Join the petition asking for This American Life in Ogg Vorbis, and help us reach 5,000 signatures

This American Life still hasn't responded to your many messages asking them to use Ogg Vorbis for their downloads and streams. Sign the petition and make your voice heard!

Ogg supporters have sent great emails to This American Life thanking them for their show detailing the problems with software patents and asking them to be part of the solution by using Ogg Vorbis instead of patent-encumbered MP3. Here's one letter, from Matt Kraai:

Thank you for creating "When Patents Attack!" As one of the 80% of software developers who believe that software patents are harmful both to the software industry and to society as a whole, I was happy to see you bringing awareness of this issue to a larger audience.

As you're probably aware by now, the MP3 audio file format that you use to distribute your episodes online is also covered by some software patents. Would you please consider also distributing the episodes using the Ogg Vorbis format? It produces files of comparable size and quality and is not covered by any software patents.

Thanks again for such a great episode,

--
Matt Kraai

We'd like to thank those of you who have written in to the show so far; you all have made countless great points to help illustrate how the MP3 file format has suffered from the same kinds of problems they discussed in last month's episode.

Sadly, we haven't seen or heard about any response from This American Life, even after we made an Ogg version of the show ourselves and offered it to them. We've successfully convinced other public broadcasters like WBUR to use Ogg Vorbis after making that first contact, and we think we can repeat that success here if we can just get a real conversation started. To help with that, we've started a petition to show them just how many people would like to see This American Life available as Ogg Vorbis.

Make your voice heard by signing the petition today! We're working to get 5,000 signatures by September 7, when we'll deliver the first batch, so sign now and make sure you're part of it. It's really easy—we're only asking your name, email address, and a couple of questions about how much you love This American Life and local public radio. After that, you'll get a verification email; click the link in it, and you're done!

Once you've signed, there are other ways you can help:

• Spread the word about this petition by sharing it with your friends and colleagues—the more signatures we get, the better.

• If you haven't already, you can still send a personal note to This American Life asking them to use Ogg Vorbis. You can write them email at web@thislife.org (don't forget to send us a copy at campaigns@fsf.org), or send a message on Twitter to @ThisAmerLife. Remember that you don't need to use the Twitter website (with its proprietary JavaScript) directly when you do this; instead, you can connect your Twitter account to your Identi.ca account and send it that way, or use a local free software client like Gwibber or HeyBuddy.

Thanks again for your support!
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Follow us on identi.ca at http://identi.ca/fsf | Subscribe to our blogs via RSS at http://fsf.org/blogs/RSS
Join us as an associate member at http://fsf.org/jf

Sent from the Free Software Foundation,

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United States

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Android GPLv2 termination worries: one more reason to upgrade to GPLv3

Distributors lose their rights when they violate GPLv2, but the Free Software Foundation is more forgiving in its license enforcement to encourage continued participation in the free software community. GPLv3 has improved termination provisions to codify this approach, giving developers one more reason to upgrade.

Thanks to Android's commercial success, the kernel Linux, which is released under the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2, is being distributed more than ever before. Whenever someone distributes GPL-covered software, they must follow a few conditions set forth in the license. These conditions try to give anyone who receives the software both the legal permission and the practical tools necessary to change and share the software themselves if they wish.

Not all of the companies that distribute Android heed these conditions. We've witnessed an uptick in GPL violation reports—some convincing, others incomplete or misinformed—against these vendors. We generally can't pursue these violations directly, because only copyright holders can enforce free software licenses in most countries, and few Android devices use FSF-copyrighted code. However, people still seek out our opinions about the relevant parts of the GPL, and that discussion has recently turned to GPLv2's termination provisions. Section 4 of the license says, “You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License.”

When we enforce the license of FSF-copyrighted software, we give violators back the rights they had after they come into compliance. In our experience, developers of Linux are happy to do the same. Unfortunately, even if we assume they all would restore these rights, it would be extremely difficult to have them all formally do so; there are simply too many copyright holders involved, some of whom haven't worked on the project in years or even decades.

When we wrote GPLv2 in 1991, we didn't imagine that a free software project might have hundreds of copyright holders, making it so difficult to get a violator's rights restored. We want it to be easy for a former violator to know that they're still allowed to change and share the software; if they stop distribution because of legal uncertainty, fewer people will have free software in the long run. Hence, we created new termination provisions for GPLv3. These terms offer violators a simple method to earn back the rights they had. Parties who violate the license have their rights restored provisionally as soon as they come back into compliance, and permanently if no copyright holders terminate those rights within sixty days of the last violation. Furthermore, first-time violators will have their rights restored permanently if they come into compliance within thirty days of receiving such notice.

GPLv3's approach has several advantages over GPLv2's. By having the license grant forgiveness by default, instead of terminating rights permanently, it better matches our community's expectations and normal compliance strategy. It will be easier for violators to get their rights restored by any copyright holders who do terminate rights, because the notice will establish a clear way for the violator to get in touch. Finally, GPLv3's termination provisions don't sacrifice anything we need: the license's conditions still do their best to protect software freedom, and copyright holders will still be able to legally enforce the license against parties that don't comply.

This is just one of many reasons why GPLv3 is better than GPLv2. This change has already given some companies the reassuring nudge they needed to start distributing GPL-covered software, and we expect to see more of that in the future. When we give distributors a chance to rejoin the free software community and fix any mistakes they might make—in stark contrast to most proprietary software licenses—we get both compliance and more allies. GPLv3 improves on earlier versions of the license by codifying that enforcement strategy. For this reason and others, we urge developers who are releasing projects under GPLv2 to upgrade to GPLv3. Companies that sell products that use Android can help out by encouraging the developers of Linux to make the switch to GPLv3.

--

Sent from the Free Software Foundation,

51 Franklin Street
Fifth Floor
Boston, MA 02110-1335
United States

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