Congressmen oppose Open Source

Newsforge ^ | 10/23/02 | Wisconsin

[Wisconsin]

Wednesday October 23, 2002 - [ 12:47 PM GMT ] Print this Article Topic - Government

An anonymous reader writes: "Leaders of the New Democrat Coalition attempt to outlaw GPL. A call to sign off on explicit rejection of "licenses that would prevent or discourage commercial adoption of promising cyber security technologies developed through federal R & D." has been issued by Adam Smith, Congressman for the Ninth District in the State of Washington.

It's already signed off on by Rep. Tom Davis(R-Va), Chairman of Government Reform Subcomittee on Technology, and Rep. Jim Turner (D-TX) Ranking Member of the same committee, with the backing of Rep. Jim Davis (D-FL), and Rep. Ron Kind (D-WI).

It's a note to fellow New Democrats under the guise of protecting commercial interest's right to make money from the fruits of federal R & D, and to sign off on an attached letter to Richard A. Clarke, Chair of the President's Critical Infrastructure.

They are attempting to convince Clarke, Chair of the President's that licensing terms such as "those in the GNU or GPL" are restrictive, preclude innovation, improvement, adoption and establishment of commercial IP rights.

Let's take a look at the highlights:

1) They use the Internet, by virtue of TCP/IP, as "proof" of their thesis. 2) They state that you cannot improve OR adopt OR commercialize GPL software. 3) They state that you cannot integrate GPL'd software with proprietery software. 4) They say you should keep publicly funded code away from the public sector, so that proprietary interests can make money from the work. 5) They equate a lack of understanding of the GPL with valid reasoning against it.

In essence, that non-proprietary interests should not be allowed to use, adopt, improve, or make money from the work. That taxpayers should pay for it twice. And that nobody should be able to stop commercial entities from taking publicly funded code, they will then close off.

Write or fax each of the Congressmen mentioned as supporting this, and let them know they have been given bad information and that categorically anti-opensource and anti-GPL stance will be reflected at voting time:

[Wisconsin]

Are these guys misinformed or just shills for corporations?

(see URL for text of their letter)

[Mr. K]

I still say this whole argument is moot. If anyone out there wants to write free software, then by all means go ahead and do so.

I can't imagine anyone objecting to that- or why commercial software can't exist at the same time as free software.

The only problem I see here is that the hard core believers in open source want to force us all to believe in open source. They seem to be religious in their fervor.

[TheEngineer]

If anyone out there wants to write free software, then by all means go ahead and do so.

Agreed. I have a problem when an OSS developer gets his paycheck from the government, and then puts his own restrictive license (such as GPL) on the product software. (If the government funding agency slaps some sort of license on the software, that's a whole different issue.) If the government (we) pay for it, and the software is released... it should be public-domain software.

[Wisconsin]

Hmmm.

The issue here is whether government developed software shuld be issued under the General Public License ( you have to let others use it) or can be made proprietary.

I gather you think that having the gevernment research something with tax dollars, and then release the research to a private company, which sells it to you is OK?

The issue is not commercial software/open source-free software per se, but whether government developed software should be put into the public domain or be privatized.

[ffrancone]

Agreed the GPL tries to grab my software and make it Open Source if I use code subject to GPL. It is very vague on protections against that eventuality. I won't touch the stuff. If the taxpayers fund it, it should be public domain and should not be turned into a weapon of the Open Source movement.

[newberger]

First, the part you quoted here is mixed truth and error.
Yes, they are mis-representing the GPL. You *can* change
it and incorporate it in your software (but see below).

Second, I have grave reservations about my tax dollars
paying for software that is GPL'ed. Public domain is fine
but the GPL is not public domain.

As much as I appreciate the fruits of GNU software (I use
it all the time), the GPL makes drastic restrictions
on software that uses it. Essentially, if you link to
or otherwise incorporate GPL'ed software in your product
then YOU ARE OBLIGED to release your product under GPL.

If you don't believe me, read the license.

Newberger

[DrDavid]

It's a note to fellow New Democrats under the guise of protecting commercial interest's right to make money from the fruits of federal R & D, and to sign off on an attached letter to Richard A. Clarke, Chair of the President's Critical Infrastructure.

I thought corporate profits were immoral as far as Democrats are concerned. What caused this reversal? Campaign contributions from large corporations in the the State of Washington? When did Democtratic polititions start excepting money from corporate interests?

[cryptical]

The GPL is viral, it infects any code that you build on top of GPL'd code. I think the BSD license is better in this case, because if someone wants to start from government research, and add functionality, why shouldn't they be paid for their work?

Remember, RMS is a socialist.

[DrDavid]

There are 2 different GPL licenses. One is GPL which is used for applications. The other is LGPL for libraries. You can link proprietary code to LGPL code without revealing your source code. Only changes to the library code would have to be revealed.

Companies like RedHat, SuSE and Mandrake make money selling GPL'ed code. WordPerfect was sold (closed source) for Linux.

GPL'd or LGPL'd code from government research would ensure that the source remains open.

The GPL or LGPL would do things like preventing companies from taking the code without crediting the source, like Microsoft did with the BSD licensed TCP/IP stack software.

The GPL license is more about freedom as in Free Speach than about Free Beer.

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

This article is misleading.  The letters are talking of concerns with GPLing government sponsored R&D.  If the government wishes to allow derivative works to be commercially licensable, fine.  OTOH, if derivative works are used in GPLed code, then the entire work is GPLed.  No problem either way.

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

Do you even know what GPLed software is?  It is basically public domain - and guarantees any derivative works are also public domain.  It requires source to be bundled with the distro.

The reason for it was because Richard Stallman got burned when he originally released Emacs as public domain.  Several commercial software houses stole his work and used it in proprietary code.  To prevent this, he had the GPL worked up so that any code affected by it and any derivative works would have to be freely available to the public.  A programmer can charge for distributing the code and can charge for maintaining the code (if he can find anyone who will pay), but the source code base itself is totally free.

[TheEngineer]

GPL'd or LGPL'd code from government research would ensure that the source remains open.

I don't follow your logic. If code is "open source", it doesn't stop being "open source" if someone incorporates it into proprietary commercial software.

When I think of govt-sponsored software, LAPACK/LINPACK (Linear Algebra PACKage) comes to mind. The project has been very successful, and the product is open source and freely available. It is also unencumbered by restrictive licensing. For these reasons, no one writes linear algegra subroutines from scratch anymore. They just download the highly-optimized routines from www.netlib.org.

Here's what the authors of LINPACK say in their FAQ page about licensing:

1.2) Are there legal restrictions on the use of LAPACK software?

LAPACK is a freely-available software package. It is available from netlib via anonymous ftp and the World Wide Web. Thus, it can be included in commercial software packages (and has been). We only ask that proper credit be given to the authors.

Like all software, it is copyrighted. It is not trademarked, but we do ask the following:

If you modify the source for these routines we ask that you change the name of the routine and comment the changes made to the original.

We will gladly answer any questions regarding the software. If a modification is done, however, it is the responsibility of the person who modified the routine to provide support.

If their license was GPL, then many business/schools/government institutions would "re-invent" the wheel, rather than "open source" their proprietary software. In short, it wouldn't be used, so we taxpayers might as well not fund it in the first place.

The fact that much proprietary software incorporates LAPACK/LINPACK doesn't make it cease to be "open source". It can be downloaded by anyone from netlib.org.

[TheEngineer]

Do you even know what GPLed software is? It is basically public domain - and guarantees any derivative works are also public domain. It requires source to be bundled with the distro.

I think you're missing the point of the article. If someone wants to release their code under GPL (or any license), I don't have a problem with it. It's their software.

But in the case of govt-funded software... It ain't their software. It's our software, and therefore it should be "public domain". And GPL software isn't "public-domain" software.

Please see my earlier post on the "public-domain", govt-funded LINPACK/LAPACK software.

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

But if it is pure public domain, then anyone can use the code in their own apps without acknowledging the fact. There is nothing to prevent an entity from charging for a commercial app that was basically created via our tax dollars. This breaks the spirit of public domain. The GPL corrects that problem.

[TheEngineer]

Perhaps one for the penguin ping list?

[HamiltonJay]

by Adam Smith, Congressman for the Ninth District in the State of Washington.

Distict nine happen to include Redmond WA ?

[rdb3]

The Penguin Ping.

Wanna be Penguified? Just holla!

Got root?

[Mr. K]

GOVERNMENT DEVELOPED software? You want software from the same people who bring you, oh, say.. the Auto Bureau?

The software developed for the govt is no different than any other software- If I build some code for company A and then (with no objection from company A) sell it to company B, then what is the problem? It is done all the time. Some one built the first of anything.

[Havoc]

Who did these uber-morons think would read this stuff?!
If this isn't about a load of crap....

[dheretic]

why shouldn't they be paid for their work?

The better question is, why is the government even financing software development.