Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Mark Shuttleworth Declares Mir A Performance Win

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

  • Originally posted by mrugiero View Post
    Have to agree with that. However, Canonical (and only Canonical, except in the case all of the contributors agree on that) can sublicense, which is additionally release the software under another license, but this is not retroactive. The consequence would be that they can make closed derivatives, while nobody else can (the only difference with having it under the MIT license is that the latter allows anyone to do the same thing).
    There is another risk with MIT licence: it doesn't address patents, so if a single company (Samsung, LG whoever) gets a patent that covers the display server, then they - and only they - can produce a closed source version. People keep saying that the Wayland licence enforces equality, but it doesn't even attempt to address the big problem of patents. Even disregarding the patent issue, if a company does make a successful closed source fork, then they can build upon that fork, because it is now owned by them. No other company will be allowed to use that fork in their own product. Equality ceases for forks and patents, whereas the GPL3 ensures that equality extends to forks and patented versions.

    Comment


    • Originally posted by chrisb View Post
      There is another risk with MIT licence: it doesn't address patents, so if a single company (Samsung, LG whoever) gets a patent that covers the display server, then they - and only they - can produce a closed source version. People keep saying that the Wayland licence enforces equality, but it doesn't even attempt to address the big problem of patents. Even disregarding the patent issue, if a company does make a successful closed source fork, then they can build upon that fork, because it is now owned by them. No other company will be allowed to use that fork in their own product. Equality ceases for forks and patents, whereas the GPL3 ensures that equality extends to forks and patented versions.
      The difference is everybody is equally able to make closed forks with the MIT license, while only Canonical can make closed forks MIR.

      Comment


      • Originally posted by TheBlackCat View Post
        everybody is equally able to make closed forks with the MIT license
        No, if some company has a patent that covers the display server, then they will be the only ones that can make a closed fork. MIT does not require patent disclosure or licensing.

        Comment


        • Originally posted by chrisb View Post
          There is another risk with MIT licence: it doesn't address patents, so if a single company (Samsung, LG whoever) gets a patent that covers the display server, then they - and only they - can produce a closed source version. People keep saying that the Wayland licence enforces equality, but it doesn't even attempt to address the big problem of patents. Even disregarding the patent issue, if a company does make a successful closed source fork, then they can build upon that fork, because it is now owned by them. No other company will be allowed to use that fork in their own product. Equality ceases for forks and patents, whereas the GPL3 ensures that equality extends to forks and patented versions.
          GPL3 doesn't address patents the contributors do not own. Why? Because it's simply not above patents law. It's just a contract between the programmers and everyone else, so it only address patents that the contributors own, which they can actually promise not to sue you for using in that piece of software or derivatives. If Samsung owns a patent for something used in Mir, they keep the rights on it, because the code was contributed by Canonical, not by Samsung.
          GPL3 ensures the equality you name if and only if it's by itself, but it's not in the case of Mir. Canonical is still the only one with rights to relicense thanks to the CLA, and they do not even need patents to do so (which means they don't even need to think of something original). Compare a risk of using something patented against the security that one have that Canonical is the only one able to do closed source derivatives.

          Comment


          • Originally posted by chrisb View Post
            No, if some company has a patent that covers the display server, then they will be the only ones that can make a closed fork. MIT does not require patent disclosure or licensing.
            How could someone patent a wayland display server? Wouldn't it be prior art?

            Comment


            • Originally posted by blackout23 View Post
              How could someone patent a wayland display server? Wouldn't it be prior art?
              That for a start. But still, it could use some patented technology. However, if it does it's not just that the only one able to make a closed source derivative would be the patent holder, it will actually be the only one allowed to distribute binaries. And that would happen with GPL3, too, if the one committing the patented work is not the patent holder. Again, because you can not give away something you don't own, and the contract (GPL3 license) wasn't signed by the holder, but from a random individual for all patents laws care. The only difference would be nobody could provide the closed derivatives in that way (because the only one able to because of the license is unable to, because of the patents), but the patent holder would still be able to sue or to be the only one distributing binaries.

              EDIT: Also, if a patented tech is used, one could just strip the code using it and do it a different way. You can also decide to reject a patch based on the fact it used patented bits, or even make them sign an agreement where use within the project of your patented work is royalty free for both forking, source distribution and binary distribution. The same way you can add clauses to any license, you can add clauses about contributing patented work. The simplest solution is to just reject patches with patented algorithms.
              Last edited by mrugiero; 13 July 2013, 12:48 PM.

              Comment


              • Mir is A Performance Win look how well it work's on AMD or Nvidia OpenSource Driver's Thank you Mark Shuttleworth



                Also it breaks on intel install's too Super unstable but it will be ready in October?

                Comment


                • Originally posted by LinuxGamer View Post
                  Mir is A Performance Win look how well it work's on AMD or Nvidia OpenSource Driver's Thank you Mark Shuttleworth

                  Also it breaks on intel install's too Super unstable but it will be ready in October?
                  To be fair, it didn't failed on my box, aside from performance and the (supposedly fixed, didn't test it yet) cursor glitch.

                  Comment


                  • Originally posted by mrugiero View Post
                    GPL3 doesn't address patents the contributors do not own. Why? Because it's simply not above patents law. It's just a contract between the programmers and everyone else, so it only address patents that the contributors own, which they can actually promise not to sue you for using in that piece of software or derivatives. If Samsung owns a patent for something used in Mir, they keep the rights on it, because the code was contributed by Canonical, not by Samsung.
                    GPL3 ensures the equality you name if and only if it's by itself, but it's not in the case of Mir. Canonical is still the only one with rights to relicense thanks to the CLA, and they do not even need patents to do so (which means they don't even need to think of something original). Compare a risk of using something patented against the security that one have that Canonical is the only one able to do closed source derivatives.
                    GPL covers distribution, not contributions. If Samsung distributed Mir to users, then they also implicitly grant a patent licence, so anyone can distribute mir. With Wayland, Samsung could distribute it, assert that the project requires one of their patents, and then noone else could distribute it.

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by chrisb View Post
                      GPL covers distribution, not contributions. If Samsung distributed Mir to users, then they also implicitly grant a patent licence, so anyone can distribute mir. With Wayland, Samsung could distribute it, assert that the project requires one of their patents, and then noone else could distribute it.
                      Same story, just change contribute by distribute. As long as X patent holder doesn't distribute the software, GPL does just nothing about the patent.

                      Comment

                      Working...
                      X