Posted on 07/06/2007 7:47:36 AM PDT by ShadowAce
The new GNU General Public License (GPL) version 3 is not a fit for Linux because switching would require permission from the kernel's thousands of de facto owners, a maintainer of the SCSI portion of the kernel said on Thursday. Also, Microsoft released a statement that the company has no GPLv3 obligations.
Although the earlier GPLv2 has been used with Linux, GPLv3, released by the Free Software Foundation June 29, presents problems, according to James Bottomley, gatekeeper of the Linux Kernel SCSI Maintainership, which governs disk storage access in the kernel.
The Linux kernel is not owned by any one person; it is owned by all the people who submit patches to it, Bottomley said. This means the kernel is now owned by anywhere from 3,500 to 10,000 people, he said.
"In order to change the kernel, we'd have to get everybody who owns the kernel to sign off on the re-licensing," said Bottomley, who also is CTO of SteelEye Technology and a member of the Linux Foundation board of directors. This would be required under copyright law, he said.
This presents obvious practical problems should the keepers of the kernel decide they want to move to GPL v3. "We'd have to find all of the owners, first of all," Bottomley said.
The lack of a compelling advantage to GPLv3 "means we're not going to bother," Bottomley said.
A plebiscite could be announced to decide the issue, but a code contributor still could object to any switch, said Bottomley. "The choice at that point would be to rewrite their code or abandon the process," he said.
The GPLv2 and v3 licenses are incompatible, he said. The Linux kernel will stick with GPLv2 for the foreseeable future, Bottomley said.
Previously, Linux kernel developer Linus Torvalds has objected to GPLv3 because of concerns that digital rights management stipulations in the new license would be burdensome.
The Free Software Foundation did not provide a response to Bottomley's claims on Thursday. The founder and president of the foundation, Richard Stallman, has advocated migrations to the new GPLv3 license for free software, emphasizing improvements in such areas as digital rights management and patent protection.
Microsoft posted a statement on its Web site Thursday that said the company is not a party to GPLv3 and that none of the company's actions are to be misinterpreted as accepting status as a contracting party of the license.
The company also said it assumes no legal obligations under GPLv3.
"While there have been some claims that Microsoft’s distribution of certificates for Novell support services, under our interoperability collaboration with Novell, constitutes acceptance of the GPLv3 license, we do not believe that such claims have a valid legal basis under contract, intellectual property, or any other law," Microsoft said.
"In fact, we do not believe that Microsoft needs a license under GPL to carry out any aspect of its collaboration with Novell, including its distribution of support certificates, even if Novell chooses to distribute GPLv3 code in the future," Microsoft said.
Under a multifaceted agreement with Novell, both companies agreed to not sue each other's customers over intellectual property issues; Microsoft through the arrangement can sell Novell subscription certificates for Suse Linux. Microsoft has decided the support certificates will not entitle the recipient to receive support or updates relating to code licensed under GPLv3.
The full statement can be found here.
Good luck in Court Microsoft, not!
They don’t have a leg to stand on.
Questions arise...
1. Does this mean DRM lives on in Linux?
2. What happens to software developed for Linux systems with tools licensed under GPLv3?
3. Is Microsoft still going to sue non-Suse Linux products for 285 patent infringements?
4. Are Suse (Novell)-based products really immune from the lawsuits proposed in #3?
I'm not sure how Linux will incorporate v2 and v3 software together. I'm not familiar with the fine points of the licenses.
There will be no lawsuits. MS doesn't want those patents to be challenged, or revealed. That is why they have yet to mentioned *which* patents are being violated.
Just Billy Boy and his henchmen harrassing the open-source world again. Same old crap from MS. They have plenty of money to GIVE to lawyers.
Sure they do they are selling Novell support not Linux and unless they start modifying Linux or other GPL code how does it affect them?
Ha! Ha! Communism always implodes on itself!
Long live professional software developers!
This is about the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Software development by democracy. Good luck.
Hmmm Linux seems to have done really well for itself coding this way..
From eWeek:
In Section 0, Terms and Conditions, of GPLv3 we find that "to 'convey' a work means any kind of propagation that enables other parties to make or receive copies."Moving along, we reach Section 3, where we find, "When you convey a covered work, you waive any legal power to forbid circumvention of technological measures to the extent such circumvention is effected by exercising rights under this License with respect to the covered work, and you disclaim any intention to limit operation or modification of the work as a means of enforcing, against the work's users, yours or third parties' legal rights to forbid circumvention of technological measures."
Notice that phrase "You waive any legal power." That sounds to me that if Microsoft were to convey a Linux distribution like Novell's SLES (SUSE Linux Enterprise Server) to a customer and some of the included code was covered by GPLv3, Microsoft's Linux patent threats go right down the toilet.
Record profits the last two quarters hardly sounds like desperation. And with year to year percentage growth greater than Red Hat, who is working from a much smaller overall percentage to begin with, I'd say you're grossly misinterpreting the market.
As you see in Shadow's reply, in typical Free Software Foundation fashion they'll try to use twisted legal mumbo jumbo to effectively steal Microsoft's right to assert their patents. Looking at the stance of Microsoft and Novell though, who certainly have better lawyers than the leftist nutjobs at the FSF, they're not too concerned.
now this time say it like the announcer from the original batman show.
Questions arise...
1. Does this mean DRM lives on in Linux?
2. What happens to software developed for Linux systems with tools licensed under GPLv3?
3. Is Microsoft still going to sue non-Suse Linux products for 285 patent infringements?
4. Are Suse (Novell)-based products really immune from the lawsuits proposed in #3?
see next time.....
SAME bat channel
SAME bat time.....
Here's the real "story behind the story": Legal Wrangling In The World of Linux
Specifically,
Indeed, Microsoft has said it's more interested in developing cross-licensing deals like the controversial agreement it signed with Novell last November. Earlier this month, Microsoft disclosed that it had inked a broad collaboration agreement with Linux software vendor Xandros that includes patent-covenant protection similar to the Novell pact. In a keynote speech at Microsoft's Tech-Ed conference in Orlando, Fla., earlier this month, Bob Muglia, senior vice president of Microsoft's server and tools business, said the deal illustrated how the company is willing to work with business partners to help customers use open-source products.
Microsoft has also signed patent-swap agreements with Fuji Xerox, LG Electronics and Samsung Electronics, which include Linux in their products. But Red Hat, the leading independent Linux vendor, has vowed not to strike a similar deal with Microsoft and in an online manifesto calls payments associated with the agreements "an innovation tax."
The open-source software community was outraged when Novell struck a deal with Microsoft, arguing that it implicitly validated Microsoft's patent claims and leaves other vendors and their customers vulnerable to lawsuits. Novell has maintained that none of its products violate Microsoft patents and the alliance was really about making its products compatible with Microsoft's.
Anger at Novell grew to the point that the Free Software Foundation, which oversees the General Public License governing open-software distribution, included language in a new draft of the license prohibiting the kind of patent covenant struck between Microsoft and Novell. In a May 25 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Novell said such a prohibition could restrict its ability to include GPL code in its products or force Novell to "modify" its Microsoft relationship.
Now Novell appears to be off the hook. The final draft of GPLv3 says GPL distributors "who make discriminatory patent deals after March 28 may not convey software under GPLv3," according to a Free Software Foundation statement. The foundation also said that "Novell is not prohibited from distributing this software because the patent protection can be turned against Microsoft to the community's benefit."
I don't actually know anyone--much less anyone here at FR--who respects Stallman. We all think he's nuts.
CommieWare
Thanks, Microsoft is obviously trying to help Linux, to ditch Stallman and the FSF by offering these deals but you can see that most Linux hounds including those on FR would much rather stick with Stallman and his “copyleft” principles than current US proprietary software companies and traditional intellectual property laws such as copyright. Hopefully some Linux companies will actually start working to dump all Stallman and GPL3 products, replacing them with BSD equivalents or new and better technology, but right now the moonbat Stallman still owns more rights to Linux distro code than anyone.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.