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Plan 9 released under GPLv2
- TallGuyShort 13y agoReferring to Plan 9's previous license, the Lucent Public License, Wikipedia says: 'The clause in particular that causes it to be incompatible with the GNU GPL is "This Agreement is governed by the laws of the State of New York and the intellectual property laws of the United States of America."'
- pyre 13y agoHow is the GPL not governed by the said laws? I'm confused. Is the GPL illegal in the State of New York?
- delinka 13y agoI believe the attempt to limit applicable law to the state of New York as opposed to permitting application of laws of other jurisdictions is the problem.
- stonemetal 13y agoIf you live in the UK and release code under the GPL to someone else in the UK, then yes said code is not governed by the laws of the state of New York. I am unfamiliar with GPL case law in New York but it is probably legal there. The point is the LPL license says you agree to be bound by New York law for license disputes even if you do not call New York home. Which means you have to defend any license violation suits in New York, because the odds of finding a Judge capable of hearing New York law cases outside of New York are rather slim.
- wbl 13y agoActually, New York law is pretty much the world standard for international commerce. Foreign law is applied regularly in many courts, for instance inquiring if a marriage is valid.
- jobigoud 13y agoIncluding in countries where we use code law rather than common law ? That seems strange.
- venomsnake 13y agoIt has nothing to do with common/code law as I understand it. It means that you agree that all disputes will be settled in NY. Every european consultant that had done work for US company has signed such agreement (enforcement cross continent is another beast altogether)
- noselasd 13y agoStill, if you're UK based, and you provide GPL software to someone else who is UK based - how would it make sense for that license arrangement were governed by NY law. (which is presumably why the GPL doesn't have such a clause)
- TallGuyShort 13y agoThe bottom line is the clause is only to protect the lawyers and the original distributor because they have chosen a jurisdiction they know best. The GPL is all about protecting the user's freedoms, which is why they're so at odds: even if the result isn't so different, the intent is very different.
- tzs 13y ago> It means that you agree that all disputes will be settled in NY It means that they will be settled using NY law, not that they will be settled in NY. An example might make things clearer. Suppose a party in the UK enters into a contract with a party in Germany. The contract has a clause that says either party can terminate the contract provided they provide 30 days written notification to the other party. Failure to provide adequate notification can result in some losses for the other party, and so could lead to litigation. The contract has a clause that says it will be governed by the laws of New York State. The German party wants to cancel the contract, and does so by sending an email to the UK party 31 days before their proposed termination date. The UK party does not see the email for several days, and incurs some losses. They sue the German party in German court. Let's assume that the German party conducts business throughout the world, and so the plaintiff has many choices as to where to sue (they can basically sue anywhere that has personal jurisdiction over the German party). The key issue is whether or not the German party provided 30 days written notification. Is email "written notification", or does it have to be a more traditional form of written communication, such as postal mail or telegram? Also, 30 days from whose point of view? Does the sender merely have to send the notification 30 days or more before the propose termination date, or does the receiver have to receive it 30 days or more before that date? Different jurisdictions might have different answers to these questions. If the contract does not define what constitutes 30 days written notification, the outcome can depend on where the plaintiff sues. What the German court will do is look at their choice of law rules. Those rules will tell them what jurisdiction's contract law to apply when interpreting a contract between a UK party and a German party, and then use that jurisdiction's contract law to figure out what constitutes 30 days written notification. One of Germany's choice of law rules says that if the contract explicitly says what jurisdiction's rules to use, the German court will honor that. Thus, the German court will try to figure out how New York contract law interprets "30 days written notification". If New York allows email notification, and if the 30 days is from the sender's viewpoint or the recipient's viewpoint. This is one of the things that makes a judge's job interesting--just because you sit on the bench in Germany doesn't mean you only get to deal with German law. It gets especially interesting if you are trying to apply foreign law to an issue that has not been considered in the foreign jurisdiction. This would happen in this example if New York law had nothing to say about what "30 days written notification" should mean. The German could would then have to try to infer the principles behind New York contract law, and decide what they think would happen if the issue arose in New York. It is important to note that the German court will NOT use New York law for things not related to contract interpretation. It will use German law for rules of procedure, rules of evidence, qualification of expert witnesses, and things like that. A completely different thing is a choice of venue clause, although they are often confused with choice of law clauses. A choice of venue clause would say that the parties agree that any litigation over the contract will be brought in New York courts, and that the parties concede that the New York court has personal jurisdiction. You should always be careful if you see a choice of venue clause in a contract, especially if it is a foreign venue for you. Choice of law clauses are generally pretty safe. They are essentially just shortcuts saving a lot of verbiage in the contract, so that both parties can know what any terms, like "30 day written notice", actually mean.
- maxlybbert 13y agoAt least in the US, the fact that a contract states it is governed by the laws of a particular state doesn't mean that you have to actually go to court in that state. For instance, the lawsuits between SCO and IBM, and SCO and Novell were heard in Utah, although in some cases New York or Delaware law applied (because some of the contracts involved had choice of laws provisions). For what it's worth, the chance that a random US judge will apply another state's laws correctly, or even coherently, is pretty slim.
- qbrass 13y agoIANAL but: The GPL states that if any place has laws that conflict with the license, you don't have permission to distribute software there. The LPL seems to lean the other way in the case of New York law or US ip law conflicting with the license, and you just have to follow the laws instead of the license when they conflict. Of course, the real conflict is probably the LPL saying "No party to this Agreement will bring a legal action under this Agreement more than one year after the cause of action arose. Each party waives its rights to a jury trial in any resulting litigation."
- richardfontana 13y agoThe FSF has argued that choice-of-law clauses in licenses are incompatible with the GPL. I believe the theory is that if things were otherwise, one could effectively apply a choice-of-law to state that a very free-software-hostile jurisdiction's laws applied to substantive issues arising in disputes over the license. I have assumed that the FSF's doctrine on this point actually grew out of concerns over one of the licenses in the complex Python license stack, the CNRI license, which has a Virginia choice-of-law clause, close to the time of Virginia's adoption of the controversial UCITA. See: http://docs.python.org/2/license.html http://docs.python.org/2/license.html (CNRI license apparently from 2001) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Computer_Information_Transactions_Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Computer_Information_Tr... (indicating Virginia adopted UCITA in 2000) Note that if a license does not have a choice of law clause, that just means one resorts to default rules about what jurisdiction's law applies to a given issue. (I.e., absence of a choice of law clause does not make the underlying issue go away.) Choice of law clauses are common in proprietary software licenses (and other commercial contracts) and are generally seen by lawyers as beneficial measures to reduce interpretive uncertainty (though obviously in 'form agreements' this is to the benefit of the licensor).
- ldng 13y agoThe GPL is "governed" by the Geneva international copyright treaty. It's supposed to be "Universal" until, eventually, being disproved in court. Which has never happened AFAIK.
- tzs 13y agoThis confused me a few years ago, and I asked about it on a GNU list: http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnu-misc-discuss/2009-08/msg00050.html http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnu-misc-discuss/2009-08/m...
- dhfjgkrgjg 13y agoThis is a big shame. They are already familiar with the BSD license, so why the GPL?
- pjmlp 13y agoTo forbid getting money leeching the work of others for free.
- yxhuvud 13y agoYes, it would be an absolutely horrible thing if someone actually started to use the OS.
- glesica 13y agoLinux is GPLv2. But I guess no one uses that... :)
- riquito 13y agoLinux is GPL and that didn't stop anyone from using it. I don't understand your point, may you explain it?
- route66 13y agoYou mean, like the Linux kernel with it's GPLv2 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux#Copyright.2C_trademark.2C_and_naming http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux#Copyright.2C_trademark.2C...)
- jokoon 13y agosince when does money equals being used ? it seems to me the linux kernel is being used in many places.
- thelel 13y agoApple gives people who want to make use of their beautiful code the finger. Why not do the same to potential Steve Jobs'? If BSD had been licensed under the GNU GPL, OS X would either have to have been built from scratch, or be free software.
- pjmlp 13y agoThis is great news.
- davexunit 13y agoGreat news, but they really should have picked GPLv3+ or GPLv2+.
- binarycrusader 13y agoActually, it's a very good thing they didn't pick GPLv3+, or have you forgotten what license the Linux kernel is under? The Linux kernel is also GPLv2 (not +); I completely agree with the '+' thing as that leaves the FSF in control of the license (effectively).
- davexunit 13y agoIt's unfortunate that the kernel Linux is not GPLv3, either.
- binarycrusader 13y agoNo, it really isn't unfortunate -- and Linus explained why: https://lkml.org/lkml/2006/9/25/161 https://lkml.org/lkml/2006/9/25/161
- hdevalence 13y agoThe parent poster expressed a personal opinion. Your reply amounts to "Your opinion differs from Linus's opinion, and is therefore wrong." There are many reasons why one might wish that Linux was GPLv3: for instance, one might think that the "anti-Tivoisation" provisions are important. Linus obviously doesn't share this point of view; that doesn't make it an invalid point of view to have.
- bronson 13y agoThe parent poster expressed a blanket statement. Because there's no subject (or, because it's implicit that the subject is "everyone") they are an invitation for discussion.
- 13y ago
- cbaleanu 13y agoThey also added Plan 9 to a github repository[0] [0] https://github.com/brho/plan9 https://github.com/brho/plan9
- 4ad 13y agoTitle is misleading. Plan 9 was, and continue to be LPL. The Labs just made a special arrangement with these guys from Berkeley for them to distribute Plan 9 under dual-licensing terms. They in turn integrate Plan 9 bits into their GPL operating system (akaros). Plan 9 as distributed by the labs continues to be LPL (not GPL and not dual licensed).
- schmichael 13y agoI'm confused. If Berkeley received a GPL license for Plan9, doesn't that mean they can redistribute it under the GPL? From the GPL: You can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; version 2 of the License. I'm assuming "it" in this case refers to the Plan 9 code.
- pierrebai 13y ago4ad is just nit-picking. The labs still only distribute Plan 9 under its own license. Now Plan 9 is available also underthe GPL, but the labs doesn't distribute that version. it's only relevant if they continue to work on it and don't continue to share their changes under the GPL. At worst, there will be a fork under GPL and they will slowly diverge.
- 4ad 13y agoMy understanding is that the Berkley guys develop akaros and have no interest in maintaining a Plan 9 fork (they just want to integrate some Plan 9 code). Of course, other parties are free to fork the GPL version (not that this will ever happen).
- lotsofmangos 13y ago(not that this will ever happen) Now I'm tempted to do it just to prove a point. edit, just looked it up on github - https://github.com/niktischenko/plan9 https://github.com/niktischenko/plan9 https://github.com/newemu/plan9 https://github.com/newemu/plan9 https://github.com/jamiepg1/plan9 https://github.com/jamiepg1/plan9 oh, and mine now - https://github.com/lotsofmangos/graveRobbers2 https://github.com/lotsofmangos/graveRobbers2 Thanks by the way, I'm going to have to play with it now :)
- hrkristian 13y agoFrom the Wikipedia article: >Consequently, sharing the device across the network can be accomplished by mounting the corresponding directory tree to the target machine. Does this mean Plan 9 natively supports sharing any device managed by the kernel over a network connection?
- mischief6 13y agoyou can share virtually anything that can be represented as a file, including filesystems served by the kernel. e.g. "import -b $server '#A' /dev" will allow you to write to /dev/audio on a remote server.
- 4ad 13y agoYes, mounting a remote /proc means instant remote debugging. Mounting a remote /net means instant VPN.
- smorrow 13y ago...bores me to no end. There's never any use for that stuff. The opposite direction is more interesting, when the far end of the cpu connection uses /mnt/term, especially for the like of /mnt/term/mnt/plumb. I've never really understood why 'import /proc' is better than 'cpu acid'. Yeah, there's cases where the remote host won't have acid installed. More interesting, I think, would be stuff like getting /net in a VM from the host OS [surely 9vx or inferno's /net could be separated out], getting /dev/sd* from a 9P server that knows QCOW, etc. Not mattering whether it's in the kernel or userspace, without using $LD_*, is also far more interesting that not mattering whether it's local or remote.
- SixSigma 13y agoyes, you can even debug processes on a different cpu architecture, over serial of you like, or a pipe, or even by hijacking dns records, or even via email, any way of organising exchanging bytes 9p is an awesome idea and when you've used plan9 for a while going back to other OSes has you constantly frustrated.
- 13y ago
- Dauntless 13y agoCan someone explain in plain talk what Plan 9 is and does? Thanks...
- easytiger 13y agoWell if you are familiar with unix Plan 9 was its successor which extrapolated a lot of the ways of doing things into a much more well defined operating environment. Things like IPC are heavily emphasised.
- Dauntless 13y agoThank you :) Have a good day!
- valarauca1 13y agoBe more unix then unix.
- jff 13y agoEverything in UNIX is modelled as a "file", whereas in Plan9 everything is modelled after a "burrito" - some guy on Slashdot
- mikecb 13y agoThat's in the 9 fortunes file is it not?
- frik 13y agoPlan9 needs a wider adoption. It is an evolution of UNIX design concepts: * all objects are either files or file systems * communication is over a network * private namespaces (transparent access to remote processes) [1] Even more modern concepts are in the NT kernel by Dave Cutler (VMS fame). NT uses an object metaphor that is pervasive throughout the architecture of the system. Not only are all of the things in the UNIX file metaphor viewed as objects by NT, but so are things such as processes and threads, shared memory segments, the global registry database and even access rights. [2] You can browse the NT object tree e.g. with the ReactOS Explorer on Windows or ReactOS. [3] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_9_from_Bell_Labs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_9_from_Bell_Labs [2] http://old.reactos.org/en/about.html http://old.reactos.org/en/about.html [3] http://www.foxplanet.de/explorer/ http://www.foxplanet.de/explorer/
- etrain 13y agoThe project responsible for getting the license changed is doing some awesome work in the manycore lightweight OS space - http://akaros.cs.berkeley.edu/akaros-web/news.php http://akaros.cs.berkeley.edu/akaros-web/news.php
- mischief6 13y agoi would have submitted this link, but it has already been linked in the past, and there was no other news page dedicated to this information on that site.
- brickcap 13y agoAm I the only one who thought this referred to the movie plan 9 from outer space?
- georgemcbay 13y agoIn a roundabout way, it does, as that's what the OS was named for. But as an older unix nerd/Go programmer, I have the opposite reaction where when I hear people talking about the movie it immediately reminds me of the OS.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- z3phyr 13y agoPLAN 9 uses its own standard of C
- RamiK 13y agoThat's incorrect. Plan 9's C is a restricted ANSI C variety.
- 4ad 13y agoIt's not restricted, it has extensions rather.
- RamiK 13y agoI'm thinking about the pre-processor not supporting #if and the requirement for function prototypes. I suppose the extension you have in mind are the extra libraries for dealing with buffered io, unicode and concurrency. But I don't think those could be termed "PLAN 9 own standard of C". To clarify, my idea of restricted was in the sense of a highly refined subset. Much akin to how one should use C++ for instance. A careful selection of the good parts in C. Essentially, I was paying a complement to Plan9. :)
- 4ad 13y agoThere are language extensions, mostly related to embedding structs (which made it in Go) and a new storage class, not only new libraries. Please see section 3.3: http://doc.cat-v.org/plan_9/4th_edition/papers/compiler http://doc.cat-v.org/plan_9/4th_edition/papers/compiler
- RamiK 13y agoExtensions don't break standard compliance so I didn't bring them up. Note that both C++ and GNU C have similar extensions but under different semantics which don't make them any less ANSI compliant. BTW, be careful around those documents. The assembler, compiler, parser and linker have seen over two decades worth of work since those were put ink to paper. Though admittedly I haven't read through the lib9 source tree in years...
- yosyp 13y agoseems to be a lot of confusion here. excellent explanation of this by Ron Minnich, directly from the 9fans mailing list http://9fans.net/archive/2014/02/75 http://9fans.net/archive/2014/02/75
- e12e 13y agoDoes anyone have some insight into how Akaros compares to (and contrasts with) Dragonfly BSD?
- patrickg_zill 13y agoIs it easy to install under VMware, VirtualBox, or KVM?
- bobowzki 13y agoI'm always hoping Plan 9 will take off! Such an interesting system to experiment with... Would be interesting to see what would happen if a cloud provider offered an (updated) version.