Dr Ari Jaaksi is Nokia’s vice president of software and head of its open-source operations. Note that Nokia recently acquired Trolltech so now he has an important role in Qt’s future. An I’m worried because he has been quoted saying nonsense like this:
“We want to educate open-source developers. There are certain business rules [developers] need to obey, such as DRM, IPR [intellectual property rights], SIM locks and subsidised business models.”
No thanks you very much, but I don’t want software defective by design (not even the evils at Apple like DRM anymore), I don’t believe in imaginary property, and I hate SIM locks as much as the next guy.
“As an industry, we plan to use open-source technologies but we are not yet ready to play by the rules; but this needs to work the other way round too.”
You better start playing by the rules because else the other companies might do it faster than Nokia and you will lose the opportunity. Oh: And just as a remind: when you go open source, you *must* play by the rules by honoring the license of the software.
Really, it’s sad to listen to things like this from someone controlling the company who owns Trolltech I am sure that the vice-president of companies like Red Hat wouldn’t say nonsense like the above. But it’s no surprise coming from someone in a company that seems to be absolutely in favor of software patents in Europe according to FFII.
This might be good news to fans of BSD-style licenses -_-
The original article is here: news.zdnet.co.uk
Derek
I was thinking of blogging about this myself because of just how silly statements like the Nokia VP’s are.
Either way I’m not worried about Trolltech per se. Qt is easily forkable, and the Trolls would certainly be able to convince Nokia of the folly of pissing people off in that regard. Worst case scenario the KDE-Free Qt agreement comes into play so that base is covered for now.
But what nonsense is this guy trying to come up with? There’s absolutely no good reason for a Linux user (or any user) to support DRM, all it is is a constant kick in the nethers over and over to the customers who actually pay. The pirates simply download a superior version.
Three things:
DRM: I DO NOT WANT DRM IN MY SOFTWARE THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!!
IPR: I will obey the law, and I think the rest of open source will too, so no reason to mention that
SIM locks: sometimes I need to use the phone on other networks, such as foreign networks if I’m going out-of-country.
If you tick too many people off, they _will_ fork and you _will_ lose free help developing Qt, which is a part of TT’s business model.
Unfortunately forking doesn’t solve all problems. Qt license isn’t future proof. If a developer wants to use a license which is not compatible there’s no way to use Qt. If we decide to fork Qt we should also rewrite it piece by piece so that in the long run we’ll have a Qt replacement which doesn’t have code copyrighted by Nokia and we will be able change its license to a more suitable one for a toolkit.
Fehmi: with the KDE-Free Qt agreement, there wouldn’t be any license compatible problems. Because KDE ev can release Qt under the BSD license.
I am more than sorry to tell this but Nokia leaders are just “evil” persons. I know these people and I dont have anything nice to say about them when it comes to business.
I was afraid that this kind could happend if Nokia gets Trolltech in their pocket, there is still good change that nothing this kind will happend but… money talks
Henrik: You are right. But “KDE-Free Qt agreement” only works if Nokia decides to stop the free Qt development. If they continue to develop a free Qt but in a direction we don’t like. E.g. don’t allow GPLv4 in the future or something simular we will have no change to resolv the problem because we can only fork the GPLv2 or GPLv3 version.
Even if i don’t think this problem will become reality in the near future i think we shoud be aware of the posibility that a situation can arise where the “KDE-Free Qt agreement” doesn’t kick in and the only option would be to fork Qt-GPL.
I’m not happy that Trolltech is now part of Nokia. I don’t like Nokias politic. Hope Nokia will not make any problems for us.
I really wasn’t sure how to take the comments, as they’re obviously silly, because you always get people on different corners of large companies who don’t understand what is going on. There is no place for DRM and lock of any kind in open source software, because they just can’t work. There’s just no point.
I’m not too worried about Qty or the Trolls themselves, but you are right to be piqued by this. I certainly was.
There are a few things to consider here.
1 – Nokia does have a track record of arguing against open standards and demanding proprietary ones. So this was to be expected.
2 – Conversely, if you trust what is being said here, it isn’t that bad. He is saying things like DRM are current accepted business practices in the mobile world, and we need to understand that those things won’t disappear YET. He says yet.
I recommend this for you guys: http://tytso.livejournal.com/57153.html
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BR,
I think it’s funny that you say “I don’t believe in imaginary property” and “you *must* play by the rules by honoring the license” in the same post! Property is more than a legal title or deed, it is legal right to control a thing. By asserting that your rules over a thing must be honored, you are asserting that it is your property.
with gtk that don’t happen
David Johnson:
You might find that funny, but it isn’t. I live in Spain and we have a law called something like “Intellectual Property Law”. And I obey it and thanks to that law we’ve got copyright (we call it derechos de autor/”author’s rights”), etc. But the name is misleading because there is no such a thing as “intellectual property”. So even if play by the rules of that law it doesn’t mean that I belive that the name given to that law is the correct one.
I will allow myself the luxury of quoting Thomas Jefferson, who in 1813 said:
I just saw a hurriedly written response to a troubling story (Nokia’s comments). Now I have trouble deciding which is worse, the Nokia guy’s statements, or Edulix’s.
Seriously, if you set out to do a rebuttal, please make sure you have something to say first.
Calling Apple Evels I can’t understand! because the don’t open their Products?
They just want to deliver something Homogeneous, Evil is MS that try to destroy the competition with Unfair methods! Apple fight their competition with better Products! DRM in Apple Products are there because of the Music Industry RIA!
Apple also have a lot of Opensource Projects and we all can make some profits:
Darwin
Darwin Streaming Server
Bonjour
WebKit
Compiler Tools
HeaderDoc
OpenDirectory
OpenPlay
CUPS
launchd
now I sound like Apple Fanboy
Darwin: well maybe because you are an apple fan-boy? no offense
I mean.. seriously, Apple uses open source so what? Apple is worse to Microsoft because its closed hardware platform and it’s been always like that with them. Thanks god we got the IBM PC back in the day and thus we don’t have to deal with apple-only hardware.
nucco: my first troll!
Linus Torvalds should talk to this guy, after all they are from the same country.
Very nice!!