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Responses to ADTI Paper
Everyone and their brother has something to say about the silly and incoherent ADTI paper released yesterday. It doesn't even seem worth the effort to me - it's so internally inconsistent that I can't imagine it convincing anyone of anything. Nevertheless, David Skoll of Roaring Penguin has a good rebuttal, and Newsforge ? pointed out that the MITRE study that's been kicking around for so long is now public, and took a look at the differences between the two. Update: 06/11 18:43 GMT by M : Another rebuttal, by John Viega and Bob Fleck of Secure Software.
Wired has an article from almost a week ago titled Did MS Pay for Open-Source Scare.
The author of the Roaring Penguin rebuttal misses a point, one that's endlessly tossed around Slashdot. That Microsoft's (proprietary) TCP/IP stack is derived from the Berkeley stack is a good thing. As I understand things, the Berkeley stack is pretty much universal now because it was simply better than the closed versions. It's essentially the reference implementation of TCP/IP. And those programmers (not "thousands") who wrote it presumably meant for it to be used anywhere and everywhere.
This is the code the Internet is built on- it's a good thing it's under such a liberal license, and a good thing that Microsoft chose to use it. Certain things should not be GPL'd, and I think Microsoft has this right; open standards like this will never be fully accepted otherwise. A web browser, or a server, or an OS is an entirely different matter, though Microsoft doesn't seem to see this.
The FSF would of course disagree; they put ideology ahead of technology and have demonstrated that the "morality" of a project is more important than its success.
Since no one seems to be discussing the MITRE paper, I guess I'll opin.
The MITRE paper takes a fair look at the business reasons for using OSS. By fair I mean that they don't simply extol the vertues of OSS, but look at the down sides as well. Yes there are some from the business viewpoint. They especially look at what makes it optimal for servers and the military. In the executive summary, they provide pretty pictures easily interpretable by pointy haired bosses every where as good hard data on why they should use OSS. I suggest that every one read at east the first 25 pages(the executive summary) while the business persons among us might gain something might get more details by reading the detailed business case portion of the pdf.
Why does the author keep referring to the IP community and the "GPL community" as separate things? He even says that the GPL competes with US copyright law. This guy either has a fundamental lack of understanding about copyright or is a bald-faced liar. GPL'd software is IP as much as any proprietary software. GPL'd software uses copyright law as its basis, just as proprietary software does. The only issue here is the licensing terms. The only term that they take issue with is the fact that they can't simply steal the code and incorporate it into proprietary products because they would have to release the source to those products. That's their whole gripe.
They don't even consider the fact that most proprietary licenses are far more harsh than the GPL. In fact, you don't even have to agree to the GPL to use GPL'd software. If you don't agree, then basic copyright law applies. If you do agree, then you get additional rights, over and above what traditional copyright law allows, albeit with some obligations as well. I think that any claim about the restrictiveness of the GPL license is disingenuous at best.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
At the moment there seems to be only a one-page PDF document at the original site explaining that the original paper has been recalled for some unspecified rework. Info regarding the sudden change of position can be found at linuxtoday.
The most interesting point was that when they contacted ADTI, a representative informed them that he was not sure why the paper was off-line, but he believed "they had to make a couple of revisions to the paper." The representative was not sure when the paper would be back online. The paper's author, Kenneth Brown, was
unavailable for comment.
General Public License
From the license preamble:
I was quoted in the document as a "programming expert". Er, not exactly. My specialty is installation programs and configuration management. Yes, I code, but in the open source world, I'm not an important contributor. Also, in my email exchange with Mr. Brown, I pointed out that I was not an expert in the GPL, yet he specifically cites me about aspects of the GPL. That particular portion was quite possible my least favorite of everything I wrote because I neglected to mention you only need to publicly release your own source code if you publicly release the binaries. This is a glaring omission and I must apologize to the Open Source community for my own stupidity.
-- Will program for bandwidth
I tried not to make personal attacks, but the AdTI paper is so blatant that I don't see any harm in showing exactly what I think of it now and then. There are well-written non-personal defenses of free software (like Villaneuva's); it's just not my style to hold back.
Dark Nexus writes: About the only thing that I find arguable about that small section of the ADTI report is the part about Open Source not working for a business model. First thing that David Skoll indicates is that he doesn't care about business models.
Perhaps I should have reworded that. What I mean is, I don't care about the GPL in relation to existing, proprietary software business models. And it's not my job to explain to people how to make money from GPL'd software. GPL'd software is out there, and we'd all better learn to adapt.
The gnat writes: This is the code the Internet is built on- it's a good thing it's under such a liberal license, and a good thing that Microsoft chose to use it.
I have no problem with BSD license advocates. But I choose GPL, the AdTI paper attacked the GPL, and it was the GPL I was defending. If people want to use BSD licenses or proprietary licenses, that's fine. All I'm saying is they'd better learn to live with GPL'd software, because it will be out there. It's changing the game.
Anarchos writes: It's interesting to note that Roaring Penguin's own CanIt license [roaringpenguin.com] is considerably more restrictve than the GPL, despite the article's "Tough. Adapt or die" refrain for proprietary licensing.
Yes, the secret's out: I sell non-free software. I'm experimenting with business models, and one that I'm trying is to sell non-free software value-added on top of free software. I gradually migrate the non-free portions to the free parts. That's what paid for the RADIUS support I added to pppd in the Linux PPP CVS. That's what paid for MIMEDefang (the free software which underpins CanIt.)
I'm not a total free software zealot. I believe there always will be proprietary software, and it will always have a niche. But it has to coexist with free software, and CanIt is my experiment with coexistence.
--
David F. Skoll
Because it is. It's not backward compatible, meaning you can't license a derivative of GPL software under the BSD license, but it is indeed forward compatible, so that you can license a derivative of BSD software under the GPL. The *only* license that is both forward and backward compatible with the GPL is the GPL and LGPL (which is automatically converted irrevocably to pure GPL as necessary).
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned