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| Businessweek to Linux: Dump the GPL So Business Can Embrace and Extend It |
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Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 03:39 PM EDT
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A commentary in Businessweek suggests it would be "good for all concerned" if the icky GPL was done away with. The article, titled "The Big Fly in the Open Source Soup," ends like this: "Bright as it is, the future of commercial open source might be considerably brighter if Linux and other programs went to a more commerce-friendly license with fewer complexities and ambiguities than the GPL. There's plenty of precedent. The BSD license, the Mozilla Foundation license used for browsers, and the Apache license all provide for free distribution of code and source code with fewer restrictions than the GPL. It will be tremendously controversial in the open-source community, where the GPL sometimes seems more like an object of religious veneration than a legal document, but it would be good for all concerned." All? Good for all? What about the authors of the code? They chose the GPL because they wanted to. And they are the copyright holders on the code. I believe I may speak for the authors of the code when I say that they would just like you to respect their intellectual property, to phrase it in terms you will understand. Businesses think that if they threaten not to use Linux unless the GPL gets dropped, Linus will panic and comply. No, he won't.
Businesses, or at least the one or ones this commentary represents, are unable to understand that Linux was not written for them. They are free to use it, if they wish, but if they don't wish to, I personally don't care. Let them sink deeper and deeper into the quicksand of the Microsoft security swamp. By all means, stay right where you are, if you so desire. But, he says, "Linux is burdened with too much intellectual-property uncertainty for many companies to embrace and develop it further." Oh? What is IBM? Chopped liver? This is an empty threat. There are plenty of companies raking in the dough from Linux already. If others choose not to unless the GPL is dropped, it's their funeral. If Linux keeps the GPL, the threat is that proprietary companies won't embrace and extend Linux. Good. That is the whole idea. We prefer not to be embraced or extended if the GPL is not complied with, thank you very much. And the GPL was written most specifically to prevent "corporate takeovers", so to speak. Other companies with more vision are already making plenty of money from GPL code, and if you choose not to, suit yourself. I'm thinking maybe HP should be taking a more clear move toward Linux, if they wish to improve their bottom line when it comes to server sales. If businesses wish to use Linux, they must play by the rules. GPL rules. And the rules include respecting the license that the authors have chosen to use. The current theme of the attack on the GPL is that it is "ambiguous". It's been clear enough for the community for many years, and we haven't had to sue each other all over the map either. I don't think the problem some big businesses and their admirers have with the GPL is a lack of comprehension. They don't like the terms. Of course they prefer the BSD license, so they can take and give nothing back. Use it, by all means, if that is what you want. But if you want GPL code, and you do, you have to play fair. Is that ambiguous? I think not. You have to admit, there is something comical in a commentary asking the authors to change their license. It is an indication to me that the "brute force" attempt by SCO, using the courts to try to make the GPL walk the plank, is now a flop and everyone knows it. So now they dangle "the big time" in front of the authors. *Now* will you change the license? No? What is with you people? It's like this: Linux is already in the big time and doesn't need any old-think businesses messing around with its license. Editorials, studies by the Yankee Group, millions on PR, and commentaries from here to Alaska won't change a thing. If the authors don't want to change the license, and they don't, there is no higher court to appeal to. It's a final no. There is so much more in that article that is wrong, when it comes to the GPL and other things too (like SCO did not get the UNIX trademark, for example), which the author does not understand, but it's Sunday, and it's my day off. Want to laugh? Check out this appropriate UserFriendly strip. Here is a prediction about Linux from a journalist, David Coursey, who doesn't mind saying in public that "as an American" he is willing to pay extra for Windows if it means he doesn't have to move to Thailand, that in reference to Microsoft's new training-wheels version of Windows, Windows XP "Starter Edition", the cheap version it is now selling to any dopes it can find in the East. I gather this offering is limited in what it can do. So it's kind of like leaving your car overnight parked on a street in the Bronx, coming back in the morning to find the radio only plays one channel now, and the air conditioning is stripped out, the seat covers are gone, and the car only goes down hills now, not up, and selling it as a starter car. And some call Americans ugly. Anyway, here is Mr. Coursey's prediction: "As for Linux, that operating system is making significant advances in countries where intellectual property isn't respected. By that I mean in places where poor people like to steal things invented by rich people. If you want to compete with this, then you have to price accordingly, as Microsoft seems to be doing in some overseas markets.
"As these economies develop, they will start creating intellectual property and will want to protect it, and the problem will resolve itself.
But Linux is changing the value equation. Microsoft has traditionally made its money selling operating systems and application suites. Linux takes the money out of the operating system and requires it to be made someplace else in the technology food chain, like in support, middleware and the applications that run atop the OS.
"The vendors who are big Linux supporters seem driven as much by the goal of not putting money into Microsoft's pocket as they are by any love of the Linux. I am expecting that, over time, various Linux releases will diverge as completely as Unix has in the past, leaving us with essentially proprietary, vendor-specific versions. So much for 'open' operating systems." I guess his impartiality as a journalist makes it hard to figure out what he personally feels, huh? But as for his prediction that Linux will eventually follow the UNIX divergence path, I see that as a danger, because businessmen think like that. But if they try it, they will find the community will turn against them, and they will be left without strong community support. At the beginning, they may not care. They may think that the core of Linux is maybe just a small group doing most of the work, so what is the difference? They can go back to cathedral-style development and no one will be the wiser. Trust me. We have eyes. We see. We will be the wiser. And you will eventually go out of business if you follow that path or you won't be a Linux company any more. Here's why: the FOSS community isn't dependent on business at all. It's the other way around. And if you are foolish and short-sighted enough to think you don't need community support, try it. You might wish to consider the short, sad history of Caldera first. They did not have strong community support back when they were a Linux company, because they disrespected the GPL and went as close to the edge as they possibly could. Maybe over the line, we are beginning to suspect. The smell was in the air, long before the proof. And they couldn't make it as a Linux company. It's a cautionary tale. There is no business model involving Linux or GNU/Linux that disses the community. Get over it. Instead of ramming against the drawbridge wall, over and over, trying to force open the gates of the GPL castle, find a way to be invited in. Of course, when you are a guest, you need to be well-behaved and not steal all the forks. In the long run, despite having to adjust your thinking, which is always painful, I know, you'll find that is where the profit lies.
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| Authored by: Waterman on Saturday, August 14 2004 @ 08:22 AM EDT |
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- DRM is good for business says Congressional Budget Office - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 04:19 PM EDT
- Whose business? - Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, August 18 2004 @ 04:53 AM EDT
- OT Goes here - Authored by: fireman_sam on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 08:08 PM EDT
- Wall of blame - Authored by: yellowsnow314159 on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 08:16 PM EDT
- Lindows Initial Public Offering (IPO) cancelled - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 09:30 PM EDT
- Steven Weber's "The Success of Open Source" - Authored by: bbaston on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 09:58 PM EDT
- HP - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 16 2004 @ 12:13 AM EDT
- New eWeek interview with Uncle Darl - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 16 2004 @ 12:16 AM EDT
- Who says trolls aren't useful? - Authored by: elcorton on Monday, August 16 2004 @ 01:29 AM EDT
- Title should be: - Authored by: Darkelve on Monday, August 16 2004 @ 03:59 AM EDT
- OT Goes here - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 16 2004 @ 11:02 AM EDT
- If the market WANTED corporate friendly, we'd all be talking about BSD... - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 16 2004 @ 08:27 PM EDT
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| Authored by: Waterman on Saturday, August 14 2004 @ 08:23 AM EDT |
| So we can make fun of them. [ Reply to This | # ]
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- Trolls go here. - Authored by: DashEvil on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 05:45 PM EDT
- My DNA hasn't been released under the GPL. Am I evil? [n/t] - Authored by: archonix on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 06:06 PM EDT
- Trolls go here. - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 06:09 PM EDT
- Trolls go here. - Authored by: Sander on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 06:38 PM EDT
- Trolls go here. - Authored by: fxbushman on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 07:51 PM EDT
- Trolls go here. - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 07:52 PM EDT
- GPL and Linux - Authored by: Observer on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 08:22 PM EDT
- Trolls go here. - Authored by: Glenn on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 10:17 PM EDT
- Trolls go here. - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 16 2004 @ 09:21 AM EDT
- Trolls go here. - Authored by: DannyB on Monday, August 16 2004 @ 11:23 AM EDT
- trolls/extremism/etc - Authored by: fred fleenblat on Monday, August 16 2004 @ 02:31 PM EDT
- Trolling 101 - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 10:02 PM EDT
- Userfriendly cartoon - Authored by: moggie on Monday, August 16 2004 @ 07:22 AM EDT
- Trolls go here. - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 16 2004 @ 07:49 AM EDT
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| Authored by: Waterman on Saturday, August 14 2004 @ 08:25 AM EDT |
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| Authored by: TFBW on Saturday, August 14 2004 @ 08:26 AM EDT |
Don't like the GPL? Not a problem: do what Apple did and
base your extended offering on a BSD strain. Linux isn't
the only free software game in town.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: entre on Saturday, August 14 2004 @ 08:26 AM EDT |
This shows the media has a ways to go before they understand this GPL concept.
Much work ahead in the education area.
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| Authored by: Glenn on Saturday, August 14 2004 @ 08:54 AM EDT |
"But Linux is changing the value equation. Microsoft has traditionally made
its money selling operating systems and application suites."
Left out in the equation: Microsoft, due to its government protected
monopoly, traditionally overcharges big time for its often buggy and insecure
products which which are updated mostly to insure incompatibility with competing
products. This is just two of the reasons that Linux is being adopted more and
more by every type of user.
On a personal note, I installed Knoppix 3.2 on a computer I built for one of
my sons. He has been freaking out over all of the virus, adware, and spyware
crap that he has been finding on his computer running windows 98se (legal). Even
after installing all of the updates, he has found that he can get infected just
by connecting to the internet.
After installing and setting up Knoppix and the KDE environment for him. he
is impressed. He told me that he really likes Linux, except for the lack of
games.
I think though, that as the corporate world embraces Linux more and more,
that developers will begin porting more applications to Linux, including the
games. After all, the IBM PC became the dominate type of computer because
corporate America embraced it. And that is how it made its way into the homes,
replacing the Ataris, Commodores, RS Models, Kaypros, etc, especially when the
cheaper clones hit the market.
If MS and friends are not able to kill or cripple Linux with a barrage of
patent claims, Linux will continue to grow. It will force Microsoft to charge a
fair price for its products and make them better, or MS will eventually also
die.
The current Linux phenomenon was something I did not expect when I installed
my first Slackware distribution way back when. I was just looking for a (better)
choice.
Glenn
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| Authored by: PJ on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 03:45 PM EDT |
This is the third article that went walkabout yesterday. We could only
reconstruct part of it and only a few comments, so feel free to add whatever
you said the first time once more. I had to just rewrite a lot of it over, and
that is why it took so long. Also I went out and had some fun today too. But
now we are fully reconstructed from yesterday's mishap.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 03:47 PM EDT |
The businesses that think the way this article does, are only leeches. They
want to take others' code, make it their own, and give nothing back. In other
words, they are looking for free labor.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: RedBarchetta on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 03:51 PM EDT |
"Bright as it is, the future of commercial open source might be
considerably brighter if Linux and other programs went to a more
commerce-friendly license with fewer complexities and ambiguities than the
GPL."
Oh no, another GPL expert that graduated from the
University of SCO...
---
Collaborative efforts synergise. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 03:56 PM EDT |
David Coursey used to write for ZDNET (maybe he still does I don't read them
anymore).
That ought to tell you what where his biases lie.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: MadMax on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 03:57 PM EDT |
It really is quite simple.
If you use someone elses code, you must release whatever you base on this under
the same license.
If you write all your own code, you can do whatever you want.
That's *it*.
I don't want to spend my time solving problems for myself, or for others,
sharing my solutions with people, and then have someone steal it, sell it, and
not give anything back to me, or the community to which I belong.
---
irc.fdfnet.net #groklaw - Displaced Aussie
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 04:03 PM EDT |
| the future of commercial open source might be considerably brighter if Linux
and other programs went to a more commerce-friendly license with fewer
complexities and ambiguities than the GPL.
Arguements against the GPL
always boil down to one thing.
I get to use other people's work for free,
but then I charge for my work and it is secret and no one else can use
it.
The GPL is NOT hard to understand, if you want to understand
it.
It is about "free" as in "freedom".
Not a privilage that only some
can afford.
The end of the arguement is always that if you have problems with
the GPL do not use other people's work.
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| Authored by: kpl on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 04:18 PM EDT |
Businessweek to Linux: Dump the GPL So Business Can Embrace and Extend
It
Translation:
Dump the GPL because we want to steal
it, then sue you over "OUR new product".
Blech, same old stuff from
people who have no clue.---
--------------------
mv sco /dev/null
-------------------- [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: eamacnaghten on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 04:30 PM EDT |
| Stephen H. Wildstrom, (the guy who wrote the BW article) has a point in saying
that the way most (a lot?) of software companies sort out patent disputes is
with cross licensing (see the recent Sun/Microsoft settlement) and that this
solution is not available for Linux, as the GPL prevents this type of cross
licensing, however, his solution of Linux dropping the GPL is not only
impossible to do (how many contributors would have to agree with this?) but is
also the wrong solution.
GPL is being adopted because it is popular with
users, and the fervent inovation it encourages is popular too. An IBM exec
recently told me that one of the things that attracts IBM to Linux was not it's
free (as-in-whatever) attributes, but the fact it was so scaleable. That it was
the same operating system that could run on anything from watches to
super-computers.
If enough people want something to happen then it will.
It is no accident that over two thirds of the internet servers run on Open
Software, and that is not because the Apache license is "less restrictive" than
the GPL. There are, I believe, sufficient number of people intersted in making
sure Linux will work for the software patent problems to be sorted,
circumvented, or if neccessary, pressure put on legislatures and government
patent organizations to be more sensible with them.
Open software has
arrived, The paradigm has changed. Problems with this will be sorted. Get
used to it.
Web Sig:Eddy
Currents [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 04:35 PM EDT |
It's a silly article
Even if we assume arguendo that the course of action advocated (abandon the GPL
for Linux) were accepted as advisable by many, or even the majority, of Linux
contributors... it can't happen unless all the contributors, without exception,
accept it.
So it ain't gonna happen
Quatermass
IANAL IMHO[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 04:40 PM EDT |
They chose the GPL because they wanted to. And they are
the copyright holders on the code. I believe I may speak
for the authors
of the code when I say that they would
just like you to respect their
intellectual property, to
phrase it in terms you will understand.
Businesses think that if they threaten not to use Linux
unless the GPL
gets dropped, Linus will panic and comply.
No, he won't.
Evidence? I think you made up the "No he won't". Fair
enough to say
you believe you may speak for the authors of
the code when you say that they
would just like businesses
to respect their intellectual property.
But I think that statements on Linus's position on what
licence carry more
authority if Linus makes them first. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: dmscvc123 on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 04:43 PM EDT |
Going to his website, it says he has a degree, but it doesn't even say what he
got his degree in, which leads me to believe it wasn't a tech-related degree.
"Intellectual-property questions about Linux came to the forefront after
the SCO Group (SCOX ), which acquired the Unix trademarks, launched a series of
lawsuits against alleged infringers of its rights."
Geesh, I hate it when people don't know the difference between a copyright and a
trademark. The issue isn't trademarks!
"Bright as it is, the future of commercial open source might be
considerably brighter if Linux and other programs went to a more
commerce-friendly license with fewer complexities and ambiguities than the GPL.
There's plenty of precedent. The BSD license, the Mozilla Foundation license
used for browsers, and the Apache license all provide for free distribution of
code and source code with fewer restrictions than the GPL. It will be
tremendously controversial in the open-source community, where the GPL sometimes
seems more like an object of religious veneration than a legal document, but it
would be good for all concerned."
I wonder if this guy is friends with those esteemed gentlemen at AdTI.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 04:55 PM EDT |
OK, BusinessWeek, how about this:
Bright as it is, the
future of magazines might be considerably brighter if BusinessWeek and
other publications went to a more consumer-friendly model with
lower prices and fewer subscription tiers than at present. There's plenty
of precedent. The BusinessWeek Web site is free, as are many so-called "penny
saver" newspapers. It will be tremendously controversial in the
publishing community, where money sometimes seems more like an
object of religious veneration than legal tender, but it would be good
for all concerned.
NOTE: the preceding was a parody of the
last paragraph of the article, with replacements noted in italics. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: bap on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 04:56 PM EDT |
| I used to work for a small internet startup back in the late 90's that used
linux. It was bought by a larger company for over $500 million.
That company is now running linux on over 5,000 servers. I'm now working for
another company that's built their product almost exclusively on linux and other
GPL'd software. They just don't seem to get the idea that businesses are
ALREADY embracing linux & the GPL. True, some companies (larger
businesses like banks, etc) might not make use of linux & GPL'd code as
quickly as others but the bottom line is that it's already happening. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: boban on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 05:00 PM EDT |
My point is that open source people think in terms of community, freedom,
sharing etc. But for someone who thinks in "old-school" terms of
companies selling software, GPL has issues.
So give the guy benefit of doubt, maybe he just honestly made an article on OSS
from his viewpoint.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Jude on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 05:02 PM EDT |
I am expecting that, over time, various Linux releases will diverge as
completely
as Unix has in the past, leaving us with essentially proprietary,
vendor-specific
versions. So much for 'open' operating systems."
The
author is talking about why he thinks GPL is not good, so it seems
reasonable
to assume that he thinks the divergence will be a result of
licensing Linux under GPL.
It seems to me that the reverse would be true:
GPL prevents people from selling
their own proprietary variants that nobody
else may distribute, and it guarantees
that modifications which turn out to
be generally desireable can be merged into
the main code. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 05:03 PM EDT |
"[foo] source code is available under the GNU General Public License (GPL).
As with other opensource packages, we can consider alternative licenses by
request."
That appears on a number of packages I'm responsible for. So in one case, when
someone I know to be a bona fide open source developer asked, I waived GPL
rights to permit him to release his derived work under the Apache license.
Anyone wanting to incorporate my software in their closed source is very welcome
to negotiate a financial value.
That becomes harder when a GPL package has multiple independent authors each
owning a stake in the IP. Business might legitimately find that hard. For
example, I have a package I released as GPL, which was recently adopted by other
developers who have enhanced it and released their derived work under the GPL.
Anyone wanting to use that under GPL-incompatible terms has to negotiate with
several people.
Probably the best-known commercial company to work a dual-licensing model
successfully is MySQL. It works well for them because they've got both the tech
resources to put into development in-house and the good name to keep a large
market share.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: hbo on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 05:06 PM EDT |
Here's my mail to Stephen H. Wildstrom, reacting to the other idea he raises in
the article:
Mr, Wildstrom,
Regarding
rhttp://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/aug2004/tc20040813_1107_tc120.ht
m,
a fund set up to defend Linux against patent claims would act as
nothing more than a litigation magnet.
Who is an aggrieved patent holder to sue now? End users? SCO has
shown that route to route to be unproductive. IBM? Well, sure, but
they have shown an awkward unwillingness to settle in the Linux
area, and they have the largest portfolio of software patents with
which to defend themselves. Red Hat? Well, maybe, maybe not. They
aren't holders of rights for much of the threatened software.
Linus Torvalds? Possibly. But his pockets are quite shallow. What
would a litigant gain from suing Linus or other kernel developers,
assuming there was no fund set up to pay claims, as distinct from
one designed to pay defense lawyers? The best a litigator could hope
for would be an agreement to stop using the disputed technology, after
a long and costly court case. This is, of course, exactly what Linus
and others would readily agree to up-front, if the patent claims were
seen by them to have merit.
Of course, the kernel developer's evaluation of merit is likely to
differ significantly from that of a potential patent litigator. But
the cost of having that difference in values adjudicated is high, the
outcome uncertain, and the benefits - absent a misguided, lawsuit
feeding award fund - quite limited.
---
"Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there"
- Will Rogers[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: webster on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 05:07 PM EDT |
The writer and editor are either 1) ignorant victims of consuming FUDge
brownies, OR
2) they are knowingly slinging the propietary FUDge.
---
webster[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: dbc on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 05:11 PM EDT |
... choice of license is a strategy, not a religion.
1. As PJ states, the IP starts out as the orignal coder's IP. It is his to do
with as he pleases, and copyright is the foundation of that control.
2. The author is then faced with a strategic decision. For some things, such as
protocol stacks where your strategic goal very likely is "widest possible
adoption", releasing under BSD is very sensible. That frees the code for
commercial implementation, giving the best chance of being distributed with
proprietary codes. And it is availble to the community as well. In fact, in
about 7 seconds flat somebody will slap a GPL on it anyway, so a
free-as-in-libre version will exist from that time forward forever more.
OTOH, if the author wants to prevent commercial exploitation of the code, then
fine. GPL is a good choice for that. After all, it is the author's IP, he can
do with it as he pleases.
Now... let me speak as a ranch owner. I own a ranch. 640 acres of it. Bought
and paid for, and I pay the taxes, and do the road work. (Any idea what 80
yards of gravel and 1 1/2 days of grader time costs?) Anyway... some folks that
I have never met seem to think that I should be happy to have them hike, hunt,
hang-glide, ride horses, and hold illicit parties on my property, without so
much as asking me if that is OK with me. Sheesh. Darn silly of them, I think.
Most propery owners would think so, too. Or would you like me to fire off high
powered rifles in your front yard where your 5 year old child plays, without so
much as asking if it is OK with you?
Anyway... I feel the same way about my code. It's my IP. If I want to give it
away using the GPL, how exactly can anyone feel they have the right to tell me
what else to do with it?
And while I'm on my rant... let me segue to a related topic. The idea of GPL
code being "valueless". What a howler. When I put a $20 in the
collection plate at church, does it become valueless? No, I hope not, and so
does the church. It still has $20 in value, it just goes to projects I want to
help move forward. Same goes for code that I GPL. I don't see it as valuless.
I see it as a donation to a good cause, one that I hope has and maintains
significant value over time.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 05:12 PM EDT |
When businesses go for this non-GPL Linux, what's it going to be compiled with?
What gives it it's command set?[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 05:30 PM EDT |
| This is by far the best pun I've seen in a long, long
time.
Cheers,
Emile. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: WBHACKER on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 05:43 PM EDT |
| Bit of hyperbole PJ?
Not beneficial to the aims of Linux, the GPL, or F/OSS
in general.
Linus doesn't do this. Stallman doesn't do this. Eben Moglen
doesn't do this.
It is your blog, but this oldster thinks Groklaw should
not descend to that.
The Business Week writer exhibited ignorance, perhaps
laziness. But not
malice. one should ask, 'Flawed basis aside, was he perhaps
correct in his
opinion about what drives a commercial decision?
Should that be addressed? If so, how best to do so?
Business is not put off
by the GPL, per se. IBM is the best evidence of that.
No one who understands the
GPL expects - or requires - that it change. As
Quatermass points out - it is a
practical impossibility anyway.
The GPL works. It adds value. It will
survive. It neither has, seeks, nor should
have an 'exclusive' as the only way
to ever-again license IP.
But the GPL, and the multitude of *other* software
released under it - quite
independent of Linux - will very likely outlast Linux
if this 'jihadi-ism' isn't
put into a more productive channel. Frequent
disclaimers aside, it
does seem to have become 'religion'. Not "Linux in
cooperation
with the world", but "Linux against the (hostile?)
world".
The message is being smothered in the noise.
Vitriol won't
compile on my box.
'Forward looking' business may very well decide on 'none
of the above'.
- as they always have. Check your history of prior 'religious
wars'.
Too much of Microsoft's 'success' came by presenting itself as the
'obvious'
choice of stability in earlier such contests. Repeating the 'warfare'
is playing
into their hands, yet again.
---
Bill Hacker [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 05:43 PM EDT |
I'm truly amused by all those predictions of GPL invalidity and some such. All
right, let's assume for a moment that some judge somewhere strikes GPL down. And
so what? What exactly will happen to GPL-ed free software, Linux included?
The developers will have a brief meeting, they'll ask a few lawyers what to do
(and now they'll know from the judges ruling what's in question), who will write
some new piece of paper, this time actually "legal" and we're back to
square one. Yeah, all right, some code will be usable by some people that
previously wasn't and so what?
The value of the whole thing is in the copyrighted pool that keeps being
contributed into and cannot be tampered with in the future. This will continue,
given there are many different ways to do this apart from the GPL (copyright is
property and no law forbids sharing your property with people of your choosing).
Even if all the code currently protected by the GPL were to be released into
public domain, it'll mean exactly zero, because whoever is counting on
"monetizing" on it forgets that it is not the code, but the community
that writes it that is the greatest asset of all.
So, go ahead, attack the GPL, force all the code into public domain (yeah right,
that'll work :-). Have a ball. It'll make no difference to us. We'll just find
another way.[ Reply to This | # ]
|
- So what? - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 06:08 PM EDT
- So what? - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 09:05 PM EDT
- Funny... - Authored by: Ed Freesmeyer on Monday, August 16 2004 @ 01:54 AM EDT
- Funny... - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 16 2004 @ 03:39 AM EDT
- So what? - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 07:36 PM EDT
- Crazed Judges are not the problem - Authored by: jimbro on Monday, August 16 2004 @ 01:03 PM EDT
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 05:50 PM EDT |
If Those freakin bussiness analists would actually do usefull reviews, we might
get some work done without being bothered by Managers scared witless because
they read some offbase story on whatever site.
What a useless concept.
Retep Vosnul
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 06:05 PM EDT |
I see a parallel with the Battle of Maldon, in Essex,
England, 991 AD.
The Danes landed on an island in the Blackwater estuary
which was joined to the mainland by a 50yd wide causeway
except at high tide. A smaller Saxon army was on the
mainland preventing the Danes from coming across and
pillaging the region. The larger force of the Danes had
no advantage on the narrow causeway and they were exposed
to Saxon archers who were posted along the mainland shore.
The Danes were stuck and were going to have to sail home.
But they sent a parley to the Saxons and said "Be good
sports, let us cross to the mainland and then we can have
a fair and square battle with eachother."
The silly Saxons agreed, and allowed the Danes cross and
deploy on the mainland in full battle order, in the name
of good sport.
The Saxons then lost the battle which followed, badly.
See a parallel with business wanting to be let into the
Linux world on their own terms? [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 06:11 PM EDT |
| ...so Linux, GNU, other F/OSS and the GPL can embrace and extend your business. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 06:26 PM EDT |
Two notes: Linus could not change the licence on Linux even if he wanted to
because the copyright is widely diluted among thousands of contributors. He'd
have to ask all their agreement.
And second: there are also more restrictive licensing terms, like the Microsoft
EULA (which for WinXP pretty much reserves the right for Microsoft to remotely
destroy your computer and data without recompensation if they happen to make a
mistake in the name of security). They don't seem to keep businesses from
working with the stuff.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 06:30 PM EDT |
I think this guy is just attacking Linux through the GPL
if he thinks the Mozilla license is 'responsiblity' free.
The MPL (Last time I checked, things change) is the GPL
with more specific requirements on distributing
modifications. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 06:37 PM EDT |
In this February 20, 2004 article, David Coursey states "on Thursday I went
to see my friend Rob (Enderle, the noted industry analyst).
Original article is at ZDNet
http://reviews-zdnet.com.com/AnchorDesk/4630-7297_16-5122766.html
Since Rob Enderle also admits that Microsoft is one of his good clients, it is
certainly not surprising that there will be a steady stream of Linux bashing
from both Rob Enderle and David Coursey.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 06:39 PM EDT |
If someone does bussiness with say a foreign country the first thing you should
do is try to undestand there culture.This is afcourse the same thing as with the
foss 'community'. It isn't the license and also not a bussiness opertunity, it
is a social movement and culture. Those bussinesspeople and analysts should
first undestand what the comunity is about and try to adopt to it instead the
otherway arround by forcing there interest to us.
You give credit to IBM how they behave to the foss comunity, that is strength.
I'm not impressed by Microsoft's negative reactiont to Linux. They are unable to
change or adapt and the only thing they can do is unleasing zillion of Fud
mosquito's.
Jeroen
p.s. I had the idee, when some journalist or anlyst write some nonsens like
'opensource are terrorist' we could email him:
"We are borg-resistant is futile-YOU WILL BE ASSIMILATED"
But i don't know if they understands the joke.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Ikester on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 06:41 PM EDT |
| A couple of posters above decried the religious zeal to which people clung to
the GPL. Quite frankly, I'm not sure anyone has ever come to blows over which
computer hardware or OS they advocate. (If I'm wrong, please correct me. I'd
looove to hear about it.) The market is plenty big enough for any
individual or business to use whichever works for them and that they can afford
to use legally. The only ones whining about it are the ones who are losing their
near-monopolistic market share. Fortunately, everyone in the debate over
proprietary software v. FOSS is in fact rational, if possibly misinformed or
mischaracterizing of the other side's argument. Compare such a debate to the
mindless violence of an actual religious war, and you'll see that the hyperbole
attending, say, PC v. Mac or Windows v. Linux, is completely unwarranted. Let's
keep this in perspective. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: jim Reiter on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 06:59 PM EDT |
There is a fallacy propounded by evolutionsit that says,
"it is fittest that survive." The fittest being those
namely that have best adapted to the environment.
The error in thinking is to believe that those who are the
fittest in the old environment will also be the fittest in
the new environment.
And the little mammals ate the eggs of the gigantic
dinosaurs as the long winter started.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Observer on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 07:54 PM EDT |
| When people predict that Linux will diverge into multiple, incompatible versions
just like UNIX did, we should remind them that UNIX diverged because it
was a closed, proprietary product. UNIX vendors tried all the same vendor
lock-in tricks that Microsoft is trying now, though the POSIX standard kept them
in line somewhat. As each vendor tried to differentiate itself, it wandered
further and further off from the others, until you had many substantially
different platforms, each claiming to be UNIX.
In reality, I think there is
still a danger that Linux distributions will diverge somewhat. We are already
seeing this with applications that will run on one distribution but not another,
mostly because of differences in libraries, and sometimes because of specialized
kernel extensions. The difference is that you still have the keys to all the
locks. Unless you've got a proprietary, binary only package sitting on top of
the Free OS, you can still change if you want. Also, without the proprietary,
"You can's see our code!", there's nothing keeping someone from incorporating
the features of one distribution into another, so branches will never be able to
diverge very far.
---
The Observer [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: fireman_sam on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 08:03 PM EDT |
Microsoft should dump that pesky "Closed Source" licensing so everyone
can embrace and extend it. It would be better for the community.
This is the exact reason I never release any code under anything OTHER than the
GPL.
" If you use my ideas, let me use yours. "[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: dyfet on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 08:03 PM EDT |
| "...I believe I may speak for the authors of the code when I say that they
would just like you to respect their intellectual property..."
I am happy
that people respect copyright as a temporary bargain between the
public's right
to knowledge and an authors temporary ability to restrain the
public's right
for profit tempered of course through fair use, of patents when
applied to
material things, of trademarks when applied to business marks
and trade secrets
when applied to things that people wish to keep secret. I
do not recall
anything in the US copyright code on "intellectual property" nor
is there such
a thing under our laws or in the constitution, since it implies
intangible
goods and ideas can be owned and manipulated like physical
property, which is
both logically unsupportable and morally reprehensible.
I recall there was
a time when people could be refered to and treated as
property, even under the
law. Just because a person was called property and
treated as such did not
make them so. Similarly, I do not see any outcome
possible out of the idea
behind the term "Intellectual Property" other than
leading to intellectual
slavery.
As you may gather I believe in constitutional copyright (well, as
principled in
the american constitution and referenced through the federalist
papers), and
this is founded on the premise of a limited time (expiring)
bargain between
public and private interests. That current legislatures have
unbalanced this
bargain by extending the private interests at the expense of
the public ones
does not invalidate the original concept as intended, and to
which I believe
we should return to, nor does it make intangible things
property even in law.
Otherwise I did like the rest of what was stated here.
The GPL is an
instrument who's only restrictions are applied to those that
wish to restrict
others. It can be used for many purposes, one of them being
to create in
effect a public commons or public domain that is self-defending.
For the
commercial software author, it requires rethinking how you relate to
your
customers and competitors, but though it changes the nature of some
business relationships in the software industry, these changes are consistent
with how some of the other fields and industries operate. Software freedom
operating in a free marketplace may not ever create any billionaires, but it
can create very many more millionaires, and both business and society would
be
better off with such an outcome.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: bmcmahon on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 08:13 PM EDT |
| The folks who are having the hardest time "getting it" are the ones who have
this concept of "work for hire" deeply embedded in their brains.
Programming,
to them, is not very different an activity from, say, writing a
new marketing
brochure, or even assembly-line work. You do work, you get
paid, employer owns
the work product, end of story. The specific skill
required to do a job may
change (write C code, lie proficiently, or operate a
drill press), but at the
end of the day, it's just a job.
There's another side to programming,
though, and it's eloquently (though not
politically correct as to gender)
expressed in The Mythical Man-Month[*]:
Programming [...] is
fun because it gratifies creative longings built deep
within us and delights
sensibilities we have in common with all men.
Open source
developers work, at least in part, for the sheer fun of it. It's a
creative
enterprise, more like art than tradecraft. From this, there naturally
flows a
desire to protect one's own work, and this is the beauty of the GPL:
The
product remains the, ahem, intellectual property of its creator.
So
many companies are accustomed to thinking of their programmers as just
another
wage slave (now where have I heard that phrase recently?), with no
enduring
connection to the work they produce. The program belongs to the
employer, in
exchange for money.
One who thinks money is all-important, and cannot
imagine ever not
trading something for money, this is the one that
stares at the GPL as
uncomprehendingly as a cow might stare at a Van
Gogh.
[*]: If you program, or if you manage programming projects, or if your
work
involves dealing with programmers in any way, and you have not yet read
The Mythical Man-Month by Frederick Brooks, I urgently
recommend
that you do so. It is an essential classic.
This is the Brooks, as
in
Brooks's
Law. ("Adding manpower to a late software project makes it
later.")
The book first came out in 1975. It is disturbing how many of the
problems
Brooks identifies are still with us, nearly 30 years later.
If you
can, find the 20th anniversary edition, ISBN 0-201-83595-9, which has
a few
added follow-up chapters on the progress (or lack thereof) in the
practice of
software development in the two decades following the first
edition.
(Ironically, Mr. Brooks got his experience with software
development projects
at a little company called International Business
Machines....) [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 08:13 PM EDT |
Is the point not that any company can use, embrace or extend any GPL software,
as long as they don't release binaries then they don't have to release their
secret additions to the source.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 08:20 PM EDT |
Just as there is a lot of miscommunication regarding the term Free (as in ...)
there seems to be the same miscommunication regarding the term "USE"
Perhaps it would be good to qualify the terms:
* Use as in tools - such as end users and companies that buy software to do work
with
vs.
* Use as in incorporate - software writers who use other people's code in order
to produce a product
Use as in tools "users" don't much care about the licensing form so
long as they can use the tool to help them in their work. (obviously if they can
get it cheaper/better that helps them out) The GPL doesn't hurt these
"users" as they are not reselling or reusing the fruits of others
labors, and most often they can get the program for free (as in beer), or for a
lower price than from a proprietary style vendor.
Use as in incorporate "users" do have concerns for the licensing
model, as they are using code to sell as a direct product. These
"Users" do need to make sure that they are not infringing on the
rights of others, and do not limit themselves in the future. The GPL has many
things in it that they need to consider, and thus is of greater concern to
them.
So:
Use as in tools - users are rarely affected by the differences between BSD, GPL,
LGPL, etc.
Use as in incorporate - users are highly affected by the differences, and should
be allowed to weigh the matter carefully. After all it *IS* their code, and as
much as we would like to see it set free (as in freedom), we have no right to
impose that decision upon them.
I have seen several comments in this thread that ignore one or the other kind of
user, or use the two types interchangeably, and just thought it would be good to
clarify.
After all, with all the confusion being spread out there by the monopolies and
monopoly wannabees, it is always better to make sure a debate is comparing
oranges to oranges.
I am a -use as in tool- user, and have no likelihood to be involved in the -use
as in incorporate- world. As such, I encourage the idea that giving to the
community is ever so much better a goal than running to the bank and laughing
all the way.
However, I see no need for the givers to the community to be expected to
contribute to a black hole mentality either.
In the end, I think that to preserve freedom (as in free), everyone must be
given a choice as to how they wish to contribute.
I salute all the dedicated and talented people out there who contribute to the
FOSS cause, but please, let's try to avoid the schisms that seem to be cropping
up - troll feeding, license bashing, etc.
This is just what the guys plotting the (fortunately unobtainable) FOSS demise
want - to distract our attention, and cause rifts.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 08:21 PM EDT |
But these two articles are nowhere near as hate-filled as the rant I just
read...[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: blacklight on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 08:30 PM EDT |
David Coursey is dead wrong about the lack of corporate support for the GPL: IBM
would not have contributed code to Linux to the extent it has, if the GPL did
not protect IBM's as strongly as it does. I believe that if someone took into
his head that he could simpkly rip off IBM's contributed code to Linux and
include it into his own commercial offering and IBM was made aware of it, IBM
would make sure that there would be hell to pay - and IBM would definitely quote
the terms of the GPL in its suit against the code pirate. We could weaken the
terms of the GPL, but we woulsd alienate IBM, HP, SGI, RH, Novell and sundry
other contributors. It is definitely NOT "better for all concerned"
that we weaken the terms of the GPL, as David Coursey recklessly suggests.
If David Coursey has specific issues with the terms of the GPL, we are all ears
- There is always room for improvement. However, broad, unsupported statements
such as "the GPL is ambiguous" have no traction with me: either he
shows which specific statements of the GPL in his opinion are ambiguous and why
and how, or he can go stuff it. The incontrovertible fact is that GPL'ed
software got to this point without either his input, his support and most
probably without his awareness. We have done well without his advice, and I
expect that we will continue to do well also without his advice. If I have one
piece of advice to offer David Coursey, it is not to cross the line from
punditry to idiocy - a line his pal Rob Enderle crossed long ago.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: bliss on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 08:39 PM EDT |
The software licensed under the GPL is, most important of all, contributed by
people who believe in Free Software with an almost religious intensity. These
believers are as different from the average man on the street today as the
United States' founding fathers were from their British masters.
The attitude of the BSD folks is very similar but they're not quite as given
to fanaticism. Free, commercial, do whatever you like, the GPL stuff feeds BSD,
BSD feeds back into the GPL, and both understand that we're going *forward*.
Proprietary software has its place. Proprietary from scratch operating
systems, proprietary applications, proprietary interfaces; all have their place
in the scheme of things. Think about things other than Wintel PCs and you'll
start finding examples ... Cisco routers come to mind first; there are many
others.
Microsoft is, today, something like 95% of all desktop software. Their
product is bloated, unstable, difficult to maintain, and they churn all sorts of
aspects of the system to keep others from playing on their platform. They're
going to end up with a share in the market based on a combination of end user
inertia and improvements they'll be forced to make around the time they've lost
50% of the desktop, but the days of 95% are going ... going ... gone.
---
Information becomes fragmented, knowledge does not. What causes fragmentation in
information is scholasticism - Ramitani[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: raintree26 on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 08:40 PM EDT |
I think that if the GPL was described as a form of barter between users where
each user agrees to exchange their work in return for the work of others that it
would be better understood by journalists and the average citizen. This
explanation provides an easily understood model which has a long and successful
past.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Night Flyer on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 09:01 PM EDT |
Though Businessweek is a widely read (and usually respected) publication, each
article is authored by one person (sometimes a few contribute), and this article
probably represents the opinion of only that person.
I respect the right of that person to be wrong.
It's too bad a prestigious magazine saw fit to publish it without doing more
research on the topic... but I guess there are deadlines.
----------------------------
It is clear that the SCO vs IBM and other 'IP' lawsuits are being more closely
followed by more than lawsuits usually are. It seems to me that Businessweek
thought it was missing out and felt it needed to jump on the bandwagon in this
fashion.
Maybe its editor should have talked to some IT prople before publishing. Maybe
its author has been taken in by the MS and SCO FUD.
---------------------------
I stand by my family motto: Veritas Vincit: Truth conquers
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Wesley_Parish on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 09:05 PM EDT |
It struck me as funny, Coursey saying that, because I have documented
evidence of this "American respect for people's Intellectual
Property".
I'm a big fan of the New Zealand poet R.A.K. Mason, author
of such poetry as "The Body of John"
(Don't laugh - it's excellent
medicine when you feel like you've hit the bottom.):
Oh I have grown
so withered and sere
But the body of John enlarges
I can scarcely
summon a tear
But the body of John discharges
It's true my
old roof is near ready to drop
But John's boards have burst
asunder
And I am perishing cold here atop
But his bones lie stark
hereunder
I borrowed a book called
Mason : The Life of R.A.K. Mason
by Rachel
Barrowman,
Victoria University Press,
ISBN
0-86473-463-8 from the local library. It contains an
interesting little detail on the American attitude to other's Intellectual
Property, "The Islands 1931", pp 126-133. It appears that R.A.K.Mason
had contracted with an old trader in Apia, Samoa, by name George Westbrook, to
write Westbrook's biography. He had written and sent a draft, and then an
American, Julian Dana, turned up, who filched R.A.K. Mason's work, and got it
published as his own, with a few minor cosmetic changes.
Now is surely
the time to see if the US Congress actually believes in Intellectual Property as
a definable international good, protected by agreed-on rights and obligations,
binding on the US by the provisions of its own Constitution. I think perhaps a
few billion dollars to the relatives of the people injured by Julian Dana's and
his publisher's malfeasance, out of the pockets of the people benefitted by
Julian Dana's and his publisher's malfeasance, should do the
trick.
Saying one believes in intellectual property is all very well;
saying it and paying for it are very, very different things. Pay up or shut
up seems to be the word required. ---
finagement: The Vampire's
veins and Pacific torturers stretching back through his own season. Well,
cutting like a child on one of these states of view, I duck [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 09:20 PM EDT |
"If Linux keeps the GPL, the threat is that proprietary companies won't
embrace and extend Linux. Good. That is the whole idea. We prefer not to be
embraced or extended if the GPL is not complied with, thank you very much."
Which part of "promissory estoppel" does PJ and the fire-breathing
troll-beating Groksters fail to understand?
"Promissory" or "Estoppel"?
Micro$oft, Oracle, HP, Red Hat, IBM and the rest of the proprietary world thank
the Linux developers for all that beautiful code released under an unenforcable,
invalid and preempted license.
THE WORLD OF COMMERCE
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 09:24 PM EDT |
Coursey has never had anything good to say about Linux and usually misinformed
about OSS in general.
There are a few clueless techno-journalists which really should be on a
watchlist. They write about Linux and yet are oh so ignorant:
David Coursey, Jerry Pournelle, Fred Langa, Fred Moody are just a start. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: whitleych on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 10:04 PM EDT |
Well, since we're on the subject.... As a customer I don't like EULA's that
allow a company to take away my fair use rights. I also don't like a company
taking my money and then not even committing to providing me a product that
functions as advertised. I would think business doesn't like it any better than
me. So why aren't they calling for companies like M.S, CA, and Symantec to
change their licenses? It makes more sense than calling for changes in the GPL
and/or GPL'ed code. After all, you don't have to pay for most GPL code, and if
you do, you know the terms of the license prior to purchase.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: CustomDesigned on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 10:25 PM EDT |
Free software is all about freedom (not price). Each license has its own
tradeoffs in how it preserves freedom.
BSD guarantees that you are free to use the specific version licensed in any way
you want. It does not give you any rights to derivative works. It trades
freedom in the future for a little more freedom now.
GPL guarantees that you are free to use the licenced version - and any
derivative works in the future. By demanding that you provide source for
derivative works, it limits somewhat your freedom now (at least for the greedy)
in order to guarantee freedom in the future.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: brian-from-fl on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 10:31 PM EDT |
The title shown at the Businessweek.com link is "By Stephen H. Wildstrom A
Big Fly in the Open-Source Soup." Might they have forgotten a comma, as in:
"By Stephen H. Wildstrom, A Big Fly in the Open-Source Soup"? For Mr.
Wildstrom's article is full of erroneous and misleading statements and he is
indeed just another proverbial fly in the Open Source Soup.
His phrase "Software owned by everyone and by no one" does not apply
to any GPL'd open-source software that I've seen, nor does it apply to
open-source software licensed under the BSD, zlib, Apache, or other common
license. That software has clear copyright ownership.
His statement "But there are a slew of backers that see open-source
software as part of a social and political movement that's frankly
anti-corporate." is not valid as a blanket statement. And it's not even
relevant to the issue at hand. Corporate software developers are forced to give
up all rights to their software to gain employment, only to be released later
though layoffs. The software developer ceases to be paid for his or her work,
but their former corporate employers continues to keep any revenue generated by
the former employee's work. Anti-corporate, or just anti-slavery? I do agree
that the GPL makes it more difficult for corporations to steal the work of
others. But please, Mr. Wildstrom, be accurate and call it anti-theft or
anti-slavery, not anti-corporate.
His statement that "the GPL is hardly a model of clarity" is highly
subjective. I happen to agree, but then again I am not a lawyer and most of the
legal documents that PJ and others post on Groklaw are, to me, hardly models of
clarity. A good friend of mine, who is a former Manhattan lawyer and a highly
skilled and safe pilot for over 50 years, finds anything related to computers
"hardly a model of clarity". So I help him with computers, and he
helps me understand the world of aviation and how to fly an airplane. Indeed,
this friend of mine is one of those few people who don't condemn something they
don't understand, but instead seek out someone who does understand. I would
think a journalist might have the same approach to his or her work and perhaps
that little ugly annoying task called "research" might help that
journalist clarify his or her understanding of the GPL.
He doesn't help his readers understand that releasing a proprietary product
under Linux does not necessarily mean that that proprietary software must be
released under the GPL. Quite the contrary. Sure, to avoid releasing one's
product under the GPL one must avoid incorporating any of the wealth of GPL'd
software within one's product. But that applies to everything in life. Just
because we see Mercedes Benz' and Rolls Royce's tantalizingly displayed in a
showroom does not mean that we can expect to drive or own one under any more
favorable terms than their current owners specify. And if a large number of
software developers tempt me with the source for compelling software tools but
forbid me to use it unless I comply with the terms of those who own the
copyrights to that softwarem that's called property rights, and the GPL neither
supports nor denies those rights. Instead, the GPL is a declaration of rights
that the law of the land has an obligation to enforce and that we citizens have
an obligation to respect.
When I worked for IBM, I found that the vast majority of executives, right down
to the first level manager and even to the so-called team lead positions, had no
clue whatsoever about how to create, develop, and build software. Software is an
art that is far too abstract for many even otherwise brilliant minds (such as my
incredibly smart and talented lawyer-pilot friend) to comprehend. And therefore
quite a few of them fear it just because it is unknown. And it's a dangerous
position for an industry when nearly all large companies and the government
(patent examiners, lawmakers, lawyers, and judges) are clueless and therefore
live in mortal fear it and yet are given the power to enslave or destroy it.
Groklaw is the first real and powerful force to defend the software development
industry from the otherwise capable and powerful forces that do not understand
it and therefore seek to cripple, destroy, or enslave it.
brian-from-fl
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 10:49 PM EDT |
| You might wish to consider the short, sad history of Caldera first. They did
not have strong community support back when they were a Linux company, because
they disrespected the GPL and went as close to the edge as they possibly could.
Maybe over the line, we are beginning to suspect. The smell was in the air, long
before the proof. And they couldn't make it as a Linux company. It's a
cautionary tale.
You may call this a troll if you like, I don't think it
is.
I started using Caldera Linux Desktop 1.0 when it was first released. I
REALLY liked it. I did not need to be a linux guru and debug everything, it
just worked. It is true that Caldera included some commercial apps so the total
distro was not GPL. That is not against the GPL or even the intent of the
authors, near as I can tell. Caldera started targeting business users early and
tried to focus on that market while all the talk about Red Hat was the user
distro.
I really believe that Caldera was ahead of the market in the vision of
where linux would go. The releases were stable and supported. Unfortunately,
being ahead of the market is just as detrimental as being behind the
market.
The problem came when the folks who had the vision were replaced with
what came later. I am sorry to see the Caldera distributions go, I liked them
alot. I made some good money supporting them. (Yes, the distro's were simple
enough that I could support them without much trouble.)
Please don't let the
distaste of what Caldera became color your feelings of what Caldera was. It was
a good company that produced a good linux distribution. It is now something
risen from the grave that needs a stake driven through it's heart, with
prejudice.
Alma J. Wetzker
awetzker_at_gmail.com
(No I am not a user but I
include contact information if you wish.) [ Reply to This | # ]
|
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| Authored by: ewe2 on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 10:55 PM EDT |
While PJ was reconstructing the article, I went on a little FUD hunt to
dissect some of the key assumptions in the businessweek article. I think this
could be useful to understand something about one of the anti-FOSS
battlegrounds, the embedded market. I'll be referring to articles along the way,
it's not a huge read.
Firstly, a word about the status quo: the FSF has
increasingly been requested to help fight GPL violations - the market for SOHO
routers and wireless access points is booming - and frequently linux is running
that hardware, so there is a lot of screaming from vested interests about the
"viral" GPL. Why? Because they'd rather hack the kernel and keep their changes
secret. That's naughty.
To set the stage, here's how a Linux embedded vendor
sees the law. As you'd expect, Netrino don't have a problem with using linux in
embedded hardware, provided some simple rules are followed., and they're
these:
- Don't start from FOSS source. Unless you want everything to be
FOSS
- Use only LGPL libraries. Glibc itself is LGPL so it's hard to go wrong
there.
- Avoid changing the kernel. There are tons of good example wrapper
code out there as a guide, all freely available.
Keep this in mind,
because some people would have you think its so much harder than that. Well I
wouldn't be typing this if my modem and video card vendors didn't achieve it
:)
Back to the article: as PJ says, they'd rather you use a BSD license or
something similar, and quote a very interesting source. You see, not all
embedded vendors like Linux. Jay Michaelson certainly doesn't. Because he's
competing directly against embedded Linux with his NetBSD embedded
product. Guess which license that uses? And where did this concept of a "murky
GPL" come from? Why from Wasabi's site of
course. I invite all Groklaw readers and visitors to read this - there are core
arguments against the GPL from a direct competitor, you won't find a better
summary. Remember point 2 about linking to LGPL libraries? Wasabi has a red hot
go at FUD'ing you into thinking you can't avoid GPL contamination, yet here in
their helpful Linux to
NetBSD migration guide, they let the penny drop. You can use Linux
applications using the good old LGPL glibc. And just look at how much GPL
software they're including, although they've apparently rewritten gzip. I think
that somewhat weakens their anti-GPL stance, don't you?
But in case you're
still not sure, have a look at their GPL resources page.
Yep, SCO is sure proving useful to lots of folks. I think we'll close this sorry
tale here, but a word to Stephen H. Wildstrom of Businessweek.com: you really
really should have checked your source this time. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: kawabago on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 11:39 PM EDT |
With open source it is not the software that is important, it is the product
built on top of the software. That is where you make your money, it could be
consulting or it could be a Personal Video Recorder. The innovation is up to
you, open source is just the tool set.
Open source lowers the bar to participation in the market place so there is
increased competition and increased innovation. That's good for consumers and
the economy.
More people using open source to start new small companies to build new products
means more hands in the economic pie. A greater number of participants in the
market means wealth is spread more evenly throughout society. This hopefully
will help correct the widening gap between rich and poor we have now.
It all boils down to open source gives more advantages to poorer people than to
richer people. There are many more poorer people than richer, so guess who's
economic model will succeed?!
My name is Polly and I approved this message. Squawk!
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 15 2004 @ 11:46 PM EDT |
When Busniessweek says dumping GPL is ggod for business, it means the monopolist
Microsoft wants the GPL dummped so it can take over. It is good for it's
business, because in the monopoly of Microsoft, it is the only business that is
relevent.
GPL, GPL, GPL... forever!
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: roundnoon on Monday, August 16 2004 @ 12:22 AM EDT |
In the hierarchy of financial news publications, Business Week hovers somewhere
near the bottom of the barrel. Their analysis is often inept on a variety of
topics, and they've always been a bit of a laughing stock.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: dfarning on Monday, August 16 2004 @ 12:53 AM EDT |
I have been reading the anti-FUD threads with some apprehension over the last
several days. Part of me is saying “Wow! we are really getting off topic here.”
The other part is saying “This new topic is really important.”
I would like to propose creating a new subsection on GrokLaw called GrokPress or
GrokMedia to deal directly with the media FUD while GrokLaw continues to focus
on the Legal aspects of OSS/Linux/GPL.
This is not in any way meant to fracture the community (see the many divide and
conquer worries from the last several days). Rather, I think we can use a
military analogy of using several independent units under central leadership to
guard our right, left, and rear flanks.
As a result of the recent Rob Enderle pieces, I spent several hours reading
other Enderle stories, the analyst reports on the MS getthefacts site, and Ken
Brown's work. The need for someone to start pulling apart these documents--like
PJ does the legal stuff--screamed out at me!
I've found that as my programs increase in size and features, modularization is
the way to go. One class that tries to does everything, seldom ends up doing
anything well. Whereas several focused classes usually (ok sometimes) solves
the problem elegantly.
1.Slash dot — entertaining emotional rants;)
2.OSS news feeds – up to date information.
3.GrokLaw – effective analysis of the OSS legal situation.
4.GrokLine -- history of UNIX.
5.GrokPress -- dedicated to debunking media FUD.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 16 2004 @ 01:01 AM EDT |
Well... as an end-user as well as a developer,
personally I like the GPL.
It's very easy to "live by the
rules" and I personally don't feel threatened
using
products released under it. There is a few EULAs out
there however that
I do feel threatened by.
I can give a pretty good guess as to a couple
reasons
some companies don't like it. All I have to say to those
companies
is:
It's a new world, either figure out how to
play nicely or
leave.
The best example I can think of is when the automobile
came about. There were some in the horse and buggy sector
that hoped the car
would disappear.
Well... you can't take away technology. Historically,
unless something disastrous happened to the
culture/society new science has
been here to stay. More
so today with the internet as a communication
medium.
RS [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: bobn on Monday, August 16 2004 @ 01:17 AM EDT |
| Businessweek to Linux: Dump the GPL So Business Can Embrace and Extend
It
Linux to Businessweek: Go chase yourself. We don't need you or your
denial of the exact thing that makes us work with IBM, HP, Intel, et
al. ---
IRC: irc://irc.fdfnet.net/groklaw
the groklaw channels in IRC are not affiliated with, and not endorsed by,
either GrokLaw.net or PJ. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 16 2004 @ 01:30 AM EDT |
The biggest welfare cheats aren't single mothers with children who live in urban
squalor, it's the richest people and corporation in the world. That's how they
got to be so rich, by the sweat others, stealing from the poor.
The only real wealth is labour, without people who steal labour there would be
no obscenely rich. They are the real criminals.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Darkelve on Monday, August 16 2004 @ 02:52 AM EDT |
"By that I mean in places where poor people like to steal things invented
by rich people."
Yes... poor people can be *so* greedy... NOT!
Statements like these may me absolutely sick.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 16 2004 @ 03:17 AM EDT |
Well, the author of the BusinessWeek article is probably commenting on the
viewpoints of most proprietory software company who look at all the GPL-ed
offerings, find it extremely good, find that they have the ability to modify it
(since the source code is available), find that it costs them close to nothing,
and the offering is much better then what they can write up BUT, if only they
could ....
Most business is simply using Linux as end products, and GPL will not stop them
from using it, and they are OK.
What I don't like is the FUD about IP risk, especially being sued for IP
problems in Linux. My question is always "Is this situation any different
from closed-source software?"
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Darkelve on Monday, August 16 2004 @ 03:24 AM EDT |
(A lot of) businesses do not seem to be able to think outside of the current
business dogmatics. Dogmatics in which respect for the customer, the individual
buying the product, is low on the priority list.
Businesses rely on 'tricking' the customer into buying a product nowadays!
Instead of aligning your products/services towards your customers need, they
think it is much better to create 'artificial' needs, e.g. let them think they
need it.
When finally the 'consumers' (creatures walking on two legs whose only purpose
is to 'consume') find a way to act together as a society of people and come up
with ways to protect their own interests, they start to panic.
All they see is profits getting smaller, never even considering these were
bloated to begin with (e.g. CD prices).
So they decide they have to stop these 'rebellious' consumers. In different
ways, one way even more appaling than the other:
- Misinformation and FUD: 'Get the Facts' campaign, the RIAA 'education' young
schoolgoers about the importance of (respecting) intellectual property.
- Legal action: lawsuits by the RIAA, lawsuits by SCO, ...
- Outright deception: Win95 to Win98 (wow! 'new' OS...); file sharing is the
evildoer for the drops in music purchases
- Lock-in: DRM, proprietary&closed de-facto standards, breaking
interoperability or making it impossible, attempts at subverting the world wide
web (with internet exploiter)
Finally, when all these tactics do not seem to have much of an effect, try to
divide the community, attack and put into doubt the viability of the very basis
of this freedom.
That the GPL has withstood most/all of this, is a clearn sign of the sheer
strength of it.
These commentaries do NOT show to me the weakness of the GPL. They show to me
the STRENGTH of it. And, as a bonus, they make me realize just how rotten
corporate culture is nowadays. These are people that probably think Dilbert
isn't funny :) .
As for the comment from the journalist about 'poor people stealing from the
rich': I think *they* are the poor people... poor in spirit!
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Franki on Monday, August 16 2004 @ 03:31 AM EDT |
Without a doubt commerical companies would love to see the GPL removed, then
whenever Linux "inovates" they can just left the code, ala BSD TCP/IP
stack..
Personally I like the fact that the GPL stops this, even better it might provide
some protection later on when the MS patent FUD comes to the fore, all we need
is for a doc to leak stating that MS has incorporated some GPL code into one of
its products and the discovery can start on that.
I often wonder what would happen if the source code of Win server 2003 was
searched for "stolen" code, what would show up?
The MS server guys already said that they wanted to copy Linux in some areas,
like its modular framework where stuff can be swapped in and out without
rebooting the whole system, stuff of that nature... no idea if it has merit, but
it'd be worth looking into.
rgds
Franki
---
Is M$ behind Linux attacks?
http://htmlfixit.com/index.php?p=86[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 16 2004 @ 04:11 AM EDT |
One small issue BW seem to miss: I can't ethically work on code that companies
competing with my employer could just take.
Not even in my spare time![ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Alan Bell on Monday, August 16 2004 @ 06:06 AM EDT |
the GPL is hardly a model of clarity, and few disputes involving it
have gotten to court
this seems contradictory to me, if the GPL was
unclear I would expect to see disputes end up in court. If in fact the GPL is a
model of clarity I would expect disputes to mostly end up with the party out of
line with the GPL recognising their position was unsustainable and changing
their ways out of court. Is there any data to support the hypothesis that clear
documents (contracts, statutes etc.) end up in court less than unclear and
ambiguous documents?[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Sandtreader on Monday, August 16 2004 @ 06:34 AM EDT |
Folks, I think we should chill out a bit over this one. It's just a rather
woolly restatement of the old BSD-vs-GPL debate that has raged forever, and
which everyone sane recognises is down to the authors' personal choice and
compatibility with existing work.
Look at the positive side: The article
seems to accept Open Source (under whichever licence) as a valid commercial
model, and just complains that GPL makes this tricky for legal departments.
Actually, I know that's true, but the trickiness arises not from the GPL itself
but the copyright law it inherits from, and in particular, the definition of
'derivative work' as it applies to software libraries and interfaces.
With
my marketing hat on (I keep one in my bottom drawer for occasions such as this),
I think we need to formulate a positive 'elevator pitch' of the advantages of
the GPL over other O/S licences for business-folk, rather than reacting
defensively all the time.
Maybe something like:
- The GPL fosters
innovation and commitment from contributors by providing reassurance that their
efforts will remain part of a common treasury, and not subject to commercial
takeover and subsequent competition by products derived from them.
- The GPL
assists in retaining the brand identity and community energy of projects by
removing the commercial driver to 'fork the code', and at least ensuring that if
forks do occur, that all versions are available as Open Source for potential
reintegration.
- The GPL relies on nothing more than the standard terms of
Copyright Law for its effect, creating a frictionless, informal market for
software without requiring formal licensing at every stage. Any ambiguity in
its effect stems from the existing ambiguity of Copyright Law as applied to
software, which will be resolved as the case law catches up.
Or
something like that... Any takers for improving it?
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: phrostie on Monday, August 16 2004 @ 07:22 AM EDT |
1. everyone kept predicting that Linux would fragment like unix did. what they
do not understand is that it is the GPL that has kept everyone on the same path.
the code and changes are always returned. extended is another word for
forked.
2. if they prefer the BSD licence then use one of the BSDs. they are all very
solid OSs. they are free to extend and fork them all they want.
3. this is yet another example of how the proprietary world shows that it has
less respect for IP than the Freesoftware and Opensource world.
---
=====
phrostie
Oh I have slipped the surly bonds of DOS
and danced the skies on Linux silvered wings.
http://www.freelists.org/webpage/snafuu[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 16 2004 @ 07:31 AM EDT |
As for Linux, that operating system is making significant
advances
in countries where intellectual property isn't respected. By that
I
mean in places where poor people like to steal things
...
... er, and is also making significant advances in
contries
where IP is "respected"
I've never been all that fond of
Stallman's use of the
phase "free software," because it has caused great
confusion
over time, and is probably some part of what gives us the
likes of
Enderle-the-confused.
But even more damaging, by several orders of
magnitude,
was the mistake of calling patents and copyrights
"intellectual
property." IP is not like real property in a myriad of
ways.
For one thing, so called "theft" of IP does not resemble "theft" of
real
property - if you have a painting and I make copy of it (which they
call
"theft"), you really still have the original that you always had
(unlike
what happens in the theft of real property). For another, virtually
all
IP really is draws from previous IP (music from previous music,
inventions from
previous inventions) in a way that people claiming
IP rights won't acknowledge
and don't want to incorporate into
their thinking. Disney invented Mickey Mouse?
Sorry folks, but
God invented the mouse. And so on.
But so much
damage is done simply by calling it "property."
That makes it easy for both
stupid reporters like this, and
for the somewhat smarter but fundamentally
evil/dishonest
Hollywood and Microsoft execs, to get away with propagating
the
falsehood that IP "theft" is theft in the real property sense.
Countries
which support ill-conceived IP monopolies endorsed
by the law are the problem,
not contries "where intellectual
property isn't respected." Respect has to be
earned,
and the business-government cartel which is currently embellishing
IP
laws beyond all reason has not earned the respect of any
thinking person, in my
opinion.
I don't have the foggiest idea how to go about it, but I
have
this feeling that one thing we should work on to get
this problem fixed, is to
not have patents and copyrights
labeled as "property" of any kind. And as a
corollary, I
would hope that Stallman would look at the damage being done
here,
and would similarly stop trying to hijack the word
"free" from the English
language, when it clearly hasn't
done anything but cause confusion for the last
20+ years.
Wally Bass
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: cricketjeff on Monday, August 16 2004 @ 08:04 AM EDT |
The problem, as so often, is the word free. We all know this but these
businesses say "It says Free I want it for free!". Linux is certainly
free if you want to use it. I have put Linux distributions on machines for
people who have never, and will never contribute any code, or even any bug
reports. The don't know in any constructive sense what software they use, they
use "email" "word processor" "games" and are
happy, some of them also drive a car (it was cheap colour didn't offend, didn't
smell nasty no idea who makes it), use a cooker, watch tv etc
For all these people the writers of GPLed software are perfectly happy with
this, so are the users. Microsoft aren't they aren't being paid by these people.
SO WHAT!?!? Microsoft have a business model and a licence that doesn't help
these people so they don't need to help Microsoft. Business Week can carry an
article saying that M$ should change its licence or lose these customers.
There are other users who contribute money, hardware, reports, time, code and
other useful things to the movement. They also don't please Microsoft, they pay
M$ nothing, again business week can write an article advising Bill on his
licence.
There are businesses in both of the above camps.
There are other individuals and businesses who do not fit these categories, they
want to use and modify the code for their own use, again the GPL folk say
"Fine". If you want to use it yourself and keep it to yourself there
is no issue, it will still cost you nothing. Some of these businesses want to do
more, they want to sell the changes they made. It is only these people and
businesses who offend the authors, who simply say "OI! Sell your own work
not mine!". Microsoft say something a little different they say "Sell
your own work AND ours, just make sure we get all the money for ours and we
won't let you make any changes to our bits either"
Businesses now have a choice, they can work with M$ software and do anything new
entirely on their own and sell what they produce, or they can work with GPLed
software and get a huge amount of help with their development and sell the
software, provided they are also happy to give the source code away with exactly
the same restrictions as the software they used. Now this has a problem, they
can't really charge thousands of people thousands of pounds for this software,
because someone else will just give it to them for free. They can however still
sell their services and their hardware. Many do. Free software is not entirely
free in all meanings of that word.
Sensible companies should budget for about the same cost for open source and
secret source software. They pay the latter up front, they should use the cost
for the former to improve the breed.
The most business hostile licence I know is the M$ one, you can't make the
software safe to use. Would you buy a car with faulty brakes and a ban on
changing them in any way and no guarantee that the car manufacturer will look at
your problem?
Overall this is just a silly article.[ Reply to This | # ]
|
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 16 2004 @ 08:08 AM EDT |
>>Intellectual-property questions about Linux came to the forefront after
the SCO Group (SCOX ), which acquired the Unix trademarks, launched a series of
lawsuits against alleged infringers of its rights. <<
I emailed the author steve_wildstrom@businessweek.com about that. [ Reply to This | # ]
|
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| Authored by: ijramirez on Monday, August 16 2004 @ 08:24 AM EDT |
PJ, I read Groklaw every single day, enjoying your thorough explanation of the
legal issues and implications of legal maneuvers, motions and rulings. I was
really surprised reading in your latest article about The Bronx in the classical
Fort Apache (the movie) uninformed way. I lived in The Bronx for many years,
never ever having any incident with criminals. An since you are so quick to
clarify FUD and innuendo about Linux, let me clarify some of what appears to be
misconceptions you have about The Bronx.
1) The name of the borough is The Bronx (with capital T)
2) Of the 5 NYC boroughs (counties) is the only one in US mainland, the rest are
all in islands.
3) The Bronx has the greatest (historically speaking) Major League baseball team
(The Bronx Bombers = Yankees)
4) There are plenty of other locations (in Queens and Brooklyn and Manhattan)
and cities (Newark, DC, Indianapolis, Little Rock, East LA, Detroit, etc) with
higher crime rates than The Bronx.
5) The Bronx is also known as the Borough (County) of Colleges and Universities
for a reason ... its has more colleges and universities than any other county in
NYC, in NY or any other county in ANY state. The Bronx is the home of Fordham
University and The Albert Einstein School of Medicine (one of the best in the
USA)
6) The Bronx is home to Montefiore Hospital, the top neurosurgery hospital in
the USA.
7) The Bronx Zoo and the NY Botanical Garden are both located in The Bronx and
are considered, arguably, the top ones in the USA.
8) Woodlawn, considered one of the most beautiful Park Cementeries in the world
is in The Bronx. It's where the rich and famous on the East coast, want as their
final resting place. (Woolworth, Penney, Macys, Strauss, Bulova, Irving Berlin,
Antoinnette Frueauff (Tony awards), Armour, Borden, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington,
La Guardia, Pulitzer, Nast (donkey and elephant symbols for the Democrats and
Republican parties), Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Celia Cruz and the list goes on.
9) Very fine addressess are in The Bronx: upscale Riverdale, working class
Pelham Bay, Throggs Neck and Woodlawn, City Island (where the best seafood
restaurants are in NY)
10) The largest park in NYC is not Central Park but Van Cortland Park and guess
where is located and guess which one has a higher crime rate (Central Park)
11) I can go on with quite a few more examples ...
For years the people from The Bronx have fought the sterotyping and innuendo
about their borough. So please, next time you want to use a location as example,
get it right. Want to get your car stripped? Park it in Newark which has a much
higher crime rate in that category[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 16 2004 @ 08:34 AM EDT |
Perhaps BusinessWeek would appreciate the story of Cedega (nee WineX).
TransGaming is a company that forked the (originally BSD-licensed) WINE code and
started to sell its enhancements to users. At the start, they did not have
enough enhancements to be interesting, so they promised users that they would
contribute their changes back to WINE if people gave them money, or that they
would open their entire code base if they got enough subscriptions.
That was the promise; the truth is somewhat more disappointing. Cedega has a
public CVS tree, but it has code that is missing and broken relative to the
binary-only releases. Any time a Linux distributor considers packaging Cedega
in a convenient way, TransGaming threatens to take away the CVS repository
entirely. They have not contributed any significant code back to WINE, despite
taking lots of money from Linux users. The WINE folks eventually got fed up
with this one-way flow of code and relicensed under the LGPL. It was not fun,
since they had to track down every single named contributor, but they did it.
Despite the ill will that TransGaming has earned from the Linux community at
large, I suspect that BusinessWeek would consider it a commercial success story.
The lesson I draw is different.[ Reply to This | # ]
|
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| Authored by: JeR on Monday, August 16 2004 @ 09:11 AM EDT |
Here is the English
language report by Jürgen Schmidt at Heise Security, and his Full
Disclosure e-mail is here. Especially note Microsoft's response on page 2 of the HeiSec
report:
"We have investigated your report, as we do with all
reports, however in this case, we don't see these issues as being in conflict
with the design goals of the new protections. We are always seeking
improvements to our security protections and this discussion will certainly
provide additional input into future security features and improvements, but at
this time we do not see these as issues that we would develop patches or
workarounds to address." [emph. added]
As Jürgen
Schmidt notes elsewhere
(in German):
"Here it is again: the old Microsoft which backs
off to a position like: 'This is not a bug, it's a feature'." [definitely
not my translation!] ---
non-breaking space [ Reply to This | # ]
|
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 16 2004 @ 09:53 AM EDT |
There are some ambiguities in the GPL, and it would be nice if they were fixed.
There is great debate on the internet about what makes a program come under the
GPL. Some say linking to the libraries is enough. Linus does not belive this.
But as one poster on the interenet said. Linus is not the only one involved. If
someone uses the libraries and links to them, then it is GPL.
For commercial compaines to feel really safe in using the GPL, then these are
the kinds of details that need to be worked out.
This however is a minor point, but SCO proves fools will try to take advantage
of any situation.
If companies want ot write millions of lines of code to avoid one or two minor
issues, then by all means write your own OS and all the tools that go along with
a good OS. You are free to do so. Of course the cost might be more than the
cost of litigating issues with the GPL.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Jude on Monday, August 16 2004 @ 09:56 AM EDT |
Mr. Wildstrom names MPL (Mozilla Public License) as an example of a license that
is more "business friendly", but I don't think he really knows what he
is talking about.
I know of at least one large company that does not allow the use of MPL softare
because of a problem they perceive in MPL. The difficulty is in 8.2(b), which
is intended to discourage patent litigation against any MPL contributor. The
problem is that 8.2(b) is triggered by ANY patent infringment claims, even if
they have nothing to do with the MPL'd product.
He's an example scenario: CompanyA adopts FireFox for use on their in-house
systems. CompanyA them discovers that CompanyB is infringing one of CompanyA's
patents, but alas, an employee of CompanyB has made contributions to FireFox
while acting in their capacity as an employee. Now what happens?
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| Authored by: vettemph on Monday, August 16 2004 @ 10:01 AM EDT |
| Quoted: Here is a prediction about Linux from a journalist, David Coursey,
who doesn't mind saying in public that "as an American" he is willing to pay
extra for Windows if it means he doesn't have to move to Thailand, that in
reference to Microsoft's new training-wheels version of Windows, Windows XP
"Starter Edition", the cheap version it is now selling to any dopes it can find
in the East. I gather this offering is limited in what it can do. So it's kind
of like leaving your car overnight parked on a street in the Bronx, coming back
in the morning to find the radio only plays one channel now, and the air
conditioning is stripped out, the seat covers are gone, and the car only goes
down hills now, not up, and selling it as a starter car. And some call Americans
ugly. Anyway, here is Mr. Coursey's prediction:
Microsoft took a
finished product(bear with me) and spent time and money to modify it just so the
could sell it cheaper. This was time and money that their current cutomers paid
them for. MS could have just taken what they sell here in the US and eslewhere
and sold it for the cheaper price. That would have been easier and less time
consumming. You ask why not?? Because this would alert all the dopes in the US
that Windows is not worth nearly what they paid for it in the first place. The
crippling was just to apease the customers who pay "full price" already.
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 16 2004 @ 10:42 AM EDT |
No he's *not* like RE, just not up to speed on quite a few things
++++++++++++++
1. "How does software owned by everyone and by no one survive in a world
where copyrights and patents shape the legal landscape?"
2. "The central case, a 2003 suit against IBM (IBM ), an important
corporate promoter of Linux, has degenerated into a messy contract dispute with
no intellectual-property issues left on the table."
3. "Unfortunately, the GPL is hardly a model of clarity, and few disputes
involving it have gotten to court, so case law has done little to clarify its
meaning."
4. "the future of commercial open source might be considerably brighter if
Linux and other programs went to a more commerce-friendly license with fewer
complexities and ambiguities than the GPL. There's plenty of precedent. The BSD
license, the Mozilla Foundation license used for browsers, and the Apache
license all provide for free distribution of code and source code with fewer
restrictions than the GPL."
+++++++++++++
1. GPLed software is NOT public domain.
2. This is prejudging the case. *SCO* want the issue to be about contract and
not copyrights. The Novell case might move to copyright. The AZ case might move
to copyright. There are LOTS of IP issues on the table and this includes the IBM
case.
3. The GPL *is* (IMHO) a model of clarity compared with the usual legalese.
Maybe Wildstrom should read more contracts. To the best of present knoledge the
GPL has been tested in court only once - in Germany and that recently. (Reported
elsewhere in GL.) For a multibillion business contract that threatens monopolies
all over the place that IS impressive.
4. The point of the restrictions on the GPL is exactly what makes it what it is.
If the developers wish to release their code under another licence then they are
free to do so. Coders release material under the GPL because they *chose* to do
so.
Restrictions on the GPL really only affect a *very* small minority of businesses
- those who might wish to use the GPLed code in ther products.
The software itself is business neutral: a business may use it or leave it. If a
business wishes to writes its own code instead then it is free to do so also.
The only real question for most businesses is: is it cost efficient to use GPLed
code? That is a question for the business alone to answer. MS has decided that
it is not in its best interest to used GPLed code. Apple, IBM, Google and others
have used some GPLed code. There are no hard and fast rules here.
Getting bogged down in Holy Wars will not interest most businesses. Most of them
regard software not as an art form or a tool for changing the world but simply
as an input to thier line of trade. In some cases it will be worth going with
FOSS and in others closed source is the way to go. In many respects the GPL is
already *very* business friendly.
--
MadScientist[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: wwwest on Monday, August 16 2004 @ 10:50 AM EDT |
In the begining of software development for the Personal Computer, most of the
software was free and developed by a community. Remember the software in
magazines that you had to code yourself and support and debug and write back to
the editor telling them about the bugs?
Then came the business guys who wrote Visicalc and suddenly you could make money
from writing and licensing software for the PC. There's a letter from B.Gates
to the PC community berating them for "stealing" Microsoft's software,
though I've forgotten where I got it. It's in the early days of MS before
Visicalc had any competition.
Then MS became HUGE and Bill the richest geek in the world. That was a fine
world: write software become a bazillionaire. Cool.
Then came the murder of netscape by MS. The coders of the world were taught a
bloody public lesson: innovate, code, so what. You'll never have the
opportunity to rival MS. The dream of writing code and becoming a bazillionaire
died. Oh yeah and there was this dot com boom too, and that didn't help either.
So here we are back at the beginning. Older, wiser, and still writing code and
loving it. So now when we build an application, we decide that we'll share and
that as payment for our labor, we want you to share back.
And that just kills those old bazillionaires. They can't take our labor and use
it for a pittance of its value. They can't steal our apps and databases and lock
our innovations away in the depths of their corporate labrinyth. And charge a
toll fee to peak at the software.
I really think Linus was right when he said that Linux wasn't out to kill MS,
but it would be a side effect. Playing the proprietary software game is
unwinnable by the average geek who loves to code. I think that's pretty clear.
So now software becomes the hobby and tool business. You write what you need
and you share. You take what you need and you give back.
Everybody wins. It's fair. That's why MS and the shills hate it so much. They
don't want to play fair. They can't make billions playing fair. The MS line is
always the same: The GPL is bad because I can't grab the code and keep it for
myself and charge the world a ton of cash to use it. TO them there is no value
in sharing. MS doesn't do customer service. Their software is buggy and
doesn't work right. They don't help you when you call. Sure, they've gotten
better, but I swear it is cheaper to use Linux. Even if it was just as buggy
and took up just as much of my time, I'd not have bought the stupid thing, and
then have 30 days to "activate" my software. Or fight with the
Upgrade DRM to get the software onto a replacement harddrive.
Sigh.
I'd rather use Linux. It's not screwed up as many of my days, but work says
winders.
---
Creative spelling and grammer, copyright 2004. May use with persimmons.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: dinog on Monday, August 16 2004 @ 11:03 AM EDT |
| And why don't they ask Microsoft to do the same ? If MS opened Windows XP under
a BSD style license, this would be great, right ? Right ? Or are they just
hypocrites ?
The only people that have any REAL problem with the GPL are
people developing competing products. Otherwise there is little to fear from the
GPL. You can develop and sell proprietary products that run on Linux without
having to release your source (provided you don't *ahem* appropriate GPL'ed
intellectual property.) This is little different from Windows, except under
Windows you have less chance to "appropriate" the IP, and far less knowledge of
the working of the OS you are developing for.
So, Business Week, and other
corporate lapdogs, answer this : Except for companies that are competitors of
Linux and other GPL'ed software, how does the GPL hurt you ? I expect a real
answer, not the typical vague hysterics that have been offered so far. Does
Oracle have a problem selling their software to use on Linux servers ? Does IBM
have a problem selling DB2 ? Does IBM have a problem selling consulting and
support services to Linux users ? We are not talking small niche companies here,
as IBM and Oracle are giants in the industry.
The ones that have a problem
are MS, Sun, SCO, and their ilk. Let's make a deal : We will stop calling you
hypocritical lap dogs if (and only if) you ask the same of them. So go ask MS,
Sun, and SCO to BSD their code. Tell them how much it would benefit everyone.
Try to enjoy it while they laugh in your face.
Dean G.
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 16 2004 @ 11:07 AM EDT |
Enderle had tone issues with his SCO Forum address that superseded any valid
points he might have made. Any intelligent but uninformed listener would have
heard those tone issues and would have been very wary of the information
presented as well as the associated parties.
PJ has been sounding like the mirror image for some time now. Same tone issues
arguing the converse argument. That is only good for disseminating a message if
the goal is to attract a mob of emotional devotees rather than intellectual
converts.
There are a lot of good facts presented on GrokLaw (more than anyplace else) but
they are increasing being bracketed (for us moronic readers one would presume)
with "interpretations". Amusingly those "interpretations"
increasing slant (in tone and insistence) towards the conclusion that SCO is
loosing and the GPL/Linux is winning. To further amuse those keeping count
“winning” is clearly tied to commercial/legal success. Yet in this article PJ
claims that Linux isn't for or about commercial success. My hypocrisy meter
just went off the chart. You don’t devote 1 ½ years writing about how Linux is
“winning” and how the proof is commercial success unless winning (and thus
commercial success) is important. If this community doesn’t care if
business/government adopts Linux (Chrysler, AutoZone, Munich, etc…) then what is
the point of this interest in SCO except from a financial perspective (investing
in the SCO stock)? Microsoft can’t keep people from installing pirated copies
of their software in Washington (let alone the rest of the US and Europe). Do
you think that SCO will have better luck?
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 16 2004 @ 11:10 AM EDT |
Send your rants to BW instead of just posting them here. Or perhaps gather a
response and send it as a press release. Groklaw is great but you're all
preaching to the choir of believers already. Go get the word out to the rest of
the planet.[ Reply to This | # ]
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- Hear, Hear - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 16 2004 @ 07:35 PM EDT
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 16 2004 @ 11:53 AM EDT |
| what strikes me about the article is that this guy is their 'Technology &
You'
columnist, so his past columns have dealt with the mostly mundane aspects
of 'computing as consumer electronics'--while this is good for the layman, it
is a long ways away from the 'serious' side of computing....
while this
certainly qualifies as FUD, to me, it smacks more of being
somebody who's waaay
outside their area of expertise, but was asked by his
editor to do a column on
this 'hot topic.'
personally, it took me a long time to 'grok' the GPL and
other F/OSS concepts,
and it is a deep and nuanced subject, that is best
approached with no
preconceived notions/allegiances...
while it's easy to
be angered by the professional FUDers out there, we also
need to realize that
there is a LOT of legitimate confusion out there, and it's
not just PHB
syndrome...
ultimately, it's about evangelizing--while there will always be
a need for rear-
guard action against the reactionary forces entrenched in the
marketplace, we
should also endeavor to evangelize, which is, to expound on the
benefits of
the GPL and other FOSS principles WITHOUT assuming everybody who
doesn't
grok it is a troll, idiot or M$ shill! [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: David on Monday, August 16 2004 @ 11:54 AM EDT |
This amused me :-)
If you fork the codebase, and take it in a direction the community doesn't want
to go, you'll be (at best) ignored. So really, you *can't* "steal"
the forks :-)
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: EvilBill on Monday, August 16 2004 @ 01:23 PM EDT |
I am expecting that, over time, various Linux releases will diverge
as completely as Unix has in the past, leaving us with essentially proprietary,
vendor-specific versions. So much for 'open' operating
systems.
Begging the Question?[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 16 2004 @ 01:35 PM EDT |
They're welcome to embrace & extend, the GPL says that they must give back
their extensions to the community they embraced. It is a great system, you get a
free ride to the top but must offer everyone else the same courtesy. However
most businesses do not develop Operating systems so Business Week's comments are
founded on ignorance in the final analysis.
Moreover you can extend Linux internally and use your own proprietary code
inside your organization (the kind of software many companies develop), however
if you sell it to third parties *only then* must you make your code available
under the GPL you benefitted from.
If you write your own applications there is no need to adopt GPL or any other
license. The GPL just applies to the operating system components and libs (libs
are typically LGPL where you can link your proprietary code without adopting the
license, i.e. it is intentionally non viral, improve the libs though and you
must give back the improvements *only if* you ship the libs with a product.)
If they like the BSD license so much then they should use BSD, but be aware that
the reason BSD isn't the success Linux is is the different license. Imagine how
popular BSD would be if everyone had access to all of Apple's OS X work? Of
course this is the reason Apple adopted BSD and not Linux for example, they
understood that instead of bleating about the GPL they could just use an OS with
a license they liked. Of course Business Week should appreciate that anyone else
using BSD starts from the same place Apple did, not from where Apple is now,
this is the weakness of that license, it is not accretive and therefore cannot
keep pace with Linux contributions. Eliminating the GPL would eliminate a major
part of Linux's strength.
If you need Linux, adopt the GPL, for most businesses this means nothing but
goodness because they don't sell operating systems, for others it is infact a
blessing in disguise because they don't have to maintain a forked tree and can
keep pace with Linux developments. The fact is that smart software companies
*try* to give code back to Linux, it saves them maintenance work, the biggest
problem they have is changed not getting accepted forcing them to maintain a
branch. For real world challenges that companies face the Operating System is a
means to an end, not the end in itself so they like the GPL when they come to
understand it.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Toon Moene on Monday, August 16 2004 @ 02:35 PM EDT |
> Businesses think that if they threaten not to use Linux
> unless the GPL gets dropped, Linus will panic and comply.
> No, he won't.
And even if he does, there are dozens of kernel contributors who won't, as there
are dozens of utilities, necessary to build a working kernel, like binutils,
gcc, etc, that have authors who won't forego the GPL.
Next attack, please.
---
Toon Moene (A GNU Fortran maintainer and physicist at large)[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 16 2004 @ 02:41 PM EDT |
Every time I see a piece from PJ equating FSF proponents with the entire FOSS
community I cringe. GPL is not the one true way of FOSS and FSF (aka RMS) seems
to find a way to piss off more neutral members of that community. Even to the
point of continuing to dis linus because he wrote "non-free" software
at some point as if this is some great crime.
To me, its Linux. Period. No GNU. Linus says so in the article that PJ links to
and RMS should just give it up because it is divisive and make the entire FOSS
community look like fanatics.
To me Andi Gutmans (PHP) and Linus are far more representative of most FOSS
folks than RMS will ever be IMHO. Both are pragmatic, both don't mind close
source and both welcome industry participation.
-V[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 16 2004 @ 03:25 PM EDT |
I thought it was on this page, but I couldn't find it. Anyway,
I was thinking
about a recent article that PJ mentioned where
one of the government agencies
(Dept of Commerce?) endorsed
more and more IP because it was "good for the
economy."
So, in the sprit of that, I want to make a proposal
to enhance
the economy. I think we should legalize kidnapping.
Just think of the
value added. If I can find a billionare, kidnap
his kid, and get $500
million, then we have added $500 million
of "value" to the economy (he was,
after all, willing to pay that).
And that's considering only a single
kidnapping. Why, I'll bet that
we could add trillions to the economy
overnight.
It does require some amount of thinking outside of the
box.
For, like most IP nowadays, this typically isn't "real" value, but
merely a
legislative gimmick to make it appear that "value" has
been created and enhance
that "value" by endorsing an
extortion monopoly. But, think of the numbers! Who
can
argue with number? And, hey, legislators can do anything.
Let's get the
country's "economy" moving again.
Wally Bass
[ Reply to This | # ]
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- good post - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 16 2004 @ 05:30 PM EDT
- Kidnapping - Authored by: StNuke on Tuesday, August 17 2004 @ 03:56 AM EDT
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 16 2004 @ 05:00 PM EDT |
This long article can be summed up as follows: "Mr Wildstrom does not
understand the GPL, does not understand what free (as in freedom) software is
all about, and couldn't be bothered to find out". You've explained most of
the things he should have discovered for himself, and no doubt if he read your
article carefully, he would learn a lot. But I doubt that he will. He sees his
business as pontificating. He who can, does; he who cannot, writes opinion
pieces in business magazines.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 16 2004 @ 06:03 PM EDT |
once something is released under the GPL, how do you retract that license? i
realize that as the copyright holder, the author of code should be able to do
whatever they want with it, but how many contributers are their for the linux
kernel project? wouldn't each one of them would have to approve a shift to
another license if their code was going to be distributed with the linux
kernel?
and that's just the kernel. take that another step to the GNU tools (like that
would ever happen). another step to KDE or Gnome or <insert your favorite
WM/DE/whatever here> (once again, there's a ton of people you'll have to
convince). and then another much broader step to individual application
developers. and another leap to companies like IBM, Apple, Novell, heck, even
SCO.
the last time i can remember a big project changing licensing to something
slightly more restrictive (XFree86), all major linux distributions had switched
to X.org in a matter of months (though, for other reasons as well).[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Nick Bridge on Monday, August 16 2004 @ 09:45 PM EDT |
1. The Linux kernel has coyrights held by so many people that getting every one
of then to agree to release under a different license is impractical, if not
completely impossible.
Some people just don't grok it. This is NOT a product owned by one entity.
Literally hundreds have proprietary interest in the combined codebase. Wake up!
They use the GPL because it protects their interests! Just like Microsoft uses
their licenses because they protect Microsoft's interests.
2. Forking.
This IS a danger (although, I believe, a minor one).
Maybe a community like this one should devote some time to watching out for our
interests in this matter. A community outcry should be enough to alert
potential users that a conflict exists - and educate them as to why taking the
wrong fork would be a bad idea.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, August 17 2004 @ 07:34 AM EDT |
GPL is the nearest a dedicated programmer can get to a national park for donated
software. Anyone who enjoys creating useful software tools(and seeks nothing
more than a sense of gratitude by those who recognize gifts that cannot be
squandered) and donating their labor deserves to know that their wishes are
respected above all. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Woelfchen on Tuesday, August 17 2004 @ 11:42 AM EDT |
Businessman, the:
A being believing that a cow would go to the
slaughterhouse on its own, if it is payed enough money!
------
"The best things in life are free ..."
(includes Linux) [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: rc on Tuesday, August 17 2004 @ 12:17 PM EDT |
| (Nobody will see this, but I've got to say it anyway)
No, that's embrace,
extend, and extinguish it.
Which is precisly why dumping the GPL
is so stupid.
So, clearly BusinessWeek is not 'getting it' here, or
worse.
(Sorry, I've not read the whole set of comments, only searched them
for 'extinquish', but I'm betting that I don't need to elaborate on the 'or
worse' part :-)
rc
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| Authored by: Stumbles on Tuesday, August 17 2004 @ 12:43 PM EDT |
What an obtuse way of business saying we want to steal your code.
If that's the case (I'm sure they have no bones about it), there is
no need to FUD things up whining about GPL. All a business has to
do is grab whatever flavor of BSD and have at.
---
You can tuna piano but you can't tuna fish.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, August 17 2004 @ 09:02 PM EDT |
Corporate greed need not apply to the Linux
community!
If you want to hide your code then pick
FreeBSD.
If you want to continue to support a monopoly and be at the mercy of
companies like yourself then keep picking Windows.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: brentdax on Wednesday, August 18 2004 @ 04:54 AM EDT |
Linus doesn't hold the copyrights to Linux. For the most part, each line of
Linux code is copyrighted to the person who wrote it; only a very small number
of those lines belong to Linus himself. (Occasionally a contributor will assign
his or her copyrights to the FSF or elsewhere, but that's pretty rare.) The
only reason Linux is distributable as a unit at all is that all of the
individual parts are protected under the GPL, and GPLed lines can always be
combined.
So it's pointless for Mr. Wildstrom to argue that Linus should de-GPL the
kernel--he couldn't even if he wanted to.
(IANAL, IANAKH (kernel hacker), etc.)
---
Brent 'Dax' Royal-Gordon[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: pyrite on Thursday, August 19 2004 @ 11:05 AM EDT |
It's right at the start of the article. The assumption that the whole article
rests on.
What crisis? Linux is not going through any kind of crisis. It has not reached
any kind of crisis. It's just simply not true.
People will realize that you can't really sue Linux - it's like the apple tree
with the snake in it in the story of the Garden of Eden. You can sue all of
these other software companies, but don't sue Linux. Or you will be banished.
Of course, being human beings...
Linux keeps on keepin' on. That's what it does, that's what is has been doing,
that is what it is going to keep on doing. That's all there is to it.
Patent lawsuits are not "real" lawsuits and everyone knows it. It's a
game - everyone knows it. Linux doesn't play that game - it's a game. The rules
are different when it comes to Linux.
There is no crisis. There is no need for any solution when there isn't a
problem. It's not even very good drama.
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