CBC News Interprets GPL - Poorly

frankShook writes "The Canadian news service CBC has up an article entitled 'Linux distributors scorn Microsoft partnership'. Primarily, it looks to describe the ongoing licensing saga between Microsoft and Linux distributors. It also includes a highly unique interpretation of the GPL: 'Open-source software such as Linux, on the other hand, encourages individuals to add to or modify software without fear of legal repercussions, so long as they abide by the conditions of the general public license, which stipulates that the program must remain open and sharable.'"

I'm not too sure I follow...

[mr_mischief]

"encourages individuals to add to or modify software without fear of legal repercussions, so long as they abide by the conditions of the general public license, which stipulates that the program must remain open and sharable" sounds like a pretty reasonable shortened form of the intent of the GPL for lay people. I'm not sure one should expect a news article in the mainstream press to contain the text of the license or an entire treatise on how it came about and how it is applied.

uh

[Anonymous Coward]

A comparison between this and what it really is would make this post make a lot of sense to a lot of people who are sketchy on the details of the GPL themselves.

wrong name, but pretty accurate as these things go

[Anonymous Coward]

The called it the "general public license" instead of the "GNU Public License". And mixed open source, GNU, Linux, and Free Software all together. But as these types of articles go, it is better than average.

What's wrong with that?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's wrong with it? It glosses over a couple of things, but as a one-paragraph overview of the differences I'd say it's as close to perfect as you could get.

What it glosses over is that OSS is still protected by IP laws, but in a discussion like this it is the purpose of the license, not the machinery of it, that is going to get the attention. And it doesn't focus on distribution, but again, this is just an overview and distribution isn't a discussion that would mean much to their readers.

Re:I'm not too sure I follow...

[Wonko the Sane]

You're missing the point of this headline, which is to generate page views, not to be accurate.

Re:I'm not too sure I follow...

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the best neutral summarizations I've heard, actually.

Sounds reasonable to me

[rmdir -r *]

Linux is under the GPL, and that is an excellent high level interpretation of it. Yes, there are details- lots of open source software IS NOT under the GPL, for instance, and has different requirements- but it's reasonable, and the topic is Linux, not BSD.

What is so wrong, again? Why do we have editors?

Re:I'm not too sure I follow...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, and while it may be 'inaccurate', it is at least more accurate then the RIAA/MPAA saying that DRM "enables customer security with digital media products" allowing them to "not worry about whether their device will play the media license or not" by "preventing unauthorized players from entering the market and spoiling the reputation of legitimate digital works".

But really, its coverage that is pretty accurate, not perfect, but it summarizes the GPL well enough in one sentance, without going into all the legalize that causes the linux and the *bsd fanboys to start killing each other over.

Right idea

[4of11]

Sounds like a good summary of the goals of the GPL to me. Why should the average person care exactly how it implements its goals?

Re:I'm not too sure I follow...

[lawpoop]

Yeah really. Or maybe we should we have RMS do a half-hour rambling infomercial on the legal details of the GPL? That would help people understand the GPL better.

Huh?

[Titoxd]

Why is it "highly unique"? It sounds spot-on to me, as it captures the gist of it while being written in a lay language.

Sounds fine

[Anonymous Coward]

I think what they wrote is just fine. It was meant to be a simple explanation of the license, not a verbatim copy. Besides, if they could 100% accurately describe the whole license in one or two sentences, then the GPL would only be one or two sentences long to begin with.

Re:I'm not too sure I follow...

[WarJolt]

Anyone who would actually understand and appreciate the words that the GPL uses have probably already read it. They did a good job at dumbing it down.

Looky looky what's on the hooky

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I think what we have here is wank bait. But none are bitting.

Re:I'm not too sure I follow...

[Belacgod]

Sufficiently advanced malice is indistinguishable from stupidity.

I think the problematic part is

[rhendershot]

without fear of legal repercussions

as if modifying software were somehow inherently illegal, immoral, wrong, dangerous, something our legal system must take an especial interest in... and so on.

Re:CBC News = Repeat Offender

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, did you ever bother reading the CBC article for that "speed of light is broken" story? It's not really inaccurate or misleading in any way. Another interesting thing was that the story was from the year 2000. The fact that it was posted to slashdot only a few months back says a lot more about slashdot, not the CBC.

Inaccurate? Maybe if you misread it badly...

[Xenographic]

Just how is it inaccurate? The General Public License exists to protect the four freedoms of the software it covers [gnu.org]. It can't shield a person from all legal liability, of course, but I don't see any major inaccuracy. Are people reading that to say that the GPL shields one from all liability? That would be a horrible misreading of the article, not an inaccuracy. The GPL most certainly does shield people from legal liability for copyright infringement when modifying the software. You know, that whole clause in the GPL that says "You are not required to agree to anything to merely use software which is licensed under the GPL. You only have obligations if you modify or distribute" and the fact that the GPL works because modification and distribution would be copyright infringement without the permission granted by the GPL?

That's right. The GPL shields you against copyright infringement claims by the GPL'd software's authors so long as you follow the rules of the GPL. It's the very source of the GPL's power; without it the GPL could not be enforced. Anyone who doesn't understand that that is how the GPL works doesn't know a damn thing about the GPL or copyright law. Which is probably why we're seeing this article here on Slashdot, huh?

Slashdot's summary more misleading

[jorghis]

Come on, you are complaining about how they left out all the exceptions and nuances of it? Do you seriously expect them to just regurgitate the entire thing? The basic spirit of it is captured pretty well in that one sentence which is far better than the summary I just read here on Slashdot. I cant even begin to count the number of times I have read a summary on here which was horribly misleading or flat out false. I think this is a pretty classis case of the pot implying that the kettle could be a little less black.

Nit picking?

[james_moriarty]

Meh, that's close enough. It conveys the spirit of GPL, even if it confuses a couple of things. The GPL is generally a difficult thing to explain to others.

Re:Well, it may be inaccurate...

[Enselic]

Indeed, and besides, they are not explaining it to lawyers, so it does not really need to be juridically accurate as long as their explanation captures the basic spirit of the GPL, which it did.

the submitter

[Anonymous Coward]

I read the article and can't see any glaringly obvious discrepancies with the basic nature of the gpl. I think the submitter read it wrong or something, and mr. zonk went along with it.

Mucho weirdness.

Re:I'm not too sure I follow...

[quantaman]

Actually no, the original article contains the word "the" before the word "software". This is a transcription error on the part of the submitter (unless they went and corrected the article without changing the update time).

How is leaving out "the" a transcription error? It's a 45 word exert, no one is going to type it you just copy+paste the text. If the "the" was in the original article at the time of citing there really aren't many plausible explanations other than trying to distort the meaning. Of course fact that the distortion isn't very misleading makes me believe there was no "the" in the original text.

However, even if the "the" was missing my reading of the sentence still leaves the possibility that the software they're talking about is only software under the GPL. True the meaning is more ambiguous but that doesn't mean you get to assign the wrong meaning then blame the writer for the wrong meaning.

Regardless it always bugs me how /. can have grossly misleading titles and summaries that stay on the front page forever. The comments often clear it up unanimously but the majority of readers will probably never read the comments and will come away with bad facts. I think there needs to be some kind of system whereby commenters can update headlines and summaries which are bad since the editors don't necessarily read the comments for every story. Any ideas how to do this effectively? (I think a wiki would be far too susceptible to vandalism).

Side effects of cults

[suv4x4]

This is typical for cult-like psychology. You want to convince everyone that your technology/company/whatever is the best thing since sliced bread, eat you (consciously or not) attack any attempt from "the rest of the world" to adopt said technology.

A big part of the value of being in a cult is that it's exclusive. We're the smart guys, the "guys who get it". The rest of the world doesn't get it, and their attempts to "get it" are laughable and worthy of mocking at.

Except of course, the biggest fanatics usually know less on the matter than people with more objective opinions.

CBC is generally open source friendly

[codemachine]

I remember a while back that they had tested and recommended mplayer for some of their streaming. Of course they still use Real in places too, but at least there is a Linux client for Real. And I've never had problems with their site in any browser, so I have to think they are making sure it is cross platform.

I'm not sure it was very helpful to have some random contributor bash their explanation of the GPL, especially considering it wasn't all that bad of an explanation considering the intended audience. The fact that CBC is even reporting on the Linux distros that are resisting the shady MS patent deals is a pleasant surprise.

So how about "Thank You CBC" instead of "lets publish an "article" which nitpicks and pokes fun of CBC".

Re:Well, it may be inaccurate...

[aminorex]

Amen. Kudos to the CBC for the best damn 1-sentence explanation of Free Software in the history of journalism!

I think it's pretty accurate.

[PetoskeyGuy]

I think it's perfect. They summarized the GPL into a single sentence. Anyone who is going to use / distribute GPL software will run into the GPL in more detail. What's more annoying is that it's actually a decent article discussing Microsoft / Linux patent deals and somehow everyone is blathering on about how unhappy they are with a single sentence halfway through the article instead of perhaps... discussing the article itself.

The CBC is disucssing Microsoft and Linux in the same page and they sound like equals. This should be a Good Thing.

Re:the submitter

[Anonymous Coward]

That or the author is an elitist prick who considers any type of putting things in simple terms as "dumbing down 4 teh n00bz".