Yesterday’s links, Jan 22nd 2008

Posted by ciaran on 0

Some interesting things:

See also: the archive of Yesterday’s links.

— 
Ciarán O’Riordan,
Support free software: Join FSFE’s Fellowship

Reminder: GFDL consultation ongoing

Posted by ciaran on 0

Although quiet, the consultation for drafting the next version of the GNU Free Documentation Licence, plus the new GNU Simpler Free Documentation License, are still ongoing:

The online draft of GFDLv2 still has Invariant Sections. The proposed GSFDL is a documentation licence without Invariant Sections.

I don’t have information about the timeline for the GFDL and GSFDL, so all I can recommend is that comments be made as soon as possible.

I’ve heard of one or two people having technical problems in using the snazzy javascript comment system. If you have problems, please submit your comments by email:

— 
Ciarán O’Riordan,
Support free software: Join FSFE’s Fellowship

One fingered gloves for Japan and USA?

Posted by ciaran on 0

Starting today, the Japanese government is going to fingerprint all visitors. As can be seen in the brochure, a print of each index finger will be taken, like the USA’s procedure. It seems to me that the most fitting protest would be for annoyed travellers to wear one-fingered gloves or plasters of an agreed colour on their index fingers while in countries that do this.

There is a petition against this that you may wish to sign. However, if you do, you should probably misspell your name to thwart possible attempts by the Japanese government to use this petition as the basis of a trouble makers list.

When the USA started this, Brazil reacted by fingerprinting USA citizens when they enter Brazil. There is information about the USA’s system and some links and information about Japan’s similar system and Brazil’s reaction on the Wikipedia article: USA-VISIT. Brazil has a large community of 2nd and 3rd generation Japanese immigrants, so maybe they will react against Japan’s system too. And it’s worth noting that Japan’s system is actually even worse than the USA’s.

The BBC has a good article about the jusifications. It seems some minister said this was necessary because one of his friend’s friends is in Al-Qaeda. Then, realising that was a stupid thing to say, he gave a bungled retraction. More information can be found on the Re-entry Japan blog.

This is a pity because I have some friends in Japan (some are Japanese, some are European, some are Filipino) that I would like to see again, but this new procedure discourages me from going there.

If everyone accepts Japan doing this, is the EU next? The Reuters article I linked to at the top says that the UK is already considering something similar.

Sean Daly interviews Ashley Highfield re BBC’s DRM’d iPlayer

Posted by ciaran on 0

Groklaw has just published an interview with Ashley Highfield, the BBC’s Future Media and Technology Director – the department responsible for the development of the DRM’d iPlayer software:

On the positive side, he says:

…the long-term alternative solution is a world beyond DRM and how we can work together, particularly with our rights holders, to get to a world beyond DRM.

On the worrying side, he says that free software DRM is probably the interim solution. Free software DRM? That doesn’t make sense. DRM is used to impose restrictions on how the software can be used, and software is only free software if the user is free to use it for any purpose. I guess they’re still in the research phase regarding that idea.

Another worrying tidbit is that he says it is necessary that the copyright holders be…

…assured that the content would be available free within the UK but not freely copying available outside the UK.

I’m not sure how they can prevent that without taking control over the computers of everyone who watches the content. Maybe an alternative solution would be for the big customers of this content to agree to continue paying as much as they do and to abandon attempts to prevent people’s computers from copying or redistributing the data.

Some of his later comments are positive again later when asked about this supposed free software DRM:

But even that, as I think you’d agree, is not the solution. The solution is actually to find a solution to DRM, to move beyond DRM in the long run.

So, this story’s only beginning. Interesting interview.

I did a bit of research about "free software DRM" while discussing this with Sean Daly, so I’ll put some notes on this in my blog later today.

FSF releases GNU Affero GPL addressing SaaS

Posted by ciaran on 0

(Correction in progress. I wrongly announced the release of the second discussion draft but the final version was actually released.)

FSF have just published the 2nd draft of the GNU Affero GPL. The GNU Affero GPL will be a modified version of GPLv3. The difference, very roughly, is that it includes a requirement that if the software is used on a public server, users must be able to get the source code.

This issue was discussed a lot during the GPLv3 drafting process. Some software developers thought that this requirement should be in GPLv3. However, the majority of software developers who commented strongly disagreed.

The topic was controversial because there is a privacy issue. All versions of the GPL allow people to use modified version of the software privately without being obliged to make their modified source code available to anyone. When people put software on a public server, the question is less clear: is that private use or public use? This was called the "software as a service" issue, or "SaaS".

FSF decided that developer unhappiness was enough of a reason not to add this requirement to the standard GPLv3. If developers didn’t like GPLv3, they wouldn’t use it, and if people don’t use it, it can’t do it’s job of protecting software freedom for computer users. Instead, FSF will publish a separate version, called the GNU Affero GPL, which does include this requirement and each project can choose if they want a GPLv3 with that requirement or without.

So, that’s the background. The second draft is online and comments are being accepted via the same system used for GPLv3. If you might have something to say, go take a look!

BBC’s DRM’d iPlayer: Sean Daly interviews Becky Hogge

Posted by ciaran on 0

Sean Daly has posted a second interview about the BBC’s DRM-infested iPlayer software:

It’s an informative interview, and I agree with Ms. Hogge’s call for the BBC to stop using DRM, but I don’t share her motivations.

Ms. Hogge talks about "balancing interests between" the UK public and the BBC’s ability to make money from it’s TV programmes. She then argues that in this case, there is not enough commercial motivation to outweight the UK public’s right to choose and control the software they use.

This leads her to the conclusion I share: The BBC should not put DRM in the iPlayer. But, suggesting this "balance" reasoning leads us to a situation where if the BBC could prove the commercial value is much higher than we think, or that the UK public’s freedom to control and choose software is not as valuable as we think, then the "balance" reasoning would suggest that using DRM is OK. There, I would disagree.

I rather argue that DRM is always unacceptable (more specifically, computer users should always be alowed to disable DRM). Data should not tell computers what to do with people – people should tell computers what to do with data.

She does say later that DRM is a black hold that the BBC is falling into, and that DRM blocks many legal acts, so I guess we’re more similar than dissimilar in how we see DRM. But, I do think it’s a mistake to portray people’s freedoms to use, control, and choose software as something that can be counter balanced by economic interests of a TV channel.

That said, it’s an informative article with good links. For anyone interested in more on this, the first installment in this series of interviews was with Mark Taylor.

There was also an interesting story about a sports fan who got stung by DRM. Having bought DRM restricted videos of his favourite sports team, he found one day that they all stopped working and the company told him they were never going to work ever again.

— 
Ciarán O’Riordan,
Support free software: Join FSFE’s Fellowship

GPLv3, bug fixes, and complexity

Posted by ciaran on 0

After an interesting free software licensing event in Helsinki yesterday, I got thinking about licence complexity. At the conference, people had two types of questions (a) Why didn’t GPLv3 additionally solve X problem? and (b) Why is it so long?

In my presentation, predictably, I gave GPLv3 two thumbs up:

This was followed by a speaker who advocated using one of Microsoft’s licences which he said was better because it’s simpler. This reminds me of a mistake that Joel Spolsky wrote an essay about:

[…]Old code has been used. It has been tested. Lots of bugs have been found, and they’ve been fixed. There’s nothing wrong with it. It doesn’t acquire bugs just by sitting around on your hard drive. Au contraire, baby! Is software supposed to be like an old Dodge Dart, that rusts just sitting in the garage? Is software like a teddy bear that’s kind of gross if it’s not made out of all new material?

Back to that two page function. Yes, I know, it’s just a simple function to display a window, but it has grown little hairs and stuff on it and nobody knows why. Well, I’ll tell you why: those are bug fixes.[…]

I think this applies equally to licences. Microsoft can write a short, copyleft free software licence because (a) No one’s ever going to use it anyway, and (b) They don’t care if it does the job properly or not. (Note: I don’t know if their licence even is a free software licence. Maybe it is, I just haven’t looked into it much.)

The GPL, as far as I know, is the only free software licence that has been tested in court, and it’s used by more software projects than all other free software licences combined. This gives it’s writers a lot of information with which to do bug fixing, and it gives the GPL a massive responsibility to work solidly.

So, for the question: Why didn’t GPLv3 additionally solve X problem? There are three possible answers:

  1. The drafters had to avoid adding requirements only for fixing potential problems. Requirements can backfire, so adding them has to be done carefully. This is the reason that there is no patent retaliation clause in GPLv3: what if it some day prevented a free software developer from using his patents against someone who was harming the free software community?
  2. Solving problems almost always requires extra words. Everyone wants the GPL to be as short as possible, so the drafters had to stick to only solving the problems that were real, or problems that were simple.
  3. Some problems can’t be solved in copyright licences. The general danger of software patents is one example of a problem that can’t be solved by making a change to our licences. The grey areas of what constitutes a derivative work is another example. (Although, the grey areas aren’t as big as some people think anyway.) GPLv3 has reduced the grey areas, and it has made sure that the remaining grey areas should be more similar accross country borders than they were in v2, but no free software licence can make the grey areas go away.

As for the other question: Why is it so long?

One answer is that those extra lines are bug fixes.

Another answer is that clarity requires explicit language. GPLv2’s concept of "distribution" is defined in GPLv3. For one thing, it’s been renamed to "convey", to avoid clashes with existing terminology in law and court precedents around the world. For another, its definition has been made explicit, to avoid relying on existing meanings in law and court precedents, which vary around the world. This bug fix required extra words, but it actually makes the licence simpler to understand reliably. The definition is in the licence, so you should have less need to consult a lawyer in each country.

— 
Ciarán O’Riordan,
Support free software: Join FSFE’s Fellowship

Do software patents exist in the EU?

Posted by ciaran on 0

Frequently Asked Question: Do software patents exist in the EU?

Answer: The problem is that software patents exist in some ways in the EU. The power of patent governance is split between a legislature, an executive, and a judiciary.

The legislature (the European Patent Convention) says that software ideas are not patentable.

The executive (the European Patent Office) ignores this and approves software patent applications.

The judiciary (the national courts) usually declares the EPO’s software patents to be invalid whenever there is a court case.

So, for the most part, Europeans are safe from software patents. There are very few court cases because the patent holders are afraid their patents will be invalidated.

In 2005, after years of work, we blocked an attempt to change the legislation. That change would have made software patents valid.

Today, there are attempts being made, such as the EPLA, to remove the national courts from patent governance. The people behind the EPLA want to replace the national courts with a centralised EU court whose judges will be selected and continually reviewed by the EPO.

Further information:

— 
Ciarán O’Riordan,
Support free software: Join FSFE’s Fellowship

The BBC iPlayer DRM story: Sean Daly interviews Mark Taylor

Posted by ciaran on 0

Sean Daly has just posted an interview about the BBC’s iPlayer DRM scandal:

The iPlayer is a piece of proprietary software developed by the BBC which only runs on Microsoft operating systems, thus excluding GNU/Linux users from watching this publicly-funded channel. Not only that, but it seems the iPlayer also has spyware and other malware.

The good news is that the public is complaining, and maybe their action will lead to this being fixed. Some BBC viewers might want to add their support – the forums for doing so are mentioned in the interview.

Mark mentions he’ll be meeting with the BBC management on the 24th (tomorrow, I guess), so there could be more on this story very soon.

(Update: Speaking of the BBC and free software, RMS recently posted an essay: Computing “progress”: good and bad, which mentions the iPlayer’s DRM, among other things. Thanks for the pointer from Yavor Doganov.)

— 
Ciarán O’Riordan,
Support free software: Join FSFE’s Fellowship

Yesterday’s links, Oct 23th 2007

Posted by ciaran on 0

From now on, "Yesterday’s Links" will be about whatever I’m up to. Better bloggers and blog readers tell me that this is what my blog should be for, so I’ll try. I’ll rename the series sometime.

Some things I did recently:

  • Publicised the RMS pavia transcript: LWN.net, Linux.com Newsvac, Blu-Gnu
  • ODF Alliance meeting – strategy needed for next February’s Ballot Resolution Meeting
  • Open Forum Europe meeting
  • Preparation for FOSS Means Business II event in Belfast next Feb, probably with Bruce Perens
  • Interviews for the FSCONS event and award

See also: the archive of Yesterday’s links.

— 
Ciarán O’Riordan,
Support free software: Join FSFE’s Fellowship