Corporate Linux and the Community?

namelessByChoice asks: "I'm a software developer in a rather large hardware company. We have recently begun using Linux as the OS of choice for in house hardware test equipment. Now since Linux is "free" we don't have to pay licensing fees to anyone, but as a moral obligation we would like to contribute in some way. I'm looking for suggestions on the best way to do this."

"So far we've come up with a few ideas.

• 1. Donate money to FSF.
• 2. Arrange a Licensing scheme with Linux distributor and use their distribution.
• 3. Make an announcement to the media "So and so chooses Linux for mission critical applications".
• 4. Open Source any thing that is not proprietary. By proprietary I mean things that are considered corporate secrets, such as the software that runs the equipment. Anything generic like kernel modifications, drivers, libraries could certainly be released."

Comments

Re:Go for licensing with a vendor

[bmetzler]

except for #2 because that could be something that's actually negative.

How in tarnish could setting up a licensing/support/partnership with a Linux distributor be 'bad'? This provides a channel for the company work work through with their Linux needs, strengthening their experience with Linux. It strengthens the Linux distributor because they have customers. customers is good. So it's a win, win situation all around.

Can you imagine Microsoft claiming that having companies license Windows 2000 from them is 'negative'?

-Brent

Go for licensing with a vendor

[bmetzler]

License the direstobution from a vendor with support and everything you'd get from Microsoft. That's the best thing to do. Then you have a business relationship with them.

-Brent

OK, here we go.

[talesout]

1. Donate money to FSF.

That's a good idea, or you could channel money directly to others you know could use it. Like if you use Debian's distro, just send them some money (check their web site, they have details on how to contribute money).

Another good idea along these lines is to donate used equipment (or better yet, new equipment). As most businesses have some machines laying around that will never get used again, and this could be a big help to the right project.

2. Arrange a Licensing scheme with Linux distributor and use their distribution.

Another good idea. But I (and maybe others) would be interested in how you mean this. Are you talking about paying a certain amount of each sale to them to 'license' their distro for each device you sell? Or is there some other arrangement you are talking about?

3. Make an announcement to the media "So and so chooses Linux for mission critical applications".

This is an excellent idea no matter what else you end up doing. Our company uses Linux on all of our workstations and we have put prominent "We support Linux" sort of messages on our web site and even some of our literature. And here's the kicker, we are a cabinet company!.

4. Open Source any thing that is not proprietary. By proprietary I mean things that are considered corporate secrets, such as the software that runs the equipment. Anything generic like kernel modifications, drivers, libraries could certainly be released."

OK, be careful on this one. Anything generic like kernel modifications (if you are modifying existing code) has to be released (nature of the current license for using the kernel). A driver doesn't have to be released as GPL if it is loaded as a module. And unless you modify an existing library you should be able to keep your 'new' libraries to yourself. But any other 'generic' things have to be released if you base them on previously GPLed code.

However, I applaud the idea of releasing whatever else you can as GPL or at least as open source software. It's too bad more companies don't feel any sort of 'moral obligation' when 'given' something free of charge that helps them.

Good luck to you.