John Terpstra on Challenges to Free Software 112
Telex4 writes "Anyone who has read John Terpstra's article on Groklaw about Intellectual Property (IP) rights will be interested to read an interview I did recently with John at KDE's World Summit. We talked about what IP means to the free software community, how we can drive GNU/Linux adoption, and how he thinks the IT market will change in coming years. He gives us a lot to think about in terms of what more we should be doing."
Change (Score:5, Interesting)
Are we supposed to impose change on others? Is it just me, or are the most sweeping changes just gradually accepted - especially when current ideas need to be totally re-thought (i.e. Open vs. Closed Source)?
Re:Change (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Change (Score:3, Insightful)
There is really only ONE challenge to free softwar (Score:4, Funny)
Software that pays me to use it. Other than that, I'll stick with the free stuff.
The First Person (Score:5, Funny)
-Peter
Re:The First Person (Score:4, Funny)
Re:The First Person (Score:3, Funny)
Re:The First Person (Score:1)
-Peter
Re:The First Person (Score:5, Interesting)
While there is much overlap, at least compared to proprietary, being aware of the significant differences between Free Software, Open Source Software, and Shared Source software.
Re:The First Person (Score:1)
IP out of hand (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:IP out of hand (Score:1, Funny)
My Rolls Royce can be more expensive than your Toyota.
Re:IP out of hand (Score:2)
Re:IP out of hand (Score:2)
Why don't you patent those common sense things that haven't been patented yet and not charge any royalties for their use?
trending toward open (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:trending toward open (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:trending toward open (Score:2)
Change at least when it comes to saying No to licensing costs, vendor lockin, and proprietary IP encumbered technologies is happening at a pretty good clip in the business world. Large business are Very much aware of the benefits to OSS and that has in turn filtered down to the SMB. OSS has become hugely popu
FLOSS like the enlightenment/reformation (Score:5, Interesting)
Terpstra's comparison of FLOSS to the Enlightenment and Reformation and of the negative reaction on the part of parts of the software and media industries to the reaction of the Church is interesting and I think well taken. We should remember that some countries in effect have still to undergo the Englightenment, that even in countries that did, many people remain who hold irrational and antiscientific views, and that in some countries the Counter-reformation was successful. The FLOSS movement is important for freedom and for technological progress, but precisely because it is important, its opponents will work hard to suppress it, and they may succeed.
Re:FLOSS like the enlightenment/reformation (Score:2)
Some countries are even undergoing an Unenglightenment. Sadly and very dangerously, USA is in that process with it's corporate controlled media that are essensially mouthpieces for state propaganda. Just look at the Bush administration long string of l
Re:FLOSS like the enlightenment/reformation (Score:2)
Re:FLOSS like the enlightenment/reformation (Score:1)
As a libertarian I have absolutely nothing against big business. But a public corporation cannot exist without government privilege, and are antithetical to the free market.
Warez (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Warez (Score:5, Insightful)
100%. But then I learned that taking things without permission is wrong when I was in preschool.
Re:Warez (Score:3, Funny)
Sorry, couldn't resist. This is Slashdot, after all.
Re:Warez (Score:2)
Let me rephrase. 100% of the time I payed what the vendor or author asked.
Re:Warez (Score:2, Insightful)
That's where I see Free Software fitting in. Eventually everybody is going to get tired of all bending over we do. It's already started happe
Re:Warez (Score:4, Insightful)
Then you dont buy the software. However you ALSO dont pirate it. If someone is charging more then you want to pay for a service you are not entitled to the service without payment. Seems rahter simple to me.
Re:Warez (Score:1)
I never said you should go out and pirate anything. I don't have a single piece of pirated software on my PC at home. If I can't find a comparable piece of free software, I will buy it if I need. I'm not always estatic with free/open source solutions, but I can always try and contribute back to make th
This also goes for (Score:2)
Re:Warez (Score:1, Funny)
> 100%.
+1 Funny
Re:Warez (Score:2)
I learned that taking things without permission is wrong when I was in preschool.
Even before preschool, I was taught to share. It's a key part of what makes us civilised human beings. Note that it's not the *taking* of things without permission that's wrong, it's the *depriving* another of something they have. If this truly is to be an "ownership society" in the information age, we need to recognise the fundamental difference between tangible property and information.
Re:Warez (Score:2)
What I learned has served me well. (Score:2)
I learned that denying people an inherently sharable commodity was hoarding and selfish. So when I brought something to school, I had to bring enough to share. Later when I learned about computers, I learned that it's unusual to "take" data; typically data is copied, not moved, from one computer to another. Still later, when I read more about the history of various media businesses, I learned that they got started doing what today they call "piracy" [montana.edu] (even though, ironically, that term in the illicit copy
Re:Warez (Score:2)
The key point of the AC was that crackable software may be a capitalistic strategy. This is certainly possible and I have seen nothing to indicate otherwise. Humans go for the cheap the world over (as you implied here 10092606 [slashdot.org]). I don't think we're the only one's who have noticed.
Re:Warez (Score:1)
Re:Warez (Score:2)
I have first hand experience that piracy DOES effect [sic]the software developer
Oh, you're a sailor are you? Either that, or you're just demonstrating the kind of simplistic thinking [gnu.org] that tries to use pejorative language to muddy the issues.
Your mistake (Score:2)
If you had millions of users, then you could easily sell ad-space for your download site, and make some decent money as well, just from a few thousands hits per day.
In conclusion, if you had chosen to release your software with the public's good in mind (GPL) instead of only your own, you would end up bette
Re:Your mistake (Score:1)
Isn't that just a little naive? You imply that if he thought of the public's good they in turn would think of him in kind, but that is patently false and everyone knows it. Most people, even most people here on
Re:Your mistake (Score:2)
Release of Free Software attracts far more contributors that contribute back
Free Software is thus greater valued and attracs more hits for your site - allowing selling of ad-space
The attention raised by Free Software pays back with job offers and more likeliness of monetary contributions (Which do happen, ask the larger/more successful sourceforge projects).
Re:Your mistake (Score:1)
95% of the public doesn't code. If you meant to say "contributors" (ie, other developers) instead of "the public", then I'll agree with that.
Copying and taking (Score:2)
All my life I have learned that copying is very useful and mostly good. I don't think copying should require permission, and therefore I don't wait for it
Re:Warez (Score:1)
Re:Warez (Score:2)
I don't have any cracked software on my wife's Windows 2000 Pro machine, including the OS itself. And the games I play there I've either paid for, or are open source (NetHack, mainly).
My guess that you are just a leach. When was the last ti
Re:Warez (Score:1)
Second, free software isn't just for *nix. My Windows partition is well stocked with FS/OSS software for the ultimate in cross platform compatibility. Pirating MS Office makes less sense when OpenOffice is freely available legally
Re:Warez (Score:1)
Good thing you qualified that statement with "crap", otherwise I'd have to assume that you meant ALL games are a waste of time, which is fucking narrow-minded, elitist viewpoint.
"Wasting" time doing something that makes YOU happy -like playing "crappy" games- is NOT wasted time. Every waking moment of your life doesn't have to be spent alternating between being a productive citizen and 'good wholesome traditional family
Re:Warez (Score:1)
Which I did.
The dozen or three hours a week I spend playing good games (computer or otherwise) are a delight and ain't nobody's business but my own.
KFG
Re:Warez (Score:1)
Re:Warez (Score:2)
Just as you describe, warez feeds addictions to proprietary software. And I do not think propreitary (shrinkwrapped) is healthy for the industry in the long-term.
If the same effort had instead been spent on a Software Libre replacement, we could have had more free (monetary cost) AND legal alternatives.
Re:Warez (Score:2)
Currently? ^ 100%. Just because I don't think it is worth it doesn't mean that I feel justified in taking it.
That said, I do make one exception;
I've had people give me audio CDs and DVDs too...I take them, not to insult the person, and
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The Passing of Ideas (Score:2, Interesting)
Ideas don't pass so much like candle flames as virii. There are sometimes mutations (for better or worse) as they pass from host to host. Current IP law seems pretty messed up in that one can patent a mutation of an already
Re:The Passing of Ideas (Score:3, Funny)
Re:The Passing of Ideas (Score:1)
Only when they afflict VMS systems...
Re:We Need New (GNU?) Vocabulary (Score:1, Informative)
Re:We Need New (GNU?) Vocabulary (Score:1)
To be property, it has to have the ability to be owned, possessed, controlled.
Well then, since ideas can no longer be "controlled" because of the web, then I guess by your own definition that there is no such thing as "intellectual Property".
:)
Re:We Need New (GNU?) Vocabulary (Score:2)
Of course, calling people who break into computers "crackers" has also been proposed, and we all know how successful that's been.
Re:We Need New (GNU?) Vocabulary (Score:3, Insightful)
Every playright a Shakespeare and every poet a Dante. Not in the real world.
Re:We Need New (GNU?) Vocabulary (Score:2)
I thought that was just a question of enough bananas [faqs.org], dude!
Re:We Need New (GNU?) Vocabulary (Score:2)
But I'm sure there's no way you could have figured that out on your own.
Re:We Need New (GNU?) Vocabulary (Score:2)
If you think this is nonsense, then consider that EULAs are *not* based on copyright law, but on contract law. Copyright law could be abolished tomorrow and every EULA in the land would still be valid.
Re:We Need New (GNU?) Vocabulary (Score:1, Insightful)
EULAs are based entirely on legal handwaving and wishful thinking. The fact that an EULA gives you no consideration at all, just a subset of rights you already have [cornell.edu] as the owner of a shiny plastic disc, is enough to prove that. Never mind the many ways they blatantly defy the Fair Use, First Sale, and Idea/Expression doctrines of copyright law.
Think about it. If you, as the owner of a CD, have no right to load and execute the contents of that CD on your computer, then how could you ever legally run set
Re:We Need New (GNU?) Vocabulary (Score:1)
It's not a matter of belief, I ignore EULAs all the time.
I don't even read them.
I think you would have a hard time enforcing a contract that I haven't read, haven't signed, and that gives me nothing in return.
My view is that my use of the software is governed by the terms of the sale, as agreed in advance of the sale, and the current law of the land.
When they start presenting a EULA and demanding you READ and SIGN it before
Re:We Need New (GNU?) Vocabulary (Score:2)
I know this, you know this, and even they know this -- but the fact is that those with the most money & power, or aspirations for such, want to treat information as an artificially scarce 'thing' because there's more profit to be had in controlling an infinite "supply" of VERY OLD WORK.
Assume for a moment that everyone on earth had EVERY need and want in their lives taken care of (by nanotech, AI, robots, spacehab, virtual realestate, whatever) ... do
Re:We Need New (GNU?) Vocabulary (Score:2)
Let me see if I understand: IP shouldn't have the same protections as physical property because it cannot be made scarce? OK? Did I understand what you meant?
I have a ranch which sits on top of easily extractable oil. I have a small, portable refinery that I built which produces gasoline/diesel etc from that oil for my own use. I have no intention of sell
Re:We Need New (GNU?) Vocabulary (Score:2)
Tangible: By chance, you happen to have discovered (and bought the additional mineral rights to) a high concentration of STILL PHYSICALLY SCARCE energy in the form of HydroCarbons under your government-protected 3D wedge of the Earth. Putting aside the fairness of dogeatdog "finders, keepers!" hoarding, you have the right to own it ALL in a capitalist society.
Intangible: The molecular structure of "your" hydrocarbons. You can't claim to own C3H8 for example. You can't even claim
Okay, I'll try to answer... (Score:2)
Yes. In economic parlance, it's not an excludable good.
No, that analogy is flawed, for t
So why should I create new ideas for free? (Score:2)
I'm not speaking hypothetically. I've put a fair amount of non-trivial ideas in the public domain so far and it has not done me a bit of good.
John needs to rethink what will reshape the market (Score:5, Insightful)
"The two most important strategies we must adopt are to encourage and adhere to open standards, which undermine big IP oriented business' ability to monopolise and dominate the marketplace.
I think John misses the point over what makes some companies dominate and why open source won't help small business.
John doesn't have the same defintion of domination and the definition of "fundamental reshaping" as everyone else. Open source software has been VERY successful in the building blocks of software. GNU/Linux as an operating system; Eclipse as an IDE, MySQL as a database.
However, there are niche applications where the open source investment will be slow, painful, and probably not pan out. If you think open source will unseat AutoCAD, don't hold your breath. It may happen, but it won't be this decade. And Adobe Photoshop STILL dominates in image processing, even though GIMP is rather useful.
Domination (especially due to IP) is also a relative term. Microsoft can be seen to dominate the OS and "office" market today; those are prime targets of OS software. But IBM has a huge IP portfolio - is one of the large companies 'appear[ing] to support open source' and yet has a lot less to lose (on a relative scale to Microsoft). Even if IBM's software group (DB2, Lotus Notes, et al.) took it in the teeth from open source, is that going to have a (negative) impact on IBM Global Services? Will it not be the same dominating behemoth it is today?
The "fundamental reshaping" of the market will come when technology becomes pervasive, reliable, and easy enough to use that the Fortune 500 doesn't NEED to call IBM Global Services any more. Until then, someone has to put everything together, and open source reducing the procurement cost isn't going to change that. Solve the reliability and ease of use problems for small business and you WILL win in the marketplace - whether or not you're open source.
John Terpstra is a dork (Score:1, Interesting)
publishes in his own name, a book that is just the Samba-Unofficial-HOWTO. Did he give the royalties to the samba team that made the howto possible or pocket the cash?
I believe this man also had a long history as a SCO employee and would not be surprised if he still worked for them.
Get your facts right! (Score:2, Informative)
It is not called the "Samba-Unofficial-HOWTO". Its name is "The Official Samba-3 HOWTO Collection and Reference Guide".
John didnt "publish" it. It was Prentice-Hall PTR [vernstok.nl] who published it (ISBN: 0-13-145355-6) as a printed book at first.
John didnt do this "in his own name". He acted, alongside Jelmer R. Vernooij as one of two editors. And both their role as editors is clearly named on the envolope and inside the printed book.
John and Jelmer acted with the consent of the Samba Team when doing this work.
Re:John Terpstra is a dork (Score:2)
I make money supporting and developing for SQL Server -- but I don't give any money to Microsoft. Guess I'm not worthy of respect. This guy did a ton of work with Samba, read some documentation that already existed, and wrote a farily comprehensive guide to getting Samba set up in a business environment. He deserved to be compensated for his work.
Now, I agree it would be admirable of him to donate at least s
Re:John Terpstra is a dork (Score:1)
I know this is slashdot where no one reads the articles, but at least if you were going to smear a guy read the first couple pages of his work.
He is listed as an editor of TOSHARG, first of all, and did a huge amount of work adding content and making the thing into a book instead of just a bunch of HOWTO pages. In addition the entire contents of the book is available from samba.org, you idiot.
Not only is The Official Samba HOWTO and Reference Guide available from
Re:John Terpstra is a dork (Score:1)
If you look at the Samba users list you will find he has helped a number of people with there problems.
Plus the last time I looked, it was the Official-Samba-Howto and he was the author.
I do not besmirch Terpstra for any amount of money he made on those books. Even the copies I bought. This is one of the thankless and difficult tasks involved in computer applications, dealing with the users.
Re:John Terpstra is a dork (Score:1)
John Terpstra working for SCO is the most rediculous thing I've ever heard of. Did you foget that Samba shot back at SCO [theinquirer.net] for being such pricks and hypocrites?
Yeah I wanna fight. (Score:4, Insightful)
I'll be happy to take a swing at this one. Actually, it might not be a swing though. I guess you could call it a duck, but it's still a fight tactic. My position would be that a replacement term is unnecessary.
This sounds a lot like the argument that without copyright law there would be no GPL. Just because that is true does not make it meaningful. It's quite a silly thing to say. Yes, it's true that without copyright law there would be no GPL, but without a copyright there would be no need for a GPL.
So, this mission to find a replacement term for intellectual property is totally unnecessary. You can call an idea, an idea. Likewise you can call software, software. There's no need to come up with a replacement for the phrase "intellectual property."
Re:Yeah I wanna fight. (Score:2)
Some parts of the article are BS.
From the article: "The consequences of intellectual property action" laments how IP protection will drive the technology out of the U.S.
If anything, the consequences of intellectual property action is that everyone will start using OSS _sooner_than they would otherwise - for example, in countries without IP protection people use Windows for free, so there's less incentive to change.
Commercial software developer
Great. (Score:4, Interesting)
I think that a lot of businesses still want local support and get frustrated with "national based support" and are not making the switch because there is not much local support for Linux.
With the opening up our support business, I'm going to put together some information on how other businesses can get started on this. A central respository for everyone on how to get an OSS/Linux support business going would be really helpful to OSS.
Anyone else interested?
Re:Great. (Score:1)
Re:Great. (Score:1)
Difference in Goals vs. Lack of Goals (Score:2, Insightful)
It's interesting that what John perceives as a lack of focus I perceive as merely a more diffuse / different focus. John speaks as if the goal of FOSS is business adoption and we're not doing a very good job. I question the first premise.
One of the things that makes FOSS so good is that the only people who code it are people with a need for, and thus an understanding of, a specific solution for a specific problem. Linux is not in the business of telling businesses what they need and then providing it.
Re:Difference in Goals vs. Lack of Goals (Score:2)
Make it easy to migrate (Score:4, Interesting)
How about we start with migration of Win NT domain controllers to Samba domain controllers.
For over 2 years I have held off on upgrading our NT Servers to 2000 or 2003 Servers in hopes that we could migrate to Samba.
But I have yet seen a simplification of these migration path, unless you use roaming profiles. I don't know that many places where roaming profiles are utilized.
And in a small to medium size business where there are 25 to 100 computers, transfering profiles and file permissions can be very time comsuming and expensive.
To take Mr Terpstra's example of an Access database, I would rather do that, Oh wait, I already did that, but it was actually a SQL Server to PostgreSQL.
So I'm still waiting for a reasonable migration path from NT Server to Samba.
Re:Make it easy to migrate (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Make it easy to migrate (Score:1)
We might, but one of the objectives here is to save money. Consultants can be expensive.
Haven't seen a hell of a lot of consultants around here with much linux experience anyway
The other problem is that there are 2 people in house that could migrate from Nt to 2000,2003.
I think that the Owner may wonder why we are using software that doesn't appear to have in house expertise or requires outside support.
Re:Make it easy to migrate (Score:3, Informative)
NT-Samba Migration (Score:3, Informative)
I've done a few of these. Migrating ACL's and file data is easy -- NT Server does have support for POSIX ACL's, and MS-based ACL's can be converted to POSIX by both Samba and NT.
The only difficulty is cloning user data, which is incredibly simple if your PDC handles all user/group info. Samba can authenticate (and replicate) LDAP or even native NT directory information. If you move to Samba as a PDC, you replicate userdata
Re:NT-Samba Migration (Score:1)
SCO (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:SCO (Score:1)
He worked for SCO when it was still a good company and parted ways with them when it became apparent that it was no longer one.
Now let's see if I can get the facts right... but the job he did when he was at SCO was in large part an open source evangelist. So you can see why he did not exactly fit in with the current management.
Anyway, he is one of the good guys, and you are a tool for posting a smear anonymously and so is whoever modded you interesting.
IP laws and ordinary people (Score:1)
Re:IP laws and ordinary people (Score:2)
People are accustomed to paying for goods and services and most expect a measure of distrust when anything of value changes hands. But that is part of the marketplace, part of the game, and they do not take it personally.
Re: IP laws might even give FOSS a boost (Score:2)
IP law is accepted by the public, because a) in many cases, they aren't/can't be fully enforced (example: warez/MP3), or b) the net effect is perceived as small, non-significant (like in the media player/music/movie content business).
Free/Open Source remains largely 'under the r
One way to change things... (Score:2, Insightful)
So, what's the best way for a grass-roots effort to bring this sad situation to the forefront, so that it can't be ignored? How about overwhelming the Patent Office even more?
That is, bring to Joe Sixpack's attention that he too can make big bucks via Patents - but in a way akin to the Internet Domain Name Rush of the late nineties.
Teach people the process in a simplified
What to call IP? (Score:2)
Um, how about we call