Peercast Source Available

jilles writes "Peercast, a p2p streaming program, has had some attention on slashdot recently. Now the source code has been released under GPL. Please find the announcement + source code here."

Re:Download conditions?

[Anonymous Coward]

And they require that modifications be licensed under their commercial license along with the inability to revoke modifications--is this a code grab clause that allows them to close the source without any recourse for conributors?

Re:GPL + Commercial

[batboy78]

However some issues arise, say I write a patch for their program, and they incorporate it. If some then buys a 'commercial license' they are selling MY patch under a non Free license...

That is a very good question. What happens when someone makes a patch for a piece of GPL software and the parent company incorporates it into its tree. Is the patcher compensated? Are they legally able to turn around and sell their product? Or do they get away with selling "support" and not the actual product?

...agree to the following condition...

[Cheese Cracker]

You must not connect to the main PeerCast network if you have modified any of the code in the `core` module.

Yeah sure... how many crackers will adhere to this condition?

Re:GPL + Commercial

[Anonymous Coward]

It is completely legal for them if you submit the patch under the terms of their agreement, which states that whenever you submit a patch to them you are granting them the permission to distribute it under dual-license. They cannot, however, say.. take a GPL patch that's either floating around in the wild or off of a forked version and then distribute it under a non-GPL license.

You have to explicitly grant them the right to dual-license (submission == permission in this case).

Re:GPL + Commercial

[PeerCast]

Lately I see more and more companies release their program/product under the General Public License, saying that, if you want to use it in a commercial product you have to buy a commercial license.

I think its because alot of GPLd projects have been abused by both large companies and freeloading spy/adware makers. This is the main reason we have the commercial license in there at least. It would be great if we could do what MySQL [mysql.com] have manage to do, ie. stay GPLd and funded at the same time. As you say, an updated GPL license that clarified this a little better would be very welcomed. We`d certainly use it.

Re:GPL + Commercial

[scottmartinnet]

The whole patch issue has been addressed. It comes down to the fact that by submitting a patch to a program under a certain licensing structure, you are implictly consenting to have your code licensed under the same structure. Why else would you have submitted the patch? And anyway, any patch that the original author would want to distribute as part of the application is almost certainly a derivitive work under copyright law, and not yours anyway, much like the way a second verse to a copyrighted song isn't yours.

It's not fishy at all. In fact, it's very much what the GPL has in mind. The GPL is about letting people have the freedom to modify the code they run and to distribute those changes, rather than being forced to treat all software as a big black box that they have to beg vendors to fix when it breaks. (Well, that and disclaiming liability.) Giving people the additional freedom to keep those changes secret and still distribute the product is perfectly fine, as long as you wrote all the code (or it was given to you). As the owner of the a program, you have all rights to it, and can give any subset of those rights you want in exchange for anything. There's nothing the GPL can do about that, short of adding a "belongs to RMS" clause.

The GPL is not about keeping money away from code.

Updates to the GPL are going to be about closing the loophole of web applications and the like, not about this.

Re:Download conditions?

[FunkyChild]

d) You must agree to the terms of the GPL license that covers PeerCast.

(b) and (d) are just restating the GPL

As far as I know, the GPL doesn't stipulate that you must agree to the GPL in order to use the software. Since the GPL affords extra rights you can either:

a) use the software like any other closed source software, with all the protections of copyright law (eg no unauthorised distribution etc.)

or b) agree to the GPL, and in doing so receive the extra rights that the author gives you such as the right to modify, reate derivative works etc, under the conditions specified in the agreement.

You have a choice - either agree to the GPL in it's entirety or just use the software under the usual terms of copyright law. The GPL is not a EULA that defines the terms of you using the software, it is an agreement one chan choose to enter into, in order to gain additional rights.

Re:GPL + Commercial

[amccall]

(Standard IANAL). Usually this is handled by the company/group simply by requiring that any patches folded into the main tree have the copyright assigned to the Company/group developing it. The only problem would be if the company/group stole source code from a fork of the project, or they used a patch the developer did not agree to having this done with.

Whenever you get QT, IIRC, all of the source code in Troll Tech's distribution is owned by Troll Tech, even if there are revised versions floating around for KDE, or distribution packages.

There is no legal grey area here - developers can license there code under several licenses, and no reasonable change I can see to the GPL will stop that. Further, I can't see the FsF having any disare to put an end to the practice, as it is, in reality, supporting the end goal of Free Software.

Re:Download conditions?

[ComputerSlicer23]

I've got no problems with my code being in your tree, but the licensing agreement, is clearly incompatible with the GPL (go read the GPL closely, and it'll jump out and bite you). I think I see what you're attempting to accomplish. However, (f) is either uneccessary, or in violation of the GPL. I've given it to you, and under the GPL, I can't possibly take it back. I can change the terms of distribution going forward, but the copy you have is always under the GPL. I'm the copyright holder, but I've given it to you under the terms of the GPL. That's what the GPL is all about. Richard Stallman's for all his personality faults didn't miss much with the legal fine points w/ the GPL. Item (f) either redundant, or could be used maliciously. It's not legally clearly defined, which makes it very dangerous in the hands of a laywer. (c) is just redundant, and uneccessary. Read up on what makes the GPL tick. If they don't agree with the GPL, then they can't use the code in any way, read item 6 I believe from the GPL. The GPL isn't a contract, its a copyright agreement.

Thanks, for linking to the parent of my post.... It's the one I was responding too, after I read it, and clicked "Reply to this". I was well aware of what was said there.

BTW peercast.org isn`t a business, we don`t have any legal staff, we`ve got a few programmers working in their spare time.

So if it isn't a business, why exactly do I have to agree to let you distribute it under your commercial license? It's a business, or you intend to start one if you have a "commerical license". Working in your spare time is how most small business start, hell it's basically how Apple and probably HP started. If you have a product, and a commercial license, you should at least have a lawyer of some type who reviews contracts, and legal documents like commercial licensing agreements. Even if it's just a friendly group of people. If you ever do any thing for money, your probably going to want to either incorporate, or setup some form of legal agreement between all the major copyright holders, and that will take a lawyer.

You've not accomplished much at all by the licensing agreement, besides making it illegal to use your software. The licensing terms violate the terms of the GPL, which basically means nobody can legally use your under the GPL, and you haven't granted them the rights to use it anywhere else. Which pretty much means it's useless.

Kirby

Re:Not quite unlimited

[adolf]

I think that your 20% figure is rather low, and greatly overestimates the level of knowledge posessed by today's typical internet user[1].

I therefore submit the following conjecture:

70% of bandwidth-equipped internet users are too stupid to do anything at all about sharing. 1/3 of these people are behind Linksys routers that they know nothing about, or are otherwise irrevocably firewalled.

This leaves about 46% of the unwashed masses sharing by default. That's about 32% of the whole Internet populace can do nothing but share, because they don't know any better.

And then there's the remaining 30%-big category of people who might be able to control whether or not they share with any surety.

A third of the people in this group are spiteful leeches and will never share. Another third favor equality, and will make an effort to give back what they take. And the remaining third are intelligent enough to realize that the more people share, the lesser the individual bandwidth penalty for sharing becomes. This latter group will spew forth as much data as needs dictate and their connection permits, thus cancelling the antisocial efforts of the spiteful portion.

Thus, on average, 62% of all internet users share.

This means that to sustain a stream, this 62% sharing majority of users will need to relay the program to an average of 1.6 people each. Some will do a bit more, some a bit less.

My RR cable modem wouldn't even notice if I started streaming at 50kbps (which sounds remarkably good with ogg) to 4 or 5 other people, let alone the paltry 1 or 2 listeners that such a system as this requires to stay healthy.

That all said, it'd sure be nice if multicast IP became a widespread reality. It'd put all of these issues to bed with much haste...

1: See "Jargon File," under section titled "The September that never ended."

Re:peercast

[PeerCast]

Actually, that thread was about "when" not "if" it was going to be OSd.

The license is GPL if you don`t intend it sell your app, its commercial if you do. Which I think is fair, unless you think we should spend our time coding so other people can make money?

Its quite funny because some not to unknown people advised us not to make it OS; "you`re damned if you do, damned if you don`t" they said.
I can see why now ;-)

Re:Download conditions?

[ComputerSlicer23]

What's the license on the binaries? Where's the agreement that says I can run them? I suppose since the binaries are available for download I can use those by implicit agreement. However, what allows me to copy the source if I don't have the GPL. Nothing. So again the source is in fact useless as currently licensed, because without a legal copy, it's pretty hard to compile. Someone who does accept the GPL could distribute the binaries to me, but no one can do that on firm legal ground. The licensing is self contradictory.. The binaries might be useful, because they did put them up for public download. Presumable that means I can run them. The source however, is completely useless to me.

Kirby