gNewSense 1.0: a free, binary blobless GNU+Linux

Posted by ciaran on 0

Friends in Ireland have been working for a while now on making a 100% free software GNU+Linux distro.

The idea of making fully free distros seems to have started with UTUTO-e. Soon after, there was talk of Canonical working on "GNUbuntu", but the rumour didn’t materialise and a parallel non-Canonical project began. That was later named "gNewSense", and it hit version one-dot-oh today.

The project website is at:
http://www.gnewsense.org/

And today’s press release is at:
http://www.fsf.org/news/gnewsense

As mentioned previously, they’re looking for more developer help, and also reviewers, documenters, and users. Do take a look.

Screenshots are here:

Free GNU/Linux distro seeks assembly programmer

Posted by ciaran on 0

Some friends in Ireland have been working on GNU/Linux distro that will be completely free software.

The name is gNewSense, and its website is at: http://www.gnewsense.org/

Two guys are currently doing the bulk of the work. They are Brian Brazil and Paul O’Malley.

One job still to be done is to remove some binary blobs from the kernel, and for this they need help from an assembly programmer – and it has to be someone who knows how to remove binary blobs.

The stated goals of the project are:

A GNU/Linux project, to take all the binary blobs out of a rather popular distribution and make it all free. In doing so we have also produced a set of scripts to create a free GNU/Linux Distribution based off Ubuntu.

Looks interesting, and I know the two guys from the monthly IFSO meetings. So if you think you can help, or if you know someone who might be able to, I think this is a good project. The best way to contact them is by IRC they’re in channel #gnewsense on irc.freenode.net

Preventing modification: put it in ROM?

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During the GPLv3 debate, some people have raise the question of what to do when some regulation requires that software must not be modifiable. Examples of this may include government, or standards body, regulated technology such as radios, network cards, or medical equipment.

Richard Stallman offered the response that the hardware manufacturers can put that part of the software in unmodifiable ROM. I think it needs to be explained why a free software advocate would suggest this.

The current options available to hardware manufacturers who want to use GPL’d software are to:

  1. Give people the software, with all the usual freedoms
  2. Give people the software but use DRM to prevent them from being able to run modified versions
  3. Put the software in a ROM chip (or put a locked door on the device containing the software)

Both options 2 and 3 are bad for the free software movement. We’d like to see everyone use option 1. There are times when option 3 is only bad in trivial ways. The freedom to modify the software in an ordinary wristwatch is not so important.

Option 2 is attractive to some hardware manufacturers because they can lock the user out, and they can still have all the access they want to update the software on the computer. This might support their business model, by enabling them to to control the computer, or by enabling them to entice the user to pay more by offering functionality upgrades.

Option 3 is less attractive. It might be used in genuine cases where the hardware manufacturer has to prevent the software from being modified, and in those cases it will probably be used in a minimalist way – such as by putting the signal strength code of a network card in ROM, but leaving the majority of the driver in software so that it can be upgraded.

So, by cutting out option 2, GPLv3 should increase the number of manufacturers who will choose option 1 in the future. Thus increasing freedom, without harming any business models that don’t try to restrict the freedoms of free software.

(About GPLv3) Can the Linux Kernel Relicense?

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While discussing GPLv3, some people have suggested that even when version 3 of the GPL is released, the Linux kernel developers will not have the option of using it due to copyright reasons.

This is incorrect, but it is based on a real problem: The Linux kernel has no structures in place to facilitate relicensing.

Moving to an incompatible licence requires that current code is relicenced with permission from the copyright holders, or is removed.

FSF foresaw this problem in the 80s, and it was obvious that the licence would have to be updated at some time, and so they implemented two fixes. One fix was specifically for the GNU project – they requested the contributors assign the copyright to FSF so that relicensing (as well as enforcement) can be done by FSF.

The second is that they recommended that people using the GNU GPL should licence their software under a specific version plus "any later version". If people do this, their software will be compatible with GPLv3, v4, v5, etc., so this issue will not exist.

Almost every GPL-using free software project did this. The Linux kernel is the only large exception. With hundreds or thousands of authors, and each being a copyright holder, it will be difficult to contact them all.

Why is GPLv2 incompatible with v3? GPL version 2 says that any modified versions of the software must also be distributed under GPL version 2. GPL version 3 will say that any modified versions of software it covers, must be distributed under GPL version 3. So if someone merges some version 2 software with some version 3 software, there will be no legal way to distribute the combination. It has always been known that version 3 would be incompatible with version 2.

For Linux, getting into a position where they can use another licence will take time and/or effort, but this is something they should do anyway. If an absurd interpretation of GPLv2 is accepted by a court in your country tomorrow, what will Linux do? And what if this absurd interpretation is accepted in more countries? Or what if the licence is declared invalid by a court? (that last situation is very unlikely, but it’s just an example for discussion.)

This is a reason why free software projects should maintain their copyrights in a way that will allow them to update their licence when the want or need arises.

To get into the position to move to a GPLv3, the Linux developers could adopt the "or any later version" policy from now on, get relicensing permission from as many copyright holders as possible, and then get back to programming. Over time, the (hopefully small amount of) non-relicensed code will be replaced by new code (without the license problem), and eventually the entire code base will be ok to relicense.

So I’m saying they can move to v3 if they want. Whether they actually do, also depends on whether they want to. That discussion will be more productive after GPLv3 is released (the current published texts are just discussion drafts). Right now, the important thing is for people to go to the current draft and comment on the text, to help make the best licence possible.

FWIW, here are the five comments I’ve made on draft 2. (Scroll down looking for pieces of text highlighted in light yellow – in sections 0, 2, 7b0, 7b2, and 11.)

UPDATE 2007-02-04: Someone who works with many lawyers on free software copyright issues later told me that it is not necessary to get permission from 100% of the copyright holders. It would suffice if there was permission from the copyright holders of 95% of the source code and no objections from the holders of the other 5%. This, I’m told, is how Mozilla was able to relicense to the GPL in 2003 despite years of community contributions.

Transcript of RMS at WSIS on “Is Free/Open Source Software the Answer?”

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(Update: There is now a list of free software transcripts, including a section for RMS transcripts.)

Below is a transcript of Richard Stallman’s presentation, on a panel titled "Is Free/Open Source Software the Answer?", on the 18th of November at the 2005 World Summit of the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunisia. For more on WSIS, see Georg Greve’s The Vienna Conclusion.

A video of this presentation is available on uploade.wikimedia.org: 051118-WSIS.2005-Richard.Stallman.ogg

This transcript was made by Ciarán O’Riordan of FSFE. Richard Stallman is the president of FSF – a sister organisation of FSFE.

Presentation sections

  1. Beginning
  2. What is Free Software
  3. Like cooking
  4. Current status
  5. Importance of awareness
  6. Developing countries
  7. Colonial systems
  8. Schools and proprietary software
  9. Open source
  10. TCO and freedom

[00:45]

[Section: Beginning]

I’ve been fighting for freedom a long time. 22 years ago now, I announced the beginning of the free software movement – a social movement for freedom for computer users. Specifically, the freedom to cooperate and the freedom to control your own computer. The freedom for users to work together in a community, controlling the software that they use. This was impossible in 1983 because computers don’t do anything without an operating system, it’s just a piece of metal and silicon that is totally useless, but all the operating systems 22 years ago were proprietary software. Software that keeps users divided and helpless.

I was determined not to have to live that way in using computers, I don’t want to be helpless and I don’t want to be forbidden to share with you. So I decided I would do something about it. What can I do? I had no political party behind me, I couldn’t expect to convince governments or corporations to change any of their policies, but I did know how to write software. So I said I’m going to develop another operating system, with the help of whoever will join in, and together we will make it free software. We will respect your freedom and you will be able then to use computers in freedom with this operating system.

[02:20]

[Section: What is Free Software?]

What does this freedom mean? There are four essential freedoms that make the definition of free software, and they are:

  • Freedom 0: the freedom to run the programme however you wish.
  • Freedom 1: the freedom to help yourself. That’s the freedom to study the source code and change it to do what you wish.
  • Freedom 2: the freedom to help your neighbour. That’s the freedom to copy the programme and distribute the copies to others when you wish.
  • Freedom 3: the freedom to help your community. That’s the freedom to publish or distribute a modified version when you wish.

With all four freedoms, the programme is free software.

[Section: Like cooking]

But these freedoms should not be strange to you. At least, not if you cook, because people who cook enjoy the same four freedoms in using recipes.

The freedom to cook the recipe when you want. That’s freedom zero. The freedom to study the ingredients and how it’s done, and then change it. That’s freedom one. Cooks frequently change recipes. And then the freedom to copy it and hand copies to your friends. That’s freedom two. And then, freedom three is less frequently exercised because it’s more work, but if you cook your version of the recipes for a dinner with your friends, and a friend says "that was great, can I have the recipe?" you can write down your version of the recipe and make a copy for your friend.

[03:50]

The same four freedoms, and this is no coincidence, because programmes, like recipes, are works that you use for practical work. You use them to do something. When you use a work to do something, if you’re not in control of it, you’re not in control of your life. And if you can’t share with other people, you’re forbidden to be part of a community.

Imagine how angry everyone who cooks would be if some day the government says "From now on, if you share or change a recipe, we’re going to call you a pirate, we’re going to compare you with people who attack ships, and we’re going to put you in prison for years because that’s forbidden cooperation". Imagine the anger that there would be. That anger is at the basis of the free software movement too. We want to have freedom in using our computers.

So we developed the GNU operating system througout the 1980s and in 1992, the last missing piece was put in place. That last missing piece is the kernel called Linux. So Linux is not an operating system, it’s one essential component of the system which is the GNU system plus Linux: the GNU/Linux system.

[Section: Current status]

That system now is used on tens of millions of computers. Jon Hall estimated a hundred million a year or two ago. No one really knows because, y’see, we’re all free. Nobody can keep track of what we’re doing. That’s part of freedom, that nobody knows exactly what’s going on because you don’t have to tell anybody.

[05:30]

Today it’s possible to use a computer in freedom, but that doesn’t mean freedom is safe forever. Freedom is never safe forever. There’s always a danger that you’ll get somebody like a George Bush who wants to take it away. Even in the countries like the US which says "freedom is what we’re all about", that can be turned into mere lip service. Freedoms can be crushed.

For people to have freedom, we have to be prepared to defend freedom. In order to defend our freedom, we have to recognise what it means. That’s the first step. That’s why I’m here today, talking to you about free software and the freedoms that it represents. Freedoms for you. That way you will know what your freedom means, and then maybe, next year or next decade, you’ll help us defend those freedoms and they may continue.

[Section: Importance of awareness]

Many people focus on encouraging more users to switch to free software. That’s a useful thing to do. But that alone is not enough to bring us to freedoms that endure. If we gave everybody in the World free software today, but we failed to teach them about the four freedoms, then five years from now, would they still have free software?

[06:58]

Probably not, because if they don’t recognise their freedoms, they’ll let their freedoms fall. They’ll let freedom slip through their fingers because they won’t bother to close their hands if they don’t know why.

So along with developing free software, along with distributing it, teaching people to use it, encouraging people to try it and switch to it, we have to constantly be teaching these same people why it matters. That it’s not just about how to get powerful convenient software, and how to get it as cheap as possible. It’s about how you can live in freedom and be a good neighbour.

[Section: Developing countries]

So, how does this relate to the issues of development? Is free software better for development? Well, that’s an understatement. Free software is the only software whose use constitutes development – because the use of a non-free programme is not development, it’s electronic colonisation.

[08:08]

What does it mean if your society increases the use of non-free software? Well, that’s software which nobody in your city, unless you happen to live in just the right place in the World, nobody in your city is in a position to understand it, maintain it, adapt it, extend it, or do anything with it. It’s just like the old colonial system where the colonial power had all the industry. They made all the technology and the people in the colony, they just had to buy it, and they weren’t supposed to understand anything or make anything. They hardly even knew how to fix it. Imagine if you were buying cars, and they came from the US, and any time they broke you had to ship them back to the US because it’s a secret how they work inside and nobody in your country is allowed to learn how to fix them.

That’s what proprietary software is like. This is not sustainable development. It’s not appropriate technology. This is a technology of dependence, and dependence is exactly what that system is all about. It’s keeping people helpless.

[Section: Colonial systems]

Another feature of the old colonial system was: divide and rule. Set people against each other. Don’t allow them to cooperate because that makes it easier to keep all of them in subjection. Dividing people and subjugating them is not just a minor side aspect of proprietary software, that’s what makes it proprietary software. The licence says you’re forbidden to share it with anyone and you can’t get the source code, so you don’t know what’s inside it and you can’t control it. Divided, and subjugated. That’s the nature of proprietary software. So of course the system comes out looking like the colonial system.

[10:10]

Another feature you might remember from the colonial system was that the colonial power would recruit a local elite. A few local people, maybe the nobels, or whoever, or one tribe against another, or they would create tribes if there weren’t tribes, so that they can massacre each other decades later – so the local elite, they would get certain privileges, and in return, they would help keep everybody else down.

You can see that today. Some proprietary software companies actively recruit local elites. They set up a software development centre in your country, and the people who work there are part of the local elite, or they do some favour either for politicians secretly or for the government openly, but it doesn’t make any difference which one, either way, they’re buying influence in the government. Converting that government from a sovereign state into their local overseer of their empire whose job is to make sure everybody else becomes dependent on the same non-free software.

[Section: Schools and proprietary software]

They say to schools: "We will help you by giving you these gratis copies of our non-free software so that you can turn your students into addicts of our software" Why do I use the term addicts? Because they develop a dependency on this software and then after they graduate, you can be sure they are not going to be offered these gratis copies anymore because it’s only the first dose that’s gratis. Once you’re addicted, then you’re supposed to pay, and then also, of course, the companies that these graduates work for, those companies are not going to be offered gratis copies. So, essentially, what these software developers are doing is they’re recruiting the schools into agents to lead people into permanent lifelong dependency.

[12:19]

[Section: Open source]

These are things that the open source movement usually doesn’t talk about. That’s why I don’t support open source. Open source is a way of promoting software that usually is free but without mentioning these ideals. These issues of freedom. They’re left in the background.

Open source people usually talk only about practical values. Y’know, how do you get powerful, convenient software and how much will it cost? Well, free software probably allows you to save money too. If you’re not being forced to pay for permission to use it, you can probably save money, but I think that’s a secondary issue.

Even in poor countries, freedom is important. We should never start saying "Oh, they’re so poor, freedom for them doesn’t matter, all they need is some bread and circuses", which they had here [Tunisia] once upon a time, and "they shouldn’t even think about being free". I think freedom is important in every country in every society, whether it’s rich or poor.

Nonetheless, people who support open source often contribute to extending the free software community. Many of them develop free software and those are useful contributions. I’m not saying that what they’re doing is bad, I’m saying that by itself it is not enough, because it is weak.

[13:45]

[Section: TCO and freedom]

Y’see, when you say the goal is to have powerful, reliable, convenient software and get it cheap, then it becomes possible for the representatives of proprietary software to say "We claim that we’ll deliver you more powerful, reliable software, we claim that our total cost of ownership will be cheaper", and I think it’s usually bullshit. When Microsoft says this, it’s based on distorted facts. It’s weak, but when we say the goal is to live in in freedom and to be allowed to cooperate with other people in a community, they can’t say they’re going to offer us more of that, cheaper. They don’t offer that at all, they’re not even competing with us. They’re out of the running. Once you decide you want to live in freedom, they are out of the running.

So, we are trying to help you reach freedom in a community. They are trying to subjugate you, but they say that they’ll get you there faster. And maybe they would.

[End of transcript]

— 
Ciarán O’Riordan,
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4 ways to fight software patents? No.

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A look at the good and bad of four proposed methods for fighting software patents.

  1. Prior art
  2. Patent pools
  3. Our licences
  4. Lobbying

1. Prior art

The plan: build up a catalogue of ideas that exist in free software projects so that when a free software developer is threatened with patent infringement, we can point out that the patent is invalid because we thought of the idea before the patent was filed.

Effectiveness: Low, potentially negative. If the database is publicly viewable, people applying for software patents could use it as a guideline for drafting valid patents. They could see what they have to avoid, and write their patent application so that it doesn’t overlap our prior art. If the database is not publicly viewable, the negative effect will be avoided, but the potential gain is low. Most patents are for ideas that we can’t prove we already thought of.

Richard Stallman recently explained this in an article about OSDL’s implementation of this idea. There was also a good article on CNet about Stallman’s essay.

2. Patent pools

The plan: Encourage holders of software patents to make an agreement not to sue free software users.

Effectiveness: Low. Three reasons:

  1. The contributors may be mostly friendly companies – in which case the pool will contain patents that would not have been used against us anyway.
  2. The contributors may have already cross-licensed those patents with the other large patent holders – in which case, the contents of the pool will not be available for us to use in counter-litigation.
  3. "Patent trolls" – parasitic companies who write no software and make their money from buying patents and charging license fees from people who are writing software – will be wholly unaffected.

3. Our licences

The plan: Add terms to our licences saying that if you bring patent litigation suit against someone for using the program, you lose the right to distribute the program in future. Many software licences developed from the late-90s onward have attempted this. GPLv3 attempts this too, to some extent.

Effectiveness: A bit good. This action cannot solve the problem – it can only protect people from patent litigation in the case where the patent holder is also a distributor of the software whose licence contains such a clause. So this is a good idea, but it’s not enough on its own.

4. Lobbying

The plan: Try to influence legislation, inter-governmental treaties, global agreements, and patent office policy so that software patents are neither approved by patent offices or upheld by courts.

Effectiveness: Good, but hard work. This action can potentially solve the problem, and it has proved practical. See FSFE’s software patents page, FSFE’s WIPO page, and my August summary of software patents in the EU. No other action has the potential to completely save free software users and developers from patent litigation.

DRM.info launched to mobilise more than market pressure

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Oct 3rd: http://DRM.info was launched today. The aim is to make an information portal where people can see real world uses of DRM, how it affects a variety of sectors, and who is together in rejecting it.

Here’s the press release. If you want to raise awareness of DRM, probably the easiest thing you can do is to link to this site and point people to it. DRM.info is a collaborative effort. FSFE also has its own DRM page.

There seems to be almost unanimous dislike of DRM in the free software community, but people are less unified on how to tackle it. One suggestion is that we can defeat DRM by not buying DRM’d hardware. This is often called "vote with your feet", but it is not enough. Relying on it alone would be certain failure.

People who put forward this idea usually mention "free market", but they ignore that people can participate, not just purchase things, in the free market. Here are four hurdles to tackling DRM by "vote with your feet" tactics:

  1. Not many people are aware of DRM, and not many people see the value of their freedom. DRM.info is an effort to address this.
  2. Purchasing decisions are not very granular. They lump together varied aspects such as price, style, compatibility, recyclability, and respect for freedom to control the software. This makes it hard to send a signal to manufacturers since a drop in sales could be attributed to one of many factors.
  3. The options offered to purchasers – what you can "vote" for – are set my a someone with a special interest. If the hardware manufacturers have an interest in locking down users with DRM, they can stack the options to make it inconvenient for users to choose DRM-free hardware.
  4. Those with an interest in locking down technology users can leverage other markets, such as the entertainment market. Monopolies or cartels can be set up so that the public’s technology purchases also decide what entertainment they have access to.

To effectively defeat DRM, we must not only reject DRM’r hardware that locks us out, but we should also participate in the drafting of related legislation (FSFE does this), participate in policy forming, participate in international treaties (FSFE does this too), and use our licences to say that our software cannot be a stepping stone for using DRM against people (GPLv3 does this).

Some people have expressed a worry that if we are unfriendly to Tivo, as GPLv3 is, they will stop contributing to our projects. This may be true, but we never relied on their contributions, and their practice of preventing tinkering is losing us contributors too. Fewer tinkerers equals fewer contributors.

The British Library seem to understand the problems of DRM. (It’s unfortunate that they used the term "Intellectual Property". That term works against them by encouraging oversimplified thinking.)

Georg Greve also has a blog entry on DRM.info.

My GPLv3 talk at aKademy 2006

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I recorded my talk "GPL: what can v3 improve?" at aKademy 2006 on my digital camera. Below is a video and the timeline of the talk.

I still need practice at public speaking, but I’m getting better. I’m good enough to be a discussion starter for certain FSFE issues, but I should say at the start of my talks that I’m not a spokesperson for FSFE.

Another mistake I made a few times is using the word "we" without saying who I was talking about. Sometimes it means "me and the people nearby", but it could be misinterpreted as "me and the authors of GPLv3" – that group doesn’t exist, I’m not in any such privileged group. My information comes from public sources, I’ve just been following the issue closely.

This URL is probably not permanent. I will move the video to another server when I find one. If you want to reliably link to it, mirror it or link to this blog entry.
http://ciaran.compsoc.com/ciaran-gplv3-akademy-2006.ogg

Sections

  1. [00:20] 5 Motivations for a new GNU GPL
  2. [00:42] Why change it now?
  3. [01:36] Motivation #1: Clean-ups
    • [01:36] (a) BitTorrent distribution
    • [02:50] (b) Licence termination
    • [04:36] (c) Internet versus postal distribution
    • [05:50] (d) Duration of source code availability
    • [06:36] (e) Easier to understand
  4. [07:32] Motivation #2: Internationalisation
  5. [10:57] Motivation #3: Licence compatibility
  6. [14:50] Motivation #4: Patents
  7. [20:17] Motivation #5: Digital Restrictions Management
  8. [24:38] Linux developer comments
  9. [26:18] Can Linux relicense?
  10. [28:53] Commenting
  11. [31:17] The gplv3.fsf.org/comments system
  12. [32:38] Discussion committees and the decision process
  13. [34:25] Audience Q1: What happens if Stallman dies tomorrow?
  14. [37:15] Presentation conclusion, http://fsfeurope.org/projects/gplv3
  15. [41:30] Audience Q2: Are "me too" comments useful?
  16. [43:05] Audience Q3: Have FSF met the Linux developers in person?
  17. [44:26] Audience Q4: Can v3 and v2-only code be combined? (No)
  18. [46:28] Audience Q5: How can large projects guard against future incompatibilites?
  19. [48:14] Audience Q6: What licences will be compatible with GPLv3?
  20. [53:20] Audience Q7: Are the differences between drafts available online?
  21. [53:40] Audience Q8: Will the anti-DRM clauses prevent companies from preventing employees from modifying their work computers?
  22. [55:54] Audience Q9: Might the compatibility section allow for a less-free GPL?
  23. [58:56] End of session

5th international GPLv3 conference: Tokyo, Nov 21+22

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It’s just been announced that the 5th international GPLv3 conference will be held on November 21 and 22, in Akihabara UDX Conference Room A+B, Tokyo, Japan.

The international conferences are part of the year-long effort to maximise awareness of the proposed changes and to solicit input from as many people as possible. The four previous international GPLv3 conferences were held in:

All presentation transcripts also include the subsequent Q&A session except for the January transcript, for which is the presentation was 90 minutes on its own.