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Microsoft And The GPL/LGPL
AnimeFreak writes "In this CNET news article, it talks about how Microsoft's new license that will allow competing companies to read-over software code for their products does not allow software covered under the GPL/LGPL licensing agreement (such as Linux, SAMBA, and Mozilla)."
It's their code, they can licence it however they damn well please.
That's what "freedom" is all about. You get to choose how your code can be used. MS has decided, now it's up to us to honor that decision.
Otherwise, you have no right to expect anyone to respect licences like the GPL.
Dragging people kicking and screaming into reality since 1996.
So in short they are denying you to use information. And of course that would just mean, that every Open Source development in projects that are related to what MS is "disclosing" have to stop immediately, otherwise MS could claim that the developers violated their license. And the question is if Open Source then has to prove if they are innocent or if MS has to prove that they are guilty. Anyway, legal affairs cost much more than many Open Source developers can afford.
So this is just another form of censorship. But its much worse. Microsoft is "publishing" something and in the same moment trying to disallow you to use that knowledge which is published. A thing that is really serious because the human brain doesn't have an infrastructure that tags information as "not usuable for Open Source" and so on. Or can you imagine a school that learns you how to add 1+1 and then tells you: You are not allowed to use this knowledge. And keep that in mind!
As a developer I don't want to bother if the knowledge that is stored in my brain is free or not! For me it is free and nobody, especially not Microsoft has the right to control what I'm doing with my brain!
So for an Open Source developer this sort of license agreement simply says: Read the information and forget it completely. And so there is no need to waste time with reading at all.
So, basically this license can be used by Microsoft to protect even things that are not able to get a patent for.
If I go on thinking about this a bit more, then I think that Orwell was a very big optimist when he wrote "1984".
First of all, there is no way Microsoft can enforce conditions upon the implementation of a standard (read: "standard"). Entering into a contract requires, well, that you enter into a contract.
Secondly, this is a -- if not the -- prime example of what's wrong with the "intellectual property" faction of anti-GPL types. The GPL in no way inhibits intellectual property. It is simply a software license that imposes contractual conditions on the use of software. It is only unusual in that it does not require payment.
Here's the argument that Microsoft and other anti-GPL nutballs are making: "You're not making any money off this, so we want to steal your intellectual property, violate the hell out of your license, and make money from our criminal activities." The underlying, unstated argument is, of course, that unless you're in it for profit, you have no intellectual property rights. This is utter bullshit, of course, and serves only to show what basically unethical and indecent people we're dealing with.
This would be exactly parallel to a clothing manufacturer telling people that they have established a pattern for shirts with two sleeves, and you are therefore not allowed to make shirts with two sleeves unless you promise not to donate your old shirts to the poor.
It's a pity that certain political factions like to lionize Microsoft as bastions of capitalism when Microsoft is itself devoted to strangling the free market at every turn. If Microsoft is as good as they say they are, why are they so afraid of competing in an open and fair market? Why have they adopted such a deeply un-American stance towards the fundamental values of political and economic liberty? Ballmer can spew all he wants about the GPL being communist, but as near as I can tell, it is Microsoft that is seeking to create a command economy.
I like petting kittens.
I work in a state agency (hence the AC), and the prevailing "unwritten" policy that has been tossed my direction is that we will use Micro$oft platform software for systems that we have a shortage of competent workers to use as resources (ie one, me) due to these principles:
So.. we continue to use M$ software in a highly vulnerable part of our enterprise (web).
What's the point?
The point is that members of the technical community (read: tech workers, not most middle-managers) are already convinced of the issues of interoperability, standards, and the monopoly status of Micro$oft. The hurdle lies in convincing "The Management" that the only way to break this monopoly and to curb these business practices is to take your business elsewhere.
From my perspective, most of those in middle management feel that Micro$oft will do what is "right", and do what is "best" for the tech sector, and that having a large corporation there to take care of our interoperability worries, and our standards issues, and our implementation problems is a nice comfy thing to have. It gives them a sort of comfort zone in which to work in.
I think I started rambling.. I better move to my weblog now so I don't get modded too heavily.
Translation: Thou shalt allow us to steal.
Blog
Unfortunately it's not the legality of the claims that makes the difference.
It's the long drawn out trials, threats and general FUD that can go on for years (as MS has just proved), all the while effectively making it impossible for the coders to code.
tell me, do you have the money and resources to prove them wrong in a court of law?
regardless, are you supremely confident enough in your claims to start coding tomorrow? would you get nervous when you get your daily cease and desist letter, knowing you don't have the legal power to stand up to them? what if they go ahead and arrest you? sure, you could get released b/c they have no real legal claim, but is it really worth it? ask Sklarikov(sp?) if he would rather have the software or the jail time.
the real issues, unfortunately, have nothing to do with 'reality' and MS knows this just as well as us.
It may be stating the obvious, especially on Slashdot, but there are many people in the world who need to hear this: again and again, M$ pushes its products not by trying to make them have the highest quality and win in market competition, and certainly not by innovating, but rather by playing political hardball and introducing gratuitous incompatibilities, all to deprive consumers of choices.
So many times, I hear people insisting that M$ could only have become so powerful by being the best. This seems to derive from a profound conviction that market forces can only ever do The Right Thing, so anything that succeeds in the market is by definition a superior product. I think that market forces make this happen most of the time, but like anything else conceived and practiced by human beings, markets are flawed, in that they sometimes allow products to succeed by shenanigans rather than by quality. And M$ is living proof of it.
Here's M$, reacting to the open source phenomenon, which may truly be the biggest threat they face today. Especially the GPL fosters the existence of software that they couldn't at least copy for their own purposes, unless they open their source code as well. So what do they do? Create even better products that beat out GPL'd software on the market? NOOOOOOOO!!! Instead they create a license designed to make the competitor incompatible, by legal fiat. Not that any consumer of software derives any benefit from the intracacies of software licenses, and not that there's any innovation in legally forbidding interoperation.
What will it take before M$ apologists finally get it?
Always keep a sapphire in your mind
The GPL/LGPL basically says you can't change the license on the code to anything non-GPL/LGPL.
The MS license says you can't ever change the license to GPL/LGPL - or, in other words, MS must always have the option to copy/buy/(steal?) the code back.
Really, MS just took the GPL and turned it around on itself. If the ideas behind the GPL are valid, then the ideas behind this license are valid. Clever trick... you ALMOST have to admire their lawyers.
MS has faith that open source can't survive without MS code. Open source has faith that they can survive without MS code. I wonder who's right...
A witty [sig] proves nothing. --Voltaire
...and if not, shouldn't she? Seems to me this is clear evidence that the proposed settlement is worthless.
Why not just make a third license with exactly the same terms as the GPL, but which requires that every user fork over one penny for use of the program to the FSF at some point before January 1, 3000 A.D.?
In this case distribution isn't 'free' since there is a real cost involved, even if that cost is delayed. Companies use the idea of 'delayed costs' all the time in accounting; why can't common citizens do the same?
Better yet, have one person buy the program and then relicense it under the actual GPL. You can do the same with the exempted BSD license and I doubt MS could do a damned thing about it.
(Well, actually, I don't doubt that. They've obviously bought Bush and through him the DOJ, so they can probably do just about any damned thing they like, with Federal marshals to back them.)
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
This is a very astute comment (IMHO). The real reason behind this is to raise FUD in the minds of vendors looking at Samba on Linux as an alternative to Microsoft's server appliance kit.
Doesn't matter if it's legal or if the patent claims are valid. It's to get the CEO's of appliance companies to go into their engineering dept. and say "see, we should have licensed from Microsoft to be *safe*".
It's all about the dollars and control of the vendors........
Regards,
Jeremy Allison,
Samba Team.
I am not a lawyer. That having been said, the clause at issue seems to be the following:
It occurs to me that there are two well-known open source licenses that satisfy this requirement: the BSD license and the MIT license. They both basically give carte blanche to use the licensed software in any way one pleases, and contain none of the so-called "Intellectual Property Rights Impairing" provisions..
So ... can we re-license these projects under a BSD license? Or is there something I'm missing about the agreement? For example: if we link a GPL program against a BSD library, does that library become GPL?
NB: I believe very strongly that this is an effective way around this problem, so I may play devil's advocate with any replies. Hopefully we can hammer out a solution somehow.
Finding God in a Dog
Step three, vigorously prosecute anyone developing competing products that do not let you tax the proceeds.
The potential synergies of these power grabs are even more scarey than the grabs themselves.
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
Ok...
1) Nothing you do can "infect" work of someone else with the GPL. Indeed, you can not affect their rights in any way. Microsoft's code is, by law, completely safe. (and they know this.)
There is no such thing as "IPR impairing" of Microsoft code... Unless Microsoft is the one doing the impairing. It just can't be done, no way, no how.
2) You cannot copyright a line protocol like TCP, or IP. The problem is that it can't be "fixed in a tangable medim", which is a requirement of copyright. Every packet is unique and transient, and such things can't be copyrighted. It's just the law.
3) However, interacting with another program via TCP can be considered "interoperation", and that IS a Copyright condition for creating a "derived work". The exact definitinon of a derived work of computer programming is, as I recall, "a system of programs that interoperate". The whole is a work, derived from works that make up each part of "the system".
But, interoperation alone is not enough. The parts must be somehow uniquely dependent on each other. You couldn't define Mozilla/IIS to be a derived work subject to the MS EULA, or the NPL, because Mozilla/Apache work just as well. Further, you can have a unique dependency if you reverse engineer the communications. So Mozilla would not subject to a MS EULA if you used only your analysis and knowledge of messages going in and out of IIS to build it.
Make sense?
Scenario 1: An implementation can be released under the BSD license, which can then be 'forked' by a third party (the fork being GPL) and the original abandoned. Microsoft can do nothing. This license means nothing.
Scenario 2: For some reason in the license, the action outlined above is not possible. This must be due to something in the license. If it just says 'you may not relicense under GPL' you just relicense under the X license (say) and then under GPL. The only way microsoft can get around this is to say something like:
If you redistribute source of this program or of a derived work of this program this paragraph must remain intact, and the GPL or other IPR must not be used.
Now what do we call that, boys and girls? A viral license.
RMS's bogeyman was closed source, MS's is the GPL. They both discovered that if you want to release the source, you need a viral license. Unfortunately for microsoft, that makes their whole excuse for eradicating the GPL collapse. Oops.
Free Java games for your phone: Tontie, Sokoban
Interesting. I believe this tall tale to be attributable to this: There are, of course, provisions in the GPL that protect your right to resell GPL software at any price.
I'm not convinced that licensing your own code under the GPL means that you can't make a profit selling the stuff. Asserting that the mere existence of GPLed software makes it near impossible etc. etc. is basically complaining about the existence of competition ("Yer honor, they can't sell it that low! I'll go out of business!") Hehe. That bit was very nicely done. That google search seems to indicate that some people take this kind of rhetoric seriously, though...
WrongO.
The value of software comes from its scarcity. Copyright protects this scarcity and in turn protects the copyright holder.
Source code isn't software. It's the blueprints to make software. It's the binaries that are important to users, not the source.
For-hire custom development is expensive and slow because the systems that must exist for easy development of custom apps simply doesn't exist and isn't guaranteed to exist. Commercial software exists because it is efficient and it provides the user with a close enough satisfaction of their needs at a low price.
I hate both so I use WindowMaker, there's also at least a dozen others, all better than KDE/Gnome's Windows-alike approach.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
I know this is slightly offtopic, but I have been waiting for an excuse to publish it, so here goes anyway.
I seriously believe that Microsoft is fully correct about this aspect of the GPL. *graveyhead dons asbestos underpants*. The GPL is communist with respect to the fact that it puts everyone (even Microsoft) on the same playing field. Just because it didn't work well as a means of government and economy doesn't mean that the ideas of Carl Marx, et. al. were totally defunct.
Microsoft, however, has used the statement to spin it as evil, in the same way as the US government treated communism during the cold war. I thought we were over that as a species.
Now, go forth and write code, comrades!
std::disclaimer<std::legalese> sig=new std::disclaimer; sig->dump(); delete sig;
...Samba on Linux as an alternative to Microsoft's server appliance kit.
;-)
I think you meant the Microsoft Server Compliance Kit.
the problem with your plan is that the plaintif will have to pay for court costs for years also. Microsoft can drag this case on for years, and make it impossible for any plaintif to continue the court case.
Why get a legal opinion? If you were infriging Microsoft would have sued you by now.
I'm not trolling, but that's not a news piece. Yes, it's on their 'news.com' site, but it's an opinion column, written by Bruce Perens.
I'm not saying he's not right, it's just that presenting it as news is misleading.
..isn't GNU. It's LPF. Maybe this will help people finally understand this.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.