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-   -   [Announce] bleeding-edge wl1251 wifi driver for Maemo Fremantle (https://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=67554)

riahc3 2011-01-26 22:09
Re: [Announce] bleeding-edge wl1251 wifi driver for Maemo Fremantle
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by woody14619 (Post 929338)
Actually, no. There's NO moral difference, it's still stealing. By pirating software, you are taking away something that the owner legally has: The right to sell his craft.

Suppose I walked into a book store with a hand scanner, picked up a book, scanned the whole thing in, and then left. Is that theft? They still have their original. What if I went into a store that had a machine that made thousands of some type of tool every day, then took one of those tools and walked out. They can easily make another, at almost no cost, so that's not stealing, right? What if I made a replicator, then walked into a museum and replicated all of Van Goghs works. Would the originals retain their value, as I stood outside making free identical replicas for everyone to take home with them?

Just because the result of a craft is a virtual item that can be easily replicated at little/no cost doesn't make it legal to steal it. Your "going home and making one just like it" analogy is also false, as it implies everyone is looking at his work, then going home and writing their own code to do something similar. That's not what's happening here. They're using his code, code he spend time and effort learning, working on, and debugging.

Imagine you spent time learning how to draw exceptional images, and took the time to draw a stunning work, expecting to be paid for it. Then your backer doesn't pay, and you realize you spent lots of time and money doing this, and can't make another without selling that piece. You agree to show it to people, and a few people show up, take high res pictures of it, and leave, paying nothing. They then distribute those photos all over the world, rendering your original pretty much worthless. When asked about it, they reply with "art should be free", or "I'm morally opposed to paying for beauty".

Isn't that stealing? How many other artists will take the time to make such images in the future? How likely is that artist to do anything art related in the future? How many beautiful pieces has the world missed out on because people were to cheap to spend a buck on a piece art?

The bottom line is this: The only way copying software, music, images, or anything digital is not stealing is if the person that put the effort into that product has specifically given permission to do so, or if it's so old that it's declared "public domain" for lack of ownership (like very old books or music). Trying to justify stealing by saying it's "scene" or that it's not really theft because the owner still has their original is bogus. It's wrong, technically, morally, and in most places legally.
Noone is stealing anything sheriff. Read this and understand it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License

WereCatf 2011-01-26 22:28
Re: [Announce] bleeding-edge wl1251 wifi driver for Maemo Fremantle
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by woody14619 (Post 929338)
By pirating software, you are taking away something that the owner legally has: The right to sell his craft.
True. There is still one difference between stealing and pirating stuff: when you steal an object the original owner doesn't have it anymore and thus he has lost something physical and has a real quantifiable monetary loss.

But when you pirate something the original owner does not lose anything physical nor does the act incur any monetary loss directly. Even then, the only monetary loss the owner could be perceived to have suffered would be if you would buy that product otherwise if you couldn't pirate it. But if you wouldn't buy it anyway then there has been no monetary loss at all.

It's that latter part that for example MAFIAA always carefully avoids mentioning anywhere, instead claiming that every single pirated copy means a loss of sales.

Note that I am not pro-piracy, I am just pointing out the phallacy of your logics.

Quote:
The bottom line is this: The only way copying software, music, images, or anything digital is not stealing is if the person that put the effort into that product has specifically given permission to do so
Well, the author of these patches has indeed given such permission: he is patching GPL licensed software and thus it all remains derived works. He cannot distribute binaries legally without also allowing access to the sources _for free_ or else he will be breaking copyright laws.

Thus distributing his work further is all perfectly legal. Claiming it's illegal simply because he requests donations simply isn't true: it is GPL-licensed and he must follow the rules laid out.

Now, I still do understand why he is asking for donations and personally ain't planning to distribute his works, but judging someone else who does it is also wrong; it is within their rights to do so.

woody14619 2011-01-26 22:30
Re: [Announce] bleeding-edge wl1251 wifi driver for Maemo Fremantle
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by riahc3 (Post 929386)
Noone is stealing anything sheriff. Read this and understand it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License
Read the post before this... Just slapping GPL on something near it doesn't give people the right to take it. If that were true we wouldn't have an OVI store, since anything running on the N900 would technically be a "derivative work" and have to be free. If you don't understand that, then it's you that needs to read the link above.

Regardless, the end result is that attitudes like those stated are what kills future works for a product. When you have someone looking for minor compensation for something they spent a lot of time working on, only to be pissed on by cheapskates, it sours the chance of them continuing in that community. We could have gotten a skilled developer, with obvious experience. Instead we've pissed away that chance because a few people were too cheep to part with a Euro or two for something they're going to actually use quite a bit.

Why don't you go steal some music from your favorite band, and pirate some movies from producers you like? Kill the things you care about, instead of pissing in our cornflakes... Whiners.

WereCatf 2011-01-26 22:43
Re: [Announce] bleeding-edge wl1251 wifi driver for Maemo Fremantle
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by woody14619 (Post 929397)
Read the post before this... Just slapping GPL on something near it doesn't give people the right to take it. If that were true we wouldn't have an OVI store, since anything running on the N900 would technically be a "derivative work" and have to be free. If you don't understand that, then it's you that needs to read the link above.
Incorrect. Most libraries are LGPL, not GPL, and thus you are allowed to create closed-source applications which aren't GPL-licensed. It's only if the apps use GPL-code withing them, or a GPL-licensed library that would make the app itself also GPL. LGPL allows one to link to the library and still retain the original license.

woody14619 2011-01-26 22:50
Re: [Announce] bleeding-edge wl1251 wifi driver for Maemo Fremantle
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by WereCatf (Post 929396)
But when you pirate something the original owner does not lose anything physical nor does the act incur any monetary loss directly.
Wrong. They do incur a loss, the money that you (and those you distribute it to later) would have paid for it.

Quote:
Originally Posted by WereCatf (Post 929396)
But if you wouldn't buy it anyway then there has been no monetary loss at all.
Wrong again. The fact that you bothered to pirate it means you wanted it. It may be that the value you placed on it was different than what the author asked. But if you acquire it and use it, it clearly has value to you in the fact that you are using it! If you really wouldn't buy it anyway, then you wouldn't have it.

To say otherwise is attempting to alter reality by using twisted (and false) logic. Justifying it to yourself must make it easier to steal. Just like dehumanizing an enemy in combat makes it easier to shoot another human being. That doesn't make killing right, it only makes it easier.

Quote:
Originally Posted by WereCatf (Post 929396)
Note that I am not pro-piracy, I am just pointing out the phallacy of your logics.
My "logics" is not in any way sexual....

The only one using false logic here is you. If you acquire something without paying for it, that the author sought payment or royalty to use or enjoy, it's theft. Period.


Quote:
Originally Posted by WereCatf (Post 929396)
Well, the author of these patches has indeed given such permission: he is patching GPL licensed software and thus it all remains derived works. He cannot distribute binaries legally without also allowing access to the sources _for free_ or else he will be breaking copyright laws.
Yes and no. Read the GPL some time. Like I stated before, if the GPL were that black and white there would be no OVI store, nor would there be an N900 for that matter. What he's doing is quite legal, and legally, he could take action against people using his software without paying for it. It would probably be too cost prohibitive to do however.

Even if he were to use GPL software as his base, on selling it, it doesn't give you the right to pirate it. At most it gives the owner of the GPL rights the right to sue him for using their product to create a derived work and charging for it. That's reality, not the twisted chain of thought you're trying to express here.

Again, read what I'm saying here. Even if what you're saying is 100% true, and the GPL bindings were so strict that he's forced to give it away for free (which it's not), or give you the right to pirate it (which it doesn;t). Burning this bridge costs more than you're getting for it. You've effectively driven away a competent developer for a "free" driver with no support and source code that you yourself probably couldn't patch or maintain if your life depended on it. Is that a win?

woody14619 2011-01-26 22:56
Re: [Announce] bleeding-edge wl1251 wifi driver for Maemo Fremantle
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by WereCatf (Post 929404)
Incorrect. Most libraries are LGPL, not GPL, and thus you are allowed to create closed-source applications which aren't GPL-licensed. It's only if the apps use GPL-code withing them, or a GPL-licensed library that would make the app itself also GPL. LGPL allows one to link to the library and still retain the original license.
You'll note what we're talking about here is not an app. It's a module, that plugs into the kernel. Several such modules in the N900 kernel are closed source. Making a closed source module is quite legit. So, thanks for making my point for me.

Again, see the page linked to earlier (to Wikipedia). There are legal professionals, who debate things like this every day, and even they disagree over how the GPL applies to things like plugins and kernel modules. It's not clear cut, and there's 0 case law around any of it.

WereCatf 2011-01-26 23:28
Re: [Announce] bleeding-edge wl1251 wifi driver for Maemo Fremantle
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by woody14619 (Post 929410)
Wrong again. The fact that you bothered to pirate it means you wanted it. It may be that the value you placed on it was different than what the author asked. But if you acquire it and use it, it clearly has value to you in the fact that you are using it! If you really wouldn't buy it anyway, then you wouldn't have it.
Having value doesn't mean you'd still buy it for the price the author is asking for it, you know.

Quote:
Yes and no. Read the GPL some time. Like I stated before, if the GPL were that black and white there would be no OVI store
There is nothing that would somehow magically turn all OVI store applications to GPL. Just because it runs on Linux doesn't mean it's GPL.

WereCatf 2011-01-26 23:31
Re: [Announce] bleeding-edge wl1251 wifi driver for Maemo Fremantle
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by woody14619 (Post 929414)
You'll note what we're talking about here is not an app.
You were the one claiming that all OVI Store apps would be GPL, not me.

Quote:
It's a module, that plugs into the kernel. Several such modules in the N900 kernel are closed source. Making a closed source module is quite legit. So, thanks for making my point for me.
Incorrect. Even NVIDIA doesn't produce a closed source kernel module, instead the module itself is perfectly open GPL-code. It simply loads a binary firmware blob once it's loaded and initialized into memory. Since that blob doesn't link to the kernel it doesn't have to be GPL.

The author of these mods however directly links to the kernel and thus it makes them GPL.

Go ahead and study NVIDIA kernel modules for a good, professional and proprietary example.

woody14619 2011-01-27 00:06
Re: [Announce] bleeding-edge wl1251 wifi driver for Maemo Fremantle
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by WereCatf (Post 929433)
Having value doesn't mean you'd still buy it for the price the author is asking for it, you know.
Yes, and acquiring it without paying for it is still theft, you know.

So you're saying it's ok to steal a Ferrari, since clearly they're overpriced and well above the value you'd place on it? Since they're asking too much, it's legit to just go take one? Wrong. And no twisted logical argument makes it right. Not for a car, not for music, and not for software.

And before I'm pegged as a Les Mis fan, I'm all about looking the other way if someone's stealing things they need to survive. A homeless person stealing a bit of bread, or a box to make a house out of, that's different. People need food and water and shelter. They don't need Word or Photoshop or an injection capable wifi driver.

You're trying to justifying theft for pleasure, not for need. Justifying it (I'd bet) to sooth your conscience for having digitally stolen material that you could have paid for, or done without, but stole because it was easier or more convenient.

As for the GPL thing, it's clearly something even people with legal degrees disagree about. Frankly, the point is moot now. The developer has already been burned, and probably won't be back. Given the chance to do work again like this, he'll probably either turn it down, or if he doesn't get paid for it will simply not release his changes. Either way, we lose.

WereCatf 2011-01-27 00:18
Re: [Announce] bleeding-edge wl1251 wifi driver for Maemo Fremantle
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by woody14619 (Post 929461)
So you're saying it's ok to steal a Ferrari
Where the f*ck did I say anything like that, huh? Where, do show me? All I said was that you can't count every pirated copy as a loss of sales, I NEVER ONCE SAID IT'S OK TO PIRATE.

Next time learn to read before you start accusing people!


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