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ACTA threats to Free Software
by Hugo Roy 21 Apr '10

21 Apr '10

Hi, Today ACTA was published. For those of you who haven't read the text yet, here is an overview of the situation regarding Free Software. For those of you who have already read the text, feel free to contact me if you see anything I forgot or misunderstood. Link: http://blogs.fsfe.org/hugo/2010/04/acta-threats-to-free-software/ Today with the first public release of ACTA, the effects the international agreement will have on Free Software appear to be dangerous for its development and its distribution. First, by extending infringements proceedings and criminal offences to a broad scope of “intellectual property” including software patents. Second, by destabilizing the most important means of distribution for Free Software, which relies on an open and neutral platform on which online services are not meant to control whether “intellectual property rights” (including patents) are infringed. Third, by strengthening the protection of Digital Restrictions Managements (DRMs) against Free Software and fair competition. Earlier today, the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Trade published the first public version of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, aka ACTA (PDF). However this document does not give the details on the negotiations, which began secretly in October 2007. I will not speak here about the political damages ACTA inflicts to the respect of democracy, nor about the disastrous effects ACTA will have directly on free speech, privacy, and the internet ecosystem’s sustainability as an open, neutral and innovative platform. Instead, I want to focus here on the direct and indirect threats ACTA represents for Free Software, on its development, its legal viability and on its business and trade related aspects. First, let’s set things straight. ACTA is not just about counterfeiting, it is broader than copyright. The scope of ACTA is, as defined in the public release: intellectual property refers to all categories of intellectual property that are the subject of Sections 1 through 7 of Part II of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights. This includes copyright, trademark, industrial design and patent. If this definition is clear, all along the text paragraphs refers sometimes only to copyright and trademark, and sometimes to a broader scope, depending on how the negotiations will evolve over time. In this case, we know that the threats to Free Software are multiple because of the software patents granted every year by the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the licensing schemes tied with patents that are incompatible with Free Software (To know more about software patents in ACTA, read End Software Patents). Second, ACTA is not a trade agreement. Whatever the EU negotiators claim, the fact is that ACTA goes beyond current legislations and aims at creating internationally harmonized legislations on how “intellectual property rights” should be enforced. This is one of the reason why ACTA is creating its own body (the Committee) with its own executives (the Secretariat), independently from the World Trade Organization within which international trade agreements should be negotiated, and independently from World Intellectual Property Organization within which international treaties dealing with copyright, trademark and patents are usually negotiated (and open to NGOs like FSFE). The threat to Free Software is that there is absolutely no safeguards as to how the principles of freedom and sharing software would be kept intact. What ACTA does is creating civil enforcement procedures harming Free Software development and distribution. Indeed, this is the other side effect of the changes in judicial authorities and civil proceedings regarding “intellectual property rights.” Free Software is an important milestone of an open and neutral Internet, and the Internet itself is a core tool of how Free Software is developed (by allowing developers to contribute to code and create programs around the world) and how Free Software is distributed (with online services, including multiple protocols such as peer to peer protocols among others). All this system is threatened by ACTA with such measures and propositions as: prevent infringing goods [infringing any intellectual property right, including patent] from entering the channels of commerce [...] injunction against intermediaries whose services are used by third party to infringe an intellectual property right [...] These measures create a risk for online service providers and web services, because it makes them responsible for infringements and so encourages them to monitor, filter, control and censor their services — which has always been proved to diminish the incentive for innovation, tinkering and hacking; possibilities required to develop Free Software. Also, ACTA promotes the development of mutually supportive relationships between online services providers and right holders to deal effectively with patents, industrial design, trademark and copyright or related rights infringement which takes place by means of the Internet [...] Which itself is a danger to network neutrality because it creates more concentration between ISPs, operators and rights holders, but also it is a direct threat to Free Software because the major means of distribution are controlled, supportively by rights holders including software patents holders. Above these procedures, ACTA goes where the EU Directive IPRED2 attempted to: criminal enforcement, which includes “Inciting, Aidind and Abetting”. Of course, this concerns “Technological Enforcement of Intellectual Property in the Digital Environment”, extending the scope of IPRED. What’s more, Free Software itself, and not only the means of its distribution, is targeted: These shall apply to:] [...] the manufacture, importation, or circulation of a [technology], service, device, product, [component, or part thereof, that is: [marketed] or primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing an effective technological measure; or that has only a limited commercially significant purpose or use other than circumventing an effective technological measure.] Finally, ACTA endangers Free Software by protecting Digital Restrictions Management and proposing civil remedies against removing or altering DRMs, or distribute, import for distribution, broadcast, communicate, or make available to the public copies of works, knowing that electronic rights management information has been removed or altered without authority Not only ACTA is a direct and indrect threat to Free Software, it is also an important step backward to less freedom and towards a dogmatic approach of “intellectual property” that will harm the sharing of knowledge and the Free Software values, by Promoting the culture of intellectual property [...] To support, developing countries efforts, for the implementation of the Agreement and the integration of anti-counterfeiting and anti-hacking actions in national development strategies. (If you want to help, spread the word about ACTA and contribute to the comments of the public release). -- Hugo Roy im: hugo(a)jabber.fsfe.org French Coordinator http://www.fsfe.org/about/roy Free Software Foundation Europe works to create general understanding and support for software freedom in politics, law and society-at-large. For more information, see http://www.fsfe.org

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Re: non standard PDF?
by Timo Juhani Lindfors 20 Apr '10

20 Apr '10

discussion(a)fsfeurope.org writes: > Truly disturbing that Adobe reader allows this nonsense. If anything > this should be told to people as a reason *not* to use reader and use to > a free counterpart. Any idea how we could convince evince developers to implement a warning about this? As I already mentioned, current situation where the user just sees a blank page and then switches to acroread is the worst possible situation.

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Fwd: Ubuntu's not GNU/Linux?
by Gregory Zysk 20 Apr '10

20 Apr '10

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Gregory Zysk <gmzysk(a)fedoraproject.org> Date: Fri, Apr 16, 2010 at 2:22 PM Subject: Re: Ubuntu's not GNU/Linux? To: Sam Tuke <mail(a)samtuke.com> On Fri, Apr 16, 2010 at 2:11 PM, Sam Tuke <mail(a)samtuke.com> wrote: > I find it hard to believe that it is a licensing issue - many other > commercial distributions mention Linux repeatedly on their websites (Suse, > RHEL, Mandriva...), and if it were because of this then why would they be > able to put it on other pages, and just not the front page? > It is a licensing issue when they cannot ship their distro and all of its parts under the GNU/GPL. Certain proprietary components are not free to modify and distribute unless cleared through the vendor and in the case of flash that would be Adobe. > > Linux is a trademark (and I've gone through the sub-licensing process of it > myself), but there is nothing stopping companies referencing it - "based on > Linux", "a version of Linux" etc. are all acceptable references to the term. > I do not see the argument here. Linux as a product is different than that of the GNU philosophy. > > Also GNU's opinion isn't relevant to Ubuntu's ability to refer to Linux as > far as I can see - they have no rights to the word or its application; what > power could they have to prevent an organisation from using it? > There is nothing preventing Canonical from building an operating system off of the linux kernel. Many companies do that. > > I'm not aware of any good reason for Ubuntu hiding the fact that its based > on GNU/Linux. > I do not think that they are trying to hide it personally, I believe that Hugo's comment was right in the fact that they are trying to differentiate themselves in the market rather than being another linux distro. Greg > > > Sam, > > > > That is because they can't. It is about licensing. They ship non-free or > > proprietary software with their distribution, such as Flash which > prohibits > > them from adhering to the 4 freedoms of the GNU philosophy. You can find > > GNU's own stance on Ubuntu > > here.<http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/common-distros.html> > > > > Gregory > -- Title: Fedora Ambassador Netherlands User Homepage: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Gmzysk PGP Fingerprint: 4643 E1AE 1AAD 85D4 6276 7C42 3591 A189 B8BF 04D6 -- Title: Fedora Ambassador Netherlands User Homepage: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Gmzysk PGP Fingerprint: 4643 E1AE 1AAD 85D4 6276 7C42 3591 A189 B8BF 04D6

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Re: Re: Re: Re: Ubuntu's not GNU/Linux?
by Diogo Santos 20 Apr '10

20 Apr '10

> I don't care if it is common sense or reasonable to you, to have the > four freedoms for every software I use (remotely or localy). I want > the four freedoms for every software I use, no matter if it runs on > my computer or the computer of someone else. I just matters that I > am a user and don't have the four freedoms. If it's not running in your computer, and it's not distributed. I see no reason for demmanding access to someone else private software. In this context Free Software is important for your freedom to control your computer, and to be independent from other people. If you've choosed to run software in someone else computer, you don't want to be very independent from him and there's no loss of control for your computer. There maybe other freedom needs related to data, and some specifications for data formats, but litle more. > Either the European patents which are listed by the MPEG LA are illegal > (which I suspect) or they don't deal with software. In Europe some > companies have been sued because of these patents. At the moment > one of Germany's biggest discounters is being sued for not having > an MPEG licence, so I suspect that the MPEG LA would do this if they > had illegal or invalid patents. My opinion, is that any software patent in any country that is signatary of this convention is illegal, and any aptempt to withold those patents is also illegal even if performed with the legal system. > It depends on the country and person. I buy online very frequently > and I hardly remember when I bought electronic devices in a store. I hardly remenber buying electronic devices. But due to costumer support questions I prefer to buy off-line. > Or maybe they just need to sell a lot music in patented formats. Just > because some users demand something, a company like 7digital won't > change something in their business model, if it already works and > there no great expectations for profit. I don't think Canonical would go for this under those conditions (I'm optimistic about this). And canonical as recommended to not buy music under those formats in the store. > I agree with you in a lot of places. But Canonical would just ignore > proprietary software and wouldn't include it, they would neither make > it hard or easy to install proprietary software. People who want > it, could still get it (the same as with Fedora). People who would > choose it, because they didn't think about something else to use, > would choose Free Software. I disagree that not putting it in repositorys, is not making it easy. Not doing nothing is not user-friendly (because for most users this centralized distribution method should be the only that they should need). I don't know if I have understood your last frase. But with Ubuntu the only proprietary software that guets installed by default is driver firmware (if it is required), and drivers. I've never seen a proprietary driver running by default (they were installed, but not loaded), no other proprietary software is installed by default so it's in no way imposed. > My problem is not that there are proprietary software repositories, > but merely that they are official and are accepted and intended > by Canonical. I don't have problems with that because the partners repository is not activated by default, and restrited will only be used if needed to run the computer. So I find this compromise not desirable, far from ideal, but acceptable. With my cumpliments Diogo --

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Re: Ubuntu's not GNU/Linux?
by Diogo Santos 20 Apr '10

20 Apr '10

> Same old story. > > I keep hearing about people who accept ruinous compromises just to get > some users. > > Users acquired in this way are not good users if you don't explain them > the four freedoms and the importance of free software, the importance for > you to have FULL control of your computer. > > Using Ubuntu they don't have a full control of their computer because of > the non free parts. I'm sory but not all installations of Ubuntu have proprietary software. Only those that require proprietary drivers, or firmware get it in installation, all other proprietary software is installed by the user after installation of Ubuntu, and that is something the user can do with any distribution. Maybe we should remind you that Ubuntu installer only installs proprietary drivers when there's no free driver, or when the free driver is unstable. And only installs proprietary firmware when it's needed by the driver. Ubuntu also doesn't install by default support prorietary codecs, and free implementations of patent tainted codecs. So I can't see any ruinous compromise here. I see compromise, but not ruinous. > Why should we point at the worst? Why are you comparing with the iBad? We're comparing with the worst because people are sugesting to do with Ubuntu the same we should do with the worts (do not use it). > You should avoid compromises and fight for free software. I think we all agree that we want to avoid, it doesn't meen that it's always possible. > I know lots of people who use ubuntu.. with skype... picasa.. and so on. > > What's the difference between using "some" non free sofware and "all" non > free software in the areas where it is available? The network effect is reduced. It's not stopped, but not reduced. I also belive that people in those situations are more prone to change to free only. > Where do you draw the line? For me? For me the line is simple, Free Software only. But in this field I'm more edducated that most (as are you). And this is what I trie to get from others. But it's not reasonable that people buy a new laptop to use only Free Software, they should and will have more attention when buying a new one, but that will be when there're more reasons to do so. > Try instead of using a fully free distribution, contribute to it, make it > better. > More people using a fully free distro means that distro will have a big > weight, a big user base and so hardware vendors could choose it instead of > ubuntu. And if I don't have a computer where I can use only Free Software? Will you buy me one? With my cumpliments Diogo --

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Re: Re: Re: Re: Ubuntu's not GNU/Linux?
by Diogo Santos 19 Apr '10

19 Apr '10

> Copyright is irrelevant for the definition of Free Software. The fact is > that I use a software and I don't have the four freedoms, therefore it's > proprietary software, because all software that doesn't give me the four > freedoms is by definition proprietary software. It doesn't matter if it > is kept private or is released to the public. It's for the defenition, but no to apply it to the reality, and that's why we've copyright licenses. It is not reasonable, nor common sense, that you demmand the 4 freedoms for a software that you'r only accessing in someone else's computer. And altough that may no be the exact case of that software, because you also run client side code, to help presentation and other client side stuff, that is way more near to access remote software than using it in your computer. > I don't know the contents of this convention, but I searched through and > didn't find the word patent. Could you please point me to relevant > passage? Because this would mean that I can break any software patent by > just referring to this convention. I'm sory by confusion and lack of atention, I've mention the rong convention... I was actually refering to the article 52º of the European Patent Convention. > According to one of the biggest online shops in the world, the product > sells quite well and has over 100 reviews there. Well I don't buy on-line, neither most of the general poppulation. > Well, than 7digital has to make the negotiations with the music labels. > According to their website they offer only MP3, AAC and WMA. Canonical > must be a big customer of them to get all 8 Million tracks in FLAC and > OGG, if 7digital has them as WAV or similar already. Canonical said that the questing reallated with some proprietary and patented formats (and specified wma as an example) is being take careof. The availlability in tottaly free formats will be another question addressed when they can. So I guess they feel that have power to pressure 7digital to make music availlable in some formats, but not yet, to demmand files in the formats the community wants. Maybe they need the eight of users to do so. > That means, you are suggesting to install proprietary Software on the > user's computer to convince the user that Free Software has the same > functionality and that proprietary software is a bad idea. That's > absurd! No I'm not! I wasn't sugesting nothing, I was recognizing that many people want to use proprietary software (no matter the reason), others will use it because they don't really have choice. What I was stating is, that it's not the exclusion of methods to install that non-free software, that will prevent people to do so, it will also not motivate people to use Free Software. If you belive it will, you're as fool, or much more naif, than people o create and deploy DRM to prevent people to be free. I think, altough it is bad that they use proprietary software (for them and for us due to it's network effect), it is preferable that they use it under a environment where there's much more Free than non-Free Software, where they can become more sensitive to freedom related questions, and change their previuos decision of using proprietary software. Making hard for people to use proprietary software, will only make them ungry at the Free Software Community, and drive them away from our ideals. I would never take the iniciative to sugest to install proprietary software other than the exclusively necessary to run the computer with a Free Software Operating System. And would never sugest to use a proprietary software application. I don't use proprietary software in any computer that it's my property (where I can allways choose to do so). I don't even accept to employment to work with a proprietary OS/environment on the workplace desktop/laptop and where the job isn't using or develloping with Free Software. Even more, I wouldn't work in IT, if I hadn't the chance to work this way. Therefore I would never sugest any other people to use proprietary for any other reason than enabling them to work in Free Software environment. And even on those cases I also sugest them more care in future hardware purchases (and tell them wat I do to avoid hardware problems/difficulties), and also sugest them that maybe they should complain to the hardware manufacturer for not respecting their freedom. But I understand that this is my personal ethics. I do demmand other people to have ethics, but not exactly the same as mine. I allways sugest first people to use Free Software only. But I accept, altough not be happy about it, that by now and in some cases, for some people, to use more Free than proprietary software, under a Free Software environment is better than using only proprietary software, or some Free Software under a proprietary environment. And I belive that people who do this compromise to use a Free Software environment are much closer to use only Free Software, than they would if we had made their lifes harder than it is by using proprietary software. So this is not a strategy I would promote, but in cases where necessary I do/will fall back it. Ubuntu and Canonical don't promote, or sugest, or even force, people to use proprietary software, but enable people who want to use it, to use it. That might be a small difference, but to me it's an important difference, it also enable people who don't have a choice to use what they have to. cumpliments Diogo P.S.: I'm sory if I have been unpolited, It's not my intention... --

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Re: Re: Re: Ubuntu's not GNU/Linux?
by Diogo Santos 18 Apr '10

18 Apr '10

> No, I use the software over the internet and the four Freedoms were not > given to me as a user until recently, therefore was not Free Software, > because Free Software garants its users the four freedoms. You're accessing a remote system that was running on someone else server. So under such conditions, you would never be a licensee under copyright. > In Germany there have been legal consequences for some companies for > violating MP3 patents. There are several parties (mainly in the USA > and EU) who claim to hold MP3 patents. So a considerable amount of the > world's computer users can't legally use Free Software to decode MP3 > files. Though the patent situation of MP3 is a bit weird, it's not a > "stupidity" of the USPTO. They can claim what whatever they want. Germany is a signatory of Bern Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works that outlaws Software Patents. If German companies had such problems that was a result of poor legal defence strategies, or poor law aplication. But we shouldn't let ourselves get bullied by such illegal abuses. > There are some players which play FLAC and Ogg Vorbis. A device with > high ratings is e.g. the SanDisk Sansa Clip+. Maybe there're but I'ver never saw a singleone for sale, or heard any of the many peoplo that I know and are aware of this saying they saw one. > Some major music labels won't do that. It took years and some efforts of > really well selling music store to even convince them to use MP3. Canonical Isn't working with music labels. But with 7digital. > I was not talking about the freedom of Ubuntu, but rather about the > attitude of Canonical which dictates the future and development > direction of Ubuntu. Ubuntu is a mostly free Software GNU/Linux distribution. As I told in other message in special conditions some compromises maybe necessary, and Ubunbu enables that in a reasonably way (it doesn't push it down users throat). So I disagree with you on that too. > I simply don't feel comfortable with their attitude. Their attitude is of being usefull to people who want to use Free Software. Keep private, some stuff they made and feel should be private, and not being shortsighted enough to belive that people will stop need and wanting to use non-free software because. People will only stop using proprietary software if they understand the problems it causes and if we enable them to choose quality Free Software alterantives (we are making progress in both and Ubuntu as been helping). with my cumpliments Diogo --

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Re: Re: Ubuntu's not GNU/Linux?
by Matthias-Christian Ott 17 Apr '10

17 Apr '10

On Sat, Apr 17, 2010 at 01:21:10PM +0000, Diogo Santos wrote: > Launchpad was never proprietary, by the simple reason that Canonical was > the only user, and had all the 4 freedoms of the Free Software definition. > Therefore it's false that launchpad was proprietary. The same applies to > Ubuntu One infrastructure. Private Software is also Free Software > (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/categories.html). No, I use the software over the internet and the four Freedoms were not given to me as a user until recently, therefore was not Free Software, because Free Software garants its users the four freedoms. > Patented formats are a problem in USA and a few other countries. Not so > much to rest of the world, we should avoid it by precaution to the Future, > but not to exagerate. I don't really care about USPTO stupidity. Excluding > MP3 from the store would render it useless for digital portable music > players (or most of them). In Germany there have been legal consequences for some companies for violating MP3 patents. There are several parties (mainly in the USA and EU) who claim to hold MP3 patents. So a considerable amount of the world's computer users can't legally use Free Software to decode MP3 files. Though the patent situation of MP3 is a bit weird, it's not a "stupidity" of the USPTO. For most private users violating the MP3 patents may be tolerable, because the patent holders would hardly make profit by suing them. But for companies and public institutions it's a problem to use free MP3 decoders, because even if you wanted to obtain invididual licences for your copies of the software, it's still hard to make negotiations with the patent holders. If you consciously choose to buy software from a vendor who sells only music that you could get somewhere else as an MP3 in the FLAC or Ogg Vorbis format, you probably have a compatible player. Otherwise you can still (possibly illegally) encode it into MP3. There are some players which play FLAC and Ogg Vorbis. A device with high ratings is e.g. the SanDisk Sansa Clip+. > Canonical as also stated that it's working to remove some proprietary file > formats like wma from the store, and recomends not buying music in that > format, and promised to work to include Vorbis and FLAC as soon as it's > possible. This is far from optimal, but to me is good enough to be used if > they keep their promisses (and I have no reason to doubt from that). Some major music labels won't do that. It took years and some efforts of really well selling music store to even convince them to use MP3. > I don't care that Canonical includes proprietary software in it's store. As > long as I can tell what it is, and as long as it's not imposed to users, > it's not installed by default in Ubuntu and keeps offering and promoting > quality free alternatives as they've been doing. I was not talking about the freedom of Ubuntu, but rather about the attitude of Canonical which dictates the future and development direction of Ubuntu. I simply don't feel comfortable with their attitude. Regards, Matthias-Christian

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Re: Ubuntu's not GNU/Linux?
by Diogo Santos 16 Apr '10

16 Apr '10

> I find it hard to believe that it is a licensing issue I'm certain that's not! > I'm not aware of any good reason for Ubuntu hiding the fact that its based on GNU/Linux. I'm certain that they aren't hidding. If they're they do a very poor job. Ubuntu comes with proprietary software, but it doesn't come with any flash implementation that's not Free Software (someone refered to proprietary flash in this thread), and many of those drivers and firmwares are what makes people able to use the rest of the sistem and applications as Free Software only. Let me give you my example: I need to use wifi network and a proprietary version of Java in order to use my work network and work VPN. In some locations of my clients I only have wifi (and the free driver needs de proprietary firmware), and I haven't been able to use the Juniper Networks VPN client with free implementations of Java (I've no choive about using that VPN client). I don't use any other proprietary software in the computer. I'm not happy about using this trash, but it's an forced compromise I need to not use a lot more proprietary software. In the past even RMS, made some compromises like this and I only make them when the rules aren't set by me, and when I can't have any influence. But I allways let people aware of this problems and periodicaly try, to set me free, of this proprietary problem. When I buy a computer I allways test it to make shure I can use it with Free Software only, but there're times I don't have a word in hardware choice (it's imposed by the employer). Although Ubuntu is not a Free Software only distribution I don't think we should not recomend it just because of that, what we should do is recommend people to avoid using proprietary software, and only use under extreme situations (and under protest). Ubuntu enables a lot of people and organizations to use a lot more Free Software. And they've allways prefered to provide Free Software (proprietary drivers are only used if the free driver for that device fails) and proprietary software is on specific repositories (restrited repository and thir party repositories), so users won't install if they don't want so. I allways mention GNU/Linux when I want to refer to the GNU/Linux distribution and I think it's very important that users are aware of Free Software and the need (their and ours) to use it I can accept that not every body feels the need to say that something is GNU/Linux in order to make people aware of software related freedom. I admit the possibility of using other strategies. Some strategies don't mention software freedom, I'm certain that those will fail. Others inspired in the carrot and stick principle might fare better (comparing with not talk about software freedom). I admit that not every user/programer/whatever of Free Software cares about software freedom and they're free todo so (even if I would prefer and ask them otherwise). In such cases, our victory will be that they've their freedom and that some provide it to others. Some day, and somehow they will learn better, and we will reach their users, because we won't fail. I would prefer that they would explicit mention GNU/Linux, or even better Free Software everywhere, and I might tell them that it's better for everybody to do so. But I won't "go to war", or even be hostile with them because of it, because it's useless to our software freedom goal. with my best cumpliments to all Diogo --

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Re: Re: Ubuntu's not GNU/Linux?
by Diogo Santos 16 Apr '10

16 Apr '10

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