fwd: [Braillenote] PulseData In Violation Of The GNU Lesser General Public License, Other Comments About Opening Source/Specs]
Gregory Nowak
greg at romuald.net.eu.org
Sun May 2 05:12:45 MST 2004
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Hi All.
Sabahattin sent the following to the braillenote list, and I thought
it should be sent here as well, since not everyone here is on both
lists. Actually, for all intents and purposes, I'm not on the
braillenote list either, unless my mail filter gets a message from the
bn list matching my filtering rules, everything else gets dumped into
/dev/null, which could be thought of as a black whole for unwanted
data.
BTW, a beautifully written post.
Greg
- ----- Forwarded message from Sabahattin Gucukoglu <mail at sabahattin-gucukoglu.com> -----
From: "Sabahattin Gucukoglu" <mail at sabahattin-gucukoglu.com>
To: braillenote at list.pulsedata.com
Date: Sun, 02 May 2004 10:55:11 +0100
Subject: [Braillenote] PulseData In Violation Of The GNU Lesser General
Public License, Other Comments About Opening Source/Specs
Hi all,
I sent a message using PulseData's fault return form stating my belief
that PulseData International, with regard to XBase database technology
used in the latest version of KeySoft, is in violation of the terms of the
GNU Lesser General Public License - that is, the open source and freedom
of use license under which this software library is furnished - and that
by doing so it is violating the copyrights of the authors of this library.
The notice got flung back and forth between New Zealand and the UK, where
I reside, and subsequently got forgotten. My concern was never addressed,
and the problem, by following my advice, was never resolved.
I have no wish to begin active war with PulseData, and I hope by writing
this email I am giving you another opportunity to understand and correct
this problem. It is my very strong feeling, as an open source advocate,
that this very serious legal concern be dealt with as soon as possible. I
make no guarantee of nondisclosure of any kind, however; the author of
this library is the only party which can enforce copyright limitation and
I certainly have no desire to let my custom with PulseData in any way
restrict the author's personal assessment of the situation, should it be
necessary.
The GNU Lesser General Public License is a set of terms provided by the
author of a software package - usually a package of pre-written routines
for performing some specific and usually specialised task, termed a
library - under copyright. The software is copyrighted, but the terms
allow the software's use in a fully open source fashion - that is, the
license gives those who accept it the right to copy, distribute, modify,
get and examine the source code of, make a fee for and derive work upon
the software, just to mention a few, as long as he follows a few simple
rules of courtesy that ensure full freedom of the software, in the sense
of free speech and not free beer, for everyone. The full text of the GNU
Lesser General Public License, termed the "LGPL" for short, is available
at these locations:
HTML - http://www.fsf.org/licenses/lgpl.html
Plain text - http://www.fsf.org/licenses/lgpl.txt
The free Software Foundation is the author of the LGPL, which is in turn
the brother to the more strict GPL (The GNU General Public License), a
full freedom-of-use declaration license, in which all code in any way
derived from or using GPL code must also be GPL - that is, free software.
For more information about the Free Software Foundation and its aims, and
to understand the GNU licenses and the various ways in which they work,
visit http://www.fsf.org/ .
The LGPL is typically used to allow free software like a library, as when
freedom is defined by the Free Software Foundation, to link with non-free,
proprietary software. This is usually to the benefit of the library
authors - for instance, if a free software library equivalent to a
widespread, non-free library in common use is to gain the greatest
possible audience, then it is useful to make the software available under
terms that would not hinder use of that library in commercial applications
and where there is little to gain by doing otherwise. There are other
cases where encouragement of free software can only be achieved by making
the software available under the LGPL, as when free software is expecting
to set a free de facto standard for global usage. Ogg Vorbis is a fine
example of this.
The BrailleNote is using the LGPLed XBase Database Technology developed by
G. A. Kunkel and StarTech. The author has released the software under
copyright and under the terms of the LGPL. PulseData, in my belief, must
take these two steps to fully comply with the GNU Lesser General Public
License and hence with copyright law:
1. Include a copy of the LGPL in the documentation of the BrailleNote, or
make it available on the same medium on which the library is to be found.
In the case that the library is compiled, as in our case, the LGPL must
accompany the binary library object files - so, it is installed on each
BrailleNote unit, and must be referenced from a conspicuous location.
2. A link to or a copy of the source code, plus any dated and described
modifications made by PulseData, must be provided in the copyright
statement and information on the BrailleNote. This can be in KeySoft's
documentation, in the BrailleNote's acknowledgement listing, or -
preferably - both. Since the user must be able to compile any modified
version of the library he chooses and must be able to execute the modified
version, as provisioned by the LGPL, and since you are expected to make
your contributions to this library available under the same terms,
PulseData must supply its users and the library authors with all of the
information, including - if required - any object code, source code,
interface information and scripts necessary for the user to do this.
Please review the LGPL, as linked above, for complete details.
The following are just observations and have nothing to do with the case
described above, though these comments are related to what I have just
described.
There is a certain sharp irony in PulseData's choosing to use and
positively inovate and sell their BrailleNote products with free software
(as in the case of XBase in the Planner) or open source software
(including Project Mayo, used in KeySoft's MP3 player, whose license
cannot be exactly determined and in which PulseData's rights cannot
therefore be reliably contested), given the currently very closed and
proprietary nature of the BrailleNote. Everyone knows that the market
holds nothing for a device if it cannot be surrounded by a community of
imaginative, willing and bright developers from the four corners of the
earth who will extend, expand and improve on its capabilities from the
word "go". Perhaps PulseData has been drinking the last dregs of its days
of pride gone by, and hasn't realised that they are rapidly coming to an
end - as we know, so do all good things.
I would personally encourage PulseData to start right now with their
opening up, particularly with their apparent (and hopefully legitimate and
unselfish) interest in existing open source software, in the form of SDKs
at the absolute minimum, and to begin very soon. However much they do so,
it has got to be better than the current situation. Your competitors
don't have to do an awful lot to be open - the community will accept
Windows as being closed, but the same is not true for KeySoft; any
application can run on Windows CE and so your competitor's device, the
same is not - and never will be - true of KeySoft. Your immediate
competitor has pulled all the stops out to make openness a priority -
hardware specs, developer resources, compilers ... all because the machine
is standard and even cross-platform - your move to open up could be the
best one you, PulseData, make in the blindness PDA industry, because
BrailleNote is the only PDA which can reasonably be said to be a fierce
competitor, one of the leaders, in that market - and what's more, at the
same time, the only one which is explicitly and exclusively designed for
the visually impaired. I like the BrailleNote for its convenience, for
its ease-of-use and its uncluttered and incredibly clean and intuitive
nature. But, and this is a fact, it's more closed than a default
installation of OpenBSD (a version of Berkeley Software Distribution - a
UNIX - intended for security-conscious administrators -
http://www.openbsd.org/ ). Your only resolve to get even in any way with
your competitor is to let us do the work for you and develop that game of
Minesweeper they've all been asking for, or the filtering support in the
email program, or the ZCode interpreter...
If I were in their boots right now, I'd do what should have been done a
long time ago and cut the losses being made in shoals to competitors at
this moment and GPL (or other OSI approved license -
http://www.opensource.org/ ) the whole darn lot, charging only for
licensed technology such as the Lernout TTS (original Berkeley TTS).
Equally, open up the hardware specifications so that other operating
systems may run on the device - that way, open source can take its natural
path and we suddenly get, for instance, a Linux or BSD port of KeySoft,
which runs with ten times the reliability of Windows CE version 2 and
twenty times faster on the same old board, or Speakup - the popular screen
reader for Linux - running with the Keynote Synthesiser. The horizons are
truely boundless. Seriously though, at this rate, I think it likely that
a price drop due to the open sourcing of all that can be open sourced and
open spec'ing of all that can be open spec'ed would be of great value to
the developers, like myself, among us, and certainly to your future
customers, who have now got a better bargain and a real selling point -
the use of truely open source software and the promise of future, out-of-
house-developed applications by the community - to buy for. Like I said,
it makes for a plausible market position for the BrailleNote on this
newest of battlefields, and we all benefit. I ask PulseData to think
about it, and just for once stop long enough to realise how much you will
get in return for divulging those secrets of twenty years ago, as you will
for continuing this profuse battle against the modern IT era and
technology, not to mention any legal complications with future open source
deployment you may incur through sore attempts at profit-making.
Whatever extent you choose to go with your opening up, if PulseData want
to use open source software, I say go for it - just remember that someone
somewhere wrote it, probably in their spare time and out of the goodness
of their hearts; exploiting it, concealing it for what it is when
explicitly told not to do so or finding ways to obfuscate the value of
open source software while reaping its abilities and inovations will not
be tolerated - not by me, not by the open source community, not by many of
the authors of open - or at least, free - software. PulseData could
really win with a startling move to open up, soon. So, get on with it!
If absolutely anyone - and in particular PulseData - have any questions
about all that I've said, I welcome you to ask them. I am anxious to let
you here the very full story.
Cheers,
Sabahattin
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