
same phenomenon that makes that I am more upset by a journalist speaking
bullshit about maths than about biology: that is your area, and you feel it
personal, but it isn't.
You have a right to react, and fight it, of course. But you do not have to.
Therefore, you must consider how much it costs you to do so. If it is just a
matter of sending a cease and desist mail, or adding a harmless clause in
the license, do not hesitate. But if it must cause major hindrance to a
large part of your users, it is probably better to just let go; sometimes,
there is just no perfect solution.
I believe that preventing the inclusion of POV-Ray in the main part of the
major Linux distributions is a major hindrance, and preventing scrupleless
companies from taking 20 bucks to people too stupid to check whether the
same is not available online for free is just not worth it.
> If you follow the current debate of the GPL 2 Linux license and the attempt
> to prevent the unethical commercial exploitation built into the GPL 3 drafts
> (i.e. the patent clauses)
The GPL is a war engine, it is made with that purpose, and accepts all
subsequent drawbacks.
Choosing a GPL-style license for a project is a political choice of
militancy above practicality.
The question is: is the choice of license of POV-Ray political and militant
before practical?
If so, there is nothing to do but accept and respect. But if it isn't, there
is advice to be given to make it more practical.
> as well as the SCO "case" against Linux, you
> cannot honestly say the licenses used for Linux are clear, or prevent abuse.
> If they cannot prevent a three year multi-million dollar trial, they clearly
> have a problem. Our license may not be perfect, but neither are those core
> Linux "Copyleft" licenses you are so vigorously promoting.
The reason there is a three-year multi-million dollars trial behind Linux and
not behind POV-Ray is not that its license is more badly phrased -- by the
way, I know that the FSF has a bunch of lawyers working on the GPL; I wonder
what is the legal background of the actual author of POV-Ray's license? --
but because the market value of Linux is much higher, both because it holds
a more tactical position (fewer people need raytracers than operating
systems) and because of random circumstances.
But if it came that, for example, a big company started backing up POV-Ray
for the special effects of big bucks movies, and started taking market share
from the costly proprietary softwares used nowadays, then POV-Ray would
likely have its multi-million dollars trial too.
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> I wonder
> what is the legal background of the actual author of POV-Ray's license?
Lawyer. (POV is nowadays held by a legal entity.)
In general I agree with all of your statements (this is my personal opinion).
But think that there is a long history behind POV-Ray development, and that the
foundations of its license (past and current) cannot be changed without basically
rewriting the whole software. This is planed; effectively it started with 3.7
and should be completed for 4.0.
- NC
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Nicolas Calimet wrote in message <44df279a$1@news.povray.org>:
> But think that there is a long history behind POV-Ray development, and
> that the foundations of its license (past and current) cannot be changed
> without basically rewriting the whole software. This is planed;
> effectively it started with 3.7 and should be completed for 4.0.
Yes, I have seen that stated somewhere in the FAQ, "why isn't POV Open
Source?" or something. Ah, it is in povlegal-3.5 <URL:
http://www.povray.org/povlegal-3.5.html >. Which makes me wonder how they
managed to change the license for the 3.6 version.
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In article <44df19e3@news.povray.org>, nicolas$george@salle-s.org
says...
> > as well as the SCO "case" against Linux, you
> > cannot honestly say the licenses used for Linux are clear, or prevent a
buse.
> > If they cannot prevent a three year multi-million dollar trial, they cl
early
> > have a problem. Our license may not be perfect, but neither are those c
ore
> > Linux "Copyleft" licenses you are so vigorously promoting.
>
> The reason there is a three-year multi-million dollars trial behind Linux
and
> not behind POV-Ray is not that its license is more badly phrased -- by th
e
> way, I know that the FSF has a bunch of lawyers working on the GPL; I won
der
> what is the legal background of the actual author of POV-Ray's license? -
-
> but because the market value of Linux is much higher, both because it hol
ds
> a more tactical position (fewer people need raytracers than operating
> systems) and because of random circumstances.
>
> But if it came that, for example, a big company started backing up POV-Ra
y
> for the special effects of big bucks movies, and started taking market sh
are
> from the costly proprietary softwares used nowadays, then POV-Ray would
> likely have its multi-million dollars trial too.
>
No, you are only partly right, the reason for the case may be money
ultimately, but it hinges, "a lot", on claims that IBM stole code from a
version of UNIX to build their Linux version, or even more silly, that
Linux in general somehow does this. Its a case of, "Its just too
coincidental to us that both our airplanes have swept wings and landing
gear, which those other guys all use strait wings and skids, I think you
stole our ideas for those things!" Its pure absolute and total BS, but
had Linux been written to "not" duplicate the UNIX environment, and run
its software, there wouldn't be any grounds to contest (it would also be
less useful of course). The GPL isn't the problem, its the contention
that a violation of SCO's proprietary licenses happened, regardless of
the license that IBM happened to be using.
--
void main () {
call functional_code()
else
call crash_windows();
}
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Nicolas George wrote:
> The major problem with POV-Ray's license is the non-commercial clauses. That
> is what is preventing POV-Ray from being included in Linux distributions.
This is simply not true, as I pointed out before. Repeating it does not make
your statement true.
>> - A few years ago some company started putting POV-Ray on a CD and selling
>> it as modeler solution. There was no mention that POV-Ray is a free
>> download, yet people were asked to pay iirc $20 for a CD hardly containing
>> anything justifying the amount paid for the CD. Obviously this was a case of
<snip>
> Of course, it upsets you specifically. But that is psychological. It is the
You are wrong. It upset all POV-team members. The problem was that it
exploited some points that could be interpreted as loopholes in the POV-Ray
license as it does allow CD distribution if done for nominal copying costs.
The packaging was one major problem, which mislead the customer to believe
they acquired a commercial software, and with only our contact information
available inside, the same "clueless" buyer could believe we also made the
CDs. Either way, the problem was not "psychological" but that the company
who made those CDs violated the whole "spirit of the license" by bending
what it allowed as far as they could. It was clear they had legal advice on
what they did, even though it still probably was not legal, but only an
(expensive) trial would have established that. Yet, we do not generally want
to sue people, we have a lot of better things to do if one lets us - we just
love to work on POV-Ray and the legal matters are an unfortunate necessary
evil we also have to deal with. So the license was changed (with POV-Ray 3.5
iirc) to plug this hole completely and in a legally watertight manner.
In another message Nicolas George wrote:
> Which makes me wonder how they
> managed to change the license for the 3.6 version.
The license was rewritten to say in essence the same, just in a more
organized fashion and by a lawyer. It is still more or less the same
license, and still includes the same provisions.
Thorsten
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Thorsten Froehlich wrote in message <44e01a4a$1@news.povray.org>:
>> The major problem with POV-Ray's license is the non-commercial clauses. That
>> is what is preventing POV-Ray from being included in Linux distributions.
> This is simply not true, as I pointed out before. Repeating it does not make
> your statement true.
I am sorry, but for this particular point, that is you who did not read what
I wrote.
You pointed that there is a clause allowing commercial use for
distributions, and that is perfectly right. But there is still a general
non-commercial clause. But distributions do not require just the right to
distribute, even commercially. They need *guidelines*, which are both a
necessity when handling thousands of packages, and a service to the users.
The non-commercial clause breaks these guidelines.
> You are wrong. It upset all POV-team members.
So much for the singular/plural distinction in English.
> The packaging was one major problem, which mislead the customer to believe
> they acquired a commercial software, and with only our contact information
> available inside, the same "clueless" buyer could believe we also made the
> CDs.
This is a different question, and, as I said, no one has any problem with
requiring spectacular responsibility claims from third-parties distributors.
> Either way, the problem was not "psychological" but that the company
> who made those CDs violated the whole "spirit of the license" by bending
> what it allowed as far as they could.
Yes, they did. But *why do you care*?
More specifically, why do you care so much that you make installing POV-Ray
so much more difficult for thousands of users?
In others words, what is your order of priorities?
[ ] make POV-Ray a good soft (achieved)
[ ] prevent bad guys from using it
[ ] allow the community to use it as comfortably as possible
Please, could you order these items?
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Nicolas George wrote:
> The non-commercial clause breaks these guidelines.
Which is not true, and which you refuse to understand. The license is
obvious and does not have the problems you just imagine. As such, there is
no point in continuing to argue with you.
Thorsten
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Nicolas George wrote:
> The choice is yours
Actually it's not, as we have explained many times. We have no choice about
our current license.
While I don't necessarily agree with everything said in the below-referenced
article, it is a good enough introduction to the basic concepts:
http://software.newsforge.com/software/06/01/17/201221.shtml
-- Chris Cason
POV-Team
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Nicolas George wrote:
> http://www.povray.org/povlegal-3.5.html >. Which makes me wonder how they
> managed to change the license for the 3.6 version.
No-where does anything say we cannot change the license *at all*. We just
can't change the fundamental precepts upon which it is based.
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