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2021-03-26 , 12:35
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#41
Originally Posted by olf View Post
That is why I remembered that I experienced a case, where also the "transfer of right of possession" happened: the "Dutch museum tablet".
That interpretation is still wrong. The "transfer of the right of possession" does not happen just because the museum lends you a tablet. That would imply that you can assign possession to someone else other than you or the museum, and that the museum would not be able to reclaim the possession of the tablet, which is also absurd.

But, again, this is precisely the item mentioned in the FAQ...
 

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2021-03-27 , 00:43
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#42
Originally Posted by javispedro View Post
That interpretation is still wrong. The "transfer of the right of possession" does not happen just because the museum lends you a tablet.
Nope, the act of lending is one form of a "transfer of the right of possession".
And while the act of stealing does not include an explicit "transfer of the right of possession", it results in a "adverse possession".

Originally Posted by javispedro
That would imply that you can assign possession to someone else other than you or the museum, and that the museum would not be able to reclaim the possession of the tablet, which is also absurd.
No, because a "transfer of the right of possession" only allows the recipient to possess something (and that may be additionally limited in time and space), not (necessarily / implicitly / usually) to "transfer of the right of possession" again. I.e., it is not (automatically) transitive.
It takes "ownership" (being almost equal to but exactly a subset of having "property rights" of something) to be able to "transfer the right of possession" at free will.

I assume(d) that I was only given the "right of possession and usage" of that "museum tablet", likely limited to (have not read the contract details, wanted to see classical Dutch paintings) the duration of my visit, the museum grounds etc.
Last edited by olf; 2021-03-27 at 00:55.
 
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2021-03-27 , 13:05
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#43
Originally Posted by olf View Post
Nope, the act of lending is one form of a "transfer of the right of possession".
And while the act of stealing does not include an explicit "transfer of the right of possession", it results in a "adverse possession".
I don't know where you are getting this from, is it a local thing? Can you provide some source on that?

It looks as if you are understanding this in the opposite way to everyone else, including the authors of the GPLv3 (thus your insistent contradiction of the GPLv3 FAQ).

E.g.
Originally Posted by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_possession
The company purchasing the vehicle becomes the registered owner and has both possession and right of possession. The financial organization providing financing would become the lienholder and have a security interest that, upon default, would ripen into a right of retention (ius retentionis). If the business that bought the vehicle then rented it to someone, that individual would then have possession but would not have right of possession.
Originally Posted by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_possession
I purchase a pen at a store. I have all three attributes (possession, right of possession and right of property). If I loan the pen to someone, they have only possession.
 

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2021-03-27 , 15:12
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#44
Originally Posted by javispedro View Post
I don't know where you are getting this from, is it a local thing? Can you provide some source on that?
Yes, but why don't you just read the source you quoted, its definition proper (and first sentence!):
"The right of possession (jura possessionis) means that someone currently holds something in hand and this person may be the temporary keeper or the long-term owner of an object."
But its wording is very colloquially ("holds something in hand"), hence imprecise, and it consistently (also in the examples) adds the irrelevant aspect that that entity may also be the owner.

A brief and concise source for separating these rights properly is the "Updated November 4, 2020" paragraph here (the remainder of the article is only about property rights).
If you want to read for hours (it is really interesting): This site explains the basic terms and concepts, commonalities and differences of British, US-American, French and German law. But you will not find a significant difference WRT these fundamental terms and concepts, as they all root in Roman law.


As you seem to be quite emotional about this topic, you may expect others to be equally emotional about the GPLv3.
To me "it is what it is", one just should be aware of its true properties when utilising it!
Or as @rinigus expressed that WRT all *GPL* licenses:
Originally Posted by rinigus View Post
[...] GPL has it's purpose and we just have realize it when the license for your code is selected. In case of Qt, it is a way to ask for commercial licenses for non-free software. [...]
One may call the the wording and consequences of the *GPLv3 "absurd", but it does not matter for most private use cases: I.e., when the "user" of the software is the owner of the device it runs on.

Side note: The suggestion to alter the term "user" to "licensee" (or a definition of "licensee"; as in most other FLOSS licenses, including the GPLv2 & LGPLv2.1), and to "device owner" specifically for the "Anti-TiVo section" was brought to the FSF's attention in the GPLv3 consultation process (ca. 15 years ago). That would have expressed the publicly stated goals of the GPLv3 properly. But obviously the switch to "user" in the first place, plus ignoring that input was done deliberately.

Thus "it is what it is", including its properties which make *GPLv3 software unsuitable for use cases, in which the software user in possession of a device (on which this software runs) is not the owner of that device.


P.S.: What gets me started are interpretations or statements about FLOSS licenses, which are not backed by the specific license in question.
Last edited by olf; 2021-03-28 at 11:31.
 

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2021-03-29 , 09:49
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#45
See below an exchange in Telegram that I put below that provides some insight from Andrew, working for Jolla.
I am pretty sure he cannot say this is the official view but it helps understanding the official position:

Andrew Branson
Moving to busybox isn't becoming 'more similar to android'. It's using tools that are more suited to embedded devices by default. Doing that has meant that Sailfish could upgrade the really ancient version of bash (the last gplv2) to the latest.

If Sailfish were moving in a direction where you would have to 'root' or 'jailbreak' it in order to get full control of your own device, then you could say it was becoming less open and free. Otherwise it's just FUD.

Norman
So it's a license thing and doesn't have any real technical reason other than avoiding GPLv3? That's bad then.

Andrew Branson
No. The licensing is a part of it, but it also saves space on the initial install. busybox tools use a single binary that's much smaller than all the separate gnu binaries

Norman
But GPLv3 is favourable from the user's point of view, so why are they trying to avoid it?

Andrew Branson
That's quite a broad generalization that I'm not sure is even true.

All sfos end users have developer mode available on their devices. This means they can enable the terminal app, gain access to the root account and install anything they want, including the GNU tools. This is completely compliant with the GPLv3, as the Sailfish SDK gives you everything you need to modify, rebuild and replace any GPLv3 package on your device.

But, if Sailfish ships with GPLv3 packages in the image, then it would be impossible for any customer to disable developer mode in their image. Many business and corporate customers would want to do this.

Norman
So there's a huge disparity between what's good for users and what corporate/business customers want.

Andrew Branson
Hardly a 'huge disparity' is it.

Norman
Without developer mode, I would see no reason to use SailfishOS over any regular AOSP-based custom ROM. I guess there are quite a number of users who also see it like this.

Andrew Branson
But if by 'users' you mean open-device enthusiasts such as Sailfish X users, then yes: we want more control over our devices than we'd expect to get on a corporate device we were given by our employers.

Would you really expect to have developer mode on a device given to you by your employers as a business phone?

Norman
No, probably not. But I wouldn't expect my employer to give me a spyware-free phone anyways 😉

Andrew Branson
There are two sides to Sailfish - open device on one hand, and independent OS for corporate use with no external ties on the other.

Norman
(At least the employers I know of seem to have no problem with surveillance capitalism is what I meant to say with that)

Andrew Branson
If you did, it would only be their spyware, not Google's, or Amazon's

And wouldn't require them to pay apple just to install their software on their employees phones

I find it absolutely crazy that people are using iphones for appliances like point-of-sale devices, having to go through apple's store for software that has nothing to do with them. they permanently own the device unless it is jailbroken.

Norman
I think this would only be viable for large corporate employers that can order tens of thousands of phones per batch. For all the others, it's Android or iOS.

Andrew Branson
Dunno, probably companies that have their own IT departments and manage their desktop software centrally. The whole BYOD thing is a mess right now, and many could do with cheap, secure devices that they can control remotely. MDM is very attractive for that situation, but completely incompatible with GPLv3

Mika
I think GPL3 is ok, but in corporate use cases it should consider the corporation itself as the user

Andrew Branson
I don't think it's explicit enough in that to dismiss so simply. Why would a corporation risk that or set a legal team on it. They'll just use something else.

Mika
I only say that this is what I wish. I'm sure the gpl3 is targeted to the end user, and this is why there are problems with corporations, sadly

Andrew Branson
Yeah, I agree. I wish the GPLv3 was more explicit about that, but I'm not sure I can see it changing, as that might be a loophole for abuse. Apple and Google control their customers' devices just like an employer would.
 

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2021-03-29 , 12:46
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#46
Originally Posted by olf View Post
Yes, but why don't you just read the source you quoted, its definition proper (and first sentence!) [...]
But its wording is very colloquially ("holds something in hand"), hence imprecise, and it consistently (also in the examples) adds the irrelevant aspect that that entity may also be the owner.
The main problem here is that people tend to accompany definitions with examples precisely in order to clarify these definitions, and at this point we have at least two different sources (the GPLv3 FAQ itself, and Wikipedia -- the latter arguably not worth much) with multiple examples that directly contradict your position, and instead agree with mine.

Originally Posted by olf View Post
A brief and concise source for separating these rights properly is the "Updated November 4, 2020" paragraph here (the remainder of the article is only about property rights).
If you want to read for hours (it is really interesting): This site explains the basic terms and concepts, commonalities and differences of British, US-American, French and German law. But you will not find a significant difference WRT these fundamental terms and concepts, as they all root in Roman law.
Finally, sources!!!

So it is a "local" thing... do note that there is no "possession" vs "ownership" as separate words neither in France nor in Spain at least, and while the concepts are there, the word equivalent to "possession" is actually closest to "ownership" as the ultimate superset of rights.

But I see the concern nonetheless.

Originally Posted by olf View Post
As you seem to be quite emotional about this topic, you may expect others to be equally emotional about the GPLv3.
... sigh. What did you expect on this forum, really? That most of us who came here did it only because of the colorfulness of the Nokia tune? This forum is all full of free software fanatics because one of the biggest draws of these devices where that they were running way more free software than anything else in existence. At least at that point.

And by the way I do not know what you expect to gain from repeating things like that on every post. You have been hammering your agenda since post #1:

Originally Posted by olf View Post
the *GPLv3s have become what they are: troublesome nonsense.

Originally Posted by olf View Post
Sand to "device owner" specifically for the "Anti-TiVo section" was brought to the FSF's attention in the GPLv3 consultation process (ca. 15 years ago).
Source?
Or are you saying _you_ brought it to their attention?

Not to mention that "licensee" is actually an even more complicated definition......

Originally Posted by olf View Post
Thus "it is what it is", including its properties which make *GPLv3 software unsuitable for use cases, in which the software user in possession of a device (on which this software runs) is not the owner of that device.
So again let me summarize your point of view:
You think that lending a device with GPLv3 software requires distribution of source code, encryption keys, etc. in order to comply with the GPLv3 requirements.
You think that the authors of the GPLv3 have done this explicitly, by making deliberately confusing definitions in the license text.
You also think that the authors of the GPLv3 are further lying by misrepresenting the stated goals of the GPLv3 in the supporting materials such as the preamble or the FAQs vs the actual license.
You also think that they are doing this misrepresentation deliberately to support some agenda.

Forgive me if I have difficulties believing that.
Even less when about half of the other assertions you have been making on this thread were gross exaggerations or false.
Last edited by javispedro; 2021-03-29 at 13:25.
 

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2021-03-29 , 13:20
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#47
Originally Posted by P@t View Post
See below an exchange in Telegram that I put below that provides some insight from Andrew, working for Jolla.
I am pretty sure he cannot say this is the official view but it helps understanding the official position:
Why would you give the name away, then? :P

But, if Sailfish ships with GPLv3 packages in the image, then it would be impossible for any customer to disable developer mode in their image. Many business and corporate customers would want to do this.
Even if you were to do an interpretation of the license like the above, all you'd have to do as the "corporate customer" is to claim that you are not giving away possession of the device, just usage.

This reminds me of all the scaremongering about GPLv2 at companies, where there were worries that _employees_ could sue the company when they were given copies of internal closed-source software linked with GPLv2 code. This also directly contradicts the FAQ (and 2).

Not to mention that I find the entire "company device" excuse paper-thin. The entire reason for this is likely to prevent "unauthorized" or "unauthorizedly modified" devices from joining the company network. Well, you can just write on a paper that only "authorized" devices with "authorized software" are permitted to join the network; likely your company already has this. Even if the GPLv3 were to turn out to allow the employees to modify the software on phones they don't own (something I still don't see), it for sure does not force you to accept these modified devices from joining your corporate network (or accessing its services), at the risk of unlawful intrusion. The phones will still work with all their functionality intact, but the remote service won't answer. Obviously nothing prevents the phone from lying and claiming to be "authorized software" at this point, but nothing prevented it before either...

I'd have a bigger problem with excuses such as in IVI/cars where there may be actual legal impediments (at least in some countries) to the manufacturer actually giving you, the rightful owner of the car, control over the device software. But this is not Jolla's situation, last that I knew...
Last edited by javispedro; 2021-03-29 at 14:13.
 

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2021-03-29 , 14:47
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#48
Originally Posted by javispedro View Post
Why would you give the name away, then? :P
Why would I not give his name given this is public information? Maybe you think this is from a private chat between him and me but no, this is freely available in the SFOS telegram chatroom. I thought this was relevant to this conversation and I wanted to make sure this is from a Jolla employee. Otherwise, there is always someone to ask you who is the source, and where you get the info...etc...

Originally Posted by javispedro View Post
all you'd have to do as the "corporate customer" is to claim that you are not giving away possession of the device, just usage
Regarding your second statement, maybe you should support and help Jolla and other companies, maybe as a lawyer consultant, to provide them with the proper use of GPLv3?

For info, I know quite a famous example in France of a company avoiding GPLv3.
An internet provider (FREE) have FOSS in boxes (modem, set-top boxes), see the list of free software in https://floss.freebox.fr/ and you will see that they avoid GPLv3 software too.
In this case, we are talking about a relatively big company (at least for France) so I do not think this is only a problem of Jolla being too small.
FREE (the company, I know their name is not easy to use in sentences along with FOSS :P) had many complaints in the past from the FOSS community. It went to court afaik at several occasions, and one important part of the defense of FREE is that the boxes are not sold but remain its property, and so they are only giving the usage to their customers in a large network. Still they do not use GPLv3.
Hope that helps.
 

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2021-03-29 , 15:11
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#49
Originally Posted by P@t View Post
you will see that they avoid GPLv3 software too.
They are using Qt 5.9......

Originally Posted by P@t View Post
It went to court afaik at several occasions
But not over this issue, right?

Originally Posted by P@t View Post
and one important part of the defense of FREE is that the boxes are not sold but remain its property, and so they are only giving the usage to their customers in a large network. Still they do not use GPLv3.
Which makes little sense, because I am legally allowed to just ditch their box and use mine, and they can't really use encryption to prevent that ... (though due to some sheninangs, I am still forced to rent their box).
 

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2021-03-29 , 15:48
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#50
Originally Posted by javispedro View Post
They are using Qt 5.9......
and they use the licence LGPL afaik

Originally Posted by javispedro View Post
But not over this issue, right?
the claim is usually to ask for the modifications to FOSS indeed. I am not sure that they do that anymore.
Why would it be on GPLv3 that they do not have?

Originally Posted by javispedro View Post
Which makes little sense, because I am legally allowed to just ditch their box and use mine, and they can't really use encryption to prevent that ... (though due to some sheninangs, I am still forced to rent their box).
indeed you are not obliged to use their modem.
The issue between FOSS and FREE are not that acute anymore, I believe. But I wanted to try another example than Jolla.
 

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