My two cents

[swami]

Hi Michael,

I know you were not making any allegations other than interpretation, I know you are a good guy and had no intention to make allegations. I was merely quoting what the thoughts of Chrisw was on this in order to respond Christophe's question as to why the post was deleted.

Ps; I heard that Ryan worked together with Fabien and later versions released were non GPL so there's no GPL violation here.

Best Regards.

[Dann Corbit]

- it prevents the advance of the human kind (wrong, its goal is the opposite)
- great people in the past could not have produced their masterpieces if the GPL had existed (wrong)
- the GPL prevents the re-use of ideas (wrong)
- the GPL is another tool for big companies to lock their market (completely wrong)
- the GPL is viral, it contamines all it touches (wrong, you can use it along proprietary stuff)
- the author should not have protected his work with the GPL (Huh?)
- maybe the GPL cannot be enforced legally anyway (wrong)
- the GPL is used to fulfill dark motives (no amount of good faith can counter this argument, use it ad nauseam)
.

Since most of this list is wrong (not that people do not use these arguments, just that they are invalid arguments) I will add a few that I think are more relevant to most programmers' decision on whether to violate GPL.


1. Obeying GPL makes it harder to make the best program in the world (taking other people's code makes it easier on you, and not giving back makes it harder on them)
2. Obeying GPL makes it harder to get credit for your success (people that write their own engine from scratch [or are perceived to have done so] seem to get more public credit).
3. Obeying GPL makes it harder to turn commercial should the program turn out to be strong enough.
4. When you publish your source it is annoying to have the feeling other people are taking your ideas and giving nothing in return.

I am not claiming these are good reasons to violate GPL, but I would suggest they are probably more influential (consciously or not) on programmer decisions related to violating GPL.

I think #4 can be particularly influential, which is why I think anyone that publishes their source should be strongly respected for their contribution, independent of the conditions they put on use of their code.

-Sam

I notice that Fabien Letouzey has tried to turn commercial after publishing Fruit 2.1 under the GPL and that this attempt has apparently failed, or maybe did not yield the expected returns.

I also notice that he has almost disappeared of the field after that and has shown little interest of what happened to his own code.

I have contacted Fabien but still do not have any answer from him. I had been warned that it sometimes takes a long time for him to answer so I just hope he will answer some day.

I do not know what he thinks and do not know his motives for giving his copyright on Fruit to the FSF. I do not know why he left.

The points you have mentionned are very true and I'm wondering if he has been affected by any of them, or even all of them.

At this point I do not know. Also, I would not reveal what he thinks if he told me not to talk publicly about it.



// Christophe

I another thread someone has posted that he advised Fabien that he could not release a commercial, closed source version of Fruit. I was answering that this legal advice was wrong and that Fabien could have legally done that.

I do not know what happened, but when I submitted my post the message I was responding to had already been deleted. I can't remember the name of the poster and I'm wondering if he asked himself that his post should been removed or if something else happened. It's too bad because we have very few information about what happened to the commercial Fruit.



// Christophe

If I had released RomiChess under the GPL I might have the legal right to close the sources and go commercial, but I would never have done that. Yes, I posted that I thought that it was wrong for Fabien to have done so. A few days later I noticed that commercial Fruit was history. All I am saying is that Maybe Fabien agreed with me. Or it could just be coincidence.

I refrain to say the reason that my post was deleted.

You mean your post has been deleted because it was not acceptable?

I have seen nothing offensive in it... !?



// Christophe

Christophe, I didn't delete the post, but other mods stated that the post in question contained some allegation such as "Programmer X violated the GPL", with bold statement, near to the clone accusation, which is denied as per the Chris Whittington's sticky thread "Discussion is fine, libel not". The poster who made that post is welcome to rephrase the question without making a point that could be construed as an allegations against someone.

Regards.

I tried to keep this can of worms closed!

The mistake that Chris W. made is that it is common knowledge that X is releasing new versions of Y with out releasing the source. So, what I wrote was an interpetation and not an allegation that X is violating the GPL in doing so. How can it be an allegation when it is already common knowledge? So, I will rephrase.

It is my interpetation that Ryan is violating the GPL when he releases new versions of Fruit with out releasing the source.

Edit: I will add that I am glad that there are newer stronger versions of Fruit released by Ryan. And I am glad that he is not releasing the source. I think that the Fruit sources have done far more harm than they have done good!

License was granted to Ryan by Fabian. Fabian had ultimate rights to any future distributions of his source since he was the creator.

He can grant commercial license to Ryan and GPL license to FSF. That is his right and Ryan is not in violation of anything.

I am not a lawyer, but it seems very clear-cut to me.

Multiple license options for GPL projects are not at all uncommon. MySQL is one example. Here is another:
http://flowplayer.org/download.html
there are literally hundreds of these kind of things.

[Uri Blass]

I do not follow your logic. _I_ support the GPL, because it is a legal document, backed up by force of law. Just like patent laws. Copyright laws. I simply know that I should not copy someone else's work and then claim it to be my own. That if I copy it, I should have to abide by whatever requirements he established. He might want a royalty on copies. Happens all the time. He might say "you can have it, I don't care". Also happens. Or he might say "This is GPL. Do with it as you please, but whatever you do is also constrained by the GPL."

I can't, for the life of me, see why that would be considered difficult to understand. It isn't new. And I can't for the life of me understand how someone would think it was _their_ right to do whatever they want regardless of the GPL.

Look around Bob. You will see programmers who want to pick ideas or even blocks of code (and want to know how big a block is fair game) and users who want more free programs, only care about elo and do not care to defend authors.

They are here and have spoken: GPL? WTF, we don't care, can't be a derivative work, the elo speaks for itself, this discussion is over.

I have just realized how ridiculous we look with our code snippets. We were already at step 2 or 3. But many people quit at step 1. Oops.



// Christophe

I can add that another problem is that programmers may be afraid even to start their own program without breaking the GPL.

I will explain it.
It is logical to think that there are things that can be done only in one optimal way in a competitve chess program.

It means that different good programmers may get equivalent blocks independently and may be blamed on cloning.

The students of Hyatt do not get equivalent blocks but even they may think that this could be different in case that they were really good programmers.

Even if this thinking is wrong it can cause people to go out of game programming.

Uri

[Michael Sherwin]

It just does not set well with me whether it is legal or not. I wonder what the reformed_super_villan Thomas would have to say about this. Too bad that Fabien did not grant the same rights to him. It would have been nice for him to be a legal_super_villan! Legal is not always synonomous with morality. However, morality is often more subjective than objective. I'm done.

[Tony]

I do not follow your logic. _I_ support the GPL, because it is a legal document, backed up by force of law. Just like patent laws. Copyright laws. I simply know that I should not copy someone else's work and then claim it to be my own. That if I copy it, I should have to abide by whatever requirements he established. He might want a royalty on copies. Happens all the time. He might say "you can have it, I don't care". Also happens. Or he might say "This is GPL. Do with it as you please, but whatever you do is also constrained by the GPL."

I can't, for the life of me, see why that would be considered difficult to understand. It isn't new. And I can't for the life of me understand how someone would think it was _their_ right to do whatever they want regardless of the GPL.

Like a buch of whales, stranded on the beach. At some point you have to decide to stop pushing them back to sea.

So they like this strong engine. Will there be people around who are capable (and motivated) to make a stronger engine next year ?

"There are hardly any programmers posting here anymore". I've heard it a couple of times last year. How many will there be next year ?

What if, in 6 months, this forum is almost dead, and the peple making the most noise now, move on to next forum ? Everybody still happy ?

I'll limit my time to the winboard forum for a while.

Tony



Look around Bob. You will see programmers who want to pick ideas or even blocks of code (and want to know how big a block is fair game) and users who want more free programs, only care about elo and do not care to defend authors.

They are here and have spoken: GPL? WTF, we don't care, can't be a derivative work, the elo speaks for itself, this discussion is over.

I have just realized how ridiculous we look with our code snippets. We were already at step 2 or 3. But many people quit at step 1. Oops.



// Christophe

[Tony]

Like a buch of whales, stranded on the beach. At some point you have to decide to stop pushing them back to sea.

So they like this strong engine. Will there be people around who are capable (and motivated) to make a stronger engine next year ?

"There are hardly any programmers posting here anymore". I've heard it a couple of times last year. How many will there be next year ?

What if, in 6 months, this forum is almost dead, and the peple making the most noise now, move on to next forum ? Everybody still happy ?

I'll limit my time to the winboard forum for a while.

Tony

[chrisw]

- it prevents the advance of the human kind (wrong, its goal is the opposite)
- great people in the past could not have produced their masterpieces if the GPL had existed (wrong)
- the GPL prevents the re-use of ideas (wrong)
- the GPL is another tool for big companies to lock their market (completely wrong)
- the GPL is viral, it contamines all it touches (wrong, you can use it along proprietary stuff)
- the author should not have protected his work with the GPL (Huh?)
- maybe the GPL cannot be enforced legally anyway (wrong)
- the GPL is used to fulfill dark motives (no amount of good faith can counter this argument, use it ad nauseam)
.

Since most of this list is wrong (not that people do not use these arguments, just that they are invalid arguments) I will add a few that I think are more relevant to most programmers' decision on whether to violate GPL.


1. Obeying GPL makes it harder to make the best program in the world (taking other people's code makes it easier on you, and not giving back makes it harder on them)
2. Obeying GPL makes it harder to get credit for your success (people that write their own engine from scratch [or are perceived to have done so] seem to get more public credit).
3. Obeying GPL makes it harder to turn commercial should the program turn out to be strong enough.
4. When you publish your source it is annoying to have the feeling other people are taking your ideas and giving nothing in return.

I am not claiming these are good reasons to violate GPL, but I would suggest they are probably more influential (consciously or not) on programmer decisions related to violating GPL.

I think #4 can be particularly influential, which is why I think anyone that publishes their source should be strongly respected for their contribution, independent of the conditions they put on use of their code.

-Sam

I notice that Fabien Letouzey has tried to turn commercial after publishing Fruit 2.1 under the GPL and that this attempt has apparently failed, or maybe did not yield the expected returns.

I also notice that he has almost disappeared of the field after that and has shown little interest of what happened to his own code.

I have contacted Fabien but still do not have any answer from him. I had been warned that it sometimes takes a long time for him to answer so I just hope he will answer some day.

I do not know what he thinks and do not know his motives for giving his copyright on Fruit to the FSF. I do not know why he left.

The points you have mentionned are very true and I'm wondering if he has been affected by any of them, or even all of them.

At this point I do not know. Also, I would not reveal what he thinks if he told me not to talk publicly about it.



// Christophe

I another thread someone has posted that he advised Fabien that he could not release a commercial, closed source version of Fruit. I was answering that this legal advice was wrong and that Fabien could have legally done that.

I do not know what happened, but when I submitted my post the message I was responding to had already been deleted. I can't remember the name of the poster and I'm wondering if he asked himself that his post should been removed or if something else happened. It's too bad because we have very few information about what happened to the commercial Fruit.



// Christophe

If I had released RomiChess under the GPL I might have the legal right to close the sources and go commercial, but I would never have done that. Yes, I posted that I thought that it was wrong for Fabien to have done so. A few days later I noticed that commercial Fruit was history. All I am saying is that Maybe Fabien agreed with me. Or it could just be coincidence.

I refrain to say the reason that my post was deleted.

You mean your post has been deleted because it was not acceptable?

I have seen nothing offensive in it... !?



// Christophe

Christophe, I didn't delete the post, but other mods stated that the post in question contained some allegation such as "Programmer X violated the GPL", with bold statement, near to the clone accusation, which is denied as per the Chris Whittington's sticky thread "Discussion is fine, libel not". The poster who made that post is welcome to rephrase the question without making a point that could be construed as an allegations against someone.

Regards.

I tried to keep this can of worms closed!

The mistake that Chris W. made is that it is common knowledge that X is releasing new versions of Y with out releasing the source. So, what I wrote was an interpetation and not an allegation that X is violating the GPL in doing so. How can it be an allegation when it is already common knowledge? So, I will rephrase.

It is my interpetation that Ryan is violating the GPL when he releases new versions of Fruit with out releasing the source.

Edit: I will add that I am glad that there are newer stronger versions of Fruit released by Ryan. And I am glad that he is not releasing the source. I think that the Fruit sources have done far more harm than they have done good!

Michael,

I emailed Ryan before doing any mod action and asked him. He stated "Fabien gave me full rights to a non-GPL version of Fruit. he claim is baseless and ridiculous". He also says if you have any problems with that to contact him.

That's a very clear statement from the programmer. We can do without any extensions of accusations of illegality over and above those we already have, especially when the existence of a full rights licence would appear to apply in this case.

Chris

[tiger]

I do not follow your logic. _I_ support the GPL, because it is a legal document, backed up by force of law. Just like patent laws. Copyright laws. I simply know that I should not copy someone else's work and then claim it to be my own. That if I copy it, I should have to abide by whatever requirements he established. He might want a royalty on copies. Happens all the time. He might say "you can have it, I don't care". Also happens. Or he might say "This is GPL. Do with it as you please, but whatever you do is also constrained by the GPL."

I can't, for the life of me, see why that would be considered difficult to understand. It isn't new. And I can't for the life of me understand how someone would think it was _their_ right to do whatever they want regardless of the GPL.

Look around Bob. You will see programmers who want to pick ideas or even blocks of code (and want to know how big a block is fair game) and users who want more free programs, only care about elo and do not care to defend authors.

They are here and have spoken: GPL? WTF, we don't care, can't be a derivative work, the elo speaks for itself, this discussion is over.

I have just realized how ridiculous we look with our code snippets. We were already at step 2 or 3. But many people quit at step 1. Oops.



// Christophe

I can add that another problem is that programmers may be afraid even to start their own program without breaking the GPL.

I will explain it.
It is logical to think that there are things that can be done only in one optimal way in a competitve chess program.

It means that different good programmers may get equivalent blocks independently and may be blamed on cloning.

The students of Hyatt do not get equivalent blocks but even they may think that this could be different in case that they were really good programmers.

Even if this thinking is wrong it can cause people to go out of game programming.

Uri

Sure Uri, copyright and GPL are bad because they are so frightening to young programmers.

Copyright is bad also because young musicians will be afraid of composing any music because of it.

Sure.



// Christophe

[Michael Sherwin]

- it prevents the advance of the human kind (wrong, its goal is the opposite)
- great people in the past could not have produced their masterpieces if the GPL had existed (wrong)
- the GPL prevents the re-use of ideas (wrong)
- the GPL is another tool for big companies to lock their market (completely wrong)
- the GPL is viral, it contamines all it touches (wrong, you can use it along proprietary stuff)
- the author should not have protected his work with the GPL (Huh?)
- maybe the GPL cannot be enforced legally anyway (wrong)
- the GPL is used to fulfill dark motives (no amount of good faith can counter this argument, use it ad nauseam)
.

Since most of this list is wrong (not that people do not use these arguments, just that they are invalid arguments) I will add a few that I think are more relevant to most programmers' decision on whether to violate GPL.


1. Obeying GPL makes it harder to make the best program in the world (taking other people's code makes it easier on you, and not giving back makes it harder on them)
2. Obeying GPL makes it harder to get credit for your success (people that write their own engine from scratch [or are perceived to have done so] seem to get more public credit).
3. Obeying GPL makes it harder to turn commercial should the program turn out to be strong enough.
4. When you publish your source it is annoying to have the feeling other people are taking your ideas and giving nothing in return.

I am not claiming these are good reasons to violate GPL, but I would suggest they are probably more influential (consciously or not) on programmer decisions related to violating GPL.

I think #4 can be particularly influential, which is why I think anyone that publishes their source should be strongly respected for their contribution, independent of the conditions they put on use of their code.

-Sam

I notice that Fabien Letouzey has tried to turn commercial after publishing Fruit 2.1 under the GPL and that this attempt has apparently failed, or maybe did not yield the expected returns.

I also notice that he has almost disappeared of the field after that and has shown little interest of what happened to his own code.

I have contacted Fabien but still do not have any answer from him. I had been warned that it sometimes takes a long time for him to answer so I just hope he will answer some day.

I do not know what he thinks and do not know his motives for giving his copyright on Fruit to the FSF. I do not know why he left.

The points you have mentionned are very true and I'm wondering if he has been affected by any of them, or even all of them.

At this point I do not know. Also, I would not reveal what he thinks if he told me not to talk publicly about it.



// Christophe

I another thread someone has posted that he advised Fabien that he could not release a commercial, closed source version of Fruit. I was answering that this legal advice was wrong and that Fabien could have legally done that.

I do not know what happened, but when I submitted my post the message I was responding to had already been deleted. I can't remember the name of the poster and I'm wondering if he asked himself that his post should been removed or if something else happened. It's too bad because we have very few information about what happened to the commercial Fruit.



// Christophe

If I had released RomiChess under the GPL I might have the legal right to close the sources and go commercial, but I would never have done that. Yes, I posted that I thought that it was wrong for Fabien to have done so. A few days later I noticed that commercial Fruit was history. All I am saying is that Maybe Fabien agreed with me. Or it could just be coincidence.

I refrain to say the reason that my post was deleted.

You mean your post has been deleted because it was not acceptable?

I have seen nothing offensive in it... !?



// Christophe

Christophe, I didn't delete the post, but other mods stated that the post in question contained some allegation such as "Programmer X violated the GPL", with bold statement, near to the clone accusation, which is denied as per the Chris Whittington's sticky thread "Discussion is fine, libel not". The poster who made that post is welcome to rephrase the question without making a point that could be construed as an allegations against someone.

Regards.

I tried to keep this can of worms closed!

The mistake that Chris W. made is that it is common knowledge that X is releasing new versions of Y with out releasing the source. So, what I wrote was an interpetation and not an allegation that X is violating the GPL in doing so. How can it be an allegation when it is already common knowledge? So, I will rephrase.

It is my interpetation that Ryan is violating the GPL when he releases new versions of Fruit with out releasing the source.

Edit: I will add that I am glad that there are newer stronger versions of Fruit released by Ryan. And I am glad that he is not releasing the source. I think that the Fruit sources have done far more harm than they have done good!

Michael,

I emailed Ryan before doing any mod action and asked him. He stated "Fabien gave me full rights to a non-GPL version of Fruit. he claim is baseless and ridiculous". He also says if you have any problems with that to contact him.

That's a very clear statement from the programmer. We can do without any extensions of accusations of illegality over and above those we already have, especially when the existence of a full rights licence would appear to apply in this case.

Chris

Well you just do not understand what I was really saying. That's okay as I am done anyway. Too bad nobody could debate the real issue that was my point. A good moralistic debate would have been fun. Tisk, tisk!

[mclane]

thanks anthony.

lets zappa !