Open source is illegal? | Hacker News Reader

Open source is illegal?

opensource.com

57 pointspwg20 comments

It doesn't seem to obviously be limited to open source software? The article suggests the illegality comes from the lack of a signed contract, which you don't get with any software under a proprietary EULA either. I assume this just gets ignored though...

Most of the rest of the article seems to be about this Romanian tender business, but excluding free software from that wouldn't actually make that software illegal, so it's apparently not really relevant to the title.

See http://opensource.com/comment/reply/3850/7515

It's not called the "Slovak Republic", but rather just Slovakia. The proper name of the neighbouring Czech Republic is just that instead of something like "Czechia", but this is not true for Slovakia.

Slovakia is a shorted name for Slovak Republic. Both are acceptable.

Sure, but it's like writing "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" instead of "United Kingdom".

I'm a romanian and I knew nothing about it. It seems to be illegal only for governmental use because of the lack of accountability. If you think about it, it make sense. "WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE" doesn't sound promising or fit for governmental critical systems.

I'm also romanian -- it's simple really, the romanian government in general are leaches that are interested in just sucking EU finances (and doing a bad job at it too). Whatever software they need will probably be done by Siveco / UTI; nepotism being quite at home.

They are also mostly incompetent.

Similar language appears in the Windows EULA:

Where allowed by your local laws, Microsoft excludes implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement. [1]

And OS X's:

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, THE APPLE SOFTWARE AND SERVICES ARE PROVIDED “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE”, WITH ALL FAULTS AND WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, [...] INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES AND/OR CONDITIONS OF MERCHANTABILITY, OF SATISFACTORY QUALITY, OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE [2]

[1] http://download.microsoft.com/Documents/UseTerms/Windows%207...

[2] http://images.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/macosx107.pdf

    On page 64 of the 'Specifications', in a paragraph
    highlighted in yellow, the ministry writes: 
    "All versions of software that are part of the offer 
    may not be published under a 'free software license' 
    - GPL or similar."

When you licence your solution to the government, you do so under a commercial licence. The 'Specifications' were asking you not to have any parts of your software under a free license (to/from third parties).

Of course this move is to limit competitiveness since EU explicitly favors open software: http://www.osor.eu/eupl/introduction-to-the-eupl-project

This limits the little guys that try to cut costs by using open software as building blocks for the solution, so only the giants vendoring expensive "enterprise" solutions can participate. And rest assured, open solutions are many times of better quality.

"Free software license" is a tricky term. Doesn't Windows still have BSD copyright notices embedded in it?

Interesting, I visited Slovakia + Czech Republic a few years ago and when I was there noticed that the overwhelming majority of computers there (Internet Cafe / POS in shops/bars / Booking systems in hotels) appeared to be running some form of Linux.

Isn't there a big difference between 'illegal' and 'not recognized/accepted'?? This doesn't prevent anyone anywhere from making and using open source software if they please.

You could be sued by the copyright holder if you redistribute it. So it's illegal.

I don't get what you're saying. If the copyright holder releases something under an open source license, then he is not going to sue you for doing precisely what the license is mean to facilitate.

It would only be "illegal" if if it's against the law to write a program and reveal its source code, and that would simply be non-sensical.

Any of the thousands of linux contributors has the every right to sue you if you are redistributing his code without his written permission (remember, GPL is invalid in law regards in SVK). I don't think it's very sane to trust the copyright holders' good mood to not sue you when you are infringing his copyrights - and yes, you are infringing it if you don't have his signed agreement, that's the law and no matter you write and call a license you cannot out-rule that.

In addition, corporations are owning part of that copyright too - if you look at software patents war, it clearly shows what tools are to be used against the competition.

I'm not sure if I understand your last sentence.

The GPL binds your hands.

What if you put your code in the public domain? No clauses, no contract required, no problem?

"Open source with obligations" is a better nomenclature for the GPL. Avoid it where you can.

The public domain is tricky however. Not everywhere can you legally put a work into the "public domain". Creative Commons even has a separate license (CC0, http://creativecommons.org/about/cc0) to basically just waive all rights to a work "to the fullest extent allowed by law".

"Avoid it where you can" is the wrong attitude. You do need to be cognizant of the issues around the license, though, and, for a commercial entity in particular, avoid it where it will infect something you don't want infected.

I love Linux and am fine with using it and its GPL'd code on my servers, but if I needed to extend an OS as a product (eg if I wanted to create the next OS X), I'd look at BSD long before Linux.

Public Domain is not recognized in Slovak law and in many European countries. You cannot abandon your right as the author.

No it does not. The license only applies to other people. As the copyright holder the choice of license does not bind you in anyway; this is why it is possible to release something under multiple licenses (say GPL & BSD), provided that you fully own the copyright. The GPL does bind the behavior of others, but only to assure reciprocity. It assures that corporations cannot freeload off your efforts without contributing back.

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