W’s blag

Some hate it, some love it, but almost everyone is blogging about Google Chrome, released today. Personally, I can’t run it. For one, the “open source” variant, Chromium, requires build tools from Microsoft, specifically Visual Studio. I’m told that it “almost” compiles under VC++ express edition, the free variant with just C++ from Microsoft, but I’m not about to do two huge downloads just to see what “almost” really entails.

So why not just use the windows build, you ask? Well, there’s the small detail of an EULA you have to agree to. A fairly nasty EULA, in fact. One which grants Google the right to use any of your content that you transmit through, or display on, Google Chrome.

Don’t believe me? Read the following carefully, quoted from http://www.google.com/chrome/intl/en-GB/eula_text.html

Google Chrome Terms of Service

These Terms of Service apply to the executable code version of Google Chrome. Source code for Google Chrome is available free of charge under open source software licence agreements at http://code.google.com/chromium/terms.html.

1. Your relationship with Google

1.1 Your use of Google’s products, software, services and websites (referred to collectively as the “Services” in this document and excluding any services provided to you by Google under a separate written agreement) is subject to the terms of a legal agreement between you and Google. “Google” means Google Inc., whose principal place of business is at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States. This document explains how the agreement is made up and sets out some of the terms of that agreement.

---

2. Accepting the Terms

2.1 In order to use the Services, you must first agree to the Terms. You may not use the Services if you do not accept the Terms.

2.2 You can accept the Terms by:

(A) clicking to accept or agree to the Terms, where this option is made available to you by Google in the user interface for any Service; or

(B) by actually using the Services. In this case, you understand and agree that Google will treat your use of the Services as acceptance of the Terms from that point onwards.

---

9. Proprietary rights

---

9.4 Other than the limited licence set forth in Section 11, Google acknowledges and agrees that it obtains no right, title or interest from you (or your licensors) under these Terms in or to any Content that you submit, post, transmit or display on, or through, the Services, including any intellectual property rights that subsist in that Content (whether those rights happen to be registered or not, and wherever in the world those rights may exist). Unless you have agreed otherwise in writing with Google, you agree that you are responsible for protecting and enforcing those rights and that Google has no obligation to do so on your behalf.

---

11. Content licence from you

11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights that you already hold in Content that you submit, post or display on or through the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content, you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free and non-exclusive licence to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content that you submit, post or display on or through the Services. This licence is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.

11.2 You agree that this licence includes a right for Google to make such Content available to other companies, organisations or individuals with whom Google has relationships for the provision of syndicated services and to use such Content in connection with the provision of those services.

11.3 You understand that Google, in performing the required technical steps to provide the Services to our users, may (a) transmit or distribute your Content over various public networks and in various media; and (b) make such changes to your Content as are necessary to conform and adapt that Content to the technical requirements of connecting networks, devices, services or media. You agree that this licence shall permit Google to take these actions.

11.4 You confirm and warrant to Google that you have all the rights, power and authority necessary to grant the above licence.

Emphasis mine. Seems fairly clear cut to me… Artists, authors, developers etc. should beware of using Google Chrome for any of their work, even just test-viewing it.

Now, what Google can actually do with their licence, or how they will know what content they actually have a right to, I don’t know. If I could run their software without agreeing to this EULA, I could probably detect any attempt to call home, and so could thousands of other people, so I doubt they’re quite that brash about it. But the legal right alone is disturbing.

Update

Google has now adknowledged that this was a mistake in adapting an existing EULA, and have removed the offending 11.1 paragraph.

I’m a programmer. I enjoy writing code, especially reusable software components. I don’t believe in copyrights, certainly not on software. Code may be written by someone, but it can not, should not, be owned by anyone. Code is maths, and owning code is akin to owning pi, or e, and restricting what kind of thinking other people can do. I think we are way past the point where copyrights hinders innovation, rather than encourage it as originally intended.

Copyleft is an idea popularized by GNU and the Free Software Foundation, that claims to work towards ensuring certain freedoms when it comes to software, by publishing software under the GNU General Public License (GPL), that has as one of its main points that derivative works can only be distributed under the same or a compatible license.

The problem is that people might want to release their source code under a freer license, but also wish to not reinvent code already released under the GPL. The GPL thus cause extra work for the principled programmer, who will have to laboriously write new code to do exactly the same that the GPL code does, while being careful not to copy, or base the design of the new library, on the old one. In the worst case such a task is too much, and innovation that would otherwise happen fails to come about, and everyone is impoverished as a result.

Richard Stallman raves against “software hoarding”; companies that take some free product, adds in their own innovations, and releases the result with a more restrictive license, commercially. He writes that this makes software less free. Which is just plain wrong. Because if someone takes free software A, improves it, and releases unfree software B, the world has more freedom. Software A does not go away, everyone can still use and base their improvements on that piece, ignoring B, but in addition they also have the choice of using B. The company that makes B might not be very nice, they are accepting a gift, and not giving back in turn. But they are still doing some good, they are still innovating. Their ideas, if not their code, can be utilized in free software. (Granted that software patents, an even greater evil than copyrights, don’t apply.)

The GNU GPL works within current law. It strongly relies on copyrights. To enforce it, the laws and law enforcement mechanisms are utilized. If the copyright laws were weakened, the GPL would lose some of its power. The GPL thus gives programmers who have released under the license an incentive to work towards upholding copyright laws. But copyright laws are inherently dangerous; the law essentially dictates what Joe Hacker and Bob Hacker can do with their own personal property, their own computers. To enforce such a thing, law enforcement must be able to detect when Joe distributes some piece of information to Bob. The transfer might be encrypted for privacy, so now law enforcement has to have a way to force encryption keys from suspects, or encryption must be banned entirely. The transfer might be on a completely private network, so now law enforcement has to have a way to tell when any person is communicating with any other through privately owned equipment, or networks must be forced to register its traffic with authorities, and hidden networks banned. Giving law enforcement such powers, or banning such things, violates basic civil and human rights.

An ethical programmer will avoid assist in maintaining copyrights. He will release the code he writes on his own into the public domain. He will help write libraries that duplicate what GPL and proprietary libraries do, but this time, make them really free. And he will be free to lobby for weakening copyright laws and the enforcement thereof, free to acts of civil disobedience that undermines copyrights, and free to stand up for the basic rights of privacy and presumption of innocence.