What the GPLv3 Means for MS-Novell Agreement 161
eldavojohn writes to mention IT Business Edge has a dry but interesting interview with a lawyer (Antoinette Tease) on the effects the GPLv3 on the Microsoft & Novell alliance. From her answers: "Unlike prior versions of the GNU General Public License (GPL), which did not address patent rights, the current draft of the GPL version 3 has several provisions that address patent rights. Section 2 states that the license to use the open source code 'terminates if you bring suit against anyone for patent infringement of any of your essential patent claims' based on any version of the open source program." She goes on to say "the GPLv3 as currently drafted would impose an obligation on Novell to somehow 'shield' its customers from patent lawsuits brought by Microsoft, or, alternatively, to make the source code publicly available..."
micro$oft (Score:2)
Re:micro$oft (Score:5, Funny)
What is microsoft doing? Are they trying to get into the Linux market or are they just playing patent games?
Can't they do both?
Re:micro$oft (Score:5, Insightful)
FUD and misdirection I should think.
The more we can bandy about the claim that only people who get indemnity from MS/Novell can be free of all of the (alleged) patent infringement which is (allegedly) peppered throughout the Linux codebase, the more people might actually believe it.
They want to be able to spread the perception that Linux is tainted by their IP, and that running it if it isn't the 'blessed' system is done at your own peril. If they 'embrace' Novell, then they can extinguish all of the other ones by freezing them out. Then, they extinguish Novell over time.
Of course, that's just what I think. I've been known to be wrong before.
Cheers
it's a way to divide the community (Score:5, Interesting)
> FUD and misdirection I should think.
Surely, but I think there's more to it.
One goal is to divide the free software community. With the Novell deal, Novell no longer has an interest in helping the community to fight MS's patents. Worse, Novell now benefits from Microsoft's patents getting more and more dangerous. To fight the patent problem, we can't afford to lose any friends. ...not the Novell was much of a friend in the anti-swpat campaign [compsoc.com], but if MS is allowed to buy on free software distributor, they can buy others.
And another motivation a little more base: extortion. Microsoft has been in stagnation for a long time and it now scrambling to slow everyone down to prevent their demise. It would be a clever long term strategy to find a way to profit from the free software operating system that will probably replace theirs.
Re:it's a way to divide the community (Score:4, Insightful)
GPL v3 will certainly further divide the community (Score:2, Insightful)
Why is Microsoft trying to make it impossible for Novell to use GPLv3 components?
BSD will benefit. Will we see the GNU tools replaced by BSD based tools?
Is that even possible? (I'm asking a serious question, as opposed to the troll like nature of the rest of this post)
I see GPLv3 as being far too political a license.
Stallman has had his Shockley moment. After being surrounded by people telling them 'your poop don't stink' and how smart they are for a period of time lots of smart people 'Go Hollywoo
Re:GPL v3 will certainly further divide the commun (Score:5, Interesting)
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The GPLv2 did just this. It was the just enough that everyone thought it was right and the way to be. The GPLv3 forgot to take babysteps and asumes that people will follow in groves. Unfortunatly, quite a few of those people see it as excessive and impracticle. They don't aggree with part of it while some don't agree with all of it. I personaly don't think it is in the spirit o
Can Novell ditch GNU? No. (Score:5, Informative)
Every BSD is GCC built and ships GCC to their developers.
Also, there's no BSD replacement for GIMP, and replacing Glibc and replacing it with a BSD libc would be very hard. An operating system's libc has to marshal between the kernel and the userspace - Glibc has been doing this for 15 years for Linux and the GNU userspace. A new libc would be a world of problems.
Anyway, other packages such as SAMBA would still be out of bounds (they've said they're moving to GPLv3 too).
Oh, and as for Stallman being surrounded by sycophants - his main job is travelling and giving speeches and answering emails - he hears criticism and questioning every day.
Re:Can Novell ditch GNU? No. (Score:4, Interesting)
The vast majority of Free Software runs on FreeBSD at least as well as it runs on Linux (there are occasional Linuxisms, but people seem to be getting better at avoiding them), so there aren't any issues with most applications running on something other than glibc. Incidentally, glibc itself isn't particularly tied to Linux; it runs happily on HURD, and has been at least partially ported to FreeBSD and Solaris (I don't know the current status of either port, however, since they were not integrated into the main tree).
[1] Both use Interrupt 80h, but Linux uses the DOS calling convention, and passes arguments in ebx, ecx, etc, while *BSD uses the UNIX convention and passes arguments on the stack. Both pass the system call number in eax.
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Perhaps you're unaware that BSD has always used its own libc. Or that Linux can run most all apps on uClibc or dietlibc with nothing more than a recompile.
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As for uClibc and dietlibc, they cannot run most or all apps that GNU libc can run. I don't know who's told you that, but it's a whopper.
Re:a package, can't remember the name GC... someth (Score:2)
It'll sure be nice when GNU doesn't claim to have the only damn compiler in the world.
compiler matters coz someone had to write it (Score:2)
In 1983 when there were no free software compilers, Stallman didn't have the option of saying "Well, I won't ship a compiler in the 'base' configuration, therefore I don't need to write one".
It's essential for developing an operating system.
Stallman wrote a compiler, and now every BSD developer can use it - and they can be glad or surely about it, as they choose.
I don't understand (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm a Novell customer, and Novell makes a decent amount of money off us. If Novell gave Microsoft a reason to sue us, we'd drop Novell and become an all-Microsoft shop.
I don't understand why people think Novell wants to jeopardizes it's business.
There was speculation that the deal was designed to scare Red Hat customers over to Novell. But I don't see that as reasonable either. If Microsoft sues Red Hat customers, Red Hat, the FSF, and indeed Novell will sue Microsoft to show us the code [showusthecode.com].
I just don't get it. We had one Linux server going into 2006, and because of our Novell license agreement, at the end of 2006 we had twenty-two. (We're up to 25 now). Seven or so of those were migrations away from NetWare - which is the sensible path Novell is suggesting to it's customers. Why does Novell want to jeopardize that?
What does make sense to me is that Novell kept trying to sell Linux into big companies, and the Microsoft FUD was working. The only real way for Novell to counter that was the Novell-MS deal.
My CIO thinks better of Linux, now that Microsoft has acknowledged it. If Microsoft was trying to sow FUD in our shop, that certainly back-fired.
Although, if the FSF is successful in cutting Novell's Achilles Heel, then I suppose the Microsoft gamble will have been worth it (to Microsoft at least).
How Novell benefits from Microsoft winning (Score:5, Interesting)
So when Microsoft's patents are more dangerous, Novells advantage is more prominent.
So we've lost one ally (or should-be ally) in the long-term fight against software patents. What if we also lost Red Hat and Sun and the other companies that love our software because it lines their pockets? What would our chances look like then in the campaign against software patents? The campaign against DRM? The campaign against proprietary formats? etc. etc.
What Novell did was not bad for Novell's business (if we ignore what it did to their status in the community, and that GPLv3 is going to create big problems for Novell now). For a dog-eat-dog mindset, it was a smart move. But the relationship between the free software community and the companies that profit from free software is not meant to be dog-eat-dog - it's supposed to be solidarity. That's how we win, together.
So GPLv3 will say: "No giving in - no selling out". If some code violates a patent, we try to get the patent thrown out, or we ditch that piece of code. GPLv2 said that too, but Novell found a loophole. That will be closed.
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My primary concern is that if my CIO has to choose between Free Software and Microsoft - he will choose Microsoft. If the FSF is dead-set against Novell being able to redistribute GPL v3 code, then I'm going to have to learn to love The Dark Side.
Yuck.
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FSF isn't against Novell being able to redistribute GPLv3 code. FSF's deal is that you can't profit from harming the community and still distribute GPLv3 code. So the outcome is that Novell is going to have to go back to Microsoft and renegociate their deal. (Unfortunately for Novell, MS has a history of shafting its business partners.)
(Deals can always be renegociated in the case of "frustration of contract" - for example if you contract me to build a boat for y
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And if Novell renegotiates that portion of the deal, then the FSF would be happy?
I see where that has some appeal; it puts Novell in the same position as Red Hat. But to me it also means the death of Linux in large data centers. Not that Sun would mind that....
If you are large enough to have a big data center, you are large enough to attract nuisance lawsuits. No CIO is going to expose his company to t
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I can see how Novell's deal can help increase adoption of free software in situations such as yours. However, this isn't enough to make it acceptable.
What's happened is that Microsoft has been able to extract a payment for your use of GNU+Linux by proxy through Novell.
Your CIO is scared of MS's patents, Novell pays MS, you pay Novell.
This sets an example to patent holders. It shows that there is a way to make GNU+Linux users pay patent royaltees.
So it encourages patent
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With the Novell-MS deal, the balance of cash moved toward Novell and away from Mic
Boggles the mind... (Score:2)
Disclaimer: I'm joking.
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Thats because the idea is too complicit on the idea of malice being at the front of it. Someone once told me to never attribute malice to something that can be explained by ignorance. And giving Novell's history of getting burnt when working with microsoft, I would say they were verry ignorant in the deal.
But if you ask me, the only thing this boils down to is microsoft covering their ass in trying to stop people from migrating away from their products. They re
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Sigh.
Almost like they knew that the idealists would work against the pragmatists.
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If i remeber right, Novell claims they were just looking into how to better serve their customers and microsoft tossed this IP deal out there. You don't just offer all your secretes for nothing or to be nice. Well microsoft doesn't anyways. And the vast majority of us are still looking between the FSF and novell instead of where we should be.
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Did Novell have plans to get Microsoft to smother Red Hat? That is too far a stretch for me to believe. One small player doesn't try to eliminate all the other small players so that they are the only one left to
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Ask you self, what is going on at microsoft right now.
This entire situation is created with the sole intent to keep people away from non microsoft products. And microsoft didn't want to look like the bad guy for obvious reasons so they pushed it off onto Novell. And in all this, the opensource cominity is extreamly happy with creating as much chaos as possible to keep large
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Novell produces Mono, and there is now a window where organizations can consider it "safe" to use - safe from patent and other "IP" discrimination. That window may be enough to distract people from the Java/JVM alternative, and if they manage any kind of dominance they can j
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MS going after large support contracts (Score:2)
So they will continue to use GPLv2...? (Score:2)
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The GPLv3 doesn't exist yet. It's still being drafted [fsf.org]. Any complaints about the GPLv3 are thus actually complaints about a possible, future GPLv3, and can still be addressed.
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v2 is not an option for Novell (Score:5, Informative)
When developers switch future versions of their software to GPLv3, Novell will not be able to incorporate the changes in those new versions.
So if Novell wants to avoid GPLv3, they will have to forever stay with Glibc 2.5, GCC 4.1, coreutils 6.7, and old versions of GIMP, emacs, bash, gdb, etc. etc.
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And I don't think Novel is the only one who is going to be wanting to use this. So it will probably continue to be a community effor with the biggest difference in being that both communities are smaller now.
As far as I know, unless something drastic happens the kernel will be staying GPLv2 also. SO they better watch how tight they try to make the GPLv3 restri
GPLv3 will be widely adopted, it's a given (Score:4, Informative)
The SAMBA project have also said they'd be using it, and MySQL sound like they will be too. Sun might or mightn't. Some others will too, surely.
Patent rights (Score:3, Informative)
The lawyer has a point (Score:3, Interesting)
Correct for what goal? (Score:5, Insightful)
If their goal was to avoid accidentally using a software patent, that would be correct.
But if their goal is to instead set up a state of (some degree of) mutually assured lawsuits, then what they are doing is the correct choice. If Microsoft (or any other software vendor, for that matter) takes a single piece of GPL v3 code that wasn't previously released as GPL v2 code, any software patent lawsuit will trigger a response of copyright infrigement lawsuits.
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The point is the Microsoft are using GPL code in their Services for Unix addon to Windows.
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you can not see the source code.
Actually... (Score:2)
If'n that ain't GPL, I dunno what is.
(I suppose I could get out my old dust-laden copy of SFU 3.5, and peek through it to confirm that there's a copy of the GPLv2 included, but...)
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This is a product with no other purpose than to allow interoperability between Unix and Windows, so naturally it's logical for it to use GCC. So MS could be forced by GPLv3 to drop this product. This would be so trivial an event that Balmer probably wouldn't even give a chair a dirty look. Perhaps he'd be happy for having a good legal excuse to limit support for Unix and perhaps sell a
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There are two broad categories of GPL'd code: Core utilities that provide functions that Windows has had for many years and full-blown applications whoose code would be difficult to resuse in a Windows application. Neither is particuarly usef
M.A.D. or M.A.L.? (Score:2, Funny)
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Damn, someone who actualy calls it like it is.
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I'm not going to claim any special insight into the writer's mind... but it would be a understandable response to the threat suggested by Mr. Ballmer.
We've been through this twice already! (Score:2, Insightful)
Remember, when the (false) news came out, that OSF/GNU/whatever is going to sue Novell over their deal with Microsoft?
First, when the news was still hot, a number of (Insightful) comments were posted, explaining the issue along the lines of Ms. Tease's argument.
Then, the next day, it was announced, that there are no such plans (for litigation) and the author of the original article was criticized for pulling something out of you-know-where.
Some of the comments (including mine) then reminded, that the
Re:We've been through this twice already! (Score:5, Informative)
It is not "da bomb". It is "da shield". It is not like companies were being forced to use GPL licensed software, or if they were unaware of the terms of the license. GPL v3. will *not* work like those "submarine patents", that are granted and kept low profile, and them when someone makes a profit of it are used to sue the company for a lot of money. In fact, it is exactly the opposite, it is a way to ensure that the company distributing derivative software using that GPL (and I say derivative because, if they own the copyright, they can still (re)license in whatever license they want) doesn't not hijack the code and deny to the public the benefits they were granted when accepting the terms of GPL.
A license is just that. Without GPL, they have no right to distribute derivative works. With GPL, they get the rights, but must to abide to the terms. The terms are there to ensure that they will pass along the rights they got, and that they will not pull a card from the sleeve and deny people the very freedom that the GPL license is born to grant.
In short: you have the right to not distribute GPL'd software. If you do, you must abide to the terms and preserve the intended freedoms. Play by the rules or go away, it is simple as that.
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No, it is not a defensive weapon. Just as this very case is showing, a business (Novell) can adapt GPL-licensed software (Suse) and then find itself limited in their choice of other partners (Microsoft). GPL may be defending GNU-license users against suits by Novell/Microsoft, but it is harming Novell beyond the traditionally understood requirement of "provide the source and you'll be fine".
That no one is suing Novell right now, does not mean, no one will — F
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No, it is not a defensive weapon. Just as this very case is showing, a business (Novell) can adapt GPL-licensed software (Suse) and then find itself limited in their choice of other partners (Microsoft). GPL may be defending GNU-license users against suits by Novell/Microsoft, but it is harming Novell beyond the traditionally understood requirement of "provide the source and you'll be fine".
But only because Novell is trying to use that additional partnership to gain an advantage as the preferred distributor of the community's work. Novell is trying to create a situation where only Novell can sell or otherwise distribute Linux because anyone else who tried it will be sued by Microsoft. Even if they don't go that far, the Novell and Microsoft agreement is structured specifically to ensure that those to whom Novell distributes are unable to redistribute -- which defeats the bedrock goal of th
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Not wanting to compete against knockoffs seems very sensible. If GPL stands in Novell's way as you describe, it really is a bomb.
How is Novell's desire to remain in full control of Suse (for which it paid a lot of money) "abusive"? And of which community? Community of workalike knockoffs?
One can bang an enemy's head in with a sh
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Some links to statements by Stallman on the topic (Score:4, Informative)
For background, some links:
Nothing (Score:3, Informative)
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You're correct, 25-50% of each distro'll be GPLv3 (Score:5, Informative)
All of the GNU project will move to GPLv3. That's glibc, gcc, gdb, binutils, coreutils, bash, grub, grep, cpio, readline, make, gettext, GIMP, aspell, parted, parts of GNOME, etc. etc. etc.
Also, SAMBA said they'll be moving to it, and MySQL said they expect to move to it. Sun might, or might not, use it too.
OT: Some GNU software is not copyleft!? (Score:2)
Most GNU software is copylefted, but not all [gnu.org]; however, all GNU software must be free software.
Yes, I am surprised too. Any guess as to which piece of GNU software is under a non-copyleft license?
Why sometimes GNU isn't copyleft (Score:2)
Well, I can't think of any GNU software that is not copyleft, but I know a prominent example of GNU software that is weak copyleft rather than strong copyleft: GNU libc. And I know an example of software which is not in the GNU project but for which Stallman agreed that a non-copleft licence was best: Ogg vorbis codec.
The reason for GNU libc using a weak copyleft licence is tactical. From "Why you shouldn't use the Library GPL for your next library" [gnu.org]:
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I can't be the only one... (Score:3, Funny)
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didn't it already? (Score:2)
to push a hypothetical beyond the breaking point:
I would like anyone who prevents, at gunpoint, users of my software from freely modifying and re
CYA (or maybe somebody else's) (Score:2)
The tricky bit is to KISS (Score:2, Insightful)
License can't solve patent problems (Score:5, Interesting)
The conflict is fundamental - patents stop people from doing things with software, and open source programmers want to do those things. The law is a tool towards those ends, which both sides will employ. The stark fact seems to be that the law supports patents, and so does the political establishment and commercial support which funds said establishment.
There are two things stopping a WW3 style patent nuke war, as far as I can tell - one is the MAD assurances provided by the larger open source companies and/or supporters, and the other is the cost/benefit analysis of launching an attack on an open source author/project is not so good. Attacking the project means lots of legal fees if the case is fought, very bad press among the tech community, and the distinct chance the software you are attacking will be reborn, rewritten, or even replaced by something better as thousands of irate geeks seek a technical solution to the legal action. If by some chance the patent being used has covered all possible useful methods of doing something, the community simply waits until it expires and THEN proceeds. Yes 20 years is a long time, but it is not forever. The GIF patents eventually expired, and I would be very surprised if the cost/benefit analysis of those patents was a net plus. Apple has not gone after the freetype project, for example (although they did contact them).
However, these mechanisms cannot be entirely relied upon. JMRI is certainly an example: http://jmri.sourceforge.net/k/index.html [sourceforge.net] So long as patents can be filed on software, there is the potential for a slaugher among free projects. I can't think of any license change JMRI might have made that would avoid their current situation. Patents will always pose a serious threat to free sofware, as the representative of commerical control interests. Indeed, I would expect that if patents are abolished some other method would be found, but at least it would be more difficult.
you're 1 paragraph point is correct (Score:4, Informative)
The point you make in the first paragraph is correct. Stallman points this out:
Quoted from here (scroll to the audience member's 2nd intervention): Stallman speaking in Bangalore [fsfeurope.org]
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GPLv3 can't address patent-holders who don't use or distribute Linux enforcing any patents that might be infringed by Linux, but that's IMO right and proper. Any such patent-covered code would've been in Linux by mistake, and should and will be removed. GPLv3 does address two classes of patent issues, though:
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As for the Tivo issue. I'm not sure I can agree in as much. IF the patented GPLed code in question is used with GPLv2 software then the GPLv3 cannot touch them. This has to do with the ability of the two GPLs to co exist. The GPLv2 says no further
Wrong, wrong, wrong (Score:5, Informative)
"This License explicitly affirms your unlimited permission to run the unmodified Program." (emphasis added) "This License permits you to make and run privately modified versions of the Program, or have others make and run them on your behalf." It is only this permission to make and run privately modified versions that terminates if the licensor sues for infringement. This is a far cry from what the article suggests, which is that the license "to use the open source code" terminates when the licensor brings a patent claim.
I hope the article is a distortion of what this attorney said. If it isn't, then anybody who has hired this lawyer for anything software-related should get another lawyer, pronto.
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What it means... nothing. (Score:3, Insightful)
On the other hand if they are going to incorporate new parts there's a problem, however just from the last 6 months, I've heard numerous people who will flat out not support GPLv3, which tells me that GPLv3 is going to have issues if not be down right thrown out. Unless everyone supports it (namely the people coding the kernel of linux is going to be a big factor) then it's going to screw everything up.
This is part of the problem with the FSF, they want their license to succeed but to do so they kinda steamroll over problems like this and the semi viral nature of GPL (if you use our code your code must be GPL). GPL has issues and the solution isn't a new version that creates new problems, if anything a lot of these problems make me want to avoid GPL more than try to embrace it.
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All the tools used to compile the kernel are FSF-owned, and will go over to GPLv3. Things like bash, grep, gimp are also included.
A handful of other major projects have also made pro-GPL3 noises - Samba being the most well known.
Now, there's nothing to stop me taking the last GPLv2 version of these, entering into an agreement with someone which would stop me distributing GPLv3 code but not v2 and simply never upgrading the versions I ship - or a
I predict: (Score:2)
The deal would have been against GLPv2 if it applied SuSE Linux in the first place. Because the deal never pertained to SuSE Linux, it matters not what the license is modified to say.
I predict GPLv3 won't matter to the Novell-MS Deal.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What about Open in Open Source? (Score:4, Insightful)
A lot of people invest a lot of time in writing code they contribute to open source projects. Usually those people are less motivated by some hippy idealism of giving away things for free and are more interested in the benefits they can get from a license in terms of protecting their investment and soliciting free work from others. The GPL is so popular not because it is the most "free" but because it strikes a balance that makes most people happy. If I or my company devote significant time and investment in creating some code, I don't think it is fair that some other person or company should make minor addition (like adding a new type of hardware support) and then sell my work back to me and to others. Do you think it is "right" for you to take code that is 99.9% written by others and make money off of it while the people who did all the work get nothing? Most people don't so they avoid the GPL for most userland software.
Now I've contributed to BSD licensed projects, but I don't think they are ideal in most cases. The GPL is a guarantee that the code that is being actively developed will not be a closed fork that I can't access anymore. The intention of the GPLv3 is to insure that the code that is actively being developed is also not covered by some patent that makes it almost as unusable to me. I'm not advocating the GPLv3 and I'm not certain it is the right way to go, but I certainly understand and sympathize with the intent. Like it or not most open source code is developed by commercial companies for profit and if the deal you struck with the companies doing the rest of the development is not in your own best interests and, in fact, is exploiting your generosity, well, you have no one to blame but yourself for choosing that license. The GPL like all licenses is about protecting the interests of the developers.
BS meter going off (Score:2)
It is really plain and simple. Either it places additional restrictions and cannot be used or it doesn't and can be used.
Novell having to offer microsoft's pattent shield to the entire community is BS too. The GPLv3 specificly states that all have to offer is the rights offered to you throu
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As it stands right now, maybe not...but you can bet your boots that RMS will likely be pushing for retroactive changes to v2 if it looks like v3 isn't going to be adopted widely enough for his liking.
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does anyone use this license? (Score:2)
Has any major software adopted it yet? I would imagine that the FSF would be switching software like GCC, etc, over the GPLv3 since FSF supposedly owns the copyright. Has this happened? How have the existing devs reacted?
Personally, I'm a little annoyed at RMS' arrogant and loudmouthed politicking of late. My feeling is that RMS' general orneriness has extended into the GPLv3 and added a
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I can explain that for you:- Vista.
Given that Vista is as autocratic as it is, not to mention unpopular, the reason why the FSF has been increasingly throwing its' weight around in the last two years or so is because they believe th
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I snidely mentioned it elsewhere, but it deserves repeating and a link: LLVM [llvm.org] is shaping up to be an awesome compiler, with the benefit of being a relatively new and therefore pretty clean and modern codebase.
To compile C and C++, it currently does make use of gcc as a front end, which is the simplest end of any compiler (
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Equality? (Score:4, Interesting)
I read the original article and it seems the meat of it's argument is that if A can be held responsible, then B should be too. Supporting the argument with a question of difference between A and B.
The difference is this. Profit.
Open Source doesn't stand to profit off of it's efforts. Never mind Red Hat, SuSE et al. My contributions are done with 100% generosity with no intention, expectation or hope of return of any kind other than the concept of personal acheivement or contibution to a greater good. The later is tricky, because Adam Smith in his published works imply that within Capitalism, that a person, regardless if he feels so, usually contributes to a greater good (society) far more than he realizes underneath a capitalistic society, with every ounze of incentive being from currency (or a pay check).
I argue that while a pay check might motivate some to get out of bed and "work", it's certainly not the only thing that might equally motivate someone. Because, "work" is only "work" if you are getting paid for it, otherwise, it's a "hobby"; and contrary to popular belief including the line from Office Space, yes there are people who do enjoy being janitors. Admittedly, likely not enough however, one does what one can and all that is needed is a desire to contribute and with enough those of lesser ability would feel proud to contribute anyway they can. "Tech Support", "Testing" are all Janitorial services within IT... and obviously, there are plenty that enjoy it.
It's odd, while we're talking about incentive and what motivates a man. A paycheck really is one of the weakest forces of all the Classical motives for extreme human effort; compare the motivation of vengance, retribution, survival, integrity, patriotism/nationalism (a broader sense of family bonding and sense of self, belonging and representation). Even Machievelli pointed out that the first to run from the battlefield will be the "mercenaries", and so true that infact is.
The major difference between Proprietary Software and Open Source Software, is the goal and intentions of each. Intention is a viable concept for precedence; no matter what the case might be. For example, Apple Corporation and the Beatles for example on how "intention" can turn the tides of otherwise blatant infringments (The Beatles did have a valid claim... if only considering the surface.)
The main goal of Proprietary Software, Personal Gain, usually in the form of capital, market dominance, or any perceived benefit that clearly identifies a positive benefit within a Capitalist ideology.
The main goal of Open Source Software, more or less, Communal Gain.
All other things, in my belief, are by products to propel an effort towards the main goal. Communal Gain can not be achieved if you leave anyone out, so, to ensure that everyone may benefit, there is less demand of return or, any quid pro quos, conditions, restrictions are such that, the end result is within reasonable reach of Everyone. To amplify an extreme for clearly showing "reasonable reach", it's simply best to make the product "free"; for which, there exists no retort as for it's availability. For Capitalism, you'll have everything geared towards protecting the flow of capital, make as many streams of capitals available as possible. As a result, patents, copyrights, controlled distribution channels, controlled substances (like certain chemicals etc. required for making anything really useful) making physical ability to reproduce much more difficult... all of this is in place to ensure that only certain people will ever be in a position to "provide" or "offer" a product to the consumer.
Because Patents and all are more geared towards protecting a Companies benefit, I have argued in past posts, that enforcement of legislation and consequences should only apply to Companies in violation of their own measures. The "guy in a garage" doesn't have the breadth and depth to really threaten Sony Entertainment's production line... so, he should be exempt
Flawed logic and no improvement over the GPLv2 (Score:2)
Novel will not lose their rights under the GPL (v3 as claimed in the article) if another party sues for patent infringement.
If MS sues a user of GPLv3 software for patent infringement it would cause MS to lose their use of that GPLv3 code, it wouldn't affect any other party.
However, once a party knows of an unlicensed patent they can't distribute it anyway. Again it doesn't matter if it is Redhat or Novel.
Additionally there is the argument that under the GPLv2 if one
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I think it more likely that MS is trying to kill the *nix world through their deal with Novell - how much longer before software that was Open Source/GPLd becomes MS' property and whole sections of *nix need to be re-written? MS can either put pressure on Novell to copyright or patent the code, or put pressure on Novell to allow MS to patent or copyright the code.
Keep in mind, MS doesnt need to have the code copyrighted - they can patent the "idea" that the code implements, allowing no one else to write re
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It is a dark time for the rebellion. Although the TCO study has been destroyed, Imperial patents have driven the rebel forces from their base and pursued them across the galaxy.
Evading the dreaded Imperial Lawsuit, a group of freedom fighters led by Richard Stallman has established a new secret base on the remote ice world of en.opensuse.org.
The evil Lord Ballmer, obsessed with finding young Stallman, has dispatched thousands of remote lawyers into the far reaches of space...
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A lot. The copyrights to much of the critical software on Novell's Linux distribution are held by the FSF, and we can expect all of that software to migrate to GPLv3 as soon as it's finalized. Such critical software as bash and gcc will suddenly have all future versions released under "GPLv3 or later" terms. I expect a fair amount of non-FSF software to follow suit, such as Samba. At that point Novell has a problem: they can't bring the new versions into their distribution without being caught squarely betw