Posted on 10/14/2003 8:14:34 PM PDT by TechJunkYard
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Software
Linux's Hit Men
10.14.03, 7:00 AM ET
In the world of "free" open source software, there is no greater villain than SCO, owner of the Unix operating system.
The Lindon, Utah, company has outraged Linux lovers by suing IBM (nyse: IBM - news - people ), claiming IBM stole Unix code and put it into Linux. Some fear the lawsuit by SCO (nasdaq: SCOX - news - people ) will impede the adoption of Linux.
But the spread of Linux could be hurt by another group--and ironically, it's the free-software proponents themselves.
For months, in secret, the Free Software Foundation, a Boston-based group that controls the licensing process for Linux and other "free" programs, has been making threats to Cisco Systems (nasdaq: CSCO - news - people ) and Broadcom (nasdaq: BRCM - news - people ) over a networking router that runs the Linux operating system.
The router is made by Linksys, a company Cisco acquired in June. It lets you hook computers together on a wireless Wi-Fi network, employing a high-speed standard called 802.11g. Aimed at home users, the $129 device has been a smash hit, selling 400,000 units in the first quarter of this year alone.
But now there's a problem. The Linux software in the router is distributed under the GNU General Public License (GPL), which the Free Software Foundation created in 1991.
Under the license, if you distribute GPL software in a product, you must also distribute the software's source code. And not just the GPL code, but also the code for any "derivative works" you've created--even if publishing that code means anyone can now make a knockoff of your product.
Not great news if you're Cisco, which paid $500 million for Linksys. In Cisco's case, it's even trickier, because the disputed code resides on chips that Linksys buys from Broadcom. So now Cisco is caught between the Free Software Foundation and one of its big suppliers.
For several months, officials from the Free Software Foundation have been quietly pushing Cisco and Broadcom for a resolution. According to Free Software Foundation Executive Director Bradley Kuhn, the foundation is demanding that Cisco and Broadcom either a) rip out all the Linux code in the router and use some other operating system, or b) make their code available to the entire world.
And if they balk? Kuhn raises the threat of legal action. "We defend the rights protected by the GPL license," he says. "We have legal teeth, so if someone does not share and share alike, we can make them obey the rules."
The legal teeth belong to Eben Moglen, a Columbia Law School professor who acts as pro bono counsel for the foundation. Moglen says his chats with Cisco have been friendly, and he believes the matter will be settled without a court fight. Cisco and Broadcom wouldn't comment.
The dispute, which was leaked to an Internet message board, offers a rare peek into the dark side of the free software movement--a view that contrasts with the movement's usual public image of happy software proles linking arms and singing the "Internationale" while freely sharing the fruits of their code-writing labor.
In fact, the Free Software Foundation runs a lot of these "enforcement actions." There are 30 to 40 going on right now, and there were 50 last year, Kuhn says. There have been hundreds since 1991, when the current version of the GPL was published, he says. Tracking down bad guys has become such a big operation that the Free Software Foundation has created a so-called Compliance Lab to snoop out violators and bust them.
Who pays for this? The 12-employee Free Software Foundation has limited resources. So it seeks donations. And sometimes it collects money from companies it has busted.
Last year, the foundation alleged that OpenTV, a San Francisco company that ships a set-top box containing Linux, was violating the GPL. The drama took months to resolve and ended with OpenTV writing a check for $65,000 to the Free Software Foundation. "They paid us a very substantial payment for our time and trouble," Moglen says.
Sometimes it's the other way around--the foundation gets paid by private companies for whom it acts as a sort of hired enforcer. Last year a Swedish software company called mySQL asked for help resolving a dispute with NuSphere, a subsidiary of Progress Software (nasdaq: PRGS - news - people ). The companies had made a deal to work on software that would include mySQL's GPL-licensed database program. A dispute arose over contract issues, and also over the GPL, which mySQL claimed NuSphere had violated. In the end, Progress resolved the matter by walking away from the partnership.
Afterward, mySQL made a $25,000 donation to the Free Software Foundation. Was this payback? "I won't say that," says Marten Mickos, chief executive of mySQL. "But of course, why would we give them money if not as a sign of gratitude?"
The mySQL versus NuSphere squabble demonstrates another risk: These disputes might scare companies away from using open source software. Joseph Alsop, chief executive of Progress, reckons the fiasco with mySQL cost his company $10 million in lost development and marketing work. Now he says he is cautious about working with GPL software. Instead, Progress uses an open source database program distributed under the less onerous Berkeley Software Distribution license.
In some ways, these Free Software Foundation "enforcement actions" can be more dangerous than a typical copyright spat, because usually copyright holders seek money--say, royalties on the product that infringing companies are selling. But the Free Software Foundation doesn't want royalties--it wants you to burn down your house, or at the very least share it with cloners.
Or maybe, as some suggest, the foundation wants GPL-covered code to creep into commercial products so it can use GPL to force open those products. Kuhn says that's nuts--"pure propaganda rhetoric." But he concedes that his foundation hates the way companies like Oracle (nasdaq: ORCL - news - people ) and Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) generate billions of dollars by selling software licenses. "We'd like people to stop selling proprietary software. It's bad for the world," Kuhn says.
So far, none of the Free Software Foundation's targets have decided it is bad for the world and gone to court. This despite the fact that the foundation has $750,000 in the bank and one lawyer who works for free, part time, when he's not teaching classes at Columbia University.
Will Cisco and Broadcom be the first? Probably they'll decide, like everyone else, that it's cheaper to settle than to fight.
Such a pity, comrade.
How very strange. Somebody give Mr. Lyons a clue about copyrights and software licenses.
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Under the license, if you distribute GPL software in a product, you must also distribute the software's source code. And not just the GPL code, but also the code for any "derivative works" you've created--even if publishing that code means anyone can now make a knockoff of your product.
Version 1.9
The indented, italicized sections below appear as annotations to the Open Source Definition (OSD) and are not a part of the OSD. A plain version of the OSD without annotations can be found here.
A printable version of this annotated page is available here.
Open source doesn't just mean access to the source code. The distribution terms of open-source software must comply with the following criteria:
The license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources. The license shall not require a royalty or other fee for such sale.
Rationale: By constraining the license to require free redistribution, we eliminate the temptation to throw away many long-term gains in order to make a few short-term sales dollars. If we didn't do this, there would be lots of pressure for cooperators to defect.
The program must include source code, and must allow distribution in source code as well as compiled form. Where some form of a product is not distributed with source code, there must be a well-publicized means of obtaining the source code for no more than a reasonable reproduction cost–preferably, downloading via the Internet without charge. The source code must be the preferred form in which a programmer would modify the program. Deliberately obfuscated source code is not allowed. Intermediate forms such as the output of a preprocessor or translator are not allowed.
Rationale: We require access to un-obfuscated source code because you can't evolve programs without modifying them. Since our purpose is to make evolution easy, we require that modification be made easy.
The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software.
Rationale: The mere ability to read source isn't enough to support independent peer review and rapid evolutionary selection. For rapid evolution to happen, people need to be able to experiment with and redistribute modifications.
The license may restrict source-code from being distributed in modified form only if the license allows the distribution of "patch files" with the source code for the purpose of modifying the program at build time. The license must explicitly permit distribution of software built from modified source code. The license may require derived works to carry a different name or version number from the original software.
Rationale: Encouraging lots of improvement is a good thing, but users have a right to know who is responsible for the software they are using. Authors and maintainers have reciprocal right to know what they're being asked to support and protect their reputations.
Accordingly, an open-source license must guarantee that source be readily available, but may require that it be distributed as pristine base sources plus patches. In this way, "unofficial" changes can be made available but readily distinguished from the base source.
The license must not discriminate against any person or group of persons.
Rationale: In order to get the maximum benefit from the process, the maximum diversity of persons and groups should be equally eligible to contribute to open sources. Therefore we forbid any open-source license from locking anybody out of the process.
Some countries, including the United States, have export restrictions for certain types of software. An OSD-conformant license may warn licensees of applicable restrictions and remind them that they are obliged to obey the law; however, it may not incorporate such restrictions itself.
The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research.
Rationale: The major intention of this clause is to prohibit license traps that prevent open source from being used commercially. We want commercial users to join our community, not feel excluded from it.
The rights attached to the program must apply to all to whom the program is redistributed without the need for execution of an additional license by those parties.
Rationale: This clause is intended to forbid closing up software by indirect means such as requiring a non-disclosure agreement.
The rights attached to the program must not depend on the program's being part of a particular software distribution. If the program is extracted from that distribution and used or distributed within the terms of the program's license, all parties to whom the program is redistributed should have the same rights as those that are granted in conjunction with the original software distribution.
Rationale: This clause forecloses yet another class of license traps.
The license must not place restrictions on other software that is distributed along with the licensed software. For example, the license must not insist that all other programs distributed on the same medium must be open-source software.
Rationale: Distributors of open-source software have the right to make their own choices about their own software.
Yes, the GPL is conformant with this requirement. Software linked with GPLed libraries only inherits the GPL if it forms a single work, not any software with which they are merely distributed.
No provision of the license may be predicated on any individual technology or style of interface.
Rationale: This provision is aimed specifically at licenses which require an explicit gesture of assent in order to establish a contract between licensor and licensee. Provisions mandating so-called "click-wrap" may conflict with important methods of software distribution such as FTP download, CD-ROM anthologies, and web mirroring; such provisions may also hinder code re-use. Conformant licenses must allow for the possibility that (a) redistribution of the software will take place over non-Web channels that do not support click-wrapping of the download, and that (b) the covered code (or re-used portions of covered code) may run in a non-GUI environment that cannot support popup dialogues.
How did a clown like this get a job at Forbes? He couldn't even make it as a Microsoft Munchkin. |
What?
No thanks, keep your free software. I'll write my own like I always have. If someone wants to buy or lease all or part of it that's fine. Give it away. That's not likely.
It's called captialism, and it is most certainly not 'bad for the word'.
With Open Source software, you can change it, and then turn around and sell your new and improved software. But you must give the purchasers the original stuff (not your changes, as the is your proprietory stuff now). You can even down load the original and sell it too, as a service to install, or installed. But again, you must provide the original source to the purchaser.
Open Source software actually turns out to be more secure, and useful, as ten-thousand pairs of eyeballs examining each piece tend to get problems fixed. And the line between the user and the programmer is very blury. So Open Source software tends to have good "user-feel".
Just 'cuz you can find the html source code don't mean you can copy it,
=o)
That would probably be PostgreSQL, which is probably a good move, anyway. The GPL is not the only open source game and the BSD license keeps looking better and better.
You don't have to give it away. You can sell Open Source software. But you must include the source code, so other people can see and modify it. That's the "freedom" part.
No one is forcing anyone to use OSS. Go ahead and write your own. Charge anything you want for it. Just stay away from Open Source code.
Like the free software that served up your comment post page, PERL, Apache and Linux?
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See, this is what happens when you cross a brass buzzard with a journalist. The guy reads both the 'commies' chapter and the 'viral' chapter from the Microsoft briefing paper on attacking the GPL, but he's so stupid that he mixes them up, and uses the "commie" talking points on guys who are defending private property rights.