Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

SteamOS Didn't Use Ubuntu Over Legal Issues

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • #61
    Originally posted by ninez View Post
    I'm not sure that i would consider the NSA/US Govt dumping $80 million USD for R&D of a Quantum computer tailored for cracking most (if not all) current available encryption, would fall into the category of them all being "script kiddies";
    That's probably why it explicitly says "all entities but some entities"...

    Comment


    • #62
      Originally posted by dee. View Post
      The problem is that Canonical now wants to use these license terms to dictate what Mint can and cannot do, mostly in relation to the OEM market. They want to prevent Mint from competing against Canonical for the same OEM partners. This is problematic and against the GPL license. The GPL explicitly forbids adding these kinds of restrictions to GPL-licensed software.
      No, Canonical is perfectly fine in locking their compiled files behind a pay wall or legal wall. The only thing the GPL forces them to do is to provide the source openly. They don't have to provide access to compiled binaries. See RHEL who has locked all their binary packages behind a pay wall.

      Comment


      • #63
        Originally posted by rhavenn View Post
        No, Canonical is perfectly fine in locking their compiled files behind a pay wall or legal wall. The only thing the GPL forces them to do is to provide the source openly. They don't have to provide access to compiled binaries. See RHEL who has locked all their binary packages behind a pay wall.
        No they are not simply locking them up behind a paywell, which indeed would have been valid and much like what RedHat does. They are instead telling Mint where they can and cannot re-distribute the files that they do receive, which is NOT legally permitted by the GNU GPL. RedHat does NOT tell it's customers what they can and cannot do with the software they receive, which markets they may use RHEL in for their own products and services, etc.

        Comment


        • #64
          Originally posted by dyfet View Post
          No they are not simply locking them up behind a paywell, which indeed would have been valid and much like what RedHat does. They are instead telling Mint where they can and cannot re-distribute the files that they do receive, which is NOT legally permitted by the GNU GPL. RedHat does NOT tell it's customers what they can and cannot do with the software they receive, which markets they may use RHEL in for their own products and services, etc.
          Do you have a link to the content of the negotiations between Canonical and Mint? Or do you just guess that it is this way?

          Comment


          • #65
            Originally posted by Vim_User View Post
            Do you have a link to the content of the negotiations between Canonical and Mint? Or do you just guess that it is this way?


            "...An e-mail to the Linux Mint project asking for details yielded much better results. Clement Lefebvre responded the following day and, while he wasn't able to go into specific details as talks with Canonical are still on-going, he was able to share a few pieces of information. When asked if Canonical was hoping to collect a fee for using their binary packages, Clem responded, "Money isn't a primary concern. Although the original fee was in the hundreds of thousands pounds, it was easily reduced to a single digit figure. The licensing aims at restricting what Mint can and cannot do, mostly in relation to the OEM market, to prevent Mint from competing with Canonical in front of the same commercial partners..."

            Comment


            • #66
              A direct link...

              Originally posted by Vim_User View Post
              Do you have a link to the content of the negotiations between Canonical and Mint? Or do you just guess that it is this way?


              "...An e-mail to the Linux Mint project asking for details yielded much better results. Clement Lefebvre responded the following day and, while he wasn't able to go into specific details as talks with Canonical are still on-going, he was able to share a few pieces of information. When asked if Canonical was hoping to collect a fee for using their binary packages, Clem responded, "Money isn't a primary concern. Although the original fee was in the hundreds of thousands pounds, it was easily reduced to a single digit figure. The licensing aims at restricting what Mint can and cannot do, mostly in relation to the OEM market, to prevent Mint from competing with Canonical in front of the same commercial partners..."

              Comment


              • #67
                Wow, that's quite low of them. If OEMs want to use Mint over Ubuntu, Canonical should be happy, because otherwise OEMs might decide to use openSUSE or Fedora instead, or just not bother at all and use Windows. Canoncial is just doing everyone a disservice here.

                Comment


                • #68
                  Originally posted by dyfet View Post
                  http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20131209#qa

                  "...An e-mail to the Linux Mint project asking for details yielded much better results. Clement Lefebvre responded the following day and, while he wasn't able to go into specific details as talks with Canonical are still on-going, he was able to share a few pieces of information. When asked if Canonical was hoping to collect a fee for using their binary packages, Clem responded, "Money isn't a primary concern. Although the original fee was in the hundreds of thousands pounds, it was easily reduced to a single digit figure. The licensing aims at restricting what Mint can and cannot do, mostly in relation to the OEM market, to prevent Mint from competing with Canonical in front of the same commercial partners..."
                  Thanks. Now the real question is how Canonicals's lawyers have phrased their demand. If they tell Mint that they don't want the binaries to be used against them in the OEM market that would indeed be against the GPL. But I doubt that they are that dumb. It is much easier to do that in a different way: They restrict Mint's access to the binary servers, which is totally fine with the GPL. Canonical could say: We deliver you the service of building and storing binaries provided you don't compete in the OEM market against us. BAM, no GPL violation, since the binaries aren't even the subject, but the service is.

                  Comment


                  • #69
                    Yes, I DO check for bugs other than in computers!

                    Originally posted by smitty3268 View Post
                    Do you always check the bottom of your vehicle for attached tracking devices every time you use it? Because if you're really a target, not keeping a smartphone around is really nothing. It'd be childs play to stick a listening device in the walls of your residence.
                    I check cars often-and never drive them someplace that needs to be deniable due to automated tag readers. I do all my own work, used to play with hot-rodded cars until the global warming mess. I think they understand an addition to my car is about as smart as something plugged into the back of my big desktop and just as likely to be found. When I go anywhere that counts, I go by bicycle, good luck hiding a tracker on that.

                    I do not host meetings at my house, and do check places where power is available for running long-term bugging devices or any of the simple, obvious tricks. They never got into the machine they stole from me in a 2008 raid timed to miss me, so I must be doing something right. Any battery powered bugs planted then have long since died, and I've checked the power leads for AC-powered additions. Still, you never meet in a place the pigs have been inside. The few pinholes in the walls of the only room that counts have been individually probed with wires for any objects behind them. There are no fixtures on the ceiling at all, ruling out an otherwise excellent place to hide a camera. I don't even have a computer in the same ROOM now that the one stolen in the raid was in. Air vents were checked, even though those are a truly useless place to hide audio mics. Nothing's perfect, but the more you make them work, the less they can do. That's how all this kind of tradecraft works.

                    In my neighborhood the listening post would have to be a long way away, meaning with my experience with RF devices they would risk getting caught by signal strength showing up one some piece of my equipment or another. A captured bug I would raise a huge stink about, probably auctioning it. There was a case where some alleged ALF activists found a crude GPS tracker nearly a foot long on their car, and got either $1,500 or $3,000 (I forget which) for it on Ebay. No raid ensued after the debugging.

                    Comment


                    • #70
                      Originally posted by rhavenn View Post
                      No, Canonical is perfectly fine in locking their compiled files behind a pay wall or legal wall. The only thing the GPL forces them to do is to provide the source openly. They don't have to provide access to compiled binaries. See RHEL who has locked all their binary packages behind a pay wall.
                      Pay wall, yes, but they are not allowed to dictate to anyone who does get access to those binaries, what they are allowed to do with the binaries.

                      If they only wanted money in compensation for the distribution of the binaries, or the usage of the repositories, there would be no problem (legally, at least). But placing additional restrictions on the usage of those binaries is forbidden by the GPL.

                      Comment

                      Working...
                      X